A Dangerous Man

by Connie Brockway

  “Good evening, Henley. Odd quarters your constituents choose for a meeting.”

  Henley Wrexhall staggered to a stop and peered blearily up at him. The smell of alcohol and cigar smoke was overwhelming and Hart’s nose wrinkled with disgust.

  “Hart!” Henley blustered, nonplussed and weaving on his feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same, since your wife assured me not three hours ago that you were at some civic-minded meeting.”

  “Damn you!” Belligerence surfaced suddenly, released by alcohol-imbued courage. “How dare you spy on me! Did Beryl put you up to this?”

  “No.”

  Henley’s lips curled in bitterness. “Should have known,” he muttered in disbelief. “Has to run to the great Earl of Perth whenever she wants something. A house, a husband … a career for her husband.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Yes,” Henley agreed. “I am. I might not be able to choose where I live … hell, we even had to vacate the Actons’ at your whim. At least let me choose my own vices.”

  The man was beyond reason, ranting. At any minute he looked as though he would topple over. Hart grasped his arm, jerking him forward.

  “Come with me, Henley. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”

  “We’ll damn well discuss it now,” Henley said, trying to shake him off. “I haven’t had the guts to say this to you sober, but”—he took a deep breath—“I don’t want your help, your aid, or your house. I want my own life back with no beholding to anyone, most of all you.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Henley, if you don’t like Bentwood, move,” Hart said in disgust. “I couldn’t care less where you live.”

  Henley blinked. “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “What about the rest?” he asked.

  “What rest?”

  “The money. All the extra money Beryl uses for the soirées and the fund raisers and the political parties.”

  “Henley, you would know better than I what the estate brings in. I haven’t given Beryl any extra money.”

  “You have,” Henley insisted. “Where’d it come from if not you?”

  “Who keeps the accounts for the home farms? Who manages the estate?” Hart asked.

  “Beryl,” Henley said. His expression grew sullen. “She says she likes it.”

  “Then I imagine you can thank Beryl for any additional income. She’s always been good with figures.”

  “She didn’t tell me.” Henley’s brows drew together in one thick line. “But what about my career—what about your interference there?”

  “I don’t know what you’re rambling on about.”

  “Bullocks! Beryl tells me. She tells me how you put the bug in the right people’s ear, use your influence to see that I’m noticed by the up-and-uppers. You know. All those silent, helpful little pushes you’ve given my career.”

  “I haven’t done a bloody thing for or against your career now or ever.”

  Without a word of warning Henley swung. Hart ducked the blow easily, feeling each moment as though the situation was taking on the more bizarre aspects of a music hall mockery. He easily caught hold of Henley’s arm and twisted it behind him.

  Henley squirmed wildly, flailing with his free arm. “Lemmee go! How dare you call my wife a liar!”

  “Listen to me, you complete ass,” Hart said through clenched teeth. “If you do not stop, Henley, I shall hit you. I hit very, very hard. It will doubtless leave a mark and then Beryl will be very, very angry with me.”

  His words had a magical effect. Henley slumped in his grip, his sullen expression replaced by a mournful one. “Why should she care?”

  “Because she loves you, though God alone knows why.”

  “She don’t love me,” Henley said. “She doesn’t think I can tie my shoe without help.”

  Hart released him and Henley just stood where he was, swaying and staring disconsolately at his boot tops.

  “Henley,” Hart said, lifting his hand and hailing the carriage, “I think it’s past time you spoke with Beryl. I don’t begin to suggest I understand her reasons for telling you I have been aiding your political rise, but I do know she loves you. Perhaps she wanted to make herself appear indispensable to you and used me as the vehicle to do so.”

  “I don’t understand. Beryl is indispensable to me. Always has been.”

  The cab drew to a halt beside them and Hart opened the carriage door.

  “Did you ever tell her that?”

