Frost Fair

by Edith Layton

  It was difficult to love someone so well loved by the one person who had never loved you, but the new Viscount Maldon had honestly tried to like his baby brother. But Arthur had been leery of him then, and when he’d grown, perhaps a little envious, and in some ways just as disapproving as his mother. And too, in all fairness, Lucian reckoned he himself was not a very loveable fellow.

  After all, he’d never loved either, at least not in the way the poets sung about. The women he’d mentioned to Arthur, those he had affairs with, either the restless and bored married ones or the avaricious professional ones, were not of a class or temperament or type to inspire anything but lust. Lust was fine with him, though he did find himself wondering about love, from time to time. Perhaps he wasn’t capable of it, Lucian mused now, thinking of his uncle, his brother, and the women in his life, as he held his team to a safe pace and set them trotting over the frosty cobbles.

  He’d never loved his late wife, Clara, though he’d liked her well enough, and had felt genuinely sorry that she’d died, so young, so unexpectedly of a chill, then a fever, then a congestion, and then from the doctors called to cure her. But she hadn’t loved him either. He’d hoped they might grow into it. Life hadn’t given him a chance to find out.

  He did love his son, but perhaps that was more adoration than love. Because he’d been enchanted by his infant son, and saddened when the wetnurse, nursemaids and nannies shooed him away, making him realize a father had no place in the nursery except for the filling of it. Then the lad had to be sent to school. But when he did see him, Lucian thought now. Surely that pang he felt, that welling of emotion that froze him entirely as he tried to master himself so he wouldn’t show it—surely that was a kind of love?

  He never found a way to know Arthur though, much less love him. A decade was a considerable span between brothers, too few years to let him act the father without feeling pompous, too many to act like Arthur’s peer without feeling he was behaving like a fool. As it was, they seemed to have no commonality but family, Lucian thought now, frowning more.

  Arthur liked to collect books, he liked to read them, he liked to make love to females, Arthur liked to court ladies. Arthur loved the beautiful things their family owned. Lucian didn’t bother, knowing they weren’t his but only in his keeping until he had to pass them on. Lucian sought a thousand diversions to keep boredom at bay. Arthur seemed content with his every day. Lucian was cynical, he knew it too well; his brother, earnest. They laughed at very different things. And so they were brothers merely, never friends.

  Still, here he was, doing errands for the brother he didn’t know, and the mother who didn’t like him, and the uncle who annoyed him. And Lucian prided himself on being a man who did not allow himself to be imposed upon. But even so, as the horses drew him toward Bow Street, he was no longer frowning. He might not understand love, but he did know his responsibilties. And the air was brisk, the horses well rested, and he suddenly realized that whatever the bother, at least he was going someplace he’d never been before.

  *

  Lucian was pleasantly surprised. Bow Street’s quarters were in a neat townhouse, and when he entered he saw the place was clean and orderly. Of course, most of the people he saw in the main room weren’t the sort he usually noticed: clerks, solicitors, people lodging complaints who were obviously common tradesmen or their ilk, seedy looking persons who could only be felons, and runners, who apart from their red waistcoats, looked just like the felons. But his name made a stir when he gave it, and caused a hurried conference.

  The runner they summoned to deal with him was a surprise to Lucian too. He came swaggering out of some inner office, and seemed, at first glance, to be gentleman enough—if one ignored the traces of hard living in his face and his hard assessing eyes.

  Lucian weighed the runner in turn. He judged the man to be about his own age and height, but there the similarity ended. The runner was a big man, tall and powerfully built, brutally handsome, with an air about him that made Lucian suspect he knew and traded on it. He exuded a pleased awareness of himself and his body. He’d be an able opponent in the ring, but Lucian thought he might have a weakness, wondering if he’d guard that handsome face too closely.

