The Lady’s Lover

by Deb Marlowe

  “Might be so, yer lordship. I was up early, changing a poultice on one of our coach horses. Saw a man bring something from the inn and load it into a carriage. It might have been a woman, bundled up in blankets.”

  Stoneacre’s heart sank. “Did you get a look at the man?” He knew he was grasping at straws. “Did you know him?”

  “No, not him, my lord, though he was a big ’un. But the driver. I do think I knew him. He’s one of the stablemen at the Red Fox.”

  Determination chased the rest of his lethargy and nausea away. “Thank you, sir.” He passed the groom a gold coin. “Get me a mount right away, will you?”

  Ten minutes later, he rode into the courtyard at the Red Fox. The yard stood empty. No one came to take his horse.

  He hitched the animal to a post and strode inside. “Fetch me the owner of the place,” he demanded of a porter coming down the stairs with a lady’s valise. Its owner trailed after him, and she ducked her head at Stoneacre’s request.

  “He’s not here,” the young man replied, nervous.

  “Where is he?”

  The boy flushed bright red. “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  The woman behind him tugged her hood further forward. He stopped to look at her. She was too short to be Hestia. But he caught a glimpse of her as she turned away—and he stalked across to take her roughly by the arm.

  “What are you doing here? Where is she? Where’s Hestia?”

  The woman tried to pull away. “You’re too late.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’ve been summoned,” she answered. “We’ve all been summoned.”

  Marstoke crooked a finger and the opulent doors behind her opened again. She looked over her shoulder to see a small man pass through. His face was stained with soot and sweaty rivulets ran down his face and neck, leaving streaks. She smelled sour ale and sweat as he passed and he paused to cast a menacing look over her. She frowned as she realized he was the man who had been stirring something in the cauldron. Did she know him, perhaps? She strained to remember.

  He came to stand before Marstoke, looking up at the marquess expectantly.

  “You know the lady, Gordie?”

  The man nodded and shot her another dark look—and with a sudden flash, she realized that she did know him.

  “I understand she’s done you a wrong turn?” Marstoke prompted.

  “The worst, yer honor, sir.”

  Marstoke gestured impatiently. “Well, then, come on, man. Tell us about it.”

  “Well, and I had a little house, sir, where I lived and kept my whores and made decent enough money. Until she bought the lease out from under me and turned me out.”

  Hestia scoffed. “You never held the lease. You were just squatting in that house.”

  “Yes, and well enough, until you put me and all me girls out onto the street.”

  “Half of your girls came to my house, you cretin. I saw the bruises you put all over them.”

  “So? You’ve got to hit whores,” he said reasonably. “Naught else makes ’em behave.”

  She shook her head. “The girls who came with me are safe now, working decent positions where they are paid good wages and they don’t have to fear such abuse. Do you think they are complaining about that?”

  “I’m complainin’ about it!” Gordie retorted. “Without a house, the rest of me girls got took by other pimps—and some o’ ’em are wors’n me!” he declared triumphantly. “And I had ter get new work,” he grumbled. “Look at me now.” He wiped his face with his dirty shirt. “And ‘tis all thanks to yer interferin’.”

  Hestia merely raised a brow and looked pointedly past him at Marstoke.

  Gordie frowned and looked back—and alarm blossomed over his face. “Not that I ain’t that grateful, sir, ter be working fer yer honor, sir.”

  “Yes, yes.” Marstoke had heard enough from Gordie. He waved a hand. “Bring in the next!”

  A tall, gaunt man shuffled in now. He looked them all over with disdain and didn’t appear to be happy to be there.

  “State your business,” Marstoke commanded.

  “I’m a kidsman.”

  Hestia had already known it—she’d recognized him instantly. But she hadn’t known he was still working his disgusting trade. She’d shut down the last flash house he’d run, and taken over a hundred half-starved children out of it.

  “State your grievance against this woman,” Marstoke repeated with an impatient sigh.

