Let Sleeping Rogues Lie

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “That’s the spirit,” Kirkwood remarked, and poured him a glass.

  The liquor went down easy and smooth, for it was indeed “dandy” brandy, but Anthony took less joy in it than usual. He flashed upon an image of his niece sitting wide-eyed and innocent at his table as she watched him stumble down to breakfast, and the liquor turned to ashes in his mouth.

  Damn it, Tessa wasn’t even in his care yet. Why the bloody devil shouldn’t he enjoy himself? He trusted his friends—they would never reveal outside this room that he was the same as he’d always been.

  Draining his glass, he thrust it out to Kirkwood. “Another.”

  “Now see here, you fool,” Foxmoor said, as Kirkwood refilled it, “we weren’t daring you to get cup-shot.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Stoneville retorted, an unholy light in his black eyes. “Give me another, too, Kirkwood.” He turned to the duke. “What about you, Foxmoor? Too henpecked to have a brandy?”

  “I have a brandy already, thank you.” Foxmoor tapped the glass he’d been nursing for the past hour.

  The duke’s tone of quiet reproach didn’t escape Anthony, who’d admired him ever since Foxmoor had befriended him at Eton. The older man had been the one to suggest that Anthony enroll Tessa in Mrs. Harris’s school since Foxmoor’s wife was connected to the place in some way.

  A pity that Anthony couldn’t get the duchess to put in a good word for him with the prickly Mrs. Harris. But Foxmoor’s wife had taken a dislike to him ever since she’d overheard him flirting with a widow in her Ladies Association. Like most charity-minded females, she had firm ideas about proper behavior.

  What would the duchess make of Miss Prescott, who claimed to have more concern for practicality than virtue? The image of the teacher debating the physical effects of strong drink with Foxmoor’s wife had him chuckling to himself until he realized the others were staring.

  God save him, couldn’t he get that chit out of his mind?

  He shot to his feet and held up his glass. “A toast, gentlemen!” He would banish the vexing female from his thoughts, even if he had to drink himself into a stupor. “To wine, wenches, and wickedness!”

  All except Foxmoor echoed the toast, with the duke only sipping some liquor. Now that the man had married, he was turning into a prig.

  As Anthony dropped back into the chair, Stoneville lifted his glass. “To brandy, brothels, and bad behavior!”

  Kirkwood arched an eyebrow. “That’s only a variation on Norcourt’s toast.”

  “Good enough for me,” Anthony mumbled, already slurring his words.

  Not that he cared, by God. He repeated the toast, then drained his glass.

  Raising his own glass, Kirkwood cried, “To spirits, soiled doves, and sin!”

  “And you called mine unoriginal?” Stoneville complained. “At least it flowed off the tongue.”

  “The only thing flowing off your tongue is bad breath,” Kirkwood shot back.

  Foxmoor rose abruptly. “I’m off, gentlemen. Thank you for dinner and the part of the conversation that was coherent.”

  “You’re leaving?” Anthony said.

  “Once Stoneville and Kirkwood turn to insulting each other, the evening generally heads downhill. And I have an early morning tomorrow.”

  So did Anthony.

  While Foxmoor settled his part of the bill, Anthony’s mind wandered to Mrs. Harris’s school. To be there at eight, he’d have to leave London no later than seven, which meant rising before six to dress.

  Of course, Miss Prescott had said he could arrive when he wished, but only because she thought him incapable of anything else. And because she would do whatever she must to get her favor, even hide his mishaps from her employer.

  He scowled. She probably expected him to stumble in around noon, green to the gills, reeking of liquor and stale perfume and forcing her to lie for him.

  If he stayed here longer, that’s exactly what would happen. Stoneville would drag him to a private brothel beyond the knowledge of the courts, where the two of them could carouse to their heart’s content. He would drink until he fell asleep in some whore’s arms, until dawn came and he could face his room alone.

  Unless…

  Unless he showed up bright and cheerful at eight in the morning and proved to the cool Miss Prescott that he could do whatever he set his mind to. Wouldn’t it be a pleasure to watch her jaw drop?

