One Wicked Night (24 page)

At two-thirty, with burning, heavy eyes, she gave up and surrendered to sleep, certain Lucien had again found pleasure in another woman’s arms—and hating the stab of jealousy she felt at the thought.

****

Lucien glanced over his shoulder at the riffraff on the street before he followed Niles down the cellar steps and into The Beggar’s Club.

Inside, the room was raunchy, smoky, loud. One serving girl, her short skirt exposing her ankles and much of her calves, passed as they seated themselves at a table.

Winking, she said, “I’ll be right with ye, me fine lords.” Then she sauntered away, juggling several glasses of beer and a bottle of gin.

“If Alastair Boyce hired someone to murder his uncle here, as that cent-per-center suggested, the Earl of Barrymore will know about it. This is his establishment, and he rules it with an iron fist, I’m told.”

Niles did little to hide his grimace. “And a lovely place it is. I always enjoy eating with utensils chained to the table. And what are these holes?”

A momentary hush fell over the crowd, and a thin, hunch-backed man entered the room. He settled himself in a chair at the front, his small eyes ferreting out the people within.

“The Earl of Barrymore?” Niles asked.

“Yes, that’s Cripplegate himself. The whole family is frightful, but he’s the worst.”

A moment later, the dark-haired serving girl sashayed beside them, her curls swinging freely against a trim back, and took their orders. She left and returned shortly with their drinks.

She leaned down to Lucien, letting him see the tops of her breasts and the hint of pink areola just below the edge of her coarse bodice. “Anything else I can get ye, guv?”

He returned her suggestive smile with one of his own as he slipped a silver crown into her palm. “I would like one thing.”

At his silky, suggestive voice, she deposited the coin in a pocket in the folds of her skirt and moved closer, her merry dark eyes twinkling. “Anything, guv. Ye name it.”

His thoughts drifted back to Serena in the silence that followed. He had handled her badly this evening, intimating he had a mistress he planned to bed until dawn, when he had no paramour and didn’t want one. Knowing his wife, she would only try to resist him more now, if for no other reason than her damnable pride.

Turning his attention to the serving girl, Lucien watched as she approached the Earl of Barrymore. Wringing her hands, she spoke. Moments later, the earl raised his eyes and found Lucien across the room, who gave a slight nod in return. Cripplegate spoke to the serving girl.

She whirled away a moment later, and with a bright smile, approached the table. “He’ll see ye, guv. In his office.”

Lucien pressed another crown into her palm. “Thank you.”

She deposited that in her pocket as well. “Thank ye, guv. If I can be doin’ anything else for ye . . . I mean, I’d be pleased to spend an evenin’ with a handsome gent like yerself.”

Lucien hesitated. She was a pretty girl; the invitation was clear. His body craved release, having been without it since the night he had rescued and made love to Serena. He was within his rights to seek physical solace elsewhere, since his wife had denied him her bed. But something within him, something he didn’t want to examine too closely, rejected the idea.

“Thank you, but not tonight.”

With that Lucien rose, bidding Niles to stay put. He noticed the Earl of Barrymore had left the room, and followed the girl’s directions back to Cripplegate’s retreat.

The door to the surprisingly well-appointed room stood open. Lucien entered, eyes fixed on the round-shouldered man behind the desk.

Blowing a thin stream of cigar smoke, the man asked, “Who are you and what do you want?”

Lucien leaned against his cane for support, then answered, “I’m the Marquess of Daneridge, and I’ve come to ask you about another lord I’m told frequents your pub.”

The older man shrugged, then gestured to Lucien to shut the door behind him. After doing so, Cripplegate bade him to sit.

As Lucien came to rest in a burgundy leather chair, the Earl of Barrymore quite surprisingly asked, “What is the cane for? Temporary use?”

The question puzzled Lucien, but decided to play the man’s game to see where it led. “No, it’s permanent. A shattered kneecap. A little gift from Napoleon’s men.”

Cripplegate’s thin lips actually lifted in a small smile. “Good. The world has too many perfect people. Now what do you want to know?”

Lucien wasn’t sure how or why, but he felt as if his injury had helped him to pass some odd test. “I’m given to understand that the Earl of Marsden is a frequent visitor here.”

Barrymore’s face screwed up into a grimace of disgust. “Yes, and the little bastard owes me money.”

Lucien held his breath, praying he was on the right track. If he could just get enough evidence together to hang Alastair in court, he could keep Serena safe. “Do you know his uncle, the Duke of Warrington, died recently in an unfortunate highway robbery?”

The older man emitted a cynical grunt. “Unfortunate, yes. Warrington was a political whirlwind. A simple robbery, doubtful, as you well know, Daneridge.”

Lucien didn’t pause even a moment to revel in his good fortune. “Did he hire someone to do the job while here? Someone you know, perhaps?”

“No,” Barrymore answered, bursting Lucien’s bubble of hope. “I did hear him discuss the idea, but where he found the cull and the coin, I don’t know.”

