by Gaelen Foley
Waving off an insect, she burst into the clearing just in time to see the pointer chase around in a circle with two large collies, then take a flying leap into the pond, going after the ducks floating along the banks. The ducks flapped away with a frenzy of panicked quacking while the dog splashed this way and that trying to catch one.
The furious owner of the collies stood on the banks, fishing pole in hand. He was a rugged-looking, weathered old sportsman in jack boots and country tweeds. He shouted futilely at her dog, who had churned the pond into a whirlpool and had undoubtedly scared away all the fish.
Dodging the boy’s attempts to catch her, the pointer bounded up merrily onto the banks again to make the fisherman’s acquaintance, splattering his wire-rim spectacles and drenching him in muddy water as she gleefully shook her short coat.
“I said sit, you ridiculous creature!” the old man roared.
The overgrown pup dropped at once to her haunches and cowered before him, the soul of obedience.
Jacinda winced, needing no formal introduction to know that the imposing figure they had so rudely disturbed was none other than the earl himself. The authoritarian tone of his voice made that instantly clear, but if there had been any doubt, it was removed by the pale, black-clad physician who approached the old man gingerly.
“My lord, pray, sit you down. Such temper is not good for your heart.”
“Oh, flap off, you damned old crow,” the earl muttered, but he rubbed his chest vaguely.
The pointer let out a contrite whine and offered the earl her paw.
“Get this idiotic animal out of here before I shoot it. You, sir, are trespassing!” the fire-breathing earl declared, turning to glower at McCullough as he hurried to collect the dog. “What are you doing on my property? Poaching, eh? Helping yourself to a bit of my game? Didn’t expect to find me at home, I warrant!”
“Beg your pardon, my lord. Her Ladyship’s hunting party was coming across the moors when the dog bounded off. We sincerely apologize for the mishap—”
“Ladyship, what? Hawkscliffe’s duchess?” he asked in a scathing tone. “She’s too refined for shooting, God knows, damned gentry upstart.”
“No, sir, but I enjoy it,” Jacinda spoke up, suppressing a bemused smile as she marched toward him.
The curmudgeonly old fellow squinted at her, polishing his spectacles with a handkerchief. “What are you doing with that gun?” he demanded.
“Grousing, my lord. I hope I did not give you a start. Take the dog away,” she instructed the boy, who slipped a collar over the pointer’s head.
“Well, as long as you are not some Radical assassin come to shoot me over the Corn Laws,” Lord Drummond grumbled, then put his small, round spectacles back on. “Good God!” he said abruptly. “You are the very image of Georgiana!”
“That is because I am her daughter,” she answered wryly, offering him her hand.
With an automatic air, the earl clasped her gloved fingers lightly and bowed over her hand, then squinted at her again in searching amazement. “Little Lady Jacinda?”
“Yes, my lord. Is aught amiss?”
“You are all—” He waved his handkerchief, gesturing vaguely. “—grown.”
“Indeed, sir. I made my debut last Season.”
“Why aren’t you in Town?” he clipped out, stuffing his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. He lifted his square chin, inspecting her like a general his troops. “It is the start of the Season, is it not? Shouldn’t you be husband-hunting with the rest of the silly young chits?”
She was taken aback by his bluntness, but on second thought, decided she found it refreshing after all the smooth hypocrisy of the ton. “I’m afraid I have been sent down to the country for misbehavior,” she replied matter-of-factly.
Slowly and, much to her surprise, the gruff old man began chuckling. “Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? You are Georgiana’s daughter, after all.”
She scanned his face in sudden, deepening interest. “You knew my mother, sir?”
“From a safe distance,” he said, with a wicked twinkle in his steel-gray eyes. “I had the privilege of her friendship, yes. Your mother had the heart of a lioness.”
Jacinda drew in her breath, barely able to contain her delight. Someone who had known firsthand the glamorous stranger who had been her mother! “Won’t you come and join us for our picnic, my lord? My governess and I have not had much agreeable Society since we left London.”
