The Rogue You Know (Covent Garden Cubs) (14 page)

He’d moved away quickly so she couldn’t reach him.

Des and Brenna sat on one side of a long bench, and Gideon and Susanna sat on the other. Beauty lay under Susanna’s feet, her head on her paws. Gideon had chosen seats for them at the end of the table, in case he needed to leave quickly. He had a view of the door, but no one he knew had gone in or out. Susanna sipped her ale daintily and claimed she wanted nothing to eat. He ordered her stew and potatoes anyway.

If she wouldn’t eat it, he would. Why not? Des was paying.

While they waited for their food, Gideon tapped his foot to the fiddler standing on a table beside them and playing a lively jig.

“Sometimes the fiddler’s woman sings,” Des said loudly to Gideon.

“Voice like an angel,” Brenna added.

“Not that you’d know what that sounds like, considerin’ ye’re ’eaded for ’ell any day now.”

Gideon laughed. “Thought you’d be hoping for my long life and toasting to my health. I can’t pay you back if I’m dead.”

“You? Pay me back?” Des pointed at him with the mug of ale. “We’re even now, is my way of seeing it.”

Gideon clinked mugs and drank.

“What debt do you owe him?” Susanna asked. Her voice sounded all the more refined and elegant with the accents of Field Lane in his ears.

“He didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head.

“A few months ago, Gid and I cracked a house.”

“We robbed it,” Gideon translated. “Des usually sticks to fencing goods, but he lost Beezle’s property before he could sell it. Beezle gave him the choice of cracking the house or getting his throat slit.”

Susanna gasped.

“I didn’t lose the cargo,” Des protested. “Bow Street recovered it. Two different things.” He looked back at Susanna. “In any case, I like my throat the way it is, so I did the job with Gid. I was the budge, and he were the rum dubber.”

When her brow furrowed, Des gave Gideon a look. “Where the hell did you find her?”

Gideon smiled tightly.

Des signaled for more ale. “I was inside the house, throwing the cargo out to Gid. The owners came home and caught me. Gid could have run, saved his bony arse.”

“But he didn’t,” Susanna said.

“He risked his neck to go in after me. Got me out.”

“Lost the cargo though,” Gideon said. “Had to crack another house. Had better cronies that time.”

Susanna set her mug down with an audible thump. “Good Lord, exactly how many houses have you cracked?”

The crowd began to clap and whistle as a woman with black hair so long it was almost to her ankles and dark skin sashayed past the tables, her skirts tinkling. Gideon spoke in Susanna’s ear. “I’d tell you, but I don’t think I can count that high.”

She gave him a look so full of shocked innocence, he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her.

She shoved him back. “Gideon!”

Oh, but he liked shocking her. He was sorely tempted to do it again. Brenna motioned to the table where the fiddler pulled the woman up beside him. “Ye’re in for a treat now, lads.”

“Is she a Gypsy?” Gideon asked. “She has the look.”

“Aye. That’s the rumor,” Brenna said without taking her gaze from the singer. “Who knows if it’s true?”

The fiddler began a slow song, the music haunting and high. The Gypsy singer swayed to it, letting her hips rock from side to side. Then she took a deep breath and began to hum. Her voice was low and melodic. Gideon leaned forward.

“Tell me the story of a lass and her love,

Tell me of two hearts broken.

Tell me the story of a lass and her love,

Tell me of passions awoken.

Bonny was she, faithful was he,

Never a day were they parted.

A red coat he donned and marched off to a song,

Leaving her brokenhearted.”

Susanna gripped his wrist, and Gideon pulled his gaze from the singer.

“A sad song,” he said, nodding to the Gypsy. “Do you know it?”

She shook her head.

“She’ll repeat the first verse, and then in the second verse the soldier is killed in battle. In the third, the lass takes her own life.”

“Then the ending is cheerier.”

He tapped her on the nose. “No, but the music is.” His foot tapped faster as the fiddler found a rhythm and his bow flew across the strings. Des swept Brenna into his arms, and they joined the half-dozen couples skipping about the room.

“Come on,” Gideon said, standing and holding his hand out to her. Beauty barked and rose to her feet.

Susanna blinked up at him. “Are you asking me to dance?”

He spread his hands. “Hasn’t anyone ever asked before, Strawberry?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Then come on!” He pulled her to her feet and spun her around. Her hair flew out, forming a fiery-gold halo about her head and shoulders. He took her waist and pulled her into the fray, swinging her about by the arm, trading her off, and taking her back again.

The wrinkle between her eyes told him she was concentrating far too hard on the steps of the jig instead of enjoying herself. When the Gypsy sang again, he twirled her until she wobbled.

“Stop thinking so hard, Strawberry,” he called over the fiddle. “Feel the music.”

