Price of Desire

by Goodman, Jo

  Affronted, Mrs. Christie drew her shoulders back. “I’m not going with—”

  “Very ugly,” Griffin said calmly. “Children will hide behind their mother’s skirts when they see you.”

  “How often does someone come?” Olivia asked. A thin strip of light was visible around the door. She pressed her eye to it and tried to see activity on the other side. After a few minutes of varying her position, she gave up. She turned around and leaned back against the door. “Alastair?”

  “Hmm?”

  She realized he’d nodded off. “How can you sleep?”

  “Always sleep when I’m in my cups. Have to.”

  “Not this time. I need you awake.”

  “Course you do. Sorry.”

  Olivia repeated her question.

  “Don’t know precisely,” Alastair said. “Two times a day, perhaps. Can’t tell by what they feed me. Soup mostly. Bread and broth. Drink helps. Fills the empty.”

  She understood that well enough. “Do you ever hear anything? This place seems to be so quiet, as if no one is around.”

  “Mostly like that, more or less. Voices come and go. No one ever answers me. Sometimes, though, the house fairly rumbles. That’s a bit unpleasant, I can tell you.”

  “Rumbles?”

  “Mmm. For hours. The bottles shudder, the door vibrates. I can feel it in my bones.”

  That’s when Olivia knew. She was familiar with that sensation. “We’re not at Mrs. Christie’s at all, Alastair. We’re in a hell.”

  “Too right, we are. In hell.”

  Olivia didn’t correct him. At the moment she decided he had described their location better than she.

  Mrs. Christie and Sir Hadrien shared the bench across from Griffin. He noticed they edged away from each other, taking up their respective corners as much as the space allowed once the carriage was underway.

  Griffin held the pistol on his lap casually pointed toward the door. “How long have you and Crocker been partners?” Griffin asked, nudging Mrs. Christie’s kid slipper with the toe of his boot.

  “Partners with Johnny Crocker? I never have.”

  Griffin sighed. “I’d hoped you would not be tedious about it. Who is the gentleman villain?”

  “Gentleman villain? I have no idea what you mean.”

  “We call him the gentleman villain,” he explained, watching her closely. “Olivia’s abductor. The same man who attacked her in my establishment not long after she arrived. The same one who tried to enter again through a window and succeeded only in frightening a child. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Slightly built, but athletic. By Olivia’s account, a natty dresser.”

  “I suppose I might know half a dozen gentlemen who largely meet that description.”

  “I need the name of only one. The right one, of course.”

  Mrs. Christie shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know that any one of them is responsible for the things you said. It would be wrong to give you even a single name.”

  “I confess, Alys, that your stand surprises me. I had not thought you cared so much for principle and so little for your face.” Griffin simply lifted the pistol in a way that suggested he meant to backhand her with it. He barely had any momentum built into the gesture when she threw up her own hands and blurted out a name.

  “Burton. Neville Burton.”

  Griffin’s attention swung to Sir Hadrien, but there was no recognition of the name in the man’s face that he could see. For himself, Griffin tried to recall if there had ever been an introduction to Burton. The name was wholly unfamiliar. “Tell me about him. Does he work for Crocker?”

  “Not in the sense that he’s paid, I shouldn’t imagine. I don’t know the particulars. I’m not his partner. I suppose it’s an arrangement like you have with Fairley or Varah. They step too deeply into debt, and you offer them an opportunity to clean the muck off their shoes in exchange for certain services.”

  Griffin lifted the hem of Mrs. Christie’s gown just enough to make a deliberately insulting examination of her slippers. “What of the muck on your own finely shod feet? How much do you owe Mr. Crocker?”

  Mrs. Christie yanked on the folds of her gown and drew her feet back under the hem. She glared at Griffin. “I don’t owe him a farthing.”

  “Were you already beholding to him when you came under my protection, or did the debt occur later? I think perhaps it was later, around the time you began to steal from me. I can’t fix the date in my mind without consulting my accounts, but it seems to me it was some four months in the past. Would that be about right?”

