Chapter One
LONDON – LATE SPRING, 1888
The ragged streets around Seven Dials always seemed to be either wet, gloomy, and cold or sweltering and fetid. There was never any middle ground. The poor wretches who were forced to live their lives there seemed to be in a constant state of pulling clothing in tighter to block out the worst of it or stripping it off, as if in defiance of all the gods of weather and decency.
Often it was the young women, and sometimes comely lads, who flashed a bit of dirty skin to the buttoned-up gentlemen who rushed past, purportedly on business, but who knew what they were looking for and why. And while they were looking, some clever urchin would rush deftly by, plucking a watch or a silk handkerchief from the men and women who would have denied ever being in such a disreputable part of the capital to begin with, if anyone were to bring it up.
Jonathan Moorgate watched one such interaction on a drizzly May evening, hands in the pockets of his coat, unbuttoned, of course, hat perched jauntily on his head, knowing grin spread across his sensuous mouth.
A gentleman whom he was certain he knew from his father’s parliamentary circles tried very deliberately not to be seen ogling one of the buxom lasses with her petticoats tucked up into the waist of her skirt, showing a bit of leg, as he wandered around one end of Monmouth Street. He rubbed the bottom half of his face, licked his lips, and pretended to be lost as he worked up the courage to approach the woman.
The pretty thing eventually decided to put him out of his misery by asking, “You lost, guv’nor?”
“Er, I, um, if you could be so kind as to show me the way to?—”
The man didn’t need to say more than that. Belle, Jonathan was fairly certain from past visits to the area that the woman’s name was Belle, hooked her hand through the gentleman’s elbow and steered him toward an alley near the approach to the market.
“Don’t you worry, guv’nor,” she said with a fetching smile and a bat of her eyelashes. “I know just what you need.”
Jonathan chuckled, mostly because the unsuspecting gentleman had no awareness whatsoever of the grubby, red-headed young man who walked calmly up to him, stuck his hand into the gentleman’s coat pocket, took out what looked like a silver vesta case, pocketed it, and walked on.
Jonathan said nothing, of course. Why should he draw attention to the act of an enterprising young lad just trying to make his way in a cruel world? Especially when the offense would be a minor inconvenience for the toff at best. Jonathan’s entire world had been filled with men like that gentleman, like his father and his ilk, and not a single one of them deserved to keep a bit of silver if it would feed a gang of London’s poor for who knew how long.
It wasn’t too much of a stretch for Jonathan to believe that he belonged among the waifs and wastrels of the streets of London more than he did with the upper crust he’d been born into.Of course, he might have just thought that because he was on his way home from supper with his father and family. Nothing emphasized the point that he did not, in any way, belong with the sort of society he’d been born to than sitting around a table with MP Horace Moorgate and his stiff, pristine kith and kin.
“What is that horrid neckcloth you’re wearing?” his mother had asked him the moment he’d handed off his coat and hat to the exhausted maid who had greeted him at the door. “Is it…is itlavender?” She had to whisper the word.
“There is nothing wrong with wearing a lavender cravat, Mother,” Jonathan had defended himself, though without much enthusiasm. He’d long since learned there was no point in arguing about anything with his upright, stoic, righteous family.
A righteous family who had earned their secretly considerable wealth in the slave trade a hundred years before.
“There is no point in attempting to correct Jonathan,” his father had proclaimed at the supper table, as the same harried, underpaid maid served the family sumptuous slices of meat and vegetables drowning in butter that would have nourished whatever poor family she came from for days. “He has always been profligate and resistant to any sort of correction.”
“I have always been my own man, you mean,” he challenged his father with a smile.
His father had given him a look that would have melted the candles on the table and had the maid sinking into a sobbing ball of tears. It was nothing less than what Jonathan expected. He’d long ago made the choice between being true to himself and his desires or pleasing the hypocritical old bastard. Independence was a grander prize than flattery every day, even if it did reduce the number of people willing to admit to knowing him considerably.
“You have always been a lost soul,” his father sniffed, tilting his head up and clasping his hands in front of him in prayer.“Dear Lord, show my debauched and degraded son the narrow path back to you. Let him be prodigal no more. May his filthy lusts and degenerate ways be scourged from him so that he might know the peace and joy of your heavenly kingdom once more.”
It had taken everything Jonathan had not to snort at his father’s show of piety. Particularly when he carved into the thick slice of beef on his plate as soon as he said “Amen,” and washed it down with wine that had likely been smuggled in from France without paying the proper import fees. His father loved a good deal.
Jonathan had hoped his family would leave off criticizing him for embracing the life he wanted instead of toeing their line of false morality, but not more than three minutes later, with the grease of good food making his lips shine, his brother Gerald asked, “Did you hear that Lord Barnstable’s youngest son, Fabian, has gone missing?”
“Detestable young man,” Jonathan’s father had muttered, scowling straight at him.
“I had not heard,” Jonathan said with a tight smile.
“Well, he’s gone missing,” Gerald said bluntly. “Probably run off to the Continent with his otheraestheticfriends.”
“Or lost to opium and drink,” his other brother, Frederick, added with a sneer.
“This is not an appropriate conversation for mixed company,” Jonathan’s mother announced in a too-loud voice, glancing at either side of the table at her end, where Jonathan’s two vapid sisters sat.
Jonathan barely knew Lord Fabian, but he knew enough to goad his family by saying, “Not all of us degenerates are addicted to opium and drink,” with the most charming smile he could manage. “Some of us just like our freedom.” He reached for hiswine glass, and right before bringing it to his lips added, “And cock.”
The outrage that swept around the table in the form of gasps, growls, and a sharp, “You will not speak of such things in front of decent folk,” from his father was precisely the reason he’d spoken. The reaction was more fun to watch than if he’d stood and flipped the table.
That had also brought the evening with his family to a swift conclusion. Jonathan hadn’t even stayed for pudding. He’d been bullied out of the room by his father, who alternately prayed over him and beat him with his words.