  His Indian black hair was tied at the nape of his thick neck, in the old style men wore before the current fashion of cropped hair. Lucian thought it was deliberate; this was a man who liked a pose. He probably thought it made him look romantic, picturesque, the thief-taker as pirate. It did. His eyes were liquid, dark and watchful. He dressed as a gentleman, with clean linen, a tight fitted blue jacket and dun breeches, half boots, and a gaudy waistcoat, which marked him as a peacock. Not because it was red, he was a runner, after all. But because it was silk, embroidered, and likely cost as much as Lucian’s own.

  He had a smooth bronze complexion, with a hint of earthy red in it, either from a touch of foreign blood or a workingman’s tan, neither of which any gentleman would admit or aspire to. That was the clue. Lucian knew his name even before he spoke, and was pleased. Bow Street had sent him one of their best, or at least, most famous runners.

  “Spanish Will Corby at your service, my lord,” the runner said, confirming it, as he bowed, but only slightly.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Lucian said, nodding. “Seen you in the caricatures too, now and then. In the newspapers more often. You’ve a reputation, a good one, in spite of all the fun they have with your name, and your popularity with the ladies. You’re less popular with the villains.”

  Smiling, Spanish Will sketched another bow. “I’m not the celebrated Mr. Townsend, my lord, but I do my best.”

  “No, and you’re not a royal pet either,” Lucian said, “nor do I need such. But then, I hardly know what I need—I suppose you’ll find my errand a waste of time. God knows I do.”

  “Then he knows more’n me, my lord, for I never waste my time. Want to tell me about it?”

  The voice was deep, the accent almost refined. A rough and tough sort of gentleman, Lucian thought, and so, of course, no gentleman at all. But at least he listened to his problem with great interest. “Gone since Friday, you say?” the runner asked when he was done, his eyes still evaluating his visitor. Lucian saw a strange excitement kindling them, and was pleased. It might be that the man could help.

  “Friday night was when he was last seen,” Lucian said. “My uncle, the Baron St. Cloud, is a middle-aged gentleman, lightly built, though he’s grown himself a stomach, well lined with capon, as Shakespeare recommended.” He paused in thought. “Unexceptional face, at least I can’t think of a way to describe it that would make him instantly recognizable. Brown eyes, and what’s left of his hair is gray. Soberly, but well-dressed, I’d say. A bookish man with no reason to be gone from his home for days, and no history of it either. He is, in fact, expected at his own wedding this coming Sunday, and the bride is younger by a score of years than he. So it’s not a day he’d want to miss or delay.”

  “Where was he last seen?” the runner asked absently, his mind obviously racing. Lucian grew a little alarmed in spite of himself.

  “At dinner, at my brother’s rooms, in Montague Square. And not since. My brother said Uncle was strangely excited, and that in itself is unusual. The only thing that excites him is scholarly argument. The family is naturally quite perturbed at his absence, this is unlike him. They’ve commissioned me to post a reward for information leading to his whereabouts. I’ll add extra to ensure everyone’s silence all ’round…”

  Lucian paid the runner the courtesy of honesty. “That is because I’m more worldly perhaps than the rest of my family,” he said softly, “or more evil minded. I believe that whatever takes a man like Uncle from his appointed rounds may be…the sort of thing we wouldn’t want bruited about.”

  “Extra?” Spanish Will said. “Which would be how much altogether then?”

  “Twenty pounds, we thought generous.”

  “P’raps it is, but not here, my lord. Our docket is full. But never
fear, we’ll get to it by and by.”

  Lucian sighed. Now he understood the excitement in the runner’s eyes. “Thirty then, and an extra ten for speed if it’s resolved quickly. Come, man, some men don’t make that in a year!”

  “Aye, some. Ragpickers and such. But it’ll do. For now.”

  “Then here’s my card, contact me when you’ve news,” Lucian said, turning to go.

  “My lord!” Spanish Will said quickly. “Before you leave… There’s something I’d like you to see. A body. I doubt he’s your uncle, but still…he hasn’t been identified. This bloke was found Saturday morning, on a tasty young widow’s doorstep. Her fish shop’s doorstep, to be exact, in a market street near to Spitalfields, Whitechapel and St. Giles. Not the best district, but he was in no condition to care. He was found dead there, with his head stove in. Hard to say if he was a gentleman though, being he was found stark naked. But the fishwife, she said the fact he was so clean where no one could see it proved it.”