  Besides, once Tessa lived with him, he’d have to survive the nights alone in the dark somehow. Why not start learning to do it now? Miss Prescott had called wickedness a habit. Well, he’d show her he could break the habit whenever he wished. She’d have her rake lessons at eight in the morning, by God, even if he had to toss and turn half the night. The little naturalist would not get away with acting as if he was incapable of being responsible.

  He rose, annoyed to find himself already unsteady on his feet. Fortunately, he still had a good part of the night left to sober up.

  The duke was heading to the door when Anthony called out, “Foxmoor, wait! Would you drop me at my town house?”

  Foxmoor halted in surprise. “You don’t have your own carriage?”

  “I came with Stoneville.” Anthony skirted the table. “He’ll want to stay.”

  “Damned right.” Stoneville lurched to his feet. “Come now, you and Foxmoor can’t both take off early. Where does that leave me after Kirkwood heads home to the little woman?”

  “Alone, old chap.” Foxmoor’s eyes gleamed. “As Shakespeare says, ‘Get thee a wife.’”

  Stoneville indicated Kirkwood with a jerk of his head. “And spend my evenings in misery like our friend there? No thank you.”

  “We’ll go carousing another night,” Anthony told him. “But I have to be somewhere early tomorrow.”

  With a snort of disgust, Stoneville dropped back into his chair. “Fine. Run off if you must. Kirkwood and I will drink for the two of you.”

  As Anthony left with Foxmoor, the viscount was already pouring himself another drink.

  The minute they were out of earshot, Foxmoor murmured, “I’m worried about Kirkwood. It’s not like him to drink so heavily.”

  “Has something new happened, other than the usual troubles with his wife?”

  Foxmoor glanced back up the stairs. “I don’t know. He won’t discuss it.”

  “I’ll ask Stoneville if he’s heard anything.”

  “I’ll ask my wife, too, since Lady Kirkwood went to that school I recommended to you for your niece, the one run by my wife’s friend.”

  They’d reached the lobby, so Anthony waited until Foxmoor had called for his carriage. “Speaking of that school, I took your advice about enrolling Tessa.”

  “And Mrs. Harris agreed? Excellent. I wish I could have put in a good word for you, old chap, but—”

  “I know, your wife would have been consulted and would have hurried to give her friend a long litany of my sins. I do wish Kirkwood hadn’t been quite so forthcoming about our past exploits at your wedding.”

  “I’ll put in a good word for you when your case comes to court.”

  “So my uncle can tar you with the same brush as he’s tarring me?” Anthony stared out at Leicester Square, as busy at 10:00 P.M. as Rotten Row was at five. “No, I won’t have my friends soiled by him, too. You’re in politics now—you must be careful of your reputation.”

  “My reputation is secure, I promise you.”

  Foxmoor meant well, but his enemies would leap on any excuse to hurt him politically, and Anthony wouldn’t provide them the means for it. “If I get desperate, I’ll take you up on your offer, but I am more optimistic about my chances now.”

  “Good.” Foxmoor mused a moment. “Doesn’t your uncle have a daughter with a soft spot for you? Perhaps she will argue on your behalf.”

  “Jane is on her father’s list of witnesses, so I doubt she’d help me.”

  He had only himself to blame for that. He should have kept in better touch, visited to see how she was do
ing. But once he’d escaped that wretched house, the very thought of speaking of what they’d endured had frozen his heart. At Eton, he’d ignored her few letters, and they’d stopped once she’d married the new headmaster of the school in Telford.

  A pang of guilt gripped him. He should have written then, if only to congratulate her. But marriage to a headmaster implied that she’d succumbed to her mother’s rigid ideas, and he couldn’t endure hearing her also voice Aunt Eunice’s platitudes, claiming that their punishments had been “necessary” for their “discipline.” He couldn’t bear to hear that she’d become what he’d escaped by going to Eton. There’d been no school for Jane.

  Shoving his hand in his pocket, he fingered his snuffbox. Well, there’d be one for Tessa, damn it.

  As Foxmoor’s rig arrived, it occurred to Anthony that the duke might know more about the person who held Tessa’s future in her hand. “Foxmoor, do you ever visit Mrs. Harris’s school yourself?”

