Earls Just Want to Have Fun (13 page)

Her eyes, blue like the clear sky today, narrowed at his comment. “What do you want?”

He grinned. “Always suspicious. Very well. I want to know why you were still sitting in front of my town house.”

She didn't answer, merely crossed her arms over her bosom and stared at the park.

“You were free to go,” he said. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

She nodded. “It was. I mean, it is.”

“Then why are you still here? Do you want Mrs. Worthing to make you a lunch to take along?”

She turned toward him, eyes wide. “Would she?”

He laughed. “If that's what you're waiting for.”

“Humph.” She blew out a breath. “You're certainly in a hurry to be rid of me.”

“Not at all. In fact, I want you to stay.” Had he really just said that? He had, and he'd even meant it. Life had been far more interesting with Marlowe in it. If he'd been thinking as an earl ought, he would have had Crawford shove her off the stoop. She didn't belong in Mayfair. She didn't belong in his home. Despite all appearances, she was still a thief, a criminal. She might turn out to be Lady Elizabeth, but she might not. That was not really his concern.

But he wasn't thinking as a proper earl. He was thinking as a man, a man who was suffering acute ennui from all of his proper engagements. A man who still enjoyed the company of a beautiful and…vivacious—that was a good way to put it—woman.

She was staring at him, her expression bewildered. “Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Nefarious ones, I'm sure.”

He raised his brows. “That's an impressive word. I cannot say it has been used to describe me very often, if ever.” He turned to her. “Answer the question, Marlowe, why were you still on my stoop?”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped, making her look so small and fragile. Dane clasped his hands together to keep from touching her, from pulling her to him for a comforting embrace.

“I'd be a fool to leave,” she said finally, though he doubted that was what she'd been thinking. “Why go back to the flash ken when I can live it up with the swells?”

“Why, indeed? You said something about Satin coming for you.”

A shadow crossed her face, but she blinked it away. “I can handle Satin. Besides, how would he ever recognize me, looking like this?”

“True.”

A long silence descended. He didn't break it, merely watched the children playing a game of tag. Finally, she said quietly, “I just thought that maybe there was a chance. And if there was a chance I was—I am this Lady Elizabeth—I should stick around and see it through.”

“So you're staying?”

“I…” She looked up at him and frowned. Now what was bothering her? She had the most expressive face. “If I can, that is.”

Ah, she did not like asking him. He imagined she rarely asked anyone for anything. He might have made it difficult for her. Instead, he said, “Shall we continue to introduce you as a distant cousin?”

“I don't even know what that means.”

“And you're willing to attend the Duchess of Abingdon's ball?”

“Is your head cracked? I can't go to a ball!”

“If you stay, you'll have to. My mother will not allow it to be known that she's been sheltering one of the…lower order in our house.” He also could not allow that, even if he was starting to like her.

“Then I should stay back, where there's no chance I embarrass everyone with my
lower
order
behavior.”

“But what you do not understand, Marlowe, is that my mother's sole objective in life is to marry my sister to a wealthy, honorable family. That won't be accomplished by annoying the Duchess of Abingdon. If you stay, I fear you'll have to go to the ball. Susanna and I will keep you out of trouble, and you can complain of a megrim so we must depart early.”

Marlowe was watching the children playing now too, and he wondered if she'd even heard him. The children had a ball, and one boy was kicking it while a little girl chased him. “Come on!” the boy yelled, and Marlowe flinched, almost as though she had been struck.

“What is it?” he asked, but she didn't acknowledge him. She stared at the boy and the ball. “Marlowe?” He reached out and touched her arm. It was ice cold. She drew her arm back and stared at him, her eyes not seeing him. “What the devil? Marlowe, what is it?”

“I'm fine. I-it's nothing.”

But it was not nothing. She was shaking like a leaf.

“I have to go.”

He took her arm before she could bolt, and directed her toward Gunther's Ice House, which was just across the way. “Let's sit down.”

For a few moments, she allowed him to lead her, and then she withdrew her arm and looked about. “Where are you taking me?”

