Page 4 of In the Bed of a Scoundrel Earl

He smiled. “Come now, you should get home to take some rest. I won’t have your numbers getting low because you’re too tired to work fast.” He paused. “And I’m sorry if I said anything hurtful before.” She breathed a sigh of relief as he led her out of the sewing house and into the tepid summer warmth of the street.

“Not at all, Mr. Jennings. You spoke the truth. I can’t argue with that.”Much as I would like to.

He chuckled wryly and took a small packet of coins out of his pocket before handing it to her. “Well then, let’s part on good terms for the night, eh? Here are your earnings for the day, Miss Parker. Spend ‘em wisely.”

She took them and forced a smile. “I will.”

Pa will swill it all down his neck and onto the card tables, and I will be lucky if I have a penny left to buy scraps to eat.

“I put in that extra tuppence since you did extra today.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell a soul.”

Foolish tears of gratitude sprang to her eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Jennings! I swear, I won’t. Oh… thank you, thank you so very much.”

“Don’t say this to my superiors, but I think hard work should be rewarded.” His smile widened, his expression bordering on bashful. “So, there’s your reward. I can’t promise it’ll always be like that, but I’ll do what I can, so long as you keep sewing as fast and as clean as you’ve been doing. Now, get out of here before I take that tuppence back.”

Rose nodded effusively. “Good night to you, Mr. Jennings.” With that, she hurried away into the crowded streets of Whitechapel, heading for home.

In the gray fug of London, with rats and mice to call her fellow lodgers, it was hard to believe that she ever had hopes beyond the misery of living hand to mouth. Before her father tore their world to shreds, she had dreamed of becoming a professional dressmaker and designer for the ladies of high society and perhaps some of the gentlemen. Now, she sewed for a pittance. There was a cruel irony in that.

This is only temporary,she told herself as she plowed through revelers and drunkards.Iwillfind a way out. I must, or I shall never forgive myself.

* * *

“I dreamed you were dead again last night,” Dorian announced to his dear friend, Mark Hudson, as they lounged together at the card tables of their favorite gambling hall in Shadwell. Here, they did not have to be well-behaved members of the social elite. They could blend in with the rest of the riffraff: a fine mix of incognito lords, Scandinavian seamen with a love for British ale, wealthy merchants, poor merchants, laborers and sailors trying to change their fortune, and everything in-between.

Hudson swished his brandy and downed it in one swallow. “I am beginning to take offense to all of these morbid dreams of yours, my good man. True, the French made a fair attempt to kill me, but I am much like a rare, white stag.”

“Would you care to explain?” Dorian chuckled, nursing his own glass of brandy.

“I am untouchable,” he replied confidently. “However,shouldsomeone manage to fire a fatal musket shot at me, it would prove a terrible omen that would bring misfortune upon their descendants for decades to come. The ladies would howl from their houses and tear out their hair, devastated that the only gentlemen worthy of losing their maidenhood to had passed.”

Dorian snorted into his drink. “You are wicked, Hudson. One of these days, a furious brother or father will challenge you to a duel, and you will not survive it.”

“That is why I always make sure I have you as my second.” He winked mischievously. “One look at your eyes, and they all quiver in fear, thinking they have looked upon a henchman of the Devil himself. They invariably throw away their shot after that, as you well know.”

Dorian drank the last of his brandy. “Do not remind me.”

He was infamous throughout the country, thanks to his acerbic tongue and his general distaste for anyone other than Hudson, but mostly for the heterochromatic eyes he had been born with. One blue, one green. It did not matter how tall or handsome he was, with a mane of fair hair and classically masculine features, high society took one look at his “demon eyes” and all but locked away their daughters to keep him from poisoning them with a single gaze. Not that he cared about seeking a bride. His heart sat within an impenetrable fortress, with walls that no-one could climb or batter down.

“Speaking of ripe maidens in need of plucking.” Hudson’s eyebrow shot up as a quartet of rosy-cheeked, red-lipped women sauntered through the gambling hall, dressed in gaudy dresses with daring necklines that marked them out as ladies of the night.

“I doubt they have been maidens for many a year, my friend. You were likely lying in a tent, dreaming of that French farmer’s daughter when they were first plucked.” Dorian laughed, already knowing how the evening would end. He did not partake in delights of the flesh, as his dear friend did, though Hudson would undoubtedly regale him later with his bawdy tales. As such, he would find other, less carnal distractions, until Hudson had exhausted himself.

Hudson grinned. “If your dreamsarea portent, dear Captain, I must taste as many riches of this Earth as I can before I am violently exsanguinated by an imaginary Frenchman.” He still referred to Dorian as “Captain,” even though they had not been upon a battlefield for over five years, and they had known each other since childhood. Indeed, they had spent all of their formative years together, causing mischief through their time at Eton, maturing through a spell at Cambridge, and then becoming comrades at war.

“Take pains you do not end up syphilitic.” Dorian pushed his glass away and prepared to make a temporary exit from the revels. He had drunk and gambled enough for one evening, and he did not care for the idea of gambling alone while Hudson slunk away with one of those prostitutes. Or all of them, knowing his friend.

“Ah, do you think that is how I will meet my end?” Hudson quipped in reply.

Dorian shrugged. “I shall have to consult my dreams. If I see you covered in festering boils in my next one, I will inform you immediately and entreat you to send for the physician.”

“You are too kind.” Hudson loosened his cravat as the prostitutes neared their table, his focus already fixated on them. Dorian knew he could have danced an Irish jig on the card table itself, and his friend would not have paid the slightest bit of attention.

He does adore his ladies.Dorian smiled and got up, his good mood waning as he heard whispers coming from a nearby table.

“Is that the Earl of Langton?” an anxious voice murmured.

“I heard he killed thousands of Frenchmen, single-handedly, by conjuring a storm and striking them all down,” a second added.

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