Jack stood shoulder to shoulder with Terence and watched Beth walk down the short aisle of the family chapel at Falcon Court, Tobias Brockman’s sixteenth-century home on the Thames. Awe filled the amber eyes she had inherited from her father, as if she could not quite believe this moment had finally come. With good reason, Jack had to agree. They shared the stigma of bastardy, he and Beth, though each had been blessed with a benign father willing to recognize them. In Beth’s case, a father willing to take her into his home and raise her from infancy. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t crowned Terence with a joint stool when she found out . . .
Ah well, another good woman gone. Though no one could say the road to this moment had been easy, with both Beth and Terence suffering far more than most couples before they fulfilled their long-time love.
Jack glanced at Tobias, the instigator of most of his friends’ woes. The old goat! He was actually smiling, as if he had arranged this marriage between his only child and the stray boy he picked up on the streets of Dublin, when, in truth, he’d done everything in his power to put a stop to it.
Dearly beloved . . .
With a start, Jack realized Terence was gone from side, having stepped forward to join his Beth, whose face was now transformed by a watery smile as she looked up into Terence’s almost grim visage. Jack suspected Terence wouldn’t crack a smile until the ceremony was over, until Beth was, at long last, what she should be. His wife.
Rich, velvet brown eyes suddenly replaced Beth’s amber, a mud-spattered traveling gown overlaying the pearl-strewn amber silk of Beth’s wedding gown. And somehow he had taken Terence’s place at the vision’s side . . .
Bloody no! No parson’s mousetrap for Jack Harding. Maybe when he was gone forty, or more.
And yet . . . what a tempting morsel the girl was.
But not for a man twice condemned in the eyes of the ton—a bastard and a cit. A man of the city of London who earned his daily bread. And no matter how top of the loaf that bread was, he remained tainted . . .
Not that he had any interest in marrying the little canadienne, of course. He barely knew her.
I require and charge you, as you will answer at the dreadful day of judgement, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you do know any impediment . . .
Impediments! Jack nearly snorted out loud. If Terence and Beth had any more . . .
Fortunately, there was nothing more than a slight rustle as Tobias Brockman shifted his stance in the front pew. No other sign of guilt, however, marred the benign face he had assumed for the ceremony.
If not for Tobias Brockman, Jack acknowledged, he would not be standing here. He would be long dead, swung from a gibbet as Captain Hood. He would not be an important arm of Brockman and Company. He would not own a London townhouse, nor Willowood Cottage. He would not be one of the Devil’s Disciples. Would not have met a young adventuress on the road from Plymouth . . .
Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
Still no smile from Terence, just an expression that might be called fierce tenderness, overlaid with determination. The vicar’s words still echoed in Jack’s head: let no man put asunder. To feel that strongly about anything, particularly about a woman . . . perhaps marriage wasn’t so bad, after all. A love that strong, that true . . .
Not for Jack Harding.
Well . . . perhaps he’d felt that way about Julia, once long ago when he thought to make her his bride. But with Beth he’d never been more than friend, confidant, occasional conspirator. Her love had always been for Terence.
The newlyweds had signed the register, the guests were filing out, and here he was, still standing at the altar like some permanent fixture. Clearly, his few days at Willowood had not been enough to clarify his doubts about the life he was leading. Nor erase his memories of a tempting little minx from Québec.
He was going to have to do something about that.
“What time do we leave for West Wycombe?” Jack heard Gabe Hammond’s ask as he returned home on the day after the wedding. In the drawing room he found a trio of Disciples—his brother Avery, Hammond, and the ever insouciant Harry Blacklock. On occasion, Jack wondered what the Earl of Ellington had thought when his heir returned from the war and promptly joined his bastard brother in the house he had just purchased, quite audaciously, in the heart of Mayfair. In all fairness, perhaps nothing at all. Through the years the earl had been remarkably flexible about the bond between his two sons.
“Around eight,” Lord Cheyney offered. “What about you, Jack—are you joining us?”
“I fear you’ll have to manage without me I have a commission to perform for a friend tonight.”
“Ah-hah!” Harry Blacklock chortled. “One of your good deeds, Harding?”