“Gunther's.” He gestured to the small shop nearby.

“It doesn't look open.”

“They will open it for me.”

“Fine.” She looked back over her shoulder, studying the children a last time before she allowed him to lead her away. Dane didn't know what concerned him more—the haunted look on her face or the fact that she didn't protest when he took her arm. Something told him life with Marlowe was about to become even more interesting.

Several minutes had passed before Marlowe realized where she was. When she did, she looked around and blinked at the small, clean shop, the concerned clerk wringing his hands nearby, and the little table where she'd been seated.

“—I asked if you wanted an ice,” Dane was saying. She blinked up at him. The look on his face indicated he had probably asked her this question once, if not twice already. Why would she want ice? “It's food,” Dane said.

“Oh, in that case, yes, please.”

He spoke to the clerk, and she looked around again, seeing the green grass of the park through the windows. Something about that boy and the ball had been so familiar—and oddly terrifying. She was still shaking, and she did not understand it.

Dane sat across from her, looking elegant and at ease. This was his world, and he moved in it with enviable confidence. He would have moved in her world with that same confidence. Like Satin, he was a born leader. It seemed strange that she should see him thus, since she had always associated leadership with brute strength and intimidation. Satin was obeyed because the rogues were too scared to disobey. Dane was not violent—not from what she'd witnessed—and he still commanded respect. Was it the blunt in his pocket? The power in the title he'd been born with? Or something else? How much of his confidence was given to him by God and how much from growing up as the heir to a title?

The clerk returned with two small bowls of colored ice. She looked at hers then watched as Dane lifted his spoon and brought a portion to his mouth. “Have you never had an ice before?”

She shook her head.

He motioned to her cup with his spoon. “Try it. It's most refreshing, especially on a warm day.”

Eat ice? What else would these swells think of? She'd eaten plenty of ice—melted it over meager fires for drinking water, had it stuffed in her mouth during scuffles with another cub, woke up with a thin layer of it on her threadbare blanket. She was no lover of ice. But she had never eaten colored ice, and so she dipped her spoon in and tasted it. Her eyes widened. “It's sweet,” she said.

Dane nodded. “Strawberry.”

She'd stolen a handful of strawberries once and gobbled them down eagerly. They had not tasted like this.

“Slow down, or your head will ache,” Dane said. “If you want another when you've finished, I'll buy you one, though I can't think where you would put it.”

Marlowe continued shoveling ice into her mouth, but Dane had a point. She was uncomfortably full. It was a strange and slightly unpleasant feeling. She never thought she would dislike being full.

“What was troubling you in the park?” he asked, setting his spoon aside and watching her eat. She wondered if he was simply going to allow his food to go to waste.

Marlowe shrugged. “Just someone walking over my grave, I guess.”

“Is that all?” Dane frowned. “You were trembling and ice cold.”

She finished her ice and stared at his bowl, which had been abandoned. Dane shook his head and pushed it toward her. “You are going to make yourself sick.”

Marlowe spooned more ice into her mouth. She was definitely cold now, but the ice was so sweet, she could not seem to stop eating it. And there were worse things to be sick from than eating too much. She heard the children calling one another outside again, the boy yelling, “Come on!” and she glanced at Dane.

“There was something familiar about that boy.”

“You can't know him.”

“I've never seen him before. I can't explain it, but as I watched him play with that little girl, I felt as though I had seen it all before.”

“Perhaps it reminded you of when you played as a child.”

She stared at him. “I never played. We worked for our keep.”

Dane sat back. “That sounds like a dreary childhood.”

“It was better than some. Have you ever walked through St. Giles? Walked through Seven Dials?”

“Of course. I went there a time or two in my youth.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Ah, yes. A visit to the rookeries for the bored young gentleman. It's not quite so entertaining when you live there and you watch the children starve on the streets. You watch a woman sit in her dirty doorway, two filthy brats hanging on her, and another in her belly. Her eyes are empty because she can't feed the two she's got. How's she going to feed another? There's never enough food, and always too much to drink, and everywhere you look, there's dirt and cold and someone's brat sniveling.”