“I am never agreeable, ask anyone, but—as a pretty young lady is bound to be better company than Dr. Cross—I accept. Gladly.” His shrewd gray eyes twinkled behind his spectacles as he offered her his arm.
Jacinda smiled brightly at him and took it.
Bruised and still, Blade sat in a condemned hole in the bowels of Newgate Prison, on a bench hewn into the stone. His head was in his hands, his elbows resting on his bent knees. A musty smell rose from disease-ridden straw scattered across the floor, and he could hear rats scurrying about in the corner. There was a narrow, barred window too high to see out of; through it came a gray, glassy light. The walls sweated, and from some far-off place he could hear the echo of a prisoner shouting under a brutal flogging.
They were going to hang him. And Nate. And the others.
It was over. All, all…over.
His men had been thrown into a mass cell to await their fates among their fellow criminals, but as their leader, Blade had been confined in this solitary dungeon. This, he supposed, was intended to break his spirit. He had not been in Newgate since he was fifteen. Back then, he had been caught stealing an old gentleman’s silk handkerchief. A few tears of feigned contrition had earned him the judge’s pity and thirty days in the “Start.” After that, he had walked out scot-free to put his new skills into practice, for a month in a mass cell had quite rounded out his education in the criminal arts.
Now the “beaks” wanted information, details about the goings-on in London’s criminal underworld. Indeed, they had offered to commute his death sentence to a life of hard labor in New South Wales. In exchange, he only had to give them the names of the men behind certain rackets they were investigating, and the locations of where a few other choice criminals whom they had long hunted could be found. Blade had refused the deal, offering his complete cooperation instead for the release of his friends, but the magistrates had sneered at him; so he had kept his mouth shut and had taken a beating for his insolence.
He didn’t even want to think about what was happening right now at the Fire Hawks’ headquarters in Bainbridge Street, for he had no doubt that O’Dell was in the process of trying to seize control. He hoped to God that Carlotta had gotten the other women out of there.
Leaning his head back against the wall with a shallow sigh, he stared at the cobwebbed corner. They’ve got me by the balls.
Just then, a clank of metal resounded down the dark stone corridor. He looked over sharply. God, what now? He slid off the bench and crossed the cell, wondering if the court had finally appointed some quixotic solicitor to plead his defense.
“Ten minutes,” the guard above gruffly ordered his visitor.
But instead, a high-pitched voice cried into the darkness, “Blade! Blade!” Light footfalls echoed down to him as a small figure scampered down the thick stone stairs.
His eyes widened incredulously. “Eddie?”
“Blade!” The boy jumped off the lowest step and started to run toward him, but stopped abruptly. His pale face went somber and he slowed, staring at his idol in a cage.
Blade bristled defensively at being seen like this. “What the hell are you doing here? This is no place for you. How did you get them to let you in?”
“I told them you’re my father. I—I wish you were.”
Blade winced at the orphan’s pitiful words.
The boy’s gaze traveled over the bars of his cell. “They’re not really gonna hang you and Nate and Sarge and the others, are they, Blade?”
His harsh stare softened,
and he leaned against the bars with a sigh. “Oh, Eddie.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid it doesn’t look very good.”
“But—they can’t!” His face was stricken. Still he hung back. “You never get caught! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”
Blade furrowed his brow. “What do you mean, Eddie?”
The boy said nothing, staring dazedly at him.
“Eddie? Did you have something to do with this?”
The little boy’s eyes filled with tears; then he broke down. Blade crouched down and gazed somberly at him through the bars.
“O’Dell forced me to spy on you. He said if I didn’t help him, he’d make me into a wallet! Oh, Blade, they can’t hang you!” he choked out, his rascally bravado fled. “It’s all my fault!”
“No, it’s not,” he said sternly, though it was all he could do to hide his shock and anger at O’Dell’s ruthless treachery. “You’re just a pup, Eddie. I know how O’Dell is. He threatened you. You had no choice. It’s not your fault, lad.”