“More like avoiding a disaster of the first magnitude.”
“Good sport then,” Gabe Hammond approved. “Shall we join you? I ‘ve decided you are right, you see. After a time, unremitting indulgence palls.”
“I go alone.” Jack’s snappish tone brought all three young men to attention, casting off their comfortable slouches over the drawing room furniture. Jack, looking unaccountably sheepish, offered, “You may take my carriage as usual. The curricle will do for me.”
“A most remarkable trip to Willowood,” Gabe murmured. “Did it by any chance connect with the road to Tarsus?”
Harry’s shout of laughter swiftly dwindled to a frown. “He’s right, y’know, Jack. Ain’t been yourself since you got back to town. Can’t have the leader of Harding’s Hellions turnin’ into a sanctimonious old bore like Paul.”
“Take the carriage,” Jack snarled. “I’ll join you next time.”
Avery gave his brother a sharp look. “Not a case of Goody-Two-Shoes, I think. My instincts say ’tis more a case of cherchez-la-femme.”
“Devil it, the caverns are full of fine fillies,” Harry said.
“But not, I think, the one particular morsel my brother has scented.”
“Put a damper on it, Cheyney,” Jack barked. “I have business tonight and there’s an end to it.”
“Don’t tell me the Hellions ride tonight, I won’t believe it.”
“Believe what you will.” Jack stalked out, stomping up the stairs to his bedchamber, where he rang for his valet, a bath, and a change of clothes.
As he soaked in the large copper tub, which suddenly brought back painful memories of Julia, he ground his teeth and wondered how one petite Miss could intrude so thoroughly in a world occupied solely by men? Women were for but one thing. One didn’t actually talk to them. But he had. He’d talked to Victoire as freely as he had once talked to Julia and Beth. All the time telling himself he was only maneuvering toward the usual end result. But she’d charmed him, the little colonial. Thrown a net over him, woven of sparkling brown eyes, luscious lips, shining dark curls, full breasts so tantalizingly out of reach. Womanly parts that called to him. And kept calling, night after night. How was it possible that in a few short hours she had bewitched a heart he’d thought long since turned to stone?
Worse yet, she was here, not four blocks away, but totally unapproachable. The slightest hint they had shared a private dining room at an inn would ruin the girl for life. And the all-too-naive little colonial had to understand that. Somehow he had to warn her before her tongue ran away with her and destroyed all the plans her father and lecherous old Claude had made.
Warn her, not just against creating a scandal, but against himself. Against an association with Tobias Brockman’s private policeman. Against association with a member of the Devil’s Disciples. Against the Earl of Ellington’s eldest, and bastard, son—who had but one thing on his mind, then and now. The bedding, not the wedding, of a little Canadian with a great deal of intelligence and courage, and not a lick of common sense.
Or so it seemed.
So tonight he was off to the theater. Utilizing his usual spy sources, Jack had encountered no difficulty uncovering events at Ravensden House or details of the Darrincotes’ social plans, which confirmed the rumors he had already heard. The London Darrincotes were far from happy over their houseguest, but they would not risk Ravensden’s wrath by ignoring her altogether. They had been spending lavishly in Bond and Oxford streets, and tonight they were to attend Drury Lane for a performance of The Innkeeper’s Daughter. Rather too suggestive a title under the circumstances, Jack thought, but he scarcely had the ordering of the Theater Royale’s playbill. So tonight he would go to Drury Lane.
London by night. Victoire discovered she loved it. A fantasy world lit by link boys running ahead of the Darrincote carriage, the wonder of gas lamps along the major thoroughfares, swarms of carriages waiting their turn in line to disgorge their passengers at the theater entrance. Colorful ladies and dapper gentlemen, outfitted in the dark garb prescribed by the now disgraced Beau Brummel, who had fled to the continent to avoid his debts. And night concealed the coal soot that covered everything, even softening London’s street people into fascinating vignettes of life, as they hawked their wares or themselves. Or stalked their prey.
