A True Lady Read online

  His sister Anne had married well, to a good fellow who was also a belted earl, and so she was off his mind most of the time. His sister Mary was spoken for the moment she came of marrying age, and while he privately wondered if young Crewe had staying power, he definitely had money and a title, so that relieved Magnus’s mind somewhat.

  Magnus also took care of the family finances, and they were well-to-do because of this. He took his profits and made them even more profitable by making wise investments. He wouldn’t take the easy course the way others did. That was why he hadn’t been ruined when the “South Sea Bubble” investment scheme burst the year before. He personally oversaw all of his ventures, even if it meant an ocean voyage like the one on which he’d sent Martin. When he invested in the South Seas or West Indies, or traded with the colonies, he didn’t do so blindly. He always made sure he knew where his money was going, watching carefully to see that it didn’t go to the most lucrative trade of all: black ivory. He invested in sugar and spice, cotton and coffee. But not human souls; he’d have no part of slavery or the trade in human flesh.

  Some human flesh, that was to say, he reminded himself with a grin, his spirits picking up at last. Though he was against buying it, he didn’t mind renting from time to time. The lady he was on his way to visit tonight would be horrified if she knew what he was thinking, that the necklace in his pocket was no different from the coins that most men used to pay females for the same services. Magnus just disliked buying pleasure so openly. An experienced woman of high degree and low morals was exactly what he preferred. It was much more pleasant to make love to an equal, also seeking pleasure, than to someone who was performing the act simply to survive.

  And pleasure was what he would have tonight, to celebrate his brother’s safe return.

  *

  He could finally relax. For the first time since Martin had been reported missing, Magnus was at peace with himself and the world. His worries were behind him and he was enjoying a brief moment of freedom from all of his cares and worries. He wanted to savor this time. He was in a wide, warm bed with a warm and welcoming woman. A fire flickered in the hearth and a cold, jealous wind rattled the window shutters, reminding him of how comfortable he was. As if he could forget. The mattress was all feathers, and the bedcovers silky, but neither were as silky or as soft as the woman in his arms. He reveled in the touch, scent, and taste of the smooth skin beneath his hands, and marveled at the impossibly simple, complex curves of the form he caressed.

  He sighed and she took it as a sign of pleasure, which it was, or so he thought. A strange idea came to him—an errant thought that nagged at him even as he approached bliss: What if he loved this woman? What would it be like to love a woman as much as he loved making love to her?

  Foolish ideas—pointless, he told himself, and tried to force the thoughts out of his head. It was easier when this beautiful lady offered her lips in such a new, unexpected, and charming way and he inhaled sharply. And yet, he couldn’t stop thinking. He wondered why he was such an ingrate, to question such pleasure. He was no Puritan; all his grandparents had been Royalists. He thought he must be getting old—or jaded. He didn’t know which was worse, and he didn’t want to know. He was determined to enjoy this moment for what it was—a true feast for the senses. She twisted and turned in his arms, fretful with rampant desire. What delight! And so what if his heart wasn’t involved? Was it needed here and now—as she took him fully and yelped with joy, telling him how good he was, again and again and again?

  But the thought persisted, spoiling the aftermath of his pleasure, and, making him anxious to be alone.

  “Going? So soon?” she murmured, stretching sinuously and reaching for him again. “Ah no, stay the night, my lord. It’s soooo cold.”

  She was so warm and silky and quite aware that if he stayed the night, everyone would see him leaving in the morning. Although she was a widow and free to do as she liked, his staying would raise certain expectations amidst society. He was many things, but not a liar. He never promised what he had no intention of delivering. He would bring her bliss and expensive trinkets, but not a wedding ring. Staying with her would create certain obligations, and well she knew it.

  “No, my dear,” he said with genuine regret. “I have much to do in the morning. And if I see you when I wake, I’ll do nothing but this…and this, and…ah, but I will stay just a bit longer, I think.”

  But even so, he was gone before dawn.

