Stealing the Duke's Heart

by Shana Galen

  “That’s not your concern. Leave us,” the duke ordered.

  “Leave you?” Barbara looked appalled. “Alone? With him?”

  “We have matters to discuss. Private matters,” the duke added.

  “I’d like to discuss the state of your shirt, Duke.”

  At what Henry surmised was a warning look from the duke, Barbara stepped back and raised her hands. “But we can discuss that later. Set it outside, and I’ll collect it for washing. As for him”—she gave Henry one last look—“you’d better keep him tied up.”

  “I intend to.”

  Barbara left them, and Henry tensed, not certain what would come next. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I won’t speak to you until I know whether my secretary is alive and well.”

  The duke cocked his head, his face in shadow and partly hidden by the cap. “The balding man you were with?”

  Henry gave a slight incline of his head.

  “He’s with the men in the servants’ quarters. I imagine he’s more comfortable than you at the moment.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “I don’t care.” The honeyed voice had an edge to it now. “You aren’t in charge here, Henry Selkirk.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “How do you not know mine?” The duke put his hands on his hips as if in challenge.

  “I heard them call you Duke,” Henry answered, but the duke waved a hand dismissively.

  “My real name, Henry. You said you would never forget me.”

  “I said...what?” The duke was obviously delusional. “I’ve never met you before in my life. I’d give anything not to have met you now.”

  “So sure, are you?” The voice took on a different quality. It was still low and melodious, but now it had almost a teasing tenor.

  And then the duke reached up and grasped his cap. With a tug, it came off, revealing short honey-brown hair tucked behind small ears, a small pale face, and large brown eyes he could not have forgotten had he wanted to.

  “No.” He shook his head. This was all wrong. This boy couldn’t be—but it wasn’t a boy. The illusion had been broken, and Henry couldn’t help but see the delicate bones of her face, the slim lines of her body hidden beneath boys’ clothing, and the long lashes framing the eyes.

  “Kate,” he said, the name sounding halfway between a prayer and a curse.

  “Welcome to The Griffin and the Unicorn, Henry.”

  Appropriate name for the place, Henry thought, because none of this could possibly be real.

  Chapter Two

  “SURPRISED TO SEE ME?” she asked, though the look on his face answered that question easily enough. He looked more than surprised. He looked at her as though she were a ghost.

  Perhaps to him she was.

  “I was surprised to see you,” she continued, not liking the way the heavy silence fell in the room. “I had no idea you were in line to become a viscount.”

  “I wasn’t,” he said, his voice rough, as though he hadn’t spoken in years. “It should never have happened.”

  She circled him, wishing she could remove his bindings but not ready to trust him yet—if ever. “And yet it did happen, and now you are one of the prince’s set.”

  He shook his head, his dark curly hair catching the light of the candles with the movement. He’d always had such thick, dark hair, the curl like spirals if he let it grow too long. Now it was cut just short enough to tousle, as was the fashion, but not long enough for her to insert her finger into a midnight spiral, as she had when they’d been children. “I barely know the prince. I was tapped to organize the celebrations—” He broke off. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  She moved before him again. “There seems to be a lot of that in your life.”

  “Yes,” he said, his gray-blue eyes meeting hers. She’d always thought his eyes such a pretty color, especially set off as they were by his otherwise dark features. The slash of brows, the mop of hair, and now the dark smudge of stubble on his cheeks and jaw. She was tempted to touch that stubble, but she refrained. She wouldn’t have liked to be touched thus if she’d been bound, and the least she could do was extend him the same courtesy.

  That was about all the courtesy she had to give.

  “What are you doing here, Kate?” he asked suddenly. “Why do they call you Duke? Why dress as a man? Why go to all this trouble”—he nodded at her stained shirt—“to speak with me?”

  She gave a harsh laugh. “You think all of this is about you?”

