The Reluctant Reformer

by Lynsay Sands

  The servant hurriedly fetched his overcoat, hat, and gloves. As the man assisted him in donning them, James added, "Have some things packed. I am leaving tonight."

  "Tonight, my lord?"

  "Yes. I shall be staying at Ramsey for a while."

  "Yes, my lord."

  Maggie peered in at the scene taking place in the room next to Maisey's, and she groaned aloud. Her fingers tightening on the cold wall, she leaned her head unhappily against it. After trading clothes, Maisey had helped her climb back out onto this ledge, hissing that Lady X and Lord Hastings were in the room on the left. She had then left and hurried to attend the impatiently pounding Frances.

  Relieved to be out of her predicament Maggie had immediately inched along the ledge to the next window, expecting to find the room empty. Unfortunately, what she had not realized was that Maisey had been referring to her own left--which, of course, with Maggie clinging to the wall facing her, was Maggie's right. Which meant Maggie should have gone right. Which she hadn't. She had ended up coming all this way for nothing, for while curtains shrouded the window, making the images beyond blurred and foggy, the figures were discernible enough to see two people engaged in the most energetic round of ride-the-pony it had ever been Maggie's misfortune to witness.

  Resignedly Maggie turned to glance back along the ledge, took a deep breath, then began the long return the way she had come, clinging like a limpet to the wall as she did. She was nearly back at Maisey's window before she realized that in her haste, the prostitute had neglected to close it. Grimacing, she paused to the side and peered around its edge.

  The time since she had crept from the room seemed like a century to Maggie, and while she knew that it was just the stress of the moment making it seem so, she was surprised to see that she must have indeed been gone for quite a length of time. A good ten minutes must have passed, at least, for Maisey--playing Maggie--had already served Frances a drink by a small table and chairs near the bed. Their refreshments finished and whatever passed for small talk between them done, Frances now knelt at Maisey's feet, the prostitute's hands clasped gently in his, heartfelt longing on the pastor's reverent face.

  "I have known you for quite a while now, Margaret," he was saying. "Long enough to know that you are the woman for me. I would be most honored if you would consent to be my bride."

  "Yes," Maisey agreed in a bored tone.

  The pastor frowned. "Surely she wouldn't just say yes like that?"

  "What would she say then?"

  "Well, I don't know. Just...try to sound a bit more enthusiastic, please."

  "Yes," the prostitute cooed.

  Frances continued to frown, but apparently decided he wouldn't get much more out of the girl. Shrugging slightly, he surged to his feet, drawing Maisey up and into his arms with the same move. "You shan't be sorry, my dear. I shall make an outstanding husband--I promise you, we shall have a marvelous marriage." This he managed to gasp out between slobbery kisses across Maisey's cheeks and down her neck. When he reached the top of the prim black gown she now wore, he paused and pulled back to leer at her. "I love the proper little things you wear. They hide your lovely body from the eyes of other men, but there is no need to hide from me any longer." With that, he grasped the collar of the gown and ripped downward, rending it nearly to the waist before lifting wide eyes to Maisey's dismayed face. "Oops," he said lightly. "Now you shall have to punish me."

  "Ye're damn right I will," the girl snapped irritably. "And ye'll be replacin' that gown, too. It weren't even mine."

  "Then I, of course, shall replace it," Frances promised, unperturbed by her obvious anger. Releasing Maisey, he stepped back and began doffing his clothes.

  Maggie turned away, unwilling to watch what would follow. She tried judging the space between where she stood and the other side of the window, wondering if she could traverse the distance quickly enough that she might not be detected. She supposed it depended on how distracted the two in the room were. Glancing back inside reluctantly, she saw Frances slide out of his top and drape it across the chair he had just vacated. Glimpsing welts on his back, Maggie paused in dismay, her gaze moving to Maisey to see that the girl had retrieved a long, wide leather belt from the armoire and was now eyeing Frances with a decidedly jaundiced eye. He continued stripping.

