The Rogue Prince

by Margo Maguire

  And yet one solid challenge could bring down their house of cards. Someone who’d known Tom or one of his men in years past could expose the charade. A word from Foveaux would not be taken lightly.

  “Foveaux. I can’t believe it,” said Saret, who hadn’t been with Tom and Nate on the island, but had experienced the commandant’s cruel hospitality at Port Jackson. “After all these years! I thought he was killed in some mutiny.”

  Nate made a disparaging sound.

  “The rumors were inflated,” Tom said. “The man was very much alive in Lord Sawbrooke’s house last night. And he’s a general now.”

  Saret let out a long breath. “Will he say anything? What does this do to our plans?”

  Tom suddenly wished he had not told Zachary to call him Thorne, after the care they’d taken never to use any of their real names. If anyone made the connection with Tom’s true surname, it would take some explaining.

  “We sting him along with the others,” he said. “See if we can relieve him of his commission. And find out about his finances.”

  Saret’s face brightened. “Aye. Brilliant!”

  Tom gave a shake of his head. “This is a good reminder that we need to be very careful. No slips in our names or our story. We must use the utmost care in searching out information, and when dealing with the authorities. They are not complete fools.”

  “Right,” Saret said gravely.

  “Not to worry, Saret. Who would believe Foveaux if he said he knew us, anyway?” Nate laughed. “Even if he suspected, he didn’t even believe it himself.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Saret replied.

  Nate turned to Tom. “I met up with Andrew Harland last night,” he said. “He had a few hours off, and managed to get away from Shefford’s house without being noticed.”

  “Has he learned anything?”

  “Shefford belongs to some club—they call it the S.C.H. club, and Harland says the members frequently meet in an abandoned building somewhere on the east end and get on with whatever they do.”

  “Which is…?” Tom asked.

  “Unknown. But Harland is going to make sure he is the footman who accompanies Shefford on S.C.H.’s next outing.”

  Tom’s butler, an American ex-convict named Mickles, came into the dining room. He was a tall, dignified-looking fellow with white hair and a thin white mustache who had once actually served as a butler. He knew his duties and what needed to be done by the other servants—all sailors from Tom’s ships—to keep the household running. And to keep it safe.

  “A messenger just brought this, Your Highness,” Mickles said, his words and manner in keeping with the role he played. He carried a salver with a sealed scroll on it, which he placed on the table beside Tom.

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?” Nate asked, though they all had a fair idea that it must be a royal pronouncement. They’d seen nothing like it to date.

  Tom broke the seal and removed the encircling golden ribbon, then unrolled it. He read it quickly, then passed it to Nate as he spoke to Saret. “It seems the prince regent wishes to host a state dinner in our honor.”

  Nate laughed as he read. “It will be in two weeks, when he returns from Bristol.”

  “Good Christ, could you ever have imagined?” Saret said.

  Tom smiled, gratified that his plans were falling directly into place. Recognition by Prince George would give him the final touch of credibility. Once the regent recognized Tom as a fellow monarch, it would be difficult for any Englishman to rebuff his Sabedorian claims. Neither Foveaux nor anyone else would want to embarrass Prince George in such a way.

  “We’re to reply as soon as possible, and send a list with the names of our entourage on it.”

  “Add Lady Blackmore’s name,” Nate said to Thomas. “Then it will be clear that she is your—”

  “I’ll consider it,” he said, cutting Nate off. It was exactly what he should do, take Maggie to Carlton House and expose her as his paramour. His whore. And yet the thought of it turned his stomach.

  “Maybe we should get the regent to bet on the horse race,” said Saret.

  “No!” Nate exclaimed. “We’ll get Shefford to bring him in. Can you just imagine the kind of disfavor Shefford would—”

  “Too dangerous.” Tom’s tone brooked no argument. “Duping the regent is not part of the equation, no matter how well a huge royal loss would work to discredit Shefford. We do it the way we planned.” It was that kind of overconfidence that could get them all hanged.