  Magnus clapped on his three-cornered hat and stepped out into the clear, cold night. The watchman softly cried out the hour, for fear of waking the privileged persons on this street. The last of them had toddled home and wouldn’t rise till noon. It was too late for servants to still be up and too early for even the humblest of them to wake. Even thieves had to sleep, and they did so at this hour, when anyone with money in his pockets was in bed. Bats and burglars might be stirring, but not cutpurses and street thieves. For that reason, Magnus was unprepared for the sudden blow that came from behind. That and the fact that no thief had ever been foolish enough to attack Magnus Titus Snow.

  He soon showed them why.

  The first blow landed on his shoulder. The fellow behind him was quite short and his club only reached Magnus’s powerful neck. It hurt like blazes. His temper flared up with the pain, and he didn’t feel a thing after the initial shock. He wheeled around, his sword drawn and slashing before him. He heard a yelp, and pressed forward. But then one of the assailants—there were two—threw a coat over his sword, snared it, and dragged it down.

  It didn’t matter. He still had his fists, and he knew how to use them. One man went down without a sound, and another—a third, he realized—made the mistake of coming up behind him just as he’d landed some telling blows on someone else. He ducked and spun, and threw the third man into the second, feeling laughter rising in his throat as he lunged forward—straight into a raised club.

  There was a fourth, he realized, just before he hit the ground.

  He woke to find the four men sitting on him.

  “My purse is in my pocket,” he gasped. “You’re welcome to it. Get off, and have done with it.”

  “Thankee fer the kind offer, matey,” rasped the fellow lying on his right arm, “but that ain’t what we come fer.”

  “Take this then!” Magnus shouted, lunging up with all his strength—which was so considerable that as he gained his feet, they all fell off him, like so many piglets squealing and scattering in the straw as their mother heaved to her trotters.

  But a sharp blow on his head brought him to his knees and then again to his face on the cobbles. There had been five of them, he realized before darkness overtook him.

  *

  The voices were not that of the angels. They were worried, rough, and profane.

  “Well, y’done him good, y’bloody little mawworm. Kilt him, belike, curse ye.”

  “I done him so you could get him, is wot I done,” a grieved voice answered.

  “Yeah. But dead ain’t no good to us. Capt’n’ll have our gizzards.”

  “Ain’t dead. ‘E’s bleeding like a stuck pig. Dead don’t bleed, y’stupid whoreson.”

  They were still sitting on him. His first coherent thought was not of pain, but of how stupid he must look, for as far as he could tell, there were five of them lying on him, head and limbs, pinning him to the ground at all points, like a beached starfish. He squinted, barely able to make them out in the waning night. They looked as motley as they sounded. They were dressed in the finery of the last generation—flapping coats over long vests and bloused shirts, wide breeches and high, cuffed boots. He could see glimpses of bandannas tied around throats and heads, and scars, eye patches, and beards. The rising light caught glints from various earrings, pendants, and gold teeth. Since they smelled worse than they sounded, and from what they said, they didn’t want him dead, he spoke.

  “Off” he snarled. “Or do you want to go round again?”

  His voice sounded we
ak and he frowned. That was when he felt the blood trickle down over one eyebrow and realized his head hurt like the devil. Even his rage wasn’t enough to make him forget the dull, throbbing pain.

  “In time,” the man at his head said warily, “First, we got to talk to ye. Since ye ain’t a man to lissen to the likes o’ us, we had to get yer attention first. And truth to tell, ye deserve every hard knock we could give ye. Be that as it may—we be saying our piece and then we be off. Fer the time bein’,” he added threateningly. “See, we just got a message fer ye now. A warning, like: Keep yer shoes under yer own bed, me fine lord. Don’t go catting round on our Cristabel, hear? Capt’n finds out, it’ll be us that suffers, ’cause, bet yer fancy boots, he’ll blame us fer lettin’ it happen. So stay wi’ yer lovely wife. Gawd! It beats all. Ye be wed to the finest female in the land, and wed only weeks, at that. And what do ye do? Come aground, and run around on ’er!”

  The other men rumbled various agreements, and Magnus heard a ragged chorus of “’Tis a right shame,” and “Shame” from all four sides, as though he were in a nursery again, tended by demented nannies.

