by KJ Charles
“Good evening, boys,” said Susan Lazarus.
There was a second’s ringing silence. Jerry’s face was the most unguarded Alec had ever seen it, wide-eyed with blank incomprehension turning to shock. Lane’s expression was pure thunderhead. He gave Alec one look full of lethal promise and began to move—not even taking a step, but swelling—and Susan said, “No,” pushing Alec to the side as she did so, revealing the snub-nosed revolver she held.
“Susan,” Lane said, with a visible effort at control. “What a treat.”
“James.” Her tone was equally flat. “Sit down on the bed, both of you, with your hands palm up on your knees.”
Alec saw Jerry take that in. Saw him realise that she wasn’t including Alec; saw the momentary look of devastation before the rage ignited.
“Now, Crozier,” Susan told him. “Don’t try my marksmanship. I have been taking lessons since I missed James last time.”
“Ah, so you admit you missed me,” Lane said.
“I will shoot you in the face and not regret it for a second. Alec, why don’t you come behind me and get in the opposite corner by the door, to keep everything tidy.”
That meant “get out of lunging range”. Alec did as bid, though he’d rather have kept walking, shut the door behind him and never looked back. He could feel Jerry’s eyes on him as he crossed behind her, and when he turned, his lover’s expression was everything he’d imagined.
“Well.” Jerry’s voice was thin. “I said it always ends in betrayal, and I was right. Out of interest, did you only now lose whatever excuse for a spine you possess, or have you been a treacherous little cunt all along?” Alec couldn’t hold back the flinch, and saw Jerry’s nostrils flare. “You have, haven’t you? You played me like a fiddle. I take off my hat to your dedication to the role. I quite thought you were the hapless tart you pretended.”
Lane half turned to look at him, looked back at Alec, and said, “Christ, Jerry. You arse.”
Susan’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t, Alec. Did you?”
“Of course he did,” Jerry said viciously. “Really, Alec, you ought to be on the stage. Or give up the doodling and dedicate yourself to selling what you’re actually good at. They could use you on Cleveland Street, and you do make yourself available for use, don’t you?”
Alec set his back teeth. He couldn’t help the colour flooding his face, but he was not going to react; he was not going to cry.
“Shut up, Crozier,” Susan said.
“No. Now, kindly explain why you’re holding a gun on us when no crime has been committed and you’re not an officer of the law.”
“That’s a very good question,” Lane said. “Because if all you have to go on is the accusations of a spurned boy friend—”
Susan gave him a look of startling contempt. “If I wanted you two arrested I wouldn’t need Alec’s help. I’m not here to gaol you.”
Jerry’s face tensed. “Then what are you here for?”
“I want you to open the Duchess of Ilvar’s safe.”
There was a short silence. Jerry’s mouth moved slightly as if trying out the words. Lane said, “Not to put too fine a point on it, but you do realise we were going to do that anyway?”
“No, you were going to open the Duke’s safe, which is why Alec and I had to intervene. Why do you think we brought you here?”
“You didn’t—” Lane began and then, “Really. Did you, now.”
“I put Alec on to you two in the first place,” Susan said. “Lady Moreton endured hours of condescension in order to persuade the Duchess to hire me, and young Penny’s going to have people teasing her about Alec for months. A lot of work has gone into getting you into Castle Speight. I hope you’re flattered.”
“That’s not my overriding emotion,” Jerry said. “Why?”
Susan gave him one of her blank looks, which Alec knew from experience could cut through steel plate. “Work it out. Bearing in mind I know you two bastards are behind the Milner and Cyrus-Price robberies.”
Lane’s brows drew together. “You’re serious? You want us to rob the Duchess?”
“Nobody in the country can get into a Bramah lock without drilling,” Susan said. “The only time a Bramah was beaten, it was that fellow who set himself to do it as a stunt and took fifty hours. But the Milner and Cyrus-Price safes were both unforced, both Bramah locks—”
“Which is why the police concluded both were inside jobs,” Lane remarked.
