Rake's Reward

by Kruger, Mary

  Driver’s eyes flickered again, and he glanced uncertainly from Cecily to Alex. “That I can,” he said, at last holding out his own hand. “Wouldn’t want no harm to come to her.”

  “Neither would I, Mr. Driver.” Alex was aware that he was being measured by as shrewd a pair of eyes as he’d ever encountered. A force to be reckoned with, was Joe Driver. Alex was devoutly grateful he was on their side. “Thank you for watching out for her.”

  “Yes, Mr. Driver, it was very brave,” Cecily said.

  Driver looked, if anything, uncomfortable at this unlooked-for praise, and twisted his cap in his hands. “Anything I can do for yer while yer here, m’lady, yer just tell Matron, and she’ll see I hear.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Driver, that’s most generous of you.”

  “And I’m glad to see yer not alone this time,” he went on, glancing towards Alex and nodding. “He’ll watch out for yer.”

  “I will.” Alex nodded gravely. “An honor, indeed,” he murmured to Cecily as they continued into the orphanage. “To have Mr. Driver as our ally.”

  “Don’t tease,” Cecily said. The dark dankness of the orphanage reached out to surround them, and Alex resisted the urge to drag Cecily away. “He means well. This time, at least. He really does care about his daughter, you know.”

  “Peace, little one.” He laid his hand briefly on her shoulder, moving it away as her startled glance met his. “I believe you. I don’t think the finer feelings are confined only to people with means.” His gaze softened. “You see, Cecily, I really do have a heart.”

  “I never doubted it, sir,” she whispered, returning his look. At that moment, Matron bustled into the hall to greet them. Cecily turned away, her polite smile masking her frustration. Every time she and St. Clair had a chance to talk, every time the atmosphere between them turned magical, they were interrupted. It was most annoying.

  Alex greeted Matron politely and refused her offer to wait in her parlor while Cecily sat with the children. Instead, he went around the orphanage with them. His face was, as usual, expressionless, but Cecily was coming to know him well enough to guess that he was as dismayed and horrified as she had been when first she had come here. The rows of cots with threadbare blankets, the dankness from the unhealthy location, the pinched faces of the children, all reached out to her as they always did. Someday, perhaps, she could do more, promising them all a better life, but not now.

  “Thank God,” Alex said, when they at last walked out, taking a breath of the sooty air that seemed fresh and clean to him after being inside. “Are all the orphanages like that?”

  “No, this is one of the better ones,” Cecily said.

  “Better! God’s teeth, the conditions those children live in!”

  “But they’re clean, and Matron doesn’t allow her staff any alcohol.”

  “God’s teeth,” Alex said again, helping her into the hackney. All he wanted now was to get her out of this unhealthy place; all he desired was to keep her away, to protect her from any harm. At least there wouldn’t be a repetition of the trouble they’d faced last time, he thought, raising a hand in salute to Joe Driver, who stood across the street. “I’ve a mind to tell your father about this.”

  Cecily stared at him as the hackney started off. “You promised you wouldn’t!”

  “That was before I knew what that place was like.”

  “That is why I’d like to see schools built, sir, and new orphanages.”

  “God’s teeth, just breathing the air would make you ill. It’s no place for a lady.”

  “But it is for a gentleman?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve never told me, sir, what you were doing here the last time.”

  “Indeed.” Alex’s gaze was expressionless. “And I don’t intend to tell you.”

  “I see. ‘Tis all very well for you to come here, and Lord Edgewater, but not me—”

  “Edgewater?” Alex and Parsons spoke together.

  “Yes.” Cecily looked from one to the other. “I saw him here one day, too.”

  “Indeed?” Alex drawled. “And what did he tell you he was doing here? If you were so impertinent as to ask.”

  Cecily frowned. “He denied it, if you must know. I must say, it did seem strange,” she said, her pique dissolving, “but it did look like him. He was dressed In dark clothes, and he was coming out of a building across from the orphanage.”

  Alex craned his head to see. They were passing a low, crooked building, its sign barely legible. The Star and Garter. A tavern. “Was he, indeed,” he murmured, disguising his mounting excitement.

