The Dukes of Vauxhall

by Vanessa Kelly, Christi Caldwell, Theresa Romain, Shana Galen

  He sipped his wine again, regarding her over the rim of the glass. Those eyes. She had to look away from those eyes. They looked through her, penetrated her defenses. They always had.

  “What are you saying?” His voice was flat.

  “You are a problem for me, Lord Bexley.”

  “After all we shared, that’s the sum of what I am to you?”

  She jumped to her feet. “If you meant nothing to me, you wouldn’t be standing here. You wouldn’t be alive.”

  “You’re a murderess now?”

  “I’m worse than that. I am every ill Society has ever conceived of. Think of the worst hovel you can imagine; I lived there. Think of the worst crime ever committed; I did it. I am the Duke of Vauxhall. If you haven’t heard of me, you haven’t been paying attention.”

  She could tell by his expression he had heard of her, and even though all the evidence of who she was now had been right before him, he was only now piecing it together.

  He took a step back.

  “I can’t think you are as bad as they say, Kate. I know you.”

  “Not anymore you don’t.” She advanced on him. “I will kill you, Bexley. I may not want to, but I’ve sinned more times than I can count. I’m damned to hell, so what’s one more black mark on my soul?”

  He set the empty wine glass on the bedside table. “What do you want from me?”

  Finally, the heart of the matter.

  “Walk away. From the prince and from Vauxhall. Your…shall we call them improvements are cutting into my profits. More constables make it harder for my cubs to pick pockets. More lights make it difficult for my gang to sneak in and out of the gardens. And now that Barrett has all of your meaningless assurances of safety, he isn’t paying his insurance.”

  Henry’s brows rose. “Is that what you call extortion in your circle?”

  “I don’t have a circle, Bexley,” she said, advancing on him until she was all but touching him. He was a head taller than she, but she didn’t allow his height to intimidate her. “I have a band of malefactors and miscreants, and you do not want me to give them free rein.”

  He folded his arms, the action causing him to brush against her. “If all you needed to do was issue them free rein, then why abduct me?”

  Oh, Henry was no fool. He never had been.

  “I’m not a savage, Bexley. I’d like to accomplish my goals without bloodshed or violence. Besides, if the public is scared away from Vauxhall Gardens, the prince’s celebration will be poorly attended. That isn’t good for business either.”

  “So if I understand correctly, you want me to resign my position with the prince and run back home with my tail between my legs.”

  She shrugged. “Go home however you wish. I seem to remember you arriving in a coach and four.”

  “You’ve been watching me,” he said, and for whatever reason, the tone of his voice made her breath catch.

  “I like to know my adversary.”

  “I’d expect nothing less. And if you’ve been watching me, you know I don’t take this position lightly. You might even know that it wasn’t of my choosing.”

  “Are your knees rough from all the bootlicking?” she asked sarcastically. “My own have calluses, I assure you. But I don’t lick…boots anymore.”

  Quite suddenly, he put a hand on her shoulder. She reached for her dagger, but it wasn’t at her side. She’d left it on the bed. Careless and stupid of her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.

  “Why? Afraid you’ll feel human again for a moment or two? You’ve explained your position, Kate. Now hear mine.” His hand seemed to burn through the thin silk of her robe, straight into her cold flesh. It had been so long since she’d been touched, and she couldn’t remember the last time a man had touched her gently and without anger.

  But that was a lie, because the last man to touch her that way was the same one touching her now.

  Henry’s hand sat heavy on her shoulder. But he didn’t grip her. She could have shrugged him off. To her shame, she didn’t.

  “I may not have wanted this title,” he said. “But it’s mine. I may not have wanted to serve the prince in this capacity, but I see it as serving my country. And your threats, stark as they are, won’t sway me from doing my duty.”

  “They are not mere threats, sir,” she hissed. Now she did shrug his hand from her shoulder and moved back toward the bed. “And we are at an impasse.”

