This Earl Of Mine (Bow Street Bachelors #1)

Chapter 1.

London, March 1816.

There were worse places to find a husband than Newgate Prison.
Of course there were.
It was just that, at present, Georgie couldn’t think of any.
“Georgiana Caversteed, this is a terrible idea.”
Georgie frowned at her burly companion, Pieter Smit, as the nondescript carriage he’d summoned to convey them to London’s most notorious jail rocked to a halt on the cobbled street. The salt-weathered Dutchman always used her full name whenever he disapproved of something she was doing. Which was often.
“Your father would turn in his watery grave if he knew what you were about.”
That was undoubtedly true. Until three days ago, enlisting a husband from amongst the ranks of London’s most dangerous criminals had not featured prominently on her list of life goals. But desperate times called for desperate measures. Or, in this case, for a desperate felon about to be hanged. A felon she would marry before the night was through.
Georgie peered out into the rain-drizzled street, then up, up the near-windowless walls. They rose into the mist, five stories high, a vast expanse of brickwork, bleak and unpromising. A church bell tolled somewhere in the darkness, a forlorn clang like a death knell. Her stomach knotted with a grim sense of foreboding.
Was she really going to go through with this? It had seemed a good plan, in the safety of Grosvenor Square. The perfect way to thwart Cousin Josiah once and for all. She stepped from the carriage, ducked her head against the rain, and followed Pieter under a vast arched gate. Her heart hammered at the audacity of what she planned.
They’d taken the same route as condemned prisoners on the way to Tyburn tree, only in reverse. West to east, from the rarefied social strata of Mayfair through gradually rougher and bleaker neighborhoods, Holborn and St. Giles, to this miserable place where the dregs of humanity had been incarcerated. Georgie felt as if she were nearing her own execution.
She shook off the pervasive aura of doom and straightened her spine. This was her choice. However unpalatable the next few minutes might be, the alternative was far worse. Better a temporary marriage to a murderous, unwashed criminal than a lifetime of misery with Josiah.
They crossed the deserted outer courtyard, and Georgie cleared her throat, trying not to inhale the foul-smelling air that seeped from the very pores of the building. “You have it all arranged? They are expecting us?”
Pieter nodded. “Aye. I’ve greased the wheels with yer blunt, my girl. The proctor and the ordinary are both bent as copper shillings. Used to having their palms greased, those two, the greedy bastards.”
Her father’s right-hand man had never minced words in front of her, and Georgie appreciated his bluntness. So few people in the ton ever said what they really meant. Pieter’s honesty was refreshing. He’d been her father’s man for twenty years before she’d even been born. A case of mumps had prevented him from accompanying William Caversteed on his last, fateful voyage, and Georgie had often thought that if Pieter had been with her father, maybe he’d still be alive. Little things like squalls, shipwrecks, and attacks from Barbary pirates would be mere inconveniences to a man like Pieter Smit.
In the five years since Papa’s death, Pieter’s steadfast loyalty had been dedicated to William’s daughters, and Georgie loved the gruff, hulking manservant like a second father. He would see her through this madcap scheme—even if he disapproved.
She tugged the hood of her cloak down to stave off the drizzle. This place was filled with murderers, highwaymen, forgers, and thieves. Poor wretches slated to die, or those “lucky” few whose sentences had been commuted to transportation. Yet in her own way, she was equally desperate.
“You are sure that this man is to be hanged tomorrow?”
Pieter nodded grimly as he rapped on a wooden door. “I am. A low sort he is, by all accounts.”
She shouldn’t ask, didn’t want to know too much about the man whose name she was purchasing. A man whose death would spell her own freedom. She would be wed and widowed within twenty-four hours.
Taking advantage of a condemned man left a sour taste in her mouth, a sense of guilt that her happiness should come from the misfortune of another. But this man would die whether she married him or not. “What are his crimes?”
“Numerous, I’m told. He’s a coiner.” At her frown, Pieter elaborated. “Someone who forges coins. It’s treason, that.”
“Oh.” That seemed a little harsh. She couldn’t imagine what that was like, having no money, forced to make your own. Still, having a fortune was almost as much of a curse as having nothing. She’d endured six years of insincere, lecherous fortune hunters, thanks to her bountiful coffers.
“A smuggler too,” Pieter added for good measure. “Stabbed a customs man down in Kent.”
She was simply making the best out of a bad situation. This man would surely realize that while there was no hope for himself, at least he could leave this world having provided for whatever family he left behind. Everyone had parents, or siblings, or lovers. Everyone had a price. She, of all people, knew that—she was buying herself a husband. At least this way there was no pretense. Besides, what was the point in having a fortune if you couldn’t use it to make yourself happy?
Pieter hammered impatiently on the door again.
“I know you disapprove,” Georgie muttered. “But Father would never have wanted me to marry a man who covets my purse more than my person. If you hadn’t rescued me the other evening, that’s precisely what would have happened. I would have had to wed Josiah to prevent a scandal. I refuse to give control of my life and my fortune to some idiot to mismanage. As a widow, I will be free.”
Pieter gave an eloquent sniff.
“You think me heartless,” Georgie said. “But can you think of another way?” At his frowning silence, she nodded. “No, me neither.”
Heavy footsteps and the jangle of keys finally heralded proof of human life inside. The door scraped open, and the low glare of a lantern illuminated a grotesquely large man in the doorway.
“Mr. Knollys?”
The man gave a brown-toothed grin as he recognized Pieter. “Welcome back, sir. Welcome back.” He craned his neck and raised the lantern, trying to catch a glimpse of Georgie. “You brought the lady, then?” His piggy eyes narrowed with curiosity within the folds of his flabby face.
“And the license.” Pieter tapped the pocket of his coat.
Knollys nodded and stepped back, allowing them entry. “The ordinary’s agreed to perform the service.” He turned and began shuffling down the narrow corridor, lantern raised. “Only one small problem.” He cocked his head back toward Pieter. “That cove the lady was to marry? Cheated the ’angman, ’e ’as.”
Pieter stopped abruptly, and Georgie bumped into his broad back.
“He’s dead?” Pieter exclaimed. “Then why are we here? You can damn well return that purse I paid you!”
The man’s belly undulated grotesquely as he laughed. It was not a kindly sound. “Now, now. Don’t you worry yerself none, me fine lad. That special license don’t have no names on it yet, do it? No. We’ve plenty more like ’im in this place. This way.”
The foul stench of the prison increased tenfold as they followed the unpleasant Knollys up some stairs and down a second corridor. Rows of thick wooden doors, each with a square metal hatch and a sliding shutter at eye level lined the walls on either side. Noises emanated from some—inhuman moans, shouts, and foul curses. Others were ominously silent. Georgie pressed her handkerchief to her nose, glad she’d doused it in lavender water.
Knollys waddled to a stop in front of the final door in the row. His eyes glistened with a disquieting amount of glee.
“Found the lady a substitute, I ’ave.” He thumped the metal grate with his meaty fist and eyed Georgie’s cloaked form with a knowing, suggestive leer that made her feel as though she’d been drenched in cooking fat. She resisted the urge to shudder.
“Wake up, lads!” he bellowed. “There’s a lady ’ere needs yer services.”