  Staring in surprise at the pastor as he shed his trousers, Maggie saw that welts covered not just his back, but his buttocks and the rear of his upper thighs as well. She frowned in bewilderment. Was this what Madame Dubarry had wanted her to see? Did Frances really pay Maisey to beat him with a belt? Some of the girls had told her such tales in their interviews: stories of men who enjoyed odd or even unhealthy diversions during their sexual encounters. Was Frances one of those? It would seem so.

  She shook her head with a sort of pity combined with disgust. What would make a man turn to such games? Frances had seemed such a normal, well-mannered, polite sort.

  The first crack of the belt across Frances's back dragged Maggie from her ponderings to the realization that she was perched on a ledge outside the third-floor window of a brothel, balanced delicately between breaking her neck and being discovered and ruined. This was no time to be reflecting on Frances's foibles. She should just be grateful she had learned of them ere he proposed. Imagine if she had accepted, never knowing that just hours before the man had been whipped, among other things, by one of Madame Dubarry's girls.

  Would he have expected her to beat him once they were married? Maggie immediately pushed the question out of her head with a shudder. She had no time for such thoughts. She would not be accepting his proposal. On that determined note, she peeked into the room once more, relieved to see that Pastor Frances and Maisey were suitably distracted, then forced herself to move past the window and continue on toward the next window along the wall.

  James stood uncomfortably inside the foyer at Madame Dubarry's, waiting impatiently for Johnstone to conclude his whispered conversation with the madam herself. Ramsey had already been approached by, and turned down the offers of, three of the madam's girls, one of whom had offered to do a thing or two that he had never considered trying before. He certainly did not wish to attempt it now, here in this place.

  "It's done, yer lordship. Madame says Lady X is with Lord Hastings now, but you can have a go at her next."

  "I do not intend to 'have a go at her,' as you so delicately put it," James said in a hiss.

  A flicker of irritation crossed Johnstone's face before the runner controlled it. "I didn't think you would, my lord. But I could hardly tell her ye wished to kidnap the girl, now, could I?"

  "I am not kidnapping her. I am rescuing her."

  "Aye. Well, I'd guess that there is a matter of perspective, ain't it?" Pausing, the man shook his head. "Either way, it'll cost ye deep," he announced, then mentioned a shocking sum.

  "You must be joking."

  "I never joke about money, m'lord. But ye'll either be paying that amount or waiting till a week from Sunday to lay hands on her. She's booked full for the night--a different man every half hour. Dubarry was willing to bump everyone back, but she wants to be paid well for the trouble. What should I tell her?"

  James considered walking out the door, getting in his carriage, and riding to Lady Wentworth's home to await her return there, but his conscience would not let him. He had made a promise to look after the girl--and looking after her did not mean glancing the other way while she bedded some two dozen or so men. Muttering under his breath, he pulled a bag of coins from his pocket and dropped it in the hand the Bow Street runner extended. "How long until Hastings's half hour is up?"

  Johnstone's gaze slid to a clock in the hall. "About ten minutes. I'll just give Dubarry the money; then we'll go have a look around and see if there's another way out of here."

  "Another way out?"

  "Surely you didn't think to march out the front door with her, did ye? Dubarry ain't gonna like that. The girl is her golden goose."

  "Ah, yes
." James sighed; then he, too, stared at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes.

  Maggie grabbed the edge of the window with relief and paused to rest her face on the cold glass. She was sweating. Amazingly enough, she was more terrified of falling than of discovery, which was surprising, because she could remember a time when the prospect of social ruin had been more frightful than anything. But that had been when she could afford such pretty concerns as her reputation, before she'd had the burden of so many lives piled on her shoulders.

  "Damn you, Gerald, for dying, anyway," she cursed in a whisper, then immediately--if silently--apologized to her poor brother for cussing him so. Gerald had loved life. He had lived every moment of his short time on earth as if it might be his last. He had not complained when he was ordered off to fight Napoleon. And she had no doubt he had given his life in battle with as much passion and as little regret as with which he had lived. It was just too damn bad he'd been forced to leave her in such a fix.