  She knew him well enough to know he would never shirk his duty. It was one of the reasons she’d always loved him. He did what he thought was right and damn the consequences. Damn him. He would force her to kill him. She reached back and slipped the knife into her sleeve.

  “Not an impasse,” he said.

  She arched her brow.

  “What if I told you I could make this mutually beneficial for everyone?”

  “I’d say you belong in Bedlam.” The knife was cold in her hand, hard and cold.

  “I’m not insane.”

  “Then you’re lying.”

  He frowned at her. “You know me better than that. Won’t you even give me a chance?”

  “I don’t trust you,” she said.

  “But you would have trusted me enough to let me go had I agreed to resign. Give me the opportunity to find a solution that’s mutually beneficial. Not every outcome must favor only one party.” He reached up and stroked her cheek.

  At his touch, Kate snapped. It was one thing for him to touch her shoulder, but touching her like this, like a lover, was unpardonable. She flicked the dagger out from her sleeve and held it under his chin. His hand stilled, and his gaze locked on hers.

  “I told you not to touch me.” She moved in a circle, forcing him to move with her.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like it.” They’d traded places now, and his back was to the bed.

  “Are you certain? Perhaps you’re afraid you’ll like it too much.”

  She shoved him back hard with a hand to his sternum. He fell back, not attempting to resist her at all. She crouched over him, her knife poised over his heart.

  “Perhaps you want to die today.”

  He gave her a half smile. “It would save me some trouble.”

  Kate wanted to hit him. Why did he smile at her? Why wasn’t he afraid? Why wasn’t he begging for his life? He wasn’t even trembling, and she was forced to award him grudging admiration. Didn’t he think she would kill him? She would. She saw where his pulse beat evenly in his neck. She could cut him there, end him forever.

  “Kate, I know you don’t trust me anymore, but you trusted me once. Give me a chance now. Let me prove to you that I can find a solution we’ll both agree upon.”

  Trust him? Everyone she had ever trusted had betrayed her. She’d learned early that if she didn’t trust, she didn’t get hurt. But he was right. She had trusted him, and though she considered his abandonment a betrayal, she knew it an unreasonable expectation. He was only two years older than she, and when they’d last seen each other, she’d barely been twelve. He couldn’t have helped her even if he’d wanted to. Generally, she didn’t care about fairness, but perhaps in this case she could admit her judgment of him unwarranted.

  “How do I know you won’t betray me?” she asked.

  “How do I know you won’t order me killed?” he countered.

  “You don’t.”

  He inclined his head slightly. She considered.

  After a long silence, he said, “This isn’t any easier for me than you. My own trust has been violated in the past, and not even the distant past.”

  “Somehow, I think our situations are not quite equivalent.”

  “Yes, you don’t have a knife pointed at your heart.”

  She looked down at the dagger. She could kill him. She could finish this now. The Duke of Vauxhall didn’t trust noblemen. She didn’t trust anyone.

  Squeezing the handle of the dagger, she shoved it down and into his flesh. His eyes widened in disbelief, and
his hands came up to grip hers. And then he frowned.

  Because he wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t dead.

  His hands slipped to her wrists, and she lifted the dagger, showing him the false blade, then flipping it to the real blade. “Next time I’ll use this side, and if you betray me, I’ll make certain you suffer.”

  He sat, pushing her off him and to the side. Brushing at his shoulders, he stood, as though he had been the one in control all along. “Charming to the last,” he murmured. “Where is my man? The sooner I leave, the sooner we can both get on with the business of never seeing each other again.”

  “Red!” she called, going to the door when the quick answer came from the other side.

  “Duke, right here.”

  She opened the door, and Red’s eyes flicked to Bexley before they went back to her. She couldn’t always read Red, but tonight she saw surprise in his face. He’d expected her to kill Bexley. She would probably regret not having done it. “Bring the viscount’s man out and take him and Lord Bexley back to Vauxhall.”