Ah, but this was grand! With every step up the Theater Royale’s broad outside staircase, past imposing columns, under the colonnade . . . with every jostle from the colorful crowd, their chatter enveloping her, Victoire felt her horizons expanding. In the entrance hall, where gas lamps lit the inside of the theater as well as the outside, she stared in amazement. Never had she seen a building so bright at night. Country cousin, her inner voice warned. She must be as blasé as her young cousins, who, ignoring the gas lamps, were moving rapidly toward the staircase.
“Victoire, don’t dawdle!” Lady Launsdale snapped as she sailed past, following her children’s lead through the crowded entrance hall.
The Darrincote box was on the first tier, the box nearest the stage. Ducal privilege, Victoire thought as curiosity drove her to the front railing . Ma foi, but she could almost reach out and touch the stage.
“Victoire!” Lady Launsdale tossed an imperious wave toward a seat at the back of the Darrincote box. “We open ourselves to enough criticism bringing you to the theater while you are in mourning,” she pronounced with a curl of her lip. “Do not shame us by displaying yourself in such a manner.”
Meekly, Victoire took the seat indicated. She could see only half the stage but, n’importe, she was actually here in Drury Lane. She could still listen to every word of the play and soak up the essence of the fine creatures in the boxes on the far side of the theater.
Fine creatures indeed. At the possibility she might actually see him, Victoire scanned the lively chattering crowd. But of course he wasn’t there. Very likely rogues and rakes did not attend the theater, only the opera in order to look over the latest crop of ballerinas. Victoire sat back, folded her hands, and prepared to enjoy the play. She was a fool to cling to the dream that she might see him ever again. He had, after all, told her he did not mix with the ton. Which suggested to the no-nonsense Frenchwoman in her that Jack Harding, for all his apparent wealth, might be only on the fringes of society.
The curtain parted, and Victoire was lost in the land of make-believe. But not so far gone that the setting in an English inn did not bring back a host of poignant memories. Her heart clamored, her toes curled, places she was scarcely aware of flamed to life. How fortunate she was seated behind all the other Darrincotes so they could not see her blush.
At the interval the ducal party sent a footman for refreshments rather than mix with the crowds in the hallways. Victoire sighed. Enchanted by the glittering crowds, the bustle, the lights, the noise, she longed to be uncaged, to be allowed to mingle. She had not thought herself to be a creature of the night, but perhaps it was so. Or had one outrageous evening with a rake forever changed her world?
A footman returned with a tray of champagne and lobster patties, which he deftly served to those seated in the Darrincote box, Victoire very much last in order of precedence. To her astonishment, when it was her turn, he cast a swift glance at the others, making certain they were looking forward, before offering her a glass of champagne and a lobster pattie set on top of a folded piece of paper. The footman winked and eased himself out the door, leaving a stunned Victoire behind
Though aching with curiosity, she slipped the paper out from under the lobster pattie, brushed off the crumbs, and popped it into her reticule. Better to read it when all eyes were focused on the stage. She schooled her features to polite anticipation of Act Two while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.
At last the curtains parted. Victoire unfolded the note and angled it toward the lights reflecting from the stage.
“I must speak with you. Meet me at Ravensden’s mews gate at two. JH.”
JH. Jack Harding.
The Innkeeper’s Daughter faded away, its salacious humor winging around her, unheard, unregretted. He wanted to see her, talk with her . . .
In havey-cavey fashion at the mews gate in the wee hours of the morning.
N’importe! She would see him. He would explain this odd assignation, while she basked, quite daringly, in his aura of dissipation. Gazed at his handsome, if world-weary, face . . . nibbled cautiously at forbidden fruit.
Lovesick fool! hissed her inner good sense. Alas, too true. Firelight, candlelight, strong punch, and intimate conversation had woven a spell stronger than the most powerful witch’s brew. There was no question of her clinging to her warm bed, waiting out the ticking of the clock, waiting for this madness to pass, while Jack Harding waited in vain in the cold at the postern gate.
Victoire saw nothing on stage, only a vision of her path to the garden—down the back stairs, out the kitchen door, straight down the path to the gate that led to the stables. She could not take a candle—a glowing beacon in the night—as she groped her way through the Darrincote garden. She would have to wait for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. But she would have a companion. Her trusty pocket pistol. No matter how hard her heart fluttered, she did not love blindly.