  “I’m quite sure it’s not he,” Lucian said with a thin smile. He was curiously disappointed. The trouble with lying down with dogs, even well-combed ones, is that you did get fleas. Uncle would doubtless soon appear, flushed with success at finding some new old book to add to his library, with a tale of staying over at a friend’s house while he negotiated for it to explain his absence. Men like Uncle did not show up dead in the slums, after a tryst with a widow, or a fishmonger. But that was what one got for dealing with thief-takers. Their world was not Uncle’s; they’d have a hard time even imagining it. A fool’s errand, certainly, and now Lucian felt more than foolish, he felt slightly dirtied by having had to run it.

  “Maybe not. Can’t hurt to look though, can it?” Spanish Will asked with a white-toothed smile. “No one in the neighborhood recognizes the corpse. And rich men’s clothes have been known to go walking off after their owner’s sudden death, especially in places like that, in a winter such as this. Don’t worry, my lord. I’ll cover all but the good side of his face for you, if you like, and have salts ready if you find yourself feeling faint.”

  The Viscount Maldon seemed carved of ice. Then a snarl of a smile appeared on his thin lips. “Lead on,” he said through clenched teeth, “and you may forget the salts.”

  But he didn’t smile, or snarl, after the runner whipped the sheet off the body in the room in the back. Lucian’s bony face went white and very still. Spanish Will watched him closely. Death himself would look like that, the runner mused, or at least, he would if he had the money.

  It took a moment for Lucian to realize that his boring old uncle actually lay on a table before him, stiff and very dead, his head caved in. It almost seemed a worse violation to see him embarrassingly, obscenely naked. It was a sorry sight. He was very white—or rather, blue—now. A middle-aged man, who was aging badly. Who’d been aging badly, Lucian reminded himself, his eyes skimming over him, disbelieving. Uncle’s arms and legs were spindly. Expensive tailoring had hidden his pathetic little paunch and the little shriveled privates that Lucian hated himself for looking at now.

  Uncle lay on his back, one side of his balding head crushed. There was bone and bits there Lucian couldn’t look at or away from. The Baron St. Cloud looked frozen in shock as well as death, but his nephew couldn’t really judge his expression because he was so horrified at his condition. Hard to see him dead. And so brutally used.

  “Yes,” Lucian said simply, “it is he. My uncle.” He cleared his throat, took in a deep breath and let it out before he looked at Spanish Will again, his eyes hard and chilly. His voice lacked its usual mocking tones. “He was found thus, on a doorstep, naked, you said? Whose doorstep, pray tell?”

  “Ah, my lord,” Spanish Will said, “best that you leave it to us, who are used to such.”

  “For my own edification then. You said a widow? Perhaps I know her.”

  “I doubt that, my lord, I do doubt it sincerely. But her name is Maggie Pushkin, Mrs. Maggie Pushkin.”

  “I never heard the name.”

  “I’m not too surprised,” the runner said with a laugh.

  “But a tasty young widow, you said?”

  “Aye, if a man don’t mind keeping it all in the dark. She’s severely red.”

  “Red?”

  “Red-haired and freckled, a bran-faced wonder, though if you could wash off the red she’d look a treat. A neat little package, with her own thriving fish shop, courtesy of her late husband. Perhaps your uncle fancied a taste of fine firm white—breams? Or a crab or two, in the night?” The runner’s voice was innocent, but his eyes weren’t as they watched Lucian’s reaction to the insolence.

  “My uncle would not find himself fancying even a case of crabs,” Lucian said as lightly as the runner had, so firmly in control that he could feel his fingertips digging into his fisted palms. “No, he wasn’t known for wanting anything but books.”

  “But he was to be legally leg shackled in a week, you said?”

  “Precisely,” Lucian said.

  “And so then maybe saying good-bye to a charming little baggage he was bent on being rid of, not needing her anymore?”

