Duke of Pleasure Read online

  No one had touched her in years. She’d made sure of it.

  But the kiss with Kyle hadn’t been like that—she’d kissed him.

  She leaped from one roof to another, landing silently on her toes. Kyle’s lips had been firm, and he’d tasted sharp, like wine. She’d felt the muscles in his neck and chest and arms get hard and tight as he’d made ready to grab her.

  She’d hadn’t been afraid, though.

  She grinned at the moon and the rooftops and the molls walking home in the lane far below.

  Kissing Kyle had made her feel wild and free.

  Like flying over the roofs of St Giles.

  She ran and leaped again, landing this time on a rickety old half-timbered tenement. It was all but fallen down, the top story overhanging the courtyard like an ancient crone bent under a big bundle of used clothes. She thrust her legs over the edge of the roof, slipped her feet blind onto one of the timbers on the face of the building, and climbed down into the attic window.

  If St Giles was the dark wood, this was her secret hidey-hole nest: half the attic of this building. The sole door to the room was nailed firmly shut, the only way in by the window.

  She was safe here.

  No one but she could get in or out.

  Alf sighed and stretched her arms over her head before taking off her hat and mask. Muscles she hadn’t even realized were tensed began to loosen now that she was home.

  Home and safe.

  Her nest was one big room—big enough for an entire family to live in, really—but only she lived here. On one wall was a row of wooden pegs, and she hung up her hat and mask there. Across from the window was a brick chimney where she’d left the fire carefully banked. She crossed to it and squatted in front of the tiny hearth—a half moon not much bigger than her head, the brick blackened and crumbling. But this high up it drew well enough, and that was the important thing. She stirred the red eyes of the embers with a broken iron rod and stuck some straw on top, then blew gently until the straw smoked and lit. Then she added five pieces of coal, one at a time. When her little fire was burning nicely, she lit a candle and stood it on the rough shelf above the fireplace.

  The half-burned candle gave a happy little glow. Alf touched her fingertip to the candlestick’s base and then to the little round mirror next to it. The mirror reflected the tiny candle flame. She tapped her tin cup, a yellow pottery jug she’d found years ago, and her ivory comb. Ned had given her the comb the day before he’d disappeared, and it was perhaps her most precious possession.

  Then she picked up a bottle of oil and a rag from the end of the shelf and sat on a three-legged stool by the pile of blankets she used as a bed.

  Her long sword was mostly clean. She stroked the oiled cloth along the blade and then tilted it to the candlelight to check for nicks in the edge. The two swords had cost most of her savings and she made sure to keep them clean and razor sharp, both because they were her pride and because in the dark woods they were her main weapons as the Ghost. The long sword’s edge looked good, so she resheathed it and set it aside.

  Her short blade was bloodied. That she worked on for a bit with the cloth, humming to herself under her breath. The cloth turned rust red and the sword turned mirror bright.

  The sky outside her attic window turned pale pink.

  She hung up her swords in their scabbards on the row of pegs. She unbuttoned her padded and quilted tunic, patterned all over in black and red diamonds. Underneath was a plain man’s shirt and she took that off as well, hanging them both up as she shivered in the winter-morning air. Her boots she stood underneath the pegs. Her leggings, also covered in black and red diamonds, hung neatly next to the shirt.

  Then she was just in her boys’ smallclothes and dark stockings and garters. Her shoulder-length hair was clubbed, but she took it down and ran her fingers through it, making it messy. She bound her hair back again with a bit of leather cord and let a few strands hang in her face. She took a length of soft cloth and wound it around her breasts, binding them flat, but not too tightly, because it was hard to draw a deep breath otherwise. Besides, her breasts weren’t that big to begin with.

  She pulled on a big man’s shirt, a stained brown waistcoat, a tattered pair of boys’ breeches, and a rusty black coat. She put a dagger in her coat pocket, another in the pocket of her waistcoat, and a tiny blade in a thin leather sheath under her right foot in her shoe. She smashed an old wide-brimmed hat on her head and she was Alf.

