Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi

Chapter 1

When Lewis Tooley was hanged, to the more merciless crowd’s delight, and to the less hardened people’s horror, the man’s head popped right off.

Thomas Winterly wetted himself the moment the bag was draped over his head.

Or there was Mrs. Blythe Starwich, who went purple, and whose strangulation was so slow that even the most ruthless gluttons for displays of violence called out for mercy on the half-mad woman’s behalf.

Now, having come to terms with these, his final moments, contemplating each of those possible outcomes for his own demise, Dare felt more . . . a detached curiosity about the end of his life.

Unlike the ribald excitement that always filled the gallows on hanging day, there was a surprising quiet to the crowd. A somberness that didn’t fit with the affair.

He did a sweep of the thousands assembled, all faces blurring together, a swath of tattered brown fabrics all blended as one into a blanket of sorts comprised of the masses.

Tears wetted the coal-smudged cheeks of many of the spectators.

It spoke to his ungratefulness, because Dare should be grateful for those tokens, ones that indicated some out there would at least regret his passing.

And yet . . . they were still the tears of strangers. They’d grieve over the loss of what he represented for the people here.

There was one who might grieve, however . . . and as he looked out, it was her face he sought. The one who, years and years earlier, had urged him to the Devil and said he was dead to her . . .

The guard grunted. “It’s toime, Grey.” He prodded Dare sharply at the center of his back.

Dare stumbled and pitched forward, managing to right himself.

He steeled his jaw. He’d be damned if anything but that rope knocked him down.

Hisses and boos went up amongst the audience.

“Free ’im . . .”

Those two words rolled slowly and quietly through the crowd, but then took on a steady beat until the crowd roared with demands for his freedom.

And in the greatest of ironies, his guard shifted uneasily, moving closer to Dare.

“Let’s get on with it,” the other guard shouted, his call barely rising above the deafening din.

Catching Dare at both arms, they dragged him closer to that dais.

He’d lied. He wasn’t at peace.

Sweat slicked his palms and coated his frame. Vomit churned in his belly, and he swallowed rapidly to keep from retching before the thousands bearing witness.

His gaze skittered frantically.

For all the times he’d found himself in Newgate, there’d always been an almost calm understanding that he’d escape. He’d never made it to his last meal and last rites. And this march. He’d never made this march.

He choked on his bile, grateful for the near pandemonium that allowed him that smallest dignity.

His stare landed on a gleeful face amidst the crowd. There was a vague familiarity to the stranger. And yet, for as many as Dare had helped, there’d been triple those whom he’d been unable to. Men and women he’d turned away. Or gang leaders whom he’d foiled.

The man grabbed himself crudely. “Deserve it, ya do . . .” That triumphant spectator’s mouth moved, his words clear, even as they were silent amidst the pandemonium.

Yes, there were those who’d relish his death.

Dare’s legs knocked against the bottom step leading up to the dais.

And the panic that had pounded like a drum within retreated and faded, leaving him numb once more.

This was what the end was, then. Terror, ebbing and flowing like the tides rushing in and then out.

Dougal, the burlier of the guards, grunted. “It is time to get on with it. Ain’t no one comin’ for ye this time.” A faint hint of regret tinged that announcement.

But then, in the thirteen times Dare had landed himself in Newgate for robbing some nob to give to the poor, he’d come to know many of the guards. Those same men had often helped coordinate the bribe which had seen Dare freed. This time, however, there’d be no escape. That reality did not erase Dare’s gratitude for what this guard, and others, had done in his past. He briefly held the other man’s gaze and nodded. “Thank you.” For all the other men had done before this moment.

The guard gave the slightest, most imperceptible of nods that, had Dare not been studying him so closely, he would have missed.

And oddly, that grounded him. It gave him the courage and strength to place his foot on the first step. Nor did he believe his march, different