Page 2 of Where Have All the Scoundrels Gone (Dukes in Disguise #2)

Chapter Two

Four weeks earlier

“Come on , Bess, I don’t want to miss the start of the battle!”

Grinning at her young friend’s impatience, Bess allowed Lady Lucy Lively to hustle her through the crowds lining the banks of the Thames all the way to London Bridge.

It was slow going, to Lucy’s very vocal dismay, because they had to pick their way through the refuse that littered the streets and politely shove past small throngs of people, all while guarding their reticules from the threat of the pickpockets who were sure to view the day’s public celebrations as a golden opportunity for mischief.

Even with those challenges, Bess relished the tang of excitement in the air.

After spending most of her life in a sleepy Wiltshire village, Bess had finally achieved her dream of visiting London.

Back in Little Kissington, she had imagined a city of culture and lights, wide boulevards lined with trees and white buildings full of smart, stylish, interesting people who lived exactly as they pleased, carefree and joyous.

She used to close her eyes, distracting herself from the ache in her muscles and the repetitive, exhausting daily work of kneading bread or scrubbing dishes by picturing herself wandering the storied Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, gazing in rapture at fireworks—and perhaps experiencing a few rapturous fireworks of her own with a handsome rake who would pull her into a shadowed alcove and ravish her hungrily.

It had been a pleasant fantasy, one that sustained her after her sweet Davy died and the years went by and it began to look less and less likely that Bess would ever encounter a man who viewed her as something other than a sister—or, worse, a mother—much less a handsome scoundrel willing to reignite her passions.

That was a dream she’d all but buried with Davy and her family, that terrible winter when she was sixteen and her life changed forever. She’d put aside her London dreams then, too.

Bess’s aunt, her last link to her beloved mother, had needed her. So of course, Bess had stayed in Little Kissington.

In the dozen years since then, Bess had never had the funds, nor the time, for idle frivolities like travel, sightseeing, and adventure seeking. And for all that London was only a couple of long days’ carriage ride from Little Kissington, it might as well have been across an ocean for how much trouble and expense it would take her to get there.

It was quite impossible. Nothing but a daydream.

Until now.

The late afternoon sun barely penetrated the ever-present miasma of coal dust and smoke that hung in the air over the city; every breath Bess took was infused with the odor of too many unwashed bodies pressed too close together. A thrill of excitement fizzed below the surface of her skin.

Lucy seemed to feel it too, her gloved fingers tight around Bess’s and her fair skin flushed pink. “I want to get right down at the front, where I can see everything!”

This put Bess in something of a quandary. Bess was only in London by the grace of her friends, the Lively family. At nineteen, Lucy was supposed to be coming out this year, and with her older sister, Gemma, recently wed and setting up her own house in Little Kissington, they had asked Bess if she’d like to come along with Lucy and her mother, as a friend and companion.

Truly the best friends Bess had ever had, the Lively sisters knew how much she’d always longed to see London, and they’d made it happen. Each sister was a force of nature in her own way, and their advent into Bess’s quiet, steady life had been a deluge of new ideas, energetic schemes, and above all, loyal friendship.

Bess would do anything for them.

So here she was, on the banks of the Thames with her eager young friend, and Bess couldn’t help but feel some responsibility to not lead Lucy astray. At twenty-eight, Bess was nine years older—and there were times when their respective life experiences made that age gap feel more like ninety.

Bess knew she ought to say something sensible like what a dreadful crush it would be upon the riverbank and how they’d do much better to find a spot on one of the viewing platforms set farther back from the water. Entrance to the platforms cost a penny a person and therefore kept out the worst of the riffraff.

But the problem was, Bess had spent her whole life being sensible. And, truth be told, Bess herself was partial to the riffraff.

Riffraff had more fun, in her experience.

She’d hesitated too long. Lucy pounced. “Come on, Bess, I know you’d like to have a good view! Why should we not?”

