A Scandalous Lady (4 page)

Fanny dug in her heels. “Wait—what are ye doing?”

“Keeping the streets of London safe from impertinent thieves.”

His jaw was set in a determined frown, his stride was sure and swift. The panic she'd held under such tight control began to unravel through her veins and claw at her throat. “What do you mean?” Her voice dropped and trembled. She could hardly keep up with him. “Where are ye taking me?”

“Someplace where you can't cause any more trouble.”

Newgate!

Stories told late at night in the darkness of the tunnels by knucks who had spent months—even years!—trapped behind the stone walls came at her in a rush. Of bodies shrunken from starvation and illness. Of cries of the convicted and insane, and worse the hopelessness of freedom forever denied. . . .

Fanny slammed her elbow between his ribs then took off. She didn't wait to see if he followed, she just ran, ducking into alleys littered with broken carts, crates, and foraging pigs, slipping through wrought-iron fences and crossing yards strung with clotheslines. Images of Newgate loomed up before her like wraiths in a nightmare. She'd not go to prison. She couldn't. She had bigger plans for her life than to spend it rotting away in some dank cell.

She should have known escape would not come easy. His arms were too long, his reflexes too swift, and the night had gone poorly from the outset. He caught up to her after only a few hundred yards, seized her around the waist, and lifted her off the ground, hitching her backside against his hip as if she were a sack of feed. Her breaths came out in harsh gasps, sobs snagged at the back of her mouth. She pounded his wrist, as angry at him for catching her as at herself for being caught, but it was like beating a chunk of iron. “Let me go, ye bloody oaf! Let me go or I'll—”

“Scream? Be my guest.”

Oh, she wanted to. The scream built in her throat, choking off what air she'd managed to take in. But she held it back, knowing as well as he did that it would only serve to call every bobbie in the district down upon her head. “You've got no proof against me.”

“I felt you. That's proof enough for me.”

He'd felt her? Oh, God, Jack was right then, she was losing her touch! He'd told her often enough over the last year, and it had been all she could do to prove him wrong.

Certainly she could deny taking this bloke's money to her heart's content, but who would the coppers believe? A respectable gentleman or a street rat? Fanny wilted in defeat, knowing the answer to that.

They rounded a corner, and the tavern came into sight. Once they reached the horse-drawn cab, she knew it would only be a matter of moments before she forfeited any chance of escape. “Please, sir.” Fanny had never begged for anything in her life, and even now, the words felt as if they were being ripped from her throat. “Please, just . . . just let me go. I can't—I won't—go to prison.”

“I have no intention of taking you to prison; however, you have cost me two hundred pounds and an important alliance, and I am not a man to take such offense lightly.” His stride never broke. “If you want my money so badly, you will have to earn it.”

Earn
it? Her gaze flew to the lamplight ladies watching him carry her across the street from their corner post. Outrage blazed through every pore. “I ain't lifting me skirts for
no
man.”

“Lift your—” He came to a startled stop, let her drop to her feet, then spun her around. “Let me assure you that I have no intention of having you”—his gaze swept her ragged trousers and ill-fitting coat—“lift your skirts as they are. Some men may harbor adolescent preferences, but I find women much more to my liking than children.”

Children! He thought her a
child
? Her spine stiffened. “Just how old do ye think I am?”

He angled his head and studied her a moment. “Thirteen—no, too tall. Fifteen, then, perhaps sixteen, even. Still too young for my tastes.”

So insulting was the notion that Fanny almost declared her true age until it occurred to her that a measure of safety lay in his misconception. “What do ye want from me, then?”

“Simple. You shall come to work for me in my home.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, I was going to suggest stableboy, but under the circumstances, housemaid seems more appropriate.”

Her mouth fell. “Ye want me to be a . . . a
servant
? In yer
house
?” Of all the things she'd expected him to say, this was not one of them.

“Do you prefer the alternative?”

“But I don't know nothin' 'bout being a servant!”

