Anything But a Lord (London Vices #2)

Prologue

Delores Bean, proprietress of The Dancing Swan, a brothel that catered to the varied sexual tastes of London’s gentlemen, looked down at the screaming infant settled beside his quieter, less likely to live, brother.

“This is what happens when I show a bit of kindness,” she sighed.

Delores had assumed, and rightly so given the circumstances of their birth, that both babes would be dead within a fortnight.

But here it was a month later and the pair were still alive.

A rare miscalculation on her part. Freckle, as she called the strongest of the two because he had a small dot at the end of his nose, would most definitely survive.

He was her favorite, always reaching for her when she stopped to hover over them, little fingers wiggling in the air at Delores.

Freckle, damn him, tore at her heart.

Didn’t realize the damn thing still beat.

The other babe was far less vocal. Pale as a bowl of milk.

Had to be coaxed to take the teat from a wet nurse Delores had hired.

An additional expense she didn’t want, not at present with cocky young thugs stomping about demanding their due.

Lark, in particular, would be a problem one day.

He eyed The Dancing Swan whenever he visited, calculating the worth of the brothel and how much longer Delores would maintain control.

Nothing was guaranteed in life, and certainly not in The Devil’s Acre.

But she’d survived longer than most because she knew things others didn’t.

Her stomach curdled for a moment, wishing she’d stayed ignorant in some instances.

The matter at hand, however, was what Delores should do with these two orphaned souls.

Their mother had been the Duchess of Roxboro, who’d come banging on the door, bleedin’ and about to give birth.

Skirts soaked a dark crimson. She’d died in the room just across the hall.

The tang of blood still hovered in the air and stained the floorboards even after weeks of scrubbing.

“Should have turned her away,” Delores said to Freckle, feeling that worry of dread knot inside her once more. “Now I’m involved in somethin’ I shouldn’t be.”

Lark, the self-proclaimed Lord of Pye Street, was the least of her concerns, as it happened.

Terrible business, watching a duchess bleed to death in childbirth and unable to save her, though perhaps that was for the best. Blood had been everywhere.

Delores had to burn the mattress and quilts, quietly of course, as it wouldn’t do for anyone to see them.

The stains on the floor would fade in time or she’d cover them with the expensive rug from Axminster delivered only yesterday.

The duchess had promised Delores a new rug as she died and the duke’s solicitor, Mr. Philpott, who’d arrived shortly after her death, had agreed.

The rug, a glorious thing made up of blue, green, and gold swirls, was far too fine to be hidden up here. She was already considering the rug would look better in her parlor.

Delores had been grateful Mr. Philpott agreed to the rug, but not so thankful she felt the need to inform the solicitor that the new Duke of Roxboro—Alexander, the duchess had named the babe before she became unconscious—had two younger siblings.

Three boys. Identical save for the one having a freckle on the end of his nose.

Delores had never seen such a thing in her entire life and though she wasn’t religious, felt the need to pray when they appeared.

The duchess, barely awake and hanging on to her own life by a thread, closed her eyes when Alexander slid from her body, never opening them again.

It was doubtful the poor lamb even felt the birth of the other two.

Out of kindness—something Delores rarely practiced and cursed herself a thousand times since—for the poor dead duchess and Mr. Philpott who arrived an hour later, horribly grief-stricken, she’d stayed silent.

The duke had just been murdered outside Parliament, a brutal, violent death even for The Devil’s Acre, and the duchess survived him by only a few hours, just long enough to birth his heir and his brothers.

Delores had been sure the other two infants wouldn’t survive the night, and it hadn’t seemed right to add to the tragedy by relaying the news there were two more babes who’d soon join their mother.

Good grief, even the liveried footmen who’d come to retrieve the duchess’s body were weeping. The woman had been beloved.

And…Delores’s sixth sense, which hadn’t ever steered her wrong in all these years, insisted she say nothing more to the duke’s solicitor.

A wise decision as it happened, considering the information that had come her way.

Damn my curiosity.

“There, there, my little Freckle.” Caressing the top of his downy head, ignoring the other child who barely opened his eyes.

“I won’t let nothing harm you. Neither of you.

Though in your case,” she said with a raised brow to the other babe, “likely won’t matter.

’Sides, I’ve only enough charity for the one. ”

Murder was an everyday occurrence in The Devil’s Acre, but when that murder involved a member of the aristocracy, a duke, no less, and only steps away from Parliament, well there was quite a bit of talk.

The Duke of Roxboro had not only been attacked, but savagely.

Purposefully. The manner so barbaric it churned even her stomach.

Sliced and stabbed so many times said the papers, he was barely recognized.

Roxboro had only just exited The House of Lords after a fiery speech, according to her sources, when the assailants struck his carriage.

The duchess, heavy with child, had managed to escape and found her way to back door of The Dancing Swan.

And Delores Bean. Fate, she supposed given she’d once been a midwife.

“A terrible business, what happened to your parents,” she whispered to Freckle.

Delores had long ago grown numb to the atrocities that existed in these streets. Horrible things that had once made her stomach turn but now, she barely noticed. After so long, you just didn’t care as much. Life was cheap. Anyone might be stabbed for a few coins or a bottle of gin.

