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  The bottle arrived and, a turn of the clock later, a second one.

  They proceeded to get drunk.

  Oliver was certain that even if she’d never been in a proper pub, it wasn’t the first time the baroness had been drunk. She and her twin were no innocents, and he could attest they’d snatched plenty of quick glasses of wine at the palace balls. But, it may have been the first time Baroness Aria Child had been so publicly scandalous.

  As the glasses emptied and a third bottle arrived, she grew downright wanton. Her subtle hints became slurred vulgar demands. Her tongue licked her parted lips, and more than once, Oliver had to push a stockinged foot from his lap. He hoped she hadn’t lost her shoes already.

  He begged her to leave and accompany him back to his rooms in the palace, but the girl was having too much fun being the center of attention. Resigned to his fate and pleasantly humming from the drink, he waved to the barman again. If they were going to do it, they might as well do it right.

  Oliver’s mind, moving slow, weaved between eagerness to get the girl somewhere private where he could ravish her and nervousness about what would happen if Baron Child heard rumors of one of his twins making such a display. Certainly, the baron was aware of the girls’ amorous natures and likely encouraged it. Encouraged it in private, at least. The girls’ prospects were higher if they were believed to be chaste.

  The two girls were amongst the most beautiful members of Westundon’s peerage, and Oliver had no doubt the baron planned to use them to climb the rung to Viscount, or even Earl, with a powerful liaison. Eyeing the girl across the table from him and meeting her sultry smile, he wondered if that would be such a bad bargain.

  “Duke,” said a voice, slicing through the haze. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Aren’t you supposed to be leaving in… three turns of the clock?”

  He looked up and blinked. Sam was standing there, her tight leather trousers, fitted vest, and kris daggers marking a stark contrast to the gowned and suited opera patrons that crowded around them.

  “Can you be in here armed?” he slurred.

  She frowned at him. “They haven’t kicked me out yet. Do you think you are going to make your flight this morning? I need a ride to Archtan Atoll, and I’m told your airship is the fastest way to get there.”

  “Who is this, Oliver?” asked the baroness, leaning forward and placing a hand on his arm.

  “She’s… she’s a… she works for the Church. She’s a priestess,” he muttered, letting the baroness clutch his one arm while he poured two more glasses of fiery spirits with his other.

  He frowned at the tiny glasses he’d just filled. Hadn’t they been drinking wine?

  He turned to Sam. “I’m rather busy right now. Can we discuss this later?”

  The baroness scraped her chair around the side of the table, keeping one hand on the duke, her eyes on Sam. Evidently, she suspected a rival.

  Oliver downed the glass of liquor he’d just poured and decided it wasn’t his first of the night. They had been drinking wine, he was certain, but he vaguely recalled switching to something stronger several drinks back.

  That probably had not been a good idea.

  Beside him, Aria shifted closer. Wine or liquor, he supposed so far it was working out well. He’d been worried when Sam arrived that the baroness would get angry and make a scene. She wasn’t angry, though in a moment, they would be making a scene. It seemed instead of words she’d chosen to mark her territory with her flesh. Cuddling next to the duke, she pressed her body against his side and moved a hand under the table, drifting up his thigh.

  His eyes widened, and Sam grinned at him.

  “We need to talk,” she said. “Why don’t you take her upstairs and handle this situation? I walked up there looking for you and saw there are booths with curtains. I’ll wait.”

  “You’re suggesting…” he mumbled.

  “Duke,” advised Sam, “even you are going to get tossed out of this place if you let her keep going on like that.”

  He squeaked as Baroness Aria found her target and rubbed her hand across it. His mind churned slowly, thoughts rushing away as blood fled his head, flowing to another part of his anatomy. He asked Sam, “Upstairs?”

  Sam nodded, and Oliver stood, adjusting himself awkwardly as Sam watched. The baroness clung to him, hanging tighter to his hip than his belt.

  The priestess took a seat at their table and tossed back the drink Oliver had poured for the baroness. He saw her pour two more as he stumbled through the crowd, Aria trailing him, her hands pawing at him.