  “My lord,” Parsons said. “While you were inside I did some looking around. Wasn’t far from here they found Barnes.”

  “Indeed.” Alex exchanged a long look with Parsons. This was it, then, the link they had been searching for. How, though, did Barnes figure in this? “Did you not think it strange, seeing him there?”

  “Of course I did. I said so at the time, didn’t I, Jem?”

  Jem, who had been sitting quietly, stirred. “Yes, my lady. Glad I was to get you out of there that day, too.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, must we bring that up again?”

  “I didn’t like it when that man spoke to you, my lady,” Jem said, stubbornly. “I still don’t like it. My lord.” He looked at Alex. “Maybe you can make Lady Cecily see how unsuitable this is.”

  “I’m not sure anyone can, Jem. Except perhaps the duke.”

  “It would mean my position, sir, and someone has to make sure she’s safe. She’ll talk to anyone.”

  “You needn’t discuss me as if I weren’t present,” Cecily put in.

  “Indeed,” Alex said, sounding bored, to cover his intense impatience. There was more to this, he knew there was. “Who was this man you speak of?”

  “I don’t know,” Cecily said. “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps not. Satisfy my curiosity, Cecily.”

  Cecily looked at him at that, hearing a note of urgency in his voice. What was this? “Oh, very well. I don’t know who it was. It was after I’d seen Edgewater, and I was about to leave when a man approached me and asked me if I knew Edgewater. That was why the incident was so strange, you see.”

  “Indeed. And you didn’t know this man?”

  “No, I never saw him again.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Do you know, you are as bad as my father, in your own way? He was short, with grey hair, with the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen—”

  “Barnes,” Parsons said, and Alex made a quick gesture for silence.

  “Barnes?” Cecily looked from Parsons to Alex. “I don’t understand any of this,” she complained.

  “It is of no moment,” Alex said. Barnes! She’d seen Alf Barnes that day, and at last he had the answer to the question that had been plaguing him. “Ask Cecily Randall.” Ask her whom she’d seen in Whitechapel, and where. That was all. Cecily was innocent. The thought made him lighthearted with joy. “Someone Parsons knew in his misguided past.”

  “My lord,” Parsons said reprovingly, and Cecily looked again from him to Alex. Something was happening here, something she didn’t understand. “I see,” she said, finally, sitting back and pretending to look out the window. Foolish to feel hurt about this. St. Clair was surely entitled to his own secrets, his own life. But of what, she wondered with sudden unease, did that life consist? For the first time, she realized just how little she knew about this man.

  The rest of the ride was accomplished in silence. The hackney stopped on South Audley Street and, after extracting a promise from Cecily that she would notify him when next she went to the orphanage, Alex watched her walk away. When she reached the safety of Marlow House, he thumped on the roof of the hackney, which started off.

  “Barnes, sir,” Parsons said. “It had to be.”

  “I agree. You realize what this means, Parsons?”

  “Yes, sir. Edgewater has to be the leader.”

>   “Of course he is.” Alex’s voice was impatient. “Though I wish we had more proof of that. To accuse a peer of the realm without it is foolhardy. No, Parsons, I meant about Lady Cecily. She’s innocent.”

  “Of course she is,” Parsons returned in the same impatient tone. “Didn’t you know that?”

  “No. Hoped it, believed it, but knew it? No. Not until now.” He stroked his upper lip. “She is exactly what she seems. How unusual.”

  “She could be in danger, sir.”

  “From Edgewater? God’s teeth!” Alex stared at him. “That’s why he wanted to marry her! A wife cannot testify against her husband.”

  “Damn!” Parsons exclaimed, which earned him a look from Alex. “I’ll continue to keep watch on her, sir, shall I?”

  “Yes. And I suppose I shall have to continue attending routs and the like. What I do for my country.”

  “Yes, sir. At least until we capture Edgewater.”

  “Oh, at least. And perhaps even after.” For the first time that afternoon, Alex smiled. They’d done it, by God! They had the leader of the conspiracy. “And we’ll get him, Parsons,” he said, grimly confident. “We’ll get him.”

