Unmasking the Duke, page 1
Unmasking the Duke
Pleasure Garden, Book 4
Mary Lancaster
© Copyright 2022 by Mary Lancaster
Text by Mary Lancaster
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
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Produced in the United States of America
First Edition February 2022
Kindle Edition
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All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Pleasure Garden Series
Unmasking the Hero (Book 1)
Unmasking Deception (Book 2)
Unmasking Sin (Book 3)
Unmasking the Duke (Book 4)
Unmasking the Thief (Book 5)
Crime & Passion Series
Mysterious Lover
Letters to a Lover
Dangerous Lover
The Husband Dilemma Series
How to Fool a Duke
Season of Scandal Series
Pursued by the Rake
Abandoned to the Prodigal
Married to the Rogue
Unmasked by her Lover
Imperial Season Series
Vienna Waltz
Vienna Woods
Vienna Dawn
Blackhaven Brides Series
The Wicked Baron
The Wicked Lady
The Wicked Rebel
The Wicked Husband
The Wicked Marquis
The Wicked Governess
The Wicked Spy
The Wicked Gypsy
The Wicked Wife
Wicked Christmas (A Novella)
The Wicked Waif
The Wicked Heir
The Wicked Captain
The Wicked Sister
Unmarriageable Series
The Deserted Heart
The Sinister Heart
The Vulgar Heart
The Broken Heart
The Weary Heart
The Secret Heart
Christmas Heart
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
Fed to the Lyon
De Wolfe Pack: The Series
The Wicked Wolfe
Vienna Wolfe
Also from Mary Lancaster
Madeleine
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Prologue
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
Epilogue
About Mary Lancaster
Prologue
Seven Dials, London
October 1800
The raid came out of nowhere, but any fool could see it was not the magistrate’s men who barged inside so suddenly. They ran immediately upstairs to the first-floor landing, where three once ornate, crumbling plaster arches gave access to different rooms, most with partially broken doors. Probably, several families lived in each.
Two men bolted out of the biggest room on the left, shouting and ready to fight. Unceremoniously, they were shoved back in.
The sounds of cracking fists and yelps of pain mingled with the rest of the chaos in the building. Children were crying, dogs barking, but curiously, no one came to the aid of their neighbor who was being robbed. A vast array of goods was quickly carried outside from the left-hand rooms—elegant furniture, porcelain vases, ornaments, gilt mirrors, silver cutlery, beautiful decorative boxes that might have contained jewels but were clearly valuable in themselves.
The neighbors who began to gather watched, wide-eyed, as the men carried their plunder out to the cart waiting below.
“He took all that from you, Bill?” asked the neighbor across the hall with some awe.
From his place in the middle of the big room, Bill Renwick grinned. He was a fierce-looking young fellow with a handsome if rather hard face and bright, intelligent eyes. “Mostly, Jimmie. I feel he owes me the rest for my trouble in taking it back.”
At his feet lay the bully of a man who lived in the rooms and his henchman, both unconscious. The only other occupant of the apartment seemed to be a dirty child, no more than two years old, who sat on a grubby mattress, watching silently and sucking on a filthy blanket. Renwick wondered why it didn’t cry.
The whole place stank, mostly of gin and tobacco, but also, more faintly, of human waste.
He scowled at the infant. “Where’s its ma, Jimmie?” he asked his friend across the hall.
“Maggie? Dead these last three months or so.”
The child was skin and bones, although its father was substantial enough. Worse, beneath the grime, old bruises and swollen bumps showed the unmistakable signs of not just rough handling but blows.
With a muttered curse, Renwick strode the few paces to the mattress and picked the infant up. It did smell. Its little bones felt so close to the skin they would break if he just squeezed. It did not even cry or protest when a stranger seized it, though its lower lip trembled in a way that pierced Renwick’s anger with pity.
“Is it his?” he demanded.
Jimmie glanced at his Sal, who said. “She was certainly poor Maggie’s.” She glanced at Jimmie, then held out her arms as she walked across the landing. “Give her here, Bill. She’ll do fine with our Toby and Vera.”