  Griffin watched the full line of Mrs. Christie’s mouth flatten. Her refusal to reply did not bother him in the least. “You stole the ring from me, replaced it with Alastair’s marker, all of it done as if to help your young lover. Then you set him up to lose it to Crocker. I imagine Johnny was not entirely happy when you bested him by winning it back, or perhaps it was done of a purpose, and he meant that you should have it as a gift. He would have believed it was not entirely out of his possession if it was in yours, but then Alastair confounded you both by returning it to me. Have I got it right, Alys?”

  She pressed her lips together, offered nothing.

  Griffin stole a glance at Sir Hadrien. “At last I understand how quiet is becoming.” Satisfied by Sir Hadrien’s start of recognition at this sentiment, he returned his attention to Mrs. Christie. “The attack on Alastair’s sister was in every way about you. Your petty jealousies. Your rage at being turned out. You conceived the notion that she was to blame. You sent Neville Burton to Olivia’s room not only to punish her, but to punish me as well. Burton might be Crocker’s man, but you had the use of him. It doesn’t matter to me whether today’s bit of business was planned by you or Crocker. Neither of you is blameless. Both of you are responsible.”

  Satisfied that she’d heard him, Griffin fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye he saw they were approaching Crocker’s hell. He tapped the barrel against the roof to alert the driver that they were coming to their destination. The carriage slowed immediately.

  “I expect nothing less than your cooperation,” he said. “Both of you. You can trust that Crocker will see to his own well-being first and on no account will he be concerned for yours. As I am of a similar mind, you will precede me to the door.”

  Sir Hadrien alighted first, then Mrs. Christie. Griffin followed them up the stone steps and remained behind them while their knock was being answered.

  Johnny Crocker’s establishment did not cater to the fashionable crowd. They came, though, especially the younger set, to rub elbows with the rough trade. Too frequently it was because they had something to prove, either to themselves or their friends, or even more often, to the society of their parents. As a consequence, Crocker’s hell served up regular brawls that broke furniture and jaws in equal measure. Crocker was known to tolerate opium smokers and did not fuss overmuch if that activity spilled out of the rooms designated specifically for it. He did not operate a brothel but allowed women to ply their trade within the house as long as they were comely and did not expect him to provide protection.

  He paid the local constabulary well and expected little enough for it. He didn’t call upon them to settle disagreements that arose at the tables and among the opium eaters, and he didn’t welcome their interference when he settled such things in his own way. Doing nothing, it was the easiest money they earned.

  Griffin and his companions were shown into the entrance hall by a man who would have seemed equally in his element on the docks. He had a thick neck and hands like paddles. He looked them over, nodded politely to Mrs. Christie, and asked Griffin, “What’s your business?”

  “Tell your employer that Breckenridge is here on the matter of a debt that’s owed him. He’ll see me.”

  The manservant nodded, turned his back to seek out Crocker, and was felled like the great oak he was when Griffin caught him in the back of the skull with the butt of his pistol.

  “What was tha
t?” Olivia asked. The bottles shuddered once and were still. “Did you feel it?”

  Alastair’s head came up. He frowned, realized Olivia couldn’t see his confusion, and said, “Don’ know. S’not the same as it usually is. Goes on for hours most times.”

  Olivia returned to her brother’s side and sat down. “I’ve been thinking, Alastair. There’s something yet that we might do.”

  Griffin directed Sir Hadrien and Mrs. Christie to drag the body to the front parlor and close the pocket doors. He didn’t expect that the man would be coming around any time soon. His skull had cracked like the shell of a soft-cooked egg.

  He gestured to his companions to climb the stairs to Crocker’s rooms. It was impressive that neither of them had done more than startle when the big man went down. Apparently he’d made himself convincing. All to the good, since he’d meant every threat.

  Johnny Crocker was a large man himself, given to expansive gestures and raising his voice in a manner that made him seem larger. He jumped to his feet and threw his arms wide when he saw Alys Christie step into the room.

