Duke of Sin

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  “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.

&
nbsp; 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.”