Page 1 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

Lady Briar Fairview was in a dastardly pickle.

Slightly more dastardly than usual , she amended in her head as her gaze narrowed on the two unwashed and gin-soaked men who had cornered her into a filthy, small alleyway.

Venturing into Seven Dials in disguise among the cutpurses and the pimps was a regular outing so that she could identify and help young girls who found themselves in dire circumstances through no fault of their own.

Facing off against dissolute drunks was not, however.

Her plain, dark, and male clothing usually helped to keep her invisible, but her luck had turned tonight.

Perhaps they’d only stumbled after her by mistake.

A girl could hope, but better to be safe than sorry.

Assumptions in this neck of the woods got people killed.

Briar reached beneath her cloak and closed her fingers around the pocket pistol she always carried…

not that she’d ever had to use it, despite being an excellent shot.

Shooting a person and shooting clay targets at her father’s ancestral se at in Surrey were two vastly different things.

One was living and breathing, after all.

She cursed the crooked nail on the doorjamb of the tavern she’d been in that had wrenched her hat from her head, along with a handful of pins holding her mass of tight, corkscrew curls in place. She’d thought she might have escaped notice, but to her dismay, the two men had stayed on her heels.

She could not afford to be recognized.

This wasn’t Surrey or Bath, and she was no longer sixteen and wild.

A peeress in London crossing the bounds of patriarchy-stamped propriety had to be cautious or risk being sent to a convent, married off without her consent, or even incarcerated in an asylum for, God forbid, hysteria.

Thank heavens, she was affianced to a very appropriate, well-respected gentleman.

Who would probably forbid you to set foot in St. Giles if he had any inkling …

Briar grimaced at the thought. She had been neighbors in Surrey with Preston and his older brother for years until Preston had left for a three-year stint at a priory in Italy.

When he had succeeded the viscountcy after his brother had died without any children and approached her father over the winter, no one in her family had been surprised that he’d tendered an offer of marriage.

He was an even-tempered, titled suitor with a reasonable offer. He would be a tolerable spouse, and their relaxed, neighborly friendship would continue.

It was perfect for her needs.

Besides, everyone at home had predicted they would marry eventually, and at least Preston was a devil she knew.

Hardly a devil …more like a saint with a stick—several sticks—lodged firmly up his arse.

The quiet boy she remembered had transformed somewhat after his return from the Italian abbey.

He’d made small barbed comments here and there about decorum, chiding her fondness for expletives.

She did curse quite a lot, thanks in part to her best friend Vesper, though admittedly, they both enjoyed using words forbidden to women. In truth, in their world, excessive swearing could get a girl committed. Especially under the aforementioned affliction of hysteria…

Vesper’s fiancé, the Duke of Greydon, was focused on bettering the current lunacy laws.

His father had been committed by his mother under false pretenses, and the duke had died because of inhumane treatment.

Vesper had told her over tea a few weeks ago that Greydon had shown her a report from an asylum in the United States where some men had committed their female relatives for asinine reasons like Novel Reading and Imaginary Female Trouble.

While it was hardly a laughing matter, they had snorted over the supposed maladies men had invented to get rid of their spouses, like Deranged Masturbation.

As if self-pleasure were a crime or one worthy of such severe punishment.

Good God, she and the rest of the Hellfire Kitties would be locked away until the end of time. They all firmly believed in the power and agency of their own sex.

Menstrual Deranged had been another reason for involuntary admission to an asylum.

Men were so terrified of women’s courses that they’d invented a disease to account for the simple manifestation of one’s God-given bodily functions.

Hysteria was no joke, having been documented by many male physicians as the root cause of eccentric or erratic behavior, should any young lady take one step out of line.

In high society, female purity, propriety, and politesse were the admirable pillars of a virtuous and true woman.

Horseshit, if anyone asked Briar.

Women were complex creatures, and purported purity did not make one more valuable than the other.

Fallen women, as the ton loved to refer to them, weren’t any less.

