by Suzi Love
He watched her, stunned into speechlessness as she rolled her eyes and waved a negligent hand. “Winchester, we’ve done it many times before. Picking a lock is my area of expertise, whereas Lottie’s is to discover the pattern in the paperwork we often ….uh…discover…in desk drawers.” She grinned. “Or in hidden compartments in wardrobes, and in secret areas on library book shelves.” She noticed his horrified expression, and quickly tried to reassure him but made the situation even worse. “Stop worrying. We’ve become proficient in slipping into private places, and then disappearing again very quickly.”
He swallowed down his fury, appalled that they’d planned this without telling him, but knowing his anger must be damped down in order to regain control over their actions.
“Tonight, your skills will not be necessary. I may not be as nimble as you at the fine art of lock-picking, but can assure you that either I, or one of my employees, will gain me entrance to the warehouse. Write down the address, then you may remain here and see to the comfort of your aunt and sister while I attend to it.”
“Certainly not. I’ll not remain quietly at home while you place yourself in danger in my stead. Besides which, I’m the only one who’ll recognize the exact sort of incriminating paperwork Lord Hetherington may have left behind in his rush to vacate the warehouse office. My assistance will assuredly be needed if we are to hand over correct and incriminating evidence to Scotland Yard. Lottie and I were the ones, alongside Becca, who spent weeks going through every scrap of correspondence, every accounting ledger and every journal from Lord Hetherington’s estate. It was because of our diligent efforts that we learned he’d paid rent on several offices and warehouses scattered throughout London.”
“I realize what an enormous feat you ladies accomplished by doing all that, and I admire you for it. But my cousins and I, alongside your brothers and members of the Yard, have all visited several of the establishments listed and found nothing.
What makes you think this warehouse contains anything of interest?”
“Because we only heard of its existence today. We were sent a message by one of the women we assist–”
“Another prostitute?”
She visibly bristled. “Please do not to call them that. At least not in our presence. To us, they are women forced to make their way in life as best they can, and most of the ones who come to our Society for aid are from good homes, who have been left destitute by men’s stupidity and greed and obsessions.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Very well. You received a message from a…lady of the streets–”
‘That name is hardly any an improvement. Can you not refer to them a...working women?”
“Ha! You must not be meeting the same ones I do, as for the most part, they consider what they do as entertainment, not work. Apart from some of the lower class gin drinkers, most courtesans enjoy–” Looking towards the ceiling, he threw his hand wide. “Why, of why, am I having this conversation with you. Tell me what the message read.”
“This...uh..female friend of ours works in The Gilded Cage, an extremely hard establishment to access.”
“I know the place.”
Black brows dipped and midnight eyes turned inky, as her seemingly perpetual scowl at him this evening deepened into a ferocious look. “I am positive you do, my lord.”
His lips twitched. “I shall amend that statement. I know of the establishment to which you refer. Know its location and reputation. The type of clients they cater for. However, it may relieve your mind to know that I am not a member there, and have never patronized the hostesses.” When she started to speak, he held up a hand, palm out. “And may I add, I’d be appalled to discover your…friend…discusses with an innocent such as you, the rather extreme techniques practiced behind those walls.”
“Repeatedly you refer to my innocence, a state I sought to resolve last evening, if you remember, and yet you have no knowledge of how much or how little my friends at the Society have explained to me. About what happens behind those closed doors of the houses in which they seek employment.”
He smiled and stepped forward to touch her chin, lifting it so her eyes met his. “But I do, little one. Your kisses last night told me everything I needed to know. In every way that matters, no man has peeled back the many layers that make up the flower that is you, Laura, and dipped his tongue into the centre of your mouth, as I did last night.”
“Damn you, Winchester, forever twisting my emotions into knots. One moment you treat me like an errant child, following me around an older brother. At others, you wax poetic about my looks and my abilities, until I have no idea what is the truth. Or what you want from me.”
He groaned. “Unfortunately, that is the problem, my sweet. I also have no idea what I want from you. So shall we agree to leave personal feeling aside for now, and discuss the axe about to fall upon our heads in the form of Lady Hetherington? Does she have a connection with The Gilded Cage?”
“How do you do that? You leap from pillar to post with such lightning speed that I am continually lagging behind. You solve puzzles in the blink of an eye. You concoct spider webs of connections between people and times and places and occurrences that would take even logistically-minded people hours, weeks, plus reams of foolscap and bottles of ink, to work out.”
“I’ve read that often people develop an over-activity in one area to compensate for something they lack in another.”
“Ah! I see.”
She spun away and said no more, leaving him puzzled, anxious and restless. Surely she could not mean that she understood his vague reference to mean his own defect. No, it was not possible that she had uncovered his secret. Still, time again to redirect the topic to the upcoming evening.
“I assume that to mean Lady Hetherington is involved in this broth—working house, which also means if we are getting messages about her, she may also be receiving news of us. Of how close we are to discovering her secrets, her location and how she is acquiring the funds to live and prosper.”
