by Shirl Henke
He stood up, intending to bid his uncle good night, when a loud commotion broke out at the back entrance to the low-ceilinged shanty. "Let me pass, sirrah! For shame on such drunken debauchery! We come on the Lord's work! Gambling is sin and the wages of sin is death!" There was no mistaking the stentorian tones of the Reverend Elijah Woodbridge.
"You mutton-headed marplot, who asked you to put in yer oar?" one of the sporting afficionados yelled belligerently.
The babble of angry voices rose sharply, diverting attention from the pit. In an attempt to remedy the matter, Phineas Goodysale opened the cage containing the badger. Starved and terrified, the creature erupted into the ring when the gate to his cage was raised. With a snarled hiss the forty-pound badger shook his thick shiny coat and waddled straight for his quarry.
The dog stood motionless for a second, sniffing the newcomer uncertainly. City bred, he had never scented such a creature before. When the badger's razor-sharp claws raked across his snout, drawing blood, he jumped back with a loud yip, then circled swiftly, attempting to sink his teeth into his foe's neck. The badger was not only many times larger than a rat, but its skin was draped so loosely on its body that the dog could get no purchase in it with which to snap the neck as he had with the rats. Each time he seized the badger, it twisted around and raked him wickedly with its razor-sharp claws.
Joss followed the other members of the Moral Rectitude Society as they pushed and shoved their way into the smoky room. What an utterly unsavory crowd! She doubted there was a redeemable soul in the lot, but she had come in part out of concern for her father and also to see if the ghastly reports about cruelty to animals were true.
When she heard the shrill cry of a dog in mortal agony, the hairs on the back of her neck stood out. What were they doing to the poor creature? The crowd's attention was divided between the contest in the pit and the arguments spreading around the perimeter of the room, a few of which were approaching fisticuffs. Many of the onlookers laughed and scoffed at the "holy Harrys," comparing the hatchet-faced Widow Meechen to the badger.
Joss fought her way through the drunken crowd toward the unearthly sounds emanating from the pit. Then she saw it. Dear God, the dog, a small, compactly built terrier of some sort, was pitted against a snarling badger half again his weight. They rolled across the dirt floor, the dog trying to escape the death grip his feral foe had on him.
"For the love of God, someone put a stop to this barbaric cruelty! Save that poor dog!" she cried, searching for something to wield as a club against the badger.
"Gor, Holy Hannah, go back ta yer Bible schools 'n leave us heathens ta 'ave our fun!" a nasty looking fellow wearing an eye patch said as his one good eye roamed insultingly over her body.
Joss ignored him. Seizing a loose board from the top of the wooden railing of the pit, she pried it free, then started to climb down. A large hand clamped firmly around her arms, lifting her away.
"Get back, you little fool, or you'll be torn to bits," Alex said.
Joss looked up at him incredulously, irrationally disappointed to find he was like the rest of the debauched rich
and depraved poor. "That dog will be tom to bits if someone doesn't stop this obscenity!"
With a snarled oath, he shoved her behind him and swung one leg over the fence. "I'll handle it. Just stay the hell out of the pit."
With her heart in her throat, Joss stood transfixed as he jumped to the bloody dirt floor and strode over to where the badger now had the dog backed against the wall, ready to finish it off. In a move so swift she could not follow it, Alex slid that long wicked blade from his boot and threw it squarely into the badger's back. It sank in to the hilt between the animal's shoulder blades.
An outcry of protest had gone up around the pit when his intentions became clear. Now as he reached down to extract his blade from the dead badger and toss the animal onto the pile of rats, the mood of surly drunkenness turned ugly and violent. Epithets were hurled and fists raised, aristocratic and criminal elements joining in against the marplot who had ruined their "sport."
Calmly Alex held up the bloody knife in his right hand while sliding a stubby-barreled screw pistol from his waistcoat with his left. The gun was quite accurate and deadly in such close quarters. "I kill rats, too," he said, his steely dark gaze raking the assembly.