  Lucian paused, struck by the idea, considering it, turning it in his mind before seeing the impossibility of it. He shook his head, “No. Never. Not he. But why do you ask? What did she say?”

  “Not much, especially after she had a look at him on her doorstep. She was sleeping when the body was discovered. Pounding on her door rousted her servants, and they had to wake her. She lives over her shop. I saw her when she first came down, she was so white and scared her freckles stood out like pox.”

  “Well, there you are,” Lucian said, feeling a surge of anger that surprised him, because it had been so long since he’d felt anything that strongly, “and did she confess?”

  “Only to being afraid it was a fire causing all the rumpus, and that I do understand,” the runner said, “such houses going up like tinder if one in the row catches, you see. The shop is the sum and substance of her fortune; of course she’d be edgy as a cat. She, and her servants, claim to have never seen the dead…your uncle, before. Nor did she have any visitors that night. And her neighbors do say to a man—and woman—that her late husband put her off men for eternity.”

  “Was there blood in her shop?” Lucian asked. “Did you see?”

  “Not gouts of it, no. But what’s a fish shop without traces of blood?”

  “He was found, naked, on her doorstep,” Lucian said impatiently. “She had to have a hand in it somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” the runner said.

  “Maybe? She’s a fishwife, man,” Lucian said, letting his temper show. “I’ve seen them at Billingsgate, drunk, swearing, hauling baskets bigger than their heads, fighting with each other, brawling like cats in heat. They’re violent and vulgar. Gads! It’s a rite of passage for any young buck out on the town to go down to the fish market to watch their antics. Such women are used to blood and guts, and use force to settle every argument.”

  The runner laughed, “Oh, not she, my lord. But you’re right about one thing. She might have done for him.”

  “But why?’ Lucian asked, almost talking to himself. “And what on earth was he doing there? And why in God’s name kill him? He was a bore, but that was the worst that could be said of him.”

  “Is it? I don’t know,” Spanish Will said slyly. “Maybe because I know too many things other folk don’t. You’re sure of his virtue. I’m not. Her neighbors are sure of hers. I’m not. He could be a stranger to them because he always came and left by night. He could’ve been naked because she threw him out without a stitch. Her coloring isn’t in style, my lord, but her figure is, and if a female’s got everything in order, who cares what colors they may be? A nice warm widow, a lonely old gent? Nothing more natural. A visit at night, when all’s asleep and none’s the wiser and where’s the harm, eh?

  “But then, maybe a quarrel because he’s casting her off, growing hotter than she could handle with words. She’s got
a hot head, her hair tells me that. So they fight, she loses her head and goes for his, coshes him a good one with one of those nice big mallets I saw hanging on the wall in her shop. Then she pushes him out and sends him reeling into the night. Good riddance. Maybe she thought he wasn’t hurt that bad. Maybe she thought he deserved to be sent out naked on the coldest night of the year to find his way home. Ice on his ballocks and frost on his rump and a good laugh to anyone who saw him, and she’s revenged. Maybe that’s all she wanted. Maybe she misread it and didn’t know he was dying there on her doorstep whilst she went to bed. Comes the dawn, and he’s stone dead. Aye, that may be.”

  “Then why not arrest her?” Lucian demanded.

  The runner looked shocked, pious, secretly amused. “Why, my lord, this is England. I’ve got to prove it first. And that takes time, and effort, and…”

  “I’ll up the reward,” Lucian said. “I’ll double…no, triple it.”

  “I’ll get to work,” Spanish Will said.

  “I’ll go with you,” the viscount said.

  And now the runner only looked shocked. But not so much as the Viscount Maldon himself was when he realized that was exactly what he meant to do.

  Chapter Two

  “It’s dangerous, difficult, touchy,” Spanish Will said again.

  “Understood, but I can take care of myself, you don’t have to worry about me,” Lucian repeated.

  The runner’s smile was chilly. “I wasn’t. I’m not famous for working with others, nor do I know how you’ll react if we do find a likely villain. I don’t want anything getting in my way, do you see?”