Page 35 of To Dare the Devil

Dearest Kathy,

Enclosed is the list of books you asked Sterling for. What is this new project of yours? Do write and explain. I know you are working on the new school Eliza is building, but in what capacity? You always were clever, so am I not surprised at you taking on such a challenge? I admire you greatly, you know, for going out into the world men keep closed to women and working among them. I should never have the nerve to do such a bold thing. Do they treat you with respect? I hope they do not cause you any difficulties. I know you are a sensible woman, far more than I ever was, but do be careful, won’t you? I worry for you.

―Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Grace Oak (daughter of Jemima and Solomon Weston, Baron and Lady Rothborn) to Miss Kathleen de Beauvoir (daughter of Mrs Minerva and Mr Inigo de Beauvoir)

Two years earlier…

23rd February 1840, Covent Garden. Parish of St Giles.

“Here, let me do that,” Max said, getting up to help Burt with the heavy box he was carrying in. “I take it you got a good price for them?”

“I did,” Burt said, grinning broadly.

Max set the box on the rickety table and peered in. Fresh bread, tea, potatoes, rice, bacon, even a bit of butter and a packet of sugar. Well, they’d have a fine feast tonight. “I’m glad.”

“It was good of you to donate them, lad. A fine pair of boots, they were. You’re not sorry?”

Max shook his head, frowning. “Of course not. Good Lord, Burt, you think a pair of boots can come anywhere close to repaying you for all you’ve done for me.”

Burt waved this off, looking vaguely irritated. “I didn’t do it for no reward,” he grumbled.

Max smiled, knowing this was true. Burt did nothing for reward or favours; he was simply a good man. Max had known no one like him before, had not known that such people really existed outside of books and bible stories. The good Samaritan, that was Burt. Except this was not some moral lecture trotted out by rote by some smug priest on a Sunday morning. This was real. This was charity and goodwill to all men from a pure soul who truly believed in the principle.

Burt bustled off to wash his hands—cleanliness was next to godliness—and Max sat down at the table, considering the box before him. He’d remembered who he was weeks ago, and he’d been here for over six months now. Everyone must believe him dead. It was a strange notion, but liberating. He liked being dead. The realisation that no one would care much, except for those people who’d be dancing on his grave, if he had one, made him want to stay dead and never go back.

Yet the meagre haul that Burt had just carried in, he could buy with pocket change if he went back. Lord, the lowliest servant on one of his many estates would think it slim pickings. Max didn’t want to leave. He’d not told Burt and Pike about who he was, or that he remembered. If they knew, they might despise him, and he couldn’t bear that. They liked him. They thought he was good and kind, and he wasn’t ready to let that go. Selfish bastard, as always. He could have bought them food and clothes, given them a decent place to live, though Max knew instinctively they wouldn’t accept it. Burt would say he didn’t need such fine things, that he was happy as he was. The sale of a fine pair of boots in lieu of bed and board was one thing, a gift from a man who could afford to buy them a mansion in the heart of fashionable London, quite another.

The rest was still a hazy muddle. He remembered his home, Vane Hall in Chiswick, a vast mausoleum of a place. He remembered his mother and had read of her death in the papers with sadness, but it was more a vague sense of losing something he’d never really had than the grief of losing a parent. The faces of people he knew slipped in and out of his mind, but much of it was indistinct, and Max liked it that way. He did not want to remember. His mind shied away whenever something stirred a memory of the past, because he knew too well what he’d discover. He’d been a villain. Not the theatrical kind who twirled a moustache and robbed old ladies, but a villain nonetheless. He’d been cruel, needlessly cruel, and selfish, and so damned arrogant.

When he was feeling at his most pathetic, he tried to make excuses for himself. What chance had he had, after all? No one had ever taught him to think of others, showed him it was just as easy to be kind, to offer help instead of turning away. Burt had showed him, though. A man whose clothes were patched and worn, and who owned little more than a few shabby bits of furniture and tin crockery, had shown him such generosity he still found it hard to fathom. And he was happy. That was the strangest thing of all to reconcile. Maxwell Drake, the Earl of Vane—who’d had everything, wealth, a title, good health and a life of ease, every advantage a man could possibly want—had been miserable, lonely, and utterly wretched, and Burt, who had nothing, was perfectly content.

Max had determined to learn the trick of it, only to discover there was no trick. It was simply that Burt was at peace with himself, and helping others made him happy.

He had a job now, and that amused him more than anything. It was a labouring job that Burt had found for him. He hauled boxes and crates, loading and unloading wagons, and he kept his mouth shut as Burt had told him to. Burt had explained to the boss that Max was none too bright and talked little, rather than let them hear his cut glass accent and begin asking questions. He communicated with a series of grunts and nods, mostly, which suited Max… or Valentine, as everyone round here knew him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, content to work hard for the meagre wages he took home and gave to Burt and Pike to put towards his keep.

It couldn’t last. He knew that. But he was afraid to go back to his own life, afraid of what he might remember, and that he might go back to being the man he’d been before.

Burt came back and nodded his approval as he noted Max had unpacked the food and put it away, and was now washing the dirt off the potatoes. Another new skill he’d never expected to learn.

Burt grinned at him and smacked his lips. “Bacon and fried potatoes,” he said with such anticipation that Max laughed.

“Sounds good.”

Burt chopped the potatoes into little cubes as Max passed them to him, but he felt the old man’s gaze upon him, watching.

“Where’s Pike?” he asked, unnerved by the quality of the man’s gaze.

“He’ll be along presently. Mother Brown had a few errands for him to run for the girls.”

Max nodded. Mother Brown owned a brothel a few doors down, but Burt judged no one. Mother Brown was better than most, as abbesses went, and the girls had few other options to earn their living.

“You ever going to tell me your name, then?” Burt asked, not looking at him.

Max stilled for a moment before scrubbing the last grainy bits of mud from the potato he held and passing it to Burt to chop up. His stomach dropped.

“You mean to say you don’t know it?” he asked, realising in that moment that Burt had known for some time.

Burt looked up and grinned, showing an uneven assortment of teeth. “P’raps I’d rather you told me.”