disgrace.
London, July 1803
Rafe Densmore, Fifth Baron of Densmore, marched up the stone staircase of Mrs Ross’s unimposing town house off Gracechurch Street. He rapped his knuckles against the door and the black ribbon hanging from the brass knocker fluttered in the breeze. He eyed it with a frown, wondering if the ancient courtesan’s sudden demise would be to his benefit or his detriment. She’d been perfectly alive and well when she’d penned the letter in his pocket, summoning him to her sad doorstep.
The old shrew.
He shifted back and forth on his feet. Deep in his boot, his toe caught the beginning of a hole in one stocking.
Damned cheap wool. If he employed a valet, the man would do something about it. Perhaps he might charm Mrs Linton, his landlady, into mending it for him. Though if her needlework proved anything like what she did to the meagre meals she deigned to deliver to his room, he might as well mend it himself. He wondered if her meals were the true extent of her culinary skills or revenge for his grossly outstanding rent.
The hackney horse waiting at the kerb whinnied, failing to disturb the thin driver leaning against the vehicle, smoking a long pipe. The smoke swirled around his head before the wind carried it over the back of his stocky grey animal.
Rafe eyed them both. Whoever had hired the poor beast and his horse must still be inside and it was time for them to draw their business to a close. He hadn’t fought so hard to reach Mrs Ross, or to raise the blunt needed to meet her demands, only to be stalled on the doorstep by a dawdling caller.
He raised his fist to knock again when the bolt scraped and the door creaked open to reveal the drooping eyes of a withered old butler. Rafe brushed past him and into the small entrance hall, his throat tightening from the thick dust covering every surface. A spider scurried behind a dark painting. Compared to this house, his current lodgings seemed breathtakingly opulent.
‘Lord Densmore to see Mr Nettles,’ Rafe announced. ‘He’s expecting me.’
‘Yes, of course. This way, my lord.’ The butler shuffled across the hall.
Rafe followed before something along the edge of his vision brought him to a halt at the morning-room door.
A tall, voluptuous woman draped in gauzy black silk stood by the cold fireplace. She didn’t move or greet him, but remained silent beneath the dark veil covering her face. A slow smile spread across Rafe’s lips, his fever in obtaining the register momentarily dampened. Despite her silence, something about her called to him and he moved closer to the doorway. The slight tensing of her shoulders made him stop, but not turn away. Her dress, dark and wispy like smoke, swirled around her curves. She clutched a book to her chest. The leather tome obscured the full roundness of her breasts, except for the creamy tops which were just visible beneath her black-net chemisette.
‘Good morning.’ He swept off his hat and dropped into a low bow, noting the few white petals scattered on the faded carpet at her feet, probably the remains of Mrs Ross’s funeral. By her own account, Mrs Ross was a recluse, but apparently she wasn’t completely devoid of friends to mourn her.
And what a delightful friend this is. Rafe straightened, admiring the woman’s generous measure of height. Heat flooded through him as he imagined tucking the statuesque creature into the curve of his body and brushing his lips along the bit of exposed neck caressed by her short veil. He tapped his fingers against his thigh, sensing her height would match his perfectly, the way Cornelia’s once did.
His hand tightened into a fist, the sharp edge of betrayal cooling his ardour. He relaxed his fingers and struggled to keep smiling. Why the deuce was he thinking of Cornelia? He’d left that business in France where, with any luck, it would stay.
He focused on the woman’s face, trying to catch a glimpse of her features beneath the thick veil. Nothing was visible except the flush of skin and the faint red of full lips. Hopefully, her features were as appealing as the hint of body beneath the close-cut French style of her dress. If the solicitor proved problematic with the register, this woman might be more obliging.
‘If you please, my lord,’ the butler urged.
Rafe stroked the tall woman with one last glance, reluctantly offering a parting nod before following the butler to a room near the back of the house.
They reached the end of the hallway and the butler pushed open the door to an old study, the bare, sagging shelves held up by dust. A round man with spectacles sat at a desk, reviewing stacks of yellowed papers. He stood as Rafe entered, a wide smile drawing back the jowls framing his mouth.
‘Mr Nettles, Lord Densmore to see you,’ the butler rasped.
‘Lord Densmore, what a pleasure.’ A few loose threads from his cuff waved as the man motioned Rafe to the wood chair in front of the desk. ‘Sit, please.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t arrive when my letter said I would, but business in France delayed me.’ It damn near killed me. If he hadn’t enjoyed a small winning streak at the tables, he’d still be stuck in the stinking place. ‘My condolences on Mrs Ross’s passing.’
‘Yes, poor woman. Takes her first trip outside in over twenty years and some runaway carriage strikes her. Terrible business.’ The solicitor tutted as he lowered himself into his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight. ‘I suppose she was right to stay hidden away for so many years.’
‘If would seem so.’ If only the carriage had finished off the wretched blackmailer before she’d mailed the blasted letter. Then who knew whose hands the register might have fallen into. At least now there existed the chance of buying the entire rotten thing, not just the page with his late father’s name on it, and the proof of his treason. ‘Mrs Ross wrote to me while I was in Paris, offering to sell me a certain book of hers.’
‘Yes, I know of it. Not a very interesting read. Nothing but lists of nobility and numbers next to their names. Probably accounts from the men who paid for her company in her youth. According to the butler, she was quite a beauty back then.’ The man chuckled, his round belly bouncing up and down beneath his wrinkled waistcoat. Then his jowls dropped, giving him the look of an innocent bloodhound waiting for its master’s command. ‘Why do you want such a thing?’
‘I have my reasons.’ Rafe didn’t elaborate, unwilling to enlighten the man on the true nature of the register.
‘Yes, I suppose you do.’ The mask of innocence slipped just a bit, reminding Rafe of an exceptional card player he’d once bested in France whose ability to bluff almost matched his. Then the solicitor rubbed his chins, the look gone. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t arrive a hair sooner.’
Fear snaked up his spine, all thoughts of gambling or what the puffy man might know about the register gone. Obtaining it was almost the only thing he’d thought about since landing in Dover. He’d torn through Wealthstone Manor in search of anything left of value to sell to obtain it. The delightful set of silver spoons he’d discovered in the attic, wedged in their wooden box between two trunks and somehow missed by his father, had just been sold this morning.
Rafe shifted forward in the chair, his hand tight on the arm. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It seems you weren’t the only one Mrs Ross wrote to about the register. Judging from her papers, she’d been in straitened circumstances for some time and was forced to part with a number of possessions. There are still outstanding debts and I’ll have a hard time settling them with what valuables are left.’ He grabbed a crinkled paper with each hand, flapping them in the air. ‘Though it would be a might easier to sort through it all if she hadn’t called herself Mrs Ross at one time, Mrs Taylor in later years and now Mrs Ross again. I wish she’d made up her mind about who she was.’
‘And the book?’ Rafe tensed, eager for him to get on with it.
‘A young woman arrived just before you did, a French Comtesse, though she