  Nate accepted Tom’s decision and turned to Saret. “What about the tobacco plot?”

  “Shefford is in,” Saret replied. “He fell for Roarke’s scheme without hesitation.”

  “Excellent,” Nate said. “His wager against Arrendo pushed him past his ready resources. What about his bank?”

  Saret nodded. “I’m meeting Mr. Thatcham—of Thatcham’s Bank—this afternoon. I’m hoping I’ll find Blackmore funds there, because I haven’t been able to learn much about them.”

  The thought of taking Blackmore funds gave Tom a distinctly raw sensation in the pit of his stomach, but it was part of the plan. He could not bring himself to change it, even though…

  “We’ve still heard nothing from Salim and your family,” said Saret. Tom had sent Sebastian Salim to Suffolk immediately on their arrival in England.

  “He’s only been gone five days,” Nate said. “It will take some time to locate your people, especially if they’ve left Suffolk.”

  Tom knew that, of course. But he was anxious for his reunion with his parents and sister, though he steeled his heart against disappointment. Anything could have happened in seventeen years. His parents were much older now, and Jennie might have married and would no longer be a Thorne.

  Tom had been raised to be an honest man, which made him more than a little uncomfortable with all his schemes and charades. But it was all necessary. The Sabedoria fiction was absolutely essential in order to take vengeance on the men who had wronged him and his family so grievously. He didn’t think he would ever find peace without dealing with the fiends who’d come so close to destroying him.

  He realized his emotions were raw. His night with Maggie should have quelled his passions, and yet he felt even more restless than he had before bedding her. All his machinations had finally been put into motion, and he should feel a great deal more satisfaction than he did. But he found he could not concentrate on horse races, bank shares or tobacco smuggling.

  He was preoccupied by thoughts of Maggie’s tender expression as she watched Zachary and Lily at play, and even more by the innocent trust her children had shown him. He reminded himself on the ride back to Delamere House that he was allowing himself to be distracted by the woman who was a key component in his schemes. He could not allow himself to become sidetracked or to lose focus.

  Tom left to go in search of Edward Ochoa, who’d had more contact than anyone with Judge Maynwaring. He found the American in the library, sitting beside a tall window, reading. Ochoa was generally a quiet man who kept to himself, but he was not aloof. Tom knew little of the man’s history, only that he’d been a lawyer in Virginia, and convicted of some felony. But he fit the description of a dignified government minister, and was a valuable asset to the Sabedorian tale.

  Tom could not fathom what Ochoa’s offense might have been, for he seemed a fine and decent man. In need of funds, of course, or else he wouldn’t have signed on for Tom’s risky venture—one which would see them all hanged if they were exposed.

  Ochoa looked up from his book when Tom entered the room.

  “Thomas.” He started to rise from his chair.

  “Don’t get up,” Tom said. He joined the older man at the window and sat down in a nearby chair.

  “You’re wondering what I learned about Maynwaring,” said Ochoa.

  Tom gave him a slow nod. “Anything?”

  “He is unmarried and owns a large house in Kensington, not far from here. He is the younger brot
her of the Earl of Gosdale, and inherited a substantial fortune from his father, the previous earl. He does not frequent gambling houses, or play the horses.”

  “No vices?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Ochoa replied. “Only that we haven’t found them yet.”

  “What were your impressions when you met him?”

  “He’s a righteous prig who believes he’s the final word on jurisprudence,” said Edward. “He is courteous to me only because of my position as a Sabedorian minister, and he cannot quite understand the Sabedorian social strata. He is a snob, and had he met me as a mere lawyer, he would not have given me the time of day.”

  “I don’t remember him much. From my trial.”

  Ochoa shook his head. “It was a long time ago.”

  Tom looked out at the front drive and the sculpted lawns and shrubs. Meaningless accoutrements to his performance. He very much preferred the open lands of Thorne’s Gate, and yet he had the oddest feeling that his estate was not quite complete. Perhaps when he took his parents there…“My father petitioned the court for mercy. Repeatedly. Maynwaring had no interest.”

