The Virgin Who Humbled Lord Haslemere by Anna Bradley

Chapter One

Covent Garden, London

January 1795

“Five guineas, Haslemere. Put ’em into Perry’s hat, and he’ll see your rider mounted.”

Benedict Harcourt, Lord Haslemere, tossed the handful of gold coins in his fist into Lord Peregrine’s hat, then fell to one knee in the street and peered over his shoulder. “Right then, Perry. I’m ready. Get her up. There’s a good fellow.”

“Ready, love?” Perry plucked up the girl waiting on the pavement and settled her on Benedict’s back. “Hold on tight, now. Don’t want a cracked skull, eh?”

The girl took hold of Benedict’s hair with a grip that made his eyes water, and kicked her heels into his flanks, squealing with delight when he pawed at the ground and snorted. “Look at mine, Susannah! He’s like a real horse!”

“More like an ass.” Lord Harrington steadied his own rider and smirked at Benedict. “He’s got the face of one, if you ask me.”

“No one did ask you, Harrington. Now, be quiet, if you please, while I confer with my jockey regarding our strategy.” Benedict craned his neck to wink at the little red-headed chit on his back, then caught her legs to still her before she could unman him with her frenzied kicking.

Harrington snorted. “What bloody strategy? Run down to the bottom of the lane and back, and don’t lose your rider. Whoever makes it back first wins the lot.”

“Only the worst sort of blackguard curses in front of a young lady, Harrington.” Benedict shot his friend a disgusted look. “Mind your manners.”

Harrington rolled his eyes at Benedict, but he tipped his hat to the girls with a charming smile. “Beg pardon, ladies. I forgot myself.”

Both girls giggled madly at this, and Benedict’s rider, still overcome with excitement, gave his hair another vicious tug. He winced and reached up to disentangle her fingers. “Hands on my head, Sarah, but not in my hair, or you’ll snatch me bald. Lock your legs around my waist, so you don’t take a tumble. Yes, there we are. That’s how a proper jockey does it.”

The coins clinked together as Perry took up the hat for safekeeping. “Right, then. On your marks, gentlemen.”

“Damn,” Harrington said, already forgetting his pledge not to curse. “If only we had a pistol, to set the thing off properly.”

“Clever idea, Harrington, shooting a pistol into the air at midnight in the middle of Covent Garden. What could go wrong?”

Harrington frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

No, he wouldn’t have, but Benedict hadn’t invited Harrington along because he was a deep thinker. He was amusing enough, as far as London rogues went, but he had one of the thickest heads in England.

Perry waved Benedict over to the right side of the street and Harrington to the left, then took his place between them. “On my count, then, gentlemen, and, er…young ladies. On your marks, get set…go!”

A footrace had seemed like a harmless enough diversion at first, but like many of Benedict’s antics, it proved to be trickier than he’d anticipated. The lane was narrow, the cobbles slick and uneven, and both he and Harrington were a trifle sotted. They careened forward, their boots slipping from underneath them, and just missed slamming into each other and toppling their jockeys to the ground.

“Go on, faster!” Sarah jabbed her heels into Benedict’s stomach, squealing with glee as he raced down the lane. His heart shot into his throat when Harrington stumbled against him at the turn, visions of blood and twisted, childish limbs racing through his head, but they’d come too far to put a stop to it now, so he dug in and shot past Harrington to clear a safe pathway for himself and Sarah, his legs shaking and lungs burning.

“They’re coming into the final stretch,” Perry shouted as they drew closer. “And it’s…Haslemere and Sarah, by a nose! That big beak of yours finally came in handy, eh Haslemere? Too bad, Harrington!”

Harrington came to a halt beside Benedict, still panting. “Blast! Susannah and I had it up until that last bit. Damn you and your long legs, Haslemere. Shall we go again? A ten guinea wager this time?”

“Yes, yes, let’s go again!” Sarah clapped her hands. “That were such good fun!”

“Ten guineas?” Susannah breathed. “Cor, guv. That’s a lot of blunt, that is.”

