Rejecting the Rogue

by Riley Cole

  She thought she’d be able to sample the passion, the excitement of an illicit affair without risking her heart.

  How wrong she’d been. She was already showing signs of becoming the sort of ninny-headed fool she abhorred.

  Briar stepped around her, attention still on Edison’s device. A wide grin lit her face. “This could work. This could really work.”

  “I’ll need somewhere to hide, somewhere close to White.” Edison slid the gramophone to the far end of the table. “The same room would be best.”

  Briar frowned. “They’re meeting in White’s tavern, yes? Between the gaming tables and the whores, nothing’ll be quiet there.”

  Spencer frowned down at the tabletop. “Nothing except the women’s rooms.”

  Meena closed her eyes, picturing various scenarios in her mind. Not that she’d been in the Black Rose, per se. But she had been in more gaming hells than she’d care to admit over the years. Never, of course, as Miss Philomena Sweet.

  Meena caught Briar’s eye. “Harriette Wilson.”

  Briar’s nodded enthusiastically. “Excellent idea. Harriette has languished in the costume closet for far too long. Perhaps she should bring a new… associate with her?”

  “Just so.” Meena grinned. A new adventure was exactly what she needed at the moment.

  Spencer looked lost.

  Meena took pity on him. “What better place for White’s meeting than in a prostitute’s… place of work? Small, relatively quiet, and I’m sure we can find somewhere to stash Edison and his gramophone.”

  “Unacceptable.” Spencer thrust his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Too dangerous.” He looked to the men for support.

  Edison cradled the machine in his arms. “You’d best leave the planning to Meena. She’s quite good at it.”

  Spencer glared at her, one eyebrow inching toward his hairline.

  “It is true.” Meena shrugged daintily. “I am an excellent planner.” No point in pretending false modesty. After safe cracking, heist planning was her best skill.

  She glanced at the cherub clock in the corner. “We should hurry if we’re to scout the tavern. It’ll be a crush once the working women wake.“

  Spencer raised his arms and let them slap down against his sides. “You’re going to walk straight into a gaming hell? How do you plan to do that?”

  Briar rolled her eyes. “We won’t be waltzing in. Harriette Wilson, fallen woman, and her new friend—Lisbet Baines, I should think—will be entertaining customers at the Black Rose this evening.” She picked up her skirts and scampered out of the room. “Off to the costume closet.”

  “Shall we?” Meena gestured for Spencer to follow Briar.

  He looked dazed, as if he’d had a good whack to the head.

  “They’ll need an escort, dear,” Mrs. Hapgood explained delicately.

  Meena tugged on his sleeve, trying to urge him out of the room. “A pimp, Spencer. We can’t stroll into a new place of work without a procurer, can we?”

  17

  “Holy God.”

  Spencer could no more stop the oath that tumbled from his lips than he could stop breathing.

  Meena’s transformation was nothing short of astounding. She and Briar had entered the family carriage bareheaded, their clothing concealed by voluminous cloaks. Before their carriage reached the Black Rose, they had been transformed into painted, perfumed, practically naked harlots. The lascivious neckline of Meena’s dress looked as if the slightest breath would uncover the rosy crests of her nipples.

  He tried to avert his eyes—he truly did—but it was like asking a thirst man not to drink.

  As luscious as the tart’s gown looked caressing her curves, the wig hiding her soft brown curls was nothing short of hideous. A frightful tumble of messy black braids snaked around her head.

  She looked as if she’d just been tumbled.

  He did suppose that was rather the point.

  But it was the face paint that hardly bore looking at. Briar had used all her theatrical skills on the both of them. She’d colored Meena’s cheeks with rouge and painted her lips an unnatural red. Even Meena’s eyebrows had been altered. They were now nothing but curious crescents of paint above her wide blue eyes, making her look perpetually surprised.

  Briar was equally unrecognizable in her blowsy, low-cut dress. Although slightly more modest, it was no less suggestive. The cheap red satin combined with the overdone face paint and a wig of blonde hair most closely resembling straw put a man in mind of a quick, anonymous tumble in a dark alley.

  It made Spencer wonder just how strange he himself must look. The quick glance he’d caught in the looking glass told him Briar had styled him as a smarmy dandy. She parted his hair in the center, slicking it back with some sort of foul ointment. The suit she pulled from their overflowing closet—a plaid studded with fat brass buttons—would’ve looked far better on a circus monkey. She’d even taken great care to outfit him with cheap brass jewelry that signaled flash over taste.

  “Remember, you’re eager for money.” Meena gave him a stern look as the carriage rolled through the streets. “If there’s a boss there, don’t let us go for less than three pounds each.”

  Spencer’s fingers stilled on the button they were tracing. He met her gaze. “I do have some experience in this area.”

  “Do you?”

  Her amused smile made him unaccountably uneasy. He studied the swirls, dots and lines cluttering up each outsized button of his waistcoat. “Well no. That’s not what I meant. Not exactly. But I am—”

  “A man?” Meena cut him off.

  “Exactly.” He got the last word, but he felt as if he’d lost the battle.

  Briar looked between the two of them. It was clear to Spencer she was trying mightily to keep the curiosity off her face.

  He turned his attention to the view out the window. Every mile further from the Sweets’ tidy neighborhood, the streets worsened. Neat, comfortable row houses gave way to narrow, cramped streets lined with small, drab homes. Trees looked healthy, and garbage, for the most part, was swept up.