  A boy.

  Because this was what she was.

  At night she was the Ghost of St Giles. She protected the people of St Giles—her people, living in the big, dark woods. She ran out the monsters—the murderers and rapists and robbers. And she flew over the roofs of the city by moonlight, free and wild.

  During the day she was Alf, a boy. She made her living dealing in information. She listened and learned, and if you wanted to know who was running pickpocket boys and girls in Covent Gardens or which doxies had the clap or even what magistrate could be bought and for how much, she could tell you and would—for a price.

  But whether the Ghost or Alf, what she wasn’t and would never be, at least not in St Giles, was a woman.

  WHEN HAD THE Ghost of St Giles become a woman?

  Hugh hissed as one of his former soldiers, Jenkins, drew catgut thread through the cut on his forehead.

  Riley winced and silently offered him the bottle of brandy.

  Talbot cleared his throat and said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but are you sure the Ghost of St Giles was a woman?”

  Hugh eyed the big man—he’d once served as a grenadier. “Yes, I’m sure. She had tits.”

  “You searched her, did you, sir?” Riley asked politely in his Irish accent.

  Talbot snorted.

  Hugh instinctively turned to shoot a reproving glance at Riley—and Jenkins tsked as the thread pulled at his flesh. Damn that hurt.

  “Best if you hold still, sir,” Jenkins quietly chided.

  All three men had been under his command at one time or another out in India or on the Continent. When Hugh had received the letter telling him that Katherine, his wife, had died after being thrown from her horse in Hyde Park, he’d known his exile was at an end, and that he would need to sell his commission in the army and return. He’d offered Riley, Jenkins, and Talbot positions if they elected to return to England with him.

  All three had accepted his offer without a second thought.

  Now Riley leaned against the door of the big master bedroom in Kyle House, his arms folded and his shoulders hunched, his perpetually sad eyes fixed on the needle. The slight man was brave to a fault, but he hated surgery of any sort. Next to him Talbot was a towering presence, barrel-chested and brawny like most men chosen for the grenadiers.

  Jenkins pursed his lips, his one eye intent on the stitch he was placing. A black leather eye patch tied neatly over the man’s silver hair covered the other eye. “’Nother two, maybe three stitches, sir.”

  Hugh grunted and took a drink from the bottle of brandy, careful not to move his head. He was sitting on the edge of his four-poster bed, surrounded by candles so that Jenkins could see to stitch him up.

  The former army private could sew a wound closed with better precision than any educated physician. Jenkins was also capable of extracting teeth, letting blood, treating fevers, and, Hugh suspected, amputating limbs, though he’d never actually seen the older man do the last. Jenkins was a man of few words, but his hands were gentle and sure, his lined face calm and intelligent.

  Hugh winced at another stitch, his mind back on the woman who had moved so gracefully and yet so efficiently with her swords. “I thought our information was that the Ghost of St Giles was retired?”

  Riley shrugged. “That’s what we’d heard, sir. There hasn’t been a sighting of the Ghost for at least a year. Course there’s been more than one Ghost in the past. Jenkins thinks there were at least two at one point, maybe even three.”

  A hesita
nt voice piped up from a corner of the room. “Beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Riley, but what’s this Ghost you’re talking about?”

  Bell hadn’t spoken since they’d entered the room and Hugh had all but forgotten the lad. He glanced now at Bell, sitting on a stool, his blue eyes alert, though his shoulders had begun to slump with weariness. The lad was only fifteen and the newest of his men, having joined Hugh’s service after the death of his father.

  Bell flushed as he drew the attention of the older men.

  Hugh nodded at the boy to reassure him. “Riley?”

  Riley uncrossed his arms and winked at Bell. “The Ghost of St Giles is a sort of legend in London. He dresses like a harlequin clown—motley leggings and tunic and a carved half mask—and is able to climb and dance on the rooftops of London. There are some who say he’s nothing but a bogeyman to scare children. Others whisper that the Ghost is a defender of the poor. That he goes where soldiers and magistrates dare not and runs out the footpads, rapists, and petty thieves who prey on the most wretched of St Giles.”

