The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

But on previous occasions, Vere’s opponents had been men, and the affairs were conducted according to manly, sporting rules.

This time, his opponent had been a woman.

And now Vere didn’t know which was worse: that he’d stooped to arguing with a female—when everyone knew they were the most irrational creatures on God’s earth—or that he’d fallen, literally, for one of the oldest fighting tricks in history. What Lady Grendel had done was the same as playing dead, and he—who’d been scrapping since he was a toddler—had dropped his guard.

He was soon wishing he’d dropped her, right on her obstinate little head. That might have made up in some small way for the chaffing he endured in the following days.

Everywhere he went, his fellows couldn’t resist exercising their limited wit upon him.

When he took Trent to the Fives Court in St. Martin’s Street, for instance, someone had to ask why Vere hadn’t brought Miss Grenville as sparring partner. At which every would-be pugilist in the place fell down laughing.

Everywhere Vere went, some sapskull wanted to know when the next match would be, or if His Grace’s jaw had healed enough to allow him to eat soft foods, or if he reckoned so-and-so’s grandmother was up to his weight.

Meanwhile, all the illustrators in London vied with each other for Most Hilarious Portrayal of the Great Battle.

Three days after the event, Vere stood, simmering, before a bookshop window. Displayed therein was a large print whose caption read, “Lady Grendel Gives the Duke of A_____a Drubbing.”

The artist had drawn him as a great, hulking brute wearing a stage villain’s leer. He was reaching for the gorgon, portrayed as a dainty slip of a female. Above his caricatured head, the bubble read, “Why, my pretty, haven’t you ever heard of droit de seigneur? I’m a duke now, don’t you know?”

Miss Grenville was posed with her fists upraised. Her bubble said, “I’ll show you a droit—and a gauche as well.”

The feeble play on the French words for “right” and “left,” he explained to a baffled-looking Trent, was intended to pass for wit.

“I got that part,” Bertie said. “But that droy dee sig-new-er—ain’t it French for two sovereigns? I thought you only offered a pound for the little gal.”

The droit de signeur, Vere explained through stiff jaws, was the right of the feudal lord to deflower his vassals’ brides.

Trent’s square face reddened. “Oh, I say, that ain’t funny. Virgins—and new-wed besides.” He started for the bookshop door, doubtless intending to set matters straight in his own inimitable style.

Vere drew him back. “It’s only a picture,” he said. “A joke, Trent, that’s all.”

Recalling the adage “Out of sight, out of mind,” he steered his would-be champion to the curb and started to cross the street with him.

Then he had to haul Bertie back, out of the way of the black vehicle bearing down upon them.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” Trent cried as he stumbled back to the footway. “Speak of the devil.”

It was she, the cause of the unceasing stale jokes and witless caricatures.

As she barreled past, Miss Boudicca Grenville saluted them in coachman style, touching her whip to her bonnet brim, and flashing a cocky grin.

Had she been a man, Vere would have hurtled after her, pulled her from the vehicle, and knocked that cocksure smile down her throat. But she wasn’t a man, and all he could do was watch, smoldering, until she turned a corner a moment later…out of sight but far, perilously far, from forgotten.

Chapter 3

The Duke of Ainswood’s mood might have lightened had he known how close Lydia came to driving into the corner—and the shop standing there—rather than ’round it.

Though she collected her wits in time, it was in the very last tick of time, and she narrowly averted overturning as it was.

Not to mention she’d nearly run the two men down only seconds before.

This was because Lydia had no sooner recognized the tall figure at the curb than her brain shut down. Completely. No idea where she was or what she was doing.

It was only for a moment, but that was a moment far too long. And even afterward, she hadn’t fully recovered. Though she’d managed the cool salute well enough, she had a horrible suspicion that her smile had been far too wide and…well, stupid, not to mince matters. A stupid, moonstruck smile, she reflected angrily, to match the idiotish pounding of her heart. As though she were a silly girl of thirteen instead of a hardened spinster of eight and twenty.

She lectured herself all the rest of the way to Bridewell prison.

When she entered the fortress of misery, though, she put her personal troubles aside.

She went to the Pass-Room. Here, pauper women claiming residence in other parts of England were held for a week before being sent back to their own parishes, the prevailing philosophy being, “Charity begins at home.”

A row of low, narrow, straw-filled stalls lined the wall facing the door. The door and fireplace interrupted a similar line of stalls on that side. About twenty women, some with children, occupied the chamber.

Some had come to London to seek their fortunes; some had been ruined before they came and fled disgrace; and some had run away from the usual assortment of troubles: grief, poverty, brutality.

Lydia would describe the place for her readers

in her usual style. She would sketch in plain and simple terms what she saw, and she would tell these women’s stories in the same way, without moralizing or sentiment.

This wasn’t all Lydia did, but she didn’t think it was her reading public’s right to know about the half-crowns she surreptitiously distributed to her interviewees, or the letters she wrote for them, or the people she’d later speak to on their behalf.

If, moreover, it frustrated Grenville of the Argus that she could do so little, or if her heart ached the whole time she listened to the women, these emotions would not enter her published work, either, for such feelings were nobody’s business but hers.

The last interview was with the newest arrival, a fifteen-year-old girl who cradled an infant too weak and scrawny even to wail like the others. The boy lay limply in his mother’s arms, now and then uttering a weary whimper.

“You must let me do something for you,” Lydia told her. “If you know who his papa is, Mary, tell me, and I’ll speak to him for you.”

Pressing her lips together, Mary rocked to and fro upon her dirty heap of straw.

“You’d be amazed at how many fathers agree to help,” Lydia said. After I’m done with them, she could have added.

“Sometimes their pas take ’em away,” the girl said. “Jemmy’s all I got now.” She paused in her rocking and gave Lydia a troubled look. “You got any?”

“Children? No.”

“Got a man?”

“No.”

“Ever fancied one?”

“No.” Liar, liar, liar, Lydia’s inner devil mocked. “Yes,” she amended with a short laugh.

“I was yes and no, too,” Mary said. “I told myself I was a good girl and it was no use wishing for him, as he was miles above my touch and such like don’t marry farm girls. But all the no was in my head, and every way else I fancied him something fierce. And so it ended up yes, and here’s the tyke to prove it. And you’ll be thinking I can’t take care of him as he needs, which is true.” Her bottom lip trembled. “All right, then, but you needn’t speak for me nor write for me. I can write it myself. Here.”