Heiress Without a Cause

CHAPTER TWO

The following night, as he walked through Seven Dials with a few of his old acquaintances, Ferguson stepped around a suspicious amber puddle seeping into the cracks between the cobblestones. London was still recognizable after a decade away. There were more townhouses springing up in Mayfair, better lighting on the main thoroughfares, and other supposed improvements.

But it was still a cesspool.

And the upper classes of British society drained into it every season, just as they had for centuries. It did not matter how long one stayed away - inevitably, a man of his class would be sucked back into its depths.

A duke might be expected to confine his entertainments to the fashionable clubs of Mayfair, but Ferguson couldn't stand another moment there. Seven Dials could be dangerous, particularly at night, but the overflow of crowds from nearby Covent Garden mitigated the risk. During his quick, carefully planned career as a rake ten years earlier, he had seen everything London offered, from the boudoirs of the most exclusive Cyprians to the lowest gaming dens in the rookeries of St. Giles - Seven Dials could not shock him.

Ferguson needed to visit London at least once - it was his duty to make sure his sisters were settled. But there was nothing else to keep him here. He was occasionally bored in Scotland, but his career as a rake had burned bridges he didn't care to rebuild. Once his sisters found husbands, he would return to Scotland and forget his father's title.

At least Lady Madeleine had agreed to chaperone them. There was a moment after he asked her when she looked like she was going to bolt - but she acquiesced in the end.

It was too bad she was a virgin. She wasn't his usual type - medium height, brown hair, a passable figure wrapped in muslin rather than silk. She had smallish breasts, perfectly suited to her narrow waist, but nothing like the bounty of his past mistresses.

But then, he hadn't liked many of the women he dallied with then, using them to shock the ton rather than please himself. He thought he might like Madeleine, if only because she had a sense of humor hidden somewhere under that spinster's cap. And there was something about her vivid green eyes that hinted at wildness - true desire, not the calculated wiles of a hardened jade.

Even though he couldn't risk compromising one such as her, she had invaded his dreams the night before - and there, she was anything but innocent.

"I say, Ferguson, you might have chosen a better venue than this," Lord Marsham said as his heel sank into a muddy pile of indeterminate origin.

"After Scotland, any entertainment is welcome, my friend," Ferguson replied, voice dripping with carefully maintained ennui.

The other two men with them chuckled. He didn't remember their names, nor did he care to, but he knew their faces from a decade ago despite the toll taken by their drinking. None of his past acquaintances knew he had sought out his exile, and he didn't intend to enlighten them. Not that enlightenment was possible for these men. They were hardened gamblers and inveterate rakes, speeding through life with one hand on the whip and the other hand on the bottle.

But it was either spend time with them or sit alone at Rothwell House. His more respectable peers might not accept him unless it was clear he had changed his ways, and he refused to grovel for their company. So he returned to the fastest circles - they would accept anyone with the blunt necessary to meet their stakes. He could survive a month with them, especially since the solitude of Scotland waited for him at the end of it.

"Come along, gentlemen. If the address is correct, we're almost there."

Their destination was Legrand's Theatre, part of a tract of property his duchy owned in central London. One of his estate managers suggested that he inspect the theatre; the Hamlet staged there, and particularly the actress who starred in it, had an excellent reputation with the lower classes and might enable them to raise the rents. Ferguson didn't care about the funds, but he needed to escape the house. The twins had taken their meals in their room ever since he arrived, and Ellie did not respond to his notes. If he stayed alone in Rothwell House a moment longer, he would go just as mad as everyone expected him to.