Chapter 1
London, June 1820
What the hell isshedoing here?”
Ash Hawkins, Duke of Buckley, cast a glance in his partner’s direction before returning his attention to the deed in his hand, another nobleman’s family treasure sacrificed to the gambling gods. Hope was a fickle mistress, and Ash had benefited from misplaced optimism on more occasions than he could count. This time was no exception, if the property laid out in the deed was any indication.
“I’m certain whatever female has entered these sin-filled halls has every right to be here,” he murmured, though it was more from habit now than anything else. Augustus Beecher was not known for his charm, after all, and no amount of correction was going to stop him from having his say. His passionate, abrasive nature, so different from Ash’s own cold control, had worked to their benefit, and so Ash could not begrudge him his constant state of pique. Ash himself was just as tenacious and determined as his partner was, but where he had developed rudimentary social skills to infiltrate the ranks of nobles, Beecher was the brawn behind the scenes, using his intense ruthlessness to their advantage. With one owner from the highest echelons of society and the other from the deepest bowels of Seven Dials, the partnership was ideal, having turned their faltering gaming hell into one of the premiere gambling clubs in London.
That was not to say Ash didn’t think Beecher wasn’t a blustering blowhard most of the time. Especially in moments like these when the man, not one to couch his words on a good day, refused to be ignored.
“This particular female is an exception,” he said darkly. “Even you with your progressive thinking will agree.” He turned away from the wall of windows to glare at Ash. “I thought we agreed your wards were not to set foot in Brimstone.”
Ash’s head snapped up. “My wards?” he barked, lurching to his feet and striding to where Beecher stood looking down on the gaming floor. “They’re here?”
“One is,” his partner replied in his deep rasp, pointing his lit cheroot toward the long line of tables that stretched across the floor. “The serious one.”
But even without Beecher pointing her out, Ash would have seen Regina. The girl stood out from the ostentatiously dressed lords and ladies who clambered for places at his tables, her simple gray gown at odds with the garish riches about her. Frustration mounted in him. Damnation, he had told her, he had toldallof them, that Brimstone was no place for them. Not only were they much too young, but this place was too dangerous, too immoral. And he had vowed to protect his wards, a promise he had made to the woman who had for all intents and purposes been their grandmother, and it was a vow he would not break.
Yet there was Regina, the eldest of the lot at just sixteen, striding through the throng as if she were doing something as innocuous as walking the halls of her beloved British Museum. Just then an inebriated gentleman grabbed her arm, swinging her about. Before Ash could react, Regina lifted one dainty foot and slammed her heel down on the man’s instep.
Beecher’s rough laugh, so little used, rumbled through the spacious wood-paneled office as the man who had dared to lay a hand on Regina, hopping about on one foot, howled in pain below. “I don’t like your wards being here one bit,” Beecher said. “But damn if that isn’t the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long while.”
Ash shot him an acidic glare. “I’m so glad a young girl being accosted brings you amusement,” he bit out before striding from the room, slamming the door behind him. With each step he took down the narrow stairs, his agitation grew. Regina had better have a damn good reason for disobeying him.
He threw open the door to the gaming floor, and there stood a flushed but furious Regina. Before he could drag her away from prying eyes, however, she spoke, proving to him that she actuallydidhave a good reason for being at Brimstone. A very good reason indeed.
“Eliza and Nelly have run away.”
***
A week later and that simple sentence still had the ability to rock the very foundation of Ash’s world.
He paced his office at Brimstone, a path he had walked almost constantly since hearing of his two younger wards’ flights from home. It was a wonder that he hadn’t worn a rut straight down to the floor beneath.
“Dammit, Beecher,” he growled. “What good are your connections if you cannot utilize them to locate two young girls?”
“My informants are used to tracking people, not spawns of Satan,” his partner grumbled, the leather of his chair creaking as he shifted.
“If I wasn’t in complete agreement,” Ash drawled, stopping in his tracks and shooting the other man a glare, “I would punch you in your blasted mouth for that insult.”
Beecher snorted. “As if you could get a punch in.”
Despite himself, a bark of laughter broke free from Ash’s lips. But he quickly sobered. Beecher knew all too well that Ash had not raised his hand to another soul since shortly after his mother’s death, when he’d nearly killed his father in his rage.
He made his way to the seat across from his partner, sinking heavily into it. “Plenty have before me, if the shape of your face is any indication,” he shot back, determined to forget the constant burden of being his father’s son, holding on to the moment of levity so he might get his head back on straight. Or as straight as possible under the circumstances. Which was not very straight at all.
“Touché,” Beecher murmured, his mouth crooking up at one corner as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, which had seen more than one punishing break in its day.
All too soon, however, the lighter mood passed. Beecher took a deep draught of his whiskey, scrubbing his blunt fingernails over his closely shorn hair. For the first time Ash noticed just how ragged and unkempt the man looked—or, rather, more unkempt than usual. And no wonder, for he’d put in an incredible amount of effort over the past sennight in attempting to help Ash locate his wards. Ash felt a pang of guilt for snapping at his friend; as much as Beecher swore that the girls were the bane of his existence, he had been nearly as frantic to locate them as Ash himself had been. He pressed his lips tight. Guilt was nothing new to him; he may as well add this particular remorse to the ever-present—and ever-growing—pile that he was constantly buried under.
Even so, he could not let his unfeeling rudeness slide. “I’m sorry, Beecher,” he said gruffly. Suddenly weary beyond belief, he leaned his head back and ran a hand over his eyes. “I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you.”
Beecher grunted. “You’ve a reason, I daresay. And don’t think I’m not beating myself up over it as well. I’ve never come across anything like this before. I’ve got every one of my informants searching, and they haven’t come up with a damn thing. I don’t understand it. How do two slips of girls disappear without a single trace?”
The panic that had clung to Ash since he’d first learned of the girls’ disappearance wrapped its tentacles around his neck, squeezing hard. It had kept him up every night since, with horrible visions of his wards hurt, frightened, or worse. He had tried so damn hard to give them good lives, to protect them. And he was failing them.
Which only made him remember his previous failings. Memories surfaced, of when he’d returned home that final time to find his mother bruised and ill. And the same torturous question that always accompanied it rose up as well: How many times had she suffered through such things without him knowing? It was a question that branded him with guilt, damning him.