Her Husband's Harlot

by Grace Callaway

  Nicholas felt himself getting hard again.

  "If you do not mind my saying, my lord, your wife is a fascinating woman."

  "Yes, she is," Nicholas muttered.

  Running his hands through his hair, he sat and tried to clear his head. He couldn't believe what he had let happen just now. How he had lost control with his own wife. But he couldn't bring himself to regret it either, not with the taste and feel of her still sparkling over his senses.

  "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me at your residence, my lord." Kent took the adjacent chair and stretched his legs in front. "Given the state of the warehouse, this seemed a more private and safer place to discuss my recent findings."

  That succeeded in securing Nicholas' attention. He focused on the other man and saw smug lines fanning from the investigator's pale eyes. "What news do you bring?"

  "I have finished questioning the porters on guard duty the night of the theft—one of the two, at least. It seems Patrick Riley had drunk enough blue ruin to sink a ship and was three sheets to the wind while the thieves emptied the place." Kent shook his head in disgust. "The man could barely recall his mother's name, let alone any details of what happened."

  "And the second porter?"

  "James Gordon has disappeared and is nowhere to be found."

  The picture of a timid, red-haired man came to Nicholas' mind. Crippled, with the manner of a mouse, Gordon seemed incapable of walking without tripping over his own two feet, let alone plotting a crime. "Do you think the villains got to him that night?" Nicholas asked tersely.

  "I detected no signs of foul play at the warehouse," Kent replied, "so if they did Gordon in, they did it elsewhere. And there were no new floaters on the Thames matching his description. So either the fish got to him or he's rotting someplace else—or he was somehow involved."

  Nicholas frowned. "I take it you have conducted a search."

  "Gordon's home, the taverns and brothels he frequented. His wife and friends say they have not seen hide or hair of him since the night of the robbery."

  "It is a bloody hell of a coincidence that the man's gone missing," Nicholas admitted.

  "I do not believe in coincidences," Kent replied. "Which is why I spent the earlier half of this afternoon at one of the brothels."

  Nicholas refrained from making a joking rejoinder. In his past dealings with Kent, the man had shown himself to be singularly lacking in humor. "What did you discover?"

  "I am always amazed at how much better informed the molls are than the wives. Or perhaps their selling price is simply cheaper. Gordon thought himself in love with a pretty piece named Sally Loverling. Convenient name for a whore, is it not? For the price of a shilling, Ms. Loverling rattled off an entire list of Gordon's known associates."

  "Any names ring a bell?"

  "Only one," Kent said. "It seems our friend Gordon has come up a ways from his origins. He grew up in the stews of St. Giles. His father died when Gordon was ten, and the family had a rough time of it. The mother remarried. A tough bastard by the name of Gerald Bragg. Bragg already had a son, ten years Gordon's senior—"

  "Named Isaac." Nicholas felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. "Goddamn it. Isaac Bragg is Gordon's step-brother?"

  "I spoke to your steward. Jibotts did not know anything of it, but he did recall hiring Bragg partly on Gordon's recommendation. He also mentioned that Bragg has caused some trouble among the workers?"

  "Bragg has been up to no good since the day he arrived." The two notes flashed in Nicholas' head, and he told himself to tread carefully. After a brief hesitation, he added, "Perhaps a fortnight ago, I saw him lurking with another fellow in an alley by the warehouse. They looked suspicious—like they were doing something that couldn't see the light of day. They scurried off when I approached."

  "Well, Bragg certainly was brazen as anything at work today, wasn't he? Raised quite a fuss about having to participate in the clean up." Kent's eyes grew crafty. "My men are monitoring his whereabouts as we speak. If he is our fiend, we will trail him to his lair and ambush him there tonight."

  "I am coming," Nicholas said.

  Kent's brows reached his hairline. "You, my lord? I do not think that wise. St. Giles is no place for a gentleman."

  "Trust me, I can take care of myself," Nicholas said with grim certainty. "It is Bragg who has something to worry about."