He blinked at her. “I never thought of it like that.”

“No, you wouldn't. Your world is clean and warm and filled with”—she gestured to the empty bowls—“ices. That's not my world.”

“Don't you think it could be? Perhaps watching that boy and girl play affected you because you once played like that. Before you were taken.”

She shivered. “If that's true—and I'm not saying it is—but if it is, then where do I belong?”

“I don't follow.”

“Is your position something you were born into, or were you raised to be who you are? Even if I was born Lady Elizabeth, I was raised—if you can call it that—to be Marlowe.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “That's an interesting question.”

“Interesting how?”

“Because I didn't expect you to say it.”

She scowled at him, brows coming together. “You may not believe it, but I have a mind. I'm a person just like you.”

He waved a hand as though to brush the comment aside. “Very well, let's discuss philosophy. I believe it was Rousseau who said, ‘We do not know what our nature permits us to be.'”

“Which means what?”

He smiled. “Since we're speaking of philosophy, I'll play tutor and make you answer that question yourself. What does it mean?”

She thought for a long moment. “That I can be anything.”

He nodded. “Very good.”

She went on. “It also means rich young nobs shouldn't go into the rookeries thinking they're better than those who live there, because the nobs somehow deserve their place, while we deserve ours.”

“Touché.”

“No one deserves to live like that,” she said. “Not even a dog.”

He rose and held out his hand. She looked at it. “I don't need help.”

“Allow me this small courtesy.” If he was offering a courtesy, maybe she'd said something that got through to him.

She put her hand in his and allowed him to help her rise. His hand was so large it completely covered hers. She had the oddest sensation that she was safe with him. Her instincts must have been off, because she wasn't safe at all. She couldn't trust him, any more than she could trust any of these swells. She could trust Gideon and the Covent Garden Cubs. That was all. She had to remember that.

He led her back into the sunlight, and they strolled along the park again, toward his town house. It felt odd to watch people walk by her and not to mark them. Not that she didn't evaluate them. That man walking briskly was in such a hurry that she could bump into him, do a dive, and he'd probably keep right on walking. That woman walking two yapping dogs was another easy bubble. Marlowe could have riled the dogs and stalled her up, then done the trick. The woman might not have much blunt in her reticule, but she probably had a wipe in there. There was a market for silk handkerchiefs, and dolly shops who'd buy them, no questions asked.

For once Dane wasn't going on about the weather, and she could study the people she passed, and the buildings. She had the knack of never being lost. She always knew which direction pointed to Seven Dials, but she rarely took the time to look about her and simply enjoy the surroundings. They walked on, along a busy street, and she saw the turn to the block where Derring House was located just up ahead. That street was quieter, the homes larger and more stately. But as they neared the turn, her back prickled and her scalp crawled. She must have stiffened, because Dane said, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” But that wasn't true. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. And then she saw it. She saw
him
. The cub was watching her, marking her. He lounged against a door, looking as though he was waiting for his employer to come out of a shop, but she knew the look of him. He only gave the appearance of being idle. His eyes were as keen as a hawk's. And she recognized him too. He wasn't one of Satin's, but she'd seen him a time or two. He was one of the Fleet Street Cubs.

The Fleet Street Cubs loved nothing better than a public execution. Then half the city would come out to watch the convicts from Newgate or Fleet Prison hanged. While the crowds were watching the spectacle, they weren't watching their pockets. Easy pickings.

Satin looked down on the Fleet Street Cubs, saying they got rich off the misery of their own kind. After all, who was being hanged up there if not thieves? But Marlowe had never known Satin to turn down a coin, no matter where it came from.

For an instant, her gaze met the cub's. He looked away quickly, with seeming respect. After all, she was dressed as a lady. Marlowe held her breath, and then his gaze snapped back. He stared at her openly, and she could almost see his mind working, struggling to place her. And then she and Dane passed him, and he was behind her. But she knew she was in trouble. The cub might not know her yet, but his mind would keep working on the riddle of who she was. When he solved it, he'd go to Satin.