She stumbled, dizzy, and he caught her in his arms, turned her again. She clung to him, head down, but when she looked up again, her eyes were bright with excitement.

Gideon let out a cheer and danced her around the room. The dog barked wildly, her tail wagging energetically. By the time they’d made it halfway around, she was leading him and clapping and stomping with the most energetic of them. Brenna took her arm, and the two held hands and spun. When their hold finally broke, Gideon caught her and swept her off her feet, twirling her until she tilted her head back and laughed.

His heart ached at the sight of her, all that wild hair and her bright cheeks. She was the picture of freedom. She danced another song, but the food had arrived, and Gideon sat and ate. He kept an eye on her, but the men here wanted nothing more than a drink and a little music. Beauty gave him an imploring look, and he passed her meat under the table.

Damn dog.

When Susanna finally sat beside him, sides heaving and hair damp against her forehead, she gulped down her ale and then took his and swallowed that too. Gideon grabbed her hand before she could steal Des’s.

“Oh no you don’t. Eat, or you’ll be so drunk I’ll have to carry you to Vauxhall Gardens.”

She swatted his arm. “Ladies are never drunk, my good sir.”

“Glad to hear it. Humor me, and eat the stew, my lady.”

She ate, but when he looked again, she had more ale in her hand. It wasn’t long before she pulled him to his feet and insisted on a dance. Gideon couldn’t refuse her.

He clapped as she raised her hands above her head and twirled until her skirts flew out around her. Throwing her head back, she laughed, and he caught her just in time, kissing her playfully.

She turned the kiss into something more. Gideon was half ready to drag her back to Des’s when he felt a prickle of unease skitter across his neck. He pulled away, his gaze sweeping the room.

A few men looked familiar, but none of them were Beezle’s cubs. None of the men or women who met his gaze were enemies. The door to the public house closed, and Gideon had a moment to wonder who might have left. He almost followed, then Strawberry kissed him again and laughed, and he was swept back into the dance.

“Report,” Brook said, his eyes dark with his usual skepticism.

Dorothea shifted her gaze from the disheveled Bow Street Runner who had just entered her drawing room, back to Brook. Her younger son had been born a skeptic. Perhaps that was what made him so good with puzzles.

Dorothea refused to call Brook an investigator. She chose to overlook the fact that her son kept an office in the same building as the Bow Street Runners and was hired to find missing persons and stolen property. The younger son of the Earl of Dane did not have a profession. To her mind, this sort of investigatory work was a hobby.

One at which he excelled.

The Runner glanced at her then clutched his hat against his chest. He wore a shabby coat and a stain on his trousers. His face was unshaven, and she had all but yelped when Crawford had shown him into the drawing room. She thought he’d been a rogue until Brook had greeted him.

“You found her?” Brook asked him, his voice betraying no hint of either annoyance or eagerness. For herself, Dorothea could not resist clasping her hands together. She might have stood, but then Brook would be forced to stand as well.

“I think so, sir,” the Runner said, his gaze on Brook. “I found a girl who matches the description.”

“Where?”

“A public house in Field Lane.”

“What?” Dorothea did rise then. Field Lane? What on earth would her daughter be doing in such a place? “You must be mistaken.”

Brook was at her side immediately. “Mother, Mrs. Castle already confirmed seeing her in Seven Dials. Field Lane is not so far. Let’s hear what Mr. Sawyer has to say before we make any judgments.”

“Of course.” Her fingers hurt from being clasped so tightly together.

Brook pressed on her shoulder, and she sat again. Where was Dane? Shouldn’t he be there by now? She’d sent for him yesterday, even though Brook had advised against it. Brook didn’t see that Dane could aid the investigation, but she wanted her elder son for more selfish reasons. Dane was solid and strong. She could lean on Dane. Brook was never one to tolerate any emotion. Even as a child, he’d refused her hugs and comforting pats when he stubbed a toe or scraped a knee. Susanna had wanted too much coddling, and Brook none. Dane had accepted what she gave, never seeming to want more or desire less.

“Go on,” Brook ordered Sawyer.

The disheveled man glanced at her again. “I spotted her at a public house. I’d heard a rumor of a lady and a dog going up against Dagger Dan.”

“Who?” Dorothea asked.

Brook waved a hand. “Rumor.”

Sawyer nodded. “Must be, but I heard she had strawberry-blond hair, so I stayed put, kept my eyes open. She came into the public house for dinner.”

“Alone?” Brook asked.

Sawyer shook his head. “She was with two men and a woman. I don’t know the woman, but Des is a fencing cully.”

“He has a dolly shop?”

“That one. But she wasn’t as friendly with him as she was with the other.”

“What exactly do you mean by friendly?” Dorothea asked in a frosty tone.

