Lost With a Lord

  Lost with a Lord

  Emily Murdoch

  Copyright © 2018 by Emily Murdoch

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To my parents: earliest advocates, long sufferers, and much beloved.

  And of course, Joshua.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Drenched with a Duke

  Historical Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  This was the series that I never thought I could publish, so first thanks must go to my amazing Kickstarter supporters! Thank you for your faith in me, and I hope you love this book as much as I do!

  Thank you to my wonderful editor, Julia Underwood, who has given me unparalleled advice – any mistakes left are completely my own!

  Thank you to my glorious cover designer, Samantha Holt, a true artist whose patience with me is much appreciated.

  Thank you to my ingenious formatter, Falcon Storm, whose willingness to format whenever I drop an unexpected email is fantastic!

  And to my family. Thank you.

  1

  George peered at the piece of paper under the moonlight, and swore under his breath. He had tried to avoid admitting it for almost an hour now, if his pocket watch was still keeping to time, but there was nothing for it now.

  He was lost.

  Worse than lost. Mystified, he knew where he should be, and he was almost certain this dockyard was the right location – but then, where was she?

  “Evening,” came a grunt from a passing ship-hand, and George, startled, grabbed at his hat as it fell from his head.

  “Good – good evening,” he said hastily, but the man was already gone.

  Of course he was gone. It was near eight o’clock in the evening, and the London dockyard was no place for a gentleman at the best of times. What had he been thinking? Miss Teresa Metcalfe may be worth looking for in the daylight, but surely this escapade had gone on long enough.

  Anyone looking at George would have known he was out of his depth within an instant. Tall with Eton posture, a greatcoat from the best London tailor and a sardonic air that declared good breeding, he was not just a gentleman: he was nobility, and that was not something you could hide, even under a moonlight night in the darkest depths of London.

  George pushed his long, dark hair out of his eyes, and pushed his hat firmly back onto his head. The breeze played with a lock that drifted down towards his eyes again, and he drew his greatcoat closer around him. The spring sunshine had disappeared hours ago, and the night was cool.

  The moon, once bright, had disappeared behind thick cloud, and the rigging of the ships along the dock rattled ominously. This was no place for anyone to be wandering around at night. Raucous laughter emanated from the nearest ship, and the sound of a bottle breaking rose above the din.

  “Interested in a game of cards, sir?” A voice rang out in the darkness, and George turned to see a gaggle of men, most older than himself, huddled around a barrel they were putting to use as a table, with two candles there throwing a flickering and menacing light over them, distorting their faces, elongating noses and ears.

  “N-no, thank you,” George bowed his head courteously, “but I have an appointment to keep.”

  “Ah, ‘tis one of them, is it?” The man laughed knowingly. “Well, I would not keep any man from his lady’s arms, that I wouldn’t. You go on, young sir.”

  The men all sneered, and one took a long drink from a bottle that looked to George unusually large. His stomach twisted, and he backed away.

  This was madness. No self-respecting man – let alone the fourth son of the Duke of Northmere – wandered the streets at night looking for a young woman, of loose morals or otherwise, and hoped to get out of the situation with his reputation intact.

  Anyone could see him. Anyone could recognise him, a central part of the ton as he was, and then he would lose his Almack’s vouchers for good. Society as he knew it would be over.

  A bark of a laugh broke from his lips. Perhaps that was what he wanted, really. Perhaps this entirely mad escapade was just a way for him to rebel, to get out of society, to do something different.

  A trio of giggling women, gowns tight and shoulders bared, passed him as they threw inviting looks at him. George shook his head. Was this really what he had thought it would be?

  “Got an hour to spare, sir?” One of the woman was leering at him, and his heart starting to beat faster as he rushed past them.

  He must have been mad to take Luke’s advice at the club that afternoon. It had all seemed far more of a jest than anything serious, but when George had returned home, the echo of the front door closing after him had rung out through every chamber. It had been too much: he had had to get away, and the last thought ringing in his mind was the woman Teresa.

  “You lost, son?”

  George started. A woman had approached him, with rouge splattered across her cheeks that had sunk into her wrinkles. She was eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Yes,” he said honestly, and then hastily, “No! No, thank you ma’am. I am looking for a . . . for a friend of mine, and I seem to have passed her by.”

  The woman gave him an appraising look. “Young woman, was she sir?”

  George flushed, despite himself. His station left him unaccustomed to such blatant mockery, and in all his life he had never endured such a stare. “A woman named Teresa, if you must know. Are you acquainted with her?”

  She stared at him, unmoving for a moment, and then held out a hand.

  He sighed. “What will it cost me to learn everything you know about Teresa?”

  “A guinea,” came the quick response.

  “A guinea!” George laughed deeply. “My word, this Teresa must be worth her weight in gold if just the mere information of her is worth a guinea!”