When they reached the town house, Dane paused. Marlowe's thoughts were still back on the cub they'd passed, and she looked over her shoulder to make sure he hadn't followed them. She didn't see him, but he wouldn't have been a very good rogue if she did.

“You realize, when we go inside, preparations for the ball will be in full force.”

“The lady said it's tomorrow.”

“Yes, but my mother will worry about what Susanna is to wear, and Susanna—and my mother—will worry over what you are to wear and how your hair should be styled and whether to bring a wrap or not, a fan or not…” He circled his hand as if to indicate all of this would go on and on.

“It sounds like a nightmare.”

Dane laughed. He seemed to laugh quite often. She'd never met a man who laughed so much—at least not one who wasn't daft in the head. “The ladies are supposed to like all the fuss.”

“Why?”

“How the devil do I know? In any case, one question may be neglected amid all the primping, and that is perhaps the most important question. Do you dance?”

“Dance? Like a jig?”

“No. I'm not speaking of romping around after you've had a few sips of Blue Ruin. I'm speaking of waltzing, the quadrille, a country dance.”

Marlowe had no idea what he was talking about, but she could count on one hand the number of times she'd danced. There simply was little cause for dancing or celebration in her life, and if she had a few coins, she wouldn't have spent them on gin. She would have bought something to fill her belly. She had danced with Gideon once. He'd twirled her about and showed her some complicated step he said he learned watching the nobs when looking at a place before the crack. She'd fallen all over her feet and tumbled onto her bottom, laughing all the way. Somehow she thought Dane and the duchess would be less than amused.

“I don't dance.”

“And we won't attempt to teach you in a day. We'll say you twisted your ankle, and I will stay by your side to ward off admirers.”

“Admirers? Ha!” She rolled her eyes and waited for Dane to give one of his characteristic laughs. But he wasn't laughing.

“I am completely serious,” he said. “Men will take notice of you.”

“Because they'll see I don't belong.”

“Because they will see that you're beautiful.”

Marlowe stumbled back, her eyes bulging with shock. Why did he keep calling her beautiful? No one ever said anything more complimentary to her than “You'll do.” Dane was a handsome man. She tried not to look too directly at him for fear of staring overly long. He was rich and titled. He probably knew hundreds of beautiful women, and he thought
her
beautiful? “I'm not beautiful,” she said. “I'm…” She gestured to herself to indicate she was—whatever she was.

Dane raised a brow. “You are?”

“Quick, canny, nimble.”

“I am certain you are all of those things, but you are also beautiful. Have you looked in a mirror?”

She had, and she hadn't even recognized herself. The Marlowe she knew was flat-chested and wore trousers and a perpetual layer of dirt. The Marlowe she knew scowled and swore and spit. She didn't flutter her lashes or sashay her hips or do any of the things gentlemen seemed to think made a woman a rum blowen. “This”—she gestured to her gown—“this isn't who I am.”

“Don't you think it could be?” he asked. She thought he might say more, but at that moment, the butler opened the door and peered out with an expectant look.

“Your mother is asking for you, my lord. Shall I tell her you have taken up residence on the front walk?”

Dane let out a sigh. “No, Crawford. We are returning now.” He gestured to Marlowe, indicating she should lead. Marlowe took one last look behind her. She didn't spot the cub. Perhaps he hadn't followed her, after all. She could still walk away. She could turn and head for Seven Dials and the flash ken. And then she thought again of the little boy and his ball, and she looked back at the town house.

Marlowe didn't know where she belonged, but she would find out.

***

Gideon wasn't sleeping. Around him the cubs snuffled and snored, sleeping the sleep of the dead. He should be asleep too. He'd been out diving until the wee hours of the morning—at least that's what he'd told Satin. In reality, he'd been searching for Marlowe. Gideon didn't understand what had happened to her. One minute she'd been there, and the next she was gone. Joe said he'd seen a jack stop, a man had carried her to the coach, shoved her inside, and driven away.