  “Yes, Duke.”

  “Allow them to leave unmolested. But Red”—she looked over her shoulder at Bexley—“if he gives you any trouble, leave him bleeding in a ditch on the side of the road.”

  “Gladly, Duke.” Red pointed a finger to Bexley. “You, let’s go.”

  Henry walked past her, his gaze forward. When his shoulder almost grazed hers, he moved it to avoid touching her. She stood in the open doorway, but he never looked back.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  If Henry judged by the crush of bodies, the masquerade held in the Grove was a resounding success. All of London—and a sizable portion of the other cities in England—had come to Vauxhall for the first night of celebrations in honor of the prince and Wellington’s victory over Napoleon.

  The night was in its infancy, which meant the masquerade was still tame. Women wore the garb of ancient goddesses, shepherdesses, and milkmaids. Others dressed as brightly plumed birds or lushly attired lions and tigers. The men were more staid in their dominoes and masks. Some had dressed as heroic warriors of the past or political figures of the present, but most, like Henry, had worn a coat and breeches and donned a simple mask.

  “Splendid,” Prinny said, slapping Henry on the shoulder. Henry glanced at the Prince Regent, whose face was brightly rouged and accented with a black beauty mark on one cheek. The prince had come as Zeus, the Greek god of Olympus. Henry didn’t know where the man had found so much gold fabric. There must have been yards and yards of it encompassing the prince’s large figure.

  “Your costume is brilliant, Your Highness,” Henry said.

  The prince preened. “Do you think so? Skiffy had it made for me.”

  That explained quite a lot.

  “Do you think it too risqué?” the prince whispered loudly. “Is it too shocking that I show my legs?”

  Henry had studiously avoided looking at the prince’s pale and skinny legs. He might have preferred the prince dress more like his brothers, Cumberland and York who’d dressed as a knight and a gladiator, but Henry supposed it could have been worse. “It is a bold statement, Your Highness.”

  The prince smiled, drinking in the flattery as he always did. “And you managed to do all of this on that meager budget you proposed?” he asked, extending his hand over the crowd of dancers.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “But there will be fireworks later?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “And we will not run out of champagne?”

  “No.” At least, the prince would not. The rest of the guests had been given one drink ticket with the cost of admission. If they wanted additional glasses of champagne, they had to pay. Henry had expected more grumbling at the cost of a ticket to the masked ball, but despite the high price, people had eagerly paid it. It seemed to him that the more it cost, the more people clamored to attend.

  The prince cared nothing for those details. He cared only that his ball was a crush and that the food and drink flowed freely.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I have matters to attend to.”

  “Always working, aren’t you, Bexley? Have a little fun!”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  The prince sighed when Henry didn’t immediately begin drinking or dancing and waved him away, turning to his friend Baron Alvanley.

  Henry did not run in the other direction, not precisely, but he could not disguise his relief at having that part of the evening over and done. He’d have to speak with the prince again later this evening, but he would not think of that now.

  Now he had more pressing concerns.

  And the biggest of those was a criminal called the Duke of Vauxhall. He still couldn’t quite believe that little Kate Dunn was the notorious Duke of Vauxhall. Henry had read about the notorious rogue. Everyone from the Mayor of London to the Bow Street Runners had called for his apprehension. Of course, what they didn’t know was that the Duke of Vauxhall wasn’t a man at all. That was how Kate had managed to evade detection this long. No one was looking for a young woman, and Henry imagined she could switch disguises quickly if it became necessary.

  What amazed him was that her men had kept her secret. It was possible some of the newer members of the gang did not know she was a woman. After all, the disguise had fooled him. But it wouldn’t have fooled him for long. Any close inspection of her face or the way her bottom was just a bit too curvy in her trousers would reveal who she really was. Her gang was either intensely loyal or too terrified to snitch on her.

  Perhaps both.

