From Rags to Kisses by Shana Galen

One

London 1818

Aidan hoped he hadn’t made a colossal mistake. He’d come to Lady Birtwistle’s ball to speak with the prime minister. Having just acquired a new shipping venture, Aidan hoped to discuss a bill that would ease tariffs with the prime minister. But he’d either come too early or too late. The prime minister was not in attendance.

He didn’t regret making an appearance. He’d fought with Lady Birtwistle’s younger brother Rafe during the war. Several of his former comrades-in-arms were in attendance, including the Duke of Mayne and Colin FitzRoy. At least FitzRoy’s wife was here, which meant Colin must be about somewhere. But where was the prime minister?

“You could at least pretend to enjoy yourself,” Lady Birtwistle said, coming to stand beside him, glass of champagne in hand.

“I’m having a wonderful evening,” Aidan said, raising his own untouched glass in a salute. “This is surely the best ball of the Season.”

“Liar.” She said it with a grin. “This is not the best ball of the Season, and you are not having a wonderful evening.” Her blue eyes shone with humor. “You are looking for someone because you have business to attend to. Do you never take an evening off?”

Only someone who had never known a day of hunger or faced a night sleeping under a bridge in the cold would think of taking an evening off for leisure. “I’ll take an evening off when I’m dead,” he said. “Have you seen Lord Liverpool?”

She frowned at him then her countenance brightened as she spotted someone she knew. “Lord Chamberlayne, do bring your lovely betrothed over here.” A handsome man with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a long angular face approached. He wore a sleepy expression and had a woman on his arm.

Aidan began to move away, but Lady Birtwistle grasped his elbow in a vice-like grip. “Lord Chamberlayne, might I present Mr. Sterling?”

Aidan bowed and Chamberlayne’s eyes widened slightly. “Sterling! I was hoping to meet you. I heard you uncovered some interesting items in a ground floor room that had been walled over in your town house. But where are my manners? Lady Birtwistle, Mr. Sterling, might I present my bride to be, Miss Tate.”

Aidan bowed to her, glancing at her briefly and then straightening as though he’d been hit by lightning.

And perhaps he had. The last decade faded away, and he stared at his past. She’d been staring at him as well—those same gray eyes that had always been so cool and assessing were scrutinizing him now. When their gazes met, he saw not surprise but curiosity. She was waiting to see what he’d do. He wanted to shout her name and pull her into his arms.

He knew he’d hurt her. Still, he knew Jenny and when she was done with someone or something, she was done. She’d given him his marching orders, and he’d known as he walked out of Spitalfields that he’d never see her again.

He’d missed her terribly. He’d felt like half a person for months, like the other half of him had been cut off. But as the years passed, he also told himself not to think of her. People in Spitalfields didn’t live long lives. If sickness didn’t kill them, poverty would. When he’d returned from the war, he’d spent weeks looking for her to no avail. He’d told himself she was dead and in a better place now. He didn’t want to know how she’d died—hanging or murder or sickness. It was better not to know.

But now he realized it hadn’t been better, only easier. Because here she was, and his elation at seeing her was almost as fierce as the pain.

One look at her face certainly helped Aidan control his surprise. She didn’t look any happier to see him than she’d been that last night together.

“A pleasure,” Aidan murmured belatedly as their hostess complimented Jenny’s ivory gown and diamond parure. Aidan wondered if she’d stolen them.

“Have you set a date?” Lady Birtwistle asked.

“Not yet,” Jenny said, her voice a rich alto. “We were thinking of late summer, weren’t we, darling?” She looked at the viscount who smiled and nodded.

Her voice was familiar and yet novel. She spoke slower than he remembered, her words chosen carefully. It took him a moment to realize she was masking her accent. She’d done a good job of it too. He could hardly hear the rookeries at all.

“But I’ve been reading about your discovery,” Chamberlayne said, obviously much more interested in the first floor of Aidan’s town house than his impending nuptials. “The papers were vague, but they mentioned items from the seventeenth century. Perhaps some even older.”

Aidan was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. Jenny Tate was here, in Lady Birtwistle’s ballroom. And she was engaged to be married to Viscount Chamberlayne. Was it a swindle? Was it part of a plan to steal Lady Birtwistle’s...what? Jenny’s parure looked more expensive than the one Lady Birtwistle wore, and the more he looked at the diamonds, the more he was certain they were not paste but every bit as valuable as they looked.

Aidan forced his eyes away from the jewelry set. “I’m not an expert, but the items do look quite old. I’ll have them appraised before I sell them, of course. Miss Tate—”

“Ah, you need an appraiser then,” the viscount interrupted.

