Reckless in Pink Read online

  Claudia’s mother had the ability to speak above the hubbub without actually shouting. “Claudia, you will apologize at once! I will not have such behavior at the breakfast table!”

  “Or anywhere else,” her husband murmured, sparing a glance at his daughter before returning to his newspaper.

  Claudia offered her apology, to have Val grudgingly accept it. The scold was worth it.

  “Did you know that the Young Pretender could be in London?” her father said.

  His heir, Claudia’s oldest brother, Marcus, scoffed. “That was four years ago, Papa!”

  The marquess shrugged and turned a page. “I have no idea why it took The London Mirror so long to discover it, but it’s here now. Perhaps he’s returned.”

  At least three conversations were going on while that small exchange took place. Each member of the family had its own pitch, the better to communicate. Claudia tended to converse just above her twin and Dru. Now she busied herself getting a plateful of hot food from the sideboard instead of taking part in the talk or responding to her brother. Val was currently grumbling about sisters and pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee.

  Claudia took her seat and grinned at him. “Out late last night, Val?”

  Val grimaced. If the women who flocked around him in company could see that face, they wouldn’t call him handsome. “Early, you might say. Nevertheless, I came out the winner. A thousand to the good.”

  “Damn, Val, what are you doing? Robbing the tyros fresh off the stage coach?” Marcus demanded. Tricksters and madams thronged the coach yards in search of pigeons ready for the plucking.

  Val waved a dismissive hand. “I play games of skill and make sure I practice. Most of the game is watching your opponents. It’s tiring.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry for you!” Claudia said. “You only won a thousand? That’s more than a workman earns in his whole life.”

  Val grunted and drank his coffee in one gulp. Dark hair peeked out from under his cap, and his chin was covered with black stubble.

  Claudia loved this part of the day. With the sound of fork and knife scraping against china and the clicking of tea-dishes and coffee-cups, together with the scent of her mother’s chocolate drifting over the aroma of freshly fried bacon, this meant more to her than any society dinner.

  It meant home. Wherever they were, the family gathered for this meal. Her mother declared it was what kept the family together, although all were aware they would soon inevitably separate.

  All the girls were of marriageable age. Soon they would leave home to form families of their own. Considering the family they came from, they would make a formidable generation. If they ever left home.

  Unlike many families, their parents were not over-eager to push the three girls out of the door. They had money and influence enough. Time to find out who they were and what kind of husband they wanted, their mother told them, but not too loudly.

  Claudia thought she would keep them all at home if she could. But by coming to London every year and keeping the house in the country full during the summer, her mama was providing every opportunity for them to find someone they would partner in life.

  Her brother Val had recently become betrothed to Lady Charlotte Engles, the cherished only daughter of the Duke of Rochfort. Although everyone was pleased for him, nobody was quite sure how it had happened, even Val himself. He appeared content with his bargain, his mother expressing the forlorn hope that Lady Charlotte would settle him down somewhat.

  Privately Claudia and her twin considered the ultimate outcome would be the other way about. When Val had announced his news, at breakfast of course, they’d run off to their bedroom as fast as they dared to discuss the development.

  While Livia and Claudia were very different in temperament, their features were as similar as identical twins tended to be. For all their differences outside the confines of their bedroom, within it they frequently saw developments in a similar way. Indeed, Claudia had no idea how people without a twin managed to get through life. Even her own sister and brother, the singles in a family blessed by two sets of twins, seemed strangely isolated sometimes. She had no doubt that Darius had been the first to know of his twin’s betrothal.

  Val had been uncharacteristically silent on the subject.

  Today, though—the heat that swept through her, the shivers that tingled her skin when Lord St. Just had touched it—they were all hers. She refused to share that, even with her sister. What she’d done was forbidden and sinful. But the other sensations, the loosening and moistening of her most secret parts, had excited her and made her want more. Just by touching a man?

  Now she knew it was possible, she wanted more and as soon as she could find it.

  A footman carrying a salver full of correspondence followed a knock on the door. After moving the marchioness’s plate, he placed the post reverentially in front of her.

  Lady Strenshall glanced through the pile, dividing it up. When her oldest son had the temerity to protest that he wasn’t a child anymore and didn’t need his post sorted for him, his mother had fixed him with one of her stony glares and said, mildly, “This is my house, my dear. My rules.”

  As usual, her husband had grunted his assent. The marquess was never very communicative at breakfast. Although the public often repeated that his wife henpecked him, that was far from the case. He had a formidable presence in the Lords, was a stalwart member of the most exclusive clubs, and never missed an opening night of Garrick’s. When Lord Strenshall wanted to have his way, he usually got it.

  Claudia’s mother put the letters into piles, and when she handed them out, commented on each. “Malton, you should let a little enjoyment into your life. Every one of your letters is on white linen-laid papers, the addresses are perfect copperplate, and most are hand delivered. From the City, I presume. For goodness’s sake, boy, I will exchange your letters for Valentinian’s one day.” She handed over the thick stack of business correspondence. Unless Marcus’s mistress cleverly disguised her presence by using perfect copperplate.

