Mrs. Applequist raised a brow. “I’ve been to country dances all my life, Mr. Rain. Surely it’s no more joyous than that.”
“I dunno about them country types, but unless they was Gypsy players, I can’t see ’em whirling any faster than me mum and the baker.”
She looked intrigued. “Whirling? I can’t say that I have ever ‘whirled,’” she said a bit wistfully.
Simon let her out of his arms and stepped back. Touching a finger to the base of the music box, he ended the sedate chiming.
“But, Mr. Rain, we haven’t finished—”
Clapping his hands together sharply, Simon began whistling a sprightly tune. Giving her an encouraging grin, he took her hands and began to clap them within his own until she took up his rhythm.
Then, stepping back, he began a stamping counterpoint to her rhythm, stepping briskly forward to her, then back, then turning in time.
The lady definitely seemed interested, chewing her lip as she followed the pattern of his feet with her eyes and kept his rhythm with her hands. When Simon saw that she had it, he grabbed her hands to send her spinning and began to sing lustily:
“Go on, fellow, grab your girl.
Take her hand and let ’er whirl.
If she comes back, then dance you on.
If she don’t, then hell, she’s gone!
Take the next one, she might do.
If she won’t, then take you two!”
Agatha was whirling. Skipping madly in a circle to Simon’s bawdy song, she clapped and whirled until her head spun. Dizzily she reached out, only to collapse against Simon’s sturdy chest. Panting wildly, she grinned up at him.
“You are quite mad, Mr. Rain.”
“You honor me, Mrs. Applequist.” The formal tone of the phrase she’d drummed into him was at odds with the rakish twist of his lips.
Agatha liked the feel of him beneath her hands. He was solid and truly very tall, when one stood so close. Her breath still came quickly from dancing, and with the air that she drew in, she drew in his scent as well.
Clean and sharp and manly, cinnamon and tobacco.
“Cinnamon.”
“What?”
“You … smell of cinnamon.”
“Aye.”
Agatha swallowed. The heat of him was seeping through her clothing, licking like firelight over her bosom and belly. He had grasped her elbows to steady her and her skin tingled where he touched. “Wh … Why?”
“Why do I smell of cinnamon?” he asked softly.
Agatha nodded. Odd, how she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Surely she hadn’t danced that vigorously.
“Cinnamon drops. The bits of red sugar from the confectionery. I’m rather partial to them.”
“Oh. Of course. Drops. Cinnamon.” Then she noticed something. “Oh, how marvelous! You are speaking so beautifully.”
Simon shook off the spell of her smile and the press of her soft, giving body against his. Damn, he’d slipped. Setting her firmly back on her feet, he moved back.
“Well, I’ve ’ad me a grand teacher, now ’aven’t I?”
“Oh. Well, thank you, Mr. Rain.” With a distracted air, Agatha pressed both palms to her face. “What were we doing? Oh, the waltz.”
She waved a hand toward the music box. “If you please, Mr. Rain?”
They returned to their formal pattern of steps. Simon moved stiffly, trying very hard not to see the way her eyes had grown dark and the flush of exertion had turned her cheeks a flattering pink.
Her breath still came a touch more heavily than usual, and he could feel it on his neck, warm and moist and fragrant, like her skin.
Unthinking, he pulled her closer, wanting to once more feel her full bosom against his chest.
“Mr. Rain, we must stay a certain space apart! As if another person stood between us.”
The phrase hit him with a splash of icy reality. A host of things stood between them. Secrets. Lies. And James. James stood between them as if a mountain had suddenly erupted where they stood together.
What was happening to him? Where was his analytical edge, his cool reason? Was it the disguise? Using the cant of his childhood, taking him back to the man he might have been—a simpler man with no more worries than making a pretty woman smile?
Simon pulled away. “Enough for now.”
Agatha’s expression softened. “No one expects you to grasp it all immediately,” she said. “We have another four days.”