Bill seemed about to hand the child over, then frowned again. “He’ll just take her back or use it as an excuse against you. I’ll take her.”
“Don’t be daft, Bill. She ain’t a cat. What do you know about children? She needs a mother.”
“Then I’ll get her one. You’ve enough on your plate.” He marched out of the room, the child held somehow incongruously in his muscular arms. He paused on the landing to gaze around the gawkers. “If I was you,” he said, jerking his head back into the room he’d just left, “I’d get rid of the vermin before he wakes up. Any problem, send for me. Jimmie knows where to find me.”
As he stalked off, the last of his men falling in behind him, he looked at the infant in his arms. “Sal’s right,” he said ruefully. “You ain’t a cat.” And the child, no doubt in response to the first non-angry voice to address her in at least three months, smiled at him.
And Renwick was lost.
Chapter One
October 1818
Kitty Renwick adjusted her half-face mask, so that she could see out of the eyeholes and pulled the old blue domino cloak around herself. The lady smiling back at her from the looking glass was elegant and mysterious and nothing like her mundane self. Her own uncle would not recognize her.
She hoped.
Just for good measure, she drew the hood over her smooth, auburn hair and left the empty cottage.
Immediately, the faint hum of music and laughter that she was used to hearing at a distance grew louder, and excitement drew her on.
The path leading from the cottage to the main part of the pleasure gardens was
Kitty smiled in delight, for these were her precious, stolen moments when she could be anyone she wanted to be, from princess to wronged lady to fairytale creature, surrounded by beauty and chatter and laughter, and music and merriment. The Gardens were so different at night that she might never have walked these paths before.
Of course, she had, for she had lived here most of her life and worked here during the day, too, selling tickets, organizing plays and musicians, jugglers and fire-eaters and clowns to make the children laugh. She served drinks and ices, and meals and generally did whatever her uncle asked of her. And mostly, it was fun. Except she itched to see more.
The Gardens after dark had always been forbidden to her, even when she had grown up, although her male cousins, Rob and Dan, were not only allowed but commanded to be there. And so she was always forced to sneak out here during the public masked balls to satisfy her curiosity and her need of company. Not that she did so often, only when the loneliness grew unbearable.
And in truth, the Gardens at night were another world. Some men would look her up and down as she passed them, snatch at her if she wasn’t quick enough. Others would walk beside her, talk, and make her laugh. Sometimes, she would be adopted by a happy, loud group of men and women, and she would feel, briefly, part of their happy lives. Once or twice, she had even danced with the more respectful of the men who asked, and that had been strange, though quite entertaining.
The night was cold and sharp, the black velvet sky twinkling with stars, almost like a reflection of the garden lights below. Fascinated by this idea, Kitty climbed the path toward the lily pond looking upward more than straight ahead. Only when she reached the stone steps off the path toward the pond did she bring her attention back to her feet.
The lily pond was one of her favorite areas. Hidden from the path by boulders and greenery, it felt like a secret garden, almost separate from the rest. A small waterfall tumbled from above into the pond, and from there, a stream trickled downward. In the daytime, Kitty liked to sit here and think. In her occasional evening excursions, she nearly always paused a few moments before joining the busier areas and the ballroom itself.
Tonight, it was probably too cold to linger, and as she reached the top step, her heart lurched in shock, for someone else was already there. Hastily, she dropped her foot to the step below and began to creep back down. Solitary men in under-lit and isolated parts of the Gardens were rarely safe.
This one seemed large and well-dressed, a gentleman in evening clothes wearing no domino cloak—or mask, for he twirled it idly around one finger as he gazed into the pond. He was fair and handsome in profile, and when his head turned suddenly, all the breath seemed to leave her body at once.
It’s him.
He smiled, that charming, toe-curling smile that had dazzled her more than a year ago, now seemed to sweep through her like wildfire. He rose fluidly, just as if she were a lady deserving of his courtesy. He even bowed, and she wondered numbly if he ever did anything without that casual, entrancing elegance.