Aidan glanced at him. “I suppose I do. Do you have one you recommend?”

“Oh, absolutely. I recommend myself, if that’s not too gauche. I’m the best there is—well, perhaps Miss Tate is better.” He smiled at her. “Do call on me if you are interested in having me take a look, Sterling. I’d be honored.” He seemed to spot someone behind Aidan and nodded at whoever it was. “Excuse me for a moment, would you?” he said to Jenny.

“Of course.”

He left her side and Lady Birtwistle drew Jenny away to introduce her to some other friends. Aidan watched her go, but Jenny never looked back at him. He supposed he deserved that. He hadn’t looked back when he’d left her all those years ago.

Part of him wanted to go after her, but he needed to think of someone besides himself. Seeking her out would only cause her betrothed to ask questions and could ruin the new life she’d built for herself. He couldn’t be the person responsible for destroying her happiness. Not again.

A selfless man would put her out of his mind. He'd done it before, but that was when he thought she was dead. Not when she was in the same room as him and very much alive.

He spent a quarter hour wandering in a daze before he was finally able to remind himself he was no longer a boy, but a man. With a supreme effort, he fixed his thoughts on business and kept them there.

Aidan made a circuit of the ball once again, checking the card room for the prime minister, and, not finding him, decided to try other venues. He’d left the damn discussion for the bill too late. The vote was tomorrow. He should have sought out the prime minister before now. He paused to check his pocket watch and the next thing he knew he was hauled backward into a curtained alcove.

He would have defended himself if he hadn’t known who’d cornered—er, alcoved him.

“Wot are ye doing ‘ere?” Jenny hissed in her real accent, the one he remembered. The urge to take her in his arms rose again, and he pushed it down. She’d probably punch him if he dared touch her. He would have to be content with being close to her, and the alcove was small.

“I think the better question is what are you doing here,” he said, his first instinct to defend himself.

She drew back, as though offended. “I know wot ye think. I’m ‘ere to pinch the nobs?”

“I admit the thought had crossed my mind. Jenny, I haven’t seen you in ten years—”

“Thirteen.”

“—thirteen years and you show up here claiming to be engaged to a viscount.”

“I am engaged to Roland, and I don’t need you mucking it up.”

His heart fell. He didn’t know why. He should be happy for her.

“So will ye keep yer potato ‘ole shut or no?”

Aidan stared at her. He’d always thought she was pretty, even dirty and smelling like the rubbish pile she’d slept in the previous night. She had those gray eyes that could look cold and hard when she was angry but also very blue when she smiled and her cheeks pinkened. But he’d had no idea she could look like she looked now. She was still small and slim, but there was no doubt she was a woman. All that dark, dark hair was lifted off her face and shoulders to reveal a graceful neck and alabaster skin. The white gown was simple but expensive and delicate. The gauzy sleeves fluttered over rounded shoulders and arms and the scalloped bodice curved over rounded breasts. The high waist meant he couldn’t see much of her waist or legs, but he remembered her wearing trousers often enough. She’d had a small waist and shapely legs.

“Wot are ye staring at? Surprised I look like one of yer ladies?”

“I tried to help you,” he said, voice lowering.

She shook her head. “I didn’t want yer pity then and I don’t want it now.”

He’d been such a fool to ever suggest she become a servant in his uncle’s house. Even then he’d known she would never do it, and if she had, she would have been sacked in a week. Jenny was no one’s lackey, and she didn’t abide by anyone’s rules but her own. He’d just been so desperate to save her. Clearly, she had saved herself—as usual. “I didn’t offer pity, and you know it,” he said because he had never pitied her.

“Charity.” She made a face that brought him right back to the streets again. “But it was my fault for thinking we were friends. Ye always thought ye were better than me. Walked away and never came back.”

“I did come back. I looked for you.”

Her eyes widened in what he thought was genuine surprise. And then they narrowed again. “Sure ye did. No matter. It was too late.”

“I came as soon as I could.” Aidan reminded himself to lower his voice. “I spent years in the army. I was risking life and limb—”

She waved a hand. “Will ye keep yer potato ‘ole shut or no?”

He gave her a long look. “I’ll keep my potato hole shut.”

She nodded and straightened. “Thank you, sir,” she said, her façade back in place. “And might I suggest we avoid each other if we’re ever in company again?”

“You sound ridiculous,” he said.