The boy looked at him bleakly, then hugged Blade through the bars.
He tried to comfort the distraught urchin as best he could, but his mind churned. “There, child,” he said gruffly, rumpling Eddie’s hair affectionately before rising to his feet. “Dry your tears. Your old Blade’s still got one last trick up his sleeve.”
Lucien Knight still owed him a favor.
He sent Eddie to fetch his sole government connection, pacing endlessly in his cage, but when Lord Lucien arrived and heard how Blade and his gang had been caught red-handed, his usually cool expression turned grim.
“I will do what I can to help you, Rackford, but I don’t have that kind of influence.”
“Know anyone who does?” he bit out impatiently.
Lucien paused. “No, but you do.”
“Bloody hell,” he whispered, turning away as though the man had struck him. He dragged his hand through his thick, tangled mane and leaned back against the clammy wall to stare at the ceiling, arms folded over his chest.
Knots formed in his stomach at the mere thought of facing his old tormentor again, but he had had a feeling all along that he would have to. Indecision ticked in his veins.
Nate’s life and the others’ hung in the balance. What did the tattoos on his skin signify if not loyalty to his brothers, his gang? God in heaven, he would have rather swung from the noose than go crawling back to his old man begging for help.
“Just bring us back alive,” Nate had said.
“I always do,” he had boasted.
Closing his eyes, he let a shallow sigh escape him. This was a humiliation almost beyond bearing, but he saw he had no other choice. He didn’t know whether or not it was even going to work. His father might well have the last laugh by leaving him here to rot.
“Well?” Lucien probed, studying him intently.
Unable to find his voice, he merely gave the man a taut nod of consent.
Holding his smart black top hat in his hands, Lucien gave its brim a jaunty flick. “A wise choice,” he said. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”
Blade scowled at the man’s wry jest.
Lucien sent him a bolstering, rather self-assured smile, then pivoted, walked smoothly to the stone steps, and jogged up them, leaving to fetch the one man Blade never wanted to see again—the one man he hated even more than O’Dell. The marquess of Truro and St. Austell.
His father.
Jacinda’s mind was whirring a hundred miles an hour as she sat on the picnic blanket beneath the umbrella with her governess and Lord Drummond. The old statesman was relating a story about her mother’s madcap antics at a masque ball. She listened in rapt amazement as the earl described the headdress Mama had worn, her tall, white wig adorned with countless tiny birdcages, each one occupied by a live bird. Jacinda laughed incredulously, and even Miss Hood succumbed to an indecorous chortle as he described how, at the stroke of midnight, the duchess had opened all the birdcages.
“Canaries, little parakeets, buntings, cardinals, a bluebird. All the guests were ducking as the whole flock of ’em went swooping back and forth across the ballroom trying to find a way out. I believe a pair of cardinals used the punch bowl for a birdbath. Lady Ilcester, our hostess, wanted to throttle her—and that was even before one of the creatures left its droppings on her shoulder. What a row!” he exclaimed, his shoulders shaking with gusty laughter. “Lady Ilcester flew into hysterics and gave your mother such a scolding, but Georgiana simply turned to her, cool as you please, and said, ‘But my dear Amelia, don’t you know it signifies good luck?’ ”
Even the footmen waiting on them could be heard trying to suppress a chuckle.
“Oh, my dear Lord Drummond, tell us another!” she begged him, wiping away a tear of laughter.
He searched his memory and indulged her.
Jacinda had already decided she liked her neighbor very well. She had quickly sensed his ruthless side behind the silvery flashing of his hawklike eyes—he was not someone she ever wanted to cross—but since she had no intention of ever doing so, and because she was used to the company of powerful men, she felt as relaxed and natural around him as she did around her brothers. He was blunt, stoic, and opinionated—a man who said exactly what he thought and damn your eyes if you didn’t like it. He also happened to be a widower. Miss Hood had asked if Lady Drummond had come to the country with him and had learned that the countess had died nearly a decade ago.