“Good. Then I’m goin’ out. I need some air.” He dodged past her for the door. He had better get to it first. She was fast when she wanted to be.
“Mr. Applequist—”
“Rain,” Simon interrupted brusquely. “My name is Rain.”
“I know that, Mr.—” Agatha shook her head in irritation. “I cannot become too used to calling you that. I must be able to address you naturally, or this will never work.”
“If you’re my wife, then call me ‘Simon.’ Better yet, ‘Simon, darling.’” He grinned at her.
“Better yet, ‘Mortimer, darling,’ you mean to say.”
“Bloody hell. Did you have to pick such a name? Mortimer is the lad w’ the broken spectacles and the running nose. You should’ve picked a strong name, like … like…”
Agatha raised a brow. “Such as ‘Simon’?”
“Well, it beats ‘Mortimer’ any hour.”
“I have no difficulty addressing you as Mr. Applequist. Many women address their husbands so.”
“Well, how would you know? You ain’t never been married, now, ’ave you?”
“Kindly recall the h, Mr.—” Agatha bit her lip. “My marital status is not the point. Besides, I could already be married if I wished. I shall call you ‘Mortie.’ And you shall call me ‘Agatha.’ Well enough?”
“Well enough,” he grumbled. What did she mean, she could be married if she wished? She was a dove, a ladybird, a mistress. No respectable man would take her home and fit her out in an apron.
Then again, he was no respectable bloke, was he?
What was he thinking? She was not only a fallen woman, she was quite possibly involved in something entirely fishy.
He was here to terminate a leak, not to pluck her from her well-feathered nest of sin. No doubt she was perfectly happy where she was.
Air. He needed air. Pausing at the front door, he cursed the necessity of pausing to let Pearson help him into his outerwear. As soon as he had his coat on, he snatched the hat and gloves, then slammed out into the street.
Chapter Five
The long walk through Mayfair and beyond was enough to clear Simon’s head, but still his thoughts lingered on his pretty partner in crime. He shook his head, trying to shake her out of his brain. He had work to do.
The club stood directly across the street from where he lingered, but still Simon hesitated. Should he walk in the front door as Mortimer?
Mortimer certainly wouldn’t be out of place at a respectable gentlemen’s club. Well, somewhat respectable.
The rather Gothic facade before him housed the sort of club that wives and mothers didn’t want to know about. A place for the restless set to gather, drink, and game, telling themselves they were experiencing the true streets of London.
Of course, no true Corinthian would waste his time here, for a real whoremongering gaming hell—while certainly full of other amusements—would never serve the sort of cuisine and fine liquor that was found at this establishment. Simon took particular pride in his selection of cigars, although he only occasionally smoked them himself.
No, in reality it was rather tame, at least on the surface. Mortimer was just the sort of poseur to enjoy the blunted badness of the Liar’s Club.
His decision made, Simon pulled his top hat low over his eyes and strode across the cobbles, exuding all the snobbery of a gentleman slumming in a moderately shabby area for his own amusement. The doorman gave him a bored glance.
“It’s a private club, sir. I can’t admit ye without a sponsor.
”
Simon tipped his hat higher with one finger to show his face. “Open the door, Stubbs, or I’ll dock your pay.”
The doorman’s eyes widened, and he truly looked at Simon for the first time.
“Sir! Yessir, Mr. Rain, sir! I didn’t recognize ye all toffed up, sir!”
Simon grinned. “That’s all right, Stubbs. I never use the front door anyway.”
“Yessir. I mean, nossir!” Stubbs jumped to open the door for Simon.
“Is Jackham about, Stubbs?”
“Yessir. Mr. Jackham’s in the office, sir, last I saw ’im, sir.”
Simon only nodded, passing into the club. It was a relief to get away from the poor fellow’s groveling.
