by Eva Devon
“I do hope he doesn’t do the Tyburn Jig,” Eglantine said suddenly.
“Not him,” Harry said firmly. Somehow, she felt this highwayman was different. He was smarter, stronger than the rest. Perhaps it was just a foolish girl’s fantasy, but she didn’t think so.
From what she could tell of the news-sheets, he was very careful, and had no known associates. Affidavit men, friends who swore against other friends for a lighter sentence were often how criminals were caught.
Harriet picked up her tea again and took another delicate sip of the exotic beverage sans milk, sugar, or lemon. How she longed to drink vast swallows, but even with almost inestimable wealth of her family, she took her time, savoring each note of the hot drink. After all, it had traveled half the globe to be stewed into her cup. She ought to respect it accordingly.
Her friend leaned forward and waggled her brows, her violet eyes dancing. “Do you think the widow gave up more than her jewels?”
“Eglantine!” she sputtered, tea spewing most indecorously. Gasping at the lost beverage, she dabbed at her soft yellow skirts with a linen napkin.
Eglantine laughed. “It just seems she rather enjoyed the encounter a little too much.”
Harry arched a brow, for some reason finding herself possessive of a criminal. . . that she’d never met. “The way your mind does work is quite astounding.”
“Now, now,” Eglantine tutted. “I know the books you read. Surely, such a thought has occurred to you.”
It had. More than once. But, in truth, it had been she who had been the one to steal a kiss with the masked man in her dreaming. It was absolutely silly. He was a rogue.
Hardly the thing for a lady to think of. But she’d dearly adored Moll Flanders and, well, the handsome Jamie, the highwayman, had rather had a forming effect on her ideas about the ideal man.
She forced herself to be pragmatic, pushing all silly romanticism away and said, “It never turns out well in the end for men like that.”
“True,” Eglantine sighed regretfully.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Harley said as he strode in.
Her brother, at least six foot two, easily covered the distance down the long hall, his polished Hessian boots treading the ancient, but beautiful woven burgundy and cream carpet.
She smiled at him, genuinely happy at his presence, and put her teacup down. “Brother, dear. How is the city?”
“It smells,” he said.
She frowned then let out a dramatic sigh. He did love to cause trouble. “Must you be so blunt?”
“You mean honest?” he asked, bending down to lightly kiss her cheek.
He scanned the pages strewn across the inlaid wooden table and let out a groan. “Not you, too?”
“Oh, yes,” announced Eglantine, her cheeks surprisingly pink as she studied the duke. “We are as entertained as any man by the papers.”
“Not that,” he teased then pointed a finger at a particular article. “This Gentleman Highwayman.”
“Do you know who it is?” Harry asked.
Her brother’s brows shot up. “Why the devil would you think I might know?”
She shrugged. “Well you do know many unsavory characters.”
He snatched up a muffin. “Why, thank you for your good opinion.”
“I think it’s wonderful that you know such a variety of people as opposed to myself,” Harry defended, eyeing the muffins herself, then deciding not. She collected plumpness the way some people collected ribbons or stamps.
“Or me,” agreed Eglantine, her lips turning down. “I do think I’ve met the same two hundred people over and over again my entire life.”
“It will only grow worse,” the duke warned mercilessly as he took a bite of his pilfered morsel.
“Don’t say so!” exclaimed Harry with surprising zeal, even to her own ears. “Such a thing doesn’t sound bearable.”
“Oh, we all manage it. It is our cross to bear,” her brother replied as he eyed the teapot. “I say, I don’t suppose there’s another cup, scamp?”
She arched a brow at her brother who, at present, wasn’t acting the grand duke at all, something she quite liked. So often now, he was a man who was little like the boy she’d known. How she adored him. They’d been fast friends as children, tramping through streams, collecting frogs, and skinning their knees on trees as they dared each other to climb ever higher.
A broken arm had finally put an end to that. Not hers, but George’s. She had always been the best climber. Her father had called her a goat with an affectionate smile.
Still, all that had ended the day she turned thirteen and she’d been relegated to learning the rules of society. She still rode with the best of them, but she’d given up her frog collection for French and Burke.
It had not been such an awful concession given her mother’s own considerable education and the way in which she made use of it. George, too, had changed a vast degree over the years. The cheeky imp of a boy had been replaced by a man hardened by war and a duke determined to change society.
“Why is the ton so very boring?” she sighed.
“Overbreeding,” her brother drawled.
Harry laughed.
But Eglantine’s eyes twinkled. “They aren’t all boring. The Duchess of Devonshire’s set is quite fast!”
George whipped towards her. “You stay away from that lot. A bunch of debauching artists and politicians.”
“But they’re Whigs,” Harry pointed out as she picked up the teapot and finally poured her brother a cup of tea. As she tapped the strainer ever so slightly against the cup and put it down on the tray, she waited for her brother to artfully reply.
Without apology, he merely asked, “And?”
“You’re a Whig,” she said, barely able to hide her frustration at his deliberate avoidance of her point.
“Of course,” he agreed easily, taking up the tea she’d poured for him.