  “I had a good thing going in London. Trained up a good-sized crew o’ street rats and the livin’ had started to come easy.” He frowned at her. “But she brought in the constable and magistrate and they took ever’ one o’ them away. Had to skip out o’ Town and start over from scratch—and just no one don’t appreciate how long it takes to train up a kid the right way. Too many of ’em get caught at first, and they’re no good to me one-handed or transported off. I’m still barely makin’ enough to eat.”

  Hestia glared at him, knowing those children probably were not eating at all, and made herself a promise to find his new enterprise and give him more of the same.

  If she made it out of here alive.

  The next ‘witness’ accused her of snatching away his sister. She had to speak up when he accused her of spreading the rumor that she had the French pox.

  “She does it have, Eustace, you idiot,” she raged. “She must have picked it up as a child, too, so far has the disease progressed.”

  “You don’t know nothin’ about it,” he sniffed.

  “I know it’s eating her mind away,” she retorted. “She thinks she’s five years old and you were ‘punishing’ her by whoring her out—and you were spreading the pox across London.”

  “She brought in good money—and she didn’t remember it hours later anyways.” He lifted his booted foot. “Since you took her, my circumstances is severely reduced—I had to get these off of the resurrection men!”

  Marstoke’s lip curled and he dismissed the man. She wanted to scream at him. Disgusted by a dead man’s boots, but unmoved by a man who would treat his own sister so?

  But the testimonies went on. Marstoke called up pimps and madams, abusive husbands and old women who ran roughshod over young flower girls and street sweepers. It went on and on. Even the audience tired of it. The malevolent silence turned to shifting and sighing. Only Marstoke seemed to be enjoying himself and he conducted the enquiries with a dignified delight, urging each witness to damn her for her life’s work.

  It only strengthened her pride, to have thwarted all of these selfish, despicable specimens, to have given aid to those with no voice and no hope, to those abused by this soulless horde.

  At last, though, the parade of accusers ended and Marstoke stood.

  “All of these stories have been most affecting. You have much to answer for, Hestia Wright, but none of these victims have complaints to match my own, I think.”

  She bit back a laugh. Ah. Here was what all of this theater had been leading up to—a public airing of Marstoke’s grievances.

  “So long, you’ve been irritating me, I should have grown a callus.” He climbed out of his seat and walked the diameter of the dais, his hands clasped behind his back. “The personal affronts have been insult enough,” he began.

  She choked. “Personal affronts? To you? Have you lost your wits? You haven’t been dabbling with Eustace’s sister, have you?”

  That brought the silence swooping back in. She rather thought all of them were holding their breaths. One of the bulky guards ahead of her looked horrified, but she was incensed. “I was barely more than a girl when you engineered, then hijacked my elopement! You invalidated the marriage by disguising yourself and acting as the vicar—then you took the place of the groom on the wedding night! You held me prisoner for weeks! You beat and raped and abused me and you have the sheer, unmitigated gall to talk to me of personal affronts?”

  Someone hissed from the back of the room, but Marstoke’s glare cut it instant
ly off.

  “You are an evil-tongued witch,” he said to her, low and fierce. “You have maligned me from the highest reaches of Society to the lowest. You made me the subject of the caricaturists and the broad sheets! And what of your larger sins?” He raised a hand toward the crowd. “You have thwarted our efforts at change at every turn.”

  “Your plans for harming the monarchy and threatening the stability of our country?” she asked tartly.

  Marstoke raised a haughty brow. “The king is mad. His fat, philandering son is an imbecile. They do not deserve to rule.”

  “I do not believe in your grand vision for a new order, Marstoke—and I do not believe that you do, either.”

  “You may believe what you wish.”

  She snorted. “I know you. Better than any of these minions of yours.”

  He glanced over the audience behind her and then descended to stand before her. Her fists clenched helplessly in her bonds.