  Bell’s brows drew together in confusion. “So… he’s not real, sir?”

  Hugh grunted, remembering soft flesh. “Oh, he—or rather she—is real enough.”

  “That’s just it,” Talbot interjected, looking intrigued. “I’ve spoken to people who have been helped by the Ghost in years past, but the Ghost has never been a woman before. Do you think she could be the wife of one of the former Ghosts, sir?”

  Hugh decided not to examine why he didn’t like that particular suggestion. “Whoever she was, she was a damned good swordswoman.”

  “More importantly,” Jenkins said softly as he placed another stitch, “who was behind the attack? Who wanted you dead, sir?”

  “Do you think it was the work of the Lords of Chaos?” Riley asked.

  “Maybe.” Hugh grimaced as Jenkins pulled the catgut. “But before I was ambushed I was at the Habsburg ambassador’s house. It was a large dinner party and a long one. I got up to piss at one point. I was coming back along the hall when I happened to overhear a bit of conversation.”

  “Happened, sir?” Riley said, his face expressionless.

  “Old habits die hard,” Hugh replied drily. “There were two men, huddled together in a dim corner of the hallway, speaking in French. One I recognized from the Russian embassy. No one official, you understand, but certainly he’s part of the Russians’ delegation. The other man I didn’t know, but he looked like a servant, perhaps a valet. The Russian slipped a piece of paper into the servant’s hand and told him to take it quickly to the Prussian.”

  “The Prussian, sir?” Jenkins asked softly. “No name?”

  “No name,” Hugh replied.

  “Bloody buggering hell.” Talbot shook his head almost admiringly. “You have to admit, sir, that the man has bollocks to be passing secrets to the Prussians in the Habsburg ambassador’s house.”

  “If that’s what the Russian was doing,” Hugh said cautiously, though he had no real doubts himself.

  “Did he see you, sir?” Riley asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Hugh said grimly. “One of the other guests bumbled up behind me calling my name. Drunken fool. The Russian couldn’t help but know that I’d heard everything.”

  “Still, there would be very little time to find and hire assassins to target you on your walk home from the dinner,” Talbot said.

  “Very true,” Hugh said. “Which brings us back to the Lords of Chaos.”

  Jenkins leaned a little closer now, his one brown eye intent, and snipped a thread before sitting back. “Done, sir. Do you want a bandage?”

  “No need.” The wound had mostly stopped bleeding anyway. “Thank you, Jenkins.” Hugh caught Bell trying to smother a yawn. “Best be off to bed, the lot of you. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning after we get some sleep.”

  “Sir.” Riley straightened and came to attention.

  Talbot nodded respectfully. “Night, sir.”

  “Good night, Your Grace,” said Bell.

  Then all three were out the door.

  Hugh picked up a cloth, wet it, and wiped the remaining blood from his face, wincing as the movement reminded him of the bruises up and down his ribs.

  Jenkins silently packed his surgical tools into a worn black leather case.

  Hugh glanced at the window and saw to his surprise that light was glowing around the cracks of the curtains. Had it been so long since he’d staggered home from St Giles?

  He crossed to the window and jerked the curtain open.

  The bedroom looked over the back garden, dead now in winter, but it was indeed light outside.

  “Anything else, sir?” Jenkins asked behind him.

  “No,” Hugh said without turning. “That will be all.”

  “Sir.” The door opened and closed.

  Outside, a slim figure trotted down the path between the house and the gate that led to the mews. For a moment Hugh stilled before he realized it was the bootblack boy who worked in the kitchens. He felt his upper lip curl at his own folly. The Ghost of St Giles would hardly be haunting his garden, would she?

  He let the curtain fall and strode out of his bedroom.

  Katherine had named this town house Kyle House. He’d always thought the name pompous, but she’d insisted on it. She’d said it was the name of a great house—a dynastic house. He’d been newly married and still besotted with her when he’d bought the place, so he’d acquiesced, and the name had stood even as their marriage had fallen.

