Chapter 2
“Is that all you’ve got, Your Grace?”
The taunt came from across the makeshift ring, accompanied by a spray of blood and spittle.
Edward’s opponent was a dockworker named Briggs, a man built like a brick wall with fists the size of ham hocks. He bounced on his feet, grinning through a split lip.
“Heard you nobles are soft.” Briggs circled left, his bare feet scuffing against the sawdust-covered floor. “All that fine wine and fancy living. Makes a man weak.”
Edward said nothing. He kept his guard up, his breathing steady, and his focus absolute.
The back room of the Crossed Keys tavern stank of sweat and stale ale and the copper tang of blood. Oil lamps cast wavering shadows across the crowd of men pressed against the rope barriers, their shouts and jeers blending into a roar that Edward had learned to tune out years ago.
Briggs lunged. Edward sidestepped, let the punch sail past his ear, and drove his fist into the dockworker’s exposed ribs. The crack of impact rippled up his arm. Briggs staggered, his grin faltering.
“Your mother knows you’re out this late?” Briggs spat blood onto the sawdust. “Oh, wait. She ran off, didn’t she? Left you and your brother behind like yesterday’s rubbish.”
The words found their mark. Edward felt the old wound pulse beneath his ribs, that familiar ache that never quite healed. His vision sharpened. His muscles coiled.
Briggs saw the change in his eyes and pressed his advantage. “Touched a nerve, did I? The great Duke of Heatherwell, abandoned by his own mother. What kind of woman leaves her children? Must have been something wrong with—”
Edward moved.
Three punches. Left jab to snap Briggs’s head back. Right cross to his jaw. Left hook to his temple. The dockworker’s eyes rolled white. His knees buckled. He hit the sawdust with a thud that silenced the crowd.
Edward stood over him, chest heaving, and his knuckles throbbing. The rage still pulsed through his veins, hot and dark and hungry for more.
He forced himself to unclench his fists. To step back. To breathe.
The crowd erupted into cheers and groans as money changed hands. Edward turned away from the unconscious man and ducked under the ropes.
The landlord appeared at his elbow before he had taken three steps. Grimsby was a wiry man with a face like a ferret and eyes that never stopped calculating. He held out a leather purse, coins clinking inside.
“Your winnings, Your Grace.”
“You know what to do with it.” Edward reached for the cloth a boy offered him and wiped the sweat from his face. Briggs’s blood streaked the linen red.
Grimsby sighed. “The orphanage again?”
“Anonymous donation. As always.” Edward met his gaze. “And I will be checking that the full sum arrives. If I discover a single shilling has gone astray, you and I will have a conversation you will not enjoy.”
The landlord rolled his eyes and tucked the purse into his coat. “I’ll never understand you, Your Grace. Most men fight for coin or glory. You come here to beat men senseless and give away the prize.” He shook his head. “What sort of man enjoys that?”
Edward stepped closer. The landlord’s smirk faded as Edward’s shadow fell across him.
“I don’t enjoy anything.” The words emerged low, rough, and scraping from somewhere deep in his chest. “Make sure the money reaches the orphanage by the week’s end.”
Grimsby stumbled backward, his face pale. He nodded once and scurried away.
“Charming as ever, I see.”
Edward turned to find Hugo Beaumont leaning against a wooden pillar, arms crossed, a grin spreading across his handsome face.
The Duke of Thornwaite looked absurdly out of place in the dingy tavern with his fair hair artfully disheveled and his cravat loosened just enough to suggest aristocratic indolence.
“How long have you been standing there?” Edward accepted a fresh cloth from the boy and pressed it to his split knuckles.
“Long enough to see you reduce poor Briggs to a heap of regrets.” Hugo pushed off from the pillar and strolled closer. “The man will be drinking his meals for a fortnight.”
“He should learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“As should we all.” Hugo’s grin widened. “Speaking of mouths and their many uses, Lady Fothergill is hosting a private gathering this evening. Very private. Very intimate. She specifically requested your attendance.”
