What a Rogue Desires (21 page)

For what seemed an eternity, the constables kept them there, standing in the deepening dusk, writing down names and statements by torchlight. David was frantic with fury by the time they got to him. “I think it’s dreadful what you did to that poor woman,” he said right off.

The constable grunted. “No doubt.” He looked up, his sallow face gleaming with sweat. “Fancied her, eh? Two others told me you had your eyes on her.”

“How dare you,” said David. “Such a quiet lady. I’m sure I never did anything improper—”

“Right. Name, sir?”

David swallowed a furious retort. “John Palmer,” he said, giving the false name he’d been using.

“Direction?”

“Kent,” he said. “Near Maidstone.”

The man’s head bobbed slightly as he made a note. “Business?”

“I say, what’s the reason for these questions? Am I a suspect?”

“No.” The constable looked up. “Ought you be, sir?”

David’s indignation was real. “Of course not! I was robbed! Of fifteen shillings, by a man who seems to have run wild about these parts for some time.”

“Not anymore,” said the man with malicious satisfaction. “He’ll not run anywhere no more. What was your business, sir?”

Unsettled, David said the first thing that came into his head. “I am on business for my employer, the duke of Exeter.”

The constable’s pencil paused. “The duke of Exeter?” he repeated.

“Yes, and I shall be sure to tell him of this.”

The man put away his pencil. “Yes, sir. You’re free to go.”

“I should hope so.” David glared at him. “What will happen to her now?”

Impatience sparked in his eyes, but the constable replied civilly enough. “She’ll go with the others, to Newgate. Bow Street will sort them out quick enough. You’re free to go, sir.”

That was it. There was nothing he could say now. David jerked his head in a nod and made himself walk away, without the slightest idea what he would do next.

David rode back to London, proceeding directly to Exeter House when he reached town. All through the journey he had tried desperately to think of a way to rescue Vivian, and had come up with absolutely nothing within reason. He had a feeling he would need to drink a lot of wine to dull the pain in his chest and quiet the relentless pounding of his thoughts, and Marcus had by far the better cellar. He tossed the reins of his horse to a stable boy and went inside the house, his steps dragging. Somehow this was all his fault. Somehow, he had mucked things up yet again, only this time he hadn’t put himself in the muddle, he’d put Vivian there. He of all people had known how precarious her position was, and yet he’d pushed her right back into the path of trouble and suspicion. David had never felt lower in his life. If he could have exchanged places with her and put his own neck in the noose, he would have. Didn’t he deserve it?

He paused at the bottom of the stairs. There was a lot more activity in the household than there should have been for this time of night, he finally noticed. He turned to the butler, who hovered a step behind him. “What’s about, Harper?”

Harper bowed. “Her Grace the dowager duchess has returned to town, my lord.”

David almost groaned out loud. Just bloody wonderful, his stepmother was here. What on earth had brought her to town now? She was supposed to be at Ainsley Park with Celia, spoiling Molly. Rosalind was the last person David wanted to see at the moment, Rosalind who had always stood up for him and believed in him and trusted him, even when he didn’t deserve it. Like now. If she tried to console and comfort him that it wasn’t his fault, that there was nothing he could do now, David thought he might have to exile himself from England.

He slunk into Marcus’s study, hoping she wouldn’t find him there. Perhaps he ought to have told Harper not to reveal his presence. He carried the decanter of whiskey and a glass to the desk, hoping the drink would spur his brain into some useful course of action, or if not, into a stupor so he wouldn’t remember. His chances of the latter were much better, he thought grimly, pouring a full glass.

He winced at the knock on the door, and then his stepmother swept in before he could say anything. “David, there you are,” she cried, bearing down on him. He tried to muster a smile, getting to his feet. “I would have written that I was coming to town, but I simply couldn’t wait,” Rosalind went on after kissing his cheek. “Lady Winters wrote and told me the happy news, and I could not contain myself.”

David had no idea what she was talking about, and wished she would go. He really wasn’t fit company at the moment. “Oh?” he said vaguely.

She beamed at him. “And you shan’t tell me it’s another of your larks, for Lady Winters was quite specific. I thought you and your brother would leave me waiting forever, and here both of you, gone in the same year! Oh, David, I am so very happy for you.”

David clutched the glass of whiskey and stared at her, completely befuddled.

“So.” She seated herself on the sofa across from the desk. “Shall you tell me about her over tea?”

“Her?” he repeated.

