Gallant Scoundrel (6 page)

Not daring to contradict so great a man, she told him the address of the house where she was staying—though unless she could sell at least a piece or two from her father’s collection, she would not be able to afford her rooms there beyond the week she’d already paid.

“Splendid, splendid. I give you good day then, and trust you will enjoy your sojourn in Town.” With a deep bow, the Duke departed.
 

For a long moment, Xena continued to stare after one of the few men she’d ever held in esteem, a thousand recollections crowding her brain. Then she turned on her heel to head back to her temporary abode on Rundel Street, walking faster and faster in her effort to outstrip the ghosts from her past that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her.

Not until she’d mounted the four flights of stairs to her apartments did she pause to catch her breath and, more importantly, to compose herself. It would never do to allow her mental disquiet to show. That would invite questions she felt in no way prepared to answer. After several deep, calming breaths, she finally opened the door.

“She’s back!” A well-grown lad of some six-and-a-half years, clad in knee-breeches and a simple shirt, came running to greet her. “Mother, London is a wonderful place! Why, just this morning I have seen from the window fifteen liveried carriages, twelve drays and ten high-perch phaetons. And so many horses! Horses of every color and breed you can imagine. Can we please not stay here always? It is ever so much more interesting than Yorkshire.”

Xena allowed herself to be led to the aforementioned window to witness these wonders for herself, exchanging an amused glance with Yamini, her onetime
ayah
and now Theo’s nurse. Still smiling, she glanced fondly down at the still-chattering boy by her side—the only thing that had made seven years of veritable exile bearable.

*
       
*
       
*

Well before his forty-eight hours were up, Harry was heartily bored. He’d have escaped back to his lodgings the first day if Peter hadn’t taken the simple precaution of spiriting away his clothes. Little as Harry cared for convention, he didn’t much fancy wandering about Mayfair in nothing but his nightshirt.
 

Worse than boredom, though, were the memories. Memories, released by his recent dreams, and without sufficient distractions to keep them at bay, of a time when he’d been a whole man and a damned good soldier, with all his life to look forward to.
 

 
Worst of all, those recollections threw into unpleasant relief the relative pointlessness of his current existence.
 

 
Those excesses he’d adopted to put Xena Maxwell from his mind gradually became ingrained habits, increasing after he was invalided out of the army. At first he’d enjoyed scandalizing polite Society but by now even Peter expected
him to act the wastrel. Where was the fun in being so predictable?
 

In truth, his nightly drinking, gambling and wenching had already begun to pall before this enforced inactivity provided so much unwelcome time for reflection. Not so long ago, while deep in his cups, he’d briefly considered putting a period to his existence, as his chosen method of self-destruction was taking far longer than expected. That moment of madness passed quickly, but remembering it still had the power to unsettle him.
 

Perhaps what he needed was a completely new path to Perdition, one that hadn’t already been trodden by thousands of men before him. Becoming the next Saint of Seven Dials might be exactly that—and likely amusing, besides.

That evening, when Lord Peter again came to join him in a single glass of sherry after dinner, Harry picked up his glass—which wasn’t nearly full enough—and raised it.
 

“Very well, Pete, you’ve beaten me down with this damned captivity. I’ll do it.”

“Try your hand as the Saint, you mean?” Eyebrow raised, Peter regarded him piercingly.
 

“Aye. I’ve flouted convention by all the accepted methods long enough. Time to try a new way to outrage Society—though I suppose I won’t be able to take credit for it, more’s the pity.” He shrugged and forced a grin.

Peter wasn’t fooled. “I felt sure you’d eventually grow bored with night after night of dissipation, though I confess it took longer than I expected. It’s why I was very much hoping you would agree to take up this gauntlet—not only for the sakes of the poor denizens of Seven Dials, but even more for your own.”

Harry’s grin faded. “Already trying to take the fun out of it, are you? Surely you can’t claim that becoming the Saint will be for my own good when a slip up would lead to the hangman’s noose. I’ve seen the rewards posted for his capture.”