  His jaw hurt when he spoke, but he was so disgusted, it hardly mattered.

  “Idiots. Nodcocks,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong man. I am not married. I don’t know your ‘Cristabel.’”

  They all laughed. It wasn’t a merry sound.

  “Ye be the Viscount Snow?”

  He nodded, and wished he hadn’t, because his head was still on the cobbles.

  “Magnus Titus, Lord Snow?” another asked, rolling his name like thunder.

  “Yes, damn it,” he said.

  “To be sure,” one of his captors said prissily, “ye be damned. ’Cause ye be a double-dyed liar, as well as a cheat. ’Cause ye be wed not three weeks past. So our lads told us afore they shipped back to the islands again.”

  “Aye, married to the beauteous Cristabel ’erself—the most beautiful female in all the West Indies islands,” one of the others said reverentially. “And one of the hardest ter get, ’er bein’ Capt’n Whiskey’s own dotter, and guarded like the left eye in ’is ’ead.”

  “Aye, an’ locked in a cabin wi’ her till ye reached England,” another said with less reverence and twice as much envy.

  “And then ye leave ’er!” continued another in amazement. “Abandon ’er! Romp off ter play piggies wi’ another female the very night ye land! I don’t know where ye get the nerve—much less the energy! But ye won’t continue to diddle no one else. Nor abandon yer wife. Not whilst the men o’ the Brotherhood draw breath, me lad.”

  The various growls of “Aye” were almost loud enough to wake the watch.

  “Married?” Magnus said stupidly, for none of this made sense.

  “Aye, as if ye didn’t know it,” one said scornfully. “Where?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “In the Indies, in Capt’n Whiskey’s own stronghold, when the captain took ye hostage,” said their leader, holding on to Magnus’s hair. “So we was told by the lads what seen it wi’ their own eyes. And we be here to gi’ ye the message: The captain’s men may have left, but there be enough stout lads in the Brotherhood in England to watch over ye, like he ast us to. We may be few, and hunted men at that, and y’may be a grand lord in this grand city, but we be in every port in every land, and we takes care of our own,” he added, with what seemed to Magnus as much hope as bravado.

  “Go back to her, me lord,” he urged, “and take her up as yer rightful wife in ’er proper place. Or else next time, we comes with six other lads—or howsomever many more it takes. Which is better’n the captain hisself coming. Or wild Black Jack Kelly, who will be glad as the captain be mad about yer deserting her, I’ll wager.”

  There was another chorus of “Ayes” and then they all fell silent. They looked at each other. Magnus heard their leader count to three under his breath. On the count, they rose as one and released him. Before he could rise, they ran off—as best they could with their own injuries—into the night.

  Martin’s valet woke him and helped him fumble into his dressing gown. He followed a footman down the stair. It was too early for the rest of the servants to be up; he himself had seldom seen this hour of dawn since he’d been a boy. He was sleepy and confused, but all sleepiness fled when he saw who awaited him in the kitchens.

  Magnus turned from Martin’s worried housekeeper, who was trying to wash his wounds. He took the bloody cloth from her hand, and taking Martin firmly with the other, led him out of the kitchens, through the hall, and into the library again. He closed the door behind them. The light of the brace of candles Magnus held made his shadow leap and grow on the wall behind him. The light, Martin thought, wasn’t as ominous as Magnus’s expression as he stood staring down at him. The cut over Magnus’s brow began to trickle blood again, and he dabbed it with the cloth but otherwise disregarded it. One eye was already swelling closed. But the other eye held gray murder.

  Still, Magnus’s voice was clear, and cold as steel.

  “Now,” he said with deathly calm, “what was that ‘other little adventure’ you were going to get around to telling me someday? I suggest you tell me now. And fast!”