She had envisioned this moment so often, though not much in recent months as she had given up hope of it, and yet all she could do when faced with reality was stare at him like a great, stupid lump.
Quizzical amusement flickered across his face. “Would I be less appalling if I put on my mask? Or just got out of your way?”
“Of course not,” she said fervently. “You are not appalling at all.”
His lips twitched. “I shall have that inscribed on my tomb.”
“You cannot be thinking of death!” she said, alarmed.
“I wasn’t until your beautiful eyes shot my self-satisfaction through the heart.”
“You talk nonsense,” she observed, wary of being mocked. “And you can’t even see my eyes in this light.”
A teasing smile lurked on his sculpted lips. “I am willing to take a closer look if you would care to join me?” He crouched and held down his hand to help her up the last few steps.
She regarded that hand, smooth, elegant, well-manicured. A gentleman’s hand, which only made her conscious of her own rough fingers, which she whipped behind her back. “I expect you came here to be alone.”
“I am more than happy to be alone with you,” he said gravely.
She frowned. “Are you flirting with me?”
There was that smile again. “Would you mind?”
“No,” she admitted. “Though my uncle would.”
“Then it’s as well I don’t want to flirt with him.”
A breath of laughter escaped her, and seeing the answering gleam in his eyes, she took a deep breath and sank onto the top step. He resumed his seat on the boulder but leaned forward to face her, asking, “So what brings you to this quiet spot when there is music and dancing below?”
“It’s my favorite place in the Gardens. I come here to hide, usually.”
“Most people here use a mere mask for that.”
“Oh, the balls are different. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“I am intrigued.”
“You shouldn’t be. It’s not an interesting story. What brought you here?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Oh, dear. Then I am interrupting your intrigue.”
He smiled. “No, it is not that kind of a search.”
“What other kind of search brings you away from all the people in the Gardens?”
“I was just exploring, between searches, you might say.” His gaze was steadily on her face. “You know, even masked, you look vaguely familiar. Do we know each other?”
“Don’t be silly.” It didn’t even enter her head that he would remember her from one brief encounter when all she had done was bring food and drink to his table—and plant a playing card up the sleeve of another gentleman. “You and I would never move in the same company.”
“And yet here we are.”
She could not help smiling at that. Here they were indeed, and in that moment, there was nowhere else in the world she would rather be.
He stretched one foot in front of him. “I am told Maida is the place to meet people of all walks of life.”
“Yes, but I can’t imagine you need to do so.”
“Is it a question of need?” he asked, apparently surprised.
“I believe so. In gentlemen of your class.”
A wicked smile crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. “Are you accusing me of coming here to seduce women of lower standing and of dubious morals to match my own?”
“I just said I couldn’t imagine it. Though I’m not sure what other search might bring you here.”
“I’m looking around. Perhaps you know the owner, Mr. Renwick.”
She dragged her gaze free, examining the pond lilies instead. “I do, as it happens.”
“I’m told he has a daughter.”
“No, he has two sons and a niece.”
“Perhaps you know the niece?”
“Why would I?” She met his gaze fiercely, knowing she should leave and yet unwilling to walk away from her first real encounter with him. “Because I am clearly of similar station?”
“You are very conscious of station,” he observed.
“Aren’t you?” she retorted.
“Lord, no, I don’t have to be,” he said flippantly. “Being so immeasurably above everyone except God and royalty, it never enters my head. Would you care to dance, my nymph? It’s a cold evening for sitting still outside.” He stood and brushed past her to stand on the step below where she sat.
She glanced at him fleetingly. He seemed a long way up. “I don’t dance very well. I’ll probably trample all over your feet.”
“I might trample all over yours, though I admit mine are a bigger target.”
She laughed and took his proffered hand without thought. Neither of them wore gloves, but if he noticed the roughness of her skin, he gave no sign of it, merely drew her to her feet and placed her hand in the crook of his arm as they descended the steps to the path and walked down toward the main pavilion.