“You’re quite right, Susannah. It is a lot of blunt. Such high stakes demand a more adventurous race. What say you, Haslemere?”

Benedict recognized the gleam in Harrington’s eyes, and his own eyes narrowed. “Determined to break a bone tonight, Harrington?”

Harrington, who’d had a great deal more port than Benedict, shrugged off his concerns. “Nonsense, it’s safe enough. Ten guineas, but this time our jockeys ride on our shoulders, not our backs.”

“Are you mad?” Benedict peeled a squirming, clinging Sarah off his back. “I nearly dropped her as it was.”

“Oh, come now, Haslemere. It’s fine. Look, I’ll show you.” Harrington crouched down, and Susannah slid off his back. “That’s right, love. Now, lift her onto my shoulders, will you, Perry?”

Perry looked doubtful, but he grasped Susannah around her waist and lifted her onto Harrington’s shoulders. “Hold on to her, now, Harrington. Get a good grip on her legs, and don’t drop her.”

“What do you take me for, Perry? A proper stallion never loses his rider.” Harrington eased to a standing position with Susannah balanced on his shoulders, and turned to Benedict with a triumphant smile. “Now, stop grumbling, and get your rider mounted. Up you go, Sarah. Kneel down, Haslemere.”

Benedict didn’t move. “No. Not a chance, Harrington.”

“For God’s sake, Haslemere, what’s the trouble?” Harrington’s lips curled in the wicked grin that had wreaked untold havoc on London’s belles. “She wants to ride again, don’t you, Sarah?”

“Of course, she wants to ride. She’s a child, and doesn’t know any better, but you do, Harrington. These are little girls, not china dolls. If you drop her, you can’t patch her back together with twine and paste.”

Harrington huffed out a breath, but after a bit of sulking he gave in, and reached up to lift Susannah down from his shoulders. “You’re a dreadful bore, Haslemere.”

Benedict slapped him on the back. “I’ll think of some other amusement to entertain you.”

“You’d better,” Harrington grumbled. “Not White’s either, or any of the gaming hells, or I’ll be quite cross with you. I want something new.”

“I’ve never failed you before, have I? Now, Perry. The hat, if you please.” Benedict held out his hand, and Perry handed over the hat. “My dear young ladies, we thank you for your delightful company this evening.” Benedict turned to the two girls and offered each of them an extravagant bow. “You’re both admirable jockeys, and you’ve earned your guineas.”

Susannah snatched up the coin Benedict offered her quicker than a frog with a juicy fly on its tongue, but Sarah made no move to take hers. She stared up at Benedict, her chin wobbling, and then…

Disaster struck. Sarah’s eye twitched, her face screwed up, her mouth opened, and a deafening howl broke loose from her lips.

Harrington slapped his hands over his ears. “Good Lord. What’s the matter with her? What’s she doing?”

Perry peered down at the little girl. “Erm, she seems to be crying.”

Harrington leaned down to get a closer look at her, then straightened with a wise nod. “I do believe you’re right, Perry. My sisters cry on occasion, and it looks just like that.”

Benedict stared down at Sarah, horrified. “For God’s sakes, of course she’s crying, you half-wits. But why?”

Susannah had been studying her guinea, as suspicious as any moneylender, but now she turned to Benedict with a shrug. “She wants to go for another horse ride.”

“I want to go again!” Sarah stamped her foot, tears streaming down her cheeks. “That cove there said we might.”

“But it isn’t safe, sweetheart,” Benedict protested. “Lord Harrington here is sure to drop you, and you’ll end up with a cracked skull.”

“Me? You’re the one who’d have dropped her, Haslemere.”

“She doesn’t care about a cracked skull.” Susannah balanced her guinea in her palm, as if weighing it, then shoved it into her skirt pocket. “Oh, quit yer fussing Sarah, and take yer guinea before these coves shove off.”

But Sarah didn’t stop fussing, not even when Benedict offered her the coin. He’d seen females weep before, but kisses and flattery—or jewels in the direst of cases—usually quieted them quickly enough. Little girls were not, it seemed, as easily soothed. “What do we do?”