Brook raised a hand. It was exactly the sort of gesture she detested. How dare he put her question aside?

“Who was he?” Brook asked.

“Don’t know him, but he was familiar. Maybe one of Beezle’s gang.”

Brook’s eyebrows rose with interest.

“Who is Beezle?” she asked.

The men ignored her.
Really, the gall!

“Did she appear to be harmed? Were they holding her against her will?” her son asked.

“No, sir. She was…” Sawyer’s gaze darted to her again.

Dorothea glared back at him. “Out with it, young man.”

He crumpled the hat. “She was dancing, your ladyship. She danced with Beezle’s man, laughed a lot, and from the way she was drinking, probably overindulged in that area too.”

“This cannot be Susanna.”

Sawyer plucked at his crumpled hat.

Brook pressed his lips together. “I’d better go take a look.”

Dorothea pounded her fist on the edge of the couch. “I tell you, it’s not her. You are wasting your time searching drinking establishments. She was abducted. She would never go to Field Lane willingly or dance in a public house!”

She rose, and Brook climbed wearily to his feet.

“You are wasting time.” She pointed a finger at Brook.

Instead of agreeing with her, Brook clapped Sawyer on the shoulder. “Good work, sir.” He steered him to the drawing room doors. Crawford opened them, and Brook said something she could not quite hear.

Then he turned back to her, the look on his face weary and guarded.

“I’m for Field Lane. I doubt she’s still in the public house, but it’s a start.”

Dorothea raised her chin. She could not allow her lips to tremble. “It is not she.”

Brook tossed her imperious look right back. She’d taught him that, much as she would have liked to blame his father. “It is Susanna. Sawyer is one of the best Runners I know. He’s not mistaken. His information confirms what Mrs. Castle told us. Susanna was in the company of a man.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I had thought to question her again as to his identity. She knows, but she won’t say for some reason.”

“I don’t understand.” Dorothea hated the tinny quality of her voice. She sounded like an old woman.

“Don’t you, Mother?” Brook said with uncharacteristic venom. She could feel his gaze burn into her.

“You’ve kept her under your thumb since the day she was born. She doesn’t take a breath without you telling her when to inhale. If she had a more docile spirit—”

“I would not need to keep her in check!” Dorothea realized she was shouting and lowered her voice. “This is precisely the sort of thing I was afraid would happen.”

“Why?” Brook asked. “She has always been obedient. There were days I wished she would tell you to go to the devil, but she never did.”

“How dare you!” Her voice did waver now.

She did not want to hear this—because he was right. She
was
to blame. She’d held on too tightly and governed Susanna out of fear instead of love.

“What are you not telling me?” Brook asked. Relentless. Her son pushed and prodded until he had the answer he sought.

Dorothea sank onto the couch, and the large furnishing all but swallowed her. “Vauxhall Gardens,” she whispered.

Brook folded his arms across his chest. She’d have no sympathy from him. Perhaps that would make it easier to say. She didn’t want sympathy, not after all these years.

“She asked to go to Vauxhall Gardens, practically begged me to go. I told her no, but she would not let it go. That was just last night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before? I’d have sent men to watch the entrance and the roads.”

Dorothea covered her face with a hand. “Because I didn’t want to consider that she might go there. I didn’t want her to make the same mistake I did.”

“What mistake is that?”

“I fell in love.” She looked toward the window, where the still-open draperies revealed the encroaching night. Another night with Susanna not at home. She could speak of this if she did not look at Brook. He resembled his father too closely for her comfort.

“It was before I met your father. I met a man at Vauxhall and fell in love. He was not…acceptable.”

It seemed strange to reduce the love of her life to two words:
not
acceptable
. He’d been so much more than that—handsome, kind, witty, charming. Oh, she’d fallen for him the first time she’d met him. She’d given him her heart without even being asked, and she’d never been able to retrieve it.

“My parents would never have consented to a marriage between us, but I dreamed of running away to Gretna Green with him.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Brook shift positions slightly. She’d made him uncomfortable, perhaps even surprised him. No one ever thought of her as a woman, least of all her sons. She was the Dowager Countess of Dane, and before that, Lady Dorothea, daughter of the Duke of Monmouth. She was a commodity, not a person.

“Robert—that was his name—Robert Southey would have never eloped. He had too much honor to do such a thing, which is not to say that I didn’t beg him to reconsider. Especially after I met your father.”

Now she darted a glance at Brook. She’d not known Erasmus Derring when he’d been a young man. He had already been close to fifty when she’d married him. He’d been married once before, and the union had not produced children. The former countess had died of consumption, and Erasmus wanted a young wife and an heir to his title.

