Page 17 of Lord Fournier’s Shameless Princess (Scarlett Affairs #4)

St. Katherine’s Dock

London

June 4, 1804

S carlett Hawthorne greeted Dirk, arms wide to embrace him. “We were very concerned about you, Fournier.”

“Your runner out of Karlsruhe,” said Todd Carlton, her man of all work, “sent word you had left, but for ten weeks, we’ve had nothing.”

Dirk had taken a room in a coaching inn on the South Bank last night. There, as in the hours of his journey north, all he thought of was the possible means by which he could save his reputation, save his future, and save his need to have the Crown Princess of Rittenburg as his own.

He would not go to Fournier House to alert his staff or others he was in Town. To meet his chief agent and her assistant Carlton, he had hired an innkeeper’s son to run to Scarlett’s office in the City and ask her to meet him in one of her secret houses.

This one was in St. Katherine’s Dock near London Bridge. From the outside, the pile appeared to be a tumbledown half-timbered cottage, a remnant from Tudor times. The interior was fit out with every comfortable and useful amenity. A full pantry, clean linens, even a change of clothes, men’s, women’s, and children’s. All of it was for those agents who needed shelter, rest, or sanctuary for a night or more.

“Please, let us sit.” Scarlett took a chair, folding her long fingers over the plain gown she’d worn as disguise to come here. She was a beautiful woman with dark auburn hair and deep green eyes, usually very well dressed—but here in the docks, she was right to wear no such finery. “Tell us the details of your journey.”

Dirk ran through a summary of his sojourn from Karlsruhe to Kent. He included Prince Rainer’s appearance in Koblenz and the rumors of the French army assembling on the coast of the Channel. By Scarlett’s nod, she knew of the army’s movements, but not of Rainer’s. Dirk concluded by telling them, “Everyone is healthy.”

“And the princess?” Carlton stood to one side of Scarlett, his hands behind his back.

What to tell them? That he loved her? That he had to find a way to keep her? That he had few clues how that could be achieved? He was grasping at wisps of air with only hope to lead him on. “She is recovering well at Fournier Park but leaving to come here to London soon. She wants her brother and sister to adjust well to their new surroundings.”

“And you?” Scarlett asked in a light tone that elicited a smile from him.

“I am well.”

“But…?”

She detected every nuance of a person’s state of mind. It was why she’d succeeded at running a spy ring so successful that even prime ministers envied her results.

He would be bold. “But I fear I have outlived my usefulness.”

“Not entirely, sir,” Carlton interjected. “We doubt you can return to the Continent. Too many know your face.”

“Indeed.” Scarlett smoothed her skirt of pale green cotton. “As soon as Princess Elizabeth reports to the queen, everyone will know your deeds.”

Dirk flinched. “I would hope for discretion, but I doubt anyone within earshot of Liesel’s story will refrain from telling it.”

Scarlett’s brows rose at his reference to Elizabeth by her diminutive.

“The ton will embroider it, too,” Carlton added—and by his sour tone, was none too pleased by it.

“What do you want to do, Fournier?” Scarlett asked. “You have earned the right to name it.”

“Ah, well.” Dirk had hoped for that, but there was only so much his friends could do against the influence of the court and Society. “What I want and what I need are two different things.”

“Are they? Let us examine that. Pour us each a good whisky, Carlton.” Scarlett stared at Dirk as her man strode away to do her bidding. “You have been away from us for more than two years, dear sir. You have missed much. Your best friends—Ashley, Ramsey, and Appleby—all are home, safe, healthy, and prospering. They and their wives work for us here to great benefit. I would think with your skills, you too would find fulfillment in a slightly more intricate espionage at home.”

“I would welcome that.” If I were a man made whole, I could more easily find a way to have Liesel for my own.

“But you need a little help from us. Doesn’t he, Carlton?”

The man nodded in agreement.

Scarlett considered Dirk with soft compassion. “I am happy to tell you of a few things that may help you. A few things that have happened lately that may color your opinion of staying in Britain.”

“That I am eager to hear.”