Bess bit her lip. “Oh, Lucy. Of course I want to—but I promised your mother to keep you out of trouble.”

“I’m not a child,” Lucy said, with all the scornful dignity of the very young. “I don’t need to be kept out of trouble. Please, I’ve been so bored since we got to Town.”

Lucy’s coming out had thus far been a lot more staying in than Bess had expected. They’d been in London for a little more than a fortnight, and there had been no calls, no visitors, and no invitations. Lucy’s mother, Henrietta, was increasingly anxious about the situation, and the specter of the dowager duchess’s kind, worried face was what ultimately made up Bess’s mind.

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed Lucy’s hand and gave her an apologetic smile. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. What if someone saw you down by the river’s edge? Wouldn’t that hurt your prospects?”

“My prospects.” Lucy pulled a face. “I don’t care about that. I don’t want to get married. I only agreed to this trip because it means so very much to Mama and Gemma, and because I thought maybe we could have some fun.”

Fun was something the Lively ladies excelled at. In fact, Henrietta’s propensity toward fun had snagged her a duke when she was a servant in his household, and had produced two extraordinarily charming and vivacious daughters—but it had also led to Henrietta, now the dowager Duchess of Ashbourn, being shunned by most of Polite Society.

So-called Polite Society. For Bess’s money, they were a bunch of ill-mannered old biddies and cold-blooded stiff prudes…with unfortunately long memories.

As it turned out, not one of them had forgotten or forgiven the shock of a buxom nursemaid stealing a newly widowed Duke of Ashbourn right out from under their noses—and then for the pair to have the audacity to go on to loudly, boisterously enjoy their lives and each other? It wasn’t to be borne.

The haughtiest of the Haute Ton had turned their backs on the Duke of Ashbourn and his new duchess, leaving them to carouse with a less reputable but much more amusing set of scapegraces and ne’er-do-wells, wealthy young widows and notorious courtesans.

The Lively family’s life in London before Lucy’s father died had been one of leisure and revelry—a life of fun .

And now that Henrietta and Lucy were back in London, in what the gossips archly referred to as “reduced circumstances,” the fast set was no longer interested in them, and the Haute Ton wouldn’t cross the road to piss on them if they were on fire.

All because a lowly nursemaid had the audacity to marry a duke and make him happy.

Rich people really were terribly silly, Bess thought.

But they held a lot of power. The power to make or break a young lady’s reputation, for example.

Henrietta was beside herself about Lucy’s snub. It would hardly help matters if she and Bess made spectacles of themselves in such a public place.

Bess sighed. “I know. I’m sorry, Lucy, but your mother is so hoping for you to be able to debut this Season. We ought to behave ourselves and find a spot on the viewing platform with the other ladies.”

“That’s not what you want. I know you’re as keen to see the re-enactment as I am!” Lucy accused, but she didn’t argue further. Instead, she allowed Bess to lead her away from the water’s edge, back toward the more respectable area.

The mock sea battle was ostensibly in celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Royal Navy’s triumph at Trafalgar, but Bess’s native pragmatism made her wonder if it might not also serve to drum up a bit of excitement for a newly coronated monarch about whom no one seemed especially thrilled.

If that was the aim, she had to admit, it wasn’t a bad ploy. The mood of the crowd she and Lucy were maneuvering through was as festive as the Five Mile taproom the evening after the farmers got the hay in.

Everyone who was anyone, alongside lots of folk who weren’t, seemed to be there on the banks of the Thames that afternoon.

They passed a florid-cheeked white man with a tray of roasted chestnuts wrapped in paper, their shiny brown shells split enticingly, and a sprightly West Indian man in a white apron, cheerfully tinkling his bell and shouting, “Hot muffins!” Children darted between the street sellers with shrieks of glee, adding to the general air of happy pandemonium.