  If he had been hoping his incredulity would drive down the woman’s price, he was wrong.

  “‘Tis no matter to me,” she shrugged, turning away.

  George bit his lip. He had come this far, to be sure, and it would be madness to walk away now, so close, it seemed, to his quarry. And what was a guinea, really, in the grand scheme of things? He had plenty of those, and he frequently gave them to people who truly did not deserve them – like his lawyer.

  He sighed. “Wait.”

  As though she had been waiting for this syllable, the woman returned immediately before him. “One guinea, for everything I know about Teresa.”

  Fumbling for his pocketbook, George drew out a guinea and placed it into the waiting woman’s hand.

  “There,” he said heavily. “Now… what do you know about Teresa?”

  The woman blinked at him. “Teresa?”

  “Yes,” bit back George, his irritation finally getting the better of him. “You said you knew Teresa; you said you could tell me about her.”

  The woman’s face broke out into a grin. “Did I, sir? I do not think I did. All I promised was to tell you all I knew about Teresa, and sadly, that is very lacking. Never heard of her.”

  George’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why, you scheming – I will have you in front of the Bow Street Runners, I will!”

  But she was gone, cackling gleefully to herself
with a guinea warming in her hand.

  How could he have been so stupid – was this night truly the stupidest night of his life? George cursed under his breath once more, and tugged his greatcoat around his shoulders more tightly. He was now a guinea down with little to show for it; nothing, to tell the truth, save for a lesson in wordplay from a commoner.

  Was he truly this desperate that he would seek out such a woman as Teresa? Did he have such a hole in his heart, a gap in his soul, that he would happily fill it with anyone who came to mind?

  A seagull squawked overhead, and George stared up into the starry sky, misted slightly by the lamps lining the ships, shifting slightly in the tide. He had to face facts. He was lost, with no idea where this Teresa was, or even, and he felt a hot rush of shame at the thought of it, whether Luke was speaking the truth about her in the first place. For all he knew, she was just a figment of Luke’s imagination: a practical joke gone awry, unless the papers were already writing up a story about him.

  George sunk his head into one of his hands. Where he should be right now was in his study, with a glass of brandy in one hand and a good book in the other. What he was doing here was giving into weakness, that was all. It was not a vice he often indulged, and it stopped here. Now.

  George blinked. He had been standing here, irresolute and contemplative, for a long time. Two women, walking back towards the town, threw him a concerned look – though whether it was concern for himself, or concern for their own safety, he could not tell.

  It had been idiocy, sheer idiocy that had brought him here to tonight. He heard Luke’s words ringing in his ears: “If you are truly that lonely, George, find yourself a woman.”

  As though it were that easy. The last woman he had lost his heart to . . . a tightness, a pain crossed his chest, as though his lungs were being squeezed of all the air inside them. Do not think about her, he told himself. Think of something else – anything else.

  The moment passed, and his breathing returned to normal, though the stabbing pains across his heart had not disappeared. He should have known better than to listen to Luke in the first place. What was he thinking, looking for a woman like this Teresa, in a place like this? Had the need welling inside him finally overturned his reason? Had he no shame? Had he no honour?

  “This has gone on long enough,” he muttered under his breath, thrusting the scrap of paper into his greatcoat pocket. “You fool, George. Go home.”

  Turning swiftly, George took a hasty step forwards, crashing into someone who fell sideways – towards the ocean, waves crashing against the dock. The figure screamed, and it was a high scream, a scream of panic, and George shot out an arm and held them, dangling over the side, mere inches away from toppling into the fathoms of the deep.

  It was a woman. Almost panting with the strain of holding her there, George said, “Young women walking alone should be more careful.”

  “Sorry miss.” The grizzled man shook his head. “We ain’t going nowhere near, I’m afraid. Try further down. Look for a Captain Briggs, he may be heading your way.”

  Florence smiled weakly, and nodded. “Thank you, sir. I will try and find him, but if I do not who else should I – ”

  Exactly who else she should ask, she would never know. The man had already turned away from her, and stomped back across the wooden board onto his ship.

  Picking up her luggage, Florence sighed. “Idiota,” she muttered under her breath. “How difficult would it have been, really, to drop me just across the ocean once you had arrived at the south of France?”

  She had not thought it would be so difficult; a dockyard would be full of ships, she had reasoned, and surely one of those would be going to Italy. Any one of them, or maybe several. She would be able to find one with the best price, and then in mere days, she would be back there. Back where she belonged.

  “Hie there, missy, are you available for this evening?”

  Florence flushed at the lewd comment from the young man, clearly in his cups, who was staggering through the docks – a shortcut many a disreputable man took.

