Chapter Five

The heartless prince grew into a brawny youth, tall and broad and with arms like oak trees. When he sparred with the other boys of the court he knocked them down like bowling pins.

And they soon learned not to get up again.…

—From King Heartless

Bridget fought to catch her breath, still dizzy from proximity to Montgomery, as she hurried after the Duke of Kyle, Pip panting happily by her heels. The terrier at least seemed to think they were on an exciting nocturnal adventure.

She caught sight of the Duke of Kyle at the end of the upper hallway and called after him, “Your Grace.”

He halted and half turned, watching her with grave eyes as she walked toward him.

“The duke asked that I show you the way to the door, Your Grace,” she said as diplomatically as possible, for she had never before been required to escort an aristocratic burglar from the house.

He inclined his head.

She hesitated, eyeing the cut on his neck. It really was quite nasty-looking and still seeping blood. That made up her mind.

She straightened, smoothing her wrapper—well, as much as possible. “Follow me, please.”

Bridget took the main staircase, both the little dog and the very large duke following her. Bob was by the front door, alert now that the house had already been broken into. She nodded at him and led the duke back to the kitchens.

As she’d expected, everyone else was gathered here, having what was probably a lovely gossip around the kitchen table.

Cook rose on her entrance. “Mrs. Crumb.”

Bridget nodded. “Mrs. Bram. Will you be so kind as to send Alice to the small drawing room with some hot water and the bag of clean linen cloths? Oh, and a pot of tea as well.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, but led the duke to the aforementioned room. It was painted lavender, lined with white pilaster columns linked with gilt swags, and small only in that the rose drawing room was larger.

She gestured to one of the purple-and-gold settees, which had a low, marble-topped table before it. “I hope you don’t mind, Your Grace. I thought you wouldn’t like to be introduced to the other servants.”

He’d just lowered himself to the settee when there was a knock on the door.

Alice, a very pretty, but rather slow, maid, shouldered the door open. She held a tray with a jug of steaming water as well as the teapot and cups, and the linen bag was over her arm. She stood there, gaping at the Duke of Kyle, eyes wide.

“Put the tray on the table, please, Alice,” Bridget said briskly. Pip had trotted in after them and was now investigating the far side of the room where a group of chairs were arranged.

Alice carefully lowered the tray and handed her the bag, but then stood there, still gawping at Kyle.

“You may go,” Bridget said, long used to having to tell Alice exactly what she must do.

The maid meekly left.

Bridget poured two cups of tea. “Do you take sugar or milk, Your Grace?”

“Neither,” Kyle murmured, at last speaking, and then, as she handed him the cup, “Thank you, both for the tea and for what you did upstairs.” He met her gaze and she saw for the first time that his eyes were a warm brown and heavily lashed like a girl’s. They were almost pretty on his rough face. “I know it takes great courage for a woman in your position to come between a master and his desires.”

She blinked, uncertain of what to say. To acknowledge his thanks was to agree that the duke, her employer, had been in the wrong, which would be rather disloyal.

He seemed to understand her dilemma. He smiled lopsidedly—and very charmingly. “That’s all right. I just wanted to thank you. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t spoken up.”

She remembered Montgomery standing like some mad warlock… and that kiss afterward. Her wrist almost burned at the memory.

“Yes, well…” She cleared her throat and took a sip of her tea before setting the cup down and reaching for the jug of hot water. “I thought we should see to your throat, Your Grace, before you leave.” She wet a cloth from the bag. “With your permission?”

He nodded.

She bent and gently pressed the cloth against the cut on his neck.

He hissed softly.

The cut wasn’t terribly wide, but it was deeper than she’d initially thought. The blade the duke had used must’ve been very sharp—and he’d wielded it with awful precision.

Unless, of course, Montgomery hadn’t cared if he killed his opponent.

Bridget shivered at the thought, hastily drawing away to find an appropriate length of cloth in the bag. The wound had begun to bleed again, gentle as she’d tried to be, and she needed a piece of linen to make into a pad.