“I am informed by our agent in Manchester that Alice Sedgwick has had a change of circumstances.”

Dirk sighed. “She could go to hell and I could not care to hear about it.”

“But she is in hell.” Scarlett locked her forest-green eyes on Dirk’s. “Three weeks ago, she lost her child to the ague.”

Dirk felt the blow, remembering his own mother’s grief at the loss of his two young brothers. “That must be difficult.”

“In the midst of her mourning, however, she has found some relief.”

He looked away and back again. “I cannot begrudge her that.”

“Nor can Carlton and I deprive you of this relief: Oliver, Lord Fellowes, married her last week.”

Fellowes had been the one who’d kissed her and had her at that house party. Dirk had been the one to discover them in flagrante delicto in the garden. Then others at the party had discovered him talking with Alice, trying to console her, soon after Fellowes fled the scene. Knowing the wrath of her parents and Fellowes’s father, the two had blamed the seduction on Dirk. Fellowes was a bully and a braggart and had always disliked Dirk. He had told Alice’s brother that Dirk raped Alice. But it was plot to blackmail Dirk and make him pay a ransom to him. Dirk had refused. He’d fought the duel instead against her brother, won, then left the country. Alice and Fellowes had been foiled, their scheme ruined. But also in the process, Alice had been shamed. Fellowes had been forced by his father to marry a wealthy merchant’s daughter, and was then cut off financially by his father. Alice, Fellowes, and his new, innocent young wife had all been ruined.

“I knew Fellowes’s wife,” Scarlett said with pity. “She was always very sickly. Poor girl was sweet and kind and did not deserve the life she was forced to live. She died three months ago.”

“Fellowes hurried to Manchester,” Carlton added as he came toward Dirk with whiskies, “when he heard of his child’s death.”

Dirk sighed. “I am glad to hear he had the decency to marry Alice.”

Carlton said, “It removes some of the taint against you.”

“But not all.” Scarlett took her own glass from Carlton and drank.

“No.” Dirk scoffed. “Not Fellowes’s threat to kill me.”

Carlton placed a glass in his hand. “Not that. But there are other means.”

“I am here to learn them, Carlton.”

“Would you consider remaining in England?”

“I would.” Dirk took a healthy swallow of his drink. “Do you have a magic wand that exonerates me of my failures?”

“But they are not failures, are they?” Carlton pressed him.

“They are enough to ban me from full Society.”

“How important to you is a return to the ton ?” Scarlett asked.

Dirk dropped all politesse and stared at his superior. “If I had my wish, I would return home to cultivate my fields and tend to my tenants. I would…” He paused to imagine Liesel dancing in his arms, laughing naked in his bed, all his. “I would find a way to be the gentleman my father raised me to be. I would rid everyone’s mind of the Alice and Fellowes scandal and allow some to know what service I have done for the Crown. I would work for you here.”

An appreciative smile spread on Scarlett’s pretty lips. “Have you a method to achieve any of that?”

He barked with laughter. His hopes were mere fantasies that had blossomed for him after Liesel had come to him and loved him so well in his bed. “I have thought of one. I hope you might help me with that.”

“Good man.” Carlton downed his whisky. “Name it.”

Dirk’s mind was suddenly full of whimsy—and hope. “You are acquainted, I do believe, with a man in Seven Dials by the name of Dáire O’Neill?”

Carlton came around to sit in a chair opposite Dirk. His meaty hands clasped together, he bent toward Dirk. “Our fixer?”

Dirk nodded. The Irishman ran a gambling hell in the poorest part of London. Known to the public as a criminal, O’Neill in reality kept a clean house. No prostitutes, no smuggling, no dens of opium. Yet he knew who ran them. And his livelihood was in arranging the correction of innocent people’s false condemnations.

“Fancy a favor from him?” Scarlett had a merry twinkle in her dark eyes.

Dirk sat back, relief washing through him. “I wonder if O’Neill holds any markers of Fellowes’s.”

She beamed. “I think you must ask him.”