“True enough,” Peter admitted. “But wouldn’t that be a better way to go out than by drinking yourself into an early grave—or otherwise by your own hand?”

So Peter had suspected, even without Harry telling him. As usual. Harry shrugged.
 

“It’d be a tolerably heroic death, at least. Thought I’d managed one at Salamanca before that Spanish family pulled me through.”

“And a hell of a scare you gave us all, too.” Peter’s eyes were shadowed with remembered worry. “For more than three months everyone believed you dead, you know. Jack swore there was no way you could have survived after the French overran that diversionary maneuver you led.”

“Wouldn’t have if the Corsican’s boys had noticed me. Playing dead is what kept me alive, though it cost me an arm. But enough of that. Now I’ve agreed, exactly how do I go about becoming the Saint of Seven Dials? Will you finally tell me who else has played the part? Burning curiosity is half the reason I’m agreeing to this, you know.”

Grinning now, Peter stood. “I’ll do better than that. As soon as I go down, I’ll send Brewster up with your clothes. Join me in the library in half an hour and you’ll be able to meet a couple of prior Saints face to face.”

X
ENA
HAD
a difficult time getting Theo to bed that evening, he was still so wound up with excitement over the sights of London. Not till he was asleep did she finally give way to the memories that had been pressing at her since her unexpected meeting with the Duke.
 

Those two years in Portugal and Spain under Wellington’s command had been the most exciting and fulfilling of her life, even compared to her previous wandering existence. On the Peninsula she’d enjoyed nearly as much liberty as the men until she foolishly allowed passion to overcome judgment—something she’d previously considered a uniquely masculine failing.
 

For that error she’d paid with the very freedom she so cherished.

“I find you have been less than truthful with me, Xena,” her father unexpectedly confronted her one evening. “You’ve repeatedly insisted to my face that you and Lieutenant Thatcher are merely friends, while all along you have been engaging in activities that should be reserved for husband and wife—which you will become at once.”

Xena was appalled. As lenient as her father had always been in allowing her to dress and behave as she wished, she’d persuaded herself he would be reasonable about this as well, should he discover it.

“How—? Did Harry…I mean, Lieutenant Thatcher tell you—?”

“Aye, but not to worry. He is more than willing to do the honorable thing.”

She
had
begun to suspect Harry’s feelings had progressed beyond friendship and simple lust—nor could she claim her own emotions were completely uninvolved. But that Harry might go so far as to trap her into a marriage he knew full well she did not want had never entered her mind!

In vain did she point out to her father that she’d done no worse than most of the soldiers around her. Angrier than she’d ever seen him, he vowed to have Harry court-martialed unless she agreed to marry him that very night—which she grudgingly did. When Harry neither hesitated nor asked her forgiveness before saying the vows that were to irrevocably bind them, she felt even further betrayed.
 

Furious at the two men she’d most trusted, Xena had refused to submit tamely when Colonel Maxwell ordered her back to Yorkshire on the next available ship. On landing at Plymouth she used the money her father had intended for a post chaise to Yorkshire to instead outfit herself afresh in male attire and enlist as a cornet in the 66
th
out of Cornwall, bound for Poland.
 

That, however, was as far as her desperate bid for freedom progressed.

Xena had been somewhat unwell on her delayed voyage from Corunna, which she attributed to the roughness of the crossing. When her courses failed to occur for a second month, however, Yamini gently pointed out an alternate explanation. Though Xena had been diligent in her use of lemon-soaked sponges and wild carrot seeds, her pregnancy was soon undeniable.
 

That unwelcome discovery put paid to her dreams of a brilliant military career. With little in the way of funds or options, she was forced to return to Yorkshire after all, traveling by mail coach rather than the more comfortable journey her father had originally provided for.