  THIRTEEN

  St. Giles was just as he remembered, and the familiarity of it chilled him to the marrow. It seemed he had never left this place, this nightmarish maze of crooked streets and dark alleyways, where the air was thick with urine, vomit, and other remnants of human misery. He stood in the shadows, watching the drunks stumble out of the gin houses positioned at every corner of the square. They were met by a parade of whores, brightly painted to obscure the signs of disease. After bargaining for their pleasure, they headed in pairs or larger groups to the narrow gaps of alleys, where the fucking was cheap and quick, with no bed but the rough stone wall against your back.

  Nicholas shook his head to clear it. He was here for a reason, and he had to stay focused. Beside him, Kent watched and waited with the patience of a saint. He seemed undisturbed by the surroundings, his police man's eyes taking in all with cool detachment. His attention was focused on the flash-house across the street, the den of vice that supported all manner of criminal activity. Nicholas knew inside the fire was warm, the gin even warmer; inside, thieves, murderers, and whores played after a long day's work.

  He did not have to enter the premises to see the interior. All flash-houses were the same. The scarred tables would offer cards, tin platters of hot, greasy food and tankards of soul-obliterating drink. Underneath the boisterous roar of the crowd, the rhythm of depravity continued: thieves haggled with their fences, pick pockets plied their trade, and gin-bloated cutthroats started brawls that ended bloody. If you had the coin to escape upstairs, you might have a moment of peace between the well-traveled thighs of a wench, at fifteen or sixteen already past her prime. She might tell you she loved you, and you might believe it, if you were desperate enough.

  Kent was saying something to him, and the words brought him back to the task at hand. He nodded at Kent's instructions to stay put and watched as the other man slipped away into the shadows. Likely Kent was checking on the other entrances—a flash-house always had multiple escape routes. Nicholas felt grudging admiration for the man's thoroughness. For a copper, Kent seemed decent enough, not like the thief takers who would bend the law for a shilling or two. Or for other forms of payment, performed in fear and darkness.

  He shook away the memories. There were too many of them tonight, crowding in on him like hungry ghosts. Maybe he should not have come. He dispelled that thought immediately. He was not a man to rest on his laurels while some bastard stole from him. While some coward toyed with him and penned threatening notes about the past.

  At that moment, he saw a lone figure emerge from the front entrance of the flash-house. He had his collar pulled high and his hat pulled low. Nothing unusual about that in the stews. But there was something about the man's swagger that made Nicholas look closer. Sure enough, when the man stopped to light his tobacco, the spark of the flint revealed beady eyes and a bearded face.

  Bragg.

  Nicholas felt his fists curl in their gloves.

  Bragg finished his smoke and started off into the night. There was no sign of Kent, or any of Kent's three men. Bragg must have slipped beneath their noses. Nicholas briefly considered alerting them, but he would alert Bragg as well, and he could not risk that. At large in the rookery, Bragg would be harder to find than a fish let loose in the Thames. Besides, it might be better to go this alone; if Bragg turned out to be the blackmailer, Nicholas wanted to settle the business far from the eyes of the law.

  Nicholas moved stealthily, keeping to the shadows. Some habits never died, and he knew well enough how to stay out of sight. He kept to Bragg's blind spot, stopping now and again to fake interest in the
barrows of fenced goods. The fog had turned to drizzle now, and the slickened streets began to empty of the hawkers and whores. Bragg continued to strut along as if he owned the streets, a bottle of gin fueling his journey.

  They were heading east, into the heart of the slums. Nicholas knew these parts as surely as he knew his own face. After all, he had grown up in his aunt's house in Bottom's End, a row aptly named for the place its inhabitants occupied in the world. Aunt Amy. Her image ambushed him: the puffed face and greasy lank hair, the satisfied gleam in her small eyes as she'd counted the bag of coins—shillings, she'd sold him for. Shillings for a life of indentured hell. But he had escaped that life and would never have seen her again, had it not been at the insistence of Jeremiah Fines.

  "You must make peace with your past, if there is to be a future, my boy," Jeremiah had said.