  Edgewater stood in a window embrasure at the Duke of Dartmouth’s, watching the dancers, at this most select gathering of the ton. So select, in fact, that people were able to move about without actually tripping over each other. For all his appearance of being a man about town, Edgewater had found that moments like this, simply watching, were often the most useful. It was when people were unaware they were being observed that one could often learn much about them.

  Lord St. Clair, for example. Since learning of St. Clair’s prior occupation, Edgewater had set himself to find out more about the man. It wasn’t easy; even before his departure for the Continent, St. Clair had apparently kept to himself. However, Edgewater’s position in Parliament, as well as his more secret activities in business, led him to sources that otherwise would not be available to him. From them he had gleaned bits and pieces of information, and had carefully set them together as one would a mosaic, to gain a picture of the man he was increasingly coming to believe was his most dangerous opponent. Why else would St. Clair always have been on the spot, when Edgewater was about to execute some part of his plan? No, he was being watched, he concluded; he’d made a mistake somewhere. That was of no moment, however. He had other resources, other strengths, and he had no doubt that he would win through, St. Clair or no. Especially now that he knew the man’s weaknesses.

  The whirling dancers parted in a swirl of color. For a moment he could see his opponent, waltzing with Lady Cecily, and smiling down at her as if she were quite the most beautiful woman in the world. Edgewater’s mouth twisted into a sneer. The fool. There, though he probably was not aware of it, was his prime weakness, his ridiculous attachment to that plain, dowdy girl. Edgewater wasn’t quite certain how to exploit that weakness yet, but, in combination with another flaw he suspected St. Clair might possess, it could be deadly. For Edgewater had thought long and hard on the attributes a spy would need to be successful, and it had occurred to him that the most important one would be a distrust of everyone. A strength in a spy, but a weakness in a man, especially one who appeared to be as enamored as St. Clair. Reformed rakes always did fall the hardest. It would, Edgewater promised himself, prove to be St. Clair’s downfall. He knew his opponent now, and that, along with his natural superiority, would carry the day.

  As for Lady Cecily—that young miss would get her comeuppance. Because of her jilting him, people had laughed at him—him!—in the guise of commiserating with him. Or they had pitied him, which was far worse. He was Edgewater! Lady Cecily would pay, he vowed, and soon. The knowledge she had of his activities was nothing against this. One day she would regret having jilted him.

  In the meantime, her loss had left him with a problem. By himself he could probably carry the day, once his long-planned revolution started. He was, after all, a peer, born and bred to rule, and thus would be far more acceptable to the aristos, once he had taken power. A wife, however, from the highest echelons of society, would have helped cement his position. He hadn’t the time to begin courting someone else; Cecily had been carefully chosen, and long-courted, before he had proposed. Who could he find now to take her place?

  The waltz ended, and the dancers began to move off the floor, some to go to other partners, others to seek refreshment or the haven of the card room. In the milling crowd Edgewater lost sight of St. Clair and Cecily, but that was of no moment. Someone else came into his view, a tall, laughing girl with dark hair and sparkling eyes, a girl with quite as much background as Cecily. Edgewater’s mouth curved in a slow, triumphant smile. Lady Diana Randall. Why had he not thought of her before?

  “Cece? You’re surely not going to bed yet!” Diana, the sash of her wrapper tied securely about her, bounded into Cecily’s room.

  “‘Tis late, Di. I’m tired.” Cecily, sitting in front of her dressing table while her maid brushed her hair for the night, smiled ruefully at her sister’s reflection. Why was it that even en dishabille Diana managed to look attractive and perfectly groomed, while she herself could never attain such perfection, no matter how she tried?

  Diana bounced onto Cecily’s bed, her eyes alight. “Well, I think it’s poor-spirited, when I’ve so much to tell you!”

  “Do you? Thank you, Annie, you may retire.” Cecily smiled at her maid as she rose from the dressing table. “Now, Di, what’s all this?” she asked, climbing onto the bed and sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “Oh, Cece, the most marvelous thing!” Diana smiled dreamily up at the canopy. “He talked with me tonight.”

  “He? Mr. Carstairs?”

