“Werewolves of London?” Mick offered with a teasing smile.
Vexed that he did not take her seriously, Lettitia turned her head and stared out the window, pointedly ignoring him.
“Do you know what your problem is, Tisha?”
“No, but I’m sure that you are anxious to enlighten me.”
“You don’t know how to take a joke.”
She swung her head in his direction. “I am as given to frivolity and good cheer as the next person.”
“Prove it,” he ordered, tossing down the gauntlet.
“And how, in heaven’s name, do you expect me to do that?”
“For starters, you could smile at me.”
Forcing the edges of her mouth upward, Lettitia gave him a tight-lipped, humorless smile. “Satisfied?”
“Not by a long shot. I want you to smile like you mean it,” Mick said with a noticeably husky catch to his voice. “Like you’re happy that I’m the man sitting across from you in this carriage.”
Something in that gravel-voiced command deeply affected her, forcing Lettitia to admit that she was glad-hearted that Mick sat across from her, and not some other man. In fact, it came as something of a surprise to realize that, over the course of the last three days, she’d come to have a tender regard for the rough-hewn American detective.
Before she knew it, her lips curved upward in a heartfelt smile.
“God, Tisha… you are so beautiful,” Mick whispered. Raising his hand, he caressed her cheek, his thumb rubbing against her lower lip.
As if she was being pulled by an unseen puppet string, Lettitia leaned toward him.
In the next instant, meeting her halfway across the expanse of the carriage, Mick kissed her. Sweetly, tenderly, his lips whisper-soft.
A few seconds later, the carriage hit a rut in the road, and the kiss abruptly ended. She and Mick jerked away from one another at the same instant.
Deeply embarrassed by her loss of control, Lettitia fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. Mick Giovanni had only to glance at her with his soulful brown eyes and all thoughts of her engagement to Lord Wortham instantly vanished.
“Really, Mick, I don’t think that we should have—”
“But we did,” he interjected. “And I’m not apologizing.”
Meeting his gaze, she allowed herself the brief, forbidden pleasure of losing herself in it.
“No… neither am I,” she whispered. Although she suspected that she might later come to regret it.
No sooner did the carriage come to a halt than Mick opened the door. But rather than descend, he inexplicably levered his body upward, toward the carriage box.
“Follow that vehicle,” he bellowed at Babu.
“What’s going on?” Lettitia inquired as soon as Mick had retaken his seat.
“As luck would have it, we arrived just as Wortham drove off in his fancy-smancy carriage. Given that he’s a prime murder suspect, I want to know where he’s going,” Mick said, sticking his head out of the window in order to follow the progress of Lord Wortham’s landau.
“Then you shall be greatly disappointed. I am quite certain that Lord Wortham is on his way to his club.”
Long minutes later, the carriage rattled along the wharves that lined the north side of the Thames.
Bewildered, Lettitia said, “I cannot imagine what Lord Wortham is doing in the East End of London.”
“Maybe he’s going to happy hour at The Britannia Pub.”
“Really, sir.” The rebuke fell flat, Lettitia unable to summon enough enthusiasm to do it justice.
When the carriage finally stopped, Lettitia peered out of the window. They were on a derelict side street, where the stench from the river was overwhelming.
“Well, well, well,” Mick murmured. “Percival just walked into some dive called The Golden Dragon. Looks to me like he’s hoping to score a fix.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Opium. Maybe cocaine. Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better seeing as how you’re gonna marry the man.”
Lettitia gasped, certain that he was mistaken.
Opening the door, Mick nimbly leapt out of the carriage. As Lettitia scooted toward the opened door, he slammed it shut.
“This is a pretty rough neighborhood,” Mick said through the window. “You sit tight while I go have a look-see.” With that, he took his leave.
Lettitia waited precisely ten minutes; at which time, she exited the carriage.
Chapter 10
Determined to find out why Lord Wortham was patronizing The Golden Dragon, Lettitia strode toward the entrance.
