Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency) Read online

  He’d slept through the noon deadline and awoken to a world in which he had officially defaulted on Malcolm’s loan, which meant a five-hundred-pound late fee had been added to the balance that was now due in two weeks. Thirty-two hundred pounds in total. And Malcolm would go to great lengths to make sure Harry didn’t leave London before every bit was paid. The amount of money made Harry dizzy, and two days later, he was still off-balance, drinking to stave off the terror of what was going to happen to him.

  Harry peered through the pink lace curtain again, then let it fall back to hide him from the street. Ward’s parents did not yet know he and Ward were staying at the house. When they found out, it would not go well. They did not think Harry a good influence, and as Harry faced more and more of the reality of what he’d become, he was beginning to agree with them. Ward was the only real friend he had left; he was even now seeing into Harry’s affairs in hopes they could find a way for Harry to get out of this alive, preferably with both legs operational.

  How have I come to this? Harry fell into one of the pink velvet chairs and dropped his aching head into his open hands.

  There had been a time when fleeing a set of thugs would have brought a delicious rush of energy; Harry had lived for those rushes as a younger man. He used to race his phaeton outside of Hyde Park, hoping a constable would try to stop him so that he could outrun him. That was before the gambling had taken over every thought in his head and replaced it with fear of losing. Of not winning enough. The only way to keep his paralyzing fear at bay was to keep a bottle at hand. All the time. He’d sold the phaeton last month for half what it was worth in order to pay Malcolm’s interest payment.

  Harry heard movement behind him and twisted in his chair toward the door, ready to bolt if necessary. Ward’s butler merely blinked at Harry’s reaction as he entered the room with a silver tray.

  “I did not request a tray,” Harry said, suspect of anything out of the ordinary. Though perhaps he had ordered something and not remembered. The last few days had blurred together, and he struggled to keep his thoughts in order. He eyed the pot of tea and the assortment of sweets and savories. His mouth began to water.

  “Young Ward asked that I provide tea at two o’clock.” The butler set the tray on the low table and set about pouring. When he finished, he stepped back. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Stillman?”

  “No.”

  The butler closed the door behind him when he left, and Harry gave all his attention to the tray. There were scones and clotted cream, biscuits, and a plate of fruit and cheeses.

  Harry started with a caramel shortbread, and the first zing of sugar on his tongue reminded him of how little he had eaten these last few days—maybe a week. He chewed faster, picking up a biscuit before he had even finished the shortbread. A young man in rented rooms who no longer received invitations to society events rarely got food of this quality. He had stuffed the last scone into his mouth when the door opened again. Harry was instantly on his feet, chewing quickly as Ward entered the room.

  Finally.

  Harry drank the last of his tea to wash down the scone. “So?” he asked eagerly once he could speak, searching Ward’s face for any indication of what he’d learned.

  “Your landlord agreed to take the pocket watch as settlement on your rooms. Your clothes and other items will be sent over this afternoon.”

  The watch had belonged to Harry’s grandfather, the fourth Viscount of Howardsford. It was the last material possession Harry owned aside from the estate and furnishings in Norfolk, which he had not seen for years. “And my solicitor? What had he to say about the sale of the parcel?”

  Ward frowned and lowered his bulky frame into the other pink velvet chair. The chair’s ability to hold him was a testament to the fine craftsmanship of the piece, never mind the nauseating color scheme. Harry looked around the room, wondering if there might be silver or jewelry on the premises capable of earning thirty-two hundred pounds. Perhaps they could sell some of the furniture in the house?

  When Ward spoke, Harry turned his attention back to him. “There is difficulty in splitting the land. He said he sent round a note last week.”

  Harry did remember some sort of note now that he thought of it. He’d thrown it on his writing desk with the intention to read it later.

  Ward continued, “Something about the impact on the tenants. That the loss of the fields would make it unsustainable to keep them and that it would affect water access or something like that. He wants to send a clerk to survey the property lines and see if another division might be feasible, but he needs written consent from you . . . and twelve pounds to cover the clerk’s expenses.”

  Harry cursed and began pacing, pushing his hands through his hair. Was that all the information Ward had gathered in all the time he’d been gone?

  “I cannot pay him twelve pounds,” Harry said, humiliated that what had once been a mere trifle was completely out of his reach. How did one sell their clothes? He owned a few quality pieces, though he was down to only two pairs of boots. “What of a loan? Did Mr. Jennings have anything to say about a loan against the sale?”

  Harry had to sell. If not the exact parcel he’d submitted, another version. And quick. Men were making fortunes in industry, and old estates were being broken up to accommodate new money all the time. Harry had once felt this a tragedy to the generational lands and the overall economic structure, but now he was desperate to sell, sell, sell.

  Ward scrunched up his face and shook his head. “I believe his exact words were ‘Are you mad?’ Your solicitor has been fielding payment requests from your creditors for months. The only way for him to arrange a new lender would be to lie to them about the level of risk, and he isn’t going to do that for you, Stillman. And before you ask me again for money, my pockets are empty until my next allowance, and I’m surely not going to ask my parents to extend you credit. I am one folly away from them cutting me off completely.”

