The Duke (24 page)

“Oh, yes, you will. You’ll tell Argyll and Hertford—and the next thing I know, both houses of Parliament will be discussing my Hawk’s masterful. . . performances.”

Harriette laughed gaily and leaned back against the couch. “Well, perhaps he really is a paragon.” She sighed and dropped her gaze musingly. “Ah, Bel. How cozy for you—he’s rich, powerful, handsome as the devil, very generous,
and
a good lover. I must confess, I am worried about you.”

“Why? You can see I’m in the perfect situation.”

“Too perfect.” Harriette shook her head. “I see how you gaze at him. It is all well and good to feel an attraction, even an attachment to one’s protector, but I beseech you for your own sake, do not forget the primary rule.”

They stared at each other.

Bel knew it by heart, of course:
Never fall in love.

She looked into her tea. “Of course I won’t, Harrie.”

“Bel? Look at me, Bel. Are you sulking?”

“It’s just—how did that rule come into being, anyway?” she burst out. “Why can’t we?”

“You know why—because it forfeits the game! Whoever declares first loses. You know that, Bel. Look what happened to me.”

“What happened? You are the most sought-after woman in England—”

“I gave my whole heart to my beautiful, treacherous Ponsonby and he smashed it into a hundred pieces by returning to his wife. And now every other lover fills me with distaste—but I must continue to entertain clients because this is the only life I know. I am quite wretched, when one thinks of it.” Harriette looked at the fireplace and gave a melodramatic sigh. “I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. Be beautiful and gay and cruel, Bel. Never fall in love.”

“But Harriette,” she ventured, “Lord Blessington married Marguerite—”

“No, I will not hear of this,” Harriette snapped crossly. “For every Marguerite, there are a thousand of us who end up penniless hags in the gutter.”

“The gutter!”

“I am headed there, God knows, with all my duns.”

“Bosh, Harrie, you know full well you could marry Worcester in a trice.”

“Sweet foolish boy,” she sighed in regret. “I am too fond of him to accept, for I know such a mesalliance would not be in my little marquess’s best interest, or in mine.”

“He may be younger than you, but everyone knows that he loves you.”

“Love?” Harriette laid her hand on Bel’s cheek with an expression of sorrow. “No more of this love nonsense. My heart is already uneasy with having brought you into this accursed life. I don’t want to see it destroy you. I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes I made when I was fifteen and just starting out. Magnificent as he is, your Hawk must fly away one day. Blessington was not a rising power in Parliament when he married Marguerite.”

Bel said nothing, but studied the floor and stewed in rebellion.

“Bel?” Harriette prodded. “Do you think Marguerite’s lot is so marvelous now that she’s Lady Blessington? You’re wrong, if you do. None of the other Society women will ever accept her—they won’t even speak to her, though her behavior is faultless. If you lured Hawkscliffe into offering marriage, the scandal would wreck his career as a statesman. If you took that away from him, if you allowed him—especially him—to choose desire over duty, he would regret it and eventually come to despise you, and then where would you be?”

“I know what you say is true, but Hawkscliffe isn’t like everyone else. He’s so good and kind, so genuinely noble—”

“No more!” Harriette cried in exasperation, jumping up from the couch and clapping her hands over her ears. “You are going to destroy yourself. Do not get so attached to him. Take what you can get from the man, but be ready to leave him as soon as you detect any sign that he is growing bored.”

“But that is so cold—”

“That is reality, dear heart. I’m teaching you how to survive.”

Bel sighed in distress and reached to grasp her hand. “Don’t be angry with me, Harrie. I’m doing my best. You know I will always listen to your advice,” she lied merely to end the argument.

Harriette didn’t know everything, she thought in rebellion. Maybe the prime rule was wise under normal circumstances, but her situation with Hawkscliffe was different.

Harriette remained miffed until Bel opened her reticule and wrote out her draft for fifty pounds, twenty percent of Robert’s latest deposit. The cheque helped soothe her ruffled feathers. They talked of other things until Bel finally rose and bid her good-bye. By the time she returned to her
vis-à-vis,
she saw that Dolph had left. William reported no trouble from the baronet.

They headed back to Knight House. Several times she checked out the back window and searched the streets to make sure Dolph was not lurking somewhere nearby. Satisfied at last that she was rid of him for now, she propped her chin on her fist and stared out the carriage window, willing herself to believe that Harriette didn’t understand. Robert was not like the idle, self-centered cavaliers who swarmed around the Wilson sisters.

Suddenly she saw a pair of small familiar faces in the hustle and bustle about the corner of Regent and Beak Streets. Her orange-selling days rushed back to her as she recognized her eight-year-old little rapscallion friend, Tommy, plying his charm on the corner, sweeping the crossing for a gentleman in a top hat, while, to her horror, she saw his nine-year-old brother, Andrew, a step behind, picking the man’s pocket!

Bel hauled on the check string for all she was worth. William brought the
vis-à-vis
to an almost immediate halt. She didn’t wait for him to open the door for her, but leaped out of the carriage and marched over to the corner and seized an ear of each boy.

She began pulling them none too gently toward her carriage.

“Hey, lady! Let go of us!”

“It’s me, you little fools! Don’t you recognize me?”

“Miss Bel?” Tommy cried, gaping.

“What are you trying to do, get yourselves hanged? Get in the carriage! This instant!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Yes, Miss Bel.”

Paling and suddenly humbled, they scrambled into the
vis-à-vis
.

Glaring with anger while her heart pounded in dread, Bel wondered if anyone had seen Andrew’s theft. She entered the carriage and sat down across from the children. The awful smell of the filthy creatures filled the carriage and they were so underfed that both could fit easily in the one-person seat across from her.