  “Val, you should be ashamed of yourself.” His mama handed him three notes.

  Claudia caught the pungent scent of violets from one mingled with the other’s attar of roses. The third was a bill. “Perhaps you will pay your tailor from your winnings. I caught one lurking by the doorstep the other day. It is most disconcerting to discover a man of that nature at one’s entrance.”

  Lady Strenshall glanced up sharply, catching Claudia in the act of sniggering as silently as she could manage. She handed Claudia a letter that looked remarkably like one of Marcus’s. “If I didn’t know better I’d say this was something official. If it is, you should tell your father without delay.”

  Lady Strenshall was of the opinion that the man of the house should handle official business. This was because, her daughters readily believed, that mortgages, court cases, and contracts of any kind bored her. She told the lawyer what she wanted and left him to take care of it, she said, and her husband served the same purpose. She got on with the important things in life, such as who their children should marry and where they should live.

  Claudia had never shared that opinion, but she was woefully inexperienced in legal matters. She read through the letter, scripted in a hand she didn’t recognize, three times before she looked up from the paper in total shock. “It appears I’ve inherited a house.”

  Chapter 3

  Even Val opened his bloodshot eyes wider when Claudia came out with her news. “How daring,” he murmured and subsided back into his pained silence as he continued to drink his way through a pot of coffee.

  “You must have it wrong, dear,” her mother said. “Give the letter to your father. Let him deal with the matter.”

  Stubbornly, Claudia shook her head. “I want to deal with it. It’s only a small establishment. It must be, because it’s in London.” She would keep the address to herself for now. “It’s from Great-Aunt Dorelia, the one who died at Christmas.”

  “
Why has it taken so long for the news to reach you?” her mother demanded. “Does the letter say?”

  “Yes, it’s because she appointed a new lawyer to deal with her will. He did not hear of her death, because the old one took charge. She has an heir, her husband’s cousin, and he has taken control of the estate. That is unchanged. The lawyer informs me that the heir doesn’t object to the legacy. There’s a letter from Great-Aunt Dorelia, which he encloses.”

  “Read it, then, girl!” her father snapped impatiently.

  She glanced at him. The marquess id not usually become agitated, especially at the breakfast table. The hubbub of breakfast with the Strenshalls eased to a murmur. She broke the seal on the letter the lawyer had enclosed.

  She pored over the spidery script for a full minute before she could interpret it. “It says that every woman should have at least one house of her own as a retreat from a demanding family.”

  Her mother gave an exaggerated sigh. “If only that were possible!”

  “When you marry, it will go to your husband,” Livia said.

  “No it won’t, because if there’s any danger of that happening, it will revert to the estate,” Claudia said. “It’s in trust for me, with the solicitor, so that my husband can’t touch it.”

  “Where is this house?” her father demanded. “Out with it, girl! You’ve been havering around that point for the last ten minutes. Every time you come to mention it, you talk about something else. Where?”

  She sighed. She’d enjoyed the dream while it lasted. “Hart Street.” After folding the letters, she placed them on the table but kept her hand over them. She might still make something of this. Over the noise that had erupted over the address, she shouted, “It’s mine and I’m keeping it!”

  Silence fell again, stony and complete, until her father broke it.

  “You can’t, Claudia. You know that. A house in that neighborhood is not eligible.”

  Before she could censor her words, she burst out, “They’re not all brothels!”

  Dru’s shocked laughter echoed around the silent walls. Nobody else spoke.

  Ah, well, in for a penny. “It could be a coffee house or a shop selling something quite innocuous.”

  Her mother took a hand. “Claudia, you have already garnered a reputation for wildness. You cannot afford more gossip, so in this case you must hold yourself at a distance. I daresay Lady Dorelia has lived long enough away from London that she does not know the reputation of that area. Did not know,” she corrected herself hastily. “If you sell the house, the money may be added to your portion. Who knows, that might have been the intent of the legacy.”

  Claudia shook her head. “Not according to the letter.” When Marcus reached across the table for them, she snatched the papers away. “If I sell the house immediately, the money will go to the estate. I must keep it for at least a year.”

  “I always said the woman was mad,” her mother said. “Living on her own, with that odd companion.”

  “She loved Violet,” Darius said quietly. “When she died, Great-Aunt Dorelia lost the will to live. The light went out of her life.”

  Darius spoke with deep understanding and sympathy. Everyone stared at him instead of at Claudia.

  Claudia sent him a grateful smile. Darius had the full support of his family, even after society chattered about his relationship with a young man of good family. Only they knew the truth, and they were telling nobody. It didn’t make any of the people in this room love him any the less.

  Of course everyone in the family understood Lady Dorelia had peculiar tastes, but again, nobody discussed the matter. Of all her relatives, Dorelia would be the one to give her a very interesting legacy.

  Hart Street might have been a fashionable part of town once, but it was decidedly not so now. The knowledge made Claudia even more determined to see the property, but on her own terms.

  She was to visit Vauxhall Gardens tonight with Marcus, Val, and his betrothed. The perfect chance to slip away.