  Accompanied by his new mentor, he had returned to that house, found it as rotted and foul as ever. Nothing had changed. Rats had played with the screaming babes as Aunt Amy looked Jeremiah up and down. She'd made a pretense of listening to Jeremiah's praise of him, of his potential to become a worthy merchant; all along, Nicholas had seen her sizing up his mentor's fine clothes, the gold watch fob dangling from the waistcoat. When she had finally spoken, her accusation had been so abhorrent that Jeremiah had actually paled. But it was with her next words that his aunt revealed her true character.

  "I don't care as 'ow you want to use the boy, guv'nor. Just so's I get me fair share fer puttin' 'im up all 'em years."

  Jeremiah had hauled him out of the house, Aunt Amy's curses ringing behind them.

  Those curses echoed now, as two drunks brawled in the street. The houses grew more decrepit, the road more narrow, at some parts barely wide enough for two men to pass without bumping shoulders. Nicholas stayed a safe distance behind, aware that there would be no place to hide should he be spotted. He kept his hand in his pocket, next to the solid handle of the pistol he carried. There was the knife, too, concealed in his boot. Habit, again. He had lived in the stews long enough to know that a man foolhardy enough to wander the streets unarmed was inviting trouble.

  Bragg turned a corner, and Nicholas counted to ten before following. Several steps along, a ruckus erupted from one of the houses. A body propelled out of a doorway, slamming into him. Nicholas held onto his balance, stumbling backward as another body followed the first. He stepped out of harm's way as the fists began to fly. There was shouting and the crack of glass against stone. The men circled each other, broken bottles in hand. A crowd gathered round to cheer on the violence.

  Nicholas craned his neck to look past the growing mob. His eyes collided with small ones which widened like those of a cornered rat. Bragg dropped his bottle and broke into a run. Swearing, Nicholas made after him, slowed by the bodies jostling against one another for the best view of the bloodshed. When he finally made it past the throng, he glimpsed Bragg rounding a corner up ahead. He raced after him, his boots slippery in the mud.

  He turned left and saw immediately that it was a dead end. There were a handful of buildings on both sides, all of them nothing but rotted frames and gutted-out insides, waiting to be felled by a strong gust. Nevertheless, a faint glow emanated from some of the broken windows; the desperate could not afford to be choosy. Taking a few cautious steps forward, Nicholas took measure of the darkness. There were many places for a man to hide. A sudden shuffle to his left had the hairs rising on his neck. Even as he turned toward the house, his hand tightening on the pistol, he knew it was too late.

  He sensed rather than saw the movement from the shadowed interior.

  A blast tore through the night.

  He fell to the ground, a pain like wildfire spreading across his head. Footsteps neared, and he curled instinctively against the voice that rasped over him. Blood trickled into his eyes, obscuring the shape looming over him in the darkness.

  "We could have done this easy, but your lordship had to interfere," came the low, silky tones. "That's the problem with the peerage—they just can't follow instructions."

  Nicholas struggled to hold onto consciousness. "B-bugger your instructions. Who are you? What ... do you want?"

  The laughter shivered down Nicholas' spine. "I'm a ghost from your past, of course. Come to exact the ultimate price ... unless you do exactly as I say."

  "Do what you will." Pain robbed his voice of emphasis, made his mind weak, but Nicholas clung on, breathing hard. "I'll not be ... blackmailed by the likes of you."

  "Won't you now?" Another soft, menacing laugh. "Not even for your wife? To guarantee the delectable Lady Helena's continued good health?"

  "Keep her out of this." In a blind rage, Nicholas lunged upward. A boot connected with his wound, and he gasped in agony, the world spinning into pitch.

  "Await my instructions," the voice said.

  Dimly, Nicholas heard a shout in the distance. Another shot fired. Footsteps approaching. As the darkness closed around him, he felt a fear more suffocating than death. Please God, don't let anything happen to her. His past bore down upon him, the slick of blood upon his hands again, the sickening coppery smell of it filling his nostrils. Somehow, he had always known it would end this way for him: alone, surrounded by the stench and filth of the stews. He had never escaped, not really. The rookery always claimed its own.

  His other life had been but a mirage, a beautiful dream.

  Helena, my love.

  Then he felt nothing at all.

  FOURTEEN

  "My lady, you do look a treat," Bessie said, running the brush a final time through Helena's loose tresses.