She folded her arms over her chest and glowered at them. “I am shocked and appalled at you boys. Hand it over.” She put out her hand.

Andrew slunk down in his seat but produced a gold fob watch.

“You are a very naughty, wicked little boy,” she told him. “Do you have any idea what could happen if anyone saw you steal this?”

The pair exchanged a dismal look.

“That’s right,” she said sternly, “you would go to jail.”

“Do they feed you in jail, Miss Bel?” asked Andrew.

“Impertinence,” she exclaimed, barely masking the twist of sheer pity in her heart at his question. Her impulse was to give him a hug, but she had to scold, for it would be fatal to give them any reason to pursue their guilty course. Good Lord, she couldn’t just put them back out onto the street again.

Andrew hung his head. “We’re sorry, Miss Bel.”

“I know you are,” she said sternly. “Now, you are not going to steal anymore, but you’re not going to go hungry, either. Tommy, Andrew, I am taking you to a place where you will be cared for properly.”

“What place?” asked Andrew, instantly wary.

“A school.”

Tommy’s eyebrows lifted. “School?”

Bel nodded firmly at them, resolved. She could cancel her order for her next evening gown. These two children would have a roof over their heads, clean clothes on their backs, and food in their bellies even if she had to take her money out of the funds.

“I don’t want no school,” Andrew said after a moment, scowling.

“I don’t care,” Bel replied.

“How come you don’t sell oranges no more?” Tommy piped up.

“Look at her fancy drags, Tom. She’s on the game,” said Andrew like any long-suffering elder brother.

Taken aback Bel gaped at the boy, then wanted to die of mortification. She snapped her mouth shut and looked away, reminding herself that after life in the flash house, these children had seen it all. Still, she was heartily glad they didn’t ask why it was all right for her to whore, but wrong for them to steal, for she had no idea how to answer. Guilt razed her conscience for having allowed herself to forget about the poor little wretches for more than a month, absorbed as she had been in her own problems.

She leaned out and directed William to take the Edgware Road out to Paddington. While teaching at Mrs. Hall’s she had heard about a charity school there privately funded by the Philanthropic Society. Surely she could persuade the headmaster to accept her homeless waifs.

When they arrived Bel grasped each boy’s hand to stop them from running off and marched them up to the squat brick school in determination.

She and her young charges were received with trepidation by the secretary. She asked to see the headmaster. The secretary agreed to keep an eye on the boys, who sat down obediently in the reception room, while she was shown into the headmaster’s office. She waited in fidgety impatience for a couple of minutes then looked up in cool, aloof composure when in walked a pinch-faced, hook-nosed little busybody of a man.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, miss. I am Mr. Webb. How may I help you?” he intoned in nasal pomp.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Webb. I have come about two boys whom I would like to enroll as students in your school.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “We are full near to capacity, I’m afraid. Were they born in this parish?”

Bel hesitated.

“You did bring their birth certificates, Miss—ah?”

“Hamilton. Belinda Hamilton—”

His left eyebrow shot up.

Bel cursed herself the instant her full name was past her lips.

She knew she was famous—or infamous—in Town, but who on earth would have thought that the principal of a charity school would have heard of her?

He cocked his head, eyeing her like an ill-tempered little bird. “What relation are these children to you?” he asked in suspicion.

“They are friends. Mr. Webb, these children need a roof over their heads. They have been living on the streets. They’ve had nothing to eat—”

“One moment,” he cut her off. “Living on the street? They do not sound at all suitable for our establishment, Miss Hamilton. I cannot allow them to corrupt the other children.”

“Sir!” she exclaimed, taken aback. “They’re not going to corrupt anyone.”

“We have orphans here, but all come from decent homes of the
respectable
poor. I’m sure these urchins of yours are quite unfortunate, but if you cannot even produce their birth certificates, I am not obliged to take them.”

“Perhaps I have not made myself clear.” She forced a winning smile at him. “I am offering to pay for their enrollment and their keep. They are good, darling little boys. They only need an education to make them fit for work one day, and a bit of discipline—”

“Miss Hamilton,” he cut her off again, “their kind is not welcome here. Nor is yours.”

Her jaw dropped. “My kind? You cannot condemn the children because of me.”

“This is a decent Christian establishment, Miss Hamilton. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Is it? It doesn’t seem very Christian to me. Didn’t our Lord have a friend who was a whore?”

“Good day, ma’am,” he replied coldly.

“Mr. Webb, you are condemning these children to the gallows.”

“It is their parents’ place to teach them virtuous conduct.”

“They have no parents. I’m the only adult they know.”

“Marylebone workhouse will take them—”

She suppressed an oath. “I wouldn’t turn a stray dog in to the workhouse. I’ll pay you extra—”

“We shall not accept your money, Miss Hamilton, considering its source.”

“What do you suggest I do with them, Mr. Webb? Because I can’t dump them back out onto the streets.”

“Perhaps you should care for them yourself,” he suggested, flicking a sanctimonious glance at her expensive gown then peering out the window at her lavish equipage. “It appears you can afford it.”

Bel rose in fury, shamed beyond speech. She pivoted in a swirl of muslin and swept out of the small office.

“Andrew, Tommy, let’s go.” Her chin was high but inwardly she burned with humiliation as she marched out, pulling each boy by the hand. She felt the judgmental gaze of the headmaster following her. She herded the children into her carriage and in an icy tone of fury ordered William to drive them back to Knight House. Arms folded over her chest, she glared out the window while the two boys, frightened by her silent rage, watched her face anxiously.

“Didn’t—didn’t they want us, Miss Bel?” Tommy asked gingerly.