Notorious Pleasures

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  SILENCE HURRIED HOME, through the darkened streets of St. Giles.

  She’d meant to take only a quick trip to visit one of the home’s wet nurses and her tiny charge. But the moment she’d entered the woman’s apartment, she’d immediately caught the astringent scent of gin. That had led to recriminations, protests, and a rather awful scene before she’d finally walked out with the orphaned infant. No matter how sorry she might feel for the wet nurse—a widow with a child of her own—Silence couldn’t risk the well-being of such a tiny baby. The nursling was only a month or so old—a fragile age for a baby.

  She’d known of another possible wet nurse for the baby, but the second woman lived nearly a mile away from the first, and in the opposite direction of the home. She’d hurried there as fast as she could walk with the babe in her arms. And in the end, Silence had been very satisfied with the placement. The new wet nurse, Polly, had been employed in the past by the home and had always given satisfactory service. Although her own children were now weaned, Polly assured Silence that she had enough milk for the orphaned infant.

  A good day’s work, but an exhausting one, and the reason she was now caught out after dark.

  Silence pulled her light woolen cloak more securely about her shoulders and eyed a dark doorway as she passed it. She was trying very hard not to think of some of the awful tales she heard from Nell—an inveterate teller of horror stories. The woman who’d been strangled by a lover. The woman who’d been dragged into an alley and savagely attacked by three drunken men. The woman who had gone out to buy a meat pie for her four children and simply disappeared, her shoe found the next day in an alley.

  Silence shivered. All of Nell’s stories had two common elements: They were all about women out alone.

  And they all took place after dark.

  A cry came from up ahead, and Silence’s steps faltered. She was in a wide street, but there were no cross streets nearby. Only a single flickering lantern hung over a tiny cobbler’s shop. Voices could be heard and lights, growing stronger, coming nearer.

  Silence looked about desperately. A man shouted an angry curse. Then a crowd came tearing around the corner of the street up ahead. There were men holding torches, but also women. They milled and shouted, and in the middle was some kind of wretched thing that they were dragging by a collar.

  Someone smashed a window and Silence flinched. She was already backing away, turning to hurry up the street she’d just walked down. But that direction was away from the home. She looked over her shoulder as two men dragged the wretch they’d caught to the middle of the street and began beating him with cudgels.

  “ ’Ave mercy!” she heard their victim cry.

  There were more curses and amid them a single hoarse shout she could make out: “Informer!”

  Dear Lord, they were lynching a gin informer.

  Doors opened up ahead, but when she looked there hopefully, more people came out and ran toward the horrible scene behind her. The street was suddenly filled with shouting madmen. Someone jostled her and Silence tripped. She fell against a house wall, pressing herself back.

  A drunken man loomed in front of her, hands twitching, ugly mouth leering. Without a word, he snatched the hood from her head, pulling her hair painfully as he did so. Behind him, flames shot up to the sky, framing his black face with orange. What in God’s name were they doing to the poor informer?

  But she had worse to think about right in front of her. The ugly man leaned over her menacingly.

  Silence darted to the right and for a split second felt a rush of welcome relief because she thought she was free.

  Then a heavy hand caught her by the hair, and she knew the night was about to become a nightmare.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The queen tossed and turned that night on her royal bed, but in the morning she had come to a decision. She dressed with care, wearing her best cloth of gold gown and a diamond and ruby crown. Then she strode into the throne room to meet her suitors. The princes had dressed in their best as well. Prince Eastsun shone in robes of gold and silver, Prince Westmoon wore a doublet sewn with emeralds, and Prince Northwind was fairly encrusted with pearls. All three men stood tall and handsome, perfectly perfect in their splendor.

  “Have you made your decision?” Prince Eastsun asked.

  Queen Ravenhair tilted her chin. “Yes….”

  —from Queen Ravenhair

  The first wave of attackers hit like a battering ram. They didn’t seem to have pistols, but they were armed with cudgels, and a few bore swords. Griffin fired his last shot from his remaining pistol, taking down the man leading the charge.

