Unfortunately, by this time, it was being whispered in discreet circles that Kit had been thrown out summarily by his last two protectors and that there must be a reason for it. Rumours began circulating that he had thieved from them, or worse, and for a while it had seemed that no one else would touch him. But Mabel was nothing if not resourceful. She managed to secure a short contract for him with Phineas Warren, an elderly banker with a penchant for pretty young men in corsets. And they didn't come prettier than Kit.
Kit had had to swallow his pride for that one—not only had his price dropped humiliatingly low, he’d had to agree to Phin’s desire to display him publicly however he wished. But in the end, it turned out well for him. Phin was no fool—a more sceptical, sharp-minded man one could not hope to meet—but his temperament was sweet and he’d grown very fond of Kit. He’d extended their arrangement to a year then renewed it twice more, each time with more generous terms.
The duration of their relationship and Kit’s loyalty to Phin had restored Kit’s reputation as a trustworthy man. What’s more, Phin’s final parting gift had provided Kit with everything he needed to open Redford’s.
And so, finally, Kit had been able to put his mistakes behind him and get off the game. And in the years since then, he had not rented out his body to anyone—or rented anyone else’s for his own pleasure for that matter. Now he restricted himself to his companionable suppers in Clapham with intelligent conversation, good food and wine, and unapologetic sex afterwards with likeminded men who treated him like an equal. Men who didn’t mind him being forceful about what he wanted, instead of always expecting him to bend to their desires.
“Kit?”
Kit looked up to find Jean-Jacques regarding him with concern.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I got rather lost in my thoughts.”
“I understand,” Jean-Jacques said gently. “So, what is your message? Will you meet your duke? Or not?”
It was tempting. Tempting to see Henry and let him know exactly what Kit thought of him. Henry had probably thought that a contract with a whore wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Or perhaps he’d thought that, since Kit had not served out the whole year of their contract by the time Henry dropped him, he was not entitled to the severance terms. Whatever his excuse was, Kit would soon put him right. For a moment, he pictured Henry begging his forgiveness… and then he grimaced at his own idiocy. He was being absurd. Self-indulgent and, actually, downright pathetic. Why would Henry care that Kit had suffered? Had Kit learned nothing? Henry Asquith did not deserve a single moment of his time.
Firming his resolve, Kit said, “No, I am not going to meet him. There is no reason to after all these years.”
Jean-Jacques nodded. “I think you are wise, mon amie. Is there any other message you wish me to give him?”
Kit considered that. The truth was, he wanted to take a swipe at Henry Asquith, and this was his last chance to do so. “Tell him that if he has something to say to me, to send Parkinson to do his dirty work instead of imposing on my friends.”
When Jean-Jacques looked puzzled, Kit explained, “Parkinson's his man of business—that’s who he sent to throw me out.”
Jean-Jacques shook his head disgustedly.
Kit smiled crookedly. “I don’t really expect you to deliver that message,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re getting dragged into this at all."
Jean-Jacques shrugged. “If I think I won’t get into trouble over it, I will pass your message on.” He quirked a half-smile. “And if I don’t, I will bring you something nice from Evie to make up for it.”
“If it’s a choice between Evie’s pastries or revenge,” Kit said, smiling, “I’m willing to pass on the revenge.”
6
Henry
The two days between Henry visiting Mercier’s the first time and going back dragged terribly. He occupied himself with business matters and unavoidable social calls, but he could not quite fasten his attention on anything.
On Thursday morning he rose early, breakfasted alone, and left the house before anyone else was up. He walked through town then spent some time in a coffee house reading—or rather staring unseeingly at—a newspaper. Eventually, at eleven o’clock, he made his way to Mercier’s.
Once again, it was busy when he arrived. A group of older ladies occupied two of the larger tables while the smaller tables around them were taken by couples and families. Children tucked into their ices and pastries while young ladies giggled over the rims of their teacups.
The same young woman greeted him as last time.
“I’m afraid we don’t have any tables just now, sir,” she said apologetically.
“That’s all right. I’m actually here to see Monsieur Mercier. Could you let him know? He’s expecting me, I believe.”
She looked puzzled. “Oh, I see. Who should I say is asking, sir?”
“The Duke of Avesbury.”
Her eyes widened and she looked quite flustered. “Oh, I’m sorry! I had no idea, your—your—”
“Grace,” he supplied gently. “But don’t fret about it. It’s quite all right.”
She smiled gratefully and did an awkward bob of a curtsey. “If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I’ll just fetch him, your grace. Excuse me, please.”
She hurried away, disappearing through the back of the shop.
A minute or two later, she reappeared with Jean-Jacques trailing behind her.
“Your grace,” he said, his French accent very pronounced. “Please, come this way.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Henry to follow and his daughter to stare after them, plainly astonished by her father’s barely concealed rudeness, towards a duke no less.
Jean-Jacques showed Henry into the same small office as before, closing the door carefully behind them.
“So,” he said. “You are back.”
“I am. Have you seen Christopher?”
“Yes.” Jean-Jacques’s tone was very flat and somehow quite final.