Somehow the low yet lethal tone of his voice carried over the din. The gamblers and their doxies crowding the ring grew eerily silent. Even the strident arguments between the Moral Rectitude Society members and the patrons of Goodysale's ebbed into confused murmurs, then ceased all together.
Alex motioned to Joss, who clamored over the wall into the ring while he shrugged out of his jacket, juggling gun and knife expertly. "Wrap the dog in this." The girl quickly did as she was bid.
Then Alex walked to the side of the pit with Joss and her burden. He nodded to a short, thin dandy. "Hold the dog while she climbs out." It was an order, not a request. The man hesitated and Blackthorne cocked the hammer of his pistol. The sound was almost deafening in the unnatural silence. The fellow quickly took the dog from Joss and she struggled over the barrier to retrieve her prize.
The dog's blood soaked through the jacket and stained her arms, dripping in crimson spatters across the front of her drab skirts as she walked toward the door. The crowd parted as if Moses's rod had struck it. Several disgruntled sportsmen stepped forward to block her path but one look into Alex's deadly eyes quelled them. They melted back into the press.
"Just a bloody minute 'ere. Ya can't go waltzing off with me best 'ound, not without so much as a by yer leave," Phineas Goodysale cried, puffing as his short fat legs churned to catch up to them.
"This animal's fighting days are over," Alex replied tightly, wanting to get Joss out of the place before one of the idiot do-gooders began another riot. "What's he worth to you?" he asked levelly.
The American's cold expression quelled Phineas's greed. "Er, five shillings would do it, gov," he said hopefully.
Alex tossed the coins to him with a scornful glance, then ushered Joss out the door.
"Thank you," she murmured. She did not break stride until she was well away from the fetid stench of the slaughterhouse. Joss knew her father was following Alex, but when she turned, she was startled to see the baron with them.
"Dem it, lad, you've put me in dun territory now. Deuced if I'd have wagered one hundred pounds on the badger if I'd known you had such an aversion to the beasts," Monty said with amusement as Alex replaced his weapons on his person.
"How can you speak of money when this poor animal is bleeding to death?" Joss cried passionately, not caring that he was a baron and she a street preacher's daughter.
"You'd best have a care, m'dear. That poor animal is a killer, born and bred to it. He'd as like take out your throat as a rat's if he were able," Monty cautioned.
"Well, he is not able," she snapped, turning to Alex. "Can't we do something to save him?"
"Perhaps the baron's warning is not amiss, Joss," Elijah said gently. "These unfortunate creatures are taught to kill from birth."
"I can't just let him die, Papa."
"My people know some remedies. I brought my grandmother's medicine bag with me from America." Alex turned to his uncle. "If you'll be so kind as to allow me to bring the dog into the kitchen, I'll treat it."
Monty shrugged and nodded, as he signaled for their coachman to bring round the carriage. "Oh, I wouldn't for the world miss the expression on my dear Octavia's face when you enter her house with this procession in your wake." With a mocking wink he made a leg for Joss as the coachman opened the carriage door for them.
* * * *
Joss knelt beside Alex as he refolded the intricately beaded buckskin pouch after placing the powders and ointments inside it. The dog lay on the hearth, breathing shallowly. At least he was alive. Alex had succeeded in stopping the bleeding with a yellowish powder and then she'd stitched up some of the deepest gashes. Finally he'd anointed all the do
g's wounds with a white salve. The patient had lain very still, watching with liquid brown eyes as the man finished working over him, almost as if he sensed Alex's healing touch.
"You have a remarkable way with animals. Is it... ?"
He looked up and met her eyes. "My Indian blood?" He chuckled at her flustered reaction. "I suppose it might be, but my Uncle Quint and his sons have the same gift and not a drop of Muskogee blood in their veins."
Embarrassed at the way he studied her face, as if trying to read the expression in her eyes behind her thick glasses, Joss looked down at the medicine pouch. She reached out her fingers and touched the beadwork. "It is ever so lovely. Your grandmother's, you said?"
"Grandma Charity, my father's mother. The whole family calls her that to distinguish her from my elder sister Charity, her namesake. Grandma is half Muskogee. She was educated in mission schools run by the Methodists, so I suppose the Blackthorne clan owes your faith a debt of gratitude, even if we are all Church of England."