“A little bird told me about Stan Kamarzyn’s trip to Antwerp and what he shifted in the way of uncut gems. I know what was stolen from those two safes; Kamarzyn doesn’t fence for anyone but you; QED. No, don’t argue, James. Your only value to me is your ability to open a Bramah lock, and if you can’t, I’m going to hand you over to the police along with whatever exciting toys we may find in your luggage, including safecracking kit and chloroform. So if I were you, I’d stop trying to persuade me of your innocence.” She let that hang a moment, eyes on Lane, as if neither Alec nor Jerry mattered at all, then cocked her head. “Between us, how do you do it?”
“Magic fingers,” Lane said. “I think I’m hallucinating. Susan, dear, why do you want us to rob the Duchess?”
“I don’t want you to rob her,” Susan said. “I want you to open her safe in my presence. After that, you can go.”
“Right.” Lane was going a little red. “Right. One more question: do I look like your fucking lackey?”
“What are you after?” Jerry asked. He was watching Alec, not Susan.
“Nothing that concerns you. Oh, and you’re not going to take a halfpenny that doesn’t belong to you. Sorry about your loss on this job, but I’m sure you have a few bob put aside. That might change if someone laid information and Stan Kamarzyn’s shop was raided by the police.”
Jerry’s nostrils flared so wide there were white marks at the sides of his nose. Lane said, with a creditable attempt at joviality, “You know, if you wanted my help, all you had to do is ask.”
“I remember the last time I asked you for something,” Susan said. “Do you?”
The smile died on Lane’s face. He didn’t reply.
“You owe a debt, James,” she went on steadily. “Your payment is, in fact, very seriously overdue. Consider this a visit from the bailiffs.”
“I’m not aware I owe you anything,” Jerry said.
“Unless James needs you to open the safe, you can piss off,” Susan told him with total composure. “If I don’t get what I want out of this visit, you two and Stan Kamarzyn will all be turning the crank before Christmas, so it might be in your interest to help out, but otherwise I don’t give a damn. Scarper if you like.”
“No, I won’t do that,” Jerry said. “I don’t believe in betraying my friends.”
“Oooh,” Susan said, mockingly sing-song, as Alec dug his nails into his palm. “Stay, then, but don’t do anything stupid. My firm knows exactly what I’m up to here, and we’ve got eyes on Kamarzyn.” She glanced between the thieves. “I’m not asking much, really. Open a safe, don’t steal anything, and disappear. I know the first and last of those are second nature, so if you can manage the part about not stealing, we’ll all be happy.”
“Will we?” Jerry enquired.
“Happy enough. Do what I want the way I want and we—the guvnors and I—will consider the slate wiped clean.”
Lane’s eyes widened slightly. Susan gave him a single nod. “Wiped clean, up to and including the Milner and Cyrus-Price jobs. You won’t get a better offer in your life. Mess me about and there’s a pair of crosses ready-built, just waiting for me to nail you to them. Come on, Alec.”
He followed her out, and shut the door. Susan’s gun had magically disappeared somewhere about her person.
“Right,” she said. “Which is your room?”
“This one.”
“Neighbouring?” Susan grimaced, led the way in, and checked the door handle. “I’d suggest you use the lock, except that Crozier could get through it
easy as breathing. Put a chair under the handle. Are you all right?”
“No.” Alec sat on the bed. “I think I might be sick.”
Susan sloshed some water from the nightstand into a tumbler. “Sip. Also, please tell me Crozier was lying.”
“No.”
“Alec.” She sat down beside him. “You did not have to do that.”
“Of course I didn’t have to,” Alec said drearily. “I wanted to.”
“But it was pure recreation, no finer feelings involved, yes?”
Alec shook his head. Susan made a despairing noise. “You berk. You absolute berk.” She put an arm round his shoulders, pulling him close, and Alec leaned on her, feeling the sobs in his chest, refusing to let them out. “What a pig’s ear.”
“He’s not what you think,” Alec said, and winced at the feebleness of the words.
