The Beautiful Stranger

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 beautifula faerys child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild She lookd 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 faerys song.

La Belle Dame sans Merci John Keats

The churchyard was so choked with weeds that one could scarcely read the markings on the headstones. This was worrisome to Arthurwho 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 herethey 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 hadnt found something better in which to clothe him, but unfortunately, there was nothing better to be had at Dunwoodyit 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 didnt 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 Phillips 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 Gods 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 hadnt asked Phillip to stop cheating.

If only he had laid down his hand, called it off. But he had asked for Phillip to stopvery 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 Phillips 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 morningAdrian, 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, Adrians own cousin, had responded to Adrians 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 determinationhe twisted about, grabbed Fitzhughs double-barreled German pistol and knocked that fool to his arse, then whirled as gracefully as a dancer and fired at Adrians 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 Adrians 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 Adrians 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 himselfwere 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 anothers company and the pretty women of Madame Farantinos. There was nothing more to the Rogues than thatnot one of them had ever done anything too terribly unlawful, had never sullied a ladys reputation or driven a man to debtors 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 Julians 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 mans soul and leave him so desperate for death.

Damn him.

If Arthur Christian should ever be captured and subjected to the worst of all torture, his tormentors could do no better than to arrange an evening such as this.

It was his own fault. It was his ball after all, his mansion on Mount Street, his indifference that enabled the lowest quarter of the ton to come walking through his door. Yet in spite of hosting this elaborate affairand many just like it during the SeasonArthur would rather be drawn and quartered than suffer one more come-hither look from Portia Bellows, much less her pawing of his leg.

The pawing was, of course, also his own fault. Hed been too inattentive of his guests and therefore hadnt seen her coming until it was too bloody late. Portia had very neatly cornered him in the little alcove off the

main corridor, which was where they were at that precise moment, her hand brazenly roaming his thigh.

Ive never forgotten you, Arthur, not for a single moment, she murmured in her best bedroom voice.

Of course not, Arthur drawled, and reached down into the swirl of Portias heavy satin skirts around him to peel her hand away, finger by finger.

It is you I imagine when he is on top of me, she whispered huskily, and lifted her hand to the large black pearl nestled at the swell of her bountiful bosom, carefully tracing a line around it that dipped lower and lower into the decolletage of her gold satin gown. It is you who makes love to me in my dreams.

Actually, hed wager the bitch was thinking of Roths rather sizable fortune when he was on top of her yes, drawn and quartered, thank you, with his limbs scattered to the far corners of the earth just so he should never hear this tripe again.

Her fingers stubbornly sought the inside of his thigh again. I didnt mean to hurt you, darling. She said it in exactly the same voice she had used when they were eighteen, the same soft purr that made Arthur profess his undying love to her a dozen times over. That voice, along with her smoldering look, had sent him off to breathlessly ask his father for permission to offer for her, to which his grace had quietly informed him that Miss Bellows was already betrothed to Robert Lampley. Two years older than Arthur, Robert Lampley was destined to inherit a fortune and a titleexactly one more attribute than Arthur possessed. It was the first time in his life that he had understood just how insignificant the untitled third son of a powerful duke could be.

Now, at six and thirty, he understood how tiresome women could be, and calmly removed Portias hand again. My Lady Roth, you know that I dont believe a word that passes between your lips, he said, and smiled as if she amused him, though nothing could be further from the truth. Everything she did humiliated him and when she was really in top form, she made a colossal fool of him. Ah, yesPortia Bellows had duped Lord Arthur Christian of the Duchy of Sutherland not once, but twice, thank you, and evidently, judging by the way her fingers were boldly flitting across his groin now, she had in mind to attempt an astounding third supreme humiliation.

Standing in the alcove, hidden from any guest who might be wandering off to the privy by one of the large potted plants Arthurs sister-in-law Lauren was inordinately fond of forcing on him, Portia boldly moved to cup the protuberance between his legs in her palm. She smiled wickedly; Arthur matched her smile with an insouciant one of his own, knowing that there was nothing the woman could do that would ever get that reaction from him again. He circled her wrist and squeezed hard. Your husband is not fifty feet away, he softly rebuked her.

Her cheeks flushed, she carelessly shrugged her lovely shoulders. He cannot see us, and even if he did, he would not care.

Ah, but I do, he said, and squeezed so tightly that he feared he might actually snap her bones before she finally let go of him.

Pouting like a child, she jerked her wrist from his grip and stepped back, rubbing the offended appendage. You are horribly mean-spirited! You would fault me after all these years for merely seeking a way to survive this cruel world!

With a low, irreverent chuckle, Arthur casually folded his arms across his chest. I fault you for many things, love, but surviving is not one of them.

Her dark brown eyes flashed with ire. Youve no idea whom you insult, my lord!

On the contrary, he said, giving her a mocking bow. You have the distinction of being the one woman I wouldnt bed if even to save my very life.