A Scandalous Lady Read Free Page A

where, as he’d often told her, she’d really learn the meaning of earning her keep. Aye, a bit of rain was a small price to pay.
    He flipped off the pipe and onto his feet with the enviable nimbleness of youth. “Then I’ll go with ye.”
    â€œYou’ll do no such thing.” The last thing she needed was a snot-nosed fourteen-year-old tugging at her coattails. Besides, Lord only knew how long she’d be out tonight—or if she’d even be coming back. There was no sense in both of them catching their deaths. She reached for a dry, moth-eaten seaman’s cap and pulled it over her head. “Just stay here—I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    Â 
    â€œYou the baron?”
    Seated at a back table in a Thames-side tavern, Troyce de Meir glanced up lazily at the man who’d come to stand before him. George Feagin fit the description he’d been given down to the letter. Barely five and half feet tall, pudgy from his fingertips to his forehead, with thick sideburns down his jowls and a blackened wig that sat slightly askew on his reputedly balding pate.
    He snapped the lid shut on the timepiece cradled in his hand and slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat. “You’re late.”
    â€œThat I am,” the tradesman boasted with a flamboyant grin. “A pretty little moll down at The Headless Woman just wouldn’t let me out of her arms.” He flipped his coattails out behind him and settled his ponderous weight into the opposite chair.
    Troyce dismissed the boast with a minimal smile that concealed his irritation. Obviously Feagin didn’t regard their meeting worthy of punctuality—or apology. Not a good sign. Then again, what had he expected? Two weeks he’d spent in London, making the acquaintance of a variety of prospects, and his situation was beginning to appear as grim as it had the day he’d returned to England a few months earlier.
    â€œHave you brought the goods?” Feagin inquired in a conspiratorial whisper.
    Grimacing, Troyce slid a rolled parchment across the surface of a table scarred by a century of sweaty iron tankards, spilled ale, and cigar burns. Feagin tore the scroll from its sleeve, carelessly unrolled it, and slapped a recently abandoned tankard from the next table upon its curling edges to weigh it down. Beads of brew slid down the metal stein and soaked the aged paper.
    Bloody hell.
    While Feagin studied the documents, Troyce leaned back in his chair, his gaze sweeping Jorge’s Tavern. The atmosphere reminded him faintly of his time on the shores of Maine, where he’d spent the last eight years. Odors of fish, sweat, beer, cigars, must, and mildew had ingrained themselves over the years into the pocked-wood walls. Dockworkers, seamen, and characters of undistinguishable yet shady pursuit filtered in and out of the riverside tavern. Not exactly the establishment Troyce preferred to conduct business, but neither would it benefit him to have every nob in London learning that the third Baron of Westborough was desperate.
    The minutes ticked on with no reaction from his companion. Word about town had it that George Feagin had made a substantial fortune in risky ventures. That fortune was the only reason Troyce had deigned to meet with the tradesman. That, and the dismal fact that he’d been the only one to exhibit even the slightest interest in Troyce’s enterprise.
    He signaled for a second brandy from a blowsy barmaid with unnaturally red hair and a come-hither smile born of years of practice. Her ample hips swung to and fro in blatant invitation as she brought a bottle to his table, and a generous slice of cleavage commanded his full notice when she leaned over to fill his cup. There was nothing like a lush and willing woman to distract a man from his troubles, he thought, tempted to take advantage of her unmistakable offer and lose himself in her abundant charms. Unfortunately, regretfully,