  Griffin drew his sword. “For Nick Barnes!”

  A shot came from behind him, and then the Vicar’s men from one end and the soldiers from the other converged, and he and Deedle were in the middle of a melee. Griffin swung his sword with one hand, nearly severing a man’s arm. The man howled and fell and was trampled by a horse.

  For a moment, through the mass of heaving men, Griffin saw a face—or what might be a face in a nightmare. The man’s flesh looked as if it had turned to wax and melted down the side of his skull before hardening in a grotesque parody of facial features. Griffin blinked and the vision was gone.

  Griffin punched another man and was shoved hard in return. Someone swung a cudgel at him, and he took the blow on his left shoulder, his entire arm going numb. He shook his head, trying to clear a trickle of blood from his eyes. He didn’t even remember the wound from which it came. He expected at any moment to be shot or impaled from behind but didn’t bother looking.

  Death would find him soon enough.

  Beside him Deedle cursed. Griffin turned to see Deedle stagger back from three men. His arm was painted red.

  Griffin shouted and charged Deedle’s attackers. He felt his face stretch into a grin as he threw the first man aside. The other two turned tail and ran. Then, suddenly, there was a break and he was face-to-face with a gleaming black boot ornamented with a gold spur. He looked up and saw Wakefield glowering down at him from atop a huge black horse.

  “Reading!” Wakefield shouted. “Is this your still?”

  “Fuck you,” Griffin replied, and elbowed a short, bandy-legged tough in the face.

  Wakefield drew a pistol, aimed it over Griffin’s head, pulled the trigger, and nearly deafened Griffin with the boom! He looked at Griffin again, frowning, and his lips moved, but Griffin couldn’t hear him.

  He was jostled from behind and Griffin turned. Deedle was using one of his pistols to beat a man about the head.

  Griffin felt a touch on his shoulder and swung his sword.

  Wakefield jerked up, then cupped his hand about his mouth, shouting. “Are these your men?”

  “Would I be fighting my own men?” Griffin asked in exasperation.

  He dodged aside as a man staggered toward him, then kicked the fellow’s feet out from under him before stomping him once viciously in the head. He glanced around. Most of the Vicar’s men were fleeing in disorder, routed by the more experienced fighting of the soldiers.

  “It appears you have a business rival, then,” Wakefield observed.

  He drew his sword and leaned down to slap the blade against the face of a charging rough. The man spun with the force of the blow and his own momentum, and Griffin finished him off by hitting him across the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. Griffin watched the man slump to the ground and then turned to Wakefield with a sarcastic reply on his lips.

  But he saw a movement beyond Wakefield’s giant horse, and Griffin’s shoulders tensed in horror instead.

  There at the mouth of the alley, Hero was picking her way delicately toward the fight, the footman beside her armed only with a lantern and a wavering drawn pistol.

  “Christ,” Griffin breathed.

  Wakefield glanced over his shoulder. “What the hell is my sister doing here, Reading?”

  * * *

  THOMAS HAD NEVER knelt to anyone. He was aware as he
looked up at Lavinia how humble the position was, but that was appropriate: He was a petitioner for her hand. Indeed, he was desperate for her hand. If Lavinia left him, he’d have nothing. If she asked him, he’d crawl to her on hands and knees.

  Had she any idea the straits she’d left him in?

  But her brown eyes had filled with tears that made them glitter. “You know you cannot marry me, Thomas. You’ve told me so many times before.”

  She started to turn from him, but he was up and off the rug in a thrice, taking her hand, holding it between his own. “I’ve told you so, but I lied, Lavinia. Both to me and to you. I can marry you.”

  “But what about Anne? What about your fears of betrayal?”

  He felt ignoble panic rise in his chest. “They don’t matter.”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, they do. Anne horribly betrayed you, and you haven’t trusted a woman since. I can’t live with the constant fear that I’ll do something that you’ll misinterpret.”

