Prologue
Devil’s Acre, 1811 London
Delores Bean, proprietressof The Dancing Swan, a brothel that catered to the varied sexual tastes of London’s gentlemen, looked down at the screaming infant settled beside his quieter, less likely to live, brother.
“This is what happens when I show a bit of kindness,” she sighed.
Delores had assumed, and rightly so given the circumstances of their birth, that both babes would be dead within a fortnight. But here it was a month later and the pair were still alive. A rare miscalculation on her part. Freckle, as she called the strongest of the two because he had a small dot at the end of his nose, would most definitely survive. He was her favorite, always reaching for her when she stopped to hover over them, little fingers wiggling in the air at Delores.
Freckle, damn him, tore at her heart.
Didn’t realize the damn thing still beat.
The other babe was far less vocal. Pale as a bowl of milk. Had to be coaxed to take the teat from a wet nurse Delores had hired. An additional expense she didn’t want, not at present with cocky young thugs stomping about demanding their due. Lark, in particular, would be a problem one day. He eyed The Dancing Swan whenever he visited, calculating the worth of the brotheland how much longer Delores would maintain control. Nothing was guaranteed in life, and certainly not in The Devil’s Acre. But she’d survived longer than most because she knew things others didn’t.
Her stomach curdled for a moment, wishing she’d stayed ignorant in some instances.
The matter at hand, however, was what Delores should do with these two orphaned souls. Their mother had been the Duchess of Roxboro, who’d come banging on the door, bleedin’ and about to give birth. Skirts soaked a dark crimson. She’d died in the room just across the hall. The tang of blood still hovered in the air and stained the floorboards even after weeks of scrubbing.
“Should have turned her away,” Delores said to Freckle, feeling that worry of dread knot inside her once more. “Now I’m involved in somethin’ I shouldn’t be.”
Lark, the self-proclaimed Lord of Pye Street, was the least of her concerns, as it happened.
Terrible business, watching a duchess bleed to death in childbirth and unable to save her, though perhaps that was for the best. Blood had been everywhere. Delores had to burn the mattress and quilts, quietly of course, as it wouldn’t do for anyone to see them. The stains on the floor would fade in time or she’d cover them with the expensive rug from Axminster delivered only yesterday. The duchess had promised Delores a new rug as she died and the duke’s solicitor, Mr. Philpott, who’d arrived shortly after her death, had agreed.
The rug, a glorious thing made up of blue, green, and gold swirls, was far too fine to be hidden up here. She was already considering the rug would look better in her parlor.
Delores had been grateful Mr. Philpott agreed to the rug, but not so thankful she felt the need to inform the solicitor that thenew Duke of Roxboro—Alexander, the duchess had named the babe before she became unconscious—had two younger siblings.
Three boys. Identical save for the one having a freckle on the end of his nose.
Delores had never seen such a thing in her entire life and though she wasn’t religious, felt the need to pray when they appeared. The duchess, barely awake and hanging on to her own life by a thread, closed her eyes when Alexander slid from her body, never opening them again. It was doubtful the poor lamb even felt the birth of the other two. Out of kindness—something Delores rarely practiced and cursed herself a thousand times since—for the poor dead duchess and Mr. Philpott who arrived an hour later, horribly grief-stricken, she’d stayed silent.
The duke had just been murdered outside Parliament, a brutal, violent death even for The Devil’s Acre, and the duchess survived him by only a few hours, just long enough to birth his heir and his brothers. Delores had been sure the other two infants wouldn’t survive the night, and it hadn’t seemed right to add to the tragedy by relaying the news there were two more babes who’d soon join their mother. Good grief, even the liveried footmen who’d come to retrieve the duchess’s body were weeping. The woman had been beloved.
And…Delores’s sixth sense, which hadn’t ever steered her wrong in all these years, insisted she say nothing more to the duke’s solicitor.
A wise decision as it happened, considering the information that had come her way.
Damn my curiosity.
“There, there, my little Freckle.” Caressing the top of his downy head, ignoring the other child who barely opened his eyes. “I won’t let nothing harm you. Neither of you. Though in your case,” she said with a raised brow to the other babe, “likely won’t matter. ’Sides, I’ve only enough charity for the one.”
Murder was an everyday occurrence in The Devil’s Acre, but when that murder involved a member of the aristocracy, a duke, no less, and only steps away from Parliament, well there was quite a bit of talk. The Duke of Roxboro had not only been attacked, but savagely. Purposefully. The manner so barbaric it churned even her stomach. Sliced and stabbed so many times said the papers, he was barely recognized. Roxboro had only just exited The House of Lords after a fiery speech, according to her sources, when the assailants struck his carriage. The duchess, heavy with child, had managed to escape and found her way to back door of The Dancing Swan.
And Delores Bean. Fate, she supposed given she’d once been a midwife.
“A terrible business, what happened to your parents,” she whispered to Freckle.
Delores had long ago grown numb to the atrocities that existed in these streets. Horrible things that had once made her stomach turn but now, she barely noticed. After so long, you just didn’t care as much. Life was cheap. Anyone might be stabbed for a few coins or a bottle of gin.
But a duke?
That had never happened before and not since.
Delores knew something wasn’t right from the start. Perhaps it was the sight of the duchess bleeding and those three babes that made her wonder, or simply macabre curiosity. Dukes don’t get dragged from their carriages leaving Parliament. Robbed, yes, especially when they ventured down the dark street to The Dancing Swan to satisfy their perversions. But not…killed, as a general rule. No one wanted Bow Street Runners swarmin’ about, nor anyone else, but they came anyway, along with others who decided to shoot first and ask questions later.
Didn’t matter. No one talked. Not to them.