Suddenly, without warning, a grizzled man wearing the tattered remnants of a seaman’s uniform stepped out of the shadows and grabbed her by the arm.
“I’d like to have me a squeeze on them dairies. Makes me cods tighten just to look at ’em.”
Unthinking, Lettitia swung her free arm, taking aim with her reticule at the assailant’s face. Her aim true, the purse smacked him in the jaw with a satisfying thwack. “Unhand me, you fiend!”
Clearly startled, the man immediately released his hold on her. Shooting her a baleful glance, he lurched down the alleyway.
Undeterred by the incident, Lettitia stepped through the entryway which in turn led to a dank staircase. An oil lamp hung on the wall, casting eerie shadows onto the wooden steps. As she made her descent, she caught a whiff of a noxious odor, the smell increasing in intensity with each step.
At the bottom of the staircase, she came to a sudden halt. Horrified, she stared at the lurid scene, one gleaned from the pages of Dante’s Inferno. Without a doubt, she had descended to “The Third Circle,” where those who had surrendered to self-indulgent addiction lay in a vile slush.
Although her visibility was greatly impaired because of the thick, brown haze, Lettitia could discern stacked rows of wooden berths, much like one would find in the steerage hold of an immigrant ship. In each berth, there was a “passenger”–some supine, some sprawled, some curled in a ball. Because each one held a long metal pipe, there was a myriad of flickering red lights that glimmered from berth to berth.
Utterly appalled, Lettitia stared at the degenerate clientele, none of whom acknowledged her presence, lost as they were in the thrall of their vice.
Good heavens. What business could Percival possibly have in this den of vile inebriates?
A Chinaman, dressed in a long, ornately patterned red silk robe, approached her. In his hand, he held a pipe and a small brown ball.
Extending his arm, he offered Lettitia both items. “Missy smoke?”
“Most certainly not!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I am here to see Lord Wortham.”
The man gave her a blank stare.
“I said that I am here to see Lord Wortham,” Lettitia repeated, enunciating each word in case the man had a limited command of the language. “You may tell him that Miss Merryweather has arrived.”
The Chinaman furiously shook his head. “No bother the lord.”
“Then I shall find him myself,” she huffed, turning toward the first row of bunks.
She’d taken no more than a step when the proprietor issued a guttural command. Seemingly out of nowhere, two sentries suddenly appeared, both of them identically clad in black, loose-fitting tunics paired with matching trousers. One of the men snatched hold of her arm.
In a repeat performance, Lettitia reared back her right arm and swung her reticule toward the Chinaman’s head. In a lightning fast move, the man pirouetted out of range, a feline gracefulness to his movements. Fearful of his intent, she frantically tried to pull free.
“I demand that you release me! At once!”
“Let her go,” a familiar voice boomed.
Mick. Thank heaven!
Craning her neck, Lettitia watched as Mick stepped through the dense brown smoke, a menacing expression on his face. Although outnumbered, he stood nearly ten inches taller than the diminutive sentries. Not to mention that he was a brawny spe
cimen of a man, his muscular stature certainly giving him the clear advantage.
The pigtailed Chinaman released his hold on her, brusquely shoving Lettitia in Mick’s direction. Just as brusquely, Mick grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her behind him, shielding her with his body.
“When we get out of this mess, I am seriously considering locking you in a room and throwing away the key,” he snarled out of the corner of his mouth.
While she did not care for Mick’s censuring tone, under the circumstance, she thought it best not to rebuke him.
“Now, I’ve got a funny feeling these two guys aren’t going to let me get out of here without a fight. When that fight does break out, I want you to run like hell up those stairs. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes,” Lettitia stammered, her heart pounding against her breastbone as the two Chinamen began to circle them, putting her in mind of black-suited vultures.
In the next instant, physical chaos ensued in a blur of flying limbs and twisting bodies, as the two Chinamen waged their attack in a most unorthodox fashion. Mick rebuffed the blows as best he could, managing to land his fist in one man’s face.