"You have a large family?" Joss asked with a wistful smile.
'Too many to count on the American side of the Atlantic. I've yet to meet many of the Carutherses," he added darkly, not at all certain if he cared to do so. Changing the subject, he asked, "And what of you, Miss Woodbridge? Have you siblings, at least cousins by the dozens?"
"Alas, no, although I always longed for a big family. I am my father's only child, you see. My mother died when I was quite small. I remember very little of her. Papa still grieves her loss, I think."
"He's fortunate to have you."
"You're most kind," she replied, feeling suddenly awkward under his scrutiny.
She started to rise but he placed a restraining hand on her arm, gently settling her back to the floor. "You're a very unusual woman, Miss Woodbridge. I've never met your like."
"I'm scarcely what the ton calls a nonpareil," she replied ruefully.
"I'm finding I have little interest in the ton. Almacks was quite frankly a crashing bore."
"Excellent." Joss clapped her hands together. "Then I have missed nothing at all, never receiving a voucher."
"Flat punch and stale buttered bread," he replied gravely. They both laughed at the same time.
"You have a keen sense of humor. Something I always heard was lacking in Americans."
"Many of us can take a jest—or play one. I always prefer to enjoy the lighter side of life. Don't mention it to my Aunt Octavia, but I believe there is much to savor outside the constraints of the drawing room."
"Is that why you visited such a disreputable place as Goodysale's?" In spite of the awfulness of the place, she could not resist the hint of a smile spreading her lips.
"Back in Georgia I always preferred to run wild with my Muskogee cousins—when I could be pried away from the Savannah alehouses. That's why my parents packed me off to London—to transform or reform me into a gentleman. You see before you, I fear, a singularly impenitent sinner, Miss Woodbridge."
The smile of a fallen angel beguiled her. "Not too pernicious a sinner to have risked life and limb for a poor helpless animal." And for me. "I really must insist you allow me to repay you for purchasing him from that odious little man."
"Please. Consider him my gift to you. You are the one who operates a charity hospital and shelter for the homeless, are you not? This poor fellow certainly qualifies for some Christian charity and a home after what he's been through."
"Put that way, how can I refuse?"
"Good. Then it's settled."
"Do you so often get your way, Mr. Blackthorne?"
He shrugged. "Mostly ... at least with the fairer sex." Wrong thing to say to a religious lady, Alex chided himself as Jocelyn's expression clouded.
"I may be female, Mr. Blackthorne, but I know I am not fair," she replied, looking him straight in the eye. A woman would do anything for him. Positively anything.
"Ah, but—"
"No, do not try to sugar it. I am not fishing for compliments. I never learned to play those games young ladies play," she replied gently.
"A pity. With your wit you would excel at them. I really did mean it when I said I'd never met your like—and I grew up in a household filled with females—a mother, grandmother and four sisters. I honestly believe we could become friends, Miss Woodbridge. That is, if a missionary lady such as you would consider befriending a recalcitrant rogue such as I."
"How could I refuse such an intriguing offer, especially after you've given me the gift of this poor creature's life?" Joss said with a smile as she touched the dog carefully with her fingertips. "So little of his body is uninjured. Do you think he will live?"
"Once as a boy I had a dog that was torn up by a panther. Almost as bad as this. He pulled through. But my uncle's caveat isn't groundless, you know. This dog was raised to kill in the pit. He might not make a pet."
"He made no effort to bite us as we treated him. I think he hates rats, not people."
"Sometimes there's not much difference," Alex replied dryly. "I wish I could see the good in God's creation half so optimistically as you."
"If we are to be friends, Mr. Blackthorne, I shall endeavor to teach you the good," she replied. And pray God I do not lose my heart in the bargain.
Chapter Three
London was not such a dreary place after all, Alex decided. He spent a bare minimum of time with Bertie Therlow and his infernal accounts, allowing himself to pursue far more interesting activities under the tutelage of his uncle, a man who had elevated hedonism to an art form, and a man of whom Alex was growing increasingly fond.