Though she knew she’d persuaded Lucy to the more sensible course, Bess wished they could simply enjoy the day. She resolved to try to recapture the spirit of the crowd around them, squeezing Lucy’s arm and smiling at her friend until she got one of Lucy’s irrepressible grins in response.

Laughing and clutching at each other, she and Lucy made their giddy way up the shifting mud of the riverbank, but before they could reach the viewing platforms, the crowd began to whistle and cheer.

“Look, here they come!” Lucy stopped at once to peer down the river, her intent gaze fixed on the pair of small-scale warships squaring off in the brown Thames waters.

The ships were nowhere near as large as the real boats that had been involved in the Battle of Trafalgar, but they were big enough. Bess’s heart pounded as the ships drew near enough to exchange fire, the sailors aboard shouting and clambering amongst the ropes and sails.

Lucy’s delicate, fine-boned face was rapt in the fading afternoon light slanting across the river, her dark blue eyes shining with excitement. There would be no moving her now.

“Bess, can you believe it? Like a play, but better, more real—it’s as if we are watching history unfold before our very eyes.”

Bess might not have had much formal schooling, but she’d read enough to make her doubt the historical accuracy of the mock sea battle; the movements of the ships appeared tightly choreographed, slow and stately and playing to the crowd. But as the shipboard cannons boomed, making her flinch and multiple ladies on shore shriek, she couldn’t deny that it was very effective theater.

Perhaps too effective. The percussive blasts of the guns emitted curls of smoke to hang over the ships, each new shot blazing flame-red for a moment before men on the opposing ship tumbled about as though hit.

Bess frowned when a sailor on the nearest ship clutched at his shoulder and pitched overboard into the frothing river water. That was going a bit too far with the show.

And he wasn’t the only casualty. As the spectators around them gasped and cheered and roared encouragement, the sailors continued to play-act their battle. But occasionally, one of the fighting men would scream and stagger back in a way that seemed entirely too realistic—and surely no one would voluntarily tumble into the Thames, which roiled with silt and sewage foamed into a frigid, noxious broth.

The two ships had now drawn alongside each other and commenced hand-to-hand combat between the actors. Some of it was clearly faked for effect, but there were pockets of what looked like real fighting.

Beside her, a disapproving frown had darkened Lucy’s brow. “I’m not sure I like this much, after all,” Lucy muttered, and flinched as the boom of another cannon blast echoed across the Thames.

“Perhaps a bit more excitement than we bargained for,” Bess agreed, suppressing a pang of disappointment. Lucy was, in many ways, quite sheltered despite her family’s ups and downs. “Shall we go home?”

“I wish we could go home—back to Five Mile House. I miss Little Kissington, and my cozy room above the kitchen, and Gemma and Hal. And Beeswax!”

“As pleased as your sister would be to know that she ranks higher than the cart horse in your affections, I still think Gemma would prefer that you try to take this trip to London for the opportunity that it is, rather than as some sort of punishment.”

“An opportunity to do what?” Lucy’s tone went a bit sulky in a way that made her seem even younger than her nineteen years. “To sit in a dull, cramped, rented drawing room waiting for invitations that will never come?”

The complaint pricked at Bess, reminding her of the wide gulf between her friends’ fortunes, breeding, and station—and her own. But Bess had learned quite early on that riches and rank were no guarantee of happiness, and reminding herself of that, she reached into her deep well of patience and pulled out a smile.

“I know the house in Charlotte Street is not as grand as the place you grew up, though it seems quite fancy to me!”

The neighborhood where Lucy’s family had been able to afford to let a house was respectable but by no means fashionable.

Charlotte Street was lined with squat brown brick buildings, all jostled in together cheek by jowl. The brewery down the road filled the air with the bitter scent of hops, which competed with the city’s pervasive scents of unwashed bodies, the brine of the Thames, rotting refuse, horse manure, and plaster dust from the ongoing construction of a chapel a few doors down.

