Robert followed JeremyShank at a discreet distance, although he felt confident of the man’s destination. Shank often sought out boys, but as Robert well knew, most of the clubs that catered to him were by appointment only, prearrangements made for the security of all involved. So when his favorite outlet was not available, Shank turned to an older crowd at a local molly house, where he could indulge alternative entertainments with a consenting clientele.
This annoyed Robert more than he wanted to put into words.
He knew plenty of men who frequented the molly houses, good men forced to live secret half-lives, since they remained at risk for imprisonment or worse—for no good reason that he could grasp. Men who would be as appalled as he if they knew Shank’s true predilections. But it was one of the risks of living such a secret life—trust in others died quickly.
Secrets. Shank had secrets upon secrets.
Robert watched him enter the expected address in the Strand, something Shank had done before, especially when he had lost badly, as he had tonight. Robert wondered how long before Shank hurt someone severely enough to be expelled from the house.
Taking shelter in an alcove across the street, Robert huddled inside his coat, braced himself against a brick ledge, and waited. The fog that usually swirled around this area lilted lazily about as a few carriages passed, lighter traffic than usual. Robert felt grateful for the warmer summer night—this could easily have taken place in the dead of winter—but waiting, even in pleasant weather, had never been Robert’s strength. He itched to be doing something—anything—than waiting on a man who hid evil desires beneath a cloak of nobility.
Instead, Robert focused on putting his thoughts in order—an attempt to dig out of the chaos his life had become in a few short days. He began by making a mental list of the elements involved in the bedlam—his family, Bill Campion and his inheritance, the Rowbotham clan, his current place in Society, Timothy and Eloise. His family and the Rowbothams had been boxed away as neatly as possible on Monday. He could take no further action on either until his inheritance had more hard edges and definitive plans. So Robert set those aside for the time being.
Society would take its own course—he had no control there, given the circumstances. His parents would try to minimize the damage to their family and keep Society focused on Beth. The only control Robert had consisted of more layers of secrets, and even those might not remain private much longer. Society was its own beast, devouring its children when they became unruly.
And he certainly felt unruly at the moment, waiting to be chewed thoroughly.
A side door on the house across the street opened and a man staggered out, but it was not Shank. A burst of light and laughter escaped through the door, quickly silenced as it closed again. The house returned to its solid darkness. Although it appeared as a normal Town home in the daylight, night brought reminders that the windows were blocked by thick velvet drapes, and the front door never opened after dark. All entrances and exits were through a plain wooden door in an alley. The man fell against a fence on the other side of the alley with a great clatter, then righted himself, stumbled again, then disappeared into the night and fog.
Robert returned to his cataloguing. His inheritance from Bill Campion would take time to detail and envision. He knew the basics—he had been working beside Bill for more than five years, but mostly with the emporium. He knew about the other businesses but had never been involved with their management. Bill had kept all that close and private. Now the details lay spread across that cherry desk in complete disarray. Nora had sent everything over as quickly as she could stuff the papers and books into crates. While he knew she held some mementos close, the business-work stood only to remind her of his murder. She wanted it out of the house.
Not that Robert could blame her. Everything about the emporium naturally reminded him of Bill—the man who at one time been more a father to him than Philip. His father was not a hard man, but hewasa duke—and nobility, a peer—and raised to be as starched and proper as one could possibly be. Philip ranked close to the king, serving in the House of Lords. Through most of his children’s younger years, Philip’s focus had been on Thomas, his heir, and he had barely noticed when Robert, like Timothy, had disappeared.
Lured by promises of manhood through women and gambling, Robert had followed his beloved tutor, the vicar Yeatman, to London. Two days later, Robert had awakened from a laudanum stupor to find himself bullied and bruised and bound in hell. Yeatman had been clever, waiting until after Christmas—when the family would have insisted he be home—so Robert’s absence was easily explained. Philip had believed the letter from Robert’s tutor, telling him that his second son was spending the months being instructed in mathematics at the vicar’s home. A letter—and the cordial response from the duke—which Robert knew nothing about until its use as an instrument of torment, had stood as evidence that dukes cared little for second sons. Robert had been abandoned, left in torment.
A hell he would do anything to prevent Timothy Surrey from suffering. He would be Timothy’s “Bill Campion,” no matter what.
