The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Fifteen

The hackney driver who took Harriet to St. Giles remembered her from the old days. He’d heard how she had come up in the world. Everyone in the streets from the dustmen to the bone pickers boasted that they had once known Harriet Gardner. It was already common knowledge in the East End that she was now employed in the household of a duke. Last Christmas, she had sent the street children sweets and cloaks discarded by the girls at the academy. Still, she wasn’t a saint like the lady her half brother had just robbed. Pity. There wasn’t justice in the world.

“Don’t forget,” the driver said as he deposited her on the corner of her old haunt. “Duke or not, if ’e don’t do right by you, you always got yer friends, ’arry. We can take care of the nobs good and proper.”

Harriet shuddered, as much from the thought as from the misty early evening air that evoked memories of her life in the slums. Her stockinged toes contracted as she walked across the cobbles. She was grateful the rain had stopped. She’d gone soft, in body and heart. That was the price one paid for living with the swells.

A low whistle rang from the pub on the corner. A long shadow fell into step at her right. A shorter one joined it at the left. Then another. Soon all the shadows marched alongside her, taunting in their singsong voices.

“Well, well, look wot the cat’s dragged ’ome. Pretty, pretty.”

“That ain’t no mouse, you moron. That’s the cat’erself. ’ow’s life treatin’ you, love?”

“Better than you buggers ever did.”

A gang of seven or so gathered-young men, if one could regard them as human at all, who had been mere boys two years ago. Her eyes narrowed as the eldest, Nicholas Rydell, took her by the hand. He’d always been the leader. “Do you wanna come out with me? We got a lay tonight down at the wharves.”

She twisted her wrist, backhanded his chin, and continued walking briskly through the labyrinth of lanes. Guffaws of laughter at his indignant howl broke out behind her. She smiled. Ignorant bastards. Beggars. Poor hopeless sods.

She veered into a narrow alleyway. Pools of black water reflected what little moonlight penetrated between the tightly packed tenements. She opened the back door of the last house. No one heard her enter. For a moment, she wondered if she could bear facing her family again. Strangely, the place didn’t stink of the boiled eels and cheap ale that had always turned her stomach.

She went into the kitchen. The stone floor had been swept. The sink looked clean. Her two half brothers, Luke and Rob, sat eating supper at what had once been a billiards table. Her temper erupted. She walked up to Rob-he with the insolent grin-snatched the spoon from his hand, and hit him over the head with it.

“You promised me after you assaulted the duchess that you would never, ever commit another crime upon the Boscastle family.” Not that Lady Constance was a member of that esteemed clan yet.

He swore, ducking his head under the table. Luke stared up at Harriet in astonishment. “Them was your pals he rogered?” He kicked the cringing shape under the table in contempt. “You stole from your own sister?”

She stared at the hot coals burning in the hearth. Who in this house had the wits to tend a fire? Someone was missing. Someone was here. “He didn’t steal from me. He robbed the duke’s betrothed of her reticule. And I want it back.”

Rob straightened. “All right. If it’s that important to you, ’arry. Let me fetch it from upstairs.”

“Be quiet about it,” Luke said, his voice rough with impatience until he looked at Harriet again. “Bloody fool. ’e’ll be next to go.”

“That’s it.” Harriet nodded in certitude. Her father’s absence explained everything. “Jack isn’t here.”

Luke stared down at his bowl of beef broth.

“Where is he?” she asked in resignation. “Not in gaol again. I can’t afford to pay counsel every time he breaks the law. I’m putting out more for his defense than he steals.”

“You don’t know?” Luke raised his eyes with a look that turned her blood cold. “None of the Runners told you?”

“If he’s done murder this time,” she said, “he’ll bloody well have to take what he deserves.”

“Yeah.” Luke gave a bitter laugh. “And so ‘e did. Jack’s dead. Ain’t been seen in months.”

She waited for him to burst into peals of laughter, to crow that he’d got her good this time. She waited for her drunken father to clump down the stairs like a beanstalk giant and try to cuff her ear, cursing when he missed. But the only sound was the heavy beat of her heart and-she turned-the gurgle of a baby in the cradle she hadn’t even noticed.

“You should have told me,” she said, glaring at Luke’s downbent head. “A baby, and Jack is gone. I give you money every chance I get. You could have told me.”

Luke’s face softened as he looked over at the cradle. “I didn’t think you cared. Jack was spittin’ mad that you walked out on us. He said you was a traitor and we ought never talk to you again.”