Susan snorted. “You’ve got no idea how many times I’ve heard that, usually from women with black eyes. Look, you did your part, and superbly. Hurt feelings aside, those two know what side their bread is buttered. They’ll do it. A few more days and we’ll have what we’ve been working towards all this time, and as much of a case as it’s possible to make at twenty years’ distance. Isn’t that worth it?”
It ought to be worth it. Alec had been telling himself it would be worth it for months; he’d shoved away every fear and doubt behind the great boulder that was his conviction. His father and stepmother had taken two lives and Cara was dead by their negligence. Nothing had mattered as much as fulfilling Susan’s plan, and the wreckage of whatever lay between him and Jerry had always been an inevitable consequence, a price that had to be paid for the great aim.
And now he’d done it, and the wrongs of three dead people no longer seemed to be the only thing that mattered, because one live man had looked him in the eyes and hated him for his betrayal. He wished more than anything in the world that he hadn’t done it, but it was too late. He wondered if his father had felt the same way as he walked back down that dark corridor twenty years ago.
He curled down over himself, as if that would help the terrible pain in his gut. Susan sighed heavily. “I’d sympathise, but you’re an idiot. Alec, you can’t tear yourself apart over Crozier. For one thing, he’s just another tea-leaf with a bit more class than most. For a second, you’ve done him no harm and some good. The guvnor’s been making a case against the Lilywhite Boys for a couple of years now. They’re slippy, but nobody’s slippier than my old man, and he doesn’t like James Vane one bit. He’d have sent Crozier down with him, but if they do what they’re told he’ll let it go, and Crozier should be thanking you for the reprieve.”
Alec blinked at her. “James who?”
“Vane. Templeton Lane. Doesn’t matter.”
“No, but...what?” he demanded, briefly distracted from his misery. “Templeton Lane is a Vane? A real one? As in the Cirencester family?”
“Oh, yes,” Susan said grimly. “Grandson of a marquess, all that, don’t talk to me about noble blood. Right, I’m going to bed. I need my beauty sleep if I’m not to strangle the Hackett before breakfast. And, Alec? I meant it about your door. Those bastards bear grudges.”
She left on that note. After a moment Alec got up to put a chair under the door handle, at once feeling like a swine for thinking it was necessary and miserably aware that it was. He heard Susan’s voice next door, pitched quiet and unmistakably menacing. She was probably threatening Jerry on his behalf, he realised, Cara’s best friend taking care of her little brother now that Cara was dead and gone, and on that thought Alec slid to the floor, his back against the door, and wept the great airless sobs of misery for which there could be no relief and no redress.
HE WOKE UP LYING ON his bed, still clothed, his throat dry and painful. Heaven knew when he’d gone to sleep; he’d cried himself to exhaustion for everything that was lost. It ought to have been cathartic, but in fact he merely felt parched, and nauseous at the prospect of a new day in which he and Jerry would have to pose as great pals.
He washed the salt from his face, shaved, and dressed, praying that they could drop the pretence of Templeton Lane acting as his valet because he suspected he’d end up garrotted by his own necktie. Once he could no longer put it off, he headed downstairs to the breakfast room.
Susan was there, eating kippers in a demure manner. Miss Hackett was consuming dry toast and tea. There was no sign of Jerry. Alec took a seat opposite Susan with his back to the door, and helped himself to a boiled egg, but couldn’t stomach the wobbling whiteness, the too-vivid viscous yolk. This was how he’d felt after Cara, repelled by food, by physicality, by everything that pinned him to the world.
“Let me butter you a slice of toast, Lord Alexander,” Susan said in a mild voice that he knew contained an order.
“Thank you,” he made himself say.
“Marmalade?”
The thought of its cloying sweet-bitterness clogged his throat. “No, thank you.”
Miss Hackett sniffed deeply, as though his rejection of marmalade confirmed all her worst suspicions. Alec bit, chewed, swallowed.
“Would you care for tea?”
“There’s no need for you to serve Lord Alexander, Roy,” Miss Hackett said. “You are neither the lady of the house nor its maid.”
Susan gave a single slow blink, then asked Alec, in exactly the same tone as previously, “Would you care for tea?”
