Tall, Dark, and Wicked (Wicked Trilogy #2)

Chapter 1

Loyal

Good-humored

Intelligent

Uninhibited

Passionate

Accommodating

Lord Ywain Hemingford—Ives, to his family and closest friends—read the list of the qualities he required in a mistress.

He had jotted them down, in no particular order, during an idle moment the day before.

Only the first one deserved its ranking without question.

In fact, it should be underlined. There were other qualities that attracted him, too, but these six, he had learned through experience, were paramount.

He tucked the paper behind some pages, to be returned later to its current duty as a marker in his book.

He settled into his favorite chair, propped his legs on a footstool with his feet aimed toward the low fire, and again turned his attention to a novel he had been meaning to read for four months now.

Vickers, his manservant, set a glass and two decanters, one of port and the other of water, on a table next to the chair, then stepped back out of view.

“If your brother the duke should come by this evening, sir, should—”

“Deny him entrance. Bar the door. I am not home to him. If God had any mercy he would have inspired Lance to remain at Merrywood Manor, not allowed him to venture back up to town where he will be a nuisance to all whom he encounters. I am done with being his playmate, or his nursemaid.” At least for a while, he added to himself.

After a recent, renewed week of barking, the hounds had again retreated, but they had not given up the hunt.

Ives did not mind being his brother’s keeper.

He resented very much playing the role for a brother who treated his advice like it came from an old aunt.

One would think that a man under suspicion of murder would be more circumspect in his speech and actions, and want to create favorable impressions, not stick out his tongue at society whenever he could.

“Very good, sir.”

Padding steps. A door closing. Peace. Ives closed his eyes and savored for a moment that rarity in his life—freedom to do whatever he damned well pleased, whenever he chose, with nary a claim on his time or attention.

Several developments allowed this respite besides the dwindling interest in Lance by magistrates out for blood.

No cases awaited his eloquence in court for at least a fortnight.

By coincidence his mistress had a week ago been most disloyal, giving him the excuse he had sought for some time to part with her.

That left him free of her too. Of attending on her. Of purchasing gifts. Of feeding her vanity. Of joining in little parties that she liked to hold that bored him more than he ever let her know.

It did, of course, also leave him free of a sexual companion. That was not a situation that he by nature welcomed, but he did not mind too much. Contemplating with whom to end his abstinence would give his forays out on the town an enlivening distraction.

He anticipated a glorious stretch of pointless activity.

Several long rides in the country beckoned, following whim more than roads or maps.

A stack of books like this one waited, too long unread.

He could indulge in regular practice with sword and fists, to improve his prowess at fighting with both.

And he looked forward to at least one good long debauch of drunkenness with old friends too long neglected.

“Sir.”

Vickers’s voice, right at his shoulder, surprised him. He had not heard Vickers return.

“Sir, there is a visitor.”

“Throw him out, I told you.”

“It is not your brother. It is a woman. She says she has come on business. She says you were recommended to her.”

Exhaling a sigh, Ives held out his palm.

“She gave me no card, sir. I would have sent her on her way, but she would not indicate just who had recommended you, and the last time such an unnamed recommendation came your way it was from—”

“Yes, quite right.” Damnation. If someone, or even Someone, thought to interfere with the next fortnight by having him running around England on some mission or investigation, Someone was very much mistaken.

Still, he should at least meet this woman and hear her out, so he could construct a good reason why he could not help her.

He stood, and looked down at himself. He wore a long banyan over his shirt and trousers.

The notion of dressing again raised the devil in him.

Hell, it was long past time to call at a lawyer’s office, even if Someone recommended him.

He would be too informal for a stranger, or for business, but he was hardly in a nightshirt.

This woman would just have to forgive him his dishabille.

With luck she would realize she had interfered with his evening, which she rudely had, and make quick work of whatever she wanted.

He walked to the office. She was probably a petitioner for some reform cause, or the relative of a friend looking for his advice on which solicitor to hire. Her mission this evening no doubt could have been completed more humanely by writing a letter.

