Company Of Rogues: A Shocking Delight Part 7

If she'd brushed against the idiocy of love at first sight, she'd escaped before it could take root, and she thanked the heavens for it.

Chapter 6.

David hurried in search of a hackney stand. What had possessed him to linger in that bookshop when he was already late?

He knew what-or rather, who.

What he'd first taken for a plain Jane had turned out to have the biggest, clearest blue eyes he could remember seeing. Those eyes, that heart-shaped face, those pretty lips, all together with intelligence and a fine ability to debate.

A shame she had strong opinions on smuggling.

What did her opinions matter? He was here in London to win the hand and fortune of Miss Lucinda Potter. That was what had brought him into the City of London this morning. He'd thought he might learn something from her home and area. Now he was shamefully late for an appointment. He found a hackney stand and ordered the driver to make all speed to Bond Street.

He'd arrived in London last night to stay with his sister, Susan, and her husband, Viscount Amleigh. He'd claimed the earldom largely for Susan's and Con's sakes, but there'd been another reason, gently argued by his uncle Nathaniel and aunt Miriam, the people who'd raised him and whom he regarded as his true parents. Though Con would do his duty, his first love would always be Somerford Court. If the domain of the Mad Earl was to be healed and restored, it needed a resident earl who cared only about it.

So he'd accepted his fate, but with the need to come to London and win Miss Potter's money, he'd written to Con and Susan, pointing out that the least they could do was support him through the ordeal. They'd replied that they were already in London for the season, and that the Company of Rogues were in Town en ma.s.se, ready to help, including Nicholas Delaney, leader of the Rogues.

Nicholas had formed the group at Harrow School for protection from bullies, be they senior boys or masters. The bond held, and they stood ready to help one another by fair means or foul. Now, they would help David, for a Rogue's sake. For Con's.

All very well, but David was wary of the Rogues, even Nicholas.

He'd accepted the earldom of his own accord, but he wasn't sure what would have happened if he'd refused. Would Con's need have overruled his own? The schoolboy group had become a coterie of formidable men from all ranks, with a range of expertise and influence and a cavalier att.i.tude to convention and the law.

Nicholas had visited Con's house the previous evening to plan how to smooth David's way into society and help him capture Miss Potter. He'd brought two other Rogues, ones David didn't know. Sir Stephen Ball was a skilled lawyer and politician, and the Earl of Charrington was known for his diplomatic skills. Lord Vandeimen hadn't been there, but he'd been promised for this tailoring expedition. He, at least, wasn't a Rogue. He was simply a friend of Con's known for dressing in the latest style.

David had been given his say and his opinions had been listened to, but he'd still felt like a deftly manipulated puppet. Susan had a.s.sured him everyone had his best interests at heart. Perhaps, but he'd keep up his guard.

Being still used to country ways he'd woken early. Rather than twiddling his thumbs he'd set out to clear his head with a walk. After a stroll around the orderly streets of Mayfair he'd headed east toward the City of London to scout out the Potters' world.

He'd not breakfasted, so he'd corrected that at a tavern alongside laborers of all kinds. He'd learned much from their conversation, in particular about the great needs of the metropolis. Goods poured in and money flowed out to those who provided them. Fish was particularly appreciated. Fresh was best, and in shortest supply, but smoked and dried would do. He was sure his coastal area could produce more smoked fish if people turned their energies to it instead of smuggling.

He'd found Nailer Street and been surprised by the simplicity and dignity of Daniel Potter's house. He'd expected such a self-made man to blazon his wealth, probably in a tasteless way. Potter's house was the finest on the street, but not ostentatious. It was double-fronted and had probably once been two properties, but they'd been blended well. Everything about it was of the best and maintained excellently. David didn't know what it said about Miss Potter, but it made him uneasy.

A quietly elegant house didn't mean the daughter would be quietly, elegantly perceptive, but he'd decided to observe her before making a final decision.

The hackney came to a stop, pulling him back to the present. He was about to open the door, but he realized he wasn't at his destination. Instead, they were tangled in a press of vehicles, most of them carts and wagons.

All very well for Fred to say that the million people in London were spread out. The fashionable part was appallingly crowded, even in the morning when most of the ton was asleep. That was when goods were delivered and this jam came from such wagons and carts. The shouts and curses almost drowned out the street vendors crying their wares. Could anyone be sleeping through this?

The jam broke up and his carriage could progress again. He called to the driver to make haste. The man obeyed so that David was rattling over cobblestones at a speed likely to loosen his teeth. Grit and bear it. Vandeimen would be waiting for him at the premises of Messrs. Storn and Watkins.