“The woman you were with at the theater a fortnight ago,” Rosalind said with a laugh. “The theater! If I’d known, I would have persuaded Marcus to give you his box years ago! Oh, David, I do believe marriage will be the saving of you. I must confess, since your father died, there have been moments when I worried about you. Of course young men must sow their wild oats, but at times, particularly earlier this year, I did worry that you would never settle down.” A servant tapped on the door, and Rosalind stopped long enough for the maid to bring in tea. David felt as though he’d already consumed the bottle of whiskey, and gave his head a small shake to clear it. The servant left, and Rosalind beckoned him to her side with a bright smile. “Come, tell me all.”

He went, warily, still holding his glass and the decanter. “I confess, I know not what to tell.”

“What is her name?” Rosalind prompted, pouring a cup of tea. “Lady Winters didn’t know her.”

Because she was a thief from the rookeries, no doubt.
David gave a bitter laugh. “No, she didn’t.” He took a large swallow of his drink.

“Well, what is her name?” Rosalind asked again.

David stared into his glass. “Her name is Vivian.”

“A lovely name. And her family?”

A band of outlaws.
“She has a brother,” he mumbled.

“I see. And I don’t suppose I’ve ever chanced to meet either of them?” She gave a tinkling laugh.

Were you ever robbed on the Bromley stage?
“I doubt it,” David said.

Rosalind huffed. “David, you’re being infuriating. Tell me about her! I want to know everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” he said, trying to avoid the question. “I’m rather surprised you came to London just because I was at the theater with a woman. Gossip must be dear these days, if Lady Winters found it so exciting.”

“It is true Lucretia Winters loves a bit of gossip, but she doesn’t make things up out of whole cloth.” She shook her finger teasingly at him. “Don’t try to fool me that you weren’t there, young man.”

David drank some more. “You’re right. I was in fact at the theater with a woman.” A woman who promptly unearthed a copy of the play from his unused library and read it again, word by word, because she thought it was funny.

“I am sure there is more than you are telling me,” Rosalind said. “Come, David. I would not have come all the way to London if I’d merely heard you were escorting a woman to the theater. That, in itself, would not be terribly interesting. But Lady Winters said it appeared to be more than your usual…” She stopped short, delicately avoiding saying that David usually escorted courtesans or married women, when he escorted anyone at all. “What I truly came to London to discover is why you were looking at her as though you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”

Because I couldn’t,
thought David hopelessly.
And now I may never see her again.

He drained his glass. “You’ve never met her, Rosalind,” he confessed. “You wouldn’t have. She’s not a lady.”

“That is not a problem,” said his stepmother without missing a beat. “Hannah was born a commoner and is a wonderful duchess.”

David sighed. “No, Rosalind. Not a lady in any sense of the word. Her mother was a farm girl, and her father was most likely an Army captain who never returned from Spain. Her brother is her only family, and he’s currently in jail for robbing stagecoaches. Which, by the by, is where Vivian herself is, thanks to my bungling. And if I can’t scrape up some wits soon, she’ll hang with him, because I met her when she helped him rob the coach I took to London.”

Rosalind regarded him in silence for a moment, her mouth agape. Then she set down her teacup, picked up the decanter, and poured a generous amount of the liquor into her tea. “I see,” she said in an unnaturally bright voice, lifting the cup with trembling fingers. “How…unusual.”

David’s lips twisted. “Isn’t it?”

For a moment there was silence as Rosalind gulped her very potent tea and David drank the last of the whiskey in his glass.

“Good heavens.” Rosalind set the cup down at last. “Indeed. I never expected…That is to say…” Her voice cracked, and failed. “David,” she said a moment later, very carefully, “what have you been up to?”

“I didn’t do it deliberately,” he said instinctively.

She waved one hand. “I didn’t ask why. I asked
what
.”

He sighed. “One of my chestnuts went lame on my journey from Ainsley Park to London. I took a place on the stagecoach in order to reach town in time.”

“In time for what?”

“Marcus had arranged for his banker and solicitors to meet me and go over his concerns,” David said. “Did he not tell you?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” said his stepmother, looking a little surprised. “You took the public stage. My word. And then?”

“It was robbed.” David stopped; that wasn’t quite “what then.” “She was, I thought, merely another passenger. She was so lovely, and when the highwaymen were collecting our purses, she had only one shilling to give them. One of them knocked her down, and I…” He lifted one hand and then let it fall. “They took the signet ring Marcus gave me, and I was determined to get it back. I called on every pawnbroker I knew—”

“How many?”

“At least two dozen,” he said, somewhat ashamed.

She gasped. “So many! But why?”

“I had need of funds, from time to time.”

“Marcus—” she began, but David shook his head.

“I would have gone to the Fleet before asking Marcus for money. And it was a near thing, at times.” She looked as though he’d struck her. Perhaps he had. David knew his stepmother had a special affection for him; he knew she had stood up for him when no one else had, had believed in him when no one else did. He knew she was misguided and wrong many of those times. “I’ve been every bit as wicked as people say, Rosalind. Why do you think Bentley chose me for his plot?”

