“’Ere, what ya implyin’?” Vic bristled.
“—just as my medical training ensures I am able to distinguish a female from a male,” Winter concluded with a challenging lift of both his brows.
Vic stared at the man, still and silent.
“What are you talking about, Winter?” the Duke of Blackborne demanded even more impatiently. “Victory might sound as if it could be the name of a female as easily as a male, but I assure you…I assure you…” The duke’s indignant denial of the doctor’s implication ground to a halt as Winter continued to shake his head. “No?” he murmured doubtfully.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very.”
The duke turned to stare at Vic through narrowed lids. “Remove your coats and other top clothing.”
“Not bloody likely!”
“Do as the duke says,” the doctor instructed tersely. “Or I shall do it for you.”
Vic tensed into a fighting stance, hands clenched into fists. “I ain’t scared o’ you. Neiva of ya,” was added in case there should be any doubt.
“Then you should be,” Winter drawled icily. “Because I warn you, I have no patience with malingerers and liars. Of which you are most certainly the second,” he added in a hard voice.
Vic glared. “’Oo ya callin’ a liar?”
“You,” Winter answered without hesitation or apology.
Vic’s chest deflated at the absolute certainty in the doctor’s tone. “I fink I should like to leave now. Gerroff me!” The protest was made because the duke had grasped the collar of the soiled coat Vic wore over several other layers of clothing.
“You will remove your coat and other top things, or I shall do it for you.” The duke’s stony visage brooked no argument.
Except Vic couldn’t do as he asked. Not wouldn’t, couldn’t.
“How old are you?” Lord Winter demanded to know.
“Four’een, but I’m small fer me age.”
Winter shook his head. “My diagnosis is that her slenderness of appearance is because she is a female aged possibly seventeen or eighteen years. I also think that there is nothing more wrong with this young lady other than being in need of a bath and a few hot meals and that she is an inveterate liar. That being the case—”
“I might be a liar, but I am not an inveterate one!” Vic let out a gasp at both the admission and the complete loss of the Cockney accent in her voice. “I meant ta say—”
“Give it up, Victory,” Lord Winter advised dryly. “Your Cockney accent is as much of a lie as the rest of you.”
“How dare you—”
“I believe you are correct in your diagnosis,” the duke cut in coldly. “I am very sorry to have wasted your time, Winter.”
The other man gave him a quizzical glance. “She is a feisty little thing, I grant you that. She would probably do very well somewhere like Club Venus.”
Vic gasped. “I’m not going to a brothel, I don’t care how posh it is!”
“I believe I agree with Victory on that subject, especially as until a minute ago, I believed she was a he,” the duke added self-disgustedly.
“I should forego making any decision until after you have seen her beneath all that dirt.” Winter’s gaze moved critically from the worn boots to the matted curls. “She looks as if she might be a beauty.”
“I don’t care what you say, I ain’t going to no brothel!” Vic announced forcefully before turning back into the bedchamber and slamming and locking the door behind her.
Gabriel frowned his consternation at being locked out of one of his own bedchambers. “What do you suppose she is doing in there?” he prompted as the silence that followed seemed almost eerie following the shouting and door slamming. Another misdemeanor that deserved a spanked arse.
Winter shrugged. “My guess would be she is gathering up anything of value in the bedchamber before making good her escape out the window.”
Gabriel snorted. “We are on the second floor.”
“Admittedly, it is quite a drop,” Winter acknowledged calmly. “But she seems to be an enterprising young lady.”
Gabriel was unsure which emotion was the stronger within him. Anger for having been duped. Or curiosity to know what this female looked like when she wasn’t dressed as a boy and the color of her hair—possibly rich dark curls?—wasn’t hidden by the cap and the same grease and grime as her clothing.
Deliberately so, so as to disguise her feminine appearance?
The same in regard to the ill-fitting layers of clothing?
The doctor chuckled. “I shall call back tomorrow to confirm my diagnosis once she is clean and has hopefully calmed herself. And you need to get in there,” he advised as the sound of one of the sash windows could be heard being forced up on its runners. “If only to prevent her from breaking her neck when she falls.”
Gabriel still felt momentarily paralyzed at the knowledge Vic was no longer the boy he had enjoyed talking to every evening for these past months.
The same boy whose lengthy absence he had become so concerned about, he had gone in search of him in one of the notoriously dangerous slums in London.
The young boy over whom Gabriel might have lost his life when he was attacked by four thugs while searching for him.
That last was possibly an overstatement. There had never been a moment in that encounter with the four ruffians when Gabriel had feared for his life.
Which did not change the fact Vic was not the boy Gabriel had believed him to be, but an unknown female named Victory.
Her behavior now, trying to escape out of one of the many windows of Blackborne House, surely confirmed that as being the truth.
Dear God, she is trying to escape out a window that is at least twenty feet from the ground!
Gabriel stepped forward to rap his knuckles loudly on the sturdy wood in front of him. “Open this door at once, Victory. At once, do you hear me!” he repeated sternly when he received no response the first time.