  He could feel Foxmoor’s gaze on him. “Occasionally, with Louisa. Why?”

  “There’s a peculiar teacher there named Miss Prescott. What do you know of her?”

  “You mean the blond beauty with the unusual eyes?”

  “I hadn’t noticed her appearance,” he lied, “but now that you mention it…”

  With a suspicious snort, Foxmoor headed for the door.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Anthony grumbled as he followed the duke into the carriage. “I’m merely curious because she claims to be a naturalist, and Tessa is interested in gardening.” All right, so that was a lie, but he’d be damned if he’d have Foxmoor speculating wrongly about Anthony’s interest in Miss Prescott.

  “I can’t tell you much.” Foxmoor knocked on the ceiling for the driver to go on. “The headmistress of a school in the country—I forget where—recommended her to Mrs. Harris when she and her father moved to Richmond.”

  “Can’t her father support them?”

  “I honestly don’t know. From what I understand, she is very private. Keeps to herself, doesn’t even bring her father around the school.”

  Interesting. Did she even have a father? Or was that some invention to make her appear respectable? “And the mother? What about her?”

  “Dead, I think.” With a sly lift of an eyebrow, Foxmoor added, “I could ask Louisa to be sure.”

  Anthony stiffened. “No, it’s only idle curiosity.” The last thing he needed was the duchess trying to marry him off to a woman of dubious background.

  Settling against the squabs, Foxmoor eyed him closely. “Does this have to do with the ‘friend’ who wants you to instruct his daughter about fortune hunters?”

  “No,” Anthony clipped out. Good God, had he been that transparent? Not even to Foxmoor would he confide what the ladies of the school had convinced him to do. The duke might be a pillar of the community, but he would still laugh his ass off at the thought of Anthony teaching anything to anyone…if he didn’t rise up in outrage and have Mrs. Harris put a stop to the “rake lessons.”

  Whatever those were.

  He stared out the window. Well, Miss Prescott would just have to explain her proposal more thoroughly if she wanted his compliance.

  Otherwise, she wouldn’t be getting her nitrous oxide party.

  A loud scraping noise in her tiny cottage woke Madeline from a dead sleep. She came instantly alert, a talent she’d had to cultivate of late. Hurrying from the bed, she dragged a wrapper over her night rail, then went in search of her father.

  She found him in the parlor, stabbing a poker into the fireplace. A glance at the clock made her groan. “Papa, it’s three o’clock. Why are you up?”

  “Too damned cold in this place,” he mumbled. “Can’t sleep.”

  With a weary sigh, she took the poker from him. She was in no mood for dealing with Papa, not after she’d tossed and turned half the night, replaying the viscount’s naughty kiss. “Go back to bed. I’ll heat you some milk.”

  He turned a frantic gaze on her, as he sometimes did after his nightmares woke him. “I had a dream.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” She guided him toward his bedchamber. “You shouldn’t take that sleeping draught. It always gives you wild dreams.”

  “But I can’t sleep without it. I keep…hearing her whisper at the end, hearing her labored breaths—”

  Madeline engulfed him in her arms, wishing she could banish his painful memories. Mrs. Crosby, the vicar’s wife, had been Papa’s last patient. Why had this one death tormented him for months now?

  She clutched him tightly. It was that horrible Sir Randolph’s fault. Papa had done nothing wrong while treating Mrs. Crosby. He certainly hadn’t committed the disgusting acts Sir Randolph claimed. Sir Randolph hated Papa for trying to bring reason to a town where ignorance held sway, so he’d seized on this nonsense to drum him out of town.

  “You did your best, Papa. It was Mrs. Crosby’s infection that killed her.”

  “How many times have I lanced abscesses with no ill effect?” He pulled free and went to stare dolefully at the fire. “I shouldn’t have given her anything for the pain, but the poor lady cried so pitifully…”

  Papa had a bias against laudanum, so he’d decided to try the nitrous oxide after what Sir Humphry had written in his book about its pain-relieving properties.

  He glowered at the hearth. “The nitrous oxide killed her—I just know it.”

  “It did not.” Madeline took his arm. “Otherwise, all those reckless lords imbibing it for fun would be dead by now.”