The revelation had started the wicked little wheels and cogs turning in Jacinda’s brain. While she listened, smiling, her speculative gaze roamed over her neighbor. He had surely been a strapping, handsome fellow in his youth. Lord Drummond was almost seventy, and though still quite robust, he was in the country on his doctor’s orders to relax, for his heart was not good.
“Ah, here comes the torturer,” he said glumly, glancing over as Dr. Cross marched toward them. “He is most assiduous, devil take him. He may just cure me, if I don’t kill ’im first. I suppose he is going to mortify me in front of a young lady by telling me it is time for my nap. Alas, he is right.”
“We all need our beauty sleep, my lord,” Jacinda teased him, and he smiled, rising to his feet.
“Thank you for allowing me to join your picnic.”
“I am glad you did. As a matter of fact, I’m inviting some of the local gentry to dine at Hawkscliffe Hall next Wednesday evening. Reverend and Mrs. Picket will be there. I would be delighted if you’d join us.”
“That sounds very agreeable.”
“Consider it an invitation, then. Shall we say seven o’clock?”
“Why, you are very elegant, keeping Town hours in the country.”
She laughed at his teasing.
“Thank you, my lady. I will be there,” Lord Drummond assured her.
“Excellent! And do please feel free to try your fishing pole at any of our streams or ponds. My brother keeps them well stocked. It’s the least I can do for my silly dog scaring off all your fish today.”
“You seem quite the sportswoman. Perhaps you’d care to try your hand at golf? I’ve built a course at Warflete, you know.”
“So our gamekeeper tells me,” she exclaimed.
“’Tis a noble sport. If you and Miss Hood would like to call on me tomorrow, I will give you a lesson in the game.”
“I’m sure I’d like that very much,” Jacinda said warmly, giving him her hand.
“I can tell you golf is better medicine than that apothecary’s dreaded digitalis tea.” He bowed over her hand, nodded to Miss Hood, then trudged toward his physician. “I’m coming,” he growled at the man, grouchily taking the beaker of odd-colored tea the man handed him. He winced and drank it.
As the two men set off toward Warflete Manor, the women exchanged an amused glance.
“I daresay His Grace was right,” Miss Hood whispered. “The earl is a bit of a curmudgeon.”
“I think he’s charming,” Jacinda declared, but when Miss Hood raised her eyebr
ow, her teacup and saucer poised in her hand, she gave her governess an innocent smile. “In a curmudgeonly sort of way, of course.”
Two hours had passed, but now the sound of footsteps and voices in the stone corridor above brought Blade’s chin up sharply. He slid off the bench and went warily to the rusty metal bars, peering through them as the iron-reinforced door heaved open at the top of thick stone stairs. The gnomelike jail keeper thrust a torch into the dank space.
“This way, my lord. Careful on the stairs.” Lucien walked in after the short, ugly jailer, then stood aside with a polite gesture.
Blade swallowed hard, his fingers wrapping around the bars.
Under the lintel ducked a tall, lean man in a top hat and a fine black cloak, a walking stick in his hand. Sauntering down the stairs, the marquess took in the cavelike dungeon with an arrogant glance. As the man swept off his hat, Blade drew in his breath, his heart pounding, old angers rumbling stormily within him.
Truro turned to the keeper and dismissed him, then drifted nearer with an air of calculated caution. “Lord Lucien, would you excuse us, please?”
Lucien glanced at Blade in question.
He nodded, but the ex-spy shot him a silent warning to hold his temper at the way Truro was looking him over, as though he were a horse on the bloody auction block.
“If you need me,” Lucien said, “I shall be in the corridor.” Quietly, he withdrew.
There was a long, tense silence after he had gone. The two men studied each other in bristling hostility.
“Well, well,” Truro drawled coldly after a moment, ambling closer. “What have we here?”
Blade’s hands tightened around the bars of his cell, but he kept his mouth shut.