Anything but a Gentleman Read online

  Anything but a Gentleman

  ELISA BRADEN

  Copyright 2017 by Elisa Braden

  Kindle Direct Publishing Edition

  Cover design by Kim Killion at The Killion Group, Inc.

  Couple photo by Period Images, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  For more information about the author, visit www.elisabraden.com.

  *~*~*

  BOOKS BY ELISA BRADEN

  Rescued from Ruin Series

  The Madness of Viscount Atherbourne (Book One)

  The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Book Two)

  Desperately Seeking a Scoundrel (Book Three)

  The Devil Is a Marquess (Book Four)

  When a Girl Loves an Earl (Book Five)

  Twelve Nights as His Mistress (Novella – Book Six)

  Confessions of a Dangerous Lord (Book Seven)

  Anything but a Gentleman (Book Eight)

  *~*~*

  There’s much more to come in the Rescued from Ruin series! Connect with Elisa through Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for her free email newsletter, so you don’t miss a single release!

  *~*~*

  DEDICATION

  To Mom. Because “not today” never meant forever.

  You left me room for daydreaming. Now look where it got me.

  *~*~*

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Books by Elisa Braden

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  More from Elisa Braden

  About the Author

  *~*~*

  CHAPTER ONE

  “If you must speak like a night soil man, at least choose one vulgar pattern rather than several. Your particular blend of London dockworker and Cumberland rustic may be comprehensible to lowborn ruffians, but it tries the nerves of those with superior breeding.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter explaining the merits of proper diction.

  October 26, 1819

  London

  “I keep it? The whole lot.” Thick, dark grime upon the boy’s face failed to mask his skepticism. He snorted and adjusted his cap. The hat was, if anything, filthier than the boy himself. “Gammon, that.” He aimed a grimy thumb over his shoulder at the unusually large fellow standing guard at a door across the mews. “Ee’s like to crush me ’ead betwixt his fingers. Worse. Bugger me.” The boy spit on the cobblestones. “That why ye say I can keep it all? Aye. Ye aim to sell me arse. Lady, I might be a rum diver, but I ain’t no—”

  Although she’d comprehended approximately half of the boy’s diatribe, Augusta Widmore stopped him with a tsk. “The terms of our agreement have not changed since we first discussed them. You may keep the coin I give you and you may keep whatever you … obtain from Mr. Duff.” She straightened and gazed her challenge down at the grimy youth. “Provided you are as swift and skilled as you claim.”

  Glittering, cynical eyes narrowed. “Nobody better.”

  She managed to translate the second word—“beh-ah”—from the context of their conversation, but his speech was swift and vulgar, his accent a series of stunted grunts and coiling vowels. A different language, really. No one spoke this way in Hampshire. No one of her acquaintance, at any rate.

  How she longed to return. A fortnight in London was more than sufficient to send her fleeing back to her tiny cottage with its rustling chestnut trees and scent of beeswax.

  She raised her chin. “A bold claim. It would seem you have some proving to do.”

  He sniffed and glared over his shoulder. “Ee catches me, I want double.”

  “No.”

  “’Aff now, ’aff later. Double, like I said.”

  “And I said no. You made a promise. I expect you to honor it, as I will mine.”

  He snorted rudely.

  “Something in your throat, perhaps?”

  The boy mumbled and shifted, casting dubious glances in Mr. Duff’s direction. With a neck that showed no discernable narrowing from a sizable head, the guard at the back door of the gaming club was an intimidating sight. Augusta understood the boy’s hesitation. If Mr. Duff caught him, his fate might be dire, indeed.

  She inched past the wheel of the cart they stood behind, taking care to pull her skirts clear of a malodorous pile before sidling closer to the boy. “He is large, yes.”

  Another snort. “Aye, lady. That ’ee is.”

  “His size will make him slow.”

  The boy swallowed and gave a jerky nod.

  “Be certain he notices. Be certain he follows you.”

  A deep sigh shuddered from a chest that was far too thin.

  She gritted her teeth and smothered her conscience. It must be done. “And, boy?”

  “Aye?”

  “Be certain he does not catch you.”

  The boy pulled his hat tighter on his head, hitched up rough, dirty breeches, and swiped at his nose with a grimy wrist. “Aye.” The single syllable cracked in the middle.

  She nearly stopped him. Nearly reached out to grasp the bony arm, but he’d already moved away, crossing the cobblestones into the shadow of red bricks and dark timbers.

  Augusta castigated herself for her moment of weakness. Sympathy for pickpockets? She could ill afford such softheaded rubbish.

  Watching the boy dart between a departing delivery wagon and a stack of wine barrels, she moved around the rear of the cart, struggling to draw a full breath without gagging.

  Good heavens. Even in one of the cleanest, wealthiest parts of town, the filth was staggering. Again, she thought of her Hampshire cottage. The gated garden where she grew mint and rosemary. The little parlor with its tidy hearth. The bookcase stocked with what remained of her father’s books.