  “I rather think you are right about that,” he mused. He spoke in a quiet tone that wouldn’t carry. “No one else defies me the way you do. It is stimulating, I do admit it. It’s possible I might actually miss it.”

  She ignored the direction he was moving the conversation. “Your grievance with Prinny is personal. I know it, because I know you.” She lifted her chin. “You punished me because I rejected you. You destroyed Wilson because we were young and foolish and cared for each other. Those girls you took as payment due—it was because someone in their family defied you. You are always harshest with those who make you feel slighted in some way.” She leaned back. “It’s a shame that your character failing has been so dangerous to the rest of us.”

  He only looked amused, the bastard. “It’s true. You are more intelligent than any of this lot,” he said with regret. “Certainly you exceed the Prince Regent’s mental capacity.” He sighed and walked all the way around her. She ignored it, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead.

  His lips pursed, he stopped when he came back around to stand before her once more. “He wasn’t always so fat, but Prinny’s always been a fool. Not that it mattered,” he said bitterly.

  “Outshone you, did he?” she asked sardonically.

  “As if he could,” he scoffed. “Those days were different, you must know. More . . . savage. We ran wild, the young men of Society. We made today’s rakes look like country vicars. We got up to every wicked thing imaginable—gambling and racing—and putting the fix in on both. Drinking, even smuggling—and the women.” He sighed. “We could do anything to them. And I led them all. I took those boys to places they’d never dared to go themselves. And today they sit in judgment on me, as if they’d never examined the dark side of their souls.”

  He stood silent a moment, lost in memory. “Yes, I was their captain, until the young Prince of Wales showed up on the scene. Then they flocked to him. At the balls, the theatre, even at the fights and the races and when we went carousing amongst the low-born street rats, they all lost their minds bowing and scraping and your highness-ing.”

  “He stole your thunder,” she said, nodding. “But I’ll wager it was more than just the attention.” She stared directly up at him. “What was her name?”

  He looked at her with active dislike—but then he surprised her by answering. “Margaret Bronhold. She was nobody. A theater seamstress. But she was quick and intelligent and stunningly talented. A beauty—and damn, but that woman could flay you with her tongue. She was fearless. I was wild for her. We all wanted her. I did everything to win her—and she preferred that royal fool. The prince only dallied with her because his married mistress was pregnant and off on her lying-in. But she liked him. Not only because of who he was, which was even more infuriating. They shared interests. History, literature, painting and the like. She chose him and he took her, then cast her off quicker than any of his other flings.”

  He shook his head and gave a sudden laugh. “You would have liked her. She would have liked you. I suppose you are alike, in many ways.” He paused and stared down at her. “Do you know, I sometimes think about it—how things might have been different. If only she had chosen me. If only you had given in to me. If you had agreed to partner me in the Great Game.” He sighed. “What might we have accomplished, together?”

  “Where is she?” Hestia asked quietly. “Where is Margaret Bronhold?”

  He scowled. “Dead. Long dead.” He gave a dark laugh. “Did you doubt it?” He backed away and raised his voice again. “Dead, as you soon will be. Because you had to fight me. Over and over and at every turn, you fight me.”

  “You know, you might have taken your fight directly to the Prince.”

  “On the social level? He’s a prince. And you saw how well that worked out for Brummel, did you not?”

  “You might have fought him in Parliament.”

  He waved a hand.

  “Too much like legitimate work? Was it so much better to scheme and plot and lure weak-minded and dissatisfied young men into your machinations? To use innocent young girls as pawns?”

  He leaned in and gifted her a slow, simmering smile. “Not only better, but more fun. The Game, Hestia. The Game is everything.” He turned and waved a hand at the watching crowd, raising his voice as he did. “And do be careful, my dear. Those men you call weak-minded are among those sitting judgment on you today.”

  He frowned suddenly. “And innocent and young is not what I would call you or your coven of harlots. You stole my fiancée, did you not? A grand move of revenge, that was.”

  “I didn’t steal her. She ran from you. She didn’t even know we had a history when she came looking for help.”

