“You’ll never guess ’ew just walked in,” she tittered, flushed with excitement. “Though what ’e’s doing in Soho, I couldn’t begin to imagine. Don’t get much of ’is like ’ere.”
“Spit it out, ye crooked whore, we’re not about to be guessing,” Heather demanded.
“See that one there?” Flora pointed at the officer who folded his long frame into a chair at the head of the table. “The tall one wot looks like a fallen angel?”
They all nodded, not wanting to interrupt her long enough to point out that a man such as he was impossible to miss.
“Well, your eyes be feasting on Collin sodding Talmage, fresh from the funeral of his father and brother. Del Toro tells me ’e’s leaving at dawn for his final service to the crown before ’e returns to take ’is seat as the Duke of Trenwyth.”
Of course. That was why he’d been so familiar. His story was inescapably sensational. His father, the late Duke of Trenwyth, his mother, the duchess, and their heir apparent, Robert, had all been killed when a locomotive derailed near the French Alps, leaving behind their second child, Harriet, and their youngest, Collin. His likeness had been on the front page of every paper and periodical for a week. Lord, but they’d never done him justice, hadn’t been able to capture the potent masculinity that draped like a royal mantle from his wide shoulders.
And a royal he nearly was. Some distant Hanoverian mixed in with an ancient family from Cornwall, directly related to their own dear Queen Victoria. It certainly made sense that he’d descended from those fierce Germanic barbarian hordes that kept Rome at bay so long ago. She could see it in his bone structure, in the way he surveyed his surroundings, as though he’d already conquered them.
He’d looked at her like that.
Furthermore, she’d been right. It was sadness she’d glimpsed on his features. A sadness he valiantly concealed.
“No time to dawdle.” Flora bustled them in the direction of the table. “Del Toro said it’s all hands on deck tonight, and that every man at that table must leave ’ere feeling like it’s ’is birthday. Especially His Grace, as ’e’s footing the entire bill.”
Simultaneously, the women turned and checked their reflections in the gilded mirror above the sideboard. Even Imogen adjusted her dark wig and made certain her lip rouge was fresh and even. It didn’t really matter what she looked like, so long as she kept the drinks coming. She wasn’t a prostitute, only part of the serving staff, someone to look at, someone to sneer at and grope, but never anything beyond that.
Such was the deal she’d struck with del Toro, that she work at night in the Bare Kitten for as long as it took her to pay off her late father’s gambling debts. She toiled here, even handing over her gratuities to the loathsome man, and then kept her mother and younger sister, Isobel, housed and fed with her job as a nurse at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital.
“Ye heard her.” Heather dug her elbow into Imogen’s side hard enough to cause her to stumble forward. “Stop yer lollygagging, and get them ready for us.”
Imogen snatched an empty tray from the sideboard and clutched it to her middle, feeling the need for whatever scant protection it would provide.
She wound her way to the bar, where Jeremy Carson already had one pitcher of ale waiting, and was filling the next. At twenty or so, he was only younger than her by a few years, so Imogen felt guilty that she always thought of Jeremy as a boy rather than a man. His face, while clean, achingly young, and earnest, didn’t at all match his scouse accent, which hailed from the Liverpool docks. “Looks to be a night to remember, in’nt Ginny? A duke in here and all.”
“I can’t believe it, myself.” She placed the pitchers he provided and a stack of clean glasses on her tray. If she appreciated one thing, it was Jeremy’s cleanliness and attention to the needs of her customers.
“What do you suppose a man like him orders to drink?” the barkeep speculated, flashing a conspiratorial smile full of crooked teeth that made him seem even younger.
Even on the worst day at the Bare Kitten, Imogen found it impossible not to return one of Jeremy Carson’s smiles. “I’m about to go discover that very thing.”
“Well, you take care around them tonight, Ginny,” he warned with uncharacteristic gravity. “They say soldiers are to be feared and respected, even among those they protect.”
Imogen didn’t know who’d said that, as she’d never heard the saying before, but as she threaded through the sparsely occupied tables toward the duke and his rowdy compatriots on legs made of lead, she knew the truth of it.
Trenwyth adopted an expression of sardonic amusement, but rarely participated in the masculine conversation. Though she approached from his periphery, he glanced over at her the moment she moved, and didn’t look away. His intense regard turned the innocuous walk from one side of the hall to the other into a perilous, heart-pounding journey.
She only stumbled the once before she reached them, almost upsetting her tray. Cheeks burning with mortification, she placed herself between Trenwyth and a black-haired Scotsman who would have been handsome but for the cruel gleam in his marble-black eyes. She meticulously poured the ale, avoiding the awareness of the duke as he watched her in complete silence.
That accomplished, she opened her mouth to address them—him—and froze, her mind seizing in panicked fits and groping for her memory. Anyone in service worth the starch in their skirts knew to address the person with the highest rank and work their way down the line. But just what title should she use for Trenwyth? A duke was the highest peer of the realm not in the direct line of the royal family. They were generally addressed as Your Grace. When in uniform, a soldier’s rank often superseded any other title, but Trenwyth’s uniform frock coat was like none she’d ever seen before. The dominant color black, rather than the traditional scarlet, and red only adorned the sleeves and high collar. He had no hat with him to help her to guess. The stitched braiding about his cuffs and shoulders was intricate and fine and utterly foreign to her. He could have been anything from a captain to a colonel and she had no sodding idea which.
“Better ye close yer mouth, love, unless ye’re advertising yer services,” the dark Scot drawled. “In that case, we appreciate yer eagerness, but we’d like to drink first, if it’s all the same to ye.”
Imogen snapped her mouth shut so hard she worried that she’d cracked a tooth as the dozen men surrounding the table guffawed at her expense. A tremor of misery clutched at her, and she chased it away with the brightest smile she could possibly muster and aimed it at Trenwyth. He, at least, wasn’t laughing.
“What—what would you like?” was all she could manage.
“What are you offering?” His question landed in her belly like hot coals tumbling out of the hearth. His mouth didn’t move much when he spoke, his voice barely above a murmur, but the register was of such depth and resonance that it vibrated through her, spearing her chest with the duplicitous meaning.
Again she found herself without words or breath.
“No punch, sherry, brandy, or port at the Bare Kitten,” the Scot answered for her. “Only the best ale brewed this side of the Thames, gin, absinthe, and whisky. A place for a real man, not a gentleman. But what they lack in their variety of alcohol, they more than make up for in their assortment of other vices. Is that not so, lass?” A sharp pinch of her backside brought a gasp and the prick of tears behind her eyes.
Imogen turned and placed her tray in between herself and the Scot, baring her clenched teeth at him in what she hoped del Toro interpreted as a smile. “It is indeed, sir,” she said stiffly, eyeing her astute employer as he glared daggers at her in a warning to behave.