The Last Hellion

  He stalked out.

  Some moments later, Vere had reached the end of Catherine Street and started west, intending to quiet his inner turmoil by the river, with the aid of a few more tankards of ale at the Fox Under the Hill.

  As he turned into the Strand, he saw a cabriolet burst through the crush of vehicles at Exeter ’Change. The carriage narrowly missed spitting a pie seller on its shaft, veered perilously toward an oncoming cart, corrected in the nick of time, then swung aside sharply—straight toward a gentleman stepping off the curb to cross the street.

  Without pausing to think, Vere hurtled forward, grabbed the fellow, and dragged him back to the footway—an instant before the carriage rocketed into Catherine Street.

  As it thundered past, he caught a glimpse of the driver: a black-garbed female, with a black mastiff for a passenger, an obviously panicked horse under the ribbons—and no tiger on the platform behind to help her.

  He set the fellow aside and hurried after the vehicle.

  Lydia swore when she saw her prey dart into Russell Court. The cramped passageway was too narrow for the cabriolet, and if she made the long circuit round Drury Lane Theater, she was sure to lose them. She drew the carriage to a halt and leapt from it, Susan close behind. A ragged boy hurried forward.

  “Mind the mare, Tom, and there’s two bob for you,” Lydia told the street urchin. Then, picking up her skirts, she ran into Russell Court.

  “You there!” she called. “Release that child!”

  Susan gave a low “Woof!” that echoed through the narrow passage.

  Madam Brees—for it was she Lydia called to—threw one quick glance over her shoulder, then darted left into a still narrower alley, towing the girl with her.

  Lydia did not know who the girl was—a country servant by the looks of it, likely one of the countless runaways who made their way to London every day, only to fall promptly into the clutches of the bawds and pimps who loitered at every coaching inn from Piccadilly to Ratcliffe.

  Lydia had spotted the pair in the Strand, the girl gawking at the sights like the average bumpkin while Coralie—garbed like a respectable matron, with an expensive bonnet perched upon her shoe-blacking-dyed curls—drew her relentlessly toward ruin: Drury Lane and its legion of vice pits, beyond doubt.

  If they made it into whatever brothel Madam was aiming for, Lydia would not be allowed in, and the girl would never get out.

  But as she turned into the alley, she saw the child dragging her heels and trying to shake off Coralie’s grasp.

  “That’s it, my girl!” Lydia cried. “Get away from her!”

  She was aware of masculine shouts behind her, but Susan’s thunderous bark drowned out the words.

  The girl was struggling in earnest now, but the stubborn bawd held tight, dragging her into Vinegar Yard. As Coralie raised a hand to strike the child, Lydia hurtled at them and backhanded the trull away.

  Coralie staggered back against a dirty wall. “Murderous bitch! You leave us alone!” She flung herself forward again.

  She wasn’t quick enough to get to the girl, whom Lydia swiftly pushed out of the way. “Susan, guard,” she told the mastiff. Susan moved close to the girl’s drab brown skirts and let out a low warning growl. The fiend hesitated, her face twisted with rage.

  “I recommend you crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out from,” Lydia said. “Attempt to lay hands on this child again, and I’ll have you taken up on charges of abduction and attempted assault.”

  “Charges?” the woman echoed. “You’ll peach on me, will you? And what do you want with her, I wonder, you great Jack whore?”

  Lydia looked at the girl, whose wide-eyed gaze shot from Lydia back to the trull, then back again. Obviously she didn’t know which of them to trust.

  “B-Bow Street,” the child choked out. “I was attacked and r-robbed and she was taking me to—to—”

  “Ruination,” Lydia said.

  A tall ruffian dashed into Vinegar Yard at that moment, with another fellow at his heels. Several other males were also emerging from divers taverns and alleys.

  Lydia was well aware that, wherever a mob congregated, trouble usually followed. She was not about to abandon this waif, however, mob or no mob.

  Ignoring the rabble, Lydia focused on the girl.

  “Bow Street is that way,” she said, gesturing westward. “The way this viper was taking you leads to Drury Lane, where all the lovely brothels are—as any of these elegant fellows can tell you.”