  He nearly made good on his earlier promise and half-carried her up the stairs, the babble of the crowd like the roar of the ocean below them.

  At the top of the stairs, an attendant stood ready to direct patrons to the chairs and booths that clustered along a quiet balcony. It was open to the room below, giving it a social feel, but it was private, and Oliver belatedly realized he should have taken the baroness upstairs in the first place.

  No time to think about it, though, as the attendant glanced up and said, “I’m sorry, sir. We are closing down for the… Are you… Ah, this way, m’lord.”

  The baroness gave the duke a mischievous grin and tugged on the front of her dress, nearly pulling it down and giving him an eyeful. He caught her wrist and led her after the attendant.

  The man ushered them to a booth in the back corner and, red-faced, yanked the curtain closed the moment Oliver slid in, and the baroness climbed in on top of him.

  She pushed him back down in the booth, straddling him, kissing him fiercely. Unlike her sister who was playful and experimental after a few drinks, Aria was demanding and determined. Oliver wasn’t ravishing her. Rather, he was being ravished, he realized.

  It wasn’t such a bad circumstance.

  He lay back as the baroness rode him, her top pulled down, her skirts hiked up. Her lips were parted, and she rocked frantically. His hands roved her body, finding and rubbing her sensitive bits, eventually focusing on the one between her legs. His hips moving in time with her, and in what felt like moments, she gasped and shuddered, tremors cascading through her.

  His body, having been initially slow to respond, senses dulled by drink, was now fully awake. The baroness slowed, still gently rocking her hips, eyes closed, pretty mouth open, drawing in lungfuls of air.

  “My turn,” Oliver growled. He picked her up, spun her, and settled her back down. She wrapped her legs around him and gripped his biceps while he hovered over her.

  Wordlessly, he began to thrust, picking up his pace. The outside world faded away, only the two of them left. He bent toward her, kissing, sucking her bare skin. She put one arm around him and dug her nails into his back. The other hand squirmed between them, finding its way between her legs. Writhing against him, she rose on another wave of ecstasy. Frantically, he pounded into her, fighting to hold on, urgently racing, until he felt her tense, and together, they gasped and quaked. He collapsed, feeling her twitching body beneath him as he spasmed helplessly.

  Moments passed, but he’d long ago lost his awareness of time. Her breathing slowed, and he regained some sense of himself. He sat up and looked down at the disheveled baroness. Her intricately swept-up curls were a tussled mess. Her gown was bunched around her waist, exposing everything above and below it. Her neck and shoulders were dotted with small, red marks that he knew he’d left in his passion.

  “My, my,” she said softly. “We should do that again.”

  “I don’t think I can right now, Aria,” he mumbled.

  “When you get back, silly man,” she breathed, a hand rising to trace along her naked skin. “When you get back.”

  He grunted and adjusted his trousers, awkwardly pulling them up in the booth and stuffing his shirt down as best he could from a seated position. By the time he’d buckled his belt, fixed his coat, and his hair, the girl’s chest was rising and falling with steady breaths. Her eyes were closed, and her head was tilted to the side. She was asleep,
half-naked, in the booth of a public pub.

  He groaned.

  He leaned over and began to adjust her gown, easily pulling her skirts down then struggling to pull the dress up and cover her breasts. Magnificent breasts, he thought, before shaking himself and regaining his focus.

  He poked her and called her name, but nothing disturbed the girl’s slumber. He sighed. Getting her out of the place without anyone seeing them or being able to guess what they just did was going to be a significant challenge. It would be nearly impossible to quell the rumors if the crowd of patrons below saw him carrying the girl out in such a state. Grimly, he decided it was a lucky turn that he was scheduled to depart for the tropics that morning. Otherwise, he’d likely get flogged by his brother. Or worse, his brother may claim the activity had been a promise to the girl, and where that led was not a place Oliver was ready to go.

