Read Julia London 4 Book Bundle Online
Authors: The Rogues of Regent Street
Julia London 4 Book Bundle (93 page)
“I think you’ve quite lost your mind,” she remarked as he helped her down.
He smiled in the dark, kissed her temple. “
Trust me
,” he reminded her, and wrapping an arm around her, led her to the dark door.
She was certain the building would come tumbling down about them as he pushed the door open. It creaked loudly on rusty hinges and she was immediately assaulted by a damp mildew scent, as if the building hadn’t been opened in years. It was pitch-black inside; she thought she heard the sound of rats scurrying across the floor, and unconsciously clutched Julian’s arm. “Julian, what—”
“
Merry Christmas!
” The room suddenly erupted with the flare of a dozen or more candles and a host of voices. Claudia’s great surprise was nearly fatal; with a shriek, she fell back against Julian, her heart pounding. More candles were lit as she held a hand over her pounding heart, gaping in astonishment at the crowded room.
It seemed almost everyone who mattered to her was in that room; Ann and Victor, Aunt Violet. Doreen—
Doreen
?—and several of the women and children from Upper Moreland Street, including Miss Collier. Her
father, standing stiffly beside the Christian family; Mary Whitehurst and her husband, Adrian and Lilliana Spence and their baby daughter. Tinley, Brenda, and a handful of servants from Kettering House. As she looked around at their beaming faces, her gaze landed on a large, masonry sign that stood in the middle of the room.
T
HE
W
HITNEY
-D
ANE
S
CHOOL FOR
G
IRLS
Suddenly, she understood. Her mind understood it but her heart could not absorb it. It was too much, too precious—speechless, she jerked her gaze to Julian.
He beamed at her, terribly pleased with himself. “I will admit, it needs an awful lot of work. But I rather thought it would give you something to do besides moping about, and as there is a seemingly endless supply of cheerful laborers at Upper Moreland Street, I supposed you would have enough help. I should warn you, however, that they have organized themselves into something of a labor union, and will not tolerate unsafe working conditions.”
“You … you did this.” It was not a question; it was a statement of wonder.
Julian laughed. “No darling,
you
did it, through your tireless and selfless work these last two years. I just helped it along a bit. Now listen to me—I can’t be bothered with your new school,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket. “I’ve far too many important things to tend to, such as card games and the annual races at Ascot. So I’ve deeded it over to you.” He pressed a thick packet into her hand. “If you ask me kindly, I will help you, but I rather suspect you won’t need me.”
Claudia stared at the packet of paper he pressed into her hand. She could not begin to fathom how this man could have sensed what she needed when she herself could not put a word to it. But he had known it in that uncanny way he had of sensing all her needs before she did. More extraordinary than that, he had loved her enough,
believed
in her enough, to give her the single
most glorious gift of her life. Claudia’s vision suddenly blurred; a hot tear of joy slid down her cheek.
She lifted her gaze to her husband, saw the tears glimmering in his eyes, and smiled. “I could not possibly love you more than I do at this very moment,” she choked, and threw her arms around his neck.
“Oh, God,” he said, choking a bit, too, as his arms circled her waist. “I do hope you will remember that and tell me again when we are alone.”
Her smile deepened, and she felt it in the very core of her soul. “Thank you for this gift—you cannot know what it means to me.”
He slipped two fingers under her chin and tilted her head back. “I know. Trust me,” he said, and kissed her, laughing into her mouth when their guests began to whistle, applauding and shouting for the guest of honor to cut their Christmas cake.
A
DRIAN
A
ND
A
RTHUR
stood along one cold brick wall, each holding a glass of punch instead of the usual libations to which they were accustomed. They very stoically observed the festivities, which to Arthur seemed a bit out of control. Julian had brought Christmas gifts for all of the children—yet another sign that he had completely lost his mind—and they scampered in and around the legs of adults like little rats. One ruddy-cheeked little fellow lost control of his horse on wheels for the third time, and it came scudding across the stone floor, careening into Arthur’s ankle. Very nonchalantly, he nudged the thing with his boot and sent it careening back to the little boy.
Across the room, Claudia, Lilliana, and a haggard-looking woman stood over the big masonry sign, talking with great animation, pointing to various places around the room as if they plotted a décor. The other women, whom Julian had brought up from some town house somewhere—Arthur was still a bit hazy on the exact details—were tending the gaggle of little monster children. In the midst of it all was Tinley, who had eaten two thick pieces of cake and then had promptly fallen asleep in his chair.
And Julian walked through the throng like a king, laughing with his servants, winking cheerfully at the women from the town house—all in all, strutting about like a peacock. Terribly pleased with himself, to be sure,
he was apparently even more pleased with his wife, of whom he stole a glimpse every chance he got. It was obvious to everyone that Julian Dane was madly in love with the terror Claudia Whitney, which Arthur had, of course, predicted early on. He had just never guessed
how
madly in love—Julian Dane, the most unlikely man in all of England, was a lovesick, besotted fool.