  “Liar!” Coralie screeched. “I found her first! Find your own girls, you overgrown hag! I’ll teach you to come poaching in my yard.”

  She started toward her victim, but Susan’s ominous snarl stopped her in her tracks. “You call that beast off!” she raged. “Or I’ll make you sorry.”

  No wonder her girls were afraid of her, Lydia reflected. She must be half mad to dare move so close to Susan. Even the men—each and every one a gutter-spawned villain, beyond question—kept a respectful distance from the growling mastiff.

  “You’ve got it wrong,” Lydia told her calmly. “I shall give you to the count of five to make yourself scarce. Otherwise I shall make you exceedingly sorry. One. Two. Thr—”

  “Ah, now, ladies, ladies.” The tall ruffian shoved another clodpole out of the way and pushed forward. “All this daring and daunting will burst your stays, my fair delicates. And all for what? The smallest problem: one chick, and two hens wanting her. Lots of chicks about, aren’t there? Not worth disturbing the King’s peace and annoying the constables, is it? Certainly not.”

  He drew out his purse. “Here’s what we’ll do. A screen apiece for you, my dears—and I’ll take the little one off your hands.”

  Lydia recognized the distinctive accents of the upper orders, but she was too outraged to wonder at it. “A screen?” she cried. “Is that the value you place on a human life? One pound?”

  He turned a glinting green gaze upon her. Down upon her. He topped her by several inches, no common occurrence in Lydia’s experience.

  “From what I’ve seen of your driving, you place no value on human life whatsoever,” he said coolly. “You nearly killed three people in the Strand in the space of a minute.” His impudent gaze drifted over the assembled audience. “There ought to be a law against women drivers,” he announced. “A public menace.”

  “Aye, Ainswood, be sure to mention it in your next speech in the House of Lords,” someone called out.

  “Next?” cried another. “More like the first—if the roof don’t fall in when he staggers into Parliament.”

  “I’ll be blowed!” came a voice from the back. “That ain’t Ainswood, is it?”

  “Aye, and playing King Solomon, no less,” someone from the front shouted back. “And got the wrong mare by the tail, as usual. Tell His Grace, Miss Grenville. He’s put you down as a Covent Garden abbess.”

  “No surprise,” said one of his fellows. “Took the Marchioness of Dain for a tart, didn’t he?”

  That was when Lydia realized who the lout was.

  In May, a drunken Ainswood had encountered Dain and the marquess’s bride at an inn on their wedding night, and refused to believe the lady was a lady, let alone Dain’s wife.* Dain had been obliged to correct his erstwhile schoolmate’s misapprehension with his fists. The incident had been the talk of London for weeks afterward.

  Small wonder, then, that Lydia had mistaken His Grace for another Covent Garden lowlife. By all accounts, the Duke of Ainswood was one of the most depraved, reckless, and thickheaded rakes listed in Debrett’s Peerage—no small achievement, given the present lamentable state of the aristocracy.

  He was also, Lydia saw, one of the untidiest. He’d apparently donned his expensively tailored garments days earlier and had debauched as well as slept in them. He was hatless, and a shock of thick chestnut hair dangled over one eye, which like its mate evidenced months of insufficient sleep and more than sufficient dissipation. His only concession to basic grooming had been
letting someone shave him recently—probably while he was stupefied by drink.

  She saw more than this: the hellfire sparking in the green depths of his gaze, the arrogant tilt of his nose, the hard lines of cheekbone and jaw…and the devil’s own curve of a mouth, promising everything, ripe for laughter, sin, what have you.

  She was not unaffected. The devil in her, one she normally kept well concealed, was bound to be drawn to its counterpart in him. But she was not a fool, either. She knew well enough that this was a rogue’s own countenance, and she could sum it up in one word: trouble.

  Still, this rogue was a duke, and even the worst of noblemen had more influence with the authorities than a mere journalist did, especially a woman journalist.