  CHAPTER 4

  The air was damp and chilly, and a thin wind caught at Cristabel’s cloak. Its hem, soaked with icy water from the cobbles beneath her feet, slapped against her ankles as she walked. She almost skipped, she was so thrilled. Her newfound maid lagged three steps behind her, sullen as the sky above her. The girl couldn’t understand why anyone would go out on such a day if she didn’t have to. On such a day! Cristabel almost laughed aloud. What a day it was for her. She glanced up at the leaden sky and prayed it would snow. Snow—little fluffy white feathers of ice she’d heard and read about—could actually come tumbling down from those dank clouds and cover her at any minute. Or so she hoped. It would be beyond wonderful—as if everything she’d done since she’d arrived in London hadn’t already been!

  She’d hired the girl herself as soon as Martin left her. Not because she liked the sullen maid—she planned to replace her as soon as she could—but because she knew she had to have a female, any female, accompanying her everywhere for decency’s sake. Cristabel’s governesses had taught her well. An unescorted woman without husband, father, or family would be considered a whore here just as she would be in the Islands. The difference was that in wonderful England, she didn’t have to take on some domineering man as husband or keeper. She could hire a woman as companion and live by herself and still be considered a lady. It was too good to be true, but Cristabel and her maid had indeed walked the streets of London town all morning, and she was amazed that no man so much as looked at her, much less catcalled or accosted her.

  Of course, she admitted, it could be because of her new clothes.

  A new wardrobe had been her first order of business once she had her maid. Not only were her own clothes, all in hues of green and red and gold, wrong for London, but they were also too thin for England’s climate. She bought a thick gown ready-made from a dressmaker near the inn and ordered her to stitch up several more as fast as she could. Her eye had been caught by the shades of cherry red and sea blue, but those days were behind her, she thought resolutely. She was going to be a proper lady now. So she stifled her regrets and bought a black gown and a thick, dark, hooded cloak to cover everything.

  She marched through the streets of London in amazement. She’d read that over seven hundred thousand souls lived here! Her mind couldn’t take in the number any more than her eyes could. She’d never seen so many people all together. She’d thought the docks at Kingston Harbor the busiest hub of the civilized world, but she was humbled and excited by what she saw now.

  She wandered down the shop-lined streets whose big, bright signs advertised their wares to everyone—even those who couldn’t read. And for those who didn’t want to enter the stores, there were carts on the streets heaped high with everything from oysters to nightcaps, apples to scissors to wigs.
The cold air felt warmer because of the delicious smells of soup, baked pastry, and meat being sold everywhere. Vendors blew tin trumpets and rattled pans, criers shouted and sang their wares. They proclaimed the finest fruit, coal, fish, gingerbread—and some things Cristabel never heard of—at the top of their lungs. If that wasn’t show enough, there were real entertainers performing in the streets. She laughed at the trained dogs and caught her breath at the dancing bear being led through the streets on a rope. The jugglers were fun to see, but the puppet shows made her stop in her tracks, bemused, until her numbing toes reminded her to move on.

  There were tradesmen and chimney sweeps as well as elegant gentlemen with fine coats and wigs crowding the streets. They strolled with fine ladies who were followed by an assortment of maids, footmen, and sometimes—at the very end of the procession—little, brightly dressed black pages, who looked to Cristabel like cheerful parakeets flying down the street.

  Cristabel got glimpses of some ladies who looked like royalty to her fascinated eyes. They were jogged through the streets in little gilded chairs mounted on long poles carried by one man in front and another in back. Some of these ladies even had another man running alongside—with a drawn sword. And who were these people who clattered past her in their gilded coaches? She’d never seen such riches on display, not even in the gaudiest pirate stronghold.

  She also saw men and women with such terrible scars and obvious diseases that she wondered how they lived to limp through the streets of London. She saw beggars with such awful sores, they made her shiver. They begged alongside ballad singers who sang so beautifully she wanted to sit right down on the cobbles and listen to them for hours. That is, if she didn’t mind getting splashed by the sluggish stream of filthy water that flowed in a channel down the center of the street, carrying waste away. She kept walking and staring—one hand on her purse and the other on her dagger, of course, for however excited she was, she’d been raised in interesting places herself, and she was, after all, the daughter of a pirate king.