The hackney rocked to a halt and David jumped out and paid the driver. In moments he was inside the elegant establishment and ushered into the parlor, where Lord Vandeimen awaited. He was certainly the epitome of a beau, with his stylishly cut blond hair, brown jacket, and cream-and-gold-striped waistcoat, not to mention the elaborately knotted white cravat stuck in place with a golden pin. He was also wearing pantaloons.

David had purchased many new garments to fit his role as earl, including two pairs of pantaloons, but he much preferred breeches and boots.

"I was beginning to think you'd turned tail," Vandeimen said.

"Why would I have done that?"

"Because you're dressed appallingly?" his advisor asked, looking him over.

David reminded himself that Vandeimen had been a cavalry officer from the age of sixteen and carried a jagged scar on his cheek as evidence of action. If he could bear to dress like a d.a.m.ned dandy, David could tolerate it, too.

"I was ordered to send all my better clothing here to be a.s.sessed and updated. In any case, I've been exploring London in the early hours where ton style would not have been appropriate."

"Did you discover wonders?"

A heart-shaped face and big blue eyes . . .

"Gossip in a tavern and a book on drainage. Shouldn't we get to business?"

"Mr. Watkins stands waiting," Vandeimen said, indicating a tall, thin man who'd stood so still David hadn't seen him.

He decided an earl wouldn't apologize and went with the tailor and Vandeimen into another room, where his clothing was laid out.

"Evening clothes first, Watkins," Vandeimen said. "Lord Wyvern is to attend the Countess of Charrington's ball four days from now."

David shot him a look that said, "I am?" but saw no point in fighting that battle. One ball was as good as another as long as Lucinda Potter was there.

Watkins picked up David's dark evening wear, made by his tailor in Honiton only six months ago.

"Not intolerable work, my lord," Watkins said, "but we would like to attempt some small improvements. If you will consent to undress-a tiresome business, I know, my lord-and put on the coat?"

Vandeimen sat with elegant ease in an upholstered chair and a minion appeared to a.s.sist David in undressing and then re-dressing. There was nothing wrong with his coat. He'd worn it to an a.s.sembly attended by some of the best in Devon and no one had turned pale with horror.

"This is well made for provincial work, my lord," Watkins said, smoothing the shoulder, "but the fashion now is for a greater rise in the collar. With your permission, we can devise that. And there is a slight creasing at the waist. That will never do. Pins!"

David surrendered to being a clotheshorse.

After two hours, he escaped and Vandeimen carried him off to his town house for refreshments. As they settled with coffee in a comfortable, manly parlor, Vandeimen smiled. "Feeling hard done-by?"

"Lady Charrington's ball? I have no say in what entertainments I attend?"

"In unknown seas be guided by skillful pilots. Best to make your first formal appearance at a Rogue event, and Miss Potter will be there."

David nodded. "Until then I'm a free man?"

"Until then your time is planned to the minute, but all manly events where fashion doesn't matter. There's a select gathering tomorrow at the Duke of St. Raven's country haunt, Nuns' Chase."

"aSelect' hardly sounds like the appropriate word."

Vandeimen's lips twitched. "You've missed the best days, but so did I, alas. Cyprians and shocking wildness. Now St. Raven's married, it's to be hard drinking and virile contests. Riding, fencing, shooting, even quarterstaff."

"Pity there's no cliff climbing on a dark night."

"Wrong sort of terrain. It doesn't matter how you perform. The purpose is to show the guests you're a good 'un and on warm terms with men of good repute. They'll report back to their women, and the women rule this world." Perhaps David didn't look convinced, for Van added, "The Rogues en ma.s.se are very effective."

"I know it. They had a hand in my becoming the legitimate son of the Mad Earl."

"Being an earl brings advantages."

"Name them."

Vandeimen seemed truly surprised.

"The earldom is almost bankrupt," David said. "What remains-the t.i.tle, the seat in Parliament, and Crag Wyvern-hold no value for me. I wasn't raised to be n.o.ble. It's only by the kindness of my uncle and aunt that Susan and I weren't raised in a tavern."

"But you were raised in a manor house, firmly in the gentry."

"As known b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. When I attend elegant events it's obvious that in the eyes of most I'm still a well-raised b.a.s.t.a.r.d suitable at best for employment as an estate manager."

"They'll come around. The British n.o.bility are surprisingly pragmatic. There are quite a few cuckoos in the nest, some of whom have inherited t.i.tles, and some of them bear an inconvenient likeness to their true fathers. It's simply not mentioned, for what would be the point? To tamper with the rules, to allow fathers to pick and choose, or declare grown sons not their own, would create chaos."