  “He believed your accusers.”

  “Aye. The sons of peers. They wouldn’t lie, would they?”

  “What did you do to offend them?” Ochoa asked.

  “It all happened so quickly,” Tom said, frowning. “I’m not sure.”

  “They might have taken a dislike to your looks, but I would venture to guess they took exception to something you said or did.”

  Tom shrugged, thinking back to that monstrous day. “We’d gone to the house in Hanover Square to deliver the horses the previous Lord Shefford bought in Suffolk,” he said. “I was a groom…of no significance whatsoever.”

  He’d been quiet and polite, just as his father had instructed, looking after Shefford’s horses. He could not imagine how that would have offended the two boys.

  “I never even saw Leighton’s father, the marquess,” he said, remembering the day. “But Leighton and Julian were in their riding gear, getting ready to go out.”

  “You were all of an age, I’d guess?”

  Tom nodded. “I think Julian might have been a year younger. But yes. All about sixteen or seventeen.”

  It had been raining, and the courtyard and gardens were a soggy mess, with deep tracks and puddles. The two boys had shouted for grooms to clean the mud from their boots, and Tom remembered thinking they were a pair of inept clods if they couldn’t take care of their own gear. But he remembered someone else…

  “There was a crippled young girl.” Tom struggled to recall what she looked like. “She came into the courtyard and stumbled. I happened to be close by and I caught her arm. Kept her from falling into the muddy carriage tracks.”

  Oh Christ. He could see her now, hardly more than a child in an ill-fitting gown, moving awkwardly toward the boys on a crutch when she tripped. Maggie.

  “You touched her.” Ochoa said it without any inflection, but as a statement of fact. “They couldn’t allow that.”

  Tom stood and jabbed his fingers through his hair. He remembered her clearly now, her glorious hair falling out of its braids, her face slightly sunburned, her freckles dancing across her nose and cheeks. He’d thought she was sweet even then, and how exceedingly unfair it was that she was lame.

  She had said little about her accident, and Tom hadn’t realized how bad it must have been. He’d noticed the scar on her thigh, and he understood how amazing it was that she was able to walk as well as she did.

  If Ochoa was right, then it was Tom’s quick reflexive action that had caused her brother and his friend to decide to take him down a notch. Considering the way her siblings treated her, Tom wondered if Shefford would have preferred to see her fall into the mud rather than allow a bumpkin from a horse farm to touch her.

  “Well,” said Ochoa, “it’s no matter now. You’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “Aye,” Tom said, reeling from his sudden insight. Maggie had triggered everything. Norfolk Island, Port Jackson, the pirate slave ship. He swore under his breath.

  “Maynwaring invited me to lunch with him today,” said Ochoa. “We meet at one.”

  Somehow, Tom managed to reply. “Keep me apprised.”

  Mr. Brown laughed out loud when he saw the caricature of Lord Castlereagh. Maggie had put him at a desk with the Sabedorian prince, alongside a pair of dueling pistols and a bolt of flax.

  “How clever,” Mr. Brown had said, laughing, “to play on Castlereagh’s propensity for dueling with important dignitaries. This will tickle our subscribers and—if I’m not mistaken—make you a very rich woman!”

  Maggie sat back in her chair, more than pleased.

  “Your first picture caused quite a stir,” he said.

  “That’s very good for me, then.”

  The editor picked up Maggie’s drawing and chuckled again. “The public has an insatiable curiosity about that Sabedorian,” he said. “And this caricature with Castlereagh—ha!—absolutely priceless!”

  “I hope it’s not too—”

  “Hel—Heavens, no! This is better than anything I’d hoped for, Lady Blackmore. Your drawings have an edge that go beyond mere satire. The public enjoys a good farce, and you are racking up Gazette sales with yours.”

  “Well, thank you, I think.” She hadn’t intended to make Thomas a farcical character, and now she wondered what he thought of the Redbush drawings. If he even saw them.