The people were cram jammed as well, the streets positively heaving with hackney carriages careening wildly, heedless of the many pedestrians and stray dogs and scruffy children going about their business.

And the noise. The noise . It fair made her ears ring, the constant clang and clatter and shouting and hawking of wares. Bess lay in her tidy room at night at Number Eighteen Charlotte Street, staring up at the draped bed canopy, her head full of the clamor of the bustling road three stories below.

It was never quiet in London.

After a lifetime spent in the pastoral countryside, Bess had been rather surprised to find herself invigorated by the two weeks they’d spent thus far in London. But she was. She liked it. Even more than she’d expected.

Bess could feel herself opening up, day by day, like a plant unfurling to catch every stray drop of rain, thirsty for more.

Lucy, by contrast, appeared almost to be shrinking. Every day saw her shoulders hunched a little further, her cheeks washed a little paler, the light in her dimmed a little more.

It had been almost a year and half since she and her mother and sister had left their life in London behind. This trip was supposed to be something of a triumphal return to launch Lucy into Society—but it hadn’t turned out like that.

And, as Bess reminded herself, what might sound like petulance in another girl was undoubtedly a sign of some deeper discontent in her friend. Lucy had lost much in her short life and had faced those challenges with pluck and good cheer. So for her to be sullen now—Bess looked her over more closely.

As if feeling Bess’s gentle inspection, Lucy ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet obscured her face. “Ignore me, Bess. And we needn’t go home, if you’d rather stay and see more. I can buck up and stop being such a wet blanket, I promise.”

“How many of your friends have called since we’ve been in Town?” Bess asked, with one of the flashes of perception that used to make her mam laughingly cross herself.

The bonnet dipped lower. “Not a single one.”

Bess's heart squeezed even as indignation surged along the surface of her skin. What sort of a world was this where a kind, intelligent, charismatic girl like Lucy Lively couldn't keep friends without a fortune to back her up?

Or perhaps it wasn't even about the money so much as it had to do with Lucy's awful older brother.

Bess had heard all about Nathaniel Lively, the new Duke of Ashbourn, and none of it was good.

Not only had he tossed his stepmother and half-sisters out on their ears before the previous duke was even cold in his grave, he'd also refused to reinstate Lucy’s dowry unless she and Gemma danced to his tune. The sisters had sent him away with a flea in his ear, and rightly so.

No, Bess had never seen the man, but she'd heard enough to know that she had no great opinion of His Grace, the duke.

He sounded like the worst sort of snobbish, grasping, selfish aristocrat who cared for nothing more than his own comfort and consequence.

Certainly he didn’t seem to give two figs for his family.

Bess was still fuming and trying to come up with something encouraging to say in the face of Lucy's embarrassed disappointment when Lucy suddenly and unexpectedly broke away from her.

Bess made a grab for the back of Lucy’s green-striped pelisse, but just barely missed her as Lucy shoved through the crowd toward the shoreline.

“Lucy, come back here at once,” Bess called. “What on earth?—?”

But even as she said it, Bess saw what Lucy was after. A man had struggled ashore, sodden and trembling as he collapsed face down in the muck. All around him, the people who’d gathered to watch the mock sea battle stepped aside and turned their backs, uninterested in his suffering.

But not Lucy.

Quick as a cat, Lucy scrambled to the poor man’s side and bent down to speak to him, one gloved hand reaching out to prod him in the shoulder when he did not immediately respond.

Bess hurried up just in time to see Lucy kneel down in the silt of the Thames river bed, uncaring of the state of her sprigged muslin walking dress. “Bess, help me with him, he’s hurt.”

The soaking wet form was dressed like the sailors from the sea battle; he’d clearly gone overboard in the melee. Resigning herself to doing laundry later, Bess got her arms under the man’s torso and heaved with all the strength she’d earned running the kitchen of a bustling country inn.

She and Lucy got him over onto his side, where he immediately began to cough up water. What concerned Bess more, however, was the growing red stain upon his shoulder.