“I’ve no idea, but I wish you luck with it, Haslemere.” Harrington pounded him on the back, then turned away. “We’ll see you at Gentleman Jackson’s tomorrow, eh?”

Benedict grabbed his coat sleeve. “Tomorrow! You’re leaving me here?”

Harrington shrugged him off. “You’re the one who made her cry. I would have taken them for another ride.”

“Damn it, Harrington.”

Benedict made another grab for him, but Harrington stepped neatly out of his way, and shot him an infuriating grin over his shoulder. “Good luck, Haslemere.”

“Bloody cowards!” Benedict shouted after them, but they disappeared around the corner without a backward glance. “Come now, Sarah, don’t cry,” he pleaded, crouching down in the street in front of the weeping little girl. “Here’s another guinea, all right?”

“Just a minute, guv. I never got my second ride, neither,” Susannah reminded him, holding out her hand.

“With pleasure, Susannah. As I said, you earned every shilling of it.” Benedict was happy to give them the whole lot, if only Sarah would stop crying. He’d never been able to bear it when his younger sister, Jane, wept, and now this little chit had him wrapped around her finger, too.

He pressed the coin into Sarah’s palm. “Now, Sarah, dry your eyes, won’t you? Here’s a nice guinea. Take it. You’re a splendid jockey, and I beg your pardon for disappointing you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. At the reminder of her bitter disappointment, Sarah let loose with a deafening wail that made Benedict’s ears ring. Good Lord, it sounded as if someone were murdering the girl.

In desperation, he dropped to his knees on the wet street and took Sarah gently by her shoulders. “Right, then, how about this? I’ll give you another ride on my back, shall I? Down to the bottom of the lane and back, and then you’ll be off with your guineas.”

Sarah’s shrieks trailed off into wet sniffles. Bloody good thing, too, because another few minutes of that, and every night watchman in London would be upon them. “Ye’ll take me for another ride?”

“One more ride only, yes. Help her up, will you, Susannah?” Best get the thing done quickly, before the Runners appeared and took him up for teasing little girls.

Benedict offered Sarah his back, then rose to his feet when he felt her thin arms wrap around his neck. “Right, then. Hold on tight, now. Here we go.”

* * * *

Sweet, precious, blessed silence.

There was a reason some sage or other had described silence as golden. Georgiana couldn’t recall precisely who’d said it, but one of the ancient Greeks, most likely. They were the cleverest ones.

She rested her head against the closed door at her back and surveyed her bedchamber with what she was certain must be a very unbecoming but satisfied smirk on her lips.

Everything was in its place. She’d sneaked upstairs after midmorning lessons to arrange her kingdom—that is, her queendom—just the way she liked it, without a single thought to anyone’s comfort but her own. It wasn’t often she had no one to please but herself, and she intended to wallow in her privacy like a sweet little baby bird snuggled in its nest.

A sweet baby bird that’s pushed all of its baby bird siblings over the edge, that is.

She’d folded the coverlet on her bed into precise thirds, leaving a neat corner of the snowy white linens peeking out invitingly. She’d arranged her candle just so, and had a second one secreted away in her table in case she got swept up in her book and burned through the first one. Nothing was more tedious than having to drag oneself downstairs to fetch another candle.

In the table beside the bed, tucked into the drawer next to the candle, was Mrs. Meeke’s Count St. Blancard. Georgiana had languished for months on the waiting list at Lane’s Circulating Library for it. Now her turn had come at last, and just at the right time.

She crossed the room and sank into her bed, sighing with contentment as she pulled the coverlet up to her chin.

Heaven.She’d been dreaming of this moment all day long—

There was a brisk knock, then a voice floated through the door. “Georgiana?”

It was Winnie Browning, Lady Clifford’s housekeeper.

Georgiana froze, eyes widening, then dove under the covers and pulled them over her head.

“Sorry to disturb, dear,” Winnie called. “But you’d better come at once.”

Come at once? But Count St. Blancard was waiting! A lady didn’t keep a count wait—

“Georgiana?” Another knock, louder this time. “Are you in there?”

Georgiana buried her face in her pillow, defeated.