It was even more of a relief to step into the manly, smoky world of his club. Even simply to be in the outer rooms, which were used solely by the young gentlemen and lordlings who frequented the tables and drink provided there. The deep green walls and dark woods were severe and simple. It was a world of men, free of floral scents, tea service, and nagging.
Not to mention free of temptation.
Jackham was grumbling about that very thing when Simon entered the office behind the billiards room. The older man was seated at the giant banker’s desk. He had likely been there a while, for his reddish fringe of hair was already mussed from frustrated finger-running.
“We’d be twice the richer if we had some doves in here,” Jackham grumbled rudely as he pored over the bookkeeping. “And where the hell have you been?”
Simon only smiled as he lounged on the threadbare sofa that Jackham was too miserly to replace. After days of having the social niceties stuffed down his gullet, Jackham’s lack of polish was refreshing.
“You know the rules, Jackham. No opium, no whoring. We stay clean and we stay in business.”
“Whores aren’t illegal. They’re practically subsidized by the ladies of London who want their husbands gone from their beds.”
“Jackham, we’ve had this discussion before. You may bring in the floor shows when the blokes get restless, but absolutely no whoring.”
Jackham didn’t dare do more than mutter when Simon glared him down. There was no possibility that Simon would ever budge on this issue. He had a few sins on his conscience—very well then, more than a few—but he refused to take part in the business of selling souls.
“So why haven’t you shown your face around here for days, leaving me to run this place by myself? I don’t own it, you know. You do.”
“Business.”
“Well, I figured that,” groused Jackham. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that job got pulled over in Mayfair two nights back, would it?”
Simon grunted noncommittally.
Jackham’s black eyes gleamed. “A fine piece of work, that. Worthy of the Magician himself, eh?” He winked at Simon. “Reminds me of my younger days on the rooftops. Hear tell the swag was full of diamonds. You know anything about that job, Mr. Rain?”
“Now, Jackham, you know I never tell tales out of school.” Simon decided to throw a few diamonds into Jackham’s cut this quarter, just to fiddle with his mind.
“I miss those days, I really do,” sighed Jackham.
For a moment, the lines of pain in his face eased and Simon knew he was remembering his own days dancing with the devil on the rooftops of London, a mere shadow man who could lighten the wealth of the most secure establishments.
It was a thrilling life, the career of a master thief. It was also a short life, bound to end badly. For some, it ended in gaol or the gibbet.
For Jackham, one small misstep on a slippery and misted ledge had landed him on the cobbles from four stories up. He’d become an old man in his thirties, burdened with the never-ending pain from his shattered bones.
It was a lesson that Simon was careful to always keep in the forefront of his mind. He might have gone that route himself, if the Old Man, the old spymaster himself, hadn’t plucked him from the streets and dusted the soot off to train him for intelligence work.
Being a sweep was practically sneakwork training after all, with all the climbing and working in the dark. Many a young sweep gave it a try when their bodies grew beyond the diameter of a chimney.
Simon wasn’t a thief, although he knew why Jackham thought so. After all, when one masked black-clad man comes across another in the act of opening a wealthy man’s safe in the middle of the night, assumptions will be made.
That night, Jackham had generously offered to share the contents with him, confessing that he was strictly a jewel man. Simon had taken the official papers held within but debated taking the money. In the end, he had decided it was necessary to his cover as a thief. Besides, the government-strangled coffers of the Liar’s Club could use a bit of padding.
A partnership had arisen that night. Simon would choose the house and obtain the layout through bribery or trickery, and Jackham would apply his genius to the actual act of midnight entry and safe-breaking.
The Liar’s Club had prospered, and Jackham had made a quick fortune, which he had just as promptly squandered. When the fall happened, Simon had just taken over from his predecessor, the Old Man. Simon had told Jackham that he was retiring as well, and he needed a manager for the club he was “buying.”
It hadn’t been easy keeping the real purpose of the Liar’s Club secret from Jackham for all these years, but for all the fondness Simon felt for his friend, he had no illusions about Jackham’s ultimate inability to refuse money. Not even in the form of a bribe to sell out his dearest friend.