Dread seeded in Henry’s chest. He cleared his throat. “And what did he say?”
Jean-Jacques’s lips tightened and he looked away. “I’m afraid Kit sees no point in meeting with you. So many years, you know.”
Henry swallowed. “Did he have any message for me?”
Jean-Jacques met Henry’s gaze again. For a long time he said nothing, his eyes searching Henry’s face, then he sighed and said in a weary tone, “Kit said that you should send your servant, Mr. Parkinson, to do your dirty work instead of asking me.”
Henry stared at Jean-Jacques, shocked. At last he said carefully, “Parkinson?”
Jean-Jacques’s eyes glinted with anger. “Don’t you remember? He’s the servant you sent to throw Kit out.”
“Throw him… what? Out of where?”
“Where he was living,” Jean-Jacques snapped. “The house that you agreed to give him.”
Henry stared at the man in disbelief. His mind couldn’t seem to absorb the words, but his body was ahead of him, his heart suddenly racing and his palms sweating.
Parkinson.
Faintly he said, “I think you must be mistaken. The house you speak of belongs to Christopher, not to me. Or at least it did.”
Jean-Jacques’s expression, already unfriendly, darkened to anger.
“That is not the sort of thing a man makes a mistake over,” he said harshly. “And I can assure you, I recall those events very well myself. Your servant threw Kit out on your orders, your grace.” His nostrils flared with barely concealed fury. “At least have the decency to own your actions."
Henry closed his eyes for a long moment. He did not know what had happened—but Parkinson was involved.
Flatly, he said, “I never threw Kit out. I swear.”
Jean-Jacques’s expression was scornful, the veneer of politeness ripped away. “No? What would you call it?”
“How could I throw him out of his own house? It was his. I made it
over to him after—” After he left for Wiltshire with Caroline, in those first awful weeks of the worst year of his life. He shook his head, dislodging the memory and turned his attention back to Jean-Jacques. “Please,” he said. “Can’t you tell me where Christopher is? I have to speak to him.”
But the black eyes that met his own were hard and unyielding. “I cannot,” Jean-Jacques said. “Kit does not want to meet with you. And now, your grace, I think it is time you were on your way.”
After leaving Mercier’s, Henry stood on the street outside for several minutes, his mind racing. At length, he decided to call on Simon Reid, the solicitor who dealt with his personal business—and who had handled the chaos of the Parkinson debacle.
Reid’s offices were at Serjeant’s Inn, just off Fleet Street. Since it wasn’t very far, and Henry needed to walk off some of his agitation, he dismissed his carriage and made his way by foot.
The walk did nothing to calm him, though. By the time he arrived, he had worked himself up even more. He barrelled into the office, barely pausing to glance at the two clerks sitting at their desks and strode past, making for Reid’s office.
One of the clerks followed him.
“Excuse me, your grace, Mr. Reid is presently busy—”
“He won’t mind me interrupting.” Henry absently cast the words over his shoulder just as he thrust the door open.
“Reid,” he said urgently. “I have to speak to you! I’ve discovered something that—” He broke off. Reid was not alone. He was standing by his desk with two men. One was tall and dark and somewhat familiar, though Henry could not place him. The other was red-haired and slender. “Oh,” Henry said, brought up short. “I do beg your pardon.”
Reid blinked, surprised, but quickly collected himself. “Your grace—” he began, then glanced at the two men with an apologetic expression.
The red-haired man smiled. “It’s no trouble,” he said in a pleasant Scottish burr. “We were just about to leave anyway.” He glanced at the taller man who smiled his agreement, and they began to move towards the door. Henry stood aside to let them pass.
“I’ll see you out,” Reid said to the two men, then, glancing at Henry, added, “I’ll be back momentarily.”
Henry paced the rug in front of the fireplace till Reid returned, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Has something happened, your grace?” Reid asked worriedly. “You seem very anxious.”
“I need you to check something for me,” Henry said. “Right away—without delay—it’s of the utmost importance.”
Reid’s brow wrinkled with concern, and he moved towards his desk. “Of course,” he said. “Whatever you need. Won't you sit down?”
Henry felt some of the tension inside him ease. He could confide fully in Reid—Reid was not only Henry’s solicitor, he shared Henry’s inclinations and they had certain mutual acquaintances. Indeed, it was Henry’s oldest and must trusted friend, Viscount Corbett, who had introduced them.
“Do you want a drink?” Reid asked now, frowning. “You look like you’ve had a shock.”
Henry nodded, sinking into the chair on the other side of Reid’s desk, while Reid fetched him a glass of brandy. He took a deep breath, rubbing the tense spot between his brows as he tried to collect himself.
When Reid set the brandy down in front of him, he immediately reached for it, taking a deep swallow and flinching at the burn in his throat.
“So,” Reid said. “Tell me what you need me to help you with.”
“I need you to check the title of a property I once owned in Paddington Green. I gifted it to someone a number of years ago—eighteen to be precise— but it seems it may not have reached the intended recipient.”
Reid met Henry’s gaze. “Given the timing, I have to wonder if this is another Parkinson matter.”