Miss Hackett stiffened. Alec cringed internally in anticipation as she drew a breath, and then almost dropped his toast as a cheery voice rang out behind him. “Ah, marvellous, tea. Are you being mother, Miss Roy? Milk, no sugar, how kind. Good morning, Miss Hackett, I trust you’ve made an excellent breakfast.” Jerry went to the chafing dishes as he spoke. Susan poured him a cup of tea, blank-faced. “Devilled kidneys, what a treat. May I make you a plate, Miss Hackett?”
“Certainly not. I do not consume anything but a little toast at breakfast time and I never eat red meats. That is an indulgence that leads to gout, corpulence, and unpleasantness of temper.”
“Really?” Jerry said, piling his plate with bacon, kidney, and sausage. “I like nothing more than laying into a pig or two at breakfast. Are you sure I can’t offer you a nice plump sausage?”
Miss Hackett gave him a freezing look. “I prefer not to witness carnivorous displays, Mr. Vane.”
“Sorry about that,” Jerry said. He sat down opposite her, cut off a large chunk of sausage, and speared it on the end of his fork. “What’s everyone up to today? Miss Roy?”
“I shall be attending to my duties.”
“Can we persuade you to a walk? All work and no play makes Jill, or Susan, a dull girl. Lord Alexander has promised to show me the gardens after breakfast; perhaps you will accompany us? I’m sure Miss Hackett can do without you for a little while.”
“Very kind,” Susan said tonelessly. “And what will you do after your walk?”
“Oh, we’ll come up with something, won’t we, Alec?” Jerry’s knife sliced into the sausage, sawing through the taut skin, so that clear hot fat oozed from the flesh beneath. Alec put down his half-eaten slice of toast. Jerry looked up and gave him a desperately charming smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Oh dear, Lord Alexander. Has something put you off your food?”
THEY WENT OUT INTO the gardens. Castle Speight lay in the foothills of Bowland, at the point where the lush green lowlands turned into high, bleak gritstone fells. The gardens were well maintained but not extensive; one could not keep a lawn given the wind and the tendency of everything to be coated by moss. Alec led the way to the walled rose garden with Susan walking between him and Jerry. Alec felt like he was hiding behind her, because he was.
They proceeded in silence on his and Susan’s parts, Jerry keeping up a flow of light, inconsequential chatter that grated on Alec’s nerves. The garden seemed a long way.
He reached the entrance and stopped. Jerry took two steps onward, looked around irritably, and said, “What?”
“I
t was a rose garden.” Alec’s mouth felt odd. “Just roses, always. My mother had it all replanted, new varieties, but it was always roses.”
The walled garden was now Italianate. There were vines stretched over the walls, busts in alcoves, a gleaming-new fountain, and the roses were gone, all gone, replaced by...other flowers, bushes, he didn’t care. There was still the hum of insect life busily working and fragrance in the air, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t the mass of roses in which his mother had sat every day of spring and summer until she was bed-bound, among which he and Cara had played hide and seek, where they had later fled to weep. His mother’s garden was entirely gone.
“They’ve dug up the bushes,” Alec said numbly. “They haven’t left a single one.”
Jerry glanced at him, looked away, said nothing. Susan took his arm. “Come on. In.”
Alec forced his feet to move. The old gritstone walls had been faced with something pale gold, presumably for the Italian look. A tiled path led to a fountain, which was all rococo nymphs and wide-mouthed angry fish in white marble. Someone probably had to scrub off the moss and lichen every spring.
“Christ, that’s hideous,” Jerry said. “And with the artistic appreciation out of the way: I want to be clear on the deal here. You want the safe opened, and that’s all?”
Susan nodded. “Opened in my presence, the contents left intact, closed again, and nobody knows we were there.”
“And in return you offer...?”
“Amnesty. We, Braglewicz and Lazarus, will forget what we know about you. Open that safe as demanded, everything up to today is—” She made a wiping gesture with her hand. “That’s not a trivial offer. My guvnor would be just as happy to send James to gaol and you with him, and don’t doubt that he could.”