  “Yes, yes, it’s a compliment. Definitely. I understand they’ve had to go back and reprint that first caricature because sales were so brisk.”

  “Really?”

  “This one will sell like hot muffins from a hawker’s barrow on a cold day. Now that we know how popular these pictures are…well, we’ll have a much larger number made up as prints for sale.”

  Perhaps Thomas did not look at the London papers. There was a good chance he did not know of the caricatures. Maggie felt slightly queasy at the thought of his reaction to her drawings.

  “You’ve earned quite a tidy sum already, my lady,” Mr. Brown said. He removed a folded, wrapped sheet of vellum from his desk, and when he handed it to Maggie, she realized it was her first payment for her work. “Keep the Sabedorian as your primary subject, and your…ahem…financial difficulties will be a thing of the past.”

  Maggie put the all-important payment into her empty portfolio and stood, giving Mr. Brown a curt nod. She hoped she hadn’t made Thomas an object of ridicule, for that had not been her intention. And she hoped that by placing Lord Castlereagh in the picture with him, she had not soured Castlereagh’s, or any other important minister’s willingness to deal with Thomas. She had not meant to thwart his mission in England.

  “Can we expect another caricature from you next week, Lady Blackmore?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Because there wasn’t any other way to escape her debt, and the heft of the packet in her reticule was a sure enticement to do more.

  She returned home and went into Julian’s small study. Not that her husband had ever studied anything there, but a writing desk was there, and some paper and ink. She quickly penned a letter to Mr. Clements, asking him for a list of Julian’s debts. And as long as she was writing, she asked what the procedure would be for naming a new trustee for Zachary’s estate. Clearly, Shefford was not suited to the task.

  She had just put her seal on the letter to the solicitor when Mathers came in with a note from her mother. Maggie’s stomach clenched as she unsealed Beatrice’s note and read the scathing message within.

  “Is everything all right, my lady?” Mathers asked.

  Maggie swallowed. “Yes, Mathers. Thank you.”

  “Is there any reply, ma’am?”

  “No, that will be all. Thank you.”

  No doubt Charlotte had given their mother some perverse version of the encounter in the park, leaving out Charlotte’s rude treatment of her youngest sister. But Maggie had no interest in correcting her sister’s ver
sion of events, in spite of the repercussions she was sure to face from her family.

  She was determined not to become embroiled in some petty family altercation and allow them to spoil her expectations of the afternoon she was going to spend with Thomas. Maggie had never felt such a breathless anticipation for anything before, and she suffered a tiny twinge of guilt that she had never been so anxious to see Julian.

  Her attraction to Thomas had proved to be irresistible, and his reciprocation was beyond anything Maggie had ever experienced. His kiss was compelling, a simple touch of his hand made her yearn for more. It was amazing that she had not dissolved the first time he’d taken her in his arms. Or perhaps she had, she thought, her skin tingling at the memory of the intense interlude they’d shared in the carriage.

  She felt a sudden chill and rubbed her arms, aware that any respectable woman would be appalled by her behavior. She had taken a lover, and did not think it was entirely due to her shock at Victoria’s and Mr. Clement’s revelations about Julian’s affairs and what he’d done to their finances.

  She stood abruptly, and went upstairs to her bedchamber. Standing in the doorway as she looked in, she could hardly believe all that had transpired the night before. She stepped into the room and skimmed one hand over the coverlet of the bed, aware that she would never lie in that bed again without remembering the hours she’d spent there with Thomas. She could not press her face to the pillows without recalling his scent, the rough texture of his hands, or the crisp rasp of his hair against her breasts.

  She closed her eyes and shivered again, even though there was a fire in the grate and the room was comfortably warm.

  The candle she’d put in her window was still there, and Maggie quickly removed it. Anyone might have noticed it, might have drawn some unsavory—but true—conclusions about its purpose.

  Nurse Hawkins tapped at the open door, and Maggie dropped the candle on her dressing table.