  Claudia wasn’t sure if her new pink gown suited her, but she wore it anyway, and when her maid produced the powder pot, waved it away. Her gown should clash horribly with her red hair, but for some reason it did not. In any case, she wasn’t so much red as a kind of gold with strong red hints.

  Her mother despaired of her twin daughters, their coloring far too flamboyant for fashionable taste, which preferred ethereal blondes and dark, sultry brunettes. Perhaps Claudia’s hair had flung her into more trouble than it might have done had she been born with a more serene coloring, but she doubted it. The devil had been in her from the moment she took her first breath, her mother said. She said it with a smile, unlike the more censorious of society’s matrons.

  Having second thoughts, she had her maid apply a layer of powder to her hair. That would help with her disguise later.

  Claudia had always longed for somewhere of her own, a place she could retreat to. Nobody would burst into a room she was in or insist she join in something when she wanted a quiet hour to herself. Even she wanted that sometimes.

  She could insist that this house remain hers. She had no intention of selling it. Ever, whatever it turned out to be.

  She took care to take her thickest most enveloping cloak, secreting a couple of items in the pockets. She’d engaged the services of a pair of chairmen she’d met in the Exchange that very day. No family retainer would report her adventure back to her mother. If she planned this right, she could slip away, view the house, and then return before anyone was any the wiser.

  Accordingly, halfway through the tedious concert her staid brother, Val, and his betrothed listened to with avid interest, she begged to be excused. “I will attend Lady Colm’s. Mama is there. The carriage is outside.”

  Her maid waited for her in the carriage, and of course two of the sturdy footmen her father employed, so she would not be alone. If she took the carriage, that was. She would say that she felt ill and went home instead and took the chair rather than the carriage so that Marcus and Val could take it. That was likely to earn her a rebuke, but she’d had enough of those to cope with another with equanimity.

  Having gathered the cloak around her and put on her hat, she scurried out of the gardens, contriving to lose the footman accompanying her. That proved easier than she’d imagined. As a firework exploded overhead, she took one of the side paths. She scurried straight for one of the side exits, the one where she’d arranged to meet the chairmen.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw two shadowy figures standing by a battered sedan chair covered in dark leather. As she approached, one swung open the door and she climbed in, ensuring none of the gown showed for anyone to recognize her. The color was rather too bright. She should have worn the blue, but the pink made her feel light-hearted. She wanted this adventure to be an enjoyable one.

  The time was barely half past eight. If the house proved to be one she should certainly not visit, she could go home or even to Lady Colm’s. Too bad that her ladyship would not be glad to see her. She had set her heart on grabbing Livia for her second son, and Claudia and he had never rubbed along.

  She planned to have the men pause outside the house so she could just look at it.

  They took her through Covent Garden, an adventure in itself, since at night ladies only travelled this way to visit the theater. Respectable women often passed through with the blinds down on the carriage, lest they damage their delicate sensibilities.

  Claudia didn’t consider her sensibilities delicate in the least. She enjoyed the sight of London’s demimonde, already out in force and angling for custom. Brightly clad women wore gowns cut a tiny bit too low and perhaps a little worn and démodé. They’d bought them from the second-hand shops that thronged the large space of the Garden.

  Hastily, she fastened on the black half mask she’d brought with her, the plain kind that ladies sometimes wore in the street.

  Many of the well-built red brick houses ringing the Piazza were devoted to the life of the
demimonde. But at ground level they were shops, coffeehouses, and a few other businesses. Perhaps her house was a respectable one. If she didn’t discover it for herself, she never would. They would sell it and put the money to her portion and that would be that.

  “We’re ’ere ma’am,” one of the chairmen said after they dumped the chair down on the pavement.

  The jolt made her gasp, but she peered out of the window and took stock. The house was part of a row, of reasonable size but not as large as the ones ringing the piazza. The shutters were up on the single window by the front door, which opened off the street, instead of set back and up a shallow flight of steps like her parents’ London residence.

  Trepidation made her throat tighten, but after taking a few deep breaths, she pulled her hood over her head and marched to the front door.

  It opened at her knock to reveal a huge man who looked as if a baker had kneaded his face into a new shape. He glared at her from baby blue eyes. “Are you the new girl?”

  Blinking at his abrupt question, she nodded. “That’s me.”

  Her parents would kill her, but they would do it later. After this man had his turn. She had made a hasty copy of the documents that afternoon. She could show them and prove this house belonged to her.

  The door was a smaller, narrower copy of the one she used every day. The black paint was duller but not peeling or old, which she took as a good sign.

  A roar of merrymaking rocked the house as she entered. Men’s voices, interrupted by the higher pitch of female, burst from the room upstairs. Down here relative quiet reigned, and she could just make out shapes covered by canvas and covers. A shop, probably. Shop by day, brothel by night.

  The man jerked his head to the staircase at the end of the room. “Up there. What’s your name?”

  She’d prepared one. “Ellie Franks.” The combined names of two servants at the London house.

  “Go and serve some drinks. If a gentleman takes a fancy to you, you can stay. Usual rates.”