“Tell me,” Grace said. “How is it you both are so very certain that I will not sack you?”
“For what, doing our job?”
Silence fell in the wake of the question. Veronique wasn’t amused. From the moment she joined Grace to build 72 Shelton Street, she’d managed the safety of the club’s members and staff with unwavering commitment. The only time she was not at the club was when her husband’s ship was in port—and even then, the captain joined her on the premises more often than not.
Grace should have expected she would have been followed. Over the years, she and Veronique had built a vast network of young spies throughout Covent Garden and beyond—housemaids and tavern girls and roof runners for messages. Criminals throughout London—throughout the world—used children as pickpockets and drunkblades because no one ever noticed children, but Grace found that girls were even more likely to be overlooked. Overlooked, and underpaid. And so she had made a point of giving girls good pay and even more power. They brought information to Veronique and Grace whenever there was news to be had—the more interesting the better.
Her donning a ball gown and heading into Mayfair was certainly interesting.
Still, Grace didn’t like it.
What else had they reported? Had they seen what had happened in the gazebo?
Zeva cleared her throat and said, “Yes, well, well done everyone. What were we discussing?”
You are a queen.
It was Grace’s turn to clear her throat. “Queens.”
She shouldn’t think of it. It had been a mistake. One night, lost to memory and nostalgia. To what might have been. He hadn’t even known it was she. Of course, now it seemed that all of Covent Garden knew that it was she.
Christ. This was what she got for buying fantasy instead of selling it.
Zeva was still talking. “Well, I for one sincerely believe that Elizabeth Regina would have been a proud member of 72 Shelton.”
“She’d have to get in line,” Grace said, welcoming the change of topic, laying a hand on a stack of new membership requests. “We grow more popular by the minute. I’ve three duchesses and, from what I can tell, the leader of a small country in here.”
“That’s what I want to discuss,” Veronique interjected. “I’m concerned about our growing popularity.”
Zeva sighed, “Ah, Veronique, ever the raincloud.”
Veronique shot the other woman a look. “We cannot all occupy ourselves with proper canapés.” She looked to Grace. “All I am saying is we’ve signed twenty-one new member agreements in the last month—”
“Twenty-three,” Zeva corrected.
“Fine. And there’s no sign that interest is waning. So, if we intend to continue to increase membership . . .” Veronique paused, catching Grace’s eye. “And I assume that we are?”
“I see no reason why we wouldn’t,” Grace said.
“Then we are going to require more security.” The head of 72 Shelton’s security detail spread her hands wide and sat back in her chair, on the opposite side of Grace’s desk. Casting a discerning gaze over the haphazard towers of newsprint, member dossiers, bank documents, and bills, she added, “At the very least, we’re going to need a dedicated guard outside this room to rescue you when you become trapped beneath the avalanche of paper that will one day bring you down.”
“Nonsense. I know where everything is,” Grace said, as Zeva laughed from her place. “How many do we need?”
Veronique did not hesitate. “Five.”
Grace’s brows shot up. As 72 Shelton was both a women’s club that prized discretion and a brothel that prized safety, it already had a fifteen-person security detail that worked in three shifts, round the clock. “Do you expect a run of murders?”
“There was a brawl three nights ago at Maggie O’Tiernen’s.”
“There is a brawl every three nights at Maggie O’Tiernen’s,” Grace said. The pub was legendary for its brash Irish proprietress, who loved nothing more than urging brawny sailors to fight for her honor—and the honor of keeping her company for an evening. “No one likes a spectacle like Maggie.”
“I hear it wasn’t an ordinary brawl,” Veronique said.
“Incited by someone?” Zeva asked.
“No one can confirm it,” Veronique replied, “but I don’t like it. Not on top of Satchell’s.”
A gaming hell for ladies, Satchell’s had been open for less than a year, but was already beloved of aristocratic women—in part because it was discreet, lushly appointed, and frequented by the Duchess of Trevescan, who was the kind of patroness any new business would do crime to have, a sparkling jewel with just enough scandal to make wherever she went seem worthy of time and funds.
Of course, Grace had known the duchess for long enough to know that she was interested in places where women congregated, full stop. “What happened at Satchell’s?”
“It was raided.”
Grace stilled. “By whom?”
“Could be competitors.” Veronique picked at something invisible on her breeches.
“Could be,” Grace repeated. Running a business based on vice didn’t exactly put a body in league with the best of men. “The queen’s got everyone looking to make money on women.”
“We’re proof it’s good business,” Zeva interjected.
Veronique shrugged. “Could be. Could also be the Crown. Could be Peel’s boys.” The newly minted metropolitan police force, eager to make a name for itself. “Men drunk on power and wielding clubs and fists and firearms all look the same.”
Grace nodded, something twisting in her gut. “Could be.”
“We don’t do anything illegal,” Zeva said. She was right. Prostitution wasn’t illegal. Neither were private clubs. The most illegal thing they did was pour smuggled liquor—but so did every men’s club in Mayfair.
Of course, they weren’t a men’s club in Mayfair. And that put them in danger. “No one likes it when women take their pleasure into their own hands,” Veronique said.
