The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

He would have been appalled if he had realized how closely the two young daughters of his wife’s brother identified with the fictional Miranda. It was just as well, then, that he didn’t know they considered the wicked Diablo the hero of the story, else Lord Mars would have concluded their minds were disordered by grief, and sent for a physician.

But Elizabeth and Emily had learned very young to live with heartache. They had grieved hard with each loss, and raged, too, because their father had told them it was natural to feel angry.

In time, the rage eased, and the painful grief subsided into quiet sorrow. Now, two years after losing their beloved father and nearly eighteen months after the death of the “baby” brother they’d doted upon, their natural zest for life was returning.

The world was no longer uniformly black. There were dark moments, to be sure, but there was sunshine as well. And one bright beam of sunshine was their guardian, whose doings afforded no end of vicarious excitement in what, at Blakesleigh, was a stultifyingly tame existence.

“I’ll wager anything that half the letters Aunt Dorothea gets from her friends are about him,” Elizabeth said, after a long sigh about the waiting period.

“I doubt the gossips know any more than the Whisperer does. They get everything secondhand. Or third-hand.” Emily looked at her sister. “I’m not sure Papa would approve of our nosing about in Aunt Dorothea’s correspondence box. We should not think of it.”

“I’m not sure he’d approve of no one telling us anything about our own guardian,” said Elizabeth. “It’s dis-respectful of Papa, who named him guardian, isn’t it? Remember how he would read his friends’ letters, and laugh, and say, ‘Only listen to what your Cousin Vere has done this time, the rascal.’”

Emily smiled. “‘A hellion,’ he’d say. ‘A true Mallory hellion, like your grandpa and his brothers.’”

“‘The last of the old, true breed,’” Elizabeth softly quoted her father. “‘Vere, as in veritas.’”

“‘Aylwin—formidable friend.’ He was a friend to Robin, wasn’t he?”

“And formidable.” Elizabeth’s eyes glistened. “They couldn’t stop him. They kept us out when Robin was dying, because they were all afraid. But not Cousin Vere.” She took her sister’s hand. “He was true to Robin.”

“We shall be true to him.”

They smiled at each other.

Elizabeth put the Whisperer into the fire.

“Now, as to those letters,” she said.

“Not so tight, drat you,” Lydia snapped. “The thing’s hard enough to move in. You needn’t make it impossible to breathe in.”

The thing in question was a corsetlike device ingeniously designed to transform a womanly shape into a manly one.

The person Lydia snapped at was Helena Martin.*

In the old days, when she and Lydia had played together in the London slums, Helena had a highly successful career as a thief. Nowadays, she was an even more successful courtesan. The friendship had survived years of separation as well as changes in vocation.

At present they were in the elegantly cluttered dressing room of Helena’s quietly expensive residence in Kensington.

“It must be tight,” Helena answered, “unless you want your manly chest going in one direction while the rest of you goes another.” She gave the lacing knot a final, brutal yank, then stepped away.

Lydia surveyed her reflection in the glass. Thanks to the contraption, she now had a chest like a pigeon’s. The look was ultra-fashionable. Many men padded their chests and shoulders and squeezed their waists with corsets to achieve it. Except Ainswood. The manly form under his garments owed nothing to artifice.

For about the thousandth time in the week since the encounter at the Blue Owl, Lydia pushed his image from her mind.

She stepped away from the mirror and dressed. With the device secured, the rest of the masculine costume she quickly donned fit satisfactorily.

Months ago Helena had worn the ensemble to a masquerade and fooled everyone. Thanks to a few alterations—Helena was smaller—Lydia expected similar success, though she wasn’t going to a masquerade.

Her destination was Jerrimer’s, a gambling hell in a quiet way off St. James’s Street. She had told Macgowan that she wanted to write a story about the place, the kind her female readers hungered for: a woman’s inside view of a world normally forbidden to them—to the respectable ones, at any rate.

This was true. It wasn’t the only reason, though, and it wasn’t the reason Lydia had chosen Jerrimer’s.

She’d heard rumors that the place did a side trade in stolen goods. Since none of her informants had thus far learned anything about Tamsin’s keepsakes from the usual fences, it made sense to try other sources.

