An Angel for the Earl (6 page)

“There is no reason for me to live. I'd have no family, no friends, no resources, not even any references to get a position. Those pleasures you speak of are for the privileged, not destitute females with no reputations. Once my father casts me out, I'd have to become what you think I am, or starve. I'd rather die. Especially if I have hopes for a better life after, with your help, thank you.”

“I still don't understand. If you are here to win me over to the side of the angels, why in hell are you in the guise of the devil's daughter?”

“It's because of the odds against my succeeding. Now, there's something in your ken.”

“They gamble in heaven? Hallelujah.”

“Of course not, silly. But purgatory has a special place for gamblers where they win all the time, so there's no pleasure in it.”

“So the odds against my reforming are not good?”

“You've heard of a snowball in hell? So won't you please try?”

“Certainly, as soon as I see my tailor.”

“Tailor!” she cried, clenching her fists. Of all the uncooperative, disaccomodating fribbles. “With all those bills and closets full of frippery waistcoats and such? I'm going to hell in two weeks and you're going to the tailor?”

“Certes, my dear, I need to be fitted for a strait-jacket.”

Chapter Six

After spending the evening tracking down one creditor after another through all the clubs and gambling parlors of London, Lord Stanford sank into a contented sleep. A few hours later, unhappily, he awoke to an embarrassing dampness in his sheets for the first time in years.

A woman. He needed a woman, was all. Once the stress and strain of all those debts was lifted from his mind, his body had reasserted its own needs. He hadn't kept a regular mistress since Claudine, last year, and hadn't even partaken of the offerings of widows or wandering wives in months. Even those free spirits expected a show of gratitude his finances did not permit. Hell, in the past weeks a hasty doorway coupling with a Haymarket whore was above his touch, if not beneath his dignity.
That's
why he was seeing visions of half-naked women all the time, awake and asleep. Relieved to have a satisfactory explanation, Kerry got up and pulled on his clothes.

Fortnam's Mimi might still be available and in need of consolation, he thought. But demireps like Mimi expected to be treated like ladies. One didn't call without an appointment, especially at three in the morning. He could always go down to Covent Garden and pick up a streetwalker. They were out all night. But who knew what else he might pick up there?

So Lil's place it would be. The girls were clean, the sheets were fresh, and Lil's cellar was superb—not that he meant to overindulge. Never again, once he started hallucinating.

Lil gave him an effusive welcome. Of course she did, word having spread through town that the dashing young earl was flush in the pocket again. In fact, tonight's surge of business could be credited to his account, what with at least three or four of his former note-holders spreading his rhino at Lil's.

“And lucky money I heard, too. The best kind, my lord. May Lady Luck stay looking over your shoulder, dearie, as long as one of my girls is sitting on your lap!” And she cackled so loudly, the bruiser by the front door came charging into the parlor. Lil dismissed the bully with one beringed hand. “So what's your pleasure tonight, my lord? Being so late and all, a lot of the girls is already in bed. Asleep, that is.” She laughed again. “They'd be more'n happy to have you wake 'em, I'm sure, if you don't see what you want down here.”

Kerry was already looking over the sleepy-eyed girls in the gilt-and-fringe-decorated parlor. They looked tired and pale despite the painted smiles trying to win his attention. He chided himself for being disappointed. What did he expect at Lil's, some pink-cheeked charmer with dewy eyes?

“I was, uh, hoping for a redhead,” he heard himself saying. “Young, but, ah…”

“Bosomy?” Lil didn't go into this business yesterday. “I have just the girl for you. She's new and eager to please. You go on up with our Sally here. I'll send Lucille along in just a minute or two.”

Lucille? Kerry gave the maid Sally a coin, but she couldn't tell him anything about the girl, she was that new. He hung his jacket over the back of the small room's only chair, then started pacing. Not even noticing the faded wallpaper or the patched quilt on the bed, he paced until the door opened, then shut behind his lady of the evening.

Lucille. She was eager, all right, eager to tear him apart with her long, blood-red fingernails. Kerry'd heard of someone being so mad they smoked; he used to think it was a figure of speech.

Putrid fumes and fiery sparks billowed out of Lucy's mouth, nose, and ears. Red flames glittered in her green eyes.

“Uh, jealous, my pet?” Kerry bluffed. “If I thought for a second you'd have—”

“How dare you?” she roared, sending roils of smoke toward the ceiling.

Kerry backed up across the little bedchamber until his knees hit the narrow bed. He sat down and edged as far as possible away from this raging fury. If he'd still had doubts about her story, he was a believer now.