Henry nodded miserably. “I think so. I’m hoping not, but I can’t think of any other explanation, and his name’s already been mentioned.”
“I thought we’d got to the bottom of everything.” Reid frowned, thinking, then looked up. “A missing house would be new though. It is not an easy thing to remove from a man’s estate without him noticing.”
“No,” Henry agreed, “but if anyone had the sheer gall to try, it would be him.”
Silas Parkinson had been Henry’s father’s man of business, and Henry had inherited him along with the dukedom. Having known the man since childhood, he had trusted him implicitly. Just as his father had done. Parkinson had simply… always been there. When Henry had sat at his father’s elbow as a very young man, learning the business of the dukedom, Parkinson had always been with them, quietly noting and carrying out each and every instruction of his father without question. It didn’t matter what it was: from the everyday carrying out of estate business, to the settling of gambling debts, to the arrangement of prostitutes for his father’s entertainments at his hunting box. Parkinson hadn’t blinked an eye at any of it.
“He’s an extremely reliable fellow,” his father had once said to Henry. “Utterly discreet and totally dedicated to protecting the family name—as well he might be, for the sums I pay him.”
And it was true, in a way. Parkinson had been discreet, and he had protected the family name at all costs. And yes, when he was asked to do any task, he carried it out with admirable efficiency. But it was only when he had died, quite unexpectedly following a sudden heart seizure, eleven years ago now, that Henry had discovered the full extent of the rewards the man had been taking in exchange for his loyalty.
It was Harry Trimble, the man Henry had engaged to replace Parkinson, who had first alerted him to the discrepancies in the ledgers. Trimble had suggested a detailed examination of all the account books and records be undertaken to get to the bottom of the matter, and Henry, worried about what incriminating information might be found in those old papers, had gone to Corbett for help. That was when Corbett had introduced Henry to Simon Reid, vouchsafing that Reid was a man who could be trusted.
Reid had set about the matter with typical efficiency, sending his associate, Alun Jones, to Wiltshire to painstakingly go through the estate records. Jones had examined every entry in every ledger, and every single page in the voluminous boxes of papers pertaining to the estate. Quiet and unassuming, Jones had spent three long months at Avesbury House working his way through decades of documents. At the end of it, he had presented Henry with a file of evidence that showed the fraud Parkinson had committed, together with a box of papers relating to Henry’s personal affairs that Henry had promptly locked away. The file had shown that Parkinson had been stealing from the ducal estate for years, long before Henry had inherited the title.
After that, Reid had spent a couple of years trying to track down the money Parkinson had embezzled, but most of it had been spent meeting the man’s gambling debts. Eventually, Henry had given up on any further attempts at recovering the losses, and Reid had closed the case.
So far as Henry had been aware, Parkinson’s fraud had been restricted to stealing money. But now he had to wonder. Christopher was supposed to get the property at Paddington Green when their contract ended. Parkinson had known that—he’d told Henry it was taken care of, and Henry had not questioned the matter.
Over those difficult first few weeks and months after leaving London, Parkinson had come to Avesbury House several times, on each occasion with a sheaf of documents to be signed by Henry. Documents that, Henry recalled, he had, uncharacteristically, signed without reading.
Had Parkinson seen an opportunity, and taken a chance?
Was it possible that he had stolen Christopher’s rightful entitlement?
“What’s the address of the property?” Reid asked, and Henry gave it to him, watching as the man wrote it on his blotter.
“And what is it you want to know about it?” Reid continued. “The current owner, I assume. Anything else?”
“As much as possible,” Henry said. “Who owns it now, and anyone else who has owned it in th
e last eighteen years.”
Reid eyed him curiously, but he nodded. “Very well.”
“I need to know the position as soon as possible,” Henry said. “Can you get to the bottom of the matter today?”
Reid looked doubtful. “Unlikely, but I’ll see what I can do. If you wish, I can call by the house this evening on my home to let you know what progress I’ve made?”
“Please do,” Henry said. “I’m anxious to discover the truth as soon as possible.”
7
Kit
By Thursday, Betty was feeling quite well and Clara was able to return to work, so Kit decided to leave Clara to deal with the club for the afternoon while he paid his fortnightly visit to Mabel Butcher.
Mabel had been known as La Tigresse at the height of her courtesan career. Later, she had become Madame Georgette, the presiding madam of the select Golden Lily brothel. But these days, almost ten years after her retirement, she preferred to use her rather more prosaic given name, and had adopted the persona of a respectable elderly widow.
Theirs was a strange relationship. Mabel had, after all, been the madam of the brothel where Kit had worked. She had procured patrons for his services. She had also left him to the not-so-tender mercies of Lionel Skelton, just because she had lost her temper with him for refusing to follow her advice about Henry Asquith. She had been hard-nosed and bad-tempered sometimes. But on other occasions, she had protected him fiercely, and she had nursed him when Skelton had beaten him, and looked after his money when he was being foolish. And when he wanted to get out of the game and build something of his own, she had given him endless help and advice.
She had never once in her life been soft with him, but she had looked after him, in her way.
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