Earls Just Want to Have Fun Read Free Page B

thrown in Kings Head Inn. Newgate was not where she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
    Neither did she want to spend it bilking for Satin. But what would she say to her parents now? If they had the blunt to hire a nob like Sir Brook, they were rich—by her standards, at any rate. They’d take one look at her and tell her to get out. At least she was wanted and needed by the Covent Garden Cubs.
    â€œHere they come,” Gideon said, alerting her to the boys’ arrival. “You ready, Marlowe?”
    â€œAlways.” And she meant it. She put away thoughts of mothers and fathers. She couldn’t afford to feel mushy inside or worry whether someone would love her or not. If this racket produced only dead cargo, she’d have a lot more to worry about than whether lovebirds sang in the trees or if Mommy would tuck her in at night.
    She straightened her shoulders, gave a nod to Gideon and the boys, then went around the house they’d be robbing. She gave them a moment to get in position before crossing the street and starting up the walk. She heard the clop of horse hooves on the street behind her, but it wasn’t unusual for people to be out and about this time of evening. She glanced back at Joe, who stood in the shadows on the corner, and he gave her the all clear. Just a carriage passing by. Nothing to concern her. There was nothing wrong with knocking on someone’s door, and that was all the carriage’s occupants would see her do.
    She started up the steps, and too late spotted a movement from the servants’ steps leading to the basement below. Before she could react, a man grabbed her, lifted her as though she were a sack of potatoes, and threw her over his shoulder. She fought and she screamed, but for all her clawing and scratching and punching, he held on. Joe was coming for her, and she screamed for him. He’d save her. If not Joe, Gideon. She would not be spirited away like this. She was certain of that.
    And then she was shoved into a carriage, and a sack pulled over her head. Darkness descended.

Two
    Dane stared out the window of his coach and wondered what the hell had possessed him to lend it to Brook. How was staring at a street in Cheapside more interesting than Lady Yorke’s soiree?
    Oh, very well. Just about anything was more interesting than Lady Yorke’s soiree. Watching grass grow was more interesting, and sitting in his carriage for the last hour, circling the same street, was about as interesting as watching grass grow. He sighed and massaged his temples. He might as well sit here. It wasn’t as though he had anything better to do, since Parliament did not sit tonight. He smiled, thinking of the speech he’d given at the last session. It had been a rousing denunciation of a proposed bill to allocate more funds to help the poor.
    The poor! What about the military or the farmers? What about the deuced Irish problem? Dane had argued quite successfully—as the bill had been defeated—that the poor deserved their fate. They were lazy or preferred sloth to hard work. Dirty, uneducated, and immoral, the lowest classes were barely human. Best the country look to the future—feeding its people and defending them.
    As an earl, Dane not only had the responsibilities of a landowner, a peer, and a member of Parliament, he had social duties as well. He was so utterly weary of the same balls, the same insipid debutantes, the same ridiculous conversations about the weather. He hated London during the Season. And this was only the beginning. Duty could be extremely tedious.
    He’d thought if he accepted invitations and made appearances, his mother, the Dowager Countess of Dane, would stop haranguing him about finding a wife. If anything, she was worse than she had been before. He should just pick a girl already and be done with it. They were all the same, at any rate.
    If Brook had been sitting here, he would have rolled his eyes and said Dane