  Henley clambered inside and, once seated, stared owlishly back at Hart. “Didn’t think I needed to. Thought it was obvious. Beautiful, witty, ambitious woman like Beryl … she could have anyone she wanted. Afraid if I didn’t make a name for myself she’d regret throwing her lot in with an untitled nobody like myself.”

  Hart shook his head. “Tell her.”

  He closed the door and rapped on it, sent it off into the night. He stood for a long while gazing after it, wishing he could say to another what he’d just advised.

  Chapter 27

  Mercy entered the lobby tentatively, for the first time in memory feeling shy and uncertain. Even after … after that night she’d not felt shy. Overwhelmed, excited, and frustrated, but not shy. If Hart was in the lobby—and she fully expected he was, given he’d been there every morning since she’d taken up residence—she must talk with him. She took a deep breath and looked around.

  Hart wasn’t there and neither was Beryl. But there was a note waiting for her from Nathan Hillard.

  He’d found Will.

  She flew back to her room, donned her coat and gloves, tucked her Colt revolver into her pocket, and set out hatless for the hotel door. Nathan’s note said he’d meet her outside the hotel door at nine o’clock. It was nearly that now. True to his word, Nathan was waiting outside.

  “Miss Coltrane.” He doffed his hat and bowed as she hurried past him to the waiting hansom. Wordlessly, he handed her into the carriage before shouting an address up to the driver and entering himself.

  “I was surprised and dismayed when Lady Acton informed me you’d left Acton Hall,” he said, tucking a carriage blanket around her legs.

  “Where is my brother?”

  “A short ways, m’dear,” he said, his smile faltering a bit. “The party ceased to hold any appeal without your sweet, lovely presence. I left there yesterday.”

  “Oh.” She plucked at the window shade, peering outside.

  “I have since put into effect every means I could think of in order to make myself of some small service to you. I have hunted and, I fear, badgered everyone I know, looking for your brother.”

  She shook off her preoccupation. He deserved better than a view of her profile. “I can’t tell you how I appreciate your efforts.”

  “It is my pleasure to do anything for you that I can.”

  There was an ardor in his voice that she could not ignore. His brilliant eyes were riveted on her face.

  “I heard hints.… They say an indiscretion resulted in your leaving Acton’s,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “Miss Coltrane, if anyone has insulted you I will—”

  “No. No one has insulted me. Are we almost there now?”

  “Soon.” A soupçon of impatience pinched the soft timbre. “Your happiness has come to mean a great deal to me, Miss Coltrane. More than I can easily voice.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t want to do this now. She was too distracted by the thought that soon, very soon, she would see her brother again. But Hillard had found Will. She owed him a great deal. Kindness, at the very least. “You must excuse me. Perhaps at another time I can properly attend you. That time is not now.”

  He flushed. “Of course. Forgive me. I was carried away by my own feelings and did not stop to consider yours.”

  “Please,” she hastened to say, leaning forward and touching his gloved hands with her own, “don’t think me ungrateful. I am very, very grateful for your help.”

  He nodded and av
erted his face. She relaxed slightly against the back cushion, relieved by his sensitivity. She was going to see Will. Anxiety and happiness jumbled together, setting her thoughts to a whirlpool of emotion. She stared out of the small window, watching as elegant facades slowly gave way to soot-blackened brownstone and wide streets became crowded alleys.

  “I must warn you, m’dear,” Nathan finally said, breaking the long silence. She jerked to attention at the sound of his voice. “I do not think your brother is well.”

  “What?”

  “I believe your brother is a very sick young man. I … I hesitate to have you see him like this, but … but from what I am told, I have had doubts whether there would be another opportunity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gazed with the utmost sympathy into her eyes and took her hand in his own. “Sometimes a man can indulge his appetites more than his body can endure. There is a point where it is impossible to reverse the effects of such hedonism.”

  “Oh, Lord—” Hart had been right then. Will was an addict.

  “It becomes a downward spiral,” he continued in his mild, regretful voice. “I fear your brother is past the crisis point.”

  “No, it cannot be!”

  “I pray you’re right,” he said.