“No one likes it when women take their lives into their own hands,” Grace said.
If they were raided, no one would need to know what the members were up to in the Garden. The list of members’ names alone would scandalize Britain.
“We’ve a thousand enemies, the Crown, the police, and our competition only the most visible.” Grace looked to Veronique. “The Other Side was closed two weeks ago.”
Veronique’s brows rose. “That’s three.” She had the best sense for trouble Grace had ever known—something born of her time on ships. She knew when a match would burn out, and when one would light an inferno. If she believed something was happening, something likely was.
The Other Side. Maggie O’Tiernen’s. Satchell’s. Three places that catered to a female membership. All threatened in recent weeks.
“Peck?” Tommy Peck, Bow Street Runner. One of the decent ones, if his care for the girls in the Garden was any indication.
Veronique shook her head. “He hasn’t been seen.” She paused. “And there’s another thing.”
“Go on.”
“I’ve reason to believe the building is being watched.”
Grace didn’t like that. “How? We’ve guns on the roof and spies on all the others.”
Veronique shrugged. “Can’t prove it. Strange faces havin’ a wander. Boots awful shiny for Cheapside boys.”
Better safe than sorry. “Hire the security. And make sure the tunnels are clear before Dominion.” Before Grace had taken it over and turned 72 Shelton Street into an exclusive women’s club, the building had been an old smugglers’ hideout, with secret tunnels running hundreds of yards in multiple directions, in case of attack from other smugglers—or the Crown.
Nothing that happened inside the brothel was illegal, so she’d never thought too much about them, except in two instances—first, they were regularly used to bring guests to the club who were not trusted to know its location and, second, they were sometimes prepared for entertainment—perio
dically a member took an interest in the idea of a dungeon.
But she knew better than most that where there were women in power, there were too often men who would stop at nothing to snatch it from them, and she would do whatever was necessary to protect the staff and clients of 72 Shelton.
Veronique nodded, apparently satisfied. “Done.”
“What’s next?”
The rest of the conversation ranged over the inner workings of the club—the arrogant and brilliant chef that Grace had brought in from Venice, who was constantly at odds with the pastry chef with a streak of the perfectionist. The preparations for September’s Dominion two weeks hence—the first of the autumn, and always the most elaborate. The arrival of a unique trio—two men, and a woman with a particular skill with ropes that filled a specific void in the services the club was able to offer members.
After three quarters of an hour, Zeva and Veronique were through with their reports. They’d stood to leave, and made their way to the door before Zeva turned back. “One more thing.”
Grace looked to her lieutenant.
“There’s a new bill in debate in Lords. Loads of good in it—safety for molls, punishment for culls who do them ill, age restrictions for workhouses, fresh water pipes for the rookeries.”
All issues directly affecting Covent Garden and the East End. Surprise flared. “Whose bill?”
“Lamont and Leighton.”
Two of the most decent dukes in Britain. “Who is debating it?”
A little shrug. “The good ones.”
Grace shook her head. “It won’t pass. There aren’t enough lords who care about our world.” If one thing was true, it was that rich aristocrats steered wildly clear of taking care of the poor.
Zeva nodded. “Well. They talk, anyway.”
“Let me know when they do more.” She looked to Veronique. “And tell the girls that my private business is just that—private.”
Veronique smirked. “What private business?”
Grace couldn’t help her little huff of amusement, the sound lost to the tentative knock at the door. With a tilt of her head, she opened it, revealing the fresh face of a girl of twelve or thirteen. Her grey-green eyes slid from Veronique to Zeva, then behind, to Grace, when they rounded in surprise and flew back to her employer. “I—they told me downstairs to come up.”
“Report,” Veronique said.
The girl pulled off her cap, releasing a riot of black curls, and looked to Grace, her nervousness clear.
Grace smiled, remembering her own nervousness at that age—and how she had learned fast to push it away when with adults, for fear of revealing weakness that was too easy to take advantage of. “Go on then.”
“’Ere’s a visitor.”
Grace stood at the word. A code.
“Where?” Veronique asked.
“The Rookery.”
Grace came around the desk. For years, her spies had been tasked with watching Devil and Whit in the Rookery where they lived and worked—to ensure that her impulsive brothers were not dragged into hotheaded trouble. Since Grace had inherited sisters-in-law, however, news from the Rookery had slowed to a trickle. It seemed her brothers had turned their hotheaded trouble into the more valuable work of loving their wives.
But this report—a visitor in the Rookery—indicated that something uncommon was happening there . . . something that wasn’t right.
A visitor wasn’t as innocuous as it sounded. It meant a stranger. Usually someone out of place, asking questions that weren’t his business. Often, it meant someone asking questions about the Bareknuckle Bastards. The girls were trained to pay close attention and immediately report whenever anyone came asking about two young boys and a girl who might have turned up years earlier.
But they hadn’t been in hiding for a year—the freedom still fresh enough that Grace didn’t take it for granted. “What kind of visitor?”
The girl looked to Veronique, who nodded. “Go on.”
“He’s a big brute. Haulin’ boxes to the warehouse for the Bastards,” she said.
A ship had come into port the day before, and would have been emptied the previous evening.