So close…

“Yes, I’m here.” There was no sense in fighting it. “Come in, Winnie.”

Winnie opened the door, her tea towel crumpled in her hands. “I’ve just been upstairs, and two of the girls are missing.”

“What, again? Let me guess. It’s Sarah and Susannah, isn’t it?” Georgiana wasn’t sure why she bothered to ask. It was always Sarah and Susannah.

“Yes, the wicked things. Lady Clifford is already at her wit’s end with those two. I don’t like to think what she’ll do if she comes home and finds they’ve sneaked out again.”

Georgiana was tempted to find out precisely what Lady Clifford would do, but if there was trouble afoot, Sarah and Susannah were sure to find it, and this was London. There was always trouble afoot. “Why does this always happen when Emma’s not here?”

Emma could coax a terrified mouse from its hole and straight into the jaws of a waiting cat. She was much better at herding recalcitrant schoolgirls than Georgiana, who was more likely to shove a piece of heavy furniture in front of the mouse hole, dust her hands off and be done with it.

“I’m sorry, dear, but Emma and Lady Clifford are off on some mysterious errand, and Daniel with them. I’m afraid it’ll have to be you.”

Georgiana cast one last despairing glance at her book before giving it up for lost. “It would serve Sarah and Susannah right if I left them to their fate. It would teach them a lesson.”

Winnie merely raised an eyebrow. Georgiana had made similar threats before without following through on them, and they both knew this wouldn’t be any different.

“Oh, all right. I’m going.” Georgiana threw the coverlet back, marched across her bedchamber into the hallway, and up the stairs to the third floor, where the Clifford School’s youngest pupils had their bedchambers. There were six girls to a room up here instead of four, a circumstance that led to one-third more than the usual amount of mischief.

Georgiana had done the calculations herself.

A burst of smothered laughter met her ears from the other side of the door, and she charged into the bedchamber without knocking. “Well, good evening, girls. My, you’re all quite cheerful tonight. Pray don’t let me interrupt the joke.”

Her brisk steps were loud in the hush that fell over the room. One, two, and…yes, there was little Caroline, on the other side of the door. That made three, and then Abby, over by the window, was four. Four heads, where there should be six. She was missing two heads—that is, two girls. “All right, then. Let’s have it out, shall we? Where have Sarah and Susannah gone this time?”

Four pairs of guilty eyes opened wide before Abby, the oldest and by far the most cunning, spoke up. “Wot, are Sarah and Susannah gone, Miss Harley? Why, we didn’t even notice, did we girls?”

“Is that so?” Georgiana crossed her arms over her chest. Like most street urchins, her girls were accomplished liars, but she’d been both a street urchin and a liar herself once upon a time, and she knew how to pry their secrets loose. “Let’s ask Caroline, shall we? Come here.” Georgiana beckoned to Caroline and pointed to the floor in front of her. “Did you see Sarah and Susannah tonight?”

Caroline was the youngest and tenderest of the girls, and the most easily worked upon. Occasionally Georgiana felt a pang of guilt for targeting the weakest animal in the herd, but when it came to wild schoolgirls, ruthlessness was a necessity. It was either devour or be devoured.

Caroline cast an uneasy look at Abby, but she came forward as she was bid, her lower lip trembling. Georgiana peered down at her, and let the silence stretch until the child began to squirm. “Well, Caroline?”

“Yes, Miss Harley. I saw ’em.”

“Ah, I thought someone must have. When did you see them last? No, look at me, not at Abby.” Georgiana turned Caroline’s face toward her with a finger under her chin.

“At supper, Miss Harley.”

Supper! That was hours ago. “What, not since then?”

“Nay, miss.” Caroline darted an anxious look at Abby. “They ducked out the front door when Mrs. Browning went back to the kitchen. They said they fancied a walk, and—”

Abby let out a warning hiss, but Joanna pointed an accusing finger at her. “Abby went with them, Miss Harley! She sneaked back in just before Mrs. Browning came up. She just told us Sarah and Susannah went to Covent Garden.”