“I rather suppose we can put to rest the notion that Julian might fall, wouldn’t you say?” Adrian casually remarked, referring to their graveside vow to keep watch over one another.
With a nod as tepid as the punch, Arthur responded, “Unless we were to fret about him falling headlong into lovesickness from which he may never recover.”
Adrian chuckled. “He’s definitely gone round the bend.”
“And toppled right off the cliff,” Arthur added dryly.
“Which I suppose leaves us with you, Christian,” Adrian remarked, casting a sidelong look at his friend. “Good God, what jolly fun this should be.”
With a derisive chuckle, Arthur shook his head. “I am hardly of your ilk, Albright. I will not fall.”
“I was referring to that ‘headlong fall into lovesickness from which you may never recover.’ Heart going pitter patter, that sort of thing.”
The notion was so absurd that Arthur laughed roundly. “And Kettering calls me a sentimental fool!” he quipped, grinning. “Put your mind at ease, Albright. I am perfectly content with the way things are.”
Adrian lifted a brow. “Oho! And I suppose you intend to remain a bachelor all your life?
That
, my friend, will never come to pass, mark my words!”
Arthur resisted the sudden urge to tug at his collar and shrugged indifferently. “What I shouldn’t give for a bit of rum to put in this god-awful punch,” he said, changing the subject and ignoring Adrian’s wide, knowing grin. The subject, however, was hardly worthy of discussion—quite frankly, the thought of marrying one woman for all eternity was inconceivable to him. While
he was perfectly reverent toward the fairer sex, he personally did not need them for anything more than to warm his bed. Which reminded him—the sooner he was gone from this cozy, touching little gathering, the better. Madame Farantino had promised a grand surprise for him.
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Dinah Dinwiddie.
Hand lettering by David Gatti.
Dell® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and
the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49037-7
v3.0
OPM
For
Brocodile, January Jones, Don Vito, the Virgin
Henley, Filbert, Princess Shoes, Scoop, Happy
Jack, Slick and Kaffiene
Thanks for keeping the Dimwonkie sane.…
I met a lady in the meads
,
Full beautiful
—
a faery’s child
,
Her hair was long, her foot was light
,
And her eyes were wild.…
She look’d at me as she did love
,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed
,
And nothing else saw all day long
,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
—
L
A
B
ELLE
D
AME SANS
M
ERCI
John Keats
D
UNWOODY,
S
OUTHERN
E
NGLAND
, 1834
T
HE CHURCHYARD WAS SO
choked with weeds that one could scarcely read the markings on the headstones. This was worrisome to Arthur—who would tend to this grave? Who would lay flowers at his headstone as Phillip lay rotting beneath the earth? As the vicar glanced up at the leaden sky and cleared his throat, Arthur glanced surreptitiously at the two dozen or more mourners huddled around, mentally assessing who among them could be depended upon to tend this grave.
Not one of them.
In a low bass voice, the vicar began the funeral hymn, and the mourners, in their black crepe armbands and funeral bonnets, joined him in the lugubrious melody. Nothing more than morbid curiosity had brought this throng here—they had come only to gawk, to see if the fantastic rumor was true, to look upon the grave and witness with their own eyes that one of the infamous Rogues of Regent Street was dead.
Arthur lowered his gaze to the plain pine box in the hole yawning before him and imagined Phillip inside, his arms folded serenely across what was left of his chest, his gray face free of pain, and the death shroud wrapped loosely about him. He regretted he hadn’t found something better in which to clothe him, but unfortunately,
there was nothing better to be had at Dunwoody—it was little more than a hunting lodge and used infrequently. There had been just an old nondescript suit of clothes to give the undertaker, but Phillip had not been quite as large as the previous owner and with a good portion of his torso gone, the fit was atrocious. Not that Arthur believed that what he wore to the afterlife was important. It was just that Phillip had always been so foppishly meticulous about his dress; he would despise spending all of eternity in an old, ill-fitted suit of clothing.
And besides, if Arthur didn’t think about what Phillip wore now, he would think about how goddamned furious he was.
Why did he do this? What divine providence gave Lord Phillip Rothembow the bloody
right
to do this?
The sudden surge of anger was as razor-sharp and white-hot as it had been the moment Julian had lifted his head from Phillip’s bloodied chest and uttered the words that still seemed to reverberate throughout the forest:
“He is dead.”
The mourners’ voices suddenly swelled to a crescendo, then fell again as they began a second verse. Arthur cringed, forced himself to look up, blinking into the cold mist that enveloped them.
What in God’s name were they doing here?