*

Dáire O’Neill, so said those who dared to describe him, was as invisible as the legendary giants who had once walked the green valleys of Ireland. Most in Britain had never seen him. But to be shown to his presence was not an experience one soon forgot.

Towering over most men, built like an ox with hands that could span a man’s throat, fast as the gangly gray wolfhounds he kept at his side, Dáire could also be a man or woman’s best friend…or their deadly enemy. He’d gained a reputation in Dublin during the rebellion of ’98 as a fierce fighter. Discouraged by the rebels’ failure, he decided to move to London to learn about the conqueror up close. He’d earned his prowess boxing, his fortune betting against wild odds, and his fame righting wrongs done by powerful fools over lesser ones. In the past four years as one of the two most powerful men in London’s underworld, he’d possessed money, influence, and knowledge that those in Whitehall and Carlton House envied—and often cultivated.

He ran his kingdom of cardsharps and informers as tightly as a Royal Navy captain ran his sailors, renowned for his refusal to run brothels and employ children. Many questioned how Dáire excelled. “A right cove” was not a phrase he favored, but in his dealings with friend or foe, he demanded ethics. He had rules of engagement for those jobs he took. Those who worked for him had laws to live by. To break them meant one did not enjoy his favor again. Ever. Because he never forgot a violation. Never forgave an error. Never countenanced a foe.

Dáire knew well who his friends were. He kept lists of those in government who played fairly, and another list of those who did not. He had one archenemy, his rival, Jonathan Rivers. Below that, so said those who dealt with Dáire, were those who cheated at horses or cards, abused others by word or deed. If one had a grievance against another, proof of the crime was required first. Then compensation to Dáire, as well as to the victims, had better be extraordinary.

Dirk went alone into the hell that was Seven Dials. Carlton had requested an appointment and safe passage through the gray-black hell that comprised the crumbling buildings of the rookery. How Dirk was known among those who tracked his entry to the slums, he had no idea.

Carlton had given him directions and advice: “Straight through the main courtyard. Try not to appear too alarmed by those with a knife or a pistol at the ready.”

Dirk knocked upon the broad oak door, the forest-green paint peeling. One of O’Neill’s body men opened the screeching door. He curled his lip, surly as one needed to be to survive in the underbelly of London’s back streets.

“Fournier? Aye, Mister O’Neill said you can come.” He pulled the door wider.

Dirk stood in a foyer so bright with polished marble that he had to blink.

“Up!” Another brute of a guard appeared and ran his hands over every inch of his body. For that rude groping, Dirk was granted a grunt and a nod toward the richly red-carpeted stairs. “Follow me.”

At the top of the stairs, his escort knocked twice upon the door. When it was opened by a troll three feet tall, the little man barked out Dirk’s name and led him forward.

Two gray wolfhounds bounded forward, as tall as his chest. He stood quite still and let them smell him. He’d humor them, otherwise he might not live beyond the next minute.

“Bring him in, O’Malley,” a rough bass voice said from the room at the end of the hall. “The dogs’ll follow.”

Dirk rounded the threshold to come face to face with the smiling visage of a burly black Irishman with wild curls, a deep sea tan, and the fine tailoring that usually denoted a gentleman of the ton .

“Good to have you, Lord Fournier. Please do come in. Finn, you may leave us. And take the boys with you, will you please? That’s a lad. Whisky, sir?” O’Neill indicated one of the big, polished wooden chairs before his desk.

“Aye, I understand one does not drink anything but good Irish spirits between these walls.”

“Good man. John Power & Son it is.” O’Neill took his time pouring into tall crystal glasses. “They’re my ma’s cousins. One has to patronize the family, you see.”

“Keep them hail and hearty. Yes.” Dirk raised his glass in a toast. “I know that rule well.”

“I have confirmation you do, sir. Saved more than twenty of your family and relatives from the scourge of the little Frenchman.”

Whether O’Neill had learned that recently from Carlton and Scarlett or knew it from his own sources, Dirk was happy to have his bona fides established before they talked business.

“Thank you,” Dirk said, and sipped. “Good spirits.”