  There was a moral there somewhere. Perhaps to not name houses. Or, more probably, to never let passion for a woman sweep away reason, self-preservation, and sense, for that way led to devastation.

  Of nearly everything that he’d held dear and that had made him a man.

  He passed two maids carrying coal buckets and shovels in the corridor and nodded absently as they curtsied. Made the stairs and took them two at a time to the third floor. It was quiet here. He prowled down the hall past the nursemaids’ rooms and opened the door to the bedroom his sons shared.

  It was a pretty room. Light and airy. Katherine had been a good mother. He remembered her planning this room. Planning the upper floors when she’d been big with Kit and all had seemed wonderful and new and possible. Before the shouted arguments and her hysterical tears, the disillusionment, and the stunned realization that he’d made a monstrous and permanent mistake.

  And that he couldn’t trust his own judgment.

  Because he’d truly believed himself in love with Katherine. What else could he have called the wild, joyous ecstasy of pursuing her? The complete visceral satisfaction of making her his wife?

  Yet barely three years after he’d wed her, all that grand passion had turned to ashes and bitter hatred.

  Oh, what a beautiful, fickle thing was love. Rather like Katherine herself, in fact.

  Hugh sighed and went into the boys’ bedroom.

  There were two railed beds, but only one was occupied.

  Just turned five years old, Peter was still prone to nightmares. Hugh wasn’t sure if his son had experienced them before Katherine’s death, but now the boy had them several times a week. He lay curled against his elder brother, red face pressed into his side, blond hair tufted under Kit’s arm. Kit was sprawled on his back, openmouthed, his black curly hair flattened sweatily against his temples.

  If last night’s assassins had succeeded, his boys would be orphans now. He shook off the thought with a shudder, and his mind turned to the Lords of Chaos. They were a terrible secret club that met irregularly to revel in the worst sort of debauchery. Once a man joined he was committed to the Lords for life. Most members didn’t know the other members, but if one Lord revealed himself to another, the second Lord was bound to help the first man in any way possible. Hugh had reason to believe that the Lords of Chaos had infiltrated the government, the church, the army, and the navy.

  Which was why the King wanted them stopped.

  When Hugh had begun his investigati
on into the Lords, he’d been given four names by the Duke of Montgomery:

  William Baines, Baron Chase

  David Howzell, Viscount Dowling

  Sir Aaron Crewe

  Daniel Kendrick, the Earl of Exley

  Four men who were aristocrats and members of the secret society. In the two months since, he’d quietly looked into the four men, attempting to discover how the Lords were organized, who the leaders were, and when they met and where.

  He’d found out none of these things.

  None.

  Why then would they try to assassinate him? It seemed far more likely that tonight’s attack had been the result of political intrigue on the Continent. Wars abroad, rather than a vile secret society that preyed upon the most innocent of victims here in England.

  There was no reason at all to link this to the Lords of Chaos.

  And yet he could not quite banish the suspicion from his mind.

  Hugh grimaced and silently left the bedroom.

  In the hall he turned and made for the stairs again, climbing this time to the floor above—the servants’ quarters. He walked along the long corridor, lined with doors on either side, passing a startled scullery maid, and then tapped on one of the doors on the left before opening it.

  Bell shared a room with two of the younger footmen. Both of the footmen’s beds were empty, for they would already be up and about their work at this time of the morning, but Bell’s tousled brown head just peeked beneath his blankets.

  Hugh winced at the sight, hating to wake the boy so soon after sending him to bed, but this couldn’t wait. He touched Bell’s shoulder.

  The boy woke at once. “Your Grace?”

  “I have a job for you,” Hugh said. “I want you to find a St Giles informant for me. His name is Alf.”

  Chapter Two

  No one could remember why the White Kingdom hated the Black Kingdom, nor why the Black Kingdom loathed the very mention of the White Kingdom’s name. The beginnings of the war were lost to time and suffocated in blood. All anyone knew was that the war was endless and without mercy.…