  “A likely story. Such a ragtag group you’ve gathered. Whores and street rats and royal bastards.” His face darkened. “And the lot of you sent me to Newgate! Me. In that rotting, stinking pit,” he spat. He paused to collect himself and draw a deep breath. “Your fate was sealed that day, Hestia Wright, and at last your day of reckoning has come.”

  She stiffened her spine.

  Behind them, the double doors opened again. Marstoke’s eyes widened and then he smiled broadly.

  She turned to look back with trepidation, sure that nothing that brought him such pleasure was going to go well for her.

  It was so much worse than she feared.

  Chapter 19

  You might join me, dear reader, in asking how Lord M— became so wicked? Was he born with this evil in his soul? Or did he grow to enjoy and pursue the pain and subjugation of others? I fear we may never come to understand it.

  --from the Journal of the Infamous Miss Hestia Wright

  * * *

  Stoneacre stood framed in the doorway. Her heart jumped—and then plummeted.

  His eyes locked on hers, and there it was again—that feeling of every nerve under her skin jumping to life, yearning toward him. He looked as rumpled and tired as she felt. The day old grain of his beard showed stark on his jaw—and all she wanted to do was to run her fingers over it.

  How had he found her? Surely no one else could have done it. It seemed impossible. She blinked back tears. But he’d already shown her he could do the impossible. He’d seen past her mask and convinced her to set it aside. He’d set a match to her soul and held it there until it sparked back to life.

  Relief showed in his gaze—but she knew it was ill founded. Marstoke would not be kind to either of them.

  “Lord Stoneacre,” the marquess purred. “You have arrived ahead of your slotted time.” Marstoke shrugged. “No matter. We will find you accommodations while you await your turn.” He turned to cast a truly malicious gaze at Hestia. “And I have lately learned that you might have a vested interest in today’s proceedings.”

  The guards on either side of him prodded Stoneacre into the room.

  “Sit him at the table,” Marstoke ordered. “And do not take your eyes off of him.”

  Hestia’s mind whirled. She began to work against her bonds in earnest. Bad enough that she might lose everythin
g to Marstoke in this ridiculous farce of a trial, but she’d be damned before she let him harm Stoneacre. She cast her gaze about, looking for a sympathetic face, something she could use as a weapon, anything.

  A stirring in the crowd behind her caught her attention and she craned a look over her shoulder again. A woman entered the room in Stoneacre’s wake. She was covered in a hooded cloak—and Marstoke looked delighted to see her.

  He descended from on high once more, and went to meet the woman. Murmuring a greeting, he led her forward and brought her up onto the dais to stand next to his grand chair.

  Hestia’s skin prickled. Who was it? Not Amelia. The woman up there was too short and slight of build. None of her girls would stand there so docilely. Who, then?

  “Lend me your attention, my faithful and most devoted followers. I wish to present someone truly special to you all. You know my complaints against Hestia Wright. We’ve heard all of yours today, as well. But this woman might just be the one with the most egregious grievance to lodge against her.” He shot a look of triumph at Hestia, then bent down solicitously toward the newcomer. “May I take your cloak, my dear?”

  Hestia held her breath. Her mind raced, trying to predict who could hate her so much as to help Marstoke in this—but the woman threw back her hood and the shock of the truth kicked her in the gut.

  She gasped for breath. “Beth?” she whispered.

  The woman wasn’t cowering now. She wasn’t frightened by the eyes watching her or by Marstoke, hovering over her. She only stood and looked calmly out at the faces watching her.

  Marstoke, however, was grandstanding. He stood straight and spoke loudly and clearly into the questioning murmurs of the audience. “Hestia Wright was once friends with this woman—and then she became her enemy. She stole more than money or opportunity from this dear lady. She got into a physical altercation with her and dashed her head against a stone hearth. She stole her very wits from her.”

  He took Beth’s hand, nodded and gestured toward the crowd.