  The prince wasn’t going to listen to how an innocent, delicate young woman of the peerage had been just as eager as he was. She had been even more so, thought Oliver, but that explanation wasn’t worth making to the prince. No, he needed to depart quietly. As quietly and stealthily as he could, given how many people had likely noted them stumbling up the stairs.

  Briefly, he considered laying down next to the girl on the booth and sleeping until dawn when the patrons of the pub would all be in their beds and his head would be a bit clearer, but then he swallowed uncomfortably. At dawn, he was meant to be on an airship, flying to Archtan Atoll.

  After checking his hair again, he poked his head out of the curtain. The balcony was empty, except the attendant, who was nervously shifting from foot to foot by the stairs, and Sam, who had relocated to a nearby table and was working on the last few drops left in a clear glass bottle.

  “What are you doing up — Is that my gin?” he hissed. “Were you listening to me?”

  She snorted. “How could I not? That’s not why I’m up here, though. Sitting at your table, drinking your liquor, was drawing some suspicious looks so I moved. Besides, I told you we need to talk, and we have only two turns of the clock before you’re meant to depart. I need a ride, and I need your chop to get me on deck.”

  “You listened to me… to me having—”

  “Duke,” she interrupted.

  He kept talking, “The baroness is a member of the peerage. High society. This is not an acceptable—”

  “Tell that to her uncle,” snapped Sam. “He was down below looking for her half a turn of the clock past. I sent him off across town with a claim that I’d seen you two in the Seven Shillings, and I made sure the staff kept quiet about it. You owe me six pounds and seven shillings, by the way.”

  “Six pounds!”

  “Is that more than the going rate for keeping someone quiet about your illicit sexual liaisons?” chided Sam. “Sorry. I’m not as familiar with these types of payoffs as you are.”

  “No, no,” grumbled Oliver. “I don’t… There’s nothing illicit about it. It’s just… the girl’s family won’t appreciate the, ah, well, she’s half-naked and asleep in a public pub. They won’t like that. We need to get her out of here, immediately.”

  “We?” Sam laughed.

  “You wanted to talk before I left, right?” growled Oliver. “This is what I’m going to be doing the next two turns of the clock, so if you want my chop to get a ride, you’d better help.”

  “I’m not sure this is what the bishop had in mind when he assigned someone from the Church as your companion last week,” grumbled Sam.

  “Well, if you don’t tell him about this, then I won’t tell him how much you’re drinking,” declared Oliver.

  “How much I’m drinking?” asked Sam. “Why would he care about that?”

  “Priests aren’t allowed to drink. Church law,” claimed the duke. “Priestesses, whatever.”

  “I’m not a priestess,” countered Sam, “not really. And even if I was, there is no Church law against drinking. The bishop himself enjoys a tipple every now and then.”

  “You’re not a priestess?” questioned Oliver. “Then what—”

  “Perhaps we should discuss this another time, maybe after we’ve disposed of your drunken, half-naked baroness?”

  He glanced over his shoulder where the girl was peacefully slumbering. He frowned and checked his hair again, hissing at the sloppy knot he’d tied moments before, but he ruefully admitted, if he was spotted walking out of the pub with an unconscious girl, his hair was the last thing anyone would be staring at.

  Hesitantly, the attendant stepped forward, audibly clearing his throat. “I, ah, m’lord, I thought you should know that there is a back stairwell to this building that is accessible from the balcony.”

  “Fetch us a carriage,” Oliver instructed Sam. To the attendant, he added, “Your discretion is appreciated.”

  The man smiled and held out a hand. “I believe the girl mentioned something about six pounds?”

  The baroness, more or less covered, hung limply in their arms as Oliver and Sam stomped down the back stairwell.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Sam, holding the girl’s legs, admiring her face which was nestled in the crook of Oliver’s arm. “One of Baron Child’s twins, isn’t she? I’ve never seen either in person, but they’re something of a legend amongst—”

  “Can we just get on with it,” muttered the duke, pushing on the baroness, trying to encourage Sam to keep backing down the stairwell.

  “I’m just saying she’s a lovely catch,” complained Sam, moving again. “Which one is she?”