“You go to their parties!” Eglantine exclaimed. For she, too, had known George since she’d been in leading strings. Being neighbors had bred a strong familiarity between the two.
“I didn’t say I shouldn’t,” he pointed out merrily. “I said you shouldn’t.”
Eglantine sniffed. “Hypocrisy.”
“Reality,” George countered, drinking from the offered cup.
Harry snatched a glance at her news-sheet and nibbled her lip. “Do you think he’s a lord?”
“Who?” her brother asked, as he crossed to the fire and leaned against the mantel.
“The Gentleman Highwayman!” Harry exclaimed.
He scowled. “I never thought I’d say this. But you’ve read too many novels.”
“But the way he speaks! His manners,” she protested.
Her brother took a long sip of tea then let out a sigh of resignation. “A good confidence man can do that, sister mine. They can play any part they choose. And I promise that’s all this bloke is, a confidence man. And a lucky one. Mark my words, he’ll be hanging by a rope come Michaelmas.”
She nodded, knowing further questioning would go nowhere. When her brother reached a decision, he was intractable.
Still, she wondered. And it struck her then, how very few people she’d truly met and how limited the variety. With her own little sigh, she acknowledged that would probably never end. Yes, her life was going to be very boring indeed.
Chapter 4
Robert wished to God his life was boring as, apparently, so many people’s were. How often had he heard members of his class lament their boredom, asking the dreaded question, “What shall we do?”
What he wouldn’t give for a moment of such inanity. Of ennui even. How lucky were those who just plodded through life, yawning, grumbling even, but secure. How marvelous it must be to know what every day was going to bring. It was nearly unfathomable to him that so many believed life to be a never-ending cycle of days doomed to repeat themselves. Lucky were they. That was all he could surmise. For they had never known the sort of unc
ertainty that he had become acquainted with.
As to his own life, he had not known a day of actual, blessed boredom since just before the grim death of his wastrel of a father. When he had returned home, laurels of victory upon his brow, he’d received a terrible shock. The hope he’d felt at a potentially bright future after his triumph at war was dashed as he’d been called to the deathbed to say his farewells. To a man who should have been someone Rob could love and look up to, trust and confide in, rely on and be helped by. But his father was not and never had been such a man. Point of fact, the old man had caused his own end through exceptionally hard drinking, hard gambling, and hard whoring combined with a complete lack of connection to reality and the consequences of his wild choices.
Rob had quickly discovered that he wasn’t inheriting a grand dukedom rife with wealth, lands, glorious houses, and political prestige. Oh no, he was inheriting chaos.
The wealth was so far gone that vast sums were actually owed. Lands had been sold and many fields were in such poor condition that they’d gone to wild seed. And the array of houses owned by his family? There was no money for their upkeep. One by one, they were rotting. Beautiful houses, crumbling in beautiful counties as tenants gazed on with dread and dismay. And his father had become so ridiculous that, really, he’d not been welcome at political meetings. He should have been one of the most powerful men in the land. Instead, he was one of the most derided.
Rob did not know how it had gotten so bad.
Perhaps it had all begun with his older brother who had lived as if there was no tomorrow, gambling away his own estates and coin, night after night, following in their father’s footsteps. What wasn’t lost playing lou and dice, was lost to chorus girls, contracted mistresses, clothes, and vast amounts of wine.
Rob had seen the papers.
Over the years, his brother and father had had no fewer than six contracted mistresses, each one costing an absolute fortune. After all, they’d been expected to cover the ladies gambling debts. . . including their own.
Their tailor, perfume, wig, and jeweler bills had been enough to make the healthiest man keel over with apoplexy. It was frankly, a marvel that Rob was still breathing after realizing the scope of it.
It was no wonder that his mother had aged a decade in a month after the old man’s death.
The reality of it had been like receiving a horse kick in the gut. The coffers had been truly empty. Now, each day was met with a new bill. With a new negotiation with a debt collector. With a new sale of some piece of art. What art remained. For the Blackstone Dukedom had a major failing.
The vast majority of its assets had not been entailed as opposed to the majority of titled families across the land. And therefore, the Blackstone holdings were largely unprotected. Only the great House Blackstone Wells was still completely intact though it had a skeleton staff, for it was the only thing entailed.
Rob held the glimmering earbobs, necklace, and garters he’d collected the previous night in his hand. He stared at the massive empty marble fireplace that had not seen coal or wood in months, and cursed under his breath.
Paste.
Clenching his fingers into a fist, he savored the feel of the settings biting into his palm.
He should not have been surprised. But there it was. Even now, he could still be caught off guard by duplicity. The irony did not escape him, given he was a thief.
No wonder, the formidable widow had not been overly distressed to part with her earbobs. It, much like the color to her lips, was fake.
And now, he was uncertain as to what to do. He closed his eyes for a moment then shoved the baubles into the top drawer of his large desk. One of the few pieces of good furniture that had yet to be sold. Black walnut, it was carved to perfection and polished to a sheen so bright he could see his face reflected. Or he could if the surface wasn’t covered in bills. Bracing his hands amidst the piles of paper, he fought a sigh.