  “No!” He closed his eyes, trying to control himself so he could make this important plea. “I was a cad, I admit it, to ever doubt you. You never strayed from me when we were together. You weren’t the one who found someone else. I was.”

  “But—”

  “No, hear me out.” He squeezed her hand. “I know I am the problem. Griffin told me that he’d never seduced Anne, yet I refused to give him the satisfaction of believing him. Please, please, Lavinia, trust me. Let me prove I can change.”

  She was shaking her head, trying ineffectually to wipe at the tears. “What of parliament? Or the succession of the marquessate?”

  “Don’t you see?” He shook his head, searching for the words, he who was known for his eloquence on the floor of the House of Lords. “None of that matters. Without you, I am a shadow of a man, a mere wisp. Parliament, even the marquessate, can survive without me, but I cannot survive without you.”

  She made a sort of gasping sound.

  “I love you, Lavinia,” he said, desperate now. “I don’t think that’s ever going to change, because I’ve tried to stop and I can’t. I love you and I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”

  “Oh, Thomas!” She was half laughing, half crying. Her eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy, and strangely she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  HERO STARTED RUNNING the moment she saw Griffin beside Maximus on his horse. They were lit by flickering torches and in the midst of a desperate battle, but all she could see were the two men. Dear God, was her brother about to kill her lover?

  “My lady!” George shouted, and blocked a blow from a man with a large stick. “My lady, please!”

  Griffin ducked around Maximus’s horse. He shoved aside a man in his way, stabbed another with his sword, and punched and then kicked a third. In all of this, he never took his eyes from Hero. Even in the dimly lit alley, his pale green eyes seemed to glow with a savage light. He reached her just as George gave a shout and fired his pistol.

  Hero flinched and turned to see a man falling, bloody, at George’s feet.

  Then her shoulders were grabbed, and she was swung around. Griffin glared down at her. He’d lost his wig and was bleeding from a cut on his forehead. Blackened blood was drying on the right side of his face, his right eye gleaming in the midst of the gore like a demon.

  She almost fainted from the relief of seeing him alive and whole. Thank God she’d arrived in time. Thank God she’d not have to spend the rest of her life mourning him. Thank God—

  Griffin opened his mouth. “What the hell are you doing here, you bloody stupid woman?”

  She blinked and stiffened. “I just spent the last hour traveling across London to get to you!”

  “I told you never to go into St. Giles alone!” He shook her.

  “I had George—”

  He snorted. “George! One man! And after dark. Have you completely lost your senses?”

  She thrust up her chin. “I was coming to rescue you, you… you cad!”

  Tears of humiliation and hurt were flooding her eyes. She shoved away from him and turned to flee.

  He muttered a completely inappropriate curse and grabbed her from behind. He swung her around, and then his mouth was on hers, hot and angry and oh so alive.

  She was glad—so very glad—that he was well, even if he’d just been awful to her, that she opened her lips beneath his and wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around his neck. Sight and sound and place disappeared until it was just the two of them, alone in their own world. Her heart was beating loud in her ears. She could smell gunpowder and sweat on him, and the sharp, acrid scents made him more real. More alive. She could taste her own tears on his lips—tears of joy.

  “Hero,” he groaned.

  “Griffin,” she sighed.

  “Jesus,” someone muttered in disgust nearby.

  Griffin raised his head but didn’t take his emerald eyes from hers. “Go away, Wakefield.”

  Hero’s eyes widened, and she glanced wildly around until she saw her brother, still seated on his black horse, staring disapprovingly down at them.

  “You can’t take him!” she cried, and clutched at Griffin’s broad shoulders. Maximus could hardly arrest Griffin if she clung to him bodily.

  “He’s not going to arrest me,” Griffin said, arrogant as always. “Not if you marry me.”

  “Are you blackmailing my sister?” Maximus growled.

  “If I have to.” Griffin’s gaze had returned to hers, and what she saw there suddenly made her heart fly free. “I’ll do whatever it takes to marry you, Hero.”