“Helps whet a man’s appetite for a fine meal.” O’Neill took the chair behind his broad mahogany desk. “I understand you have a certain type of cuisine in mind.”

“I do. I might at one time have called it revenge, but what I truly seek now is something more rewarding.”

“Name it.”

“Restoration.”

O’Neill raised his own glass brimming with amber liquid. “You need it done to this scoundrel Fellowes.”

“I do.”

“He once ruined everything he touched. Women, his father’s finances, his sister’s prospects for a good marriage, Alice Sedgwick.”

“And me.”

“And you. Yes, I know the story well. I have a book, you see, with such details, lest I forget a detail or two.” O’Neill tipped his head toward the circular library table that stood in the center of the room.

“Your bible, is it?” Dirk appreciated this man more each minute.

“In my work, one must have facts. Names, dates. The truth always slays best.”

“Scarlett Hawthorne and Todd Carlton have led me to believe you may know facts about Fellowes that may free me once and for all of his slurs upon my name and character. I am most eager to remain here in my home and continue to work for the Crown. I am prepared to compensate you any fee if you might help me do that.”

“It so happens that the man has invested his deceased wife’s inheritance into a holding company of African-Caribbean slavers.”

Dirk felt lightheaded. Few commercial prospects were worse than selling human beings. “A new venture, is it?”

“Exactly,” O’Neill said with a grimace. “He has sunk his money into this holding company with three of his friends, none of whom I would allow to wipe the dirt from my boots.”

Dirk sat forward. “Slavers earn rich profits. Ten to twenty times the initial investment.”

“Oh, that’s true.” O’Neill waved his glass around. “If all four of them were only a bit smarter and investigated where their money actually had gone, which was to my bank account, they might not have had this problem. But they did not. It is quite sad that they will all soon find themselves in debtor’s prison.”

“How might that help me get Fellows to absolve me publicly of all blame in Alice’s seduction?”

O’Neill smacked his lips. “I think I might offer Fellowes a chance to take half his money out before the truth about his hollow corporation is printed in the papers.”

“I see.” Dirk grinned. “Half his money is better than none.”

“Half is sizable—generous, even. But a reprobate never does get complete reward of all his wealth. That leaves a man with nothing to aspire to, don’t you think?”

Fellowes would have some means to live out his life with Alice. Perhaps in their own sordid way, they cared for each other and could make a good life together. “About how much is half of his current wealth?”

“Ten thousand.”

“So. Not a fortune.”

“But more than he’ll have if he does not issue public apologies to you.”

“This seems too easy.”

“It will be. You catch a man by grabbing him in his own vice. Greed has been one of his.”

Lust and envy the other two. “Mr. O’Neill, I would be delighted to pay your fee for such a magnificent service.”

“Fee? No. No, you owe me none.”

“But for such a good deed, one must always see a significant reward.”

“Oh, I do gain one, Fournier. Never doubt. You see, I may serve notice to Lord Fellowes that he must dissolve his share of the slavers, but I will not grant such a favor to his three friends.”

“I see. And if those three each have a total investment of twenty thousand in this fake company, then when you dissolve it, you come into sixty thousand pounds. Plus ten of Fellowes’s money. A handsome amount.”

“A job well done.”

“Slavers destroyed. Ten thousand to live on to Fellowes and Alice.”

“Restitution for you, Fournier.” O’Neill pushed back his chair as he rose. Then he put out his hand.

But Dirk felt off kilter. As if he were aboard Jacques Durand’s sloop, he seemed to have lost his balance or his compass. “I wonder, do you have the address for Fellowes in Manchester?”

*

Dirk left O’Neill’s minutes later and walked toward the Thames. He hailed a hack, climbed in, and dug out his pocket watch. He had ten minutes to make it to Gunter’s. Buoyed by his success with O’Neill and his hope to be useful to Scarlett here at home, he had one more request of another person.

His mama would never refuse him. He smiled, especially if he told her she could expect to see him regularly—daily, if she wished. And with a wife beside him, too.