  “When he sees me—” She broke off. When he saw her what would he do? “Does he know I’m coming?”

  Nathan shook his head. “I did not want anything to set him off. I only heard of his presence in this place from another, who heard from yet another. I had my man go around late last night to verify whether or not the rumor was true.”

  The cab rocked to a halt, the clop of the hack’s hooves ringing sharply on the cobbles. Mercy emerged in front of a dank, hulking building. Its blackened windows stared down at the cramped, deserted street like sightless eyes.

  “We’re here,” said Nathan.

  “Good morning, Hart,” Beryl said to him outside the entrance to Browne’s. The icy wind plucked at her sable collar and teased color high in her narrow face.

  “Beryl,” Hart greeted her wearily as he handed the cabdriver his fee. “What are you doing outside at this time of morning?”

  “I have been walking,” she said. “I have had a lot of thinking to do.” A melancholy yet composed quality had replaced the tense lines of anxiety in her thin face.

  “I see. Henley?”

  “Yes.”

  He felt a tug of compassion when she offered him a weak smile. Last night he’d wanted nothing more than to bloody Henley’s face for the grief he’d caused Beryl. But he’d played a part—unsuspecting as it was—in that grief, and Beryl herself was not blameless. Whatever she decided, he would stand behind her decision.

  “Where is Mercy?” he asked after a moment, looking up at the rooms where he knew she slept.

  “It’s only nine-thirty, Hart. She hasn’t come down yet.”

  “Beg pardon,” the doorman, a Mr. Phipps, said.

  “Yes?” Hart asked. “Mr. Phipps has been keeping me apprised of Mercy’s activities,” he answered Beryl’s questioning look.

  “And will lose ’is position if the manager ever gets wind of it,” the doorman said uneasily, glancing around.

  “He won’t. Now, what is it? Has someone been asking after Miss Coltrane? The young American I told you about?”

  “No, sir. Not ’im. I was goin’ ter say how Miss Coltrane left the hotel with some English gent.”

  Hart frowned. “Who?”

  “Dunno. Some toff-lookin’ gent about half an hour ago.”

  “Hart, I’m so sorry,” Beryl said in dismay. “I never expected she’d leave so—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hart said impatiently, a frisson of anxiety racing along his exhausted nerves. “Do you know where she went?”

  Phipps nodded. “Heard the toff tell the cabbie Fifty-four Rector.”

  “Rector?” Hart said. Rector was in one of the more disreputable sections of Soho … an area remarkable only for the easy availability of illicit pleasures. The sole reason Mercy would go there would be to find Will. Perhaps, he thought with growing urgency, Will had even sent one of his friends for her so that he could—

  Hart pushed past the doorman, racing into the hotel and up the lobby staircase to his rooms. Inside, he heaved his leather grip onto the bed and snapped it open. He dug through the few clothes to the carefully wrapped oiled wool package beneath.

  He dragged the bundle out, ripping open the leather thongs. The Colt .44 gleamed lethal and expectant from its oiled wool bed as Hart rummaged around the satchel for its attendant box of shells.

  He spilled the brass cartridges into his palm and, grabbing the gun, shoved them into the chamber, clicking it shut as he raced back down the stairs, through the lobby, and out into the street.

  “Cab!” he shouted, fear coursing like fire in his veins. If Will had her down there, he could kill her. There’d be no witnesses. No one to help her.

  A hansom rolled toward the curb. Before it had stopped, he’d jerked the door open and was halfway inside. “Two sovereigns if you get me to Rector Street within the quarter hour!”

  Nathan led her around the side of the building down a narrow foot alley. Perpetually shadowed by looming buildings, the ancient brick pavers underfoot were slick with a dark, brackish mold. He motioned her toward an uneven flight of steps that ended at a scarred, heavy-looking door. He knocked thrice.

  Scraping metal revealed a tiny slit in the wood. An instant later the door creaked open and a fragile-looking Oriental man, thin white wisps bobbing from gaunt cheeks, beckoned them in.