  His brow furrowed, and oh, but it was as adorable as it had always been. Although, he was no longer what she would call adorable. He was a man now—tall, muscular, and strong. If he hadn’t been bound, he would have attempted to overpower her before she could blink. That kind of power and danger were far from adorable.

  Which was why she should have put him in the dungeon—what they called the room in the servants’ quarters where they kept rivals from other gangs and where his secretary currently resided—but she couldn’t send him away without first speaking to him.

  Playing with fire, her mother would have said. And yes, Kate had always been one to play with fire.

  And get burned.

  “None of this is about you, Lord Bexley.”

  “Just call me Henry.”

  “If you insist on acting like a pompous ass, I’ll treat you like one, my lord.”

  “Kate—”

  “You may call me Duke.”

  “Not likely, Miss Dunn. Answer me this. If none of this is about me, then why am I being kept prisoner?”

  “After all this time, that is the burning question you wish to ask?”

  He gave her an exasperated glance. “It seems the most pressing as my hands are numb and my arms throbbing in pain.”

  “I am sorry about that.” And she was. “Perhaps I can find a way to make you more comfortable. But first I want out of this bloody shirt.”

  He closed his eyes.

  She shrugged. “Bad puns. A weakness of mine.” Ducking behind her screen, she shed her coat and attempted to unfasten the buttons on the shirt. Her hands shook so badly she had to pause and take a deep breath. Perhaps sending Barbara away had not been the best idea. She could have used her help now.

  Kate closed her eyes and felt the sting of tears she would never allow herself to shed. She could still hear the crunch of Hedgehog’s bones when the rod had come down on his hand. She was sick to her stomach at the thought of what she’d done—and yet she’d had no choice.

  She knew he’d been stealing from her for months. She’d given him veiled warnings and cautions, and he hadn’t taken them to heart. She was relatively certain Red also knew Hedgehog was stealing, but when one of the cubs—the youngest members of the gang—had come to her and reported Hedgehog was a thief, she’d had to act. She hadn’t become the leader of the gang and a duke of the criminal underworld by allowing her own rogues to steal from her. And if she showed any sign of weakness now, any sign of softening, there were a dozen men and boys waiting to take her place.

  Fear and a grudging respect kept her gang in line. She’d had to do unspeakable things to earn her position, and if she fell, all of the sacrifices she’d made would be for nothing.

  Kate opened her eyes again. She hadn’t enjoyed smashing Hedgehog’s hand. It would mean an end to his days as a pickpocket, but she’d spared his life. He could find other work. Most of the arch rogues of the other gangs would have killed Hedgehog for less.

  She’d always thought that once she had power, she could afford to be merciful. But now she wondered if her mercy toward Hedgehog—little as it was—might be the sign of weakness one of her own needed to try to overthrow her.

  If that happened, she knew what she’d be forced to do.

  Kate blew out a breath and started on her buttons again. A deadly calm settled over her. This was her life. She couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t turn her back, couldn’t trust anyone. The moment she thought she wa
s safe, that she had “made it,” was the moment she’d be the most vulnerable.

  And now she’d found Henry Selkirk. Her old friend Henry had grown up and become a viscount. What must it be like to wake up one morning and realize you were a lord? A titled peer of the realm. He had everything—wealth, safety, power—and he’d done nothing to earn it.

  Kate didn’t think the two of them could be more different.

  It hadn’t always been that way.

  She pulled the shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor.

  “You can’t keep me here, you know.” Henry’s voice floated across the room, reaching her behind the screen. “I’ll be missed.”

  “That must be nice,” she said, untying the string holding up her trousers. “Having people who miss you. Your wife? Children?”

  “I meant my staff,” he said.

  Ah, so no wife and children, then. Why should that please her? It wasn’t as though she wanted to marry him. That would be a girlish fantasy, and she’d long outgrown those.

  “If you cooperate, you will be safely tucked into your mansion in Mayfair in no time.”

  “I don’t live in a mansion.”