  She would kiss every inch of beeswax-polished wood when she returned. But for now, she would remain in London and do what must be done. For Phoebe’s sake.

  Everything was for Phoebe’s sake. It always had been.

  As Mr. Duff shouted an order at one of the gaming club’s grooms, and the wagon rattled out of sight into the alley that led onto St. James, the busy mews b
egan to quiet. It was a pattern she’d noted over the past week—this hour of the morning, fewer patrons came and went, and Mr. Duff could often be found alone at the service entrance.

  Now was her best chance.

  A shadow slunk between two barrels and crouched beside the wooden steps leading up to the door.

  The boy was good. Small and quick. He would complete his task without being caught, Augusta assured herself. And if he did not, if Mr. Duff tried to hurt him …

  Her eyes darted to a long, iron pry bar lying on the rim of the cart.

  Well, she could not allow him to be injured. She prayed the boy was as stealthy as he’d claimed.

  “Ey! What the devil? Come ’ere, ye little thief!”

  The boy ducked a giant, swiping paw, sprang sideways, and sprinted past the stable. Mr. Duff lumbered after him with heavy thuds and a string of insults for the boy’s parentage. As they passed Augusta’s position and headed toward the alley, Mr. Duff’s long strides closed the distance between them. They turned the corner and disappeared.

  She listened, struggling to hear past her quickened breaths and pounding heart. No squeals from the boy. No sounds of thrashing.

  She shot a glance at the wooden steps and unguarded door.

  Now, Augusta. Now.

  She rushed across the mews, making no attempt to hide. Speed was more important. She had to get inside before Mr. Duff returned.

  She climbed the steps, nearly tripping herself on her own petticoats. Grasping the knob, she twisted and stumbled inside. Leaned back against the door. Blinked. Breathed. Examined her surroundings—or tried to, at least. It was dark. She was in a long passage, she thought, but there was little light.

  Straightening, she listened. In the distance, she heard servants chattering. Masculine laughter. A feminine taunt. Footsteps.

  She smelled … something delicious. Onions and roasting meat. Yeasty bread. A wine sauce of some sort.

  Her stomach growled. She hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks.

  As her eyes accustomed to the dark, she spotted an opening off the corridor. If her information was correct, she needed to locate the service stairs and make her way up three floors. A clank sounded. A man shouted a curse. She darted ahead and ducked blindly into the opening.

  And halted.

  A maid descended the stairs, her gray skirts swinging, her steps brisk and cheerful. The girl’s arms were piled high with linens, so her attention was on her feet.

  Quickly, Augusta flattened herself along one wall, hoping the deep shadows would hide her.

  The maid drew closer. She was whispering beneath her breath. Counting.

  “Seventy-nine. Eighty.” She paused as she navigated the bottom step. Her feet shuffled. Then the count continued. “Eighty-one.”

  Mere inches away, she halted again. Her skirts whispered against Augusta’s. She shifted the load of linens that towered past her mobcap and whispered, “Or is it eighty-two?” A scoff. “Who will care? It’s just a wager with Big Annie, ye silly goose. Now, if it were Mr. Reaver …” The girl shuddered, her stack tilting this way and that. Apparently, Mr. Reaver was a good deal more exacting than Big Annie.

  Augusta could believe it. She’d learned a lot about the proprietor of Reaver’s over the past ten days. And none of it boded well for her present task.

  His reputation made him sound like a dark god. Hades, perhaps—the guardian of the underworld. Few ever saw him. No one was granted an audience unless he requested it, and when he requested it, the reasons were usually … unpleasant.

  The owner of the most exclusive gaming establishment in all of London had not become one of the richest men in all of England by being charitable. No, indeed. Sebastian Reaver—former pugilist, tavern owner, and general ruffian—always collected upon his markers. One way or another.

  Most spoke of him in forbidding tones. His staff. The club’s members. The men who delivered coal and the ones who lit the lamps in the club’s quiet square off St. James. Everyone spoke about Mr. Reaver as if he were the devil himself.

  Which was why, although her heart pounded while she waited for the little maid with the big stack of linens to pass, Augusta feared discovery far less than what lay ahead.

  One step at a time, Augusta. One step at a time.

  The maid resumed counting. “Eighty-five. Eighty-seven. Eighty-nine.”

  There, now. She’d turned the corner.

  Augusta released a breath, her head swimming. With renewed purpose, she climbed the narrow wooden stairs, pausing on the landing to listen for voices. Again, all was quiet. Hurrying now, she raced up one flight after the next, clutching her skirts higher than was proper. Finally, she reached the floor where she’d been assured she would find Mr. Reaver’s private office. She cracked open the door that led into a hushed, white-paneled corridor. Cringing as the boards creaked beneath her feet, she glanced to either side. Empty. Relief was a warm wash. She rushed down the corridor, searching frantically for the hidden door. It should be tucked inside a recess, just past the seventh sconce. Most who managed to visit this floor, her source had claimed, thought it the entrance to a closet or equally innocuous space. He had not used the word “innocuous,” of course. Much like the pickpocket she’d hired to distract Mr. Duff, her source had scarcely spoken a word of proper English, weighing her coins in his palm and muttering about “daft chits what need a man ta take ’em in ’and.”