“Lucy, this man has been shot. We need to find a doctor.”

“Shot!” Lucy sprang to her feet, her blue eyes ablaze. “What, with a real bullet? This is monstrous. Are they using live ammunition?”

A lazy masculine voice came from behind them. “I should certainly hope so. It would be a devil of a bore if they weren’t.”

Bess craned her neck round to see an exquisitely dressed gentleman, several years younger than herself, at the head of a bevy of similarly attired dandies. Lucy whirled to face them.

“How dare you! This man is a human being, not a...a prop to be destroyed for your idle amusement.”

Another, more jovial voice joined the conversation. “Hardly the first time you've amused yourself at the destruction of another, eh, Thorne?”

“As I said,” Lucy repeated icily. “Monstrous. But I should expect no better of you, Thornecliff.”

A rustle went through the crowd, more of whom suddenly seemed to be watching the battle developing on shore than the one in the water.

Distracted by the groan of the man whose shoulder she was holding down, trying to stem the flow of blood, Bess looked away from the growing crowd.

The attention they were drawing made Bess uneasy, but there was no help for it. The half-drowned sailor needed help. “For heaven’s sake, can’t one of you send for a doctor?”

“It’s hardly a mortal wound.” Amused derision, from the fair-haired one Lucy had called Thornecliff. “This fine fellow likely suffers worse injuries on a night out drinking by the docks.”

“Don’t bother, Bess,” Lucy said, scorn dripping from her tongue like venom. “This gentleman, and I use the term loosely, wouldn’t bestir himself to do the right thing even if it cost him nothing.”

“Quite right.” That same lazy voice replied, smoother than silk and twice as cool. “I’m not in the habit of putting myself out to help a man who’s already being well compensated for his work. I’m flattered you seem to know me so well, Miss—…I’m sorry, but have we been introduced? I can’t seem to recall.”

The way Lucy drew herself up sent a wash of real alarm through Bess; if she hadn’t been actively stanching a wound, she would’ve leapt up to intercept Lucy before she could inflict one of her own.

But she needn’t have worried—Lucy only turned her back on the crowd, dismissing them from her attention with the regal assurance of a queen.

It was very well done and Bess was proud of her, especially as she could see from the hectic flush mottling Lucy's cheeks that the girl's blood was well up and she would much rather have landed the ill-mannered “Thorne” a facer.

Something about the name tugged at Bess’s memory, but she couldn’t place it and it hardly mattered anyway. If the fellow had any sense, he’d take his friends and move along. Meanwhile, they had to figure out what to do with this injured man.

The prone sailor moaned again, more feebly this time, and Lucy leaned over to get a better look at his face. “Mercy, he's just a boy. He can’t be more than sixteen years old.”

Lucy was right. Bess hung on grimly as the boy thrashed about under her hands. She couldn’t believe no one else was helping. Where were this boy’s parents?

Well. Bess knew better than most what was the likely answer to that question. It only made her more determined to see this poor boy through his ordeal.

“Ah yes, a fitting companion for an impudent child like yourself,” the man Lucy had called Thornecliff drawled. So he was still lurking there behind them. Wonderful.

Lucy audibly gritted her teeth but kept her eyes on Bess’s face. “I will go for help.”

“You certainly will not go anywhere alone! Your mother would have my head, and she’d be right to!”

Lucy opened her mouth, undoubtedly to argue that her mother would understand, but that dreadful, drawling voice rang out over the onlookers like the shot of a cannon across the bow: “Ah yes, that well-known paragon of virtue and respectability, the dowager Duchess of Ashbourn. Heaven forfend that her daughter should behave in a way that would bring shame upon her illustrious name.”

Before Bess could do more than draw in an outraged breath, Lucy was up and leaping in a flurry of mud-streaked muslin and near-silent fury.

So. He’d recognized Lucy after all.