  It was difficult for him not to admire someone who had come from so little and accomplished so much—even if what was accomplished was more likely to see her hanged than praised. He would have never thought Kate Dunn capable of becoming a crime lord. Not because he didn’t think her clever. She’d always been clever and knowledgeable. She’d had a scattered education at best, but she’d read more than anyone he knew and had an interest in anything and everything.

  When they’d been small children—he six and she four—their families had lived next door to each other. His father was a solicitor for the wealthy families of Mayfair. He dealt with banks and money and contracts all day long. He knew what he was about, having grown up as the nephew of a viscount. Initially, her father had also owned a respectable business, a watch-repair shop. He was a man born with the ability to look at a broken watch and know immediately what ailed it. The work was meticulous and required focus, and as the years passed, George Dunn had spent more time at the tavern and less time in his shop. When he was at work, he was often ill from overindulgence. With his hands shaking and his skin white and clammy, his work suffered. His patrons did not return.

  When his shop closed and the Dunn family moved to cheaper lodgings—the beginning of her family’s downward slide into poverty and disrepute—Henry and Kate remained friends. She would visit Henry almost daily.

  Henry had often wished she were a boy. If she’d been a boy, his father might have taken her in. But she was a girl, and a pretty girl at that. The poorer her family became, the less his father approved of Henry’s friendship with Kate. But of course, by the time his father forbade him to see Kate, Henry was already in love with her.

  Surely she’d felt something too. Perhaps she still felt something, else she wouldn’t have spared him when she could have easily killed him. But Henry remembered Hedgehog and the sickening thud of metal against flesh and bone, and he would take no chances.

  Henry nodded at the two constables who now flanked him whenever he went out, and the three of them moved away from the prince and his cronies and to another box, where Henry might observe the ball. These boxes, raised platforms that were covered, had sold for an additional sum. It offered those who had the funds a place to sit and watch the masque between dances. Of course, patrons could always purchase one of the supper boxes that lined three sides of the Grove, but these new boxes wer
e more ornate and offered better prospects. Henry had reserved this one for himself. The prince’s box had the best view of the dancing, but Henry had a clear view from this box as well.

  The constables stood behind him, blocking the doorway, while Henry stood, hands on hips, to watch the dance. The night might be barely toddling along, but already Henry spotted men taking small liberties and ladies allowing them. Anonymity seemed to relax the rules and strictures. Henry wasn’t really paying attention to the dancers. His interest lay in whether the constables were stationed where they ought to be and whether the servers returned quickly with glasses of wine and punch. He’d determined that everything seemed to be operating just as he wanted when a young girl all in white caught his eye. She wore a gold mask and a gold coronet over a long cascade of dark curls. Her dress was Greek in style, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. Gold braiding twined about the woman’s waist, accentuating its slenderness, and crisscrossed her chest, drawing attention to her small but round bosom. She was small and delicate, accompanied by a larger man wearing a mask and domino that completely concealed his face and all but the very back of his hair.

  As she moved through the crowd, men stopped her to exchange a word or two. She smiled up at them, her teeth white against the red of her lips. She spoke with one man now. His gaze was intent upon her, and Henry happened to wonder what her partner thought of the attention she garnered. He glanced at the man in the domino just as he reached into the pocket of the man speaking to the lovely woman. When he had the other man’s purse under his domino and out of view, he put his hand on the lady’s elbow and they moved on.

  Henry felt ice slide down his back. It was Kate. It had to be. And the man with her—Henry narrowed his eyes and caught the flash of ginger hair—was Red.

  Henry shouldn’t have been surprised she was here. He supposed it was too much to hope that she’d leave Vauxhall to him for the duration of the celebration. But when she hadn’t answered the letters he’d sent to her at The Griffin and the Unicorn, he’d thought perhaps she had reconsidered. Now he began to worry she hadn’t received the letters, which meant she would be looking to punish him for lying to her.