  “Alys, m’love, so you’ve come. Couldn’t stay away, could—” He stopped, thick, copper-colored eyebrows coming together over a pair of sharply leveled green eyes as Sir Hadrien followed on Mrs. Christie’s heels. “Who’s the toff sniffin’ your skirts, Alys? Can’t say that I like you bringin’ him here.”

  “Sir Hadrien Cole,” she said. “Sir Hadrien, Mr. Johnny Crocker.”

  “Cole? I’ll be damned.” He folded his arms across his chest so they rested comfortably on the shelf of his protruding hard belly. “I’m at a loss here, Alys. Damned, if I’m not at a loss.”

  Griffin stepped over the threshold behind them. “A loss? That is unlike you, Crocker.”

  “Bloody hell.” He eyed Griffin’s raised weapon. “For God’s sake, lower your pistol, Breckenridge. I ain’t of a mind to lay you out, though your manners make it tempting. What the hell do you want? If I have it, it’s yours.”

  “Olivia Cole.”

  “Don’t have it. Don’t know precisely what it is.”

  “I am generally amused by your bluster. Not just now, though.” Nonetheless, he lowered his pistol and made a point of looking around Crocker’s study. The tidiness of the space was in perfect contrast to the man. Crocker’s cravat was limp and slightly twisted, his shirt bunched around his waist, and there was a button missing on his waistcoat. His study, however, had no item out of place. The furniture was set at conversational angles and none of it held papers, books, or ledgers. There was room to walk in every direction without bumping into a stack of newspapers or tripping over a footstool. The vases, all four of them filled with expensive hothouse flowers, did not have to share a tabletop with mismatched porcelain and jade figurines and other odd collectibles. There were no decks of cards under the chairs or teacups and saucers lining the windowsill. No decanters were left out on the drinks cabinet, and the evidence that Crocker smoked the occasional cheroot or cigar was confined to the stale, smoky fragrance that lingered in the air.

  “You welcomed Mrs. Christie rather warmly, I thought.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? She’s a right piece of God’s handiwork and has a mouth what knows how to pleasure a man. You’re familiar yourself.”

  Griffin saw his former mistress’s back stiffen. At her sides her hands curled. “Have a care, Crocker, else she will launch herself at you. Don’t depend on me to pull her off, nor to wager that you’d emerge the victor. She says she’s not your partner, and neither is she in your debt, but something about her way of saying doesn’t sit well with me. I thought you might entertain me with your version of the truth, but I’d like to see Olivia first. Sir Hadrien would like to see her brother. Explanations, as diverting as I’m certain to find them, will have to wait.”

  Crocker held up his hands in advance of his attempt to explain, his broad features suggesting confusion and innocence. “You mistake the matter if you think I know what you’re talking about. You seem to be suggesting something that is beneath me.”

  “Since you’d crawl on your belly in the sewers if it would put a copper in your pocket, there’s nothing that’s beneath you.” He raised the pistol, used it to nudge Mrs. Christie and Sir Hadrien a bit to each side, then kept it level on Johnny Crocker’s barrel chest. “Show me where you’re keeping Olivia.”

  Crocker shifted his weight, unfolded his arms, and held fast to the lapels of his frock coat. He took Griffin’s measure, calculated the likelihood that he would use the pistol, and equally important, the likelihood that he would miss. The probability of the first was extremely high, the latter, extremely low. Johnny Crocker decided he could afford to cooperate.

  “Do you have the ring?” he asked.

  Ignoring the question, Griffin said, “Take me to Olivia.”

  Crocker shrugged his massive shoulders. “As you wish.”

  Griffin stepped back and out of the way so that all three could precede him. He explained to Crocker in his calm and careful voice what he would do if there was the least interference from the staff. Crocker simply nodded and took the lead.

  They used the servants’ stairs to enter the bowels of the house. The narrow passage confined their movements and made it easy for Griffin to keep them contained. When they entered the servants’ hall, Crocker sent the cook and all three helpers out. A maidservant came into the hallway from one of the adjoining rooms, her arms extended and laden with laundry. A word from Crocker had her reversing her direction immediately. The hall was silent and still after that.