  “You see, you see?” he cried. “It is good for nothing but frivolity.”

  “That’s not true. We both know it has other untapped properties. Besides, you said yourself that Mrs. Crosby’s abscess was worse than it at first appeared.”

  “Yes, but to have it provoke acute fever and a racing pulse within moments…” He shook his head. “That never happened before with a patient.” As sudden as the anger came, it fled, replaced by his all-consuming sadness. Dropping into a chair, he buried his head in his hands. “She went so very quickly…a breath, two breaths, and she was gone.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  The weeping was what tore at her. Madeline had only seen her father cry at Mama’s funeral, until the vicar’s wife died. Since then he cried with no provocation, sometimes sobbing like an old man, though he was only fifty.

  “I killed her as surely as if I’d shot her,” Papa choked out. “Sir Randolph is right—I am a murderer for trying that nitrous oxide on her.”

  “Sir Randolph is a vicious fool, and you know it,” she protested.

  “Aye, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead. His other nonsense might be lies, but that part was true. And I deserve to be punished for that part alone.” With a woeful shake of his head, he dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief.

  Seeing him like this made her want to run Sir Randolph through with a rapier. It was bad enough that Papa was questioning his medical judgment, but he might have got through that if Sir Randolph hadn’t raised such a clamor over it. Then, to accuse Papa of giving Mrs. Crosby nitrous oxide in order to have his wicked way with her—what a ghastly falsehood!

  Sir Randolph and Papa had fallen out years ago, but people had believed Sir Randolph’s lies because Papa was a widower, and Mrs. Crosby had been the beauty of the town. They’d always been suspicious of his advanced scientific learning, since old wives’ tales formed the basis for most remedies in town. He’d spent his life caring for the townspeople, only to have them turn their backs on him at the first hint of scandal.

  Her hands curled into fists. The worst part was that he had let them. Once upon a time, he would have fought back. But his misplaced guilt over Mrs. Crosby’s death kept him from defending himself, which left only her to defend him.

  Why did this plague him so? He’d suffered spells of melancholy all her life, but they generally passed after a week or two. Even Mama’s death from consumption two years ago hadn’t resulted in such abject grief.
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  The thought of her mother made her choke back a sob. Mama would have known how to make him easy; whatever Madeline said merely provoked tears. Or worse, made him lash out in anger—and not just at her, but at their neighbors and tradesmen and even Mrs. Jenkins, the widow she’d hired to keep house.

  That was the reason she’d given Papa; the truth was she dared not leave him alone for fear that he would take his own life during one of his melancholy fits. The possibility terrified her.

  She’d hoped that moving from Telford and escaping the horrible gossip Sir Randolph kept stirred up would help him, that he might resume his practice in Richmond. But he’d been unable to do so.

  Thank heaven the headmistress at the Shrewsbury school, where Madeline used to teach, had been kind enough to recommend her to Mrs. Harris. Otherwise, they’d be facing poverty when Papa’s meager savings ran out.

  They might end up there yet. Even though the coroner’s inquest had deemed Mrs. Crosby’s death not a criminal matter, Sir Randolph was bent on convincing Reverend Crosby to have it reexamined by the authorities.

  Anger roiled in her belly. If that happened, she would have to hire a lawyer and spend money on Papa’s defense. But if she could convince Sir Humphry to come to Telford and speak to the vicar himself, he could assure the man that nitrous oxide was perfectly safe, that other people had used it in such a capacity—and not to “have their wicked way” with anyone, either.

  A sigh wracked her. It was a flimsy hope, at best. For one thing, it depended on Lord Norcourt providing a chance for her to meet the famous chemist, and how likely was that?

  The snoring from the chair startled, then relieved her. Papa had fallen asleep. Thank the Lord.

  Careful to keep her steps quiet, she returned to her own bed. But now she couldn’t sleep. It was the third night this week that Papa had awakened her at some horrible hour, and she sometimes caught herself nodding off while the girls did an exercise at their desks. She was just so very tired…

  It seemed like only seconds later that something shook her. She snuggled deeper into her pillow.

  “Miss Prescott!” a sharp voice said in her ear.