  “Your Grace, you’ve mistaken only one of us,” she said with stiff politeness. “I am Grenville, of the Argus. This woman is a known procuress. She was luring the girl to a brothel, under pretext of taking her to Bow Street. If you would take the bawd into custody, I shall gladly accompany you there and testify—”

  “She’s a false, scheming liar!” Coralie cried. “I was only taking the child to Pearkes’s.” She waved toward the oyster house opposite. “For a bite to eat. She got herself into a bit of trouble—”

  “And will be in a great deal worse, in your hands,” Lydia said. Her attention reverted to Ainswood. “Do you know what happens to the children unfortunate enough to fall into her clutches? They are beaten, starved, and raped until they are reduced to a state of abject terror. Then she puts them on the streets—eleven and twelve years old, some of them—”

  “You false, filthy, Jack whore of a bitch!” the bawd howled.

  “Am I impugning your honor?” Lydia asked. “Do you want satisfaction? I’ll be glad to oblige. Here and now, if you wish.” She advanced upon the procuress. “Let’s see how you like being on the other end of a beating.”

  A pair of large hands clamped on her arms and pulled her back. “Enough, ladies. You’re giving me the deuce of headache. Let’s try to keep the peace, shall we?”

  “Oh, that’s rich,” someone called. “Ainswood keeping the peace. Did hell freeze over when I wasn’t looking?”

  Lydia looked down at the big hand grasping her arm. “Take your paws off me,” she said coldly.

  “I will—as soon as someone fetches me a strait-waistcoat to tuck you into. Who let you out of Bedlam, I wonder?”

  Lydia shoved her elbow backward, into his gut. It was not soft. Pain twanged down her forearm to her wrist.

  Still, he’d felt something, for he muttered an oath and let go, amid the crowd’s hooting and whistling.

  Get out while you still can, an inner voice warned her, and don’t look back.

  It was the inner voice of reason, and she would have heeded it if the nerve his ridiculing comments had struck hadn’t shrieked more loudly. Nature had not formed Lydia’s character for retreat, and pride forbade any action hinting at weakness or, God forbid, fear.

  Eyes narrowed, heart pumping furiously, she turned to face him. “Touch me again,” she warned, “and I’ll black both your eyes.”

  “Oh, do it, yer worship!” an onlooker urged. “Touch ’er again.”

  “Aye, my tenner’s on you, Ainswood.”

  “And mine says she gives him a pair o’ stinkers like she promised,” another voice challenged.

  The duke, meanwhile, was sizing her up, his green gaze boldly raking her from bonnet to half-boots.

  “Big, yes, but not up to my weight,” he announced. “I make her at five and three quarter feet. And ten stone, stripped. Which,” he added, his glance skimming over her bodice, “I should pay fifty guineas to see, by the way.”

  Raucous laughter and the usual lewd comments greeted this witticism.

  Neither the laughter nor the obscenities disconcerted Lydia. She knew this rough world; she’d spent most of her childhood in it. But the crowd’s noise recalled her to the main issue. The girl she’d set out to rescue stood frozen in place, wearing the hunted expression of one who’d found herself in the jungle, surrounded by cannibals—which was not far off the mark.

  Still, Lydia could not let this moron have the last word.

  “Oh, that’s well done,” she told him. “Broaden the child’s education, why don’t you? Give her a pretty view of London manners—and the high moral tone of the peerage.”

  She had a great deal more to say, but she reminded herself that she might as well lecture a milestone. If this jackass had ever owned a conscience, it had died of neglect decades ago.

  Contenting herself with one last, withering glance at him, she turned away and started toward the girl.

  A swift survey of the crowd told Lydia that the bawd had vanished, which was frustrating. Still, it would not have made much difference if she’d stayed, when none of these loudmouthed curs cared for anything but their own entertainment.

  “Come, my dear,” she said as she approached the girl. “We accomplish nothing amid this rabble.”

  “Miss Grenville,” came the duke’s voice from behind her.

  Nerves jumping, Lydia swung about—and came up against a solid column of male. She retreated but half a pace, lifted her chin, and straightened her spine.

  He did not back away, and she held her ground, though it wasn’t easy. She could not quite see past his brawny torso, and at close quarters she was rivetingly aware of the muscular frame his garments hugged so snugly.

  “Excellent reflexes,” he said. “If you weren’t a female, I’d take up your offer—of the stinkers, I mean. That is to say, the black—”

  “I know what it means,” said Lydia.