“That's right, cower. Cringe, you puny lordling. Where is the arrogant cynicism now? If I don't exist, why are your knees shaking? If you conjured me up from the depths of your depraved mind, why can't you conjure me into your bed? Why?” she ranted. “I'll tell you why, you boil on the butt of humanity. Because
I
, Miss Lucinda Faire, late of Fairview Manor, Derby, currently teetering on the brink of the River Styx, am in charge here.”

Lucy clamped a hand over her mouth, suddenly aghast at what she'd said. Whatever happened to meek and dutiful little Miss Lucinda? She didn't recognize herself in this body, this virago, this…this bordello. This last restored some of her indignation, especially since she could see her outburst had finally penetrated his lordship's social veneer.

“I have been very patient,” she went on in a milder tone, “waiting for you to see the error of your ways. Realizing that you are only a product of your times, and a male besides, I forgave your pride and pigheadedness. I have tolerated your insobriety, even your blasphemy. And I actually abetted you in your gambling, thinking that was the quickest way to set your mind on higher matters. But whoring? Whoring I shall not tolerate!”

By now Lord Stanford deduced that he wasn't about to be smoked like a kipper. Lucy needed him alive and kicking bad habits. He mopped his brow. “I, ah, did thank you for your assistance at the racetrack, you know.”

Lucy was not appeased. “You'd better cherish your appreciation, my lord, for that was the last time. From now on, you bet, you lose.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

Even in these circumstances Kerry noticed her chest was particularly generous. He smiled. “Cut line, Lucy, I didn't always lose, even without your help.”

“You will now.”

Somehow he believed her, not that he wouldn't test her assertion at the first opportunity. “But if I am not to support myself by wagering, how do you propose I live? Does highway robbery suit your notions of morality any better than gambling?”

“Don't be goosish.” Lucy was studying the room. Her nose wrinkled at the damp gray towel, the chipped basin and unmatched pitcher.

The earl stood up, trying not to be embarrassed in front of her at the dirt in the corners, the darned coverlet, and cracked mirror. This wasn't his house, after all, just because he visited. “Now who is being goosish? You must know
my
father wasn't any nabob, Miss Lucinda Faire of Fairview Manor. All he left me were debts and obligations.”

“And your heritage. It's past time you took up the reins of your responsibilities, my lord.”

“What, become a country squire?”

“There are worse things.”

“Not for me there aren't. Oh, I enjoy the horses and the open spaces, but waking at cock's crow and riding all day pall after a while. Furthermore, in case there is something you didn't know about my personal life, Stanford Abbey needs a major investment of funds just to make the mortgages, much less a living. Needless to say, without gambling I have no chance to find that kind of gold.”

“I do know you haven't yet tried hard work.”

He gave her a smile. “You think gaming is easy? Besides, the abbey doesn't require another strong back, it requires a degree of expertise I haven't got.”

“Then learn,” she said in exasperation. “If you can understand the rules and percentages for all those silly card games, surely you can manage to figure out crop rotation and irrigation.”

“My father never did.”

“Is that what you want
your
son to say? Oh, bother.” She seemed to be looking for something, searching for nonexistent pockets or a dangling reticule. Finally she pulled a piece of paper from the air above her head. “Ah-ha. The code of chivalry.”

“Now you're the one with attics to let. What in blazes does the code of chivalry have to do with mangel-wurzels and milch cows?”

“See, you do know something about agriculture.” Lucinda was studying her notes, biting her lower lip in a way that made Kerry wish she really were Lucille, his belle de nuit.

“Don't you even think it, sirrah,” she said, reading either his mind or the bulge in his breeches. “And the code of chivalry is another doctrine of conduct, one it might behoove you to consider as a modus vivendi.”

“What, more medieval dogma? Are you going to bring back chastity belts, too?”

“One or the other might have kept you out of such a place as this.”

There was an unmistakable note of disdain in Lucy's voice that robbed him of the last amorous thoughts, but not regrets for what might have been. “And what's so wrong with a house of accommodation? It's just a service like any other, buyers and sellers. No one is injured.”

“‘Chivalry,'” she read, “‘a canon dedicated to the protection of the weak, defense of the innocent, reverence for the purity of women.'”

“Here? Weak, innocent, pure? Were you born under a cabbage leaf? Prostitution is a trade the girls pick, like becoming a seamstress, only with more chance of advancement.”

Lucy shook her head sadly. “Wickedness must weaken your mind, too. Come with me.” And she took his hand. That is, she made his hand tingle, so he followed her.

