You’re the spitting image of him.
Charlotte insisted she’d met the duke at a house party in the country full of nothing but spoiled lords and a great many naked courtesans of which she’d been one. Spirits and depravities abounded for nearly a month; she related a bit wistfully. Spirits had flowed for days. The grandest time of her life.
You could be the duke’s twin. ’Cept when you talk.
Fletcher had realized some time ago that to truly escape The Devil’s Acre, he would need to become someone else which would require a great deal of money. He’d thought long and hard about how he might acquire such a sum without Lark knowing what he was up to, or Mrs. Bean. Cards were fine, though the games at The Swan didn’t bring in much unless a lord was playing and lost heavily. Easier to just pick a pocket, but then Lark would find out.
He had mulled over Charlotte’s words for days before he took action.
“And what is it I’m up to?” Fletcher glanced at the door to make sure Ripps nor anyone else wasn’t roaming about.
“A duke,” she said quietly. “Can go all sorts of places that Fletcher Bean cannot. Which I imagine you’ve already surmised. You play the idiot well, my Freckle. Just as I taught you. But you are far from one.”
Fletcher had purchased a coat and trousers, the sort a titled gentleman might wear and put a stickpin he’d won in a game of dice into the secondhand cravat twisted about his neck. He bathed. Used pomade in his hair.
And then he went to Hyde Park to test Charlotte’s words.
Riders doffed their hats. Bowed. Ladies dipped into curtsies. Fletcher heardYour Graceuttered so many times his head swam. Charlotte had not been wrong. Hedidresemble the Duke of Roxboro, at least from a distance which was good enough for what Fletcher had in mind.
“Whatever happened to Charlotte?” When he’d returned from that day in the park, she’d been gone as well as all her things.
Mrs. Bean didn’t even flinch at the question, the truth gleaming in those brittle eyes. She and Lark were two sides of the same coin, after all.
“Left,” she groused. “After all I did for her. Took up with some toff who came in one night. Didn’t even get paid for the loss.”
“That’s a shame.” Charlotte was most likely dead. Her fate sealed by Fletcher’s resemblance to a bloody duke and Mrs. Bean didn’t want Lark knowing.
“You need to stop doing it.” Her brow furrowed. “If he finds out…I won’t be able to protect you.” The brandy made her speech slow. “Murdered his own brother in cold blood.” Her features grew pinched and pale. “Worse than an animal. What’s to stop him from doing the same to you?”
“He doesn’t know.” Fletcher shrugged off her worry. “I didn’t think Lark had any family to speak of.”
Mrs. Bean looked away, fingers pulling at the blood-stained handkerchief. “I’ll be dead soon,” she whispered. “I’ve done all I could and I don’t know if it will be enough.”
Fletcher placed his hand over hers. He loved Mrs. Bean but didn’t necessarily like her. She was as brutal, in many ways, as The Devil’s Acre. But she’d always made sure he was fed and warm. Gave him an education, far more than any denizen of arookery should have. Taught him to survive using his fists or a blade. Poison.
In her own way, Delores Bean loved him.
“You aren’t dyin’. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Let’s not get maudlin, Fletch.” She looked back at him and picked up her cup of tea, taking a long swallow. “The dyin’ is going slowly but it’s coming, none the less. Every single day is worse than the one before.” A raspy exhale followed her words. “Nothing to be done about it ’cept prepare to meet the Devil on my own terms. Just tell me that…you aren’t gambling it away. That you’ve a plan.”
“I’m not,” he said, leaning over so she could hear him. “Mr. Bly.”
“Ah.” She nodded slowly. “The older gentleman who liked to watch. I thought as much. Pity he ain’t around no more.”
Which meant Bly wasalsoprobably dead, killed for the same reason as Charlotte. Mrs. Bean was nothing if not thorough. Her protection, her determination tohideFletcher in any way possible hadn’t once waned, not in the entirety of his life. He thought some of her insistence might be because of Lark, but not all of it.
“A shame. He taught me a great many things,” he answered.
Bly had been a semi-regular at The Dancing Swan. A gentleman who liked to watch others having sex while he touched his own cock.
I don’t want the pox,Bly gave as his reasoning.
He’d once been a successful man of business, but gin had ruined him as it had so many others. Bly spoke and behaved like a gentleman, the sort Fletcher needed to be so that others would mistake him for Roxboro. So in return for as much gin as he wanted, and drilling a peephole for one of the rooms, Fletcher asked to be taught good manners and proper speech. Bly, tohis credit, never asked why, but he assumed Fletcher wanted to imitate his betters.
During those lessons in the small set of rooms Bly rented some distance from the rookery, he also taught Fletcher about money, namely, how to make more of it. Investments. Interest payments. Stocks. Bly taught him how banking worked. It was Bly who’d suggested that if Fletcher ever had any extra coin, he should invest it in a textile mill, insisting ready-made clothing for the masses would make him rich.
You’ve a head for such things, Fletcher. Pity it will do you little good in a rookery.