This could not be real. It had all started so innocently, just another respite at Dunwoody, the four Rogues gaming and whoring with their friends, lazily planning a bit of a hunt the next morning. Adrian Spence, the earl of Albright, aloof and distant, his mind undoubtedly on the latest row with his father. Julian Dane, the earl of Kettering, charming the skirts off the two demimondes who had accompanied the luckless Lord Harper. Cards, copious amounts of bourbon, and Phillip, naturally, drunk as usual.
If only Adrian hadn’t asked Phillip to stop cheating.
If only he had laid down his hand, called it off. But he had asked for Phillip to stop—very politely, really—
and that had been the beginning of the end. Phillip had taken offense and had stunned them all by demanding satisfaction. Adrian had accepted Phillip’s drunken challenge, thinking, as they all did, that he would sober and retract it the next morning. But Phillip had come staggering onto the dueling field with a bottle in his hand and no intention of backing down.
A wagon rumbled past the little churchyard at that moment, and in its reverberation, Arthur could almost hear the distant report of the first pistol fired that awful morning—Adrian, deloping. And just as he had then, he could feel the weight of impending doom laying hard on his chest, the shock of disbelief when Phillip, Adrian’s own cousin, had responded to Adrian’s generous act by firing on him. He misfired terribly, of course, because he could hardly stand erect. But it had seemed to fill him with a gruesome determination—he twisted about, grabbed Fitzhugh’s double-barreled German pistol and knocked that fool to his arse, then whirled as gracefully as a dancer and fired at Adrian’s back.
Why? Phillip, why?
The question beat like a drum in his head, a relentless pounding to which there was no end. They would never know
why
Phillip had forced Adrian’s hand because the bloody coward had denied them any plausible explanation for his actions by succeeding in getting himself killed. Just moments after firing on Adrian’s back, Phillip lay in the yellow grass, his azure-blue eyes staring calmly at the sky, his life having quietly seeped from the gaping hole in his chest.
Dead. One of them dead, one of the immortal Rogues of Regent Street, killed by one of their own.
God have mercy on us all.
Arthur glanced to where Adrian stood as rigid and unmoving as Julian beside him. The four of them—Adrian, Phillip, Julian, and himself—were the idols of the younger members of the British aristocracy. They were the Rogues, renowned for living by their own code,
for risking their wealth to make more wealth, for their fearless irreverence of law and society. They were the Rogues who toyed with the tender hearts of young ladies among the exclusive shops of Regent Street by day then extracted intended dowries from their papas in the clubs at night, saving the best of themselves for the notorious Regent Street boudoirs.
Or so the legend went.
It was all fantasy, of course. They were only four men who had grown up together, who rather enjoyed the recklessness of one another’s company and the pretty women of Madame Farantino’s. There was nothing more to the Rogues than that—not one of them had ever done anything too terribly unlawful, had never sullied a lady’s reputation or driven a man to debtor’s prison in a single card game. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them at all … except that one of them had found life so bloody unbearable that he had, in essence, killed himself by forcing the hand of his cousin.
Thereby proving that neither were the Rogues immortal.
Arthur closed his eyes as the mourners began the last chorus of the hymn, the bitter rage burning as it rose like bile in his throat. He hated Phillip,
hated
him for ruining everything, for ending it all on that yellow field!
He hated Phillip almost as much as he hated himself.
Ah God, the guilt was bloody unbearable. He had watched it happen, had stood aside and watched Phillip drown in despair when he might have led him to a different course. Lord Arthur Christian, the third son of the Duke of Sutherland and once destined for the clergy, stood aside and had watched it happen.
He
might have pulled Phillip from the edge of the abyss, not Adrian, not Julian.
He
might have.
The voices rose one last time, putting an end to the wretchedly morose hymn. Silence fell; the crowd shifted about uneasily. Some of them peered up at the increasingly gray sky as the vicar puffed out his cheeks and
fumbled through the little prayer book. With a pointed look at Adrian, he at last spoke. “All those who mourn him, may ye know in his death the light of our Lord and the quality of love …”
Damn him for what he had done to them!
“… Ah, the, ah, quality of life, and know ye the quality of mercy. Amen.”
“Amen,” the mourners echoed.
The quality of life? Of mercy? God yes, Arthur would know the quality of life from this day forward, would know it every time he looked at a sunrise or held a woman in his arms or inhaled one of Julian’s fine cheroots! And the
quality
of his life would be measured by the weight of his guilt and his anger and his bloody remorse!
Phillip!
Arthur staggered backward a step, sucking in his breath through clenched teeth as the gravediggers began to shovel the dirt into the hole. Yes, yes, he would know from this day forward the quality of life all right, for each and every day he would carry with him the burden of having let Phillip down in the worst imaginable way. He would bear the gnawing wrath he held for one of his best friends, the humiliation of having been denied the opportunity to stop him, to set everything to rights again, to at least
try
and slay the demons that could devour a man’s soul and leave him so desperate for death.
Damn him.