****

The next afternoon, Niles appeared on Lucien’s doorstep, his urgent knock demanding the butler’s immediate attention. Lucien rushed down at the news of Lord Niles’s agitated arrival.

“Damn,” Niles muttered, fishing something from the pocket of his red and gold embroidered waistcoat. “I assume then you haven’t seen this?”

He handed a piece of paper over to Lucien. Wearing a scowl, Lucien took it.

At first glance, he saw nothing more than a common cartoonist’s satire of a member of the
ton
. During his divorce, he had been the subject of several, along with Ravenna and her lover, Lord Wayland. But upon closer inspection, he saw what had disturbed Niles so: Serena was the object of this cruel lampoon.

The artist’s drawing depicted both himself and the former duchess being wed upon Warrington’s very grave, with the old duke in his coffin wearing a scandalized expression.

Lucien swore. “Are these out?”

Niles nodded. “All over town. It’s too late to buy up the circulation.”

A silent pause fell between the two. Lucien wondered what he could do to stop the ridiculing cartoon from spreading further into the city’s environs.

Suddenly, a female scream pierced their quiet. Lucien scrambled out the door to investigate, with Niles close behind. Both men raced to the entrance hall, Lucien trying to determine the source of the sound.

Again, the high-pitched tone of distress resounded, and Lucien realized with some confusion the cry for help was coming from outside, in his own courtyard. Tightening his grip on his cane, Lucien strode for the door and yanked it open.

Immediately, he encountered a small mob hurling stones and insults at a black-clad figure huddled on the cold ground. As he watched, another rock hit the form. He heard another distinctly female cry.

“Ye bleedin’ ’ore,” one man called out. “Yer not fit to lick me boots.”

“Aye,” another sounded ominously. “I wouldn’t take ye to me bed even if ye offered to spread yer legs fer me. Sluts the likes of ye sicken me, spittin’ on a dead man’s grave!”

The mob rushed forward, rocks in hand. Lucien surged ahead to meet the indignant crowd. To his shock, the figure on the ground took on a familiar shape as he approached.

“Serena!” he shouted. Fear pumped through his blood upon recognition. Ignoring the sharp needles of pain in his leg, he raced toward her, with Niles close behind.

“Leave me be!” she called to the mob, struggling to rise to her feet.

“Ye hussy!” a woman yelled, brandishing another rock—and one of the cartoons. “I wouldn’t have ye marry me dog, much less a marquess.”

Lucien reached Serena’s side before the mob did. With Niles’s assistance, he lifted her to her feet.

He pulled her stiff, trembling form into his embrace, her eyes spitting anger and fear. He held her to his chest, feeling her fright in the thump-thump of her heart. His urge to protect her surged to white-hot anger.

He growled to the crowd, “This is private property and you are trespassing. Get off and leave my wife alone.”

Fully expecting the indignant mob to swell and surge forward with their rocks and their dirty mouths and stone them all, Lucien was puzzled when Serena’s attackers did no more than mutter a few more angry oaths before disbanding. Niles chased them down the walk and into the street, stopping some to ask questions.

A moment later, Serena pulled herself from Lucien’s embrace, her eyes silently damning. He examined her face, noting she had been hit in the cheek. The spot of blood marred that honey perfection. Another trickle of blood wound its way to her golden brow where a second rock had found her forehead. He cursed beneath his breath.

He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed the wounds. “Are you hurt?”

Tears pooled in her eyes as she pushed him away. “Hurt, no. I am humiliated!”

Lucien absorbed her anger. Whatever her sins, Serena hardly deserved to be treated like a common whore. Rage shook his fingers as he finished wiping away the blood on her face.

Once seated in his study, Lucien poured her a glass of wine. She drank it quickly, without question, silently telling Lucien how disturbing the incident had been for her.

He sat beside her. “What were you doing outside?”

Avoiding his gaze, she touched a hand to her hair, its golden strands falling from the confines of her pins. “I had gone out to stroll in the park—”

“Alone?” he prompted, incredulity blazing inside him.

She winced. “I usually take Caffey with me, but this morning I wanted to be . . . alone.”

“
This
morning?” he growled. “You do this every morning?”

She blinked in apparent confusion. “Yes. I always have.”

“Are you daft?” he questioned. “Marsden wants to kill you. Do you want to make that feat easy for him?”

She frowned, then sighed. “Sorry. I thought I would be safe so close to your house. But it’s as if the mob was waiting for me. One . . . one man hit me with a rock. I ran and fell. I tried to get up. They hit me again.” She looked up then, tears shimmering from her eyes, and a new rage struck him. “That cartoon was awful. And the hideous things they said to me . . .”

“This is why you must stay here,
inside
, for the time being. It’s the only place you’re safe.”

She rose and paced across the room. “Do you see what you’ve done to me with this mockery of a marriage?”

“Oh, no,” he retorted. “I am
not
the one who died and left you a bloody fortune.”

She tossed her shoulders back, as if ready for battle. “But none of this would be happening had you not seduced me.”

He laughed, the sound bitter even to his own ears. “No, none of this would be happening had you bothered to tell me you were married the night I fucked you.”