“Must be a bit like hearing yourself.” She began to move past him, but he caught her arm. He didn’t grasp it tightly. She could easily shake him off, but she paused, turned her head, and looked at him. He saw the challenge in her eyes, and God knew he’d always liked a challenge. He leaned forward, anticipating the feel of her lips under his, the way she kissed as though it might be the last thing she ever did. The way she did everything as though it were the last time wrecked him. But just as his mouth brushed hers, she put a hand on his chest, staying him.

“I told you, sir. I am betrothed to Lord Chamberlayne.” And she parted the curtains and disappeared back into the ball.

Aidan didn’t move, partly because he didn’t want to be seen emerging right after her. Partly because his erection would have made his appearance even more scandalous. Instead, he leaned a shoulder against the wall and took a breath and then another.

It wasn’t until he arrived home an hour later that he realized he’d forgotten all about the prime minister.

***

ROLAND SAT DOWN INthe chair across from Jenny and buttered a piece of toast. They often breakfasted together at his town house. They worked there together as well when they weren’t called away to the countryside to paw through the contents of an old castle or a newly discovered trunk in the attic of a deceased great-grandmother. Jenny was aware most men of the upper class would have disdained work of any sort, but Roland was obsessed with antiquities, especially anything Roman. He’d dragged Jenny to the middle of more than one windswept field in the interior of England to inspect an item a farmer found that might be a Roman coin or a piece of pottery.

Jenny hadn’t minded. For a woman who’d never been out of London, she had traveled a great deal these past twelve years and seen much of the world. It was a big world, much bigger than she’d ever supposed, and yet she liked her little corner of it best.

“You didn’t tell me you knew Aidan Sterling,” Roland said, nibbling his toast.

She shrugged and tried to ignore the old anger that welled up in her whenever she thought about him. “Didn’t realize the Aidan Sterling I knew was the same one in all the papers.” The Aidan Sterling she’d known would have starved to death or been killed by one gang or other if she hadn’t stepped in to help him. Who would have thought he would one day emerge as one of the wealthiest men in England?

“You almost jumped out of your skin when Lady Birtwistle introduced you last night. How do you know him, dear girl?”

She would have answered, but the door opened then and Mr. Oscar Lexum strolled in, wearing Roland’s banyan and a sleepy smile. His light brown hair was tousled, and he looked as though he’d spent a thoroughly enjoyable night. He leaned down, kissed Roland on the cheek, and then moved to Jenny to do the same. “Am I interrupting?” he asked.

“Always,” Roland said, “but you’re so pretty we tolerate it.”

Oscar Lexum was pretty. He had unruly curls and green eyes and full lips. He was the son of a nobody, like she, but his nobody earned a bit more blunt, and Oscar had an education. He fancied himself an artist, and Roland had met him at a museum in Paris. Like any reputable artist, Lexum suffered for his art. He’d been poor and hungry, traits immensely appealing to Roland, who liked to save people. Jenny knew that from first-hand experience. But while Roland had wanted her for a business partner, his intentions toward Oscar had been wholly different. Jenny had watched as Oscar and Roland entered dining rooms or drawing rooms. Every woman’s eye was instantly drawn to one or both of the men. Little did the women know, the men only had eyes for each other.

“I heard you were brilliant at the ball last night,” Oscar told her. He hadn’t attended, having not been invited and unable to attend as Roland’s betrothed, though he fit that role more than Jenny ever would.

“I think we fooled them,” she said, sipping her tea.

“She didn’t drop a single H,” Roland said. “She was flawless. The only problem might be Sterling. Will he keep your secret, do you think?”

“Sterling?” Oscar asked, filling his plate and taking it to his usual place beside Roland. “Who is Sterling?”

“Aidan Sterling,” Roland told him. “The man who owns most of London and half the rest of the world. Apparently, our Miss Tate knows the man and never even breathed a word. And she knows how much I want to get my hands on those antiquities found buried away in his town house.”

“I told ye I didn’t know they were the same man. When I knew ‘im, ‘e were so thin a breeze would have blown ‘im over and even the beggars felt sorry for ‘im.” And that was as much as she wanted to say about the man.

Roland lifted his brows. “Are you saying he owes you a debt?”

“Did you save his life?” Oscar asked.

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” They’d saved each other, and in the end, he’d saved himself—and only himself. But in the early days, she had done more saving than he, to be sure.

“You must have known him during the lost years,” Roland said. “That’s what the newspaper men call them, at any rate. The years after his father died, and he disappeared. Then his uncle found him, and he went into the army.”

She nodded. “ ‘E didn’t talk about ‘is father much, but ‘e mentioned ‘is father was one of the nobs. Not that I was surprised. ‘E talked like one of them.”