Finding what she wanted at last, she turned back to him, carefully placing the pad against the wound. “Hold that there, Your Grace.”

He did as she asked and then she began winding a long length of cloth around his neck. She was so intent upon the chore that she didn’t notice how close she was to the big man until she glanced up when she was almost done.

He was watching her with those long-lashed eyes and her fingers faltered.

“He’s a villain, you know,” Kyle said matter-of-factly, “your master. He’s blackmailing the King, as I think you understand.”

She swallowed and looked away, concentrating on tying the bandage at his throat.

But she couldn’t shut out his calm voice. “You seem a sensible woman. A good woman. I know you can’t approve of what your master is doing.”

She made no comment at that, simply rising and gathering the debris of her work.

“Mrs. Crumb.” He caught her arm and she stilled, looking at him. “I understand that you probably fear for your position, but please believe me, if you are ever in need of employment, I promise I can supply you with a position every bit as good as this one. I only ask that if you are aware of information—any information—that might help your king, you will bring it to me.”

“But you’ve already agreed to his terms, Your Grace,” Bridget said, frowning uneasily. “Will you renege?”

“No.” He smiled bitterly. “I have no doubt at all that Montgomery would indeed do as he threatens and damn the consequences.”

“Then how can I help you after that?”

“He’ll keep something back,” Kyle said. “Blackmailers always do. I have some experience with the breed. Montgomery was right: I am sort of a… a…” He made a self-deprecating grimace. “Well, I suppose rough-jobs man is as good a description as any. I work for the King in secret to clean up messes that can’t see the light of day. What Montgomery has is such a thing. He would destabilize the monarchy and perhaps throw this land into chaos if it is published. The last time that happened we had a civil war that lasted over a decade, with thousands killed and families torn apart.” He looked at her, his brown eyes soft. “I know you don’t want that.”

Instead of replying directly, she opened the door to the small drawing room. “This way, Your Grace.”

He sighed, but moved past her.

Pip came running over and trotted briskly out the door.

Bridget ushered the duke to the front door and watched as he descended the steps. London was still dark—there was no moon tonight. In the blackness the Duke of Kyle called a good-night and disappeared. Bridget stood shivering as Pip did his business, and then hurried inside.

She returned to the kitchens.

A few of the servants had retired back to bed, but most were still up.

She looked around at her small company. “I know it’s been an eventful night, but we’ve barely an hour before our day begins. I suggest we all take to our beds to spend that hour getting what sleep we can.”

She could tell by the slumping of shoulders and a few mutters that this wasn’t a particularly popular suggestion, but it was practical.

And in any case, she was quite tired.

Bridget marched to her little room, shut the door firmly behind her, and shed her wrapper. She climbed gratefully into her bed and pulled the coverlet over her shoulders, shivering a little. The fire had always died down a bit by the early hours of morning, but she usually slept through this time.

She felt the jolt as Pip leaped on the bed just behind her hip. He turned about several times and then settled, curled in a tight ball.

As she pulled the covers over her cold nose, Bridget wondered sleepily why she hadn’t simply agreed to help the Duke of Kyle in whatever way she could. He was obviously working for good and Montgomery… well, he worked only for himself, didn’t he? He was on the side of evil. Why hadn’t she betrayed him when she was given the opportunity? She thought about the way he’d touched her—the way it had made her feel like a woman. Had she sold her own honor for a handful of kisses, a bite, and a lick?

Or was it because of his gaze when he’d told her to fuck the rules, when he’d turned aside from threatening Kyle at her touch, when he’d called her a ridiculous, exotic name?

When he’d looked at her and seen her as a person, not just a servant?

As if to echo her conflicted thoughts, the terrier gave a heavy sigh.

VAL EXAMINED HIS pocket watch as he rode into Hyde Park the next afternoon. On the inside of the gold cover was a quite risqué scene of a pale-pink Venus sucking the cock of Mars—or possibly Vulcan. Whoever the male was, he was so swarthy he was rendered red. Or perhaps that was his reaction to the performance of the goddess. In any case the opposite side of the watch more prosaically showed the hour, twelve forty-five. Which meant he was exactly on time to ride to the south side of the park and Rotten Row, where society liked to parade.

