Regency Rogues Omnibus (100 page)

“If she should approach you again, Nell, please tell her that you have spoken to me, out of your undying loyalty.”

Nell snorted, bobbing her short black hair. “Undying loyalty is it, Gov’? I would go to hell for you.”

“Well then say that,” Law replied quietly. “And I would for you also, Nell.”

“Yer bating her, I see!” Nell grinned. “Oh I like that, yer grace.”

Chapter Four

Affinity nibbled at her bottom lip and her one crooked front tooth made the effort more rewarding, and she supposed because of it that she did it more often than most. She knew that she did it especially industriously when she was worried or anxious as she was now.

It was eight o’clock in the evening and dark outside. A moonless night that she’d specifically picked for the absence of the moon. Aunt Fuchsia had long since gone to bed after hearing Affinity was not feeling well and would be spending the evening in her room. A small white lie, Affinity thought, looking at her attire in the full length mirror once more. It was an odd menagerie of clothing that she’d managed to piece together.

She wore brown twill breeches. They were the darkest color she could find, when she’d rummaged through her uncle’s old clothing in the attic. They were surely from his younger days, being slimmer now than his portly weight. However, she still had to take them in considerably, and the buttoned up, square-pocketed, front of the breeches were unique to her. Of course, she had seen them before, but certainly never had them on to see them work. It made that unique place between a man’s legs seem that much more mysterious, and it made her feel strangely heated to know that a few buttons undone in the front and her sex would be exposed.

Of course she’d seen a male organ twice in her life. One time when her uncle had been ill and circumstances left her, in one instant, the only one available at the precisely urgent moment to help him. It had been a fleeting glimpse and it had shocked her. She’d been a young girl then, nearly the age of fifteen, and when she’d imagined such things, somehow they were vaguely majestic and commanding. Certainly not withered and red looking. Up until that time she had no idea of the size, shape, position, or the condition of that area between a man’s legs. She was quite disappointed, but that was until she’d seen Bartley, who was the Redgrift’s head groom. She’d been innocently passing by the stables in her seventeenth year, when a swatch of color had caught her eye through a wider slat on the side of the stable building. Immediately curious that she could see it, she’d stopped and leaned forward to peek. That was when she had seen Bartley pissing in the hay or more precisely she’d seen his organ, a long healthy pink-skinned organ. What a revelation that had been to enliven her.

Since that day and through many whispered conversations with her best of friends Brevity, Caprice, and Diversity, she had a vague understanding of the look and function of the male organ, this pocketed front concealed in a man’s breeches. She was certain that most of the function they imagined was vastly fanciful, gleaned from bits and pieces the girls had been able to pick up along the way. They would take these bits of information, not enough to obtain a truly clear picture, and they would twist them around in their talks, until they seemed to fit logically. Of course, that meant it really was only fictional imagery. It was sad that such sexual things were kept so secret. Of course, it also fueled their desires to know the truth of it.

All of them had learned the art of touching themselves to climatic conclusion. Never together of course, but they’d spoken about it as true friends do when revealing secrets. They spoke, giggling of stroking between their legs to relieve the insistent aches that built there upon odd occasions. Such as the one that was beginning to happen between her thighs now, Affinity thought, looking at the dark woolen sweater she wore.

She could not wear a corset with this attire and it left her breasts free flowing beneath a light chemise and the sweater. She could feel the wool grazing her nipple tips with each shift of her body, and she was surprised, but had to admit wearing the outfit alone was arousing her.

“Of course, it cannot be that I intend to sneak into Law’s home,” Affinity declared as she grabbed her veiled bonnet and stuffed it on top of her head. It did not fit well because she had piled her hair in a large bun on the top of her head. The bonnet and veil also looked quite ridiculous with the rest of her clandestine outfit. However, she felt the need to be masked and this was the best she could come up with.

Affinity assured herself that the entire objective was that no one was to see her, so it mattered little what she actually looked like. She was even going so far as to walk to Law’s home, rather than hiring a hackney. She would stealthily keep to the alleyways and the shadows. So, she picked up the last bit of her furtive costume, a small black billy club that she had found in the attic. She could not go out alone through the back alleys without protection.

This week, she had watched Law’s home nearly every day until as late in the evening as she could manage. What she’d learned was that none of his servants stayed in residence overnight, which was very odd. But she’d also learned today quite by chance of overhearing Law’s groom say that the carriage needed to be brought out because his grace was going out to a boxing event.

Affinity had quickly left then to check the times of this boxing event. Luckily there was only one boxing match that it could be and that left the field open if she was brave enough to raise the game she wanted to play higher.

Really, curiosity drove her commonsense in this matter entirely astray. She’d already admitted to herself that she had a complete and overblown crush on the Duke of St. Martin. She had never experienced one before and it was quite breathtaking. Brevity had once had a crush over a mature and refined school master at Lady Whitmore’s Academy for Young Ladies. The crush had been quite dramatic and Affinity now understood why. The feelings inside her had no real logic to them. They were simply bold and nearly overpowering. They created this momentous desire inside her to discover more about the object of her affection.

But she was not doing this completely because of her amorous urges. She had a plan. The infancy of a plan at least. She would learn all that she could about Law, in the process making certain he was worthy of her amorous intent, and then she would use that knowledge to entice Law’s mind and his soul. She would be all that he desired. In fact, she would seduce him if that were possible.

So determinedly, Affinity managed to make good time and was not seen as she made her way to Law’s home some five blocks away. She approached his townhouse from the rear, having to physically climb a stone wall to do so. It was quite an event for her, and she resolved that she was physically weak for all the effort it cost her. Luckily, the stone wall had shifted and become uneven over time, allowing her to find handholds and footholds to lift herself and draw her cumbersome body over the top.