Her parents wanted an earl for their daughter. She’d been bought and sold, like a horse or a cow. No one had asked if she wanted to marry Erasmus Derring. No one had cared that her heart belonged to another.

“Your marriage was not a love match.”

She smiled slightly. Brook had a way of stating the obvious that always amused her. She straightened her shoulders. “I did my duty. That’s something your generation does not understand. Now there’s all this talk of marrying for love. Look at your brother!” She stared out the window again. “In my day, we did our duty.”

“And you feared Susanna would not?”

“I feared she had too much of my recklessness in her.”

Brook’s brows lifted.

Dorothea pointed a finger at him. “You did not know me in my youth, young man. I could be wild and heedless of consequences. If the woman your Mr. Sawyer saw was Susanna, it appears all my efforts were for naught.”

“If it is Susanna, I will bring her home. If she’s no longer in Field Lane, then I’ll search Vauxhall. When she returns, she will need to marry immediately.”

Dorothea nodded absently. She had already begun a list of potential husbands. None of them were exactly what she wanted for Susanna, but they were suitable matches.

“I have one last question,” Brook said.

She inclined her head without looking at him. The sky beyond quickly faded from indigo to black. She remembered another sky, all those years ago, ablaze with fireworks.

“A gap of several years exists between Susanna and me, and you lost at least one child between Dane’s birth and mine.”

Her gaze fastened on his. She should not be surprised he knew such a thing. He always knew more than she realized.

“You had done your duty by providing an heir and a spare. If your marriage was no love match, were you then free to pursue other interests?”

He did not flinch, even when she shot him a look that would have sent Crawford scurrying for cover. “Other interests—an interesting term for adultery. Is that what you are accusing me of, sir?”

He lifted one shoulder in a careless gesture. “I’m merely asking a question, not accusing you of anything.”

“I’m still your mother,” she said, rising from the sinking cushions of the couch. “And I am still the Countess of Dane. Go ask the rabble in Spitalfields or St. Giles your questions.” She swept out of the room and was just outside her private chambers when she collapsed. Edwards was beside her in a moment, of course, but Dorothea did not want her maid’s help.

She pushed her off and tottered to her room on her own, shutting the door firmly in Edwards’s face. Her maid spoke through it, called to her, inquired if she needed anything, but Dorothea didn’t hear a word.

She sank onto the floor, the same floor where she’d sunk all those years ago when Dane had been just learning to walk. She’d been light-headed then from the loss of blood, and she remembered looking down and seeing red streaks on her pale legs. Blood pooled on the rug—a different rug then—creating an irregular circle of red. The loss of another child, a little girl, devastated her. Brook’s birth a year later healed some of the pain, but Susanna’s birth took the last of it, all but the scars on her heart.

Susanna had been so much more than the daughter she’d lost. She’d been the life Dorothea might have known.

Dorothea’s heart ached, thinking of the past. Her confession to Brook brought all the memories back. She had tried so hard to forget him for so many years. Even after all this time, her heart still clenched when she thought of him. Her pulse still quickened.

She still loved him, still could imagine his lips on her neck, her wrist, her mouth.

She still felt like a young woman, although she was almost fifty. When she peered in the glass, she still looked young. No gray streaked her hair; few lines marred her face. But there were days she heard herself speak, and she felt ancient. She sounded so matronly, so serious, so critical. Where was the spirited girl she’d once been? Had she lost that girl when she’d lost the love of her life?

She would always regret walking away from him, but she’d had no other choice. If she’d left, Erasmus would have taken her children.

And now Dorothea wept because she’d had no choice, because her life had been one of sorrow and very little love. And it was her fault. How could she blame Susanna for running away when she herself had done the same thing before coming to her senses?

“Oh, my darling,” she sobbed. “Forgive me. I wanted to protect you.”

But there was no protection for any of them now.

* * *

The world spun in a swirl of color and sound and sweetness. Gideon whirled her, his strong arms always catching her just when she feared she was twirling too fast and would fall. His mouth on hers was sweet, as was the ale in her cup.

She’d drunk too much. He’d warned her against it, but she’d been in no mood for warnings.

The music must have slowed, because her body moved slowly, and she allowed her head to fall on Gideon’s shoulder. He had broad shoulders, strong shoulders. She wondered what they would look like if she removed his shirt.

“Not here, Strawberry,” he said, pulling her hands away from the collar of his shirt.

“I’m not a strawberry,” she said. At least she tried. The word
strawberry
was suddenly quite stuck on her lips.

“You are to me.” He lifted her into his arms, and she emitted a little squeal as her feet left the ground and her head spun ever faster. She closed her arms around his neck, afraid she might lose her balance.

He carried her past dancing lights and laughing people and into the cool, dark night. The breeze felt good on her heated skin, even if the angry sound of men’s voices made her shiver.