“It's not as difficult as you might think. Millie, my housekeeper, will teach you everything you need to know.”

But what if she couldn't be taught? What if she messed it up? Perspiration beaded above her lip, but Fanny didn't voice her doubts aloud. A lesson learned long ago with Jack—never let your enemy know your weakness. “What'll me duties be?”

“To see to the comforts of my home. No more, no less.”

Fanny blinked back tears of relief. If he was trying to ease her fears, it was working.

“The position shall pay a half a sovereign a week—”

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell. “A half a sovereign? A week? All for
me
?” That was . . . she mentally did the math . . . ten shillings! Even on a good day she couldn't recall bringing in that much, not once Jack took his share!

“Eventually, yes. According to my figures, your debt to me should be paid off within the year. If at the end of your term you wish to remain in my employ, and your work is satisfactory, we shall discuss a permanent position if that is your desire, as well as an increase in your wages.”

It seemed too good to be true. And usually when things
seemed
too good to be true, they were. “
Why
are ye doing this?”

To his credit, he did not insult her by pretending not to know what she meant. “Because I see no gain for either of us in sending you to a cell.”

“ 'Course not. Why should ye when you can indenture yerself a workhorse instead?”

“I prefer to call it an investment in honest labor,” he parried with a smile.

“Oh, crikey, if things ain't bad enough, I'm being nobbled by a bloody reformist.”

His bark of laughter drew the attention of the prostitutes on the corner. Both took turns regaling Fanny with ear-burning advice on how to best please the man in their midst. Fanny shuddered; Westborough merely smiled at them.

“Now,” he turned to Fanny, “you may come with me willingly or not. The choice is yours. But be aware that your decision will mean the difference between a pleasant outcome—or not.”

Fanny looked first at the hack, where the footman waited, his face impassive, as if this were not the first time he'd witnessed one of society's sons chasing through the streets of London after a runaway, then at the lamplight ladies, then back at the gent. He'd given her a choice: Newgate or him. Hadn't she always dreamed of leaving Bethnal Green? Escaping Jack Swift? Experience cautioned her that any man who associated with blokes the likes of Feagin could not be trusted. And yet, she could not forget that he had done something that no one had ever done for her before.

He'd defended her.

Resigning herself to what she hoped was the lesser of two evils, she said, “I'll go willingly.”

“Wise choice.” He gave her that crooked smile that she was beginning to detest, bowed, and swept his arm into a low arc toward the open door of the hack. “After you, Your Majesty.”

Wise
choice? Somehow Fanny doubted that.

 

As the hired coach rolled down Mile Road out of London, Troyce studied the creature sulking across from him, cocooned up to her neck in a lap robe he'd found beneath the seat. A girl, certainly, though it hadn't been so obvious at first. He blamed it on the layers of baggy clothing, the dockside mist and poor lighting. The moment his hands came into contact with a pair of very unladlike breasts, he'd realized his error.

Even now, with the dimmest of light seeping into the carriage, he wondered how he hadn't known right off. Features like hers could never be mistaken for those of a lad. Lush lips, pinched cheeks, wild hair of an undistinguishable shade barely to her shoulders . . . There was a dark smear along her jawbone as well, whether caused by smut or bruise, he could not say. But one thing was glaringly clear—she had not been leading a life of either ease or comfort.

If anyone asked him to explain why he was bringing her to his home instead of simply turning her over to the authorities, he'd not be able to give them a logical answer. He was not normally prone to bouts of sentimentality. Or insanity.

And it was insane. He'd searched high and low for someone willing to invest in the restoration of
La
Tentatrice
, a venture that promised to replenish the once-sizable de Meir fortune, only to throw the opportunity away. And for what? A pocket-swiping vulture with a piss-poor attitude? He had not a farthing to his name, yet here he was, dragging home another mouth to feed. And he had to find a way to raise two hundred pounds by morning.

