Regency High Society Vol 7: A Reputable Rake / The Heart's Wager / The Venetian's Mistress / The Gambler's Heart. Diane Gaston

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СКАЧАТЬ shook his head. ‘Some ruffians. No one I know.’

      Sloane ran a ragged hand through his hair. He swung around to the footmen. ‘Where the devil were you when this happened? Are you not supposed to protect them?’

      One of the footmen met his challenge. ‘We were doin’ the work of the house, sir. None of us were around the drawing room. I chased after them, but they were too far ahead. I saw the carriage, but I could not catch up to it.’

      Sloane said, ‘Would you recognise the vehicle?’

      ‘The type at least, sir. It were a landaulet I saw, sir. Shabby it was. Might have been a second one as well. I cannot say.’

      ‘Would you recognise the one you saw?’ Sloane asked.

      The footman nodded vigorously. ‘Indeed I would, sir.’

      ‘Excellent,’ Sloane said. ‘I need you to change out of your livery into clothes that will not get you noticed. We are going to search for that landaulet.’

      ‘Yes, sir!’ The man hurried out.

      Putting his hands on his hips, Sloane looked at the others in the room. ‘Who else knows anything?’

      Miss Moore released the maid. ‘I was in the room. Five men rushed in and just grabbed them. They were looking for four girls. “Four, she said”, I heard one of them say.’

      ‘She?’ Sloane repeated.

      ‘Yes, I am sure he said “she”.’ Miss Moore gave a vague shake of her head. ‘I wonder if it was Mary they wanted. Not Morgana.’

      ‘Where is Mary?’ Sloane looked around the room.

      ‘Mary eloped with Mr Duprey,’ Miss Moore explained, a hint of a smile flashing across her worried face.

      With Duprey? Sloane thought. Bravo for her, but who would have guessed Robert Duprey capable of such a thing?

      Sloane pressed a hand to his forehead. ‘It must be the glove maker.’

      ‘Oh, yes, new gloves. Very nice. Very nice indeed,’ said Morgana’s grandmother, rocking in her chair and smiling.

      Sloane frowned. ‘We must plan carefully.’

      It was a cellar room, a room to store Mrs Rice’s wine—cool, dark, and with walls so thick no one above them could hear a thing. It also had a door with a very big lock on the outside. They had been imprisoned there for hours.

      Rose rubbed her arms against the chill. ‘Where are Lucy and Katy, do you suppose?’

      Morgana paced the small area back and forth. ‘In the upper rooms, I imagine. I suspect Mrs Rice will be putting them to work tonight. If she put enough fear into both of them, that is.’

      Rose wiped a tear from her eye. ‘It sounded like they got a beating.’

      Before they’d been locked in the cellar, they’d heard Lucy’s cries and Katy’s string of obscenities. Morgana’s stomach clenched with the memory and with hunger. She and Rose had not been given any food since being dragged through a nearly hidden door underneath the glove shop.

      ‘Why did they not make us do the work, too?’ asked Rose. ‘I do not understand it.’

      ‘I convinced them you are a virgin.’ Morgana kept pacing. ‘They knew better of Lucy and Katy.’

      Rose looked over at her. ‘But why should that matter? They don’t want me to stay a virgin, not if I am to be made to do what Lucy and Katy are going to do.’

      ‘There are gentlemen who would pay much to bed a virgin, especially one as pretty as you. I suspect Mrs Rice will be taking bids for you.’

      ‘Bids?’ Rose shivered. ‘It is too awful.’

      Morgana ignored the pain from the bruises on her legs and arms. She touched her cheek. One of the men had hit her hard before Mrs Rice yelled at him for spoiling the merchandise. The spot still stung when she touched it. The pain would not prevent her from putting up another fight. She would not quietly do Mrs Rice’s bidding.

      ‘I am, you know,’ Rose said.

      ‘You are what?’ Morgana continued pacing.

      ‘A virgin.’

      She stopped. ‘You are?’ Morgana had always thought Rose came to the courtesan school already ruined, like the others.

      Rose nodded.

      Morgana was mystified. ‘But why desire to be a courtesan unless you…?’

      ‘I didn’t,’ Rose said. ‘I never desired to be one of those types of ladies.’

      Morgana gaped at her. ‘Why did you come to me, then?’

      Rose gave a wan smile. ‘I overheard Katy and Mary talking in the street. I knew they were talking about lessons from a lady, as you are a lady, to be sure. So I thought you would teach me some pretty behaviour, like ladies have, and that is what you have done.’

      Morgana still stared. ‘But pretty behaviour for what? Why did you want to learn such things?’

      ‘Some of the things I did not wish t’learn.’ Rose shook her head. Then her eyes filled with tears. ‘More than anything, I want to be a songstress. The kind who has posters all over town to advertise her singing. The kind Vauxhall or Covent Garden or some such place will pay a lot of money and the newspapers will write pretty things about.’

      ‘A songstress?’

      A tear trickled down her flawlessly perfect cheek. ‘I—I would have had employment, too. I met Mr Hook at Vauxhall and again at the masquerade. He wanted to hire me.’

      Morgana was too taken aback to address the girl’s tears. ‘Who is Mr Hook?’

      Rose gave a loud sniffle. ‘He is the composer of songs and organist at Vauxhall. Surely everyone knows of Mr Hook.’

      Morgana almost smiled. Everyone who had a musician for a father and an aspiration to sing, perhaps. ‘Was he the balding man who attended you at the masquerade?’

      Rose nodded again and swiped at her eyes with her fingers.

      ‘You did not wish to become a courtesan,’ Morgana said it again.

      ‘No.’ She looked at Morgana with her huge, glistening green eyes. ‘Miss Hart, what will happen to me now?’

      Nothing, Morgana thought. ‘We must escape this place.’

      ‘I—I hoped Mr Sloane or Mr Elliot would come save us,’ Rose said with a shuddering breath.

      Sloane. Would he even discover they were taken until it was too late—too late for Rose, and until Lucy and Katy were forced to degrade themselves? And Mr Elliot had been hit so hard. Was he even alive? Sloane would come for them when he could, she believed with all her heart. He would charge in like a one-man avenging СКАЧАТЬ