  “Aria. Aria Child,” replied Oliver. “And she will have a very upset family if we do not get her back to the palace before dawn.”

  “Are you sure that’s who she is?” jested Sam. “I was told the girls are indistinguishable. They could swap places, and no one would ever know. You can imagine the jokes.”

  “Aria has a small strawberry-colored birthmark on her bottom. Isabella does not,” said the duke as they reached the landing. He turned, trying to angle his body to open the door without dropping the baroness.

  “How do you… You’ve bedded both of them, haven’t you!” accused Sam. “You have to tell me what that is like!”

  “Why would I do that,” he muttered.

  The knob turned and he was finally able to shoulder the door open. A mechanical carriage was puttering in the dimly lit alleyway, the door ajar, the driver up front where he couldn’t see who was exiting the pub. Oliver briefly wondered how many passengers were picked up in such circumstances. Then he climbed into the compartment and laid the girl down on one of the padded benches.

  “I didn’t know where we are going,” said Sam, placing the girl’s legs on the bench and then putting one of her high-heeled shoes down on top of her. “I thought the baron’s palace or your brother’s, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “Her father, Josiah Child, stays in my brother’s palace when they’re not in Eiremouth,” said Oliver, stepping out of the carriage to instruct the driver on where to take them. “Josiah is an old friend of my father’s. The girls stay with him, of course. Their uncle spends most of his days in Westundon, and he has a townhouse somewhere in the city.”

  He hopped down into the alley then paused.

  “Duke Wellesley,” said a cool, urbane voice.

  A man stepped out of the shadows, and Oliver suppressed a groan. “Baron Child, good evening.”

  “I can only assume you have one of my nieces in that carriage?”

  Oliver scratched at the back of his neck, unsure if a lie or the blatant truth had a better chance of getting him out of the mess without his brother hearing a word of it.

  “My brother thinks only of getting the girls married,” said the baron, taking a step closer, and revealing a hulking body man lurking behind him. “He thinks a good match with someone like you will elevate our family, that you and the Wellesley line would shower us with land and wealth. He’s not completely wrong, is he? The girls are beyond beautiful, and I’m sure you can attest to their pe
rsuasive prowess. They’d be legends in the brothel, but that’s the catch, isn’t it? A man like you does not buy what he can have for free.”

  “They’re good girls,” mumbled Oliver, unsure of what to say.

  “Unimpeachable honor?” snickered the baron. “I’m a realist, Duke Wellesley. The girls are an asset to the Child family, but all it will take is one foolish evening and they’ll ruin their reputations. You could ruin their reputation. Those fine marriage prospects my brother loves to go on about would all evaporate. The two girls could end up spinsters. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “What are you asking for, Nathaniel?” asked Oliver, rubbing a hand across his face. “It’s late and I have somewhere to be at dawn.”

  “So does my niece,” growled the baron.

  Oliver raised his hands, palms up. “What do you want?”

  “My brother is plotting marriage, but I have my sights on a more obtainable goal. Grant the Child’s a ten percent share in your expedition to the Westlands, and I’ll forget I found you — and my niece — in this condition. You’ll have no worries that this meeting will be discussed with your brother, Prince Philip.”

  “I’m not going to the Westlands this morning, Nathaniel. I’m going to Archtan Atoll.”

  “I know that,” snapped the baron. “I also know you will lead the expedition to the Westlands when you return. The Company won’t deny Duke Oliver Wellesley such an assignment. A ten percent share, and you may still enjoy the company of my nieces without fear that I will ever mention it again.”

  “Ten percent is half my own stake,” argued Oliver. “I can grant you one percent.”

  “One percent?” scoffed Baron Child. “That is nothing.”

  “The rumors of the Westland’s potential are true,” challenged Oliver. “One percent of the expedition will rival the value of your entire estate — both you and your brother’s. You’ll double the Child family’s wealth.”

  “Five,” countered Baron Child. “It’s cheaper than your brother forcing a marriage on you, don’t you think?”