“I was arrested. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t come back, though,” he said. “He resented that. It don’t matter now.”

“He left you something.” A young girl, clean and comely in blue sprigged muslin, slipped into the kitchen. “I’ve kept it for you. I’m Abigail, by the way. Where’s your manners, Luke? Can’t you admit to your own sister that you married me?”

He frowned as she passed a worn velvet pouch to Harriet. “Is it cash?”

“’Tis none of your business,” his wife said, going to the cradle in the corner. She lifted the tiny bundle and offered it to Harriet, who hesitated, then slipped the pouch into her bodice before holding out her arms.

Abigail smiled. “That boy’s a demon when he don’t get what he wants.”

Weren’t they all?

“I could have given Jack a decent burial,” Harriet said, nuzzling the baby’s head. “I hated him with all my heart, but I would have bought him a gravestone.”

Luke shook his head. “Jack was always afraid the body snatchers or someone ’e’d soaked would disturb ’is bones. Someone told ’im about these doctors who took corpses apart to fashion monsters and-”

“Where did you put him, then?” Harriet asked impatiently.

“We rowed ’im out to sea in a whelk boat and tossed ’im overboard.” Luke averted his gaze. “It’s what Jack wanted, not to be a nuisance to his loved ones.”

“Have you taken to smoking opium, Luke? He murdered someone.” She covered the baby’s ears with his blanket. Not that the little scrap hadn’t heard worse in this house.

Luke shot her a dark scowl. “’Twere in self-defense. He knocked off the friggin’ barrister who bled us all dry. There was witnesses, too, but it don’t matter. No magistrate’ll ever believe wot one of us says. They lie easier than they breathe.”

The baby gave a fussy cry and reached for Harriet’s breast. “That’s right,” she laughed, handing him back to his mother. “Another blue-eyed demon breaking my heart and putting his hands where they don’t be-”

A frantic shout interrupted her. “Trouble!” Rob came pelting into the kitchen, goblets and ropes of jewelry tucked under his arm. “Move it. Tea party’s over.” He tossed Lady Constance’s reticule across the table. “Take it,” he said to Harriet. “And give the screechin’ bitch my regards.”

“How many are there?” Luke asked, springing off his stool.

“I didn’t bloody count ’em,” Rob said. “There’s a carriage coming down the street.” He ran a hand through his flyaway red hair. “Wanna come with us, ’arry? We’ll cut you in a bit.”

She shook her head. “When are you going to learn? Get on, and if anything happens to that little baby-”

They were gone. All through the house, footsteps echoed, mattresses creaked, trapdoors opened and banged shut. Without giving it a second thought, she picked up Lady Constance’s reticule, walked to the corner, and dropped it in the empty cradle.

“There’s your christening gift from Auntie Harry, little precious, courtesy of someone who’ll never miss it.”

She walked from the kitchen and out into the night. The duke stood at the end of the alley, as dark and menacing as anyone a girl could meet on these streets. He was not going to let her past this time. Harriet forced herself not to run toward him. He’d shed his coat and cravat. His white lawn shirt needed a wash. He could use a good shave. She could have wept buckets at the sight of him.

“Did Lady Powlis send you here, duke?”

“Believe it or not,” he said with a quiet sigh, “I do not do everything I’m told.”

“Oh, I believe it.”

He looked up at the stone-gray tenements. A figure wobbled on the rickety footbridge that arched midair from one upper window to the next. A glint of moonlight captured the strong angles of his face. She heard carriage wheels creak in the street. If he hadn’t been the duke, Harriet might have mistaken him for a thoroughly disreputable person.

“So, what do you think of the place?” she asked softly, moving around him.

He shifted. His body stopped her progress. “Get inside the carriage, Harriet.”

“What do you-”

He glanced at her. “It’s a hovel.”

“It’s my home. Well, it was.”

He blew out a breath. “Not exactly Mayfair.”

“I ain’t no May queen, neither.” She paused. “I realize that this is an awkward time to ask, but I don’t suppose you would give me references of character for another position?”

“Get into the carriage before I am forced to carry you.”

She ventured a step back and smiled.

He took a step toward her. “You did not have my permission to leave the park. In fact, I forbade it.”

“Please tell me your aunt is not waiting for me in the carriage.”

“My aunt is not waiting for you in my carriage. However, I have promised her that you will not leave us again.” And then, quicker than lightning, he advanced another step, locked one arm beneath her knees, the other around her shoulders, and, as Harriet would later describe it, bore her off into the night.