Le Chevalier Claude raised no fools.
Wearing her warm woolen cloak over her nightwear and Abenaki moccasins on her feet, Victoire slipped through the garden with ease, a waning three-quarter moon easing her way. Her ragged breaths pierced the stillness and, shamefully, she knew they weren’t from fear. How could she be so stupid? How could she care so much about a—a libertine she had known for only a few short hours? A man she had been forced to chase from her bedroom at pistol-point?
But see him she would. Victoire attacked the wooden bar that held the gate in place for the night, easily lifting it out of the way before she froze, suddenly appalled. What if it was all a joke? What if Jack Harding and a coterie of equally scurrilous friends were lurking in the shadows to see if she would rise to the bait . . .
Mon Dieu! She’d have to fly home on the very next ship to Lower Canada.
“Victoire.” A tall silhouette stepped inside the garden, the gate clicked closed.
Her voice choked by a flood of emotions, she remained silent, lips quivering, her face turned up to his.
“The courage of a lion,” he murmured.
“More like the idiocy of a fool.”
“More like you brought your pistol.”
“Naturellement.” Victoire flashed an impish smile, wondering if he could see it in the dark. He was close enough she could feel him, his warmth, his strength, his scent, the aura of his free spirit. Even his attitude of gentle teasing, before she heard it in his voice. “I have come to apologize,” he said. “I should have been able to distinguish a lady from an adventuress—”
“No!” Daringly, Victoire’s fingers touched his mouth and just as quickly darted away. “I have had a strange upbringing, the nuns on one side and Granpère on the other, with Papa struggling to be a balance between. I may be . . . untouched, but my knowledge of life is far beyond that of most young misses. I am accustomed to talk with men. I enjoy it. That night at the inn, I should have had my supper sent up to my room. I did not. Because I wished to drink punch by the fire . . . wished to talk with you. I quite blatantly enjoyed your company—”
“I can claim at least a decade and a thousand sins more than you,” Jack interrupted. “All that can be said in my favor is that I spend my life in a world so far beneath you that it makes me take a cynical view of everyone I meet. That, and the fact I wished you to be an adventuress, a woman as ready and willing—”
“N’importe.” No matter.
“You have no blame in this,” he ground out. “You will allow me to apologize.”
The moon drifted out from behind a cloud and she could see him clearly, his ruggedly handsome face set in grim determination. “Very well, I accept your apology,” she replied formally, “although I still reserve some of the blame to myself.”
“Stubborn wench,” Jack muttered, the smile back in his voice. “But there is something more you must understand. Something that could ruin your new life here in England.” Victoire shivered as moonlight caught his face, illuminating the grim reality shining from his green eyes. “I beg you, listen carefully. If anyone finds out you spent a private evening with me, you will be totally ruined. Without recourse. No household, other than a house of ill repute, will give you shelter. No man will have you as anything but his mistress. Do. You. Understand?”
No. Never. Not so. But the words wouldn’t pass the obstruction in her throat.
He took her by the shoulders, his tone grave. “You never met me, Victoire. Anywhere. Any time. We are strangers. It is unlikely we shall meet again, but if someone should offer you an introduction to me, you have never seen me before. Not by so much as a twitch of an eyebrow should you acknowledge me. Do I make myself clear?”
Dear God, he was saying goodbye. Telling her their paths must never cross. Telling her there was no hope.
He was waiting, his cat’s eyes suddenly glowing like the predator of the night he was. Slowly, she nodded.
A horse whinnied in the stable, the moon plunged back under a cloud. “I must go,” Jack murmured. “We will not see each other again.” He turned toward the gate and slipped through, pausing only long enough to remind her to bar it after him. With a scant six inches left before the gate snapped closed, he leaned into the gap and whispered, “In case I forgot to mention it, I’m also a bastard, literally as well as figuratively.”
And then he was gone. As Victoire thumped the bar into place, her heart tumbled, crashing onto the wreck of her foolish dreams. Gone. Jack Harding was gone. Leaving her with a great gap in her life that could never be mended.