“Which is precisely why we must go to the dockside warehouse tonight. If she discovers we are tracking her, she will likely take steps to dispose of anything we might remember that was connected to her previous life. Anything to do with her, or Lord Hetherington and their estate and the consortium they ran. She will be bent on destroying any establishment he owned.”
“Assuming she knew all their locations.”
“She announced the night of her capture that she was the mastermind behind the entire affair, so I think it is safe to assume she knew each and every location in which her husband met with his cohorts and conducted his blackmailing efforts.”
“And several of the offices we searched in the last few weeks proved that Hetherington, or his underlings, held secret meetings with larger groups of lower class men. Tradesmen, shopkeepers, bankers. Those with nest eggs to invest. By inciting them into frenzies over the enormous profits promising to be reaped in railway expansions, they threw their money at the upper tier members of the Consortium without a second thought.”
“They say, a fool and his money are soon parted.”
Fury sparked from her eyes. “I do not believe those people were fools. Merely gullible. And who would not be with the tempting propositions dangled before them. They saw men of high rank, your peers, gaining money through the Stock Market and thought they could too.”
“And they could have, still can, if they invest wisely.”
“I want to save any more innocent victims from the Consortium’s deceitful tactics.
Stop them from using coercion, or force, all before it happens.”
“It’s a hell of a dilemma that you leave me in. If I go alone, I can slip in unnoticed, however, I’ll not be able to skim through the quite possible mountain of paperwork as quickly as if I have your assistance. Neither will I be able to remove it all from the warehouse without being noticed.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts, a too-distracting movement at this p
articular moment, as it lifted them closer to his view, and gave him a smug smile. Her foot tapped an irritating rhythm on the carpet.
“I am forced to agree. Not because I think it a good idea, because I don’t. But due to the fact that your particular knowledge of Hetherington’s other paperwork will help sort through it faster. And the quicker we can vacate that place, the faster I will relax.”
“You will not regret this decision.”
“I am positive I will rue the day we ever joined forces on anything, my dear. Therefore, I will have your promise that we spend a minimum of time there and when I say it is time to leave, you will depart whether we are finished or not.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Agreed.”
“I will return this evening then. Dress appropriately and warmly. It will be cold near the docks.”
“I’ve old clothes belonging to Jonathon that I wear whenever we go –”
“Please! Don’t tell me you’ve broken into warehouses at night before. Who’d be idiotic enough to allow you to do that?”
“Becca and I needed to enter offices when we were first collecting our evidence against the original consortium. But you needn’t fret. We were well protected on those occasions. Michael and Jonathon accompanied us.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “Your brothers are as crazy as you girls. Why? Why would they encourage you to do that?”
“We were desperate. Frightened. It was before Cayle agreed to help us collect the information we needed. Try to understand. Unnamed men threatened Michael. Our friend Peggy was murdered in her cottage, because the killer assumed our calculations and forecasts for the next stock releases were kept there, as she was our bookkeeper for the Society. Poor, poor Peggy.” Her breath hitched, a sob. “I miss her dreadfully.”
Having three sisters should guarantee some sort of imperviousness to feminine tears. Over the years, he’d seen every type. Sisters who twisted him around their fingers from the time the toddled their first steps, by dropping their bottom lips and offering him their most woebegone expressions. Mistresses who’d used bouts of noisy weeping to extract more expensive jewelry, or a new carriage, from his pockets.
At the first wet droplet trickling over Laura’s flushed cheek, his resolve broke, along with his heart. He moved, by instinct, towards her and drew her into his arms, stroking his hand over her hair as she sobbed into his coat. Her chest rose and fell, with deep wracking sobs, as she cried out all the stress she’d held bottled inside her for the past several weeks.
“Shush, sweetheart, shush. I know you miss Peggy.” When her sobs settled to shudders and then to trembles, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and withdrew a handkerchief to hand to her. “You’re missing Becca, too.”
She glanced up, eyes red-ringed and water-drenched, moisture clinging to her long dark lashes. Surprise showed in her glance.
“Do you really think me so insensitive I’d not comprehend the origins of your anguish?”
He snorted, shook his head. “I can see from your face you do. No matter. For now, I suggest you also retire to bed. Try to rest. It’s sure to be a long tedious night.”
He kissed her brow, a fleeting touch, turned, and stepped away, before his arms reached for her of their own volition. Holding her felt so right, so perfect, the knowledge choked him. Or rather, the knowledge that it must remain unspoken made it hard to swallow, hard to draw breath. Hard to move away. No. Best to leave. Now, right now, before his infallible will failed him.
Chapter Eleven
Later that evening, Laura tightened her grip on the hanging strap of the Earl’s carriage, as it shuddered to a halt on a rutted road between rows of warehouses fronting the East End docks. The stench of stagnant water and rotting cargoes swamped her oversensitive nostrils, hitting with the force of a boxer’s punch to her head.
Physically, she was an exhausted mess. Mentally, she stiffened her spine. Richard, prepared as always, produced two thick scarves from his coat pocket and moved behind her, wrapping one over her nose and securing it behind her head. With a couple of deft movements, he similarly prepared himself, before waving her towards the door and his waiting footman.