  “Show me,” Griffin said quietly.

  “This way.” Crocker turned the corner and stopped in front of a heavy oaken door. “Wine cellar. I have to get the key from inside my coat.”

  “Go on.” Griffin noted the door was barred as well as locked. The combination was good for keeping people out and in. He felt more confident that he was being shown where Olivia and Alastair had been secreted.

  Crocker removed the bar, set it aside, then used the key. They all stepped back as the door opened toward them and stayed rooted to the floor as the foul stench escaped the room.

  Mrs. Christie gagged and stuffed her fist against her mouth. Sir Hadrien quickly found his scented handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. Crocker grimaced but stepped into the room, encouraged by the pistol pressed momentarily against his spine.

  Griffin called for Olivia in the same moment she heaved the contents of the slop bucket into the crowded doorway.

  Mrs. Christie pressed her hands against her stomach as she doubled over. Violent retching noises erupted from her followed by the remains of her breakfast. The delicate lavender scent in Sir Hadrien’s handkerchief was obliterated by the sprinkling of body waste that attached itself to his hair, face, and clothing. At the center, where Olivia’s aim had been most true, Johnny Crocker received no mere sprinkling, but a full shower of the bucket’s foul contents.

  “Christ! Christ Jesus! Holy Mother of God!” He slapped at his face with his hands, trying to wipe the worst of it away. The taste of it was in his mouth; the odor clung to the inside of his nose. There was no ridding himself of it. He gagged also, staggered forward, and bent at the waist. He never saw Olivia swing the empty wooden bucket back, around, and over her shoulder, so he didn’t know when it reached its full height. The momentum carried it forward; Olivia supplied the direction. The impact with his head shattered the bucket and dropped him to his knees in the filth he was trying to escape.

  Griffin could not recall that he’d ever thought much about the height and breadth of Johnny Crocker’s shoulders, nor the way the man filled the space across a threshold. He thought about it now, and was grateful. Except for a few scattered droplets, Crocker’s considerable mass had been an almost perfect bulwark.

  Griffin stood slightly to one side in the doorway, allowing more light from the kitchen and the hall sconces to enter the wine cellar. He could see Olivia holding the rope handle of the shattered bucket. Two wooden stave
s still dangled from it. She was all of a messy piece, slightly soiled, a bit worse for the wear with her hair tousled and rents in her gown, but she was unbowed by the experience in any way that mattered. It was anger that flushed her face, not exertion or fear. She had a warrior’s stance, not the still, guarded posture of prey. That she was armed only with the remnants of a slop bucket, well, he was hard-pressed to keep his lips from twitching.

  He used the pistol to wave her over. To her credit, she didn’t hesitate. When Crocker made a weak attempt to catch her skirts as she passed, she sharply slapped at his hand with the bucket staves like a governess disciplining an unruly charge. Griffin was not proof against that gesture. He was grinning as she came abreast of him.

  Before she could comment, he moved her into the hall behind him. She came up on tiptoe as she pressed herself against his back. He heard her whisper her brother’s name, and for the first time, he became aware of Alastair’s presence in the cellar. Her brother was standing against the wall of wine bottles, his arms and legs spread wide as though he were holding back the tide of grape, when in truth he was being held up by it.

  “Over here, Alastair,” Griffin said. When Alastair didn’t move, Griffin raised his voice. This time he managed to talk over the oddly syncopated retching of Olivia’s three victims, and penetrate the fermented fog that clouded Alastair’s thinking.

  Alastair’s head swiveled slowly toward the door. He grinned somewhat lopsidedly, then drew himself up almost straight and pushed away from the wall. He managed to grab the neck of a wine bottle in each hand as he did so and lightly tapped his father on the shoulder as he half sauntered, half stumbled past Sir Hadrien’s heaving frame.

  “Foxed,” he announced, still smiling stupidly as he slipped by Griffin. “Couldn’ help myself.”

  Griffin shrugged. “It’s a wine cellar.”

  “That’s what I said.” Alastair struck the butt ends of the bottles together to punctuate his point.