For Bill Campion had been the one to recognize the instability of a young man brought into his gambling hell as a captive companion, the one to pirate Robert away, hiding him until Robert could confront his captors on his own. The emporium had been a second home ever since. He knew its hallways and hideaways, the hidden passages and closets that employees could flee to in the event of a raid. The people who worked there were his friends—friends who mourned Bill Campion as much as he did. Robert Ashton was not the only one Bill had rescued from the alleyways and rookeries.
Friends he would now have to abandon if he continued to pursue a course of providing an heir to the Kennet line. Which circled him around to Lydia.
Lydia was a mistake—one made in the midst of heartbreak, while Robert was convinced he would never love any woman but Rose. If a marriage for love was not to be his path, then he had chosen to pursue the highest-ranking woman possible for a Kennet heir. And he had succeeded. Against all odds he had succeeded. Even in the face of outrageous scandal, the Duke of Makendon had given him a way to maintain the suit and the connection to a powerful family. If Makendon and Kennet were allies, they could survive the scandal. If only the duke had broken it off, Robert could have walked away. Shamed but no deeper in scandal than he already was. If Robert broke it off, however, it would drag down the Kennet name past the point of recovery. Makendon would ensure it.
Which meant Robert had to find a way to divest himself of the properties one of the most beloved men in the city had entrusted to him.
Leaving Robert to feel, once again, exactly like the rubbish that clogged the gutters of Covent Garden.
“You are rubbish, boy. Mud beneath their boots. Worthless garbage, only good for one thing.”
Robert flinched as if he had felt the slap that had accompanied those words, the spittle that had landed on his face. Words spoken by a vicar whose “religion” bore a closer resemblance to that of a scripture-quoting devil than a true priest. A heat of rage shot through Robert, and he straightened, pushing away from the brick wall of the alcove. He took several long breaths, forcing back the fury, regaining his control. Losing focus at this point would wreck the feeble plans he had set into play. Plans he had involved Eloise in, without her understanding of all that was at stake.
Eloise.God bless her. For all her resolve and wild ways, she remained such an innocent that it took Robert’s breath away. She understood well the cruelties the upper classes wreaked on each other, but not the depravity of the rest of the world. The harshness of a middle- and lower-class life. But he admired her willfulness to help him and her pure determination to find Timothy, no matter the cost.
Eloise had shown him precisely how deep a mistake Lydia would be—and why Rose would not have been his best choice either.
Rose still haunted him and probably would for the rest of his life. It had been the hope of her, the vision of her face, the memories of their friendship that had gotten him through those darkest of days. Without the ideal of Rose Timmons to strive for, Robert was not convinced he would have survived.
But she had never loved him. Never thought of him as a potential suitor, even as a business arrangement. She had held him at bay, no matter what he had done.
Eloise, however, his “brown mouse of a spinster not even a cat would notice,” had dived into his arms—and his bed—with a stubborn fragility. She understood how precarious her situation was, and she had set aside those concerns to pursue finding Timothy and bedding a man she wanted. She stood on the brink of being permanently put aside by Society, and her response had not been to wilt and submit. It had been to dress like a man and make her way into the gambling hell where Timothy had last been seen. It had been to respond openly and lustily to a man who found her as desirable as she did him.
And Robert did want her, more than he thought imaginable. Over the past few hours, he had come to cherish her words, her encouragement. He had begun to crave her touch, the feel of her skin against—
The alley door burst open, and Jeremy Shank jerked through it, stumbling, then turning back to speak to someone in the doorway. Robert couldn’t hear the words, but they did not sound kind or welcoming. Shank straightened his clothing, then pivoted and headed toward the street.
Robert pushed away from the wall and followed him. Shank would want to take solace in drink at this point, but the local pubs would offer only the company of women, which would not draw in a man like Shank. So it would be White’s or Watier’s, clubs where he might not indulge in his sexual desires but he would be surrounded by men. Robert abandoned any attempt to follow the man surreptitiously, falling in step behind him. Finally, after several glances behind him, Shank halted, muttering. “What is it you want, Ashton?”
Robert sidled up beside Shank. “Why, Jeremy, what makes you think I want anything?”