“Run!” he yelled, dodging an uplifted leg.
Lettitia grabbed her skirt in her hand and hurried toward the steps. Behind her, she heard Mick grunt in pain. Spinning on her heel, she bit back a choked cry as she watched the two Chinamen pummel him with an orchestrated series of kicks and blows, the two men seeming to defy gravity itself. While Mick managed to get in the stray punch, his two fists were woefully outnumbered by the whirling arms and legs that he had to fend off.
Outraged, Lettitia rushed over to the nearest berth and seized a metal pipe out of the hands of a stuporous man sprawled on his backside. Weapon in hand, she charged forward, shrieking louder than a Valkyrie in a Wagnerian opera.
“Take that!” she hollered as she hit one of the attackers on the back of the head.
The contents of the pipe flew through the air, showering the man from head to foot. As the embers burned through the fabric of his thin cotton attire, the man hopped from one foot to the other, screeching in his native tongue as he brushed the scorching residue from his clothing.
The second attacker came to a standstill. His head cocked to one side, he stared at Lettitia in unabashed astonishment. Holding her makeshift weapon in what she hoped was a menacing pose, Lettitia stood her ground, letting the man know that he now had another opponent to contend with.
Mick, clutching at his ribs, glared at her.
“I thought I told you to leave,” he growled between clenched teeth.
“As you can plainly see, I chose to ignore you.”
With the skirmish having come to a standoff, the proprietor stepped out of the shadows. Clapping his hands, he issued a command, and the two minions bowed their heads before departing.
Limping, Mick made his way over to where she stood. He looked like a battered warrior who’d just come home from the wars.
“You’re injured!”
“It’s only a cracked rib. Come on. I think we’ve been given a reprieve.” He jutted his chin at the nearby staircase.
Tossing the metal pipe to the ground, Lettitia placed a supporting arm around his waist. “Drape your arm over my shoulders,” she ordered, surprised when Mick acquiesced without protest.
“I feel like an extra in a Jet Li movie,” he muttered as they ascended the rickety staircase. “Those two guys really knew their martial arts.”
“If you can call such violence artistry.” When they reached the street level, Lettitia guided Mick toward the carriage. “We must take you to St. Ursula’s to be examined. Clearly, you have suffered a severe injury that should be attended to by a physician.”
Glowering, Mick shook his head. “No way. I’m not about to let Sir Willoughby have a crack at me.”
“But you are in great pain.”
“Which will be alleviated with a belt of your uncle’s fine Irish whiskey. Besides, I’m sure you’re more than capable of bandaging my ribs.”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “Me? But I have no medical training.”
“Well, you must have some. You do, after all, volunteer two days a week at the hospital.”
“While that is true, I do not perform any nursing duties,” she informed him.
Mick stared at her, a befuddled expression on his face. “Then what do you do at the hospital? You’re too old to be a candy-striper.”
“I give instructional lectures to wayward women on the necessity of living a moral and decent life.”
Clutching at his ribs, Mick started to laugh, only to grimace in pain an instant later. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I do not see what is so amusing.”
“You never do.” Mick opened the carriage door. “Hop in, Miss Merryweather. There’s a first for everything. And today you’re gonna learn how to bandage ribs.”
* * *
“Tighter!” Mick bellowed.
“Sir, there is no need to yell at me,” Lettitia chastised, tugging harder on the length of cotton bandage.
“There’s every need to yell at you. If you’d done like I asked and stayed in the carriage, I wouldn’t be standing here with a cracked rib that hurts like a motherfu—that just plain hurts,” Mick petulantly whined, evidently thinking better of whatever he had originally intended to say.
Given that Mick was standing before her shirtless, Lettitia also wished that she’d remained in the carriage. This was the first time that she’d ever seen a male torso other than in a museum. Quite frankly, she’d had no idea that real men were so muscular, so sleek. Mick was like a statue of an ancient Greek come to life before her very eyes.