He snapped the watch closed and tucked it into his waistcoat, turning his gray gelding’s head to the south. His gold watch reminded him of Mrs. Crumb. Most women when surprised from bed emerged in some state of dishabille. Hair artfully tumbled. Shoulders bared. Breasts delightfully revealed by drooping chemises.

Not his housekeeper. Oh, no.

Mrs. Crumb had worn a nightcap even more hideous than her daytime monstrosity—and with enormous flaps that tied under her chin. Perhaps she was bald. Was that a possibility? Did he have a bald female housekeeper? The thought intrigued. Had he ever seen her hair at all? But no, certainly he’d seen a wisp of a dark lock before.

Hadn’t he?

And then the wrapper.

Val mused on the voluminous wrapper she’d worn. So plain—white printed with tiny gray… somethings. So concealing—there had been yards and yards of it. He hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of her toes!

Now, had he the dressing of her—and why should he not?—he would put her in reds—rose and scarlet and deep, sensual crimson. Those dark inquisitor’s eyes would burn from a foil of crimson cloth, mysterious, feminine. Beautiful.

He was startled at the thought. Plain Mrs. Crumb beautiful? Well, most might not think her so, but oh, if she burned—

“Montgomery.”

The uncouth growl came from his right and had he not been daydreaming about houri housekeepers he would not have been taken unawares by it.

As it was, though, he was rather unprepared to see the Duke of Wakefield glaring at him from an open carriage.

“What the hell are you doing in London?” demanded the man.

A couple riding side by side were dawdling nearby and another carriage slowed.

Wakefield was tall and patrician and his habitual expression, now that Val thought about it, was a glare. Wakefield’s family was just as old as Val’s but there any similarity ended. Wakefield had obviously had his ducal duties drummed into his infant head, for he was a pillar of parliament, a scion of society, a confidant of the King, et cetera and boring et cetera. The man was tedious in the extreme and Val rather loathed him.

Beside the duke was a plain woman with an intelligent face and striking gray eyes. Unless Wakefield had suddenly decided to overthrow convention and acquire an unlovely mistress, this must be the duchess.

Actually, the eyes were very fine indeed.

Val smiled slowly and bowed, ignoring Wakefield entirely. “Your Grace, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of an introduction. I am Montgomery.”

“I know,” she said in a lovely contralto. “You kidnapped my sister-in-law, whom I’m quite fond of.”

Val winced. “It was rather bad of me, I confess.”

“It was criminal,” Wakefield growled. “You gave your word to me as a gentleman that you’d leave England forever.”

“Did I?” Val asked, eyes wide. “I don’t seem to remember such a conversation—”

“There are rules about such things and—”

“Fuck your rules,” Val snarled, fast and low.

Wakefield’s head reared back. “I can have you before the courts if that is what you truly wish.”

“Can you, though?” Val’s blood was racing, his head pounding in time, his vision narrowed to the man before him.

Wakefield was clenching and unclenching his fists.

Val undid two buttons of his waistcoat. He had his dagger against his breast inside, ready to slip out if need be.

His lips curved. “Your sister is a very pretty girl—and newly married, if I’m not mistaken. Felicitations are in order, I think, though as I understand it the nuptials had to be hurried due to the scandal from the kidnapping. Scandal is such a horrible thing. Tainting, don’t you think?”

The low, guttural sound coming from Wakefield’s throat was quite animal. The duchess had her hand on her husband’s upper arm, obviously restraining him. There was a bit of a crowd now around them, drawn to the prospect of scandal like flies to shit. What would it take, he wondered, listening to the thunder of his blood, to make Wakefield break the bonds of social acceptability? Another few words? A sly smile at the wife?

He slid his hand into his waistcoat, feeling the hilt of his dagger.

Feeling the razor’s edge of danger and life itself.

Slow hoofbeats, the creak of carriage wheels, and a certain murmuring rustle.