  Harry fell back into the chair, weak as reality descended like a blade at his throat.

  You did this, Harry said to himself for the thousandth time. You earned it, you pathetic wastrel. All the times his father had bludgeoned him with cruel words and predictions that Harry would amount to nothing rang in his ears. Only drink would make those memories stop. Harry felt the burning need for more rum, but this conversation needed to be finished first. Then he could chase the voices away.

  “And what of Malcolm? What did you hear about his intentions toward me?”

  Ward crossed his arms over his chest. “The only reason I can make any inquiries into your situation is because Malcolm does not know the name of your friend from the alley Saturday night. If that changes, he’ll find you here, and your time will be up. As it is, I worry your landlord would give up this address should Malcolm come around, though I pleaded with him not to.” He spied the decanter and pushed himself out of his chair in order to pour himself a glass.

  “You learned nothing?”

  Ward spread out his arms, a glass in one hand and the decanter in another. “What more is there to know than you are in default and full payment of your loan is due in twelve days?”

  Silence permeated the room, and Harry leaned forward, elbows on knees and hands in his hair. If he couldn’t divide the parcel, he would have to sell the estate in its entirety. An estate that had been in his family for four generations. An estate that was supposed to help provide for his sisters but hadn’t because Harry had needed every cent it produced to support his gambling habit. The thought brought a lump to his throat. He would lose everything . . . for nothing.

  “What of your uncle?” Ward asked as he dropped into his chair once again, the half-full glass in his hand. He finished the drink in one swallow, put the glass on the table beside his chair, and pulled a silver-plated snuffbox from his inside pocket. He took a moment to inhale first through his right nostril and then his left.

  Harry wished he dared ask for some himself, but a man’s snuff was sacre
d. Harry had not been able to afford his own for weeks, and then he’d sold the box—a mother-of-pearl oval imported from India and given to him by his mother on his twentieth birthday. He’d once owned such nice things. He’d once had people who cared for him enough to celebrate the day he’d been born into this world.

  Ward wriggled his nose like a rabbit and sniffed again to finish the routine, then looked at Harry expectantly.

  “My uncle will never lend me another farthing.” When Uncle Elliott had presented his financial plan to Harry last year, he’d said he would no longer contribute to the ruination of his family. And yet here was Harry, ruination all around him. If he went to his uncle in absolute humility this time, gracious and pleading, might his uncle be swayed? Would he believe Harry was truly at the end of his rope despite all the other times Harry had said that same thing?

  “I meant that perhaps it is time you reconsider the wedding inheritance,” Ward said.

  Was Harry desperate enough to do such a thing? And where would he begin to find a woman of genteel birth with good character, family, and manners? He could not remember the last society invitation he had received, but he knew most doors would never let him in. Young men were given some latitude in their behavior when they found themselves surrounded by the excess of London for the first time, but after six years, the underground had become Harry’s society. His connections consisted of club dwellers and drunks: men like him, whose reputations proceeded them like one of the hounds of hell.

  I have squandered everything, Harry thought darkly.

  Even if he were able to find a willing bride, Harry would make a terrible husband. Uncle Elliott believed that commitment and family connection would keep a person on a path to fulfillment and decency. If Harry could indeed focus on a family of his own, could he rise above and become the man his uncle thought he could be?

  There was a knock at the door, and Ward ordered a cold luncheon to be brought to the dining room as soon as possible, along with two large mugs of ale.

  When the door shut behind the footman, Ward cleared his throat. “There is one other option,” he said, watching Harry. “Lord Damion.”

  The momentary hope Harry felt at Ward proposing an additional solution deflated just as quickly. “Lord Damion is a phantom.”

  Ward shook his head. “When I hit dead ends with your solicitor, I tracked down Basham, who’d mentioned that Bartholomew Hopkins was back in London.”

  “Hopkins?” Harry repeated, trying to place the name within their circle of acquaintances. “That skinny little fop?”

  “He’s finished with pink satin breeches and high-heeled shoes, Stillman. He didn’t even have face powder when I found him at his house about an hour ago.”

  Harry snorted. Hopkins was a fool, whether he dressed the part or not. “Was it Lord Damion who told him to dress like a man now?”

  There had been a great deal of talk about Lord Damion when he first came on the underground lending scene a few years ago. Unlike the usual money-grubbers like Malcolm who slinked in and out of the shadows when a man needed money in a hurry, Lord Damion required an application process that included odd terms that referenced the Bible, if the rumors were to be believed.

  “You do not have so many options that you can afford to sneer at this one,” Ward reprimanded. “Hopkins confirmed that Lord Damion is not a phantom. He said that without his intercession, Hopkins would have thrown himself off London Bridge.”

  Harry stared into his hands, humbled. He was in no position to turn his back on any viable option. Selling his estate or pursuing an acceptable marriage could take months. Harry didn’t have months. He didn’t have weeks, and even if some miracle freed him from his debt to Malcolm, what did life hold for him once he’d made one of the only two extreme decisions left to him? No land or secure a good wife—what a choice.

  “Hopkins was a changed man, Harry,” Ward said, his tone tinged with respect for this man they had used to make sport of. “And to hear him talk, you would think Lord Damion was the prophet Moses himself leading Hopkins to the Promised Land.”