“Covent Garden!” Dash it, those foolish girls! What did they think they were doing, sneaking off to Covent Garden after dark? London was rife with scoundrels and villains, but no place more so than Covent Garden. “Where in Covent Garden?”

Caroline heard the tight note in Georgiana’s voice and began to cry, but before she could get her lungs into it, Abby, who could see the truth was going to come out despite her best efforts, pushed Caroline aside. “Stop your sniveling, Caroline, and let me tell it. Right, so it were like this, Miss Harley. We were on Henrietta Street, not doing any harm, mind ye, just watching the coves going in an’ out of the hells and begging a penny or two. Not bothering no one, minding our own business, like, when—”

“Minding your own business, were you?” Georgiana snorted. “I suppose if I check your pockets, I won’t find any silk handkerchiefs, then?”

Abby took a hasty step backward, out of Georgiana’s reach. “Minding our own business, like I said, when out comes these three toffs, and oh, they were pretty ones, Miss Harley, I tell you! Fancy, with their waistcoats all shiny embroidered everywhere, and gold watch fobs and everything.”

Oh, no. This was growing worse every minute. Of all the scoundrels one might encounter in Covent Garden, fashionable rakes were the worst. They saw everything and everyone they came across as playthings for their exclusive amusement. “Aristocrats?”

“Aye, I’d say so, miss. Viscounts, p’haps, or earls. Lords, leastways. So, these toffs, they see Sarah and Susannah hanging about, and they ask them if they want to make a guinea each.”

“A guinea?” Georgiana gaped at Abby in horror.

“Aye, a guinea. They were in their cups and laughing a good deal, so it was hard to tell what for, but Susannah and Sarah went off with them quick enough, as soon as they mentioned the guineas.”

Well, of course they did. A guinea was a fortune to girls like Sarah and Susannah, who’d hardly ever had two pence to rub together, never mind a guinea each. A frisson of dread tripped up Georgiana’s spine. If these rakes were offering that much, what did they expect from the girls in return? Sarah and Susannah were hardly more than children, but to a certain type of man, it didn’t matter how old the girls were.

Or howyoung.

The thought turned Georgiana’s stomach. “Where did the lords take them, Abby? Did you see which way they went?”

“Round the corner to Maiden Lane. But there’s no need to take on so, Miss Harley. Sarah and Susannah know what they’re about. Why, they’re probably on their way back here now, with that toff’s gold fob in one of their pockets.”

The other girls nodded, and Georgiana wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. Because they’d managed to survive the streets this long, these girls thought they were invincible, but Georgiana knew the odds of Sarah and Susannah coming away unscathed from an encounter with three drunken rakes were poor, indeed. She’d spent too many years of her own childhood on the London streets to have any illusions about a girl’s chances of survival.

She wasn’t fool enough to think she could rescue every waif in London, but these girls were hers. She’d plucked them off the street herself, one after the next, much as Lady Clifford had plucked her off the street all those years ago. They were hergirls, and God knew if she didn’t take care of them, no one else would.

“No one sets a single toe outside this door. Do you hear me?” Georgiana looked from one girl to the next, and if she could judge by their expressions, she must have looked fierce, indeed. “Not one single toe.”

The girls nodded, their eyes wide. “Yes, Miss Harley.”

Georgiana whirled around, ran back to her bedchamber to tug on some clothes, then hurried down the stairs. She paused in the entryway to snatch her coat and hat off the hook, then rushed out the door and into the night in the direction of Covent Garden.

It wasn’t far, just over a mile, but it was damp and cold, and the streets were slick. She skidded along, shivering in the icy January fog, curses and prayers dropping from her lips.

Those foolish, foolish girls! Please let them be safe…

When she reached Bedford Street without stepping in any puddles of blood or stumbling over any lifeless bodies, she forced herself to calm. It was all right. Of course it was. The girls were naughty, but they weren’t naïve. They were simply on another adventure, that was all. She’d be with them in just another moment. She’d drag them back to the school by their ears, and all would be well.

By the time she turned the corner onto Maiden Lane, she’d just about convinced herself there wasn’t a thing to worry about.

That was when she heard the scream.