David drank more of the excellent coffee. "Nicholas thought that some who suspected the truth would be glad that the Mad Earl's blood wasn't being pa.s.sed on."

"He's right. Insane peers are bad for business, especially with unrest because of hard times. The French Revolution is a close memory."

"I'm surprised my supposed father didn't set up a guillotine somewhere about the place. He installed a torture chamber among other monstrosities."

"So I heard. And raped his way around the county."

"There, you're wrong. The women came to him willingly, because if they didn't conceive, he sent them off with enough money to make a nice dowry. If any did, she'd become his countess."

"And yet he was married to your mother."

"Secretly, and he meant it to stay that way so he could marry if he wanted to."

"Pardon my confusion . . ." Vandeimen said.

"Oh, I do. The Mad Earl's ways confuse everyone."

". . . but why not hold to the marriage with your mother and establish you as his heir?"

"He knew I wasn't his. I was born too long after she fled him. As it was, he seems to have lived in terror of her producing the proof of the marriage and foisting me off on him. He'd have dearly loved to kill her and Mel, but in the Crag Wyvern area Mel had more power than he did. Mel could have gone into the Crag and thrown the earl over the battlements and there'd have been plenty to say they saw him jump."

"'Struth. Is this our civilized nation you speak of?"

"I'm sure there are pockets of Suss.e.x with their arcane ways."

Vandeimen grimaced, but didn't deny it. "So the earl desperately wanted a legal son of his own get, and she was willing to keep their marriage secret for her own convenience."

"So he had no legal hold over her, yes. And all was well for more than twenty years, except that all his attempts to get a child failed, which added to his insanity." David considered his words and then added, "She probably killed him."

"Your mother killed the Mad Earl?"

"You don't think a woman capable of it? Despite the earl's acrimony, there was some sort of pact between him and Mel by which the earl protected the Horde in return for money for his mad projects and his concoctions-the ones to increase his fertility and find the secret to eternal life. But when Mel and his men were captured the earl did nothing and Lady Belle was like one of the furies. When she resolved to follow Mel to Botany Bay, she gathered all the wealth she could, including going up to the Crag to filch anything portable. A few days later the earl quaffed his latest concoction and died of it. Odds are she put something lethal into one of his pots and left in the pleasant conviction that she'd be avenged sooner or later."

"Quite a woman."

"I have to confess to some admiration, but her ruthless pursuit of her own desires has sown a great deal of trouble, not least by beggaring the Horde and the earldom before leaving."

"It sounds as if the Mad Earl did most of the work."

"True enough. What he spent on books and ingredients! We sold his collection of dried p.e.n.i.ses from many species for a thousand guineas, and made five times that for his library, but couldn't recoup a fraction of his outlays."

"Hence your predicament."

David was annoyed with himself for complaining. "This fortune hunt would be more endurable if my situation hadn't become so notorious. Originally we thought that with no one else claiming the t.i.tle it would slide through, but there seem to be flocks of crows in the offices and courts of London who love nothing more than to peck a claim for rotten spots. It all cost a shocking amount of money. I took on an impoverished earldom, but lawyers have moved me from pauper to debtor and left me a walking scandal to boot. The court hearings into my mother's marriage were packed with spectators. The papers dubbed it aThe Mad Earl Affair.'"

"Broadsheets and ballads, too," Van agreed, sympathetic at last. "There's even a play in the making. How the innocent maiden was coaxed into a secret marriage, but when ravished by her husband the wicked earl, fled into the arms of a local smuggler."

"Hades! I hoped it'd fade from notice now it's settled."

"In time it will. For one thing they'll not use real names, so in a few years the play will merely be about the Earl of Dragonham, or Wormwood, or some such."

"I doubt any rational lady will be willing to marry me."

"You might as well say that no gentleman will marry a fortune if it comes with a whiff of scandal."

"A sordid business, isn't it?"

"Only if you make it so. Maria and I began with only a convenient a.s.sociation."

"And now you're in love?"

"Madly."

"Doesn't it bother you to be insane?"

Vandeimen laughed. "Not when it's such delicious lunacy. I wish it for you."

"Don't." It came out more sharply than he'd meant.

Van poured more coffee, but his look requested an explanation.

"My mother fell into the earl's clutches out of greed and ambition, but insane love pushed her into Mel Clyst's arms. Miss Isabelle Kerslake of Kerslake Manor, living at the George and Dragon with the tavern keeper?"

"It can't have been easy growing up as the consequence of such a scandal."

David didn't welcome such perceptive sympathy. "My aunt and uncle accepted Susan and me and so the local gentry followed suit for their sakes. If Lady Belle had raised us in the tavern, it might have been different."