So Jackham believed the boys in the back rooms were part of Simon’s thieves’ network and gleefully helped them plan many a break-in while tending the liquor and doing the books.
The club had renewed his interest in life and kept him feeling he was a part of the world he had lost.
Simon could see that the memories were turning Jackham’s mood bleak. “You know, Jackham, the woman who danced with the giant snake was a nice bit. Why don’t you bring her in for the customers? She can run one show for the marks out front, and then do one for our boys.”
Jackham’s eyes brightened at the idea of possible profit.
“She did have a right elegant act, didn’t she? Brought us in a nice bit of change before. And the marks have seen her once, so they’ll want to bring in their mates to prove they wasn’t lying.” His eyes narrowed. “Now, if even half of them bring a new face in, and even half of those want to join up…”
Simon grinned and left Jackham to his calculations, pleased that he had managed to get the man’s mind off the past. There was nothing to be gained by looking backward, not when the road still stretched out ahead.
Simon’s own road to the future was a straight one. He knew precisely what needed to be done and he knew he was the only man to do it. No matter how tempting the distractions.
Damn, but she was tempting, wasn’t she?
* * *
The day was nearly gone and Mr. Rain still wasn’t back from his outing. Agatha puttered about the house on Carriage Square for as long as she was able, but she wasn’t used to idleness. For years she’d been busy with the estate. These past few days, Simon had filled her time and her thoughts.
No. Her mission had filled her thoughts.
But who fills your dreams?
Agatha ignored the little voice as she would a nagging fly. One couldn’t help one’s dreams. And if hers were filled with the noise and clatter of London streets, not to mention a certain pair of blue eyes—heavens, she’d never seen eyes so blue—well, that was a natural result of being unused to city life.
Irritated that she seemed unable to occupy herself without Simon, Agatha ventured into the kitchen. Sarah Cook, queen of her small domain, soon sent Agatha on her way with a sweet bun and a pointed hint. Pearson also had the household well in hand, so Agatha wasn’t needed there, either.
She could write to her housekeeper back at Appleby. Surely there were some instructions she’d forgotten to offer Mrs. Bell
as to the running of things.
No, to be honest, there was little she could tell her. Late spring was the easiest time of year in Lancashire. The apples were mere green marbles yet, and the sheep had lambed in early spring and had been sheared a month past.
Not that she was eager to return her mind to the tedium that had been hers for years. When the time came to tend Appleby once more, she would. However, the longer she could go without counting lambs or casks of cider, the better.
She’d always been content enough with country life before she’d come to London, although perhaps not entirely happy. She had secretly bemoaned her own restless nature and had done her best to suppress it. Papa had depended on her to see to the day-to-day things—and now Jamie did as well.
Jamie wasn’t precisely neglectful of her, but he didn’t visit as much as she would have liked. Instead she had to satisfy her need for family contact through his faithful correspondence.
Perhaps she needed children. She liked them very much, and the act of holding a babe had lately brought her near to tears of longing, yet Agatha couldn’t think of a single man in Appleby she would want to wed.
Certainly not Repulsive Reggie. Not for his title, not for his lands, not even to stay close to her home. Agatha shuddered even now to think of his groping hands and the way his panting breath had felt on her face.
Forcing her mind back to the present, Agatha shook off the past. She had spent far too much of her life dreading him, certain that he was waiting for another chance to have her in his power. Besides, she had a chimneysweep to train.
And wasn’t he coming along splendidly? There was much satisfaction to be found in helping someone achieve his potential. Perhaps she was meant to teach, for she affirmed privately that she had considerable natural skill. Just look what she had done with the man in a few short days!
Of course, she must allow him a certain amount of credit. He certainly was a lovely bundle of raw material. Those eyes … and that physique. Such long legs, and the way that the tails of his coat fell just so over his muscular …
Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 01] Page 5