Gas lamps, few and far between, cast irregular streaks of yellowish light on the planked walkways crisscrossing the narrow and muddy laneways, increasing their precariousness. Unprepared to show any hesitation in front of her overly critical escort, she sucked her courage like a long drink of fortifying Madeira, and stepped onto the nearest boardwalk with one booted foot.
Silently, she blessed her younger brother for being of a similar size, and for lending her a suitable outfit, even if it was unknowingly. Boots outclassed slippers in ankle-deep mud, while trousers would outrun skirts and petticoats if they were discovered and she needed to flee. Testing planks with each step, she walked towards their pinpointed destination, a building diagonally across and set amongst a row of decrepit storage houses, yet far better preserved than its neighbors.
They’d discovered this address in the records of Lord Hetherington, after Scotland Yard had arrested and goaled him several months earlier. Many, many hours of sifting through dusty papers, account books and ledgers, had uncovered the addresses for all the properties Lord Hetherington owned. Her brothers had systematically investigated each premise and removed boxes of papers that she and her sisters had been perusing, one mound at a time.
This warehouse, however, was mentioned as being used significantly more often, and was better repaired than any of the properties Hetherington had used for his illegal activities. She and Richard were certain he’d held the majority of his inner circle consortium meetings here. Secret gatherings of the highest ranking men in his pyramid scheme of investments, where attendees were gowned, masked, and re-enacted ancient rituals.
Theatrics had been added to Hetherington’s sham investment schemes to lure the bored younger set, who were both gullible and coin-desperate. Also to entice the group of older men who still clung to fantastical beliefs of meager fortunes magically multiplying into untold riches if they could understand the Spirit of Life and penetrate its core.
After reading the Consortium’s well-documented, Ten Steps to Greatness, about their investment pyramids, the Jamisons had uncovered Hetherington’s tactics. Peers were enticed into tiers of his consortium with promises of a great leader—namely the conniving lord himself—who could interpret astrological charts in a way never seen since John Dee’s proficiency in the occult arts had made him indispensable as magus to Queen Elizabeth the First.
These greedy but indolent men, angry that their inherited fortunes were dwindling while factory owners grew richer every day, welcomed someone of their own social standing who promised them never-fail investments. On three occasions at balls, elderly lords, devout worshippers of the art of alchemy, had asked Laura to dance for the singular purpose of interrogating her on the processes of distillation. The most obsessed of the three gallingly informed her that if she experimented in her distillery and succeeded in turning lead into gold, he’d offer her his name and titles in marriage. Truly magnanimous of him! Did these idiotic men actually imagine if a woman was intelligent enough to master metallic transmutation, she’d then be so witless as to transfer control into their more far less competent hands?
Stopping before a smaller wooden door set into the wide road-frontage, Richard pressed close to her back and waved a gloved hand .“Shall we?” The scarf muffled his voice, yet his question seemed loud, too loud. The coachman had driven towards the corner, the fading echo of horse hoofs striking cobblestones the only other sound in the unnaturally quiet street.
She hesitated, determined to answer confidently, not like a quivering mouse. “Of course. I’m eager to begin.”
The scarf made his expression hard to read, though his eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Unless you’ve had second thoughts,” he muttered. “Or decided to show common sense.”
She shook her head.
His hands went to his hips. “You could
wait with the coachman while I go inside. Reconnoiter.”
The dratted man peered into her eyes, perhaps even her soul, with one of those irritatingly all-seeing, all-knowing looks he used to scrutinize people. One point in Winchester’s favor: his thirst for knowledge meant he chose his to-be-quizzed subjects democratically, being able to extract minute details and nuances from either the lowliest street-sweeper or the highest Parliamentarian.
His cousins described Winchester’s tactics as burrowing beneath one’s shallow façade, yanking on the ropes of one’s mind, dipping into one’s well of insecurities and hauling one’s secrets into public view, by the bucketful. He left her raw, exposed and reeling. Precisely why avoiding the Earl remained higher on her list of priorities than avoiding the Black Plague.
Her family wrongly believed her frequent, loud and long-winded arguments with him upset her. Believed she preferred passing her time in her distillery, creating soothing lotions and potions. Believed she avoided him because she’d no time for gentlemen like him, who happily romped with outgoing and intelligent tonnish women, while at the same time declaring they’d only walk down the aisle with a simpering, dull-witted virgin.
So, though she detested some of his attitudes, she’d recently decided prudence was the better part of valor. Sooner or later, this man, one of London’s most colorful peers, who by rights should have his mind fixed on who was the most voluptuous opera singer, or which gaming hell offered the best stakes for the night, would be bound to unravel her secrets.
To expose her fears.
To strip her bare.
Lady Laura Jamison could steam oils and essences, pick locks, forge signatures and decipher codes. Dealing with emotional upheavals, especially those caused by a man touted to be emotionless in his dealings with women, was beyond her capabilities and her comprehension. So when forced into his company, she used confrontation as her defense against capitulation.