  As a woman, Maggie had been unable to inherit her brother's title and estates. While he had bequeathed her his town house in London--a purchase he had made with money from investments before inheriting his title and station from their father--everything else had been entailed to some blasted second or third cousin...if they had found the bloody man. The only money Maggie had to live off of was a small investment she had made with her own inheritance from their mother.

  It wasn't really that small an investment. In fact, she could have lived quite comfortably off of it for her entire life--had she not been saddled with Gerald's property and servants. It was a town house fit for a duke, with lots of rooms, and nearly as many employees in attendance.

  The practical side of Maggie had ordered her to release the servants, close the house, sell it, and move to a small cottage in the country. There she might have lived very comfortably with one or two hired hands. However, sentiment had not allowed her to sell the property. Gerald had loved the place. He had rarely even bothered to ride out to the estate he had inherited with his title, but his town house--there his spirit seemed to linger still. Maggie simply could not part with his home; it was her last link to her now all-but-deceased family. And as for the servants...faced with closing up part of the house and releasing a large portion of the staff, Maggie simply hadn't been able to do it. Gerald's staff were hardworking, cheerful individuals. She hadn't been able to look a single one of them in the face and tell him he was no longer wanted.

  Such being the case, she had been forced to find a way to support the large staff. The answer had come by chance. While sorting through her brother's papers, Maggie had come across the knowledge that her brother had led a double life. He'd been Lord Gerald Wentworth, Duke of Clarendon, and also G. W. Clark--the adventurist writer who wrote columns for the Daily Express. He'd provided articles about the seedier side of London life: rumors, truths, stories of gaming hells, fortunes won and lost, affairs, everything. From Gerald's papers Maggie had learned he had met with Mr. Hartwick--the editor of the Express--only once, and then he'd been in disguise to protect his identity. Members of the nobility did not do anything so crass as to work.

  She had also learned that he wrote the articles and dispatched them via Banks, his butler. Which was when Maggie'd had her brilliant idea: she would become G. W. Clark. She could do it--and she had for the last three months. She had gone to great lengths to continue her brother's column, going so far as to dress up as a young buck and travel to the seedier sections of London with Banks in tow to protect her--for all the good the elderly butler was.

  All that was how she had ended up standing here on the ledge outside the third-floor window of Madame Dubarry's. The woman had apparently been a great friend of her brother's, at least according to his notes. Certainly Madame Dubarry had been privy to the fact that her brother was G. W. Clark, for when the column had started up again three weeks after his death, she had paid a visit to Maggie.

  With a sense of adventure equal to Maggie's and her brother's, Madame Dubarry had arrived on the Wentworth doorstep dressed as a poor fruitseller. On being shown in to see Maggie, the madame had announced her true identity, revealed that Gerald had been G. W. Clark, and complained that some "dastardly devil" had stolen his name. Maggie had been forced to confess herself the culprit. By the end of a pot of tea, she and Dubarry had struck up an unlikely friendship. They had been in cahoots ever since--although the woman had only recently given in to the interviews of her employees.

  Amazing, Maggie thought. For the first time, she considered that perhaps Agatha Dubarry had been right when she had suggested Maggie come dressed as a man to this night's activities. Maggie had shrugged away the suggestion, thinking that the madam's girls might be more forthcoming with information while talking to another of their gender. It had worked, too. She had been introduced as the sister of G. W. Clark, sent to interview them, and the girls had responded very easily. And no one had known her true identity, not until Agatha had slipped up in Maisey's room. Maggie found she wasn't too concerned about Maisey, though. She had no doubt that Madame Dubarry could keep the girl quiet. Her real problem would be if some member of the ton saw her; then she would be recognized and ruined for sure. There was no way Agatha Dubarry could keep all of London quiet.

  Yes, now would indeed be a beneficial time to be disguised as a man. And, she thought as she glanced down nervously past her long skirts, such a disguise would also have made climbing about on ledges more seemly.