Evening.
She watched the girl, who shoved her hands in her pockets and shuffled her feet, clearly hesitating. Grace recognized the uncertainty. The girl had a hunch. A hunch Grace had, as well.
“That doesn’t sound out of the ordinary,” she said, approaching. “What made you come here?”
Those enormous eyes lifted to hers. “It’s full sun.”
Correct. The Bareknuckle Bastards didn’t move cargo in the daylight. It was too risky.
What were they up to?
Grace nodded. “So it is. What’s your name?”
“Victoria, mum.” The girl bobbed fast as she could—an East End curtsy.
Surprised by the name, Grace looked to Zeva and Veronique, taking in their knowing smiles. “Well, I wouldn’t lay odds against this one, at least.” She reached into her pocket and tossed a coin to the girl, who caught it out of the air with a speed that rivaled her own as a child.
The girl would have made a great fighter—but she’d never have to prove that, because she’d have work with Grace as long as she wanted it.
“You did well, Victoria. Thank you.”
Another bob, and the girl was headed for the door, almost there before she seemed to remember something and turned back.
“Oh, and there’s another thing . . .” The girl paused, fiddling with her cap, then found her voice more quickly than before. “They say ’e’s a toff.”
Chapter Thirteen
She found her idiot brothers exactly where she expected to find them—on the rooftops overlooking the yard of the Bastards’ warehouse, deep in the Covent Garden Rookery.
“Don’t get too close,” she said as she approached them, having used the vast network of the Garden’s maze of interconnected buildings to get to them. “You wouldn’t like someone with sense to push you right over the edge.”
Devil looked over his shoulder at her, his brows rising in amusement. Of course he was amused. Devil liked nothing better than playing puppeteer with those around him. “Ah! You’re here! And just as it’s getting interesting.”
Her heart pounded as she drew closer, tilting her head, expecting to hear jeers and hoots from the yard below, where a crowd had no doubt assembled to watch whatever elaborate scheme her brothers had concocted.
She was surprised to hear quiet instead.
Quiet made her heart pound harder. Quiet was more dangerous.
Grace came abreast of them, and they eased aside, making space between them for her as they’d done for two decades, since the night they’d run. And as unsettled as she was high on that rooftop, she was never so at home as she was with these men—brothers in name if not blood, and proof that family was found, not born.
But that did not mean they would not feel her wrath if they’d mucked everything up.
She took a deep breath and followed their gazes down over the edge of the roof, taking in the yard below, where the afternoon sun cast long shadows into the enormous rectangular space, flanked on all sides by the massive warehouse owned by the Bareknuckle Bastards.
A web of inside corridors connected the buildings, accessible only through the main entrance at the far end of the yard, where Annika, the tall Norwegian genius who ran the Bastards’ business operation, stood framed in the great sliding doorway of the warehouse, against the pitch darkness of the interior. Nik was flanked by a quartet of men who hauled for a living, arms crossed over their broad chests, box hooks in hand. The five stood sentry, unmoving.
Watching.
As everyone else watched. The yard was packed with people, the crowd two deep—three in places—men and women, old and young. Grace recognized the Rookery’s baker on the eastern edge of the crowd, towering behind a collection of the boys she knew hauled fresh water around the neighborhood. A few of the girls who worked the streets stood in the long
shadow of the western wall. Even the doctor’s wife had made an appearance.
It took Grace a moment to see what they all saw.
Lie.
She saw him the moment she looked over the edge, at the center of the yard, alone. He was in shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled to his elbows, revealing the muscles of his forearms, straining as he hefted a block of ice three-feet square, held by a length of rough rope over his shoulder.
Those muscles were the only thing about him that did not scream duke. He didn’t have to speak a word for them to know where he came from. There was nothing about him that hid it.
Grace wondered where his coat was, as it was impossible to believe that he’d come without it, or a waistcoat. Or a cravat. Or a hat. As for trousers, they molded to his thighs and were not designed for the Rookery—their color too light to hide the dirt and grime of the Garden.
His face did not hide the truth, either. It didn’t matter that his long nose had been broken when they were children—a well-placed blow on Devil’s part—or that it was streaked with dirt and perspiration. The angles of it were all wrong, sharp and aristocratic, with even the bump on his nose seeming to have a Mayfair accent.
All that, and he was still the handsomest thing she’d ever seen.
No wonder the girls had sent word about him; he didn’t belong here.
He looked every inch the duke he was.
Every inch the enemy.
And the Garden knew it.
All around the edge of the yard, they watched, reveling in his mistakes—the absence of a hook to haul the ice, the lack of a leather shoulder guard to protect his skin from the rough rub of the rope, the gloves that had been made for horses’ reins and walking sticks rather than hard work and wear.
“Truly, it is a miracle you two lived to adulthood. And found women to marry you,” she said softly. “It’s a good thing they’re brilliant, else I would dearly fear for your progeny. What sort of punishment is this? You’ve got him hauling ice? Has he seen the cargo that came packed in it? Because letting a duke near your smuggled goods is truly, madly stupid.”
“He’s not anywhere near the true cargo,” Devil said.
Daring and the Duke EPB Page 14