In the Georgia backcountry, Alex and his cousin Robert had pursued tavern wenches, consumed prodigious quantities of ale and emerged victorious in some legendary brawls. Such youthful exuberance, indeed, had been the chief reason the family decided to separate him and Rob. Quintin and Madelyne packed their son off to his father's alma mater in Philadelphia while Devon and Barbara decided it best if Alex learn the family business from Thurlow and perhaps acquire a bit of gentlemanly polish from polite society.
But Alex had no more use for polite society than he did for account ledgers. Almacks was run by a rigid set of harridans intent on arbitrating the London marriage mart, a thought to make him shudder in his newly acquired Hessian boots. Even the more exclusive men's clubs to which his uncle introduced him seemed stifling. Brummel and Alvanley were amusing enough—in small doses. But he chafed under the rigid protocols for everything from tying a cravat to inhaling snuff.
Not that he disapproved of the Beau's taste in clothing. The simplicity and elegance of black superfine and snug doeskin breeches was not lost on a tall, slim young man who knew he had the perfect body to display for the fairer sex. Alex spent lavishly at the tailors on Bond Street.
However, after living a life of action in the backcountry, he found the seemingly endless rounds of balls, routs and banquets tame fare indeed. Not so gaming hells, horse races, boxing matches and hunting parties. Of course to gain ingress to such activities, he had to cultivate acquaintances with the young sporting bloods about the ton.
After the incident at Goodysale's, gossip about Caruthers's wild Indian nephew from the colonies spread rapidly. He became an overnight sensation with the more avant-garde members of society. Lady Holland, a divorcee only tolerated on the fringes of the ton, was titillated enough to invite him to her famous salons, where he mingled with painters, actors and writers, many of whom he found genuinely interesting. He created a stir at Tattersalls after bidding fifteen hundred guineas for an Arabian mare to breed with the big stallion he had brought with him from America. When he won twenty thousand pounds in a marathon whist game at Whites, his reputation was made. Every rakish buck in London wanted to be seen with Alex Blackthorne.
His fascination for the women of the Great Wen became equally the rage. Although marriage-minded mamas kept their virginal misses well out of his reach, the more libertine females of the Quality succumbed readily to his dazzling golden looks and the aura of sex
ual danger that radiated from him. Ladies of the Cyprian class were even more accommodating, going to prodigious lengths to attract his attention.
One performed a perfectly-timed swoon and literally tumbled beneath the feet of his horse while he was riding in Hyde Park; another slid down a silken drapery cord at Covent Garden to reach his private box. One Sunday while he was strolling with his current amour in Vauxhall a slighted female admirer accosted them, which resulted in a clawing, shrieking catfight, attracting all sorts of amused and aghast attention until Alex was able to separate the combatants.
Within a few months he settled into a routine of sorts, rising at noon, taking a brisk ride through Hyde Park, then either visiting Gentleman Jackson's to spar with the boxers or perhaps taking a trip to one of the excellent race courses on the outskirts of the city to watch the horses run. The past two weeks he had begun going to Angelo's Haymarket Room, where the master Domenico was teaching him the gentlemanly art of fencing. But his weapon of choice remained the knife he carried in his boot. His evenings were spent dining with friends at various clubs, attending the theater, then on to the gaming hells, where he played faro and whist until the wee hours of the morning.
The only breaks in his sybaritic existence were his occasional visits with Miss Jocelyn Woodbridge, much to the amusement of his uncle, who tweaked him acidly for spending time with such a bluestocking. His first visit to Joss's residence had been as much an adventure as their other two encounters. The clean but shabby public rooms of the inn were in stark contrast to the opulence of his uncle's house. The starched respectability of the establishment also contrasted with the seamy underworld of gaming hells and prizefights that he lived in after hours.
A heavyset old woman with sharp gray eyes, wearing a hideously old-fashioned wig, had advanced on him as soon
as he had stepped inside the door. "I'm Mrs. Gower, the proprietress. What do ye want?" she asked by way of greeting, quickly judging by the cut of his clothes that he had too much of the ready to desire lodgings. In her experience, rich young dandies were usually bent on mischief.