She resolved, as she sat atop the stone fence, puffing hard breaths, that she was immediately going to start a physical regiment to overcome this irritating weakness. “Women just sit on their posteriors too long,” she muttered, looking for a way to lower herself down the inside of the stone wall.

What she spied was the low hanging branch of a tree next to the wall. So very daring, she used this with a small leap and managed to catch the branch in her hands, which dangled her feet closer to the ground below. Then, she let go and it was only a short distance to land on her feet. She smiled vividly, realizing how brave and determined she was in her goal. It felt glorious to take charge, and the humming of excitement filling her body was like an aphrodisiac.

Carefully and silently, Affinity picked her way through the garden to the back of Law’s townhouse. There were a few lights burning, yet they appeared dim and they did not overly worry her because many people left a few lights on for their return. Now came the tricky part. How to get inside? She had thought this over and, as of yet, had not come up with many good answers. She could only hope that some part of the townhouse had been left open.

So with this hope, she began to systemically try every window and door as quietly as she could. She was down on her hands and knees trying a lowercase window outside what appeared to be Law’s study, when suddenly a face loomed before her on the other side of the window pane. Affinity yelped, rearing back and clamping a hand over her mouth to contain any further sounds, with her gaze leaping from a short distance unfocused, to a longer distance focused.

“Beauty,” she whispered through her fingers, looking at Law’s russet setter gazing back at her eagerly through the window pane. “Oh, shush, shush,” she added quickly, hoping he would not bark at her.

But Beauty just sat there gazing at her hopefully with his tail wagging. Still, he looked as though he could start barking at her at any moment, so she backed away slowly. It would be better to try the other rooms’ windows where Beauty was not perched, she decided as she moved back into the shadows. Next, she tried the dining room windows and she was standing on her tiptoes, industriously intent on a side window, when something poked her on her bottom.

“Oh my God!” Affinity squealed, jumping and turning and tripping all in what felt like the same motion. Then, she found herself landing on her posterior in the flower patch under the window. A large shape loomed over her and before she could think, the next thing that happened made her laugh outright. It was Beauty’s wet tongue licking her cheek.

“Oh you!” Affinity gushed fondly, grasping Beauty in a hug, then raised herself to sit beside him. “You scared the devil out of me,” Affinity scolded him as she thoroughly petted him, to his happily wagging tail. It took her a few minutes to catch her breath and her wits, when she finally realized . . . “How did you get outside, Beauty?”

Immediately, Beauty trotted away as though he understood her question and Affinity got to her feet to follow, hoping this did not mean someone had let Beauty outdoors. But what Beauty led her to was a small door within a door. “How clever,” Affinity whispered, watching Beauty push through the small door that moved inward with his nudge. This door was obviously built specially for Beauty to let him in and out of the gardens whenever he wished.

If she had been a man or just inches wider, she would not have made it through the door. However, she just fit sideways with only a few scrapes. Once inside, she found herself in a darkened pantry, and as she got to her feet, dusting herself off, she patted Beauty’s head. “Well I have gone and done it now,” Affinity whispered, looking down into Beauty’s loyal brown eyes.

She stood still for several minutes listening silently to the quiet house. There were no noises at all and she felt certain with some inner sense added that she was alone. Her goal in this search was to find some of Law’s interests and likes, as in the boxing that she now knew he favored. By the time she met him, she would know all there was to know about boxing. Wouldn’t that surprise any gentleman? A lady knowing how to converse intelligently about any sport and not just her next embroidering projects? These ideas that kept coming to her had such merit! A man and a woman could have true companionship, if they had things in common. It was so much better to have things in common than relying upon appearance and social standings. Yes, Affinity thought, these thoughts bolstered her. It was much different planning to do something as opposed to actually doing it . . . as in right now.

She started out very timidly, but quickly her curiosity and interest overcame her hesitations and she was quite enjoying herself. And that was when she found the journal. She’d looked through Law’s library finding a great many clues to his nature there. He was currently reading Mystery Island by Jules Vern set on a table by a comfortable reading chair that appeared well used. The library shelves held a great many books about military history and warfare, making her wonder if he had ever been to war. There was a chess set opened on the table, so she assumed that he liked chess. The room itself smelled wonderful also, like smoky cherries, pine, and books. The smoky cherry flavor in the air had her wondering, until she found a box of cigarillos, which were small thin cigars. She had heard of these. They were not a usual find in England and it took a lot of her willpower not to pocket one and later perhaps daringly try a puff. Then, as much to keep herself from taking a cigarillo, as to further her explorations, she moved from Law’s library into his study.

She’d come directly to his desk, naturally looking down, and spied what appeared to be a private journal set on top of the oak-inlaid desk. She fingered the brackish-brown and worn tooled leather on the outside cover of the journal, thinking that she’d not yet decided whether or not she would actually explore closed drawers or closets, which felt more like an invasion, just as opening this journal would be perhaps. The journal could simply be his household bookkeeping, but the look and feel of it spoke of being more special than that. And yet, she fully intended to look at his bedchamber. She could not come so far and not see the most intriguing part. That was very personal . . . a person’s bedchamber, and if she could do that?

“Of course I’m fooling myself,” Affinity muttered, suddenly snatching up the journal. “I certainly intend to look!” The solace in the back of her mind was that no one would ever know of this event. And that made it better. Didn’t it? “Well, of course,” she muttered, opening the journal to the first page.

It was prefaced by a short prologue.