Winter shot him a glance when all remained silent inside the bedchamber. “I will go downstairs into the front garden and hope to catch her when or if she falls.”
Gabriel glowered at the locked door. “The amount of trouble she has become, I should have known she was a female rather than a young boy!”
His friend gave a husky chuckle as he walked down the hallway toward the stairs. “I have to admit to finding her highly entertaining.”
Gabriel was going to find her highly entertaining too when he had her thrown over his knees in order to administer the one and ten spanks she had so easily accrued even when he hadn’t known she was female. She deserved another ten for deliberately deceiving him in regard to her gender.
And if she had indeed gone out the window, then he would add another twenty to that number, to be administered on as many consecutive occasions as it took to reach the number of one and forty.
That is if she hadn’t succeeded in breaking her neck by climbing out the window first, of course.
Chapter Five
“Bloody know-it-all! Bastard! Why couldn’t he have just left me to wallow in my own misery.” Victory muttered these admonitions against the duke as she carefully climbed over the balcony and slowly lowered herself, hand over hand, down the sheets she had taken from the bed and tied together.
She had secured one end of the sheets to a leg of the dressing table and thrown the rest of the length out the open window. Sticking her head outside as far as it would go revealed the two sheets didn’t reach the front garden of the house by about four feet, but she was willing to take the risk on it being a soft landing.
“‘My medical training ensures I am able to tell a female from a male,’” she sarcastically mimicked Lord Winter’s arrogant statement as she carefully lowered herself. “Arrogant prick!”
“The truth can never be called arrogance, only the manner in which it is delivered.”
Victory was so surprised at hearing the deep voice of Lord Winter comi
ng from directly beneath her in the darkness that she immediately gave a screech and let go of the sheet. Only to scream again as her arms and legs windmilled in an effort to ease the impact of her landing. But as human beings couldn’t fly, it was an effort doomed to failure from the outset.
“Oomph!” Lord Winter’s arms moved to hold on to her tightly after Victory landed hard against his chest. The impact knocked him off balance so that he stumbled before the two of them landed on the grass, the illumination from the candlelight in the hallway showing them to be in a tangle of arms and legs.
“Oh, well caught, Winter.”
Victory looked up at the second-story window she had just escaped from to see the Duke of Blackborne leaning out the opening. “How on earth did you…?”
“I broke the lock on the door, something else you shall make recompense for, most probably with more spanks to add to what will be a very sore arse for many days to come,” the duke warned harshly. “I hope you intend to thank his lordship for saving your life,” he admonished dryly.
“Not when he’s the one who made me fall in the first place!” she protested at the same time as she struggled to get back onto her feet.
“Don’t let her escape before I come down there, Winter,” the duke cautioned before disappearing back inside the house.
Escape? That was impossible with Lord Winter’s arms having tightened about her like a steel vise. A hold he maintained even when he had retrieved his top hat and risen back to his feet.
Victory looked up at him imploringly. “If you let me go now, I will ensure His Grace never sets eyes on me again.”
He regarded her with dispassionate dark eyes. “That is always assuming I do not wish for him to set eyes on you again.”
“Which, of course, you don’t,” she taunted.
“Possibly,” he drawled. “But things have certainly become more…enlivened since your appearance, His Grace most of all. Besides, have you ever seen Blackborne in a temper?” he mused.
“No.” In truth, the duke had always been very patient and concerned toward her in their dealings to date. Before he knew she was a female, Victory reminded herself. She doubted Blackborne still possessed that same patience now he was aware of her previous subterfuge.
Inside herself, and rarely acknowledged, even to herself, Victory had always felt an attraction toward the aristocratic and handsome duke. Not just because of his dark good looks—although there was no denying they were enough to cause her heart to race—but also because he had taken the trouble to show kindness and to converse on a daily basis with a dirty young street urchin who had gained his attention.
How could her romantic and female heart not race and her body suffuse with an unaccustomed warmth whenever Gabriel stopped to speak with her?
Just because she dressed and looked like a male youth didn’t mean she didn’t possess feminine feelings.
“Hmm, I thought not,” Lord Winter derided when she added nothing to her previous statement. “Fortunately for me, I have had that displeasure in the past, and because I have, I know better than to rouse the sleeping dragon.”
She frowned. “I thought it was ‘sleeping tiger.’”
“Ah-ha,” his lordship pounced triumphantly. “I have no idea how long you have been perpetrating this ruse of being an uneducated boy living on the streets of London, or why you should have felt it necessary to do so in the first place.” He sobered. “But you should accept that it is no longer a viable role for you to play here and now.”
She shot him a resentful glare. “Because you shopped me to His Grace!”
Lord Winter seemed to find her anger amusing, enough for him to actually chuckle. “I really should thank you for entertaining me so well this evening. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so much in a week, let alone in the space of the half hour since I made your acquaintance.”
“Then you are to be pitied—”
“Winter is not the one to be pitied. You are,” the duke announced grimly as he came down the steps from the house to join them on the small patch of illumination in the front garden. “Because as soon as we are back inside the house, I intend to spank your very female arse until you are unable to sit down for a week!” He curled the fingers of one hand tightly about her arm. “Thank you for your assistance this evening, Winter.” He nodded at the other man. “It is much appreciated.”