Edward wrapped the cloth around his knuckles and began pulling on his shirt. “No.”
“You haven’t even heard what she’s offering.”
“I can imagine.”
“A hot bath.” Hugo ticked off on his fingers. “Fine champagne. Excellent company. And the lady herself has expressed a keen interest in helping you,” he paused, his eyes glittering with mischief, “relax.”
“I am not in the mood for socializing.” Edward shrugged into his coat, wincing as the movement pulled at bruised muscles.
Hugo threw up his hands. “It is not socializing. It is the precise opposite of socializing. There will be no conversation. No pleasantries. Simply two consenting adults engaged in—”
“Goodnight, Hugo.”
“You are impossible.” Hugo fell into step beside him as Edward moved toward the tavern’s back door. “I cannot fathom how you prefer getting pummeled in a cellar to spending an evening in the arms of a beautiful woman.”
“I was not the one getting pummeled.”
“That is not the point.” Hugo sighed. “There are far more pleasurable forms of exertion available to a man of your position. Activities that do not result in bloodstains and broken noses.”
Edward pushed open the door. Cold night air rushed in, carrying the smell of rain and coal smoke. “Your concern for my well-being is touching.”
“Someone must look after you, since you refuse to look after yourself.” Hugo clapped him on the shoulder. “Very well. Go home to your empty house and your empty bed. I shall console Lady Fothergill on your behalf.”
“I am certain you will manage.”
Hugo’s laughter followed him into the darkness.
Edward walked through the quiet streets, his boots splashing through puddles left by the evening’s rain. The cold air helped clear his head. Helped quiet the restless energy that still hummed beneath his skin. The fight had not been enough. It never was.
He thought of Briggs’s words. His mother. Leonard. The past clung to him like a shadow, no matter how far he walked or how hard he fought.
A sound reached his ears. Voices. Male. Rough with drink and something darker.
Edward slowed. Ahead, in the mouth of an alley, shadows moved. Five men, perhaps six, circled around a smaller figure in a dark cloak. The figure stood with her back against the wall, her hood pulled low.
“Step away from the lady.”
The men turned. One of them, a broad fellow with rotting teeth, sneered at Edward. “This ain’t your concern, toff. Move along.”
Edward stepped closer. “I said step away.”
The thugs exchanged glances. A wiry one with a blade on his belt laughed. “Look at this one. He thinks he’s a hero.”
“Let’s teach him otherwise.” The largest of them, a man with fists like anvils, lunged forward.
Edward sidestepped the wild swing, caught the man’s wrist, and twisted. The thug yelped as his arm bent at an unnatural angle. Edward drove his elbow into the man’s temple. He crumpled.
The wiry one drew his blade and slashed. Edward ducked under the arc, stepped inside the man’s guard, and delivered a sharp jab to his throat. The thug dropped his knife and staggered back, gasping.
Edward turned to face the remaining men. His breathing had not changed. His hands hung loose at his sides, ready.
The thugs looked at their fallen companions. They looked at Edward. They looked at each other.
“Leave.” Edward’s voice cut through the night like a blade. “Now.”
They scattered, dragging their groaning companions behind them. Within moments, the alley stood empty save for Edward and the cloaked figure.
She straightened up from the wall. “Thank you.” Her voice was low, cultured, and definitely at odds with their surroundings. “I appreciate your help. Good evening.”
She moved to pass him. He shifted to block her path.
“What are you doing in this part of London at this hour?”
Her chin lifted. He still could not see her face beneath the hood, but he felt the weight of her gaze. “That is none of your concern, sir.”
“You are a lady.” It was not a question. He could hear it in her accent, see it in the quality of her cloak, sense it in the way she held herself.
“And you are observant.” She stepped to the right. He mirrored her movement. “Please move aside.”