  “Indeed, it’s all very well to have an extensive vocabulary,” he said. “In the future, however, I recommend you exercise a dash—the smallest sliver—of reason, my dove, before you exercise your tongue. You can manage that, I hope? Because another fellow, you see, might take your adorable little darings and dauntings as an amusing challenge. In which case, you might find yourself in a different sort of tussle than you bargained for. Do you take my meaning, little girl?”

  Lydia opened her eyes very wide. “Oh, goodness, no,” she said breathlessly. “You are much too deep for me, Your Grace. My tiny brain simply can’t take it in.”

  His green eyes glinted. “Maybe your bonnet’s squeezing it too tight.” His hands came up to the ribbons and paused, inches away.

  “I shouldn’t, if I were you,” she said, her voice even, her heart ricocheting against her rib cage.

  He laughed and tugged at the bonnet strings.

  Her fist shot up. He grabbed it, still laughing, and pulled her up against the hard column of his body.

  She’d half expected that, sensed what was coming. But she wasn’t prepared for the heat or the explosion of sensations she couldn’t identify, and these threw her off balance.

  In the next instant, her mouth was crushed under his, warm and firm and all too skilled, and she was sinking backward, disoriented and helpless under its deceitfully easy pressure. She was pulsingly aware of his big hand splayed against her upper back, its warmth seeping through stiff layers of bombazine and undergarments, and of more heat lower, where his brawny arm braced her waist.

  For one perilous moment, her mind gave way as her muscles did, overpowered by heat and strength and the chaotic brew of masculine scent and taste.

  But her instincts had been honed in a hard school, and in the next moment she reacted.

  She sagged in his arms, making herself a dead weight.

  She felt his mouth leave hers.

  “By gad, the wench’s faint—”

  She slammed her fist into his jaw.

  Chapter 2

  The next Vere knew, he was flat on his back in a pool of mud. Above the ringing in his ears he heard the crowd cheering, hooting, and whistling.

  He pulled himself up onto his elbows and let his gaze travel from his vanquisher’s black half-boots up over the heavy black bombazine skirts to the mannishly severe jacket that buttoned p
rimly up to her chin.

  Above the topmost button was a face so starkly beautiful that it had half blinded him when he’d first beheld it. This was a winter’s beauty, of ice-blue eyes and snow-white skin, framed under the black bonnet by silken hair the color of December sunlight.

  At present, those remarkable eyes directed a freezing blue stare down upon him. Such a look, he supposed, the mythical Gorgons might have bestowed. He little doubted that, had this been myth and make-believe instead of real life, he would be swiftly petrifying to stone.

  As it was, he’d hardened only in the usual place, but very speedily, even for him. Her boldness as well as her face and lavish body had aroused him even before he’d hauled her into his arms and touched his mouth to hers.

  Now, while he stared stupidly at the ripe mouth he’d so insanely hungered for, it curled into a contemptuous half-smile. The mockery he saw there recalled him to his senses.

  The insolent wench thought she’d won—and so everyone must think, he realized. Within hours everyone in London would hear that a female had knocked Ainswood—the last Mallory hellion—on his arse.

  Being a hellion, Vere would rather be slow roasted on a spit than admit the damage to his pride or show anything of what he truly felt.

  And so he answered her smug contempt with the provoking grin he was famous for.

  “Well, let that be a lesson to you,” he said.

  “It speaks,” she informed the onlookers. “I reckon it will live.”

  She turned away, and the rustle of her bombazine skirts against her legs sounded like the hissing of serpents.

  Ignoring the hands reaching to help him, Vere swung up onto his feet without taking his eyes off her. He watched the arrogant sway of her rump as she sauntered away, coolly collected the dog and the girl, and turned into Vinegar Yard’s southwest exit, out of sight.

  Even then he couldn’t bring his full attention to the men about him because his mind was churning with salacious scenarios that landed her on her back instead of him.

  Still, he knew the trio about him—Augustus Tolliver, George Carruthers, and Adolphus Crenshaw—and they knew him, or thought they did. And so his expression remained the drunkenly amused one they’d expect.