  She caressed his jaw—the only part of him not covered in blood—with unsteady fingers. “You don’t have to blackmail me to marry you. I love you.”

  His eyes flared and he pulled her close again. “Do you mean that? You’ll marry me?”

  “Gladly,” she breathed.

  He bent his head and kissed her, but just as she opened her mouth beneath his, he jerked his head up.

  “My lord!” A soldier had come running up to Maximus. “There’s rioting just to the west of here. Shall we send for reinforcements?”

  Hero looked at Griffin in horror. “That’s where the home is!”

  He nodded. “Right.” He glanced about and bellowed, “Deedle!”

  Griffin’s valet appeared, his hair on end, one arm bloodied, but he was standing upright. “Aye, m’lord?”

  “Have the Vicar’s men taken the bait?” Griffin asked cryptically.

  Maximus frowned. “What’s this?”

  Deedle grinned from ear to ear. “ ’Is men are in and ours are out, m’lord.”

  “Then do it.”

  Deedle nodded. He placed two fingers between his lips and blew a shrill, piercing whistle.

  Griffin turned to Maximus. “I suggest you call your men to you.”

  Maximus raised his eyebrows suspiciously but shouted, “To me!”

  At once the remaining soldiers started for him.

  “Taking a while, isn’t it?” Deedle said worriedly.

  BOOM!

  A huge concussion made the very ground shake. Bricks tumbled from the nearest buildings while at the same time an intense light lit the night. The smell of smoke filled the air.

  Hero grabbed for Griffin. “What was that?”

  “That’ll cut the Vicar down to size.” Griffin grinned ferociously. “Nick would’ve liked the pretty trap we set for the Vicar and his men.”

  Maximus, who had been eyeing the explosion, turned to look down at them. “You blew the still, didn’t you?”

  Griffin grinned. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. But if a still did blow, it might be because a very insistent lady recently showed me the evils of gin and gin distilling.”

  Hero’s heart swelled as tears pricked her eyes. “Oh, Griffin!”

  Maximus grunted. “You’re an annoying prick, but I suppose I must accept you into the family.”

  He glanced a
t Hero.

  She tilted her chin up. “Unless you prefer I elope?”

  Maximus shuddered. “I’d never hear the end of it from Cousin Bathilda if you did.” He leaned down and offered his hand to Griffin. “Pax?”

  Griffin took the proffered hand. “Pax.”

  “Now.” Maximus straightened in the saddle. “Where is this orphanage?”

  SILENCE LOOKED UP at the drunken tough advancing on her and wondered if she would want to live after he finished with her.

  A shout came from behind the man. Since it was merely one of many raucous voices raised in the night, her attacker ignored it. But he couldn’t ignore the gloved hand that slapped down on his shoulder. The drunken lout began to turn, but he suddenly spun in an oddly graceful movement that ended with him face-first on the ground.

  Silence blinked and glanced up at her savior.

  And then she could only stare. The man before her looked like something out of a pantomime. He wore breeches and a tunic patterned all over in a harlequin’s red and black diamonds. On his feet were tall black jackboots, and cuffed black gloves covered his hands. A grotesque half-mask with an enormous hooked nose concealed his features, leaving only his mouth and chin bare. As she looked at him, he doffed a huge wide-brimmed black hat and swept her a courtly bow.

  “You’re the Ghost of St. Giles!” she blurted.

  His mouth curled at the corner, but he made no sound, simply gesturing with his hat before him as if to direct her path.

  “I live over there,” she said, feeling a bit foolish for talking with a mute comic actor.

  His mouth tightened, and again he bowed and most definitely directed her in the opposite way from the home.

  “I suppose I can trust you?” she said.

  He grinned, which did not at all set her mind at rest. On the other hand, he had saved her, and with such a notorious escort, she had no fear of being accosted again.

  “Very well.” She lifted her skirts and then stopped as she saw someone beyond him.

  There on the other side of the street was Mickey O’Connor. He stood facing her, hands on hips, a slight frown between his beautiful brows, making no attempt to conceal himself from her.