  Augusta begged to differ. She did not need a man. Not for herself, at any rate.

  Passing the fifth sconce, she stopped.

  Footsteps. A refined masculine voice with admirable diction. It could only be Mr. Shaw, the club’s majordomo.

  Oh, dear God. She spun in place, searching frantically for the recess and finding only white paneling and sporadic doors. Ahead, dividing the corridor into two sections was a cased opening where a door must have once been. She rushed toward it, hoping the framed protrusion would hide her well enough. But just before she reached it, the long paneled wall—designed to appear flat until one stood in this precise spot—gave way to a recess.

  Inside the recess was a dark wood door.

  As Mr. Shaw’s voice grew louder, his brisk footsteps closer, she closed her eyes briefly. Said a quick prayer. And opened the door.

  The antechamber was smaller than she’d imagined. Hushed and plain, it contained only a small, L-shaped desk and a rather large set of winged chairs. From floor to ceiling along one wall stood a series of wooden drawers with numbered labels topped by shelves of ledgers. All the ledgers were uniform in size, their spines labeled with a code of numbers and dashes. Upon the desk sat two lamps, both brightly lit. On the far wall was another door.

  This was it. Her reason for coming to London, spending her coins on pickpockets and bribable servants, risking her reputation and her safety.

  Because she must.

  Because Phoebe would suffer if she did not.

  She smoothed her hair with a gloved hand. Adjusted the folds of her brown woolen pelisse. Gathered her breath and courage.

  Opened the door to the devil’s lair. And stepped inside without so much as a by-your-leave.

  The room was not what she’d expected. Neither was he.

  “Need a new ink pot, man,” rumbled the black-haired giant wearing wire-rimmed spectacles. He sat behind an oak desk as plain, massive, and neatly arranged as the room itself. He did not look up from his ledger, instead giving the nib of his pen a disgusted glare. “Ran through another one this morning.”

  The man’s voice was so deep, it vibrated through the plank floors and up into her bones. She could not place his accent. It sounded similar to the pickpocket’s, but much more comprehensible with rounder O’s, flatter A’s, and a bit of a burr. Northern, perhaps, near the Scottish border? At least she could understand him. That would make this conversation easier.

  From where she stood, she could see the white of his shirt, the gray of his waistcoat, the black slash of his brows. She could measure the width of his sho
ulders and the muscles of his arms as he wrote. His wrists were thick and solid. His hands looked bigger than her head.

  She wondered if she might disgrace herself by swooning.

  Good God. The man was twice a normal human’s size. He was wider than Mr. Duff and much, much more muscular. His forearms, dusted liberally with hair the same black as the close-shorn strands upon his head, bulged and flexed and rippled in fascinating fashion.

  He could not be real. Giants were a myth.

  “Frelling, either speak or leave. We’ve discussed this.”

  Mr. Frelling was Mr. Reaver’s secretary. Ordinarily, the man would be ensconced in the antechamber, but Augusta had learned of Frelling’s fondness for taking his new wife to Gunter’s Tea Shop on Tuesday mornings. Evidently, this was news to Mr. Reaver.

  Delicately, she cleared her throat.

  His pen did not stop. He dipped it into the waning ink pot.

  Swallowing hard, she forced herself to push away from the door and step further into the room. Closer to … him. “Mr. Reaver, there is a matter we must discuss.”

  He kept writing.

  “It is most urgent.”

  The pen stilled. Thick, long, blunt fingers placed it back into its stand with a decisive click. Then, they removed the silver-rimmed spectacles from his nose and laid them gently upon the oak desk. He straightened in his chair and flexed his right hand as though it pained him. Finally, he looked at her.

  She lost her breath. His eyes were like onyx.

  “Unless you are here delivering ink, we have nothing to discuss. Nothing whatever.”

  She moved three steps closer. “My name is—”

  “I know who you are.”

  “—Miss Augusta Widmore. One of your club’s members is a gentleman with whom I am acquainted. Lord Glassington. He … owes you a substantial sum.”

  His features were strangely raw. Heavy brows. Piercing black eyes, cold and deep. A hawkish nose with a crook at the bridge like a road cut in two. His jaw was wide and square, the bones of his cheeks sharp and unforgiving. Darkness shadowed the lower half of his face where his whiskers threatened to grow. He’d been ruthless with the hair upon his head, cutting it severely short. She imagined he’d be equally ruthless with his beard. And with people, for that matter.