  Was it her imagination, or was his voice closer than it had been a moment ago? She remembered she’d cut the bindings on his ankles, which meant he was free to move about her bedchamber.

  “Don’t you?” She turned and caught him watching her from the other side of the screen. “My lord, a gentleman would never spy on a lady.”

  His face reddened slightly, and he turned so his back was to her. She stared at him, surprised at his behavior. She’d expected him to argue, to point out she was hardly a lady. Instead, he’d treated her with courtesy. Her gaze dropped to his hands, which had turned purple. She had certainly not given him the same courtesy.

  She allowed her trousers to drop to the floor, then started unwinding the bindings that flattened her breasts.

  “I wondered how you had managed to hide your figure,” he said. She looked up at him, but his back was still turned. “I should not have been so curious.”

  She shrugged, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “I don’t have much to hide.”

  “Forgive me, but from the glimpse I had, that’s not quite true.”

  Now it was her turn for her cheeks to heat. And suddenly her nakedness made her feel vulnerable. She reached for the silk wrap she wore when she was alone—one of her few luxuries, her few nods to her femininity—and pulled it on, cinching the belt tightly.

  She removed the daggers from her boots, then toed them off. Taking hold of his bindings, she cut them. It was probably a mistake, but she didn’t want to look at those purple hands any longer.

  With a hiss, he lowered his hands to his sides, then groaned as he rotated his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. She winced in sympathy. She’d been bound before, and she knew the pain of numb limbs coming back to life. Giving him a private moment to recover, she strode across the room and poured a glass of wine from an open bottle. She sipped it, then shrugged and poured him one as well.

  She turned. “Drink this. You can probably use it.”

  His handsome face was contorted, but he gave a quick nod. “Thank you,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Don’t try anything,” she added when he began to move toward her. “I still have my knife, and I know how to use it. I can gut you in three seconds flat.”

  His brow wrinkled. “That’s not an image I want to examine too closely.” He took the wine she offered and sipped it with all the elegance of a titled nobleman. His gaze dipped to her attire, but he lifted it again quickly.

  They watched each other in silence, both sipping wine. Finally, she sat on the edge of her bed, tucking her bare feet under her robe. Her knife was beside her.

  “It’s been a long time, Kate,” Henry said when his glass was half empty. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “I’m sure you wish you hadn’t.”

  “This isn’t how I would have chosen to renew our acquaintance.”

  She gave a short laugh. “If you’d known what I’d become, you wouldn’t want to be acquainted with me at all. I’m not suitable company for a viscount.”

  His face wrinkled in annoyance. “You think I’d put title above our friendship?”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I don’t know Viscount Bexley. The Henry I knew didn’t scurry about to do the prince’s bidding, didn’t strut through Vauxhall giving orders, didn’t dress as though he were a peacock.”

  She gave a pointed look to his tight coat and crisp white cravat—at least it had been crisp and white.

  “The Kate Dunn I knew didn’t assault innocent men or threaten them with knives, not to mention abducting them.”

  “We’ve both changed,” she admitted.

  “What happened?” he asked, moving closer to her. She stiffened and held up a hand, a clear warning for him to stay back. He nodded. “One day I saw you, and the next you had disappeared. You never even said good-bye.”

  Her heart constricted, and she clenched her hands. She could not allow him to wiggle through her defenses. She wasn’t Kate Dunn anymore, and he wasn’t Henry Selkirk. “I’m certain my disappearance warranted a quarter hour of discussion over dinner, if that. But don’t pretend you actually missed me, my lord. Don’t pretend you looked for me.”

  She’d wanted him to look for her, wanted him to find her, to save her. But he’d never come. No one had come.

  She’d had to save herself.

  “I did look for you. I inquired—”

  “Stop.” She waved his paltry words away. “We were children. Life happened to us. We’re not children any longer. We shape our lives and our future.”

  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?”
<
br />   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.”