They were simply people who had made different choices, whether they were deliberate or not.

Some women, like the ones she helped, had plummeted into hard times through no fault of their own—the death of a family member or even the loss of employment because they hadn’t groveled to a man.

Briar’s lip curled over her teeth in disgust.

Those women weren’t fallen ; they were victims of circumstance.

And such misfortune could happen to everyone.

But tell that to any man who believed he was deserving of unspoiled goods in a wife…

simply because that was what women had become: commodities.

In their world—the upper echelons of the ton —virginity was lauded and bartered like gold.

Briar refused to let something like a tiny flap of skin, which didn’t even exist for all women according to modern medicine, determine her worth.

Preston would not care how she came to the marriage bed. After all, he had never been a monk. She bit her lip, remembering his latest remarks about her virtuous and moral comportment. Or would he?

Then again, now wasn’t the time to dwell on the moral constitution of her fiancé.

She had more immediate problems.

Briar cleared her throat and deepened her voice to try to imitate a man. “Oy, lads. I’m warning you! Come any closer and you’ll taste a mouthful of lead. Begone with you!”

One of the men smiled, teeth blackened and missing in spots. “What’s a pretty gel like you doing in a place like this?” he slurred, making Briar’s heart sink. Damn and blast!

Bravado would only do so much if they thought her a man.

The minute they pinned her for a woman, it would make her easier prey in their eyes.

It was an innate superiority that came with most men of their ilk; they thought themselves stronger, hardier, wiser.

More fool them. But growing up with four stepbrothers who had always idolized but underestimated her, Briar had driven herself to be as good as or better than they had been.

To be fair, her father had indulged her rather unconventional whims, even though the youngest of her stepbrothers was ten years older than her. She’d been taught how to fence, box, and shoot, she’d had tutors in the same subjects they studied, and she’d learned never to back down with a bully.

Or bullies in this case.

“No gel here,” she said in a deep voice, pulling herself up to her full height. She was a woman, not a girl, and neither of those made her weak or anyone’s quarry.

“A gent with such pretty hair?” the other man said, and Briar cursed silently. “Give us a look, little moll.”

“Last chance,” she warned them, but they only laughed.

Her odds of escape were slim but not impossible.

Nothing was impossible , though escape might take some finessing or creativity.

Or brute strength. She rolled her neck. The dank alley was blocked with rubbish at the far end, and the two men standing nearly abreast took up the only way out.

On the one hand, they were drunk, and she was not.

She was small and quick, and if the opportunity arose, she could dart between them and run.

Lastly, if push came to shove, she was armed, and she would fight tooth and nail.

Swearing through her teeth, Briar clenched her jaw and cocked the pistol in its holster, the sound loud in the silence of the night, letting them know she meant business.

A gunshot would be even louder and draw more attention than she needed.

If word got back to her father, it wouldn’t only be her reputation in danger…

she’d be locked away with the key thrown to oblivion.

The brigands narrowed the gap between them, close enough now that their unwashed stench overwhelmed her nostrils.

Every muscle in Briar’s body readied for flight or fight.

Noiselessly, if she could help it. She did not want to end up in the scandal rags.

Her professions—both in fact—were better conducted incognito.

“Stay back, you scoundrels, I’m warning you!”

They ignored her, triangulating their positions so one man was on each side of the alley. Bloody hell, they weren’t that foxed then. “Easy, pretty filly. Why don’t you come over and play nice with old Jack and Tommy?”

Filly? Play nice ? Briar’s blood boiled. Why was it that men had this idea of women that they had to come to heel when bidden like a well-trained dog? Even drunken sots who looked like they hadn’t seen a comb or soap in an age…as if it was their right to take what wasn’t on offer?

“Because you stink,” she couldn’t help snapping. “And I’m not nice.”

It was entirely the wrong thing to say, but then again, Briar wasn’t known for her ability to filter her thoughts. Their gazes hardened, grins widening at what she’d revealed. That she was not, in fact, a man.