“You should be practicing your dialect too,” Roland chided. Jenny refrained from rolling her eyes, but just barely. “His father was indeed one of the nobs, as you say. He was the Earl of Cranbourne. Sterling was said to be a bastard he got off a pretty chambermaid, but the earl acknowledged the baby. I never knew his father, but I’ve seen his uncle a time or two, and Sterling is definitely a Cranbourne.”

“Whoever he is,” Jenny said in her best upper-class accent, “I had a word with him last night and ‘e—he—promised to keep his potato—”

Roland raised a brow and Oscar smiled.

“He promised never to breathe a word of our former acquaintance.”

Oscar clapped. “Oh, well done!”

“With only a month left in the Season,” she said, “I doubt we will see him again.” But she knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

“Never say so,” Roland chided her. “I want a look in those trunks of his. Quinnell!” Roland raised his voice, and a moment later, the butler entered.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Send for my solicitor, posthaste, will you? There’s a good man.” He looked back at Jenny and Oscar. “I want to know what clubs Sterling belongs to, what invitations he’s accepted, and who he keeps for a mistress. We absolutely must see him again, and this time we need him to agree to let us appraise those treasures of his.”

“He might let her see his treasures,” Oscar said with a smile.

Jenny did roll her eyes now. “I’ve already seen his treasures.”

“Really?” Roland’s eyes went wide. “You were lovers.”

“I was seventeen and he was sixteen. Calling us lovers is putting a sheen on it.”

“Was he your first?” Oscar asked.

“Oscar!” Roland chided him then looked at Jenny. “Was he?”

“A lady never kisses and tells,” she said.

“Now she wants to be a lady.”

Roland nodded his agreement. “This does make things more interesting.” He tapped his chin. “I don’t see Sterling as a particularly sentimental man, but he’s loyal. He’s always in the company of that troop he fought with in the war. Perhaps we can use loyalty to secure access to the find.”

“Roland,” Jenny said, “there are other jobs we can take. There’s a stack of correspondence on your desk, all of it from people who will pay for you to appraise their jewelry or paintings.”

He waved a hand. “Trinkets. I want Sterling’s find. I have a good feeling about it. Quinnell!”

Jenny rose and left Roland to his machinations. She wanted no more talk of Aidan Sterling. Although she didn’t reside at Roland’s town house—she had a flat not far away—she felt at home there. Judging by the gleam in Roland’s eye, it would be at least an hour before any real work for the day would begin. So she started up a set of marble stairs that gradually narrowed and became merely serviceable and wooden. They ended at an unpainted wood door. She took the key from the hook on the wall beside the door and unlocked it, stepping out into the midday sun shining down on the town house roof.

Unlike most town houses, the roof of Roland’s was flat and encircled by a brick wall painted white, like the outside of the house. Plants and small trees circled the perimeter and flower boxes added pinks and purples and whites to the green. In one corner stood a large aviary, well shaded by several trees and an awning. Jenny could hear the pigeons cooing almost as soon as she stepped onto the rooftop. She made her way to the aviary, opened the door, and stepped back as several of the homing pigeons flew down from their boxes and hopped out onto the rooftop. She watched the gray-and-black birds peck around the flowers and trees for insects, the iridescent feathers on their neck gleaming in the sun. Until she had met Roland, she had not known people kept pigeons. She had seen them as scavengers, like herself.

But Roland had trained his pigeons to return home, and whenever he traveled, he took several pigeons with him so he could send messages to her or his solicitor in London. It was much faster than the mail. Jenny even took pigeons home with her some evenings when she was working on an artifact so she could send her findings back quickly.

The door to the roof opened and Oscar stepped out. He immediately shielded his eyes. “It’s too bright,” he complained. “How do you stand it?”

“I like the daylight,” she said. “It’s easier to stomach if ye go to bed before dawn.”

“So says the belle of the ball.” He sat in one of the groupings of chairs and a pigeon flew up to his knee. He stroked the bird gently, keeping his eyes on the bird as he spoke. “So Aidan Sterling. I hear he’s handsome.”

“If ye like that sort,” she said.

“He’s tall with dark hair, dark eyes, and millions of pounds. Who doesn’t like that sort?”

“Ye forget that ‘e only cares about blunt. For four years we were mates and then one day ‘e ‘as the opportunity to get out, and it’s like ‘e never knew me.” She lifted a metal watering can and strolled to one of the trees, tipping the can to the soil. “Ye can’t trust a man like that.”

“Rollie isn’t asking you to trust him, just appraise his artifacts.”