There was nothing for it. He supposed he’d have to go out upon the road again tonight and do much better. He’d hoped to stay by his fire, reading books with his mother and sister for a week at least. Their company was one of the few things which made life bearable, even if it was hard seeing them in worn gowns, worry in their eyes.
Truthfully, the risks of going upon the road were also getting higher and higher with each foray into the dark parks. The ruling days of the highwayman were drawing to a fast close. Fielding had seen to that. Arrests were rampant. He had to keep clearly on his toes to keep free of the gaol and the noose. The judges did love to hang a highwayman.
And it was thanks only to one man, Richard Heath, that he’d learned the tricks of the trade and how to survive.
Perhaps, he’d have to pay the experienced thief another visit in his small but important kingdom in the East End. He hated to admit that perhaps he needed advice. But only fools didn’t know when to seek help.
A soft knock on the doorframe drew his attention away from the copious mounds of papers on his desk. He checked to ensure he’d closed his drawer tightly. He did not wish his mother to see a flash of a paste diamond and grow suspicious. She worried enough.
Forcing a smile, he turned to face his beloved mother.
The Dowager Duchess of Blackstone had been a beautiful woman once. She still was really. But years ago, she’d been the jewel of her generation. The diamond of the Season. At her debut she’d been declared Incomparable. And it had won her a duke.
And hell.
If one looked past the careworn wrinkles and the weariness of her sharp blue eyes, one could still see the beauty beneath. She still bore herself with the dignity of a queen and her dark hair was only touched with a thick silver streak at her temples.
Her emerald gown faded to a sage and it had been turned.
It was hard to see, his proud mother, dressed so shabbily. But they had no credit. Not any longer. Any dressmaker or haberdasher would curse them if they dared enter their shops.
Now, she held a letter in her wrinkled hand. And from the tightness of her once gentle mouth, he knew what it was.
“How much?” he asked, refusing to wince or allow his shoulders to bend.
“Apparently,” she began with surprising firmness as her eyes crackled with an understandable anger that did not seem to be extinguishable these days, “your father had arranged for two years to pay this debt, but it has now been almost three and the merchant will no longer wait.”
“I can’t blame him,” Rob replied, his gut twisting. Truthfully, it was a scandal the way members of his class left merchants twisting in the wind for repayment, sometimes ruining them in the process. It was disgusting. As soon as the dukedom’s affairs were put in order, he was determined that he would never use credit “What was it, out of curiosity?”
His mother’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “A jeweled snuff box.”
“Damnation,” he growled, driving a hand through his dark hair, unable to remain stoic any longer this particular afternoon.
She nodded. “Indeed, my son.”
His father’s grandiose selfishness was almost impossible to bear or fathom. If the purchase had been for one of the old man’s mistresses it almost would have been easier to take. At least, it would have been a gift, a present. Something for someone else. But oh no. He’d driven them deeper into debt for himself and his own vanity.
“Leave it on my desk,” he said softly, determine not to worry his mother further. She’d already suffered enough and done so admirably. “We’ll manage.”
His mother nodded, letting the parchment slide from her fingers to join the rest on his desk. “Your sister’s presentation at court—”
“Is imminent,” he finished, dreading where this conversation might be heading. Still, it was his duty to oversee it.
She hesitated ever so briefly then said firmly, “More than imminent,” as she folded her hands tightly before her. “It is—”
“Mama,” he said, using the term he had not used since boyhood. “I pr
omise. It will be well.”
“I do not know how we will find her a match,” his mother replied, her voice barely above a whisper. There were no tears in her clear eyes to match the subtly desperate tightening of her hands, only a terrible sense of foreboding.
He looked away. There was no easy answer. For he understood her worry. So, he gave her the most honest reply he could. “She’s beautiful.”
“And penniless,” his mother bit out, her gaze stealing to the windows.
He reached out and gently touched her hand, hoping to soothe her concern. “She’s the daughter of a duke.”
His mother snorted, clearly not appeased by his attempts to brighten his sister’s hopes at a decent union. “I suppose, we shall find her a marriage in the city.”
“Would that be so very terrible?” he asked softly. “A bit of new blood?”
“We have ruled for hundreds of years,” his mother countered, horrified. “Are we to now give it up? The women of my family have always married powerful men. Always had influence—”
“Things cannot stay as they always have been,” he said gently, wishing he did not have to be the bearer of unpleasant words. Wishing he could give his mother the life she wished, hating that he could not, no matter how hard he fought.
His mother stood before him, silent for a long moment. But then she met his gaze and began, “If you would but consider marriage—”
His jaw tightened. This conversation had been broached before and he’d rejected it before. “The men of our family don’t seem to be particularly effective at marriage.”
“But you’re different,” his mother protested as she took his hand in hers.
“Am I?” he asked, blinking. Then he shook his head. “I think I must sort our family before I attempt to start one.”
Her grip tightened as she all but begged, “But a wealthy young lady would—”
“Shall I whore myself then?” he asked with as much kindness as he could muster. Perhaps he should not have said it, but he could not stop himself. Not now. Not when everything he had always dreamed of had died. He wouldn’t condemn himself to such a union, too.