Tamsin had not agreed that it made sense. “You’ve already wasted a fortnight looking for my jewelry,” she’d chided Lydia this evening. “You have much more important issues to pursue, on behalf of people who truly need help. When I think about Mary Bartles, I’m thoroughly ashamed of the tears I shed over a lot of stones and metal.”

Lydia had assured her that the main project was getting the gambling hell story. If she happened upon news of the jewelry in the process, so much the better, but she would not actively pursue the matter.

Not that one could “actively pursue” much of anything in a stiff cage of buckram and whalebone, she thought as she turned to inspect the back of her disguise in the glass.

“You’ll be in a good deal of trouble if anyone discovers you’re not a man,” Helena said.

Lydia moved to the dressing table. “It’s merely a gambling club. The customers heed nothing but the cards, dice, or roulette wheel. And the owners and employees will be watching their money.” From the jumbled assortment of cosmetics, scent bottles, and jewelry she unearthed the cigar Ainswood had given her and tucked it into an inside pocket. Looking up, she met Helena’s worried gaze. “I was in more danger interviewing prostitutes in the Ratcliffe Highway, yet you weren’t anxious then.”

“That was before you began behaving so oddly.” Helena moved to the chiffonier, upon which the maid had set a tray bearing a brandy decanter and two glasses. “Until very recently, you controlled your temper better. And used more finesse in handling those who dared disagree with you.” She lifted the decanter and poured. “Your dust-up with Crenshaw, on the other hand, reminds me of the fight you had with a street arab because he called Sarah names and made her cry. You were eight years old at the time.”

Lydia approached to take the glass Helena held out to her. “I overreacted with Crenshaw, perhaps.”

“Thwarted desire can make one overemotional,” Helena said with a small smile. “I’ve been irritable myself these last few weeks. I usually am, between lovers.”

“I’ll admit my desire to do murder to certain persons is thwarted by the present penal codes.”

“I meant sexual desire, as you well know,” Helena said. “The instinct to mate. And reproduce.”

Lydia drank, eyeing her friend over the glass’s rim.

“Ainswood is exceedingly handsome,” Helena went on. “He has brains as well as brawn. Not to mention a smile that could make roses bloom in an Arctic winter. The trouble is, he’s also the kind of libertine who despises women. We females have but one use, and once used, we’re worthless. If he’s awakened any thoughts of straying from virtue’s path, Lyddy, I recommend you stray with a substitute. You might consider Sellowby. He doesn’t hold women in co

ntempt, and you definitely intrigue him. You’ve only to crook your little finger.”

To Lydia’s knowledge, no whore in London commanded a higher price than Helena did, and for very good reason. She could size up a man in an instant and respond accordingly, becoming the woman of his dreams. Her advice was not to be taken lightly.

Lydia couldn’t consider the recommended substitute, however, because she knew why Lord Sellowby was “intrigued” with her.

London’s champion gossip had noticed Lydia among the crowd of journalists camped in front of St. George’s on Dain’s wedding day. Days later, Sellowby had told Helena about glimpsing a female who “might have stepped out of the ancestral portrait gallery at Athcourt.” Athcourt, in Devon, was the home of the Marquess of Dain. Lydia had given Sellowby a very wide berth since then. A close look at her might lead him to make inquiries at Athcourt and dig up what her pride demanded remain buried.

“Sellowby’s out of the question,” Lydia told her friend. “A Society gossip and a journalist are bound to be competitors. In any case, this isn’t a good time for me to get involved with any man. While scandal does sell magazines, whatever small influence I exercise over public opinion would vanish if I were known to be a fallen woman.”

“Then maybe you should find another line of work,” Helena said. “You’re not getting any younger, and it would be a great waste—”

“Yes, love, I know you wish to be helpful, but can we discuss whatever’s wasted and thwarted at another time?” Lydia emptied her glass and set it down. “It’s growing late, and I do need to get back to Town.”

She put on her hat, gave herself a final check in the mirror, picked up her walking stick, and started for the door.

“I’ll be waiting up,” Helena called after her. “So make sure you come back here and not—”

“Of course I’ll come back here.” Lydia opened the door. “Don’t want the neighbors to see a strange man entering my house in the small hours of the morning, do I? Nor do I want to wake Miss Price or the maids to help me out of this beastly corset. That dubious pleasure will be all yours. I’ll expect you to have a nightcap waiting for me.”