  “No, silly, not him! He’s the merest boy. No.” She smiled. “Lord Edgewater.”

  “What? What did he want?”

  “Merely to talk to me, so you needn’t sound so exercised. Or do you still have a tendre for him?”

  “No!” Cecily spoke more sharply than she’d intended. “Oh, Diana, have you any idea what you’re getting into?”

  “Of course. He’s handsome, wealthy, and titled. What more could one want?” Diana said, with one of her rare flashes of practicality.

  Some kindness, perhaps. Diana wouldn’t understand. Worse, Cecily knew from experience, any opposition might well make her more stubborn. “Well, I’d want more than that. I will admit that he’s charming.” When he wants to be.

  “And so handsome! When he came to ask me to waltz, I nearly swooned, I was so thrilled.”

  Cecily bit back an exclamation of alarm. It meant nothing. Edgewater was only being polite. And, much as she disliked him, he must find it far more pleasant to be with someone who idolized him, rather than someone who saw him all too clearly, as Cecily had. She suspected he didn’t like having his self-image disturbed. “There are many other wealthy, handsome and titled men, Diana. You needn’t settle on anyone just yet.”

  Diana pouted. Cecily made a mental note to practice just such an expression herself, it was so appealing, and then discarded the idea. Such tricks didn’t work for her. “You sound like Papa.”

  “My apologies, Di.” She yawned. “Forgive me, but I am prodigious tired, and we have a busy day again tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m to go driving with Danbury!” Diana said, bouncing off the bed and relieving Cecily’s mind enormously. If Diana could still be excited by the attentions of other men, her attachment to Edgewater was likely not serious. “Will you be seeing Lord St. Clair tomorrow?”

  Cecily paused, and then slipped into bed. “I don’t believe so. Why?”

  “Why?” Diana’s eyes sparkled. “Because I think he has a tendre for you, that’s why!”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Cecily said, but she blushed.

  “It isn’t! I saw the way he looked at you. And tonight, he always seemed to be wherever you were.”

  “That’s just the way he is.” Cecily pulled the quilts up over herself, st
ruck once again by how perceptive Diana could be when she wished. “He looks at every woman like that.”

  “Oh, no. Just at you.”

  “Nonsense. Now do go away, Diana, and let me sleep.”

  “Oh, very well, cross-patch.” Diana yawned. “But I doubt I’ll sleep tonight, I’m so excited!”

  Cecily smiled sleepily as the bedroom door closed behind her sister. Had she ever been that young, even when she had first come to London? Her natural reticence had made the season something of an ordeal for her, until she had come to know some people and had relaxed. Now she enjoyed it quite as much as Diana did, though in a different way. Diana was bright, enthusiastic, openly charming, the type of girl that attracted young men in droves. Not St. Clair, however, and that thought made Cecily’s smile deepen. It was not Diana that St. Clair had noticed, but her. Imagine that.

  Did he have a tendre for her? It seemed nonsense that someone like him would be attracted to her, and yet— And yet, there had been the waltz tonight, when the orchestra had seemed to play for them alone, when his hands had her waist had seemed a little warmer, a little firmer, so that she had allowed him to hold her just a bit closer than propriety allowed. There had been the rides in the park, when they had talked in perfect harmony, as if they had known each other forever. There had been that terrible, and yet wonderful, moment in Lady Radcliffe’s garden, when he had held her and comforted her. And, most importantly, there had been that time in his lodgings, when he had kissed her.

  Closing her eyes, Cecily let her fingers drift to her lips, remembering the sensations he had evoked within her. His lips had fit so well with hers, his arms had felt so right about her, strong, but not confining; sure and certain, but not arrogant, demanding. Of course, she reminded herself now as she had then, he knew quite well how to kiss, he’d certainly had experience at it! It was no wonder it had affected her so.

  Even as she thought that, though, she knew it wasn’t fair. Alex—how she loved saying his name, even if only to herself—hadn’t kissed her as if she were just any woman. He had kissed her with an awareness of her that had been missing from Edgewater’s embraces. That was what had made the kiss so special. Cecily wondered if, indeed, he did cherish a tendre for her. She knew for certain she had one for him.