He opened the door to his office, and immediately knew that his visitor had not been recommended by anyone significant, let alone Someone really important.

Her plain gray dress marked her as a servant.

He could not see one bit of adornment on either it or the dull green spencer buttoned high on her chest. The simplest bonnet he had seen in months covered her black hair and framed her face.

Eyes lowered, lost in her thoughts, she had not heard him. He considered stepping out just as silently, and telling Vickers to send her away. He placed one foot back to do so.

Just then she lifted a handkerchief to her eyes—glittering eyes, he could not help but notice, with thick, black lashes that contrasted starkly with her pale skin.

Radiant skin, as it happened, giving her face a notable presence, if he did say so, even if she was not a beautiful woman.

Handsome, however, even if somewhat sharp featured.

She dabbed at tears. Her reserved expression crumbled under emotion.

He hated seeing women cry. Hated it. His easy sympathy had caused him nothing but trouble in the past too. Still . . .

Hell.

He waited until she composed herself, then walked forward.

* * *

Padua sniffed, and not only to hold back the tears that the day tried to force on her. She also checked for the tenth time to discover if her garments smelled.

Newgate Prison reeked. The stench that London gave off seemed to concentrate in the old city, but Newgate smelled like the source of it all. She had never experienced anything like it. It remained in her nose, and she worried that it had permeated her clothing.

She sat rigidly on the chair the servant had pointed out. Her surroundings caused some trepidation. She had perhaps been rash in following the advice to seek out this lawyer. Probably so, considering the person who had given the advice had been a bawd incarcerated in the prison.

Normally, she would not take advice from a prostitute or a criminal.

Yet when that woman called her over as she found her way out of the prison, and showed sympathy, she had not been herself.

Just talking to someone eased her distress.

After hearing her tale of woe, that woman advised she get a lawyer, and even provided the name of one who had aided a relative who was wrongly accused.

Suddenly the prostitute appeared as an angel sent by Providence to offer guidance out of the Valley of Despair.

Now she awaited that lawyer’s attendance. Not only a lawyer, but also a lord. She thought it odd that a lord was a lawyer. She would assume the bawd erred on that, except the servant here did not blink when she used the title in requesting an audience.

Now that she was here, she could believe the lord part.

Although she sat in his chambers, this was no apartment, nor merely a set of offices.

Rather she sat on the entry level of what appeared to be a new house facing Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

There had been nothing to indicate that others lived or worked above.

This lawyer had a good deal of money if this whole building was his home.

The mahogany furniture and expensive bookbindings said as much. Her feet rested half-submerged in the dense pile of the carpet on the floor. Her rump perched on a chair that must have cost many pounds. Real paintings decorated the walls, not engravings done after famous works of art.

His fees were probably very high. She doubted she could afford them. The bawd had guessed as much. If you’ve not the coin to pay him, he’ll probably take other payment, dear. Them that works our side of the Old Bailey almost all do.

Could she agree to that? She recoiled from the idea.

Then again, it would be no worse than the bargains most women struck in their lives.

Had her mother not taught her that the loveless marriages to which most women were subjected were merely economic arrangements prettied up by legalities?

Experience of the world had shown that view to be harsh, perhaps, but essentially accurate.

She closed her eyes, and immediately was back in the prison, peering into a cell full of men. The stench, the dirt, the ugly sounds all assaulted her senses again. Hopelessness and death reigned in Newgate Prison. No one would leave a loved one inside it, if she had the means to get him out.

Tears pooled in her eyes. She dabbed them away with her handkerchief, and fought for composure. She never cried, but this was not a normal day in so many ways.

“You asked to see me.”

The voice jolted her out of her reverie and drew her attention to the man suddenly standing ten feet in front of her.

Oh, dear. Goodness. He was not what she expected. Not at all.

She had pictured a man of middle years with gray hair and spectacles and a face wizened with experience. He would wear dark coats and a crisp cravat and be accompanied by a clerk or two.