Free Viscount of Vice by Shana Galen Page A

supposed he sounded much like the man as well.
    â€œI am. You purport to be my younger brother?”
    The man’s mouth quirked in the same way Flynn’s would have if he’d had to listen to some pompous ass ask who he purported to be.
    â€œMy name is Robbie. I remember that much.”
    Yes, they had called him Robbie or Master Robbie. He’d seemed, as a child, too young for the formality of Robert . But he was no child now. “At the moment, I don’t give a shilling who you are. You’re lucky to be standing. When her brother finds out you abducted her, you’ll be in your grave.”
    The man’s gaze slid to Emma, then back to him. “Who’s her brother?”
    â€œThe Duke of Ravenscroft.”
    Robbie laughed. “I might have known. I knew she weren’t no mere miss .”
    â€œFlynn,” Emma began, “he took me only because he didn’t have a choice. The man he works for wants to ransom us both.”
    Robbie nodded. “That’s the truth, if you’ll have it. And maybe there’s another truth I haven’t said. Maybe I hoped if you came here, you could get me out.”
    Flynn glanced about the room, noted the sparse furnishings and the general squalor. A man in these conditions might be desperate enough to try and impersonate the son of a viscount. He was desperate enough to abduct the sister of a duke. “How do I know you’re really Robert Flynn?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I take her, shoot you, and walk away?”
    The man shrugged. “Maybe you should. It’s not safe here. As for proving my identity, I can’t. All I know is my name—Robbie—and…” He trailed off and pulled the bottle he clenched a little tighter to his chest.
    â€œAnd?” Emma was the one who finally asked. Flynn could have waited all night.
    â€œAnd I have one memory.” He looked at Flynn and then away. “I don’t even know if it’s a memory or something I conjured in my dreams. It’s…” He seemed to look far away, back into another life. “When I think back, I see a sparkling flower. I think it must be jewels I see sparkling. They’re in the shape of a flower—red petals, a green stem, and a ladybug—”
    â€œA ladybug on the leaf,” Flynn finished.
    Robbie looked at him, seeming to come back to the present. “Yes. You know it?”
    Flynn’s heart was pounding painfully in his chest now. “It was my mother’s. A brooch she often wore pinned to her day gown.” But the brooch alone did not prove this man was his brother. He could have seen the viscountess wear the brooch any number of times. She resided in Bath part of the year. Perhaps she wore the brooch here.
    Except Flynn had not seen her wear it in years. She’d been wearing it the day Robbie disappeared, and afterward he’d heard her tell her lady’s maid she could not bear to see any reminder of that day—not the brooch, the gloves, or the dress and hat she’d worn. Flynn, who had been nine, had thought he too had been relegated to that same list of reminders. It had seemed to him neither of his parents could bear to look at him. Everyone said his brother’s disappearance was not his fault, but he did not believe it. His parents did not believe it. When he was sent away to school, he was actually relieved and resisted going home for holidays. Flynn had wished, more times than he could count, that he had been the one to disappear.
    Had he finally found his brother? Seeing the way the man lived served only to thrust the dagger in his chest deeper into his heart. He had grown up with everything, and his brother had lived…here. In this filth and poverty. And the man was hugging a bottle of laudanum. Flynn could add his brother’s addiction to his long list of fraternal crimes.
    â€œI can see you don’t believe I’m your brother,” the man