“Do not speak that name to me, ever again,” she ordered. “He is no longer family.”

“He’s not an idiot, though,” said David, slumping lower on the sofa. “He chose well. I gambled a lot, and lost often. I was bull-headed and arrogant about it, and I deserved what he did to me.”

His stepmother’s lips parted in silent surprise, and she looked at him in wonder.

“But I was determined to get that ring back. It seemed shameful to repay Marcus by losing the thing and not even tending to business on a timely schedule. One pawnbroker sent word that he’d seen the ring, and would not only help me get it back, but help catch the thief who tried to sell it. So I went, thinking I would solve my own problem and remedy some social ills at the same time.

“But it was she, Vivian, who tried to sell the ring. I dragged her back to my home and locked her up—”

“David!” gasped Rosalind. He nodded.

“I thought it would frighten her to death and she’d simply give me the ring.” A smile lit his face as he recalled how wrong that had been. “But she didn’t have it and refused to get it, and I refused to let her go until she did, so there we were.”

Rosalind pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I fail to see…”

“She’s lovely,” he said softly. “Beautiful. And clever. With a sharp wit, and spirit, and charm.”

“Oh, dear.” She poured herself more tea, without whiskey this time. “A common…thief.”

“There’s nothing common about her,” he said, and meant it.

She sighed, shaking her head, and sipped her tea for several moments. “Then, why, pray, is she back in prison?”

“Bow Street came to call on me,” he said, continuing the story. “Someone was robbing stagecoaches wearing a gold signet ring and calling himself the Black Duke. They made it clear they were considering arresting me for it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That is inconceivable.”

He grimaced. “No, not really. I doubt they’d have hanged me—yet—but I didn’t fancy going to prison at all. Bow Street had clearly decided I was the villain, and they weren’t looking very hard for another. So I decided to go catch the fellow myself, at least long enough to retrieve my ring, and that would be the end of it. There would be no more Black Duke robberies, and thus no reason for anyone to arrest me. It seemed a good plan.”

“Oh, David,” she said on a sigh.

“I convinced Vivian to help me find them,” he plowed onward, heaping the guilt on his own head. “I suspected the man calling himself the Black Duke was one of the highwaymen who had stolen my ring with her. I dragged her off an a foolhardy mission to find a notorious criminal.”

“But—the pawnbrokers,” said Rosalind distastefully.

“Never recovered the ring. I gave it up for lost, and rather forgot about it.” He paused, wishing now that he had just let it go. If he hadn’t gone looking for the bloody ring, none of this would have happened. “But we went after it, and not only did we find the Black Duke, Bow Street found him, too. And in the uproar, they took Vivian away with the rest of the highwaymen, one of whom is her brother. They are headed for Newgate, and will probably be hanged in short order. And that is the sum of my latest, pudding-headed, scrape.”

“Oh, David,” she said after a moment, her voice full of dismay. He threw up one hand to stop her.

“It is my fault. All mine. I have led a woman to her death. I ought to have let Bow Street arrest me. It would have been better that way.” He closed his eyes. “I took her to the theater because she’d never been. She was enchanting that night, delighted by everything.”

He let his head fall back, staring bleakly at the ceiling. Rosalind murmured a few words, and then mercifully left him. Even she didn’t feel sorry for him anymore. David was glad.

For a while he just sat, staring blindly upward. His head hurt. It felt as though a drum had begun beating inside his skull, urging him on toward something. He must do something. He just didn’t know what.

With a lurch he flung himself off the sofa. He strode through the hall and out of the house, through the streets until he reached his own house. He climbed the steps, feeling a twinge in his bad leg again, only to almost run into Anthony Hamilton, just departing.

“Reece.” Hamilton bowed his head, his sharp eyes taking in David’s rough clothing. “I called to see how the excursion ended.”

“It’s not ended.” David led the way inside, Hamilton following. Hobbs took his guest’s hat and gloves again, as well as David’s own cap, without a word. Limping slightly, David made his way to his drawing room, taking a seat in front of the fire with a small grimace of relief.

“What remains?” Hamilton took the opposite seat, helping himself to a glass of brandy from the tray still sitting on a nearby table. “You said the excursion is not yet ended.”

“We found the Black Duke.”

Hamilton’s eyebrow arched. “Excellent work. I rated that possibility at only one chance in three.”

“The Bow Street horse patrol also found him, at the same moment.”

“Ah.” Hamilton sat back. “Who would have thought it.”

“Beastly timing,” David agreed. “It could hardly have been worse. And in the excitement, they took Vivian away with the rest of the highwaymen.”