time. Eventually the door was opened by the only standing “candle” in the house, the rest having been stricken by fever.
His father had taken one whiff of the stench and started to back away. Robert was doing the same, except that the “candle” fainted straight into his arms. At that point, he had no choice. He half carried, half dragged the girl to the nearest settee, then sent his father to fetch a doctor. His father didn’t return, of course, but the doctor did. And together, the two men toiled as no heir to the Earl of Willington had done in generations.
Ten days later, nearly half the candles had survived. And when Robert collapsed, it was the madame of the house who, settling him in her own bed, nursed him as his own mother had never done. From that moment on, Robert and Chandelle were fast friends. And the brothel became something else entirely, though with the same name. It was a hospital of sorts for working girls. A place where the women could heal or die with dignity. If some of its former trade continued, Robert wasn’t aware of it. And he certainly didn’t take a cut of the profit.
What he did take was a back room that was wholly his. In it, he read, relaxed, and dabbled in the one thing he had once wanted to do above everything else: medicine. He kept track of the treatments the girls received, the concoctions and the potions that helped and those that did not. He had visitors of a sort, too. Men of medicine he consulted on one case or another. But mostly, he and Chandelle managed alone, doing their best for the girls who knocked upon their door.
He told no one what he was doing. It was perfectly acceptable for an earl’s son to own a brothel. It was absolutely unacceptable for him to be housing them to no profit and be treating them as human beings, caring for their diseases, and seeing that their children grew up in a wholly different life.
And if his father ever found out that this was the reason there weren’t enough funds to make his disaster of a mine immediately profitable, then there would be the devil to pay for sure. Chandelle and her patients would be safe, Robert would see to that. But the earl would demand a reckoning—and a good deal of money—to recompense what had gone into the Chandler. And sadly, Robert just didn’t have the money in his own right to do that. Not in one lump sum. So he kept his passion secret, and he went there only when he was assured no one would miss him.
Chandelle met him at the door, opening it quickly and ushering him inside. When he would have spoken, she pressed a finger to his lips, then gestured him to her bedroom. He followed her quietly enough to where three children sat completely enraptured by the sight of a mama cat licking clean her new litter of kittens.
“She wandered in and set up right by my fire,” whispered Chandelle. “What was I to do but call in the little ones to watch? It has given their mothers three hours’ worth of peace!”
He smiled as he looked down at the mangy mama cat. Her fur was burned in patches and uneven in others. One eye was gone, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her tail was bent at an odd angle. But the animal was alive and caring for her kittens with all the devotion of the Madonna.
“Well, she looks like she’d be a good mouser.” The cat looked nothing of the sort. But then, he’d learned not to judge people—or animals—by their appearance.
“She’ll teach her kits well, you mark my words. Then you’ll see. Not a rat would dare show its face here.”
“At least not the four-footed kind,” he drawled. They still had problems with men of one ilk or another come looking for a woman or her children. That was why he kept a couple of large guards in the house and paid them well. Mostly they fetched and carried whatever was needed. But other times, they kept the human vermin outside.
With a wry smile, she gestured him out of her room again. He stepped out and headed for the upper floor of patients. She accompanied him, and he slowed to match her pace. Chandelle had once been a great beauty, or so he’d been told. But now she was in her fifties—an ancient age in her profession—and the sickness that had brought them together so many years ago had yet to leave her joints. That made her stiff as she moved, slow and unsteady with the paint box whenever she bothered, and mostly unfit to do the day-to-day nursing some of the patients required. But nursing had never been Chandelle’s strength. She had an eye for people—their talents and their failings—and she had no reservations about using that knowledge for the good of her charges. As a madame, she’d been a deft hand at blackmail. As the head of a home for sick women, she knew whom to accept and whom to toss from her steps like bad meat. Every one of her charges had helped out in one way or another. And neither she nor Robert would have it any other way.
Today, however, she turned that keen eye on him. Or rather, her keen nose. She sniffed the air as they walked and curled her lip. “You ’ave the smell of the docks on you.”
He nodded. “Spent an extremely unpleasant hour at Mr. Johnny Bono’s Mercantile.”
“Johnny Bono! That bastard! Tell me you won’t have no truck with the likes of him.”
Robert smiled. “No truck, I swear. But I’d be grateful for news of him, especially as it concerns my sister’s dressmaker.”
She stopped halfway up the stairs, pausing to draw breath. Or perhaps it was to eye him with an all-too- clear gaze. “A dressmaker, you say?”
“Mrs. Mortimer. Her shop is—”
“I know it. And I know ’er.” She waited another moment, chewing her lip as she looked at him. Finally she frowned at him. “So you be looking at the lower orders now for your girls? Fed up, are you, with the society women?”
He considered lying for a moment. He could pretend that Gwen’s dressmaker meant nothing to him. But this was the one place in the world where he did not need to pretend, and so he tucked away the urge and opted for honesty. “I don’t precisely know what my interest is.”
“But you are interested. In Mrs. Mortimer, and not the pretty seamstress.”
He smiled. “Not the pretty seamstress, whomever she may be.”
“But the lady?”
He shrugged, turning away to climb the stairs when he grew uncomfortable with Chandelle’s stare. What he felt for Mrs. Mortimer wasn’t up for discussion. At least not until he had an understanding of his own motives. But then again, that was exactly why he came to this place, wasn’t it? To sort out his thoughts. That usually meant talking with Chandelle.
“She makes me think,” he finally said.
Chandelle surprised him with a burst of laughter. “More thinking ain’t wot you need, Robert. Swiving is more like it.”
He grinned. “Well, she makes me think of swiving, too. Does that help?”
Chandelle blew out a low whistle. “So you found ’er.”
Robert slowed as he topped the stairs. “Found who?”
“A woman to match yer brains and yer brawn.” She thumped his arm. “But does she match yer heart? She’d have to have an awful big heart to meet you there.”
He frowned as he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “She’s a businessman…er…woman. Reminds me of you in that. I admire her strength.”
Chandelle snorted. “She ain’t the one for you, then. Strength is one thing, boy, but a heart is something else. Your woman gots to ’ave heart. A right big one.”
He grimaced, wondering if she was right. Not about wanting a woman with heart. Of course he did, whatever that meant. But about whether the dressmaker lacked something essential. He had no idea. “I asked her to be my mistress.”
Chandelle let out a low whistle. “She turned you down, eh?”
He gave her a wry look. “Down flat.”
“So you came ’ere to lick yer wounds. Want to do some doctoring for women who’d be grateful.”
He raised his eyebrows. Was that what he was doing? Salvaging his wounded pride?
“Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. No one likes the word ‘no,’ least of all you lords.”
“But—”
“Tut-tut,” she said as she grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the main ward. “We got a whole house full o’ women who’ll say yes to you. And there’s a couple bedpans to be cleaned and that would make me right grateful.”
“Bedpans?” he said in his most haughty tone. “I am a lord, you know.”
“And a right good one, you are,” she said, knowing his protest was halfhearted at best. “Hard work will fix