Lucy led him down the deserted hall, around a corner, and up a flight of uncarpeted stairs. Motioning for silence, she pushed open one of the doors there. By the light of the hall candle, Kerry could see a room no bigger than a closet really, with a pitched roof that made it impossible to stand in, filled wall to wall with a ragged mattress. Three girls slept under one thin blanket, tumbled together like kittens.

“The one on the end is Lucille,” Lucy whispered, nudging him forward.

Feeling like some kind of voyeur, Kerry ducked his head and took two steps into the room. Yes, there was the red hair, only it seemed to be the dead color of henna dye rather than auburn or carroty or Lucy's vibrant gold-streaked red. They'd forgotten to dye the chit's eyebrows, which were still pale brown. But she was young; Lil hadn't misled him about that. Sixteen perhaps, unless it wasn't just the innocence of slumber making her seem a veritable babe.

“Fifteen,” Lucy whispered, “and fresh from the country. The family's farm fell under the enclosures, her brothers went to the mines. Lucille knew a girl who had a position as a housemaid in London, so her mother sold her wedding ring for the girl's coach fare. Lil met the coach.”

Kerry could still see the tear tracks down the girl's cheeks. “My God, I didn't know—” But of course he did. He'd heard the stories, even joked how the girls got younger every year. “What can I do?” he asked helplessly.

“For Lucille? Nothing.” He put a gold coin under her pillow anyway, before backing out of the room. There was a small chance she'd find it before one of the other girls did, or Lil.

“But you can do much for all the rest of the Lucilles,” Lucy was going on as she preceded him down the steps, then down the carpeted public stairway and out to the cold night air. “You can speak out in Parliament against child prostitution. You can see that legitimate employment agencies meet the coaches. You can convince your friends that prostitution is degrading and that celibacy is a virtue. You can—”

Kerry was stopped in his tracks. “Hold fast, Lucy. I thought I just had to be a better man, not perform miracles!”

Lucy laughed and took his hand, which was an eerie feeling, but nice once one got used to it. “I have great hopes for you, my lord.”

* * *

His watch at Lil's being over, the burly doorman took himself off to the Three Feathers for a heavy wet.

“Bash any heads tonight, 'Arry? Toss any sots in the alley?”

“Nah, more's the pity. Quiet night.”

“Any fancy toffs come by, then?”

“Yeah, the Earl Stanford what they was sayin' had such a run o' luck this week. Must be true. 'E didn't even bat an eye when Lil doubled the goin' rate. Even tossed me a coin just for offerin' to call a hackney for 'im. Said 'e'd rather walk though.”

The Three Feathers was shortly an empty nest as every cutpurse and footpad in the neighborhood lit out after the easy mark.

Kerry was deep in thought when the first assailant struck. He never heard the villain creep up behind him with a club in his hand, and he never turned around when the scoundrel slipped on a patch of ice—the only patch of ice in London that night—and knocked himself to flinders.

The next attackers worked in a pair. Except that one of them pulled his knife too soon and nicked his mate, who gave him an elbow in the breadbasket, which started a melee that distracted the next set of thugs into betting on the outcome.

Kerry kept walking, thinking of injustice, poverty, and the fate of unprotected innocents. Chivalry, almost, except that he wanted a woman more than ever. He didn't notice how a streetlamp somehow got between him and a tossed rock, or how a slavering pit bull decided to claim the block behind him as its own territory.

He didn't see the rat as big as a house cat run over Dirty Sal's foot, causing her to drop her pistol. He did hear her screaming, however. With thoughts of damsels in distress that would have cheered Dirty Sal no end, he turned in time to see two men coming at him with cudgels.

Lucinda decided to let the earl handle this attack on his own. She'd heard somewhere that men liked to feel important. Still ashamed of her own emotional outburst and shocking display of raw power—a lady never indulged in such disgraceful exhibits—Lucy felt she owed the earl a sop to his pride. Besides, he did need an outlet for some of that masculine energy, for she was going to make him toe the line, come hell or high water. She only hoped the ruffians didn't damage the earl's handsome face.

Kerry fended off the assault without raising a sweat. He did skin the knuckles of his right hand on one lowlife's chin, and ripped the sleeve of his greatcoat tossing the other into the side of a building, blast it. He'd finally got the curst topcoat paid for. Demby was no good at repairs, and the earl had to thread the needle for him anyway. Maybe he should just take up tailoring, now that he was renouncing gambling. Or perhaps he could become a prizefighter. Heaven knew he'd need some thrills in his life if he was to give up wine, wenching, and wagering. What other excitement was there? So he went home and burned the house down.