But a duke?

That had never happened before and not since.

Delores knew something wasn’t right from the start.

Perhaps it was the sight of the duchess bleeding and those three babes that made her wonder, or simply macabre curiosity.

Dukes don’t get dragged from their carriages leaving Parliament.

Robbed, yes, especially when they ventured down the dark street to The Dancing Swan to satisfy their perversions.

But not…killed, as a general rule. No one wanted Bow Street Runners swarmin’ about, nor anyone else, but they came anyway, along with others who decided to shoot first and ask questions later.

Didn’t matter. No one talked. Not to them.

A bit of gin and a prostitute was usually enough to loosen a man’s tongue, something Delores had learned early on. She wrote down those whispered recollections and collected the misdeeds of her patrons in a book. Information was power. A side business of hers. Useful, if one owns a brothel.

“Remember that Freckle. When you know a man’s secrets, you own him.

” She picked up the babe, holding him close to her heart.

Delores had no children to call her own, not anymore.

Her poor boys had been gone a long time, well before she’d come to The Dancing Swan.

At times, she could barely recall their faces.

But now Freckle’s tiny nose and mouth, his tuft of dark hair, those things haunted her dreams.

“I’ll keep you safe from him,” she whispered. “No one will believe you’re mine, so I’ll be your Grandmam. I’ll tell everyone, including Lark, I had a daughter. Hannah was her name, who lived in the country and never visited me in London.”

She looked down at the other infant, who was now blinking sleepily at her. “But not you. Far too dangerous to keep you both. You ain’t likely to live at any rate.”

“Mrs. Bean?” Louisa, her maid, appeared at the bedroom door, startling Delores from her thoughts. She immediately placed Freckle back beside his brother. Wouldn’t do for Louisa, nor anyone else, to see Delores Bean coddling an infant. Or having a heart.

“Stop sneaking about, Louisa,” she snapped at the girl. “What is it?”

Louisa’s throat bobbed. Her frail body trembled.

She was always doing that. Trembling. Shaking.

Quivering. Never in Delores’ life had she seen a girl so terrified of her own shadow.

Delores had found Louisa three summers ago digging through the trash for something to eat.

Barely sixteen. Came to London with nothing but the clothes on her back and the promise of a better life.

Delores happened to be in need of a maid and someone to feed her girls at The Dancing Swan, and Louisa wasn’t the sort that a gentleman would fancy.

But the girl did make an excellent cherry pie. A mark in her favor.

“The wet nurse is here,” she said, gaze on the other infant in the basket.

“Take this one, first.” Delores’ hand trailed over Freckle’s sturdy little body. “He’s hungrier. Then the other.”

Raising a child at her age, given her occupation and in The Devil’s Acre, would be a daunting task. This child was the son of a duke. A little lordling. What kind of life could she give him?

At least he’ll live.

An awful thing, knowing far more than you should. She shouldn’t have poked about in the death of Roxboro. But she had and now…well, Delores had always believed in monsters.

I’ll keep him safe.

She would educate him, as best as she could.

At least his numbers and letters. And survivin’ here?

Well, it would serve him far better in the future than which spoon to eat a bloody bowl of soup.

She’d be tough on him, but the little bugger would be stronger for it.

Allow the Larks of the world to think him…

weaker. Less skilled. That would be his advantage, just as it had been hers.

Delores could shoot better than any man she knew and wasn’t shy about using a blade. A lovely surprise…for some. Also, there were poisons. A keen skill.

The truth, Freckle’s truth, was bound to come out one day. It always did. He needed to be prepared to face it. Delores thought of her book. Her poking about the duke’s murder. Every word of what she’d learned would be written down. Her darling lad would need to know his adversary one day.

She could do that much and protect him in the meantime.

“Should we…give them names?” Louisa asked, taking Freckle from her arms, all the while her adoration staying fixed on the remaining infant.

If the other babe survives, I’ll send him away with Louisa.

The thought struck Delores as the best way to handle the situation. The maid was the only other witness to the appearance of the duchess and the birth of the three boys, save for Wilkes. If the other child lived, it would be a shame to lose him.

Can’t have any witnesses.

“Fletcher for this one,” Delores said, meaning Freckle. Fletcher had been the name of the only man she’d ever loved. Dead, along with her poor boys. “After a…friend.”

“Fletcher,” Louisa whispered to the babe. “I think it suits him.” She cast one more glance of longing at the other, still nameless infant before leaving the room to find the wet nurse.

Delores’s fingers twitched at wanting Fletcher back. But he was safe with Louisa, and she needed a moment to think. Concoct the tale of her doomed daughter Hannah, estranged for many years who’d recently perished from childbed fever, leaving behind little Fletcher. Father dead as well.

Certainly not a lie.

The babe had no one else but his Grandmam, Delores Bean, so she took him in. Course, there was also the problem of the wet nurse in addition to Wilkes. The girl wasn’t stupid and knew there were two babes. She’d wait a week or so. See if the other babe lived before she decided.

Delores sighed. The wet nurse she didn’t give a fig about, but Wilkes had done her no wrong and he knew far too much. Merely a case of protectin’ her own.

After all, people disappeared all the time in The Devil’s Acre.