“Not until you explain why a lady of breeding is wandering alone through streets that would make a sailor think twice.”
“Perhaps I enjoy the exercise.”
“At four o’clock in the morning?”
“The fresh air is bracing.”
“The fresh air smells of fish guts and despair.”
A sound escaped her. It might have been a laugh. “You aren’t wrong.” She paused. “I could ask you the same question, you know. What brings a gentleman to this corner of London at this hour?”
“Who said I was a gentleman?”
“Your coat says it. Your boots say it. The way you hold yourself says it.” She tilted her head. “You move like a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. That speaks of rank. And yet here you are, in the same streets that would make a sailor think twice.”
Edward found himself caught between annoyance and something else. Something that felt almost like curiosity. “I had business nearby.”
“As did I.” She spread her hands. “There. We are both mysterious figures with unexplained purposes. Honor satisfied. Now, if you will excuse me.”
She stepped left. He followed. They stood closer now, close enough that he caught a hint of her scent beneath the coal smoke and damp. Something floral, delicate, out of place.
“You are infuriating,” he said.
“So I’ve been told.”
He grew suddenly aware of how near they stood. Of the way her breath misted in the cold air between them. Of the curve of her lips, just visible beneath the shadow of her hood. Something stirred in his chest, unfamiliar and unwelcome.
He stepped back. “Let me walk you home.”
“No.”
“Then allow me to call you a hackney.”
“I can find my own transportation.”
“You were also perfectly capable of being cornered by six men in an alley.”
“Five.” Her voice sharpened. “There were five. And I had the situation under control.”
“Of course you did.” He exhaled through his nose. “Fine. Leave. But I will watch until you are safely away. Do not test me on this.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I don’t doubt it. Go.”
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she turned and walked away, her cloak swirling around her ankles. He watched her reach the end of the street, watched her flag down a passing hackney, watched her climb inside and disappear into the pre-dawn gray.
Only then did he realize that he had been holding his breath.
Edward walked the remaining distance to Heatherwell House with her voice echoing in his head. Her scent lingering in his memory. The shape of her lips beneath that damnable hood.
He did not know her name. Did not know her face and would probably never see her again.
So why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
He mounted the steps to his townhouse and found the door already open. His butler, Hartley, stood in the entrance, his usually impassive face drawn with concern.
“Your Grace.” Hartley’s voice was strained. “I have been waiting for your return.”
Edward paused, removing his coat. “What is it?”
“An urgent message arrived two hours ago.” The butler held out a folded letter, the seal already broken. “I took the liberty of reading it, given the demeanor of the messenger. I thought you would want to know immediately.”
Edward took the letter. The paper felt wrong in his hands, but he didn’t know why.
He read the first line. The world tilted beneath his feet.
It is with deepest sorrow that I must inform you of the deaths of Lord Leonard Gray and his wife, Lady Jane Gray, following a carriage accident on the northern road.
The words blurred. Edward read them again. They did not change.
Leonard. His brother. His little brother, who had hugged him goodbye five years ago and promised to write every week. Who had kept that promise, letter after letter, filling pages with stories of Jane and the countryside and the life he had built far from London and their father’s shadow.
Gone.
He forced himself to keep reading.
Their son, Oliver, was not in the carriage at the time and remains unharmed. He is currently in my care at the house. I await your instructions.
Oliver—Leonard’s boy. Four years old and suddenly alone in the world.
Edward’s hand trembled. He crushed it into a fist, crumpling the edge of the paper. The grief surged up his throat, hot and choking, and he forced it back down. Later. He would feel this later. Now, there was only duty. Only the child who needed him.
He looked up at Hartley. His voice emerged flat, stripped of everything but command.
“Wake my valet. Have him pack my things.”
Hartley nodded, his eyes glistening. “Of course, Your Grace. May I ask where you are going?”
Edward folded the letter and tucked it into his coat, close to his heart.
“To bring my nephew home.”