“Burgled, by God,” Gabriel Hammond roared, as he joined his friends in Jack’s drawing room. “M’mother’s jewel case filched out of her dressing room while she danced the night away at the Carrington’s ball. Where the blasted servants were, I can’t imagine—”
“Having their own ball in the kitchen, don’t you know,” Harry Blacklock drawled. “Or off to a cock and hen club while the cat’s away.”
“While we played in the caverns,” Lord Cheyney pointed out with annoying reasonableness.
“You can’t expect me to dance attendance on m’mother,” Gabe protested. “That’s what m’father’s for. Not that he’s ever been able to keep up with her,” he added under his breath.
“Haven’t there been other jewelry thefts recently? Harry asked.
“As many as five or six in the past few months,” Gabe returned. “A veritable epidemic.”
“Do I catch a whiff of a good deed,” Avery inquired, rather provocatively.
“Sometimes, little brother . . .” Jack paused his low growl and pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. “You three may be idle wastrels, but I am not. I cannot go haring off after every stray scent—”
“Cut line, Jack.” Lord Cheyney waved his brother to silence. “Your good deeds have already supplied you with a private army of your own. Yes, you told them they’d be an auxiliary to Harding’s Hellions, but I’d hazard a guess you’re paying them yourself. So why not put them to work?”
It was true, Jack had to admit. Since the incident at Wolverhampton, he had been supporting a rather large number of ex-soldiers experienced in the ways of the underbelly of London and eager to earn their keep. “On occasion, baby brother,” Jack drawled, “your ideas have merit. In addition to the spy network I already have in place, having my own personal eyes and ears in the underworld might be extremely helpful . . . if we decide to take on the problem of lost jewels.”
“M’mother’s devastated,” Gabe declared. “What better place to start our good deeds?”
“Here’s the brunt of it,” Jack said. “Cheyney’s ex-troopers can blend with the London Underworld with no trouble at all, but what about keeping an eye on the ton? Who’s to do that, for I surely can’t. Yes, there are a few great houses where I’m welcome, but you may recall I work for a living. I’m out of London more than I’m in it. Which one of you will lower himself to become a gentleman Bow Street Runner? Or, worse yet, that animal so denigrated by the ton—a spy?
Harry set down his glass with a thump. “You’re serious,” he breathed. “This really is what you meant by good deeds.”
“The words were yours, not mine. But, yes, no one ever said good deeds came without a price. If they were easy, they would have little value.” Moments of silence ensued as each of Jack’s friends considered his words.
“It’s worth a try,” Gabe muttered at last. “Owe it to my mother, not to mention Father’s near to an apoplexy over losing the Hammond jewels.”
“I’ll give it a go,” Harry added. “Always up for a new lark, now ain’t I?”
“I’m the one who suggested it, I believe,” Avery drawled. “Who knows, perhaps we may raise people’s expectations of what Bow Street should be.”
“If we are successful, we might even begin a movement to have a proper police force,” Jack added.
A bark of derisive laughter from Gabe Hammond. “You already run the only police force south of the Scots border. Be grateful our dear citizens, ever so fearful of authority, haven’t noticed it yet.”
“You’re forgetting the River Police,” Jack said.
“They,” Harry declared, “have sense enough to stay on the river. You don’t.”
“And never doubt the government has noticed,” Avery offered. “But Brockman’s guineas likely underwrite a goodly portion of the undertakings in Whitehall. Best not to rock the boat.”
“Lord, Jack,” Harry said with a wicked gleam in his eye, “are Harding’s Hellions about to stage a coup?”
“Stubble it!”
“Yes, sir, General Harding, sir.”
“It occurs to me,” Hammond said softly, “we may have survived the Peninsula only to have our throats slit in St. Giles.”
“Not if you confine your investigations to Mayfair,” Jack countered.
“But what fun would that be?” his brother asked, eyes dancing.
Jack surveyed the three faces, marked by mixed emotions, staring back at him. “Then we are agreed?” A chorus of Ayes. “Then let us make plans.”
He signaled for another bottle of brandy, and four heads bent together, a babble of voices—authoritative, eager, deliberate, and skeptical—rising and falling at the first meeting of the newly minted officers of Harding’s Irregulars.