“Because you live in the country.” The duchess chuckled. “There is all manner of intrigue in London. It is a most diverting place. But polygamy and private prostitution? Flouting the law on such a grand scale? How deliciously dissolute. I marvel that he got away with it.”
“Only for a time, my dear. For our bold Baron Baltimore became obsessed with a young woman he could not procure for any price, a comely Quakeress who reputedly kept a milliner’s shop at Tower Hill.” He paused in his narrative, his lips curving at his guests’ rapt expressions.
“Finally, a bit of virtue enters into this sordid tale,” Hew remarked.
“Though virtue and vice divide the world, vice has by far the better share,” quoted DeVere.
“None can argue that,” said Ned dryly.
“Well, what happened to the girl?” demanded Annalee.
“He abducted her, of course,” DeVere said.
“Impossible!” Edward scoffed. “This is melodrama worthy of the Drury Lane Stage. Surely you have fabricated this entire story just to entertain us.”
“I wish I were making it up. But since you doubt me…” DeVere stood and strode from the room, leaving his guests with puzzled frowns. He returned a few minutes later, with a yellowed news journal in hand. He dropped it in front of Ned.
“Why I’ll be…hung,” his friend murmured at the headline dated March 1768. “So the devil was caught red-handed.”
“He was tried for abducting and ravishing one Sarah Woodcock, but acquitted after less than two hours deliberation. It is all there in sordid detail in the Gentleman’s Magazine.”
“What then happened to the girl?” Annalee asked.
“The jury believed she made no sincere effort to escape her captor. The broadsheets further claimed that while Baltimore was undoubtedly guilty, neither was she truly innocent.”
“How horribly unfair for the victim to be painted with the same brush as the perpetrator of the crime!” exclaimed Annalee.
DeVere shrugged. “As I said, it is a man’s world.”
“I marvel that you have taken such a very keen interest in this Lord Baltimore,” Diana remarked.
“I am so easily bored that you might say he has become my hobby,” DeVere said. “His life has provided me endless entertainment. I have acquired his diaries and travel journals, and my agent even now seeks to purchase the notorious Bloomsbury House from the Duke of Bolton.”
“Why on earth would you desire such a tainted thing?” Diana asked.
DeVere cocked a brow. “Must I have a reason?”
“But what happened to him in the end?” Annalee asked. “You said the scoundrel was acquitted. Was he never held to account for his crimes?”
“Can one ever truly escape one’s sins?” DeVere asked, waxing philosophic. “No doubt you ladies and my entirely-too-upright brother will be relieved to hear that our hero did come to a bad end. Upon his acquittal, he found himself in dire financial straits. He sold off everything and left England with eight women, a physician, and two Negro servant—presumably eunuchs,” he added in a laughing aside. “He travelled thusly for three years until his death in Italy. He was eight and thirty. And so ends our tale of woe.”
“What a wasteful life!” Annalee declared.
“Indeed,” said Hew. “It only serves to demonstrate how idleness can lead to a man’s destruction. Speaking of which, might I remind you that we have a gentleman to rescue from the devil’s own abode at Clay Hill.”
“The devil’s abode? What on earth do you mean?” said Annalee.
Hew’s face flushed. “Mayhap I said more than I should have.”
“Nevertheless, you must now explain,” said Diana. “Is my husband in danger?”
“Only if he has a predilection for hard drinking, deep gaming, and low company,” DeVere answered with a smirk.
“Dear God.” Diana cast all three men an accusing look. “Why on earth have you waited so long to retrieve him?”
“Because he has already been there three days, madam,” said DeVere. “I assure you the damage is already done. Besides, one must make allowance for a gentleman’s dignity. To have appeared immediately upon your known arrival to fetch him here would have implied…”
“What?” she demanded.
His lips twitched in obvious amusement. “To put it politely…that he is less than master of his own domain.”
Diana’s met DeVere’s mocking smile with a look of reproach. “And thus, does the devil look after his own.”
CHAPTER FOUR