Val looked around.

Just as the King’s carriage passed.

The man himself sat beside his queen, staring straight ahead without expression, but as the royal carriage drew abreast he nodded quite clearly, once to Wakefield, and again.

To Val.

And then the carriage was past.

Val straightened from his own deep bow with the knowledge that he’d won quite decisively over Wakefield and the potential for war was over.

As he slid his hand from his waistcoat he strove not to feel disappointment.

“SIT.” BRIDGET SPOKE the command clearly and firmly late that afternoon in the garden.

Pip stood at her feet, his eyes alert, one ear up and one ear down, as he looked from her to the bit of piecrust in her hand.

Tentatively he wagged his tail.

He did not, however, sit.

Beside her Mehmed giggled. “This cur does not know the trick of ‘sit,’ I think.”

Bridget sighed. Apparently in the land where Mehmed came from dogs were not regularly kept as pets. Because of this he seemed curious about the terrier, treating him with wary fascination, as if he were a wild tiger brought to heel.

“Yes, well,” she replied patiently, “he hasn’t much practice, has he?” Nor have I, she added mentally.

She’d never had a dog before. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Sit.”

At that moment—most likely by pure chance—Pip lowered his bottom to the ground.

“Oh!” Bridget immediately dropped the piecrust, which Pip lost no time in gobbling up, and Mehmed shouted with glee.

This had the unfortunate effect of making the terrier jump up and bark excitedly while leaping about their feet, which Bridget thought might very well negate the entire exercise. She glanced at Mehmed’s grinning face, though, as he chattered in his native tongue to the happy dog, and decided not to voice her views. Instead she tilted her face back to feel the autumn sun on it. It was rare to have such a lovely London day so late in the year and rarer still that she was outside to enjoy it. But after last night she thought she might be permitted a half hour’s respite. The Hermes House garden had several small pollarded trees turning colors against a deep-red brick wall, a lovely sight next to the rows of neatly trimmed evergreen box hedges.

Bridget bit her lip as she lowered her gaze. Perhaps the duke’s anarchical disregard for rules had rubbed off on her.

The kitchen door opened and Alf came hurrying out.

Bridget’s eyebrows drew together. Now what had the duke wanted with Alf?

The messenger gave a cocky wave and disappeared out into the mews.

Bridget smoothed her skirts. “Come, we should return to our duties.”

Mehmed sobered and obediently fell into step with her, though Pip was less willing to give up his play. Every few steps he leaped up and nipped at the boy’s coat.

“This is nice palace,” Mehmed said as they walked. “Although very cold.”

Bridget smiled at that, wondering how the boy would fare when winter and snow came. “Did you live in a very big house in your homeland?”

“Not so big as this,” he said. “But nice with a fountain in the garden that was cool on very hot days. My father was a spice merchant, a rich man with two wives. I am his third son and his favorite.” He grinned at her.

Bridget frowned. She’d stopped walking as she listened to the boy. Things might be very different in heathen lands, but presumably not so different that the son of a rich man who could afford two wives and a nice house became a servant. “How did you come to be in the service of the duke, then, Mehmed?”

The smile fell from his merry face and she was almost sorry she’d asked. “My father, he had bad argument with the vezir-i azam.” He must have seen the puzzlement in her expression, for he tried to explain. “Vezir-i azam is very great man. Is like king, but not king. Maybe big friend to king.”

She thought a moment. “Perhaps the prime minister?”

“What is this?”

She explained who Sir Robert Walpole was and his relationship to both the King and the government of England as concisely as possible as Mehmed listened attentively. The boy was very quick to pick up the rather complicated concepts, even with the language differences.

“Perhaps like this, yes.” He brightened a little at the new words, repeating, “Prime minister. Prime minister” to himself under his breath several times before continuing his tale. “The vezir-i azam liked a horse very much and he wanted to buy it. But my father did not know this and he bought it instead. When the vezir-i azam found this out he was very angry. He said my father must give him the horse. My father of course did this and with many apologies, but it was too late, such was his fate.”