Two hundred pounds. Where was he going to come up with that, and by morning no less? Every cent he'd made over the last eight years laboring on the docks of Maine had gone to pay his father's debts, and still it hadn't been nearly enough.

By all rights, he should be furious at her for costing him the only chance he'd had to save what was left of his inheritance. No one would blame him if he'd had her gaoled.

Except, he'd seen something in those big doe brown eyes, an undisturbed innocence, a wild desperation to escape her fate. . . .

Heaven knew he understood that feeling.

Troyce brought his arm up along the back of the seat, his curiosity of her gnawing at him. “Are you hungry?”

She shook her head, though she did not look at him. Her attention remained fixed on the passing scenery; what she could possibly find so interesting in the expanse of darkness that stretched beyond the rain-spattered window, he couldn't begin to guess. She was scared, though. Her fear betrayed itself in the tight set of her jaw, hunched shoulders and the hands clenched around the folds of the blanket. She'd be a fool not to be scared. But she was here, and that said a lot for her character.

“You've not asked where we're going.”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I don't suppose it does.” He could be taking her to the wilds of Northumberland, if he had a mind to, and she would no doubt find it preferable to prison.

Indentured workhorse. He hated the tag she'd given to their arrangement, hated that she thought of herself as such. He'd seen the miserable souls during his stay in Maine, brought in from the holds of ships to enslave themselves for a year, two years, even more just to pay for their passage. But as much as he loathed the title, he could hardly deny that it fit. He couldn't pay someone to perform the work Westborough Manor desperately needed to become functional again; the only staff left of twenty-seven servants were loyal Millie and Chadwick, and both had agreed to remain on for the simple compensation of food and shelter.

And so, he'd taken advantage of an opportunity provided him by a gumptious cutpurse.

He felt her watching him out of the corner of her eye and arched a brow. “Is something amiss?”

“Ye don't talk like a Brit.”

“I'm only half-Brit.”

“Is that like a half-wit?”

He chuckled, pleased that she hadn't lost her spirit over the night's events. “That's a matter of opinion, I suppose.” His grandfather was certainly convinced that he'd gone dotty eight years ago, for no Englishman with any sense would relinquish the promise of a fortune for the beckoning of distant shores. “There are some who consider my American blood quite exotic.”

“American. I should have known.” In the darkness he couldn't see her sneer, but he heard it. And he felt it.

“That offends you?”

“Actually, I don't give a whit one way or the other. I just never heard of no American nobleman.”

“What makes you think I'm noble?”

She frowned as if she didn't know how to react to his teasing, and fell silent. Troyce leaned back, listening to the rain patter on the roof of the two-seat carriage, the rhythmic creak of churning wheels, and waited for her to ask the questions he could almost hear whirring in her mind. She reminded him of a woodlands badger, and like any creature of the wild, she would lash out when cornered, claws and teeth bared, before retreating to safety. All one needed was a bit of patience to lure her out of her nest.

He bit back a smile when her curiosity finally got the better of her.

“So what are ye?” she asked, her tone bordering on belligerence. “A duke? An earl?”

“Nothing so lofty as that. I am merely a baron. Troyce de Meir of Westborough, at your service.”

He inclined his head and a parody of gallantry, and was rewarded with a faint rising of color in the chit's cheeks. Troyce wished he knew what it was about her that drew him so. She was but a child, one of the many street urchins that haunted the alleys and taverns in search of unsuspecting fools used as pigeons to line their pockets, far too young to interest him, yet he found himself intrigued nonetheless. There was just something so . . . vulnerable about her. No doubt she'd club him a good one if he ever voiced his thoughts. She didn't strike him as the type who took kindly to having her weaknesses known.

“That's certainly an impressive set of wares you keep hidden beneath your coat,” he said. “How long have you been engaged in such a fickle line of work?”

The question took her off guard, and a moment passed before Fanny realized that the wares he referred to weren't her body parts. “Long enough.” It seemed pointless to deny what he already knew.