  “I pay swell – I mean, well,” drawled the man, his waistcoat buttons open and his cravat askew. Florence drew her pelisse around her more closely, and tried to avoid his eye, but there was no getting away from him. “Name your price, missy, I ain’t so particular.”

  A hot flush covered her cheeks, but she said nothing. Drawing attention to herself in a place like this; well, that would be asking for trouble. All she had to do was keep walking.

  Her breath caught in her lungs as it met the cool night air, and her cheeks continued to flush minutes after the man’s shouts disappeared into the night. To think he took her for – well, a lady of the night! True, few women of genteel birth would be loitering around the dockyard at any time, let alone at this late hour; but then, she was hardly loitering. She was looking.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Her voice sounded strange, almost ethereal, even to her own ears. What was it about being out at night, on your own, that seemed to colour everything you saw and heard? Every shadow could be a man about to attack you, every smash of the waves, a step behind her.

  “Yes?” came the gruff reply.

  Florence tried to smile. She was looking for a favour here; it could do her no harm to be polite about it. “Good evening, sir. I am hoping . . . I am looking for a ship going to Italy. Any part of Italy, really, just somewhere near there where I can find further passage to get home. Is the – ” and here she had to look up to see the name emblazoned on the noticeboard “ – the Sally Ann going to Italy, perchance?”

  The man stared at her, his eyes flickering up and down her as he brushed his hair back, and Florence tried staring back as a long dark strand of her hair escaped in the fluttering wind, and wound itself down to her shoulder. It was not such a strange request, really, she told herself. Plenty of people want to travel the world, and some of them have specific destinations in mind.

  Yes, said an uncomfortable voice in her head. But most are men, and most are rich, and most can organise their own travel without having to resort to wandering a dockyard at night, without a chaperone, asking captains their destinations.

  “No,” said the man flatly.

  “Oh, but please, sir,” said Florence desperately, reaching the hand not carrying her luggage beseechingly towards him, “do you know of any such ship with a destination of Italy? I am trying to get home, you see, and – ”

  The man turned away, and strode back to his ship.

  “Idiota,” murmured Florence under her breath, staring at the place where the man had just been standing. “If you had just given me one more moment to explain . . .”

  But none of them had. No one wanted a strange passenger like a lady on her own; the old sea adage that having a woman on board was bad luck seemed particularly strong here, in England.

  There was nothing for it. Florence closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and then opened them again.

  There were plenty of other ships that she had not enquired at. It was just a matter of time. Taking her reticule firmly under one arm, she turned determinedly and strode forward, her head down.

  And hit something; hit something hard, and solid, and immoveable. Her foot slipped on a sea-foamed cobblestone, and before she knew it she was tipping, toppling over and not towards the dockyard but to the ocean, and she could see the dark frothy waves and they were going to envelope her and –

  A strong hand grabbed her wrist, and it burned, but it steadied her.

  A deep voice spoke, with a hint of sarcasm. “Young women walking alone should be more careful.”

  2

  George could easily see it was a young woman as her skirts fluttered in the breeze, and he struggled to hold her there, the ground slippery underfoot, the woman twisting in panic as she gasped, her heavy bag weighing her down.

  “Save me – oh, mio Dio, do not let me fall!”

  “I am doing my best,” grunted George, using all his might to pull her forwards towards h
im. Luckily there were mounting steps beside him, and wedging one of his boots beside it, he leaned backwards with all his might.

  It was not until he pulled her upwards and she fell into his arms, safely on the dockside, that he realised just how beautiful she was. A warm, frantic body; dark eyes and a clean complexion; and best of all, a countenance of fiery spirit that dazzled him beyond any woman he had ever clapped eyes on.

  “My word,” he found himself saying as his throat tightened. “I think I will take myself fishing around here more often, if you are the calibre of catch I find.”

  Dark eyelashes fluttered, and dark eyes looked away from him. “I am no fish, sir, and I have no wish to be caught.”

  She was twisting, wrenching to get away from him, and George could not help but stare at the way her dark hair flowed around her neck as a few strands escaped their pins. A pair of diamond earrings glinted through the locks.

  “Sir, let me go!” She cried, and in shock at her alarm, George released her, and she almost fell backwards, weighted down with her luggage. Now he could see her properly, he would have known she was not English before he heard the slight lilt in her accent. It was musical, almost as though she was singing. French, perhaps?

  “I mean no harm,” he said, trying to sound reassuring but suddenly aware of their closeness, even now she had taken a step away from him. She was truly exquisite, with a slender neck and a curve across her royal blue gown, just visible underneath her pelisse, that belied an extravagant bosom. A stirring started in his stomach – but it was difficult to concentrate on her form when her mouth was so active.

  “No harm – no harm?” The woman was only wearing a thin pelisse, George noticed, and she was shivering in the cold. “You almost threw me into the sea, ‘tis little wonder you had to pull me out! Idiota.”