  Nathan withdrew a silk handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “Cover your mouth, m’dear. The stench is overwhelming.”

  Mutely, Mercy complied, staring in horror about her as Nathan led the Oriental man a few feet away and began a whispered conversation.

  She stood in a dim, low hallway. A few candles, set on rude shelves, waded in pools of their own wax. They gave off a vile scented smoke that stained the rouge-colored walls behind them with black halos.

  From where she stood she could see myriad little rooms opening onto the hall through crouching archways. More rooms were honeycombed behind these, some alcoves curtained, some open. In each alcove was a rough bed and between the alcoves squatted octopuslike water pipes, tubes extending from their swollen brass bellies.

  The hiss and bubble of water gurgled from a dozen different sources. Their soiled, silk-wrapped tubes twined like snakes beneath the heavy draperies covering untold numbers of crannies. Moans and mutters punctuated the low, incessant bubbling sound, and worse, an occasional laugh, private and cheerless.

  It was a catacomb. A catacomb for the living.

  And Will was here.

  “Miss Coltrane, please.” Nathan Hillard motioned her ahead of him and she fell into step behind the old Oriental man. Before long he stopped and pointed at an uncovered niche.

  A low pallet crowded the wall, a candle sputtering erratically near its head. A figure lay on the pallet, curled on its side, facing away from her.

  “He be no smoke, two day now,” the Oriental man complained. “No money. No smoke. Won’t go.” He shook his head and turned, leaving her to stare at the figure, so alien and familiar. Nathan touched her arm.

  “I’ll wait over here, m’dear,” he said. “Please, be quick. I don’t trust the Chinee.”

  She nodded, grateful for his consideration, and stepped closer to the pallet.

  “Will?”

  No movement, not even a twitch. Nathan’s warning spun through her thoughts. Dear God, he could not be dead!

  “Will?” Her voice rose anxiously. The man turned over.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Will …”

  Her heart twisted. He was gaunt and pale and his eyes were so dark, they looked black. He blinked at her like an old man.

  “Mercy?” he asked, a soft, wondering smile in the hoarse whisper. Her heart broke.

  “Yes, Will. It’s
me, darling.”

  He pushed himself into a seated position and immediately groaned in pain. He wrapped his thin, shaking arms around himself and doubled over. She fell to her knees beside him, embracing him.

  He shook. Little paroxysms rippled through him, his eyes rolled back in their hollow sockets, his lips twisted in a grimace. She clung to him all the tighter. Whatever agony he had felt passed and he squinted at her. He cocked his head to one side, grinning at her as though he did not remember the pain that had gripped him seconds before.

  “Is that really you, Mercy?” He sounded as happy as a child. His smile was just as ingratiating, just as infectious. The blond, guinea-gold curls were matted on one side of his face. She was going to weep.

  “Yes, dear. It’s all right. I’ll take you home now.”

  The pleased recognition died on his face. “Home?”

  “Yes,” she said, stroking the dirty hair back from his damp brow. “Back to Texas.”

  He encircled her wrist and held it away from his face. There was surprising strength in the slender fingers. “I’m not going home. I’m staying right here.”

  “Darling, you’re not well,” she coaxed. “You need to come home. You need someone to take care of you.”

  “She’s gone,” he said with an expression of pain and loss so stark that Mercy sobbed.

  “I’ll take care of you. Father and I, we’ll take care of you.”

  The sorrow passed as quickly as it had come. A humorless curve cracked his dry lips. “Father and you?” he said. “I don’t think so, Mer. Father and I, in case you don’t remember, aren’t what you’d call boon companions.”

  “I know. But that will change.” Tears fell freely down her cheeks. “It will all change. Whatever differences you two have, I’ll see you work them out. I promised Mom.”

  He stared at her a second and then he began to laugh. He laughed until pain filtered through the horrifying, broken sound, ending it in a fit of coughing. He wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve and shook his head as he regarded her, amused and sickly and tragic.