By the time she reached her father’s estate in late 1809 there was no hiding her pregnancy. Though Xena herself cared not a fig about her reputation, Yamini was more foresighted, putting about a story that Xena’s husband had been killed in battle. Because Xena adamantly refused to be called Mrs. Thatcher, Yamini also implied that her mistress was still too distraught by his death to hear his name spoken aloud.

Contrary to what she’d told Wellington that afternoon, it was not until after Theo’s birth that Xena finally unbent enough to write to her father. When he failed to reply, she assumed even news of a grandson was not enough to overcome his anger at her indiscretion. Refusing to grovel, she made no further attempt at communication, leaving it to her father to notify Harry Thatcher—or not.
 

Upon her father’s eventual return to Yorkshire she had cause to regret that stubbornness, for his joy at finding her alive and at meeting his two-year-old grandson was clearly genuine. It did not, however, prevent Colonel Maxwell from resuming his travels after a mere three months at home, this time to Africa—and without Xena.

She was still stinging from a renewed sense of betrayal a week later when her convenient local fiction of widowhood unexpectedly became fact. While scanning the newspaper lists of war casualties, as she did daily, she spotted Major Harry Thatcher’s name among those killed at the otherwise-victorious Battle of Salamanca.

Xena was completely unprepared for the shock and sorrow she felt at the news. So intense was her grief that she was forced to admit that what she’d declared impossible had occurred—she had fallen in love with him. How Harry would crow if he knew! Though she could scarcely don mourning without admitting her earlier deception to the district, she wore a black armband in the privacy of her home until she was able to push Harry Thatcher’s idea back into the corner of her brain and heart where it belonged.

Now, with so many old memories newly-awakened for the first time in years, Xena wondered if she’d been wrong to suppress them for so long—along with what was perhaps the best part of her character.
 

Thus far, Theo had been raised with no knowledge of his father’s identity, though he had recently begun asking questions. As Yamini frequently reminded her, he would soon need to be told, if not the exact truth, then some plausibly respectable version of it. It suddenly occurred to her that, by neglecting to mention his existence to the Duke of Wellington, she might possibly have done her son a disservice.

After all, it would not be many years before she would need to apply to schools on her son’s behalf, and a highly-placed recommendation could make all the difference, not to mention other assistance he might receive later on. Could she perhaps make use of the connections she’d formed during her time on the Peninsula to Theo’s advantage? The Duke of Wellington’s upcoming reception might be an opportunity to do just that.
 

Not, however, attired as she was right now. Ruefully, she glanced down at her ensemble, nearly ten years out of date and shabby besides. No wonder the shopkeepers she had visited refused to take her seriously.
 

She could scarce afford
new
clothes, given what these rooms were costing her, but a few modest purchases could surely refurbish her appearance somewhat. She hoped so, as it seemed more necessary than ever that she convert a portion of her father’s vast collection of artifacts into a source of funds for both immediate and future needs.

*
       
*
       
*

“That’ll do, Brewster. Never mind about my cravat, just tie it any old way.”

Harry’s valet nodded and two seconds later stepped back. “There you are, sir. I must say, I am relieved to see you on your feet again.”

“So am I.” Harry smiled at his onetime batman and now literal left hand. “Lord Peter tells me I have you to thank for that. With any luck, I’ll soon be able to not only catch you up on your wages but throw in a more tangible token of gratitude, as well.”

If there was skepticism behind Brewster’s smile he hid it well as he bowed Harry out of the room.

Eager as Harry was to finally leave his luxurious prison, he was even more curious. Two Saints of Seven Dials in this very house? How the devil had Peter arranged
that
on such short notice? He suspected it meant his friend had again read his mind and knew he would accept the challenge even before Harry did.

On entering the library a moment later, Harry was disappointed to see only four people awaiting him: Peter, his new wife, her young brother who now lived with them, and Peter’s brother, Lord Marcus Northrup. No new faces at all.

“I take it I’m early?” Harry moved casually to a chair, hoping to disguise his lingering weakness before Peter noticed. He had no desire to play the invalid any longer.