She moved to the next tree. “I’d rather stay away. Don’t want to get mixed up with ‘im. No one knows my past, and I don’t want nobody to know.”

“Darling, no one has more invested in keeping your past a secret than I do. The sooner you are wedded to Rollie the better. Already your betrothal has quashed all the whispers that he’s a sodomite. Once he marries you, we’ll all breathe easier.”

Jenny set the empty watering can down and went to fetch another. “The nobs last night licked the betrothal up like it were cream,” she said. “Ye ‘ave nothing to worry about.”

“Jenny,” Oscar said, his voice so serious that she looked up from the flowers she was watering. “I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about you. You know I never wanted Rollie to agree to marry you.”

She hadn’t actually known that. She had gone to the two men together to propose—so to speak—that she marry Roland and become Viscountess Chamberlayne. Jenny had thought it hilarious at first. Her, a viscountess?

But Roland had taken her seriously. A few weeks before he’d shown her a story in the paper that didn’t mention him by name, but which gave enough hints to indicate it was him. The story implied Roland had a preference for bedding men. That was true, but Jenny didn’t see how it was anyone’s business. Roland had explained that buggery was a hanging offense. Of course, as a nobleman his punishment was less severe, but Oscar could be hung if they were caught. Roland didn’t think he and Oscar would be safe unless he married. Other men with his preferences had done so and continued on much as they had done before, albeit with caution and discretion.

Jenny had decided then and there to marry him. Roland promised if she did so, she would become the viscountess and be well provided for, even if he should die before her. Jenny had learned never to depend on anyone else, and she didn’t depend on Viscount Chamberlayne. But if she were married to him—in name only, of course—the law said he had to provide for her. And if there was one thing Jenny had found immutable and constant in her life, it was the law. This marriage was her chance to ensure financial security for the rest of her life. What did she care if it was a marriage of convenience to a man who did not love her? She didn’t love him either, but they were friends and she trusted Roland, and that was enough.

“I didn’t think it was fair to you,” Oscar said.

“Why not?” Jenny asked.

“Because you’ll be shackling yourself to a man you don’t love for the rest of your life.”

“It’s not like I want to marry some other cove,” she said. “I’m thirty, well past the age to marry, not that anyone is asking.”

“Men might ask if you ever went out in public. You’re very beautiful for someone so ancient.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. Oscar was three and twenty and liked to tease Roland and Jenny about their advanced ages.

“Now that you’re attending balls and the theater and taking your nose out of every musty book in the library, you might find more than one man you’d like to know better.”

“Roland said once we’re married, I can take any lovers I choose and pass the bastards off as ‘is.” Indeed, he thought the idea of a bastard inheriting the Chamberlayne name and title vastly amusing. Perfect revenge on my arse of a father, he’d said.

“I know what he said. What we said.” Oscar stood. “But I honestly thought you were quizzing us when you asked. And then when Rollie said yes, I worried that you only went along because you feel obligated.”

Jenny stilled. Her obligation to Roland was one subject she did not like to discuss. It made her emotional, and she didn’t like emotions. She waved her hand. “That ‘as nothing to do with it.”

“But of course, it does. He saved your life, so to speak. He pulled you out of the gutter.”

She pointed a finger at him. “I’d pulled myself out of the gutter long before I met ‘im.”

“You know what I mean.”

She did, and she had felt she owed Roland in those first few years. But since then, she’d learned everything he had to teach and more. Her skills at appraisal had earned Roland pots of money. He hadn’t cared about the money so much as the antiquities, but her skills had made his name respected by some of the best in the field. Now he was routinely called in to museums and by private collectors to examine new finds, especially Roman pieces. Jenny hadn’t suggested the arrangement because she felt she owed Roland anything. She’d proposed because she wanted security and...well, the rest wasn’t Oscar’s business.

“Ye can rest easy then if that’s wot’s troubling ye. I didn’t agree out of obligation. I didn’t ask ‘im to marry me out of obligation either.”

Oscar tilted his head, looking very much like a puppy trying to understand a new command. “Then why did you ask?”

She laughed and bent to lift one of the pigeons at her feet. “The blunt, of course.”

Oscar smiled. “He does have plenty.” He was obviously letting the matter go, but Jenny got the feeling he didn’t really believe her.

She released the pigeon. “I should go down. Want me to close the aviary or will ye?”

“I’ll do it. You go down and start on your work. The pigeons pay more attention to me than either of you do once you have an old coin in front of you.”

He was right, she thought as she started down the steps. Both of them could lose track of time once they began studying an artifact. And that sort of focus and attention was exactly what she needed today.