  "Lord Ramsey, we'll have to sneak her down the back stairs and smuggle her through the kitchen."

  James nodded at Johnstone's suggestion. After he'd made a brief but thorough examination of the brothel, it indeed seemed the best bet to get the girl out. "Go have my driver move the carriage to the alley," he instructed, his eyes on the clock in the hall. "Hastings's time is up. I'll go see if he has left yet."

  Nodding, Johnstone hurried away toward the front door, and James started upstairs. He was at the top of the steps before he realized that the runner hadn't told him in which room Lady X was supposed to be. He was about to return downstairs to ask Madame Dubarry when he changed his mind. He would recognize Hastings. Everyone knew of Hastings, if not in person, then by reputation. He was second only to the crown in power. Whichever room Hastings exited, James would enter.

  He had just come to that conclusion when the thud of a door made him turn back around on the landing. A glance up the hall showed Hastings strolling jauntily toward him, whistling under his breath as he straightened his cravat. James almost cursed aloud. He had been too slow; he couldn't be sure from which room the man had come. There were several possibilities.

  He would try them all, he decided resolutely. Giving Hastings a curt nod, he moved purposely past him to set about his work.

  The thud of a closing door tore Maggie from her thoughts, and she glanced through the window into the empty room to which she had inched. If her thoughts had distracted her so long that this room was now occupied, too, she thought she might very well throw up. She did not think she had the stamina or nerve to traverse the length of the ledge again. It was with some relief that she saw that the room appeared empty. Let ting her breath out, she reached down, opened the window, and silently slipped inside.

  Now that they were on solid ground, her legs were more than just a bit rubbery. Ordering them to stand firm, Maggie strode quickly across the room, pausing at the door to take a breath and listen for sounds in the hallway. When she heard only silence, she eased the door open. About to step out of the room, Maggie recalled the mask Maisey had given her--she had shoved it into her pocket in her rush to finish dressing and escape. It would be better to wear the thing. So thinking, she turned back into the room and started to lift the flimsy red silk mask to her face. Her eyes fell on a bed and a woman gaping at her from the shadows within. The two females gaped at each other briefly; then the sound of footsteps in the hall reminded Maggie that she had to get out of here. She quickly finished raising the mask to her face, tied the str
ings of it in place, then slipped from the room without a murmur of apology.

  She had just finished pulling the door closed when a hand slid around her from behind, covering her mouth and smothering her startled cry. She was lifted bodily, bundled in her cape, and carted swiftly down the hall.

  Chapter Two

  "Any problems, m'lord?"

  The words came muffled through her cape to Maggie some few minutes after she found herself so abruptly abducted--minutes during which she had struggled uselessly against the iron arms of her assailant and attempted to scream through the wide, firm hand that covered the lower half of her face. Her struggles ended rather quickly, though. The hand covering her face was not just over her mouth, but also rested along the bottom of her nose, and though she didn't think it was her abductor's intention, she was very close to fainting from lack of oxygen. Her ears were ringing.

  For a moment when she heard the voice, Maggie felt hope that the hand across her face would be released and she would again be able to suck into her deprived body some much-needed air. But rather than let go, the hand shifted, covering her more firmly as she was jostled and dragged into what could only be the dark interior of a closed carriage. In the next moment, the clip-clop of horses' hooves on the cobbled London street, and a jolt as the conveyance started forward, told Maggie her guess was right.

  Her ears ringing more loudly, she prayed that her suffocation would end before it was too late. The hand remained firmly in place. Glancing around wildly, Maggie realized that, rather than adjusting to the dimmer light, her sight seemed to be dimming further. She would not get air in time to prevent fainting; she could only hope that she would get it in time to stave off death. With that, she slipped into the dark, soft cushion of unconsciousness.

  "She's gone limp," Johnstone announced, squinting through the dim light at the woman James held across his lap. "I think she's faint--Damn, Lord Ramsey! You've got both her nose and mouth covered! She can't breathe!"