“But why?” asked Bridget, confused.

“The horse,” Mehmed said, growing animated. “We like horses that like to fight. This kind of horse is very strong, very fast, very beautiful. The horse my father had bought, that the vezir-i azam had wanted, was such a horse. But the horse had fought the boys in the stables and injured itself very badly against the stall. Because of these injuries my father was forced to cut off the horse’s man-parts.” Here Mehmed made an extremely graphic gesture, which made Bridget wish she had averted her eyes in time. “The horse could not have daughters and sons. The vezir-i azam was very, very angry.”

“What happened?” Bridget asked, caught up in the story. Pip had wandered off and now had his upper half under one of the hedges. She hoped he hadn’t found anything too terrible under there.

Mehmed shrugged. “The vezir-i azam demanded payment for his debt. Man-parts for man-parts.”

Bridget’s mouth opened and then stayed open. “But what does that mean?”

Mehmed sighed, sounding far too weary, far too cynical for his years. “It mean he wanted man-parts from my father’s family. My father already had sons. My elder brothers already had sons. But me?” He shrugged again. “I am young and no sons. Like the horse. The vezir-i azam said I was to be made eunuch and sold into slavery to pay my father’s debt to him.”

“But… but…” Bridget found herself floundering. This was barbaric—though she knew aristocrats who had done worse here in her homeland. It seemed the ones in power did as they liked the world over. She asked delicately, “Did…?”

A lovely wide smile spread over his gleaming face. “The duke, he visiting the vezir-i azam. He see me and he like me. He show the vezir-i azam a ruby this big.” He held his forefinger and thumb two inches apart. “And the duke say, ‘I give you this for Mehmed and his man-parts.’ And the vezir-i azam say, ‘Very good!’ so I come away with the duke!” Mehmed beamed at the triumphal end of his tale and then added, only a little wistfully, “But sometimes I miss my mother.”

“Of course you do,” Bridget murmured sympathetically, for she remembered missing Mam when first she entered service.

This cast an entirely different light on the duke, though. He’d actually saved Mehmed from a terrible fate—at quite an extravagant price, too. That didn’t align with her idea of him as pure evil, did it? And whyever would the duke save Mehmed? Had he done it on a whim—or had he had another reason?

Bridget cleared her throat. “And now you help the duke shave and dress. Is that erm… all you do for the duke?”

“No!” Mehmed said proudly, and her heart sank. If the duke truly was using this sweet, intelligent boy as a courtesan she was going to strangle him. “I also teach the duke how to write my language and I play the tambour and sing. I have beautiful voice,” he added without any show of modesty at all, and she could’ve kissed him.

“Yes, well, I’m sure you do,” Bridget said briskly, allowing herself a small smile for the boy. “Thank you for telling me your tale, Mehmed, and I suppose you’d best find out if the duke wishes to see you now.”

But as it turned out it wasn’t Mehmed the duke wanted to see.

“Séraphine!” he exclaimed when she entered his bedchambers. He thrust a bare arm in the air in a sort of salutation because, of course, he was in the bath.

“Your Grace,” Bridget replied gravely. Briefly she considered pointing out that her name was not, in fact, Séraphine, but then decided there was simply no point. “I was told you wished to see me.”

“Did I?” he asked the ceiling. “I believe I did. Please. Pull a chair closer. You might as well be comfortable. Here, now.” He scowled at Pip, who had placed his front paws on the rim of the copper tub and was curiously sniffing the water. “I don’t believe we’re well enough acquainted for you to join me.”

The duke flicked the surface of his bath, sending droplets of water into Pip’s face.

The terrier sneezed and dropped down from the bathtub. He sneezed again, shaking his head, and trotted purposefully over to the duke’s bed to explore underneath it.

Bridget found a chair and set it a safe distance, several feet, from the bathtub.

He still gazed at the ceiling, but a corner of his mouth twisted up. “Cowardice, Mrs. Crumb? Tut-tut.”

Bridget cleared her throat, determined to keep this audience as businesslike as humanly possible, considering with whom she was speaking and that he was nude once again. “What did you wish to see me about, Your Grace?”