From beneath lowered lashes, she peered up at his deeply tanned face, thinking his bronzed complexion the perfect accompaniment to his silvered locks, each accentuating the other. Even now, battered, his ribs swathed in cotton, Mick exuded a masculine air that she found utterly compelling.
Lettitia again wrapped the cotton bandage around her patient’s ribs, fumbling because the virile display was having a debilitating effect on her coordination. For his part, Mick seemed unabashed about standing in the middle of Uncle Phidias’s study wearing nothing but his trousers. Indeed, he seemed far more interested in swilling her uncle’s Irish whiskey.
“I was right on the money,” he said, gulping down another swallow of the amber-colored alcohol. “Lord Worthless is chasing the dragon. I found him in a back room at The Golden Dragon, pipe in hand, on the road to Never Never Land.”
In the process of securing the bandage with a knot, Lettitia’s fingers suddenly stilled. “I know that Lord Wortham imbibes alcoholic spirits. What man doesn’t? But narcotics are—” She broke off mid-sentence as the ramifications of Mick’s disclosure took root. “If this were to be made public, it would ruin him.”
“A fact that I suspect Emmaline knew full well. Which is why she was blackmailing him. It might also be the reason why she broke off the engagement. Being bound ‘’til death do us part’ to a junkie is nothing to look forward to.” Mick underscored his last remark with a pitying glance in her direction.
“I am certain that there is some mistake. Lord Wortham is not the kind of man to indulge in such loathsome pursuits. He is a peer of the realm.”
“Which is precisely why he might go to great lengths to keep his ‘loathsome pursuit’ a secret.” Mick glanced down at his chest. “You finished tying that knot?”
Lettitia nodded as she backed away from him.
“Thanks.” Stepping over to the brocade divan, Mick picked up his discarded shirt. Wincing, he donned it, although he didn’t bother to button it up the front. “So far, the only thing we know with reasonable certainty is that someone persuaded the police commissioner, Sir Charles, to cover up Emmaline’s murder.”
“And you think that is the same person who killed Emmaline?”
“It’s hard to say. Your Uncle Phidias believes that your father bribed Sir Charles into covering u
p the murder in order to protect his budding political career. Which makes a lot of sense. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that your father arranged for Emmaline’s murder.”
Disinclined to discuss the matter, Lettitia stepped over to the window that overlooked the small garden at the rear of the house. Pulling back the drapery, she stared at the hedges of laurel and yew, absently thinking that the boxwood needed to be trimmed. “My father, for all his faults, did not orchestrate Emmaline’s murder. And he did not bribe Sir Charles,” she affirmed, still peering through the glass. “Given that they belong to the same fraternal organization, Sir Charles would have kept the details of Emmaline’s death from the public as a favor to my father.”
“What are you saying? That they belong to the same Moose Lodge?”
“No,” she said, turning around to face him. “They are both Freemasons. As are Lord Wortham and Sir Willoughby.”
Mick’s brows drew together, a quizzical expression on his face. “How do you know that? I thought the Freemasons were a secret organization.”
“If they wish to remain secret, they shouldn’t have the Masonic emblem engraved on their watch fobs,” she replied with an airy wave of her hand. “When Sir Willoughby pulled his watch out of his vest pocket while you were questioning him, the fob caught my eye.”
Mick whistled, clearly impressed. “Damn, you’re good. You know, one of the long-standing Ripper theories is that Jack was a Freemason and that his fraternity brothers intentionally hid his identity from the public. I admit that I’ve never been much for conspiracy theories, but in light of the fact that all three suspects are Freemasons, it’s something to think about.”
Hearing that, Lettitia paled. She had not meant to give him more fodder for his damning speculations. “As you say, it is merely a theory.”
Walking over to the liquor cabinet, Mick lifted the decanter and liberally poured more whiskey into his empty glass. He’d earlier claimed that he was only consuming the foul-smelling potation for medicinal purposes. Since this was his third trip to the cabinet, Lettitia was beginning to have her doubts.
A drawn-out silence ensued, with Mick pensively staring into his glass.
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