“Not by me it isn’t,” Victory muttered.
The duke looked down the length of his nose at her with icy-gray eyes. “You would be wise to remain silent regarding what you do or do not appreciate. At least until I have had time to adjust to the enormity of the deceit practiced upon me in regard to your true gender.”
“It was your mistake, not mine,” she defended. “I never once, verbally or in any other way, claimed to be a boy. You were the one who assumed as much.”
“And you allowed me to do so.”
“Yes,” she confirmed without apology before glancing at Lord Winter. “And I am aged nineteen, not seventeen or eighteen as you previously guessed.” She turned to Gabriel. “And to answer your earlier question, my mother and I moved to London when I was six.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened. “You are exceedingly short and small for being aged that many years.”
Her brows rose. “And you are exceedingly tall and large for being aged either one or two and thirty,” she taunted.
“Impertinent brat,” Gabriel muttered.
“But most entertaining, you must allow, Blackborne,” Lord Winter drawled.
“Thank you, my lord.” Victory affected an exaggerated curtsey.
A curtsey that was made to look even more incongruous when performed by someone who looked like a grubby young boy wearing heavy and ill-fitting boots and several layers of filthy clothing. And yes, Gabriel would allow that he had made the assumption Vic was a boy, but for the past six months Victory was guilty of not correcting that assumption.
For reasons that were her own and which Gabriel had every intention of hearing at the earliest opportunity.
Winter’s chewing of his bottom lip was evidence he was desperately trying to hold back the humor that glittered in his dark eyes. “As I said, most entertaining.”
Gabriel could feel his impatience growing and deepening by the second. “If you are so enamored of her, perhaps you would like to take her home with you?” Even as he made the challenge, Gabriel knew he would never allow such a thing to happen. For better or worse, Victory was now his responsibility.
Winter gave him a hearty slap on the back. “You found her and removed her from her home, and as such, she is your responsibility, old chap.”
“I am not an unwanted sack of potatoes to be passed around between the two of you!” Victory told them fiercely.
“I am greatly looking forward to seeing the difference wrought in her appearance when I return tomorrow,” Lord Winter continued as if he had not been interrupted. “For now, I believe I must return home and see to disposing of these clothes.” His nose wrinkled with disdain as he looked down at the smears of dirt on his clothing; some were from his having fallen to his backside in the garden, the rest from being in physical contact with Victory. “I will wish you a good day, Miss Jones.”
She gave a haughty acknowledgment with the tilt of her chin. “Your lordship.”
Gabriel had seen and heard enough of this nonsense. “We will both see you tomorrow, Winter.” He frowned as the other man stepped out into the street with the obvious intention of walking back to Winter House. “Where is your carriage?”
The other man grimaced. “I was unsure as to how long I would be, so decided to dismiss my driver and carriage for the night.” He glanced down at his soiled and odorous clothes. “I believe I must have had a premonition as to what was about to occur.” He expressed the horror of the possibility of soiling his carriage with his now foul-smelling clothing.
Gabriel gave a snort as he glanced down at his similarly ruined attire. “I wish I’d had that same warning.”<
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“No one asked ya to come bursting into me ’ome throwing yer weight around—”
“If you are going to revert back to talking like a guttersnipe when I now know you can speak perfectly good King’s English, then you will not be allowed to speak at all,” Gabriel snapped at Victory’s outburst. “Inside the house with you,” he added when, miraculously, she fell silent. “We will adjourn to my study and discuss this matter further.”
Winter touched the brim of his hat. “I will see you both again tomorrow.”
“The afternoon will be early enough.” In truth, Gabriel was feeling somewhat ridiculous for not having realized before now that Victory was a female and felt he would need those extra hours to accept his own gullibility.
Now that he was aware of the truth, he could clearly see, as Winter had, that Victory’s features were delicately beautiful rather than those of a young boy on the cusp of either manhood or starvation. Although that was no reason to suppose Victory, the young woman, was any better fed than the boy Gabriel had thought her to be. The dirt on her face and the bulky clothes might be worn to disguise the fact she was female, but it did not alter the physical evidence that she was far too thin and small for her age of nineteen years.
Or that her mother had died yesterday and been dispatched into a pauper’s grave this morning.
Something Gabriel had once again forgotten following Winter’s revelation regarding her gender. As he had also forgotten the rapidly cooling bathwater waiting for her upstairs in the blue bedchamber. “Let us go back inside the house, Victory,” he encouraged gently. “Once you have bathed and are dressed in clean clothes, I will arrange for dinner to be brought to us in the dining room.”
Her face lit up at the mention of refreshment. “Will there be any cake? I ain’t ’ad any—
“Victory,” he admonished wearily.
“I have not had anything sweet for some time.” The correction was accompanied by a demur downward sweep of her long dark lashes. But her enthusiasm did not remain suppressed for very long. “I love sweet things!” she burst out, her eyes glowing a deep green when she looked at Gabriel in eager anticipation of the sweet treat.
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