“We-ell,” he drawled, throwing both arms into the air with a splash and proceeding to weave them about one another as if he were conjuring magic only he could see. “I could have called you to discuss the revolution of the spheres. Are they singing up there as they make their way among the stars? A song we can’t quite hear though we build ever more mighty telescopes, peering, peering through the blackness?” He cocked his head, his arms suddenly still. “The Italian heretic says no, that there is no song but the sun’s, and grave Newton nods his head and agrees. But I put it to you, if this is so, that we center on the sun, then why do all the pope’s men disagree? Is God dead? Or does he play celestial billiards with the planets?” He pointed his finger at her, his azure eyes blazing madly. “And tell me, burning housekeeper, if Newton and his ilk are correct, why haven’t we all crashed into the sun in a fiery implosion of nothingness?”

There was a small silence.

Then Bridget cleared her throat. “As I understand it, it’s because of the Earth’s momentum.”

The duke dropped his hands. “What did you say?”

She could feel heat moving up her cheeks. “That’s what you were talking about, weren’t you? Mr. Galileo’s theory that the Earth moves about the sun, and the disgraceful way he was imprisoned by the pope, and Mr. Newton’s discovery of gravity, and then you asked why the Earth didn’t fall into the sun and I answered that it was because of the momentum the Earth has as it orbits the sun. At least,” she faltered, “I believe that is what Mr. Kepler wrote.”

He folded his arms on the bath and laid his chin on them and simply stared at her, a gloriously nude man—a duke—his entire attention upon her, Bridget Crumb. His shoulders gleamed like alabaster in the candlelight and his golden hair curled damply about his neck.

“You,” he murmured finally, “are an indecipherable puzzle. When did you read Kepler?”

“When I was a maid in a country house there was a library that had been neglected. The worms had gotten to some of the books and the mistress said they were to be burned. I took them to read before they were destroyed. It wasn’t theft,” she added hastily. “I did burn them afterward.”

“What else?” he whispered. “Besides Kepler?”

She shrugged. “A history of the Roman Empire. A book on the fishes and aquatic animals of England. A book of cookery. And Shakespeare’s tragedies.”

“How very eclectic.”

“They were the only things I had to read.” If he made fun of her now, she’d walk out and damn the consequences.

“So you read them—all of them?” he asked as if he was fascinated.

“Yes.”

“Every word? Even the bits about newts?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my Séraphine,” he breathed, and what was strange was that he didn’t sound amused.

He sounded admiring.

“Well,” he said, sitting upright on a great splash. “No more shall you go bookless, Mrs. Crumb. From this day henceforth you have free run of my library with my compliments.”

She stared. “I—”

He grinned, looking not a little wicked. “Have you looked at my books? Glanced at my titles? Fondled my spines?”

The heat in her cheeks returned, for of course she had. There were enormous volumes with gilded pages, tiny, delicate books with writing that looked like lace. There was shelf upon shelf of books that were shining new and books so old they looked ready to crumble at a single touch.

The duke’s library was simply wonderful.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said, meaning the words sincerely. “You’re most kind.”

“No, Mrs. Crumb,” he said. “I am many, many things, but kind is not one of them.”

She looked at him and knew she couldn’t refute his words. “Even so.”

“Even so.” He clapped his hands, startling Pip, who came rushing out from under the bed, barking, his tail adorned with a ball of dust. “Hush, you,” said the duke, and the dog sat down.

Bridget frowned at him.

“And now the reason I asked for you, Mrs. Crumb,” the duke said, and her gaze immediately returned to him to find his eyes sparkling mischievously. “My plots have come to fruition, my foes are vanquished, I’ve had a nod from the King himself, and in return I’ve sent him his son’s letters—and because of all this I’ve decided to hold a victory ball to celebrate my return to London.”

Bridget immediately came to attention. A ball on the scale that the duke would probably want would involve a month’s worth of planning and work.

His smile widened into a grin. “And I’ll be holding it in two weeks’ time.”