  Helena studied her reflection in the vanity mirror. She thought she did look rather well, with her hair tumbling free over her shoulders and down her back. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes sparkling with anticipation. It was nearing midnight; Nicholas would be home at any moment. He and Mr. Kent had departed on business together this afternoon, and he had left word with Crikstaff that he would return later tonight.

  That would be her opportunity. It was now or never to try to seduce her hard-headed husband. She would invite him into her sitting room for refreshment, conversation ... and wherever else that led. She smiled to herself. Given what had transpired earlier in the drawing room, she thought her chances of success rather good.

  "The French do have a way with fashions," Bessie continued, leaning down to fuss with the tie on Helena's peignoir. "Who would have thought to make a dressing gown out of chiffon?"

  "No tailor residing in London, that is for sure," Helena agreed, rubbing her arms.

  "Goodness me, are you chilled my lady?" Bessie asked. "I had thought the fire warm enough, but here I am in my woolens. I will call Mary to build up the fire—"

  "I am fine," Helena reassured her. "But perhaps you can check with Crikstaff to make sure the supper is ready."

  "Of course," Bessie said. "And where would you like it served?"

  "Here in the sitting room will do nicely," Helena said. "Have the footmen set up a small table by the fire. And do not let Crikstaff forget the champagne."

  "Yes, my lady," the maid said with a twinkle in her eye. She hurried off.

  Helena got up from the vanity and walked over to the full-length looking glass. Turning this way and that, she experienced a giddy sense of satisfaction. The sensual creature in the mirror could not be her—and yet it was. Garbed in a sheer peignoir that drifted to the floor in hazy bronze swirls, the woman looked the very picture of seduction. She threw back her shoulders, and the chiffon slid down her arms, baring the thin straps of a glimmering bronze negligee.

  Madame Rousseau had assured her that the negligee was all the rage in Paris and worn by all the fashionable ladies. Clearly, it was a garment designed for the purposes of amour: the neckline plunged daringly between the breasts and halfway to the navel. Honey lace filled the deep crevice, creating intriguing peek-a-boo views of her bosom. The body-skimming satin fell to her ankles, and movement was made possible by the twin slits that be
gan mid-hip. In her whole life, Helena had never worn anything so scandalous. It was almost like being naked. More so, in fact, as the satin and chiffon seemed to draw attention to select parts of her nakedness.

  It felt most daring, most wanton.

  She hoped Nicholas would like it.

  Readjusting her peignoir, she looked at the clock on the mantel. Ten minutes to midnight. Nicholas would surely be home soon. She needed to occupy herself until his return, or she would burst out of her skin. Settling into one of the wingback chairs by the fireplace, she draped a blanket over herself and examined the small stack of books on the side table. She picked up a heavy, well-worn volume. The book was on loan from Miss Lavinia Haversham, a friendly spinster she had met through the Misses Berry's weekly salon. The topic at one meeting had been female philosophers; Miss Lavinia had been quite shocked that Helena had never heard of Mary Wollstonecraft.

  "Goodness gracious, where have you been hiding?" Miss Lavinia had asked.

  Helena had explained that before her marriage she had been allowed to read only the most genteel of literatures intended to improve the mind of young ladies. Lady Epplethistle's Compleat Guide, for instance. While she had managed to pilfer a few volumes of Shakespeare's plays from her father's library, that had been the extent of it. The good Miss Lavinia had snorted and, at the following meeting, handed Helena a book. Opening the burgundy leather cover now, Helena studied the title page.

  A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

  It sounded promising enough. Within moments, she lost herself in the passionate, rambling, and altogether mind-altering prose.

  When Helena finally looked up, she blinked fuzzily at the clock. It could not be—two hours had passed? It was nearing two in the morning, and Nicholas had not yet returned. With a frown, she put down the book and went to the table the servants had brought in. Thank goodness she had chosen to serve a simple collation which could be enjoyed at room temperature. The champagne, the only item that needed to be chilled, rested in a silver bucket filled with melting ice. She plucked a grape from the artfully arranged platter and bit into the purple globe.