  Harry remembered that story. Moses had built a boat that saved his family when the floods came. Or, no, Moses was the man thrown into the lion’s den, wasn’t he? Harry shook his head in frustration. Why did people like those Bible stories so much anyway? They’d never made much sense to Harry.

  “What were the terms set by Lord Damion?”

  “Hopkins had to leave London for six months, write letters to the people he had lied to or cheated in the months leading up to his surrender, incur no additional debts, and either pay off the balance of the loan with five percent interest by the end of the year or sell his London house to Lord Damion for a hundred pounds. Hopkins is back in London to finalize the sale of the house since he was unable to raise the money otherwise.”

  “A hundred pounds for a house in Mayfair?” There was nothing magnanimous about Lord Damion if he was buying desperate people’s property at ridiculous prices.

  “No,” Ward said, shaking his head. “Hopkins found a buyer for the house who offered a fair price. Hopkins will pay off the debt to Lord Damion and use the remaining profits to improve his country estate. What’s more, he’s quite grateful to have two legs to stand on, along with the peace of mind of no longer owing anyone anything. He believes that without Lord Damion, he would have continued to chase winnings to pay his debts, which were only leading to more debt. Does that not sound familiar? He plans to focus his attention on his country estate from here forward, and he’s courting the daughter of a squire in his county.”

  Harry saw a flash of that kind of future, and it looked like freedom for a split second before his thoughts turned back to the bleak present. “How much did Lord Damion lend him?” Malcolm had been one of the few backstreet lenders willing to lend more than fifteen hundred pounds without collateral. Harry’s current debt to Malcolm, including the additional fees, was more than double that.

  “He did not give me a sum, but I have a feeling it was extreme. Maybe not as high as what you owe, but higher than some of the other lenders. Lord Damion’s terms seem meant to give a man a future rather than to bury him.” He pulled a paper from the inside pocket of his coat and tossed it onto the table between them. “Lord Damion’s solicitor manages the arrangements. This is his information should you want to see if your situation warrants Lord Damion’s notice. Hopkins says he takes only one of every ten men who apply.”

  Harry took the paper—Mr. G.R. Gordon of 16 Garner Street, London.

  “And now, after doing your business all afternoon without receiving a word of thanks,” Ward said, an edge in his words, “I am half starved. Join me in the dining room if you choose, but keep in mind that you cannot live in my parents’ house or continue to drink through their stores for much longer. Whether through Lord Damion or some other way, you must find a solution, and I have done all that I can do.”

  Ward left the room, and Harry immediately began a letter to Mr. Gordon.

  By the end of the day, Harry had received a response that included a list of information Mr. Gordon needed in order to continue. Over the next few days, a flurry of letters were sent back and forth, exposing the full account of Harry’s assets, debts, inheritances, and family connections. Each letter from Mr. Gordon ended with the same note: “Should any part of this be proven false in the due diligence of our work, all expectations will be forfeit.”

  Friday afternoon—nearly a week since outrunning Malcolm’s men—a note came from Mr. Gordon inviting Harry to meet with Lord Damion to finalize their agreement on Monday morning, alone.

  Harry sighed in relief. Earlier that very day, Harry had spotted a man in the shadows between two town houses on the other side of the street. He was dressed as a gentleman and reading the paper, but what gentleman read the paper outside a town house for over an hour?

  The thought of leaving the safety of the house for his appointment with Lord Damion terrified him, but Harry replied immediately that he woul
d be there. This madness had to come to an end, and Lord Damion seemed to be the only route left that would grant him a second chance to do better.

  Elliott Mayfield, Fifth Viscount of Howardsford, was reviewing accounts when Brookie brought him a note, his old hands trembling as they held the silver tray.

  “From London,” Brookie said. “Messenger’s waiting for a response.”

  “Really?” Elliott broke the seal quickly and unfolded the paper. He did not get many urgent letters from London. And he’d never had one where the messenger waited for a response.

  Dear Lord Howardsford,

  By way of introduction, I am Lord Damion, a nom de plume I use to protect my true identity in order for my work to move forward. The work of which I speak is to help dissolute men who have reached the end of their options through any number of vices, but most specifically, gambling. I function as a lender, for the most part, but with terms that require a change in lifestyle and behavior that I hope will then continue throughout the young men’s lives.

  To date, I have assisted eighteen men find a place of secure dignity, only two of whom have returned to their fetid ways. Most of the applicants have not yet destroyed every relationship to the point that they won’t be saved by some well-meaning relation should they go back to their poor choices. The necessary humility and determination it takes to start anew has no space to grow so long as these young men have any other mode of rescue.

  Your nephew, Harold Stillman, finds himself in a place where I believe my help can assist him to find a better way of life, which is my purpose in writing to you—his only relation in a position to rescue him, as you have in the past.

  Mr. Stillman has told me of an inheritance that awaits him should he enter into an approved marriage. I would like you to clarify the situation so I am sure I understand it. My help needs to reach him at a time when he is ready to spend the next several years putting his energy toward building a future, not biding his time until a future falls into his lap.