  Until they entered a darker, more desperate area of the city. Nothing like Whitechapel, but to Spencer’s eye, it was an area that cared far more for pleasures and money, than hearth and home. Pubs, gambling halls and storefronts stuffed with inexpensive furnishings and poor quality housewares, lined the dirty streets. Flats topped the businesses, some sporting lines of ragged clothing set out to dry.

  The crowds were a strangely mixed lot. Beggars—and the poorest of prostitutes—loitered in doorways next to hawkers hoping to entice the more well-dressed men into their dark taverns.

  As they’d arranged, Mr. Hapgood stopped the coach well short of the Black Rose. It wouldn’t do for a procurer to spend his coin driving whores to and from their brothels. Mr. Hapgood leaned down from the driver’s bench. “I’ll be right here, or close by.” He gave Meena and her cousin each a steady look. “You be careful now.”

  Meena reached up to pat the older man on the leg. “Always.” She turned to take her cousins arm.

  “And you.” He stared down at Spencer. “You watch over them.”

  “I will.” Spencer nodded solemnly. All the more so since this entire fiasco was his fault.

  The door to the tavern swung out at an odd angle as Spencer opened it. One too many drunkards falling against it had all pulled the top hinges completely out of the wood.

  Spencer’s impression of the shoddy gaming hell didn’t improve with further examination. Clearly, White hadn’t designed the shabby tavern for his peers. The gaming tables were stained and worn, their chairs mismatched and ill-used. It was too early in the day for custom, but a lumpy barkeep wiped mugs with a dirty rag. The large, dank room smelled of stale smoke, old beer, and an odd mixture of excitement and profound despair.

  It was a mixture Spencer hoped never to smell again.

  Mindful of their roles, she and Briar let Spencer do the talking.

  “Sit there,
and shut your traps,” he snapped at the women, and pointed to an empty table. Then he and his cloud of noxious cologne strode across the room toward the barkeep. “I brought the women.”

  “Excuse me?” The man looked every bit as startled as if Spencer had told him he was the prime minister.

  “The women. Mr. White asked for two more women.”

  “He did?”

  Spencer propped his elbows on the filthy bar. “Why the hell else would I be here?”

  The barkeep’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he stared between Spencer and the painted ladies across the room. “I guess… I guess that’s a right point.”

  Meena waggled her fingers at him and smiled. “Like to sample the wares before we start, luv?”

  Spencer gritted his teeth. Did she have to overplay things?

  Cheeks flaring red, the barkeep dropped his gaze.

  Well played, then. Spencer sent Meena a silent compliment. She’d read the man right.

  Spencer smacked a hand down on the bar. “The day’s not getting any longer. Are you going to show me their rooms, or not?”

  The barkeep looked hopefully around the large room, but it remained empty. “I dunno. We don’t have any spare rooms as I’m aware…”

  Anxiety tightened Spencer’s chest, radiating down through his arms. Damnation, but he needed to get the women in a room before White—or one of his men—showed up.

  He unclenched his fists, and took slow, deep breaths, until he could feign an easy shrug. “No problem.” He tapped a finger on the bar. “But don’t think I’m giving White back his six pounds. He said he wanted my girls, and now I’ve wasted my time dragging them over here. They coulda been back in Whitechapel, making me money this past hour.”

  “But…” The man’s face drained of color.

  Spencer imagined the thought of displeasing Leyland White would be a terrifying one. He leaned in close. “That’s all right, guv. I’ll make this easy for you.”

  He turned his back to the man and honed in on Meena and Briar. “You ladies want to have a talk with some of the girls upstairs?”

  “That we do.” Meena jumped up and hauled Briar to her feet. “We was promised work here. I ain’t going back to that other hole. I’ll make us room.” She hauled Briar after her toward the stairs that led to the women’s cribs.

  Spencer dropped down on the nearest barstool. “Might as well pour me a pint. They’ll be awhile.”

  He’d just finished his beer when a woman, clumsy with sleep, made her way down the staircase. Briar followed behind, a pitifully small valise in her hands. “Miss Greene has agreed to take somewhat of a holiday. I told her you’d handle her compensation, Mr. Brummell.”

  Spencer swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That I can.”

  He nodded to the barkeep and crossed the room toward the women. “Tell Mr. White I’ll be back to check on my ladies this evening and bring ‘em their things.”

  “But it’s only one room.” The barkeep protested.

  The suggestive, seductive smile Briar gifted him all but knocked the man off his feet. “Silly man. Nothing says we can’t share. You get a lot more for your money that way.”

  “Be careful.” Spencer murmured in Briar’s ear as he took the sleepy woman’s arm. “If you two aren’t out of here in five minutes, I’m coming back in.”

  Briar nodded and hurried back up the stairs.

  Spencer hustled the woman out the door. Meena and Briar had managed to get her half dressed at least, although he wasn’t sure having her brocade gown sliding off one shoulder, and the skirts caught somewhere in the lacings of her petticoat wasn’t worse. The women looked as if she’d been dragged straight from her bed after a vigorous tumble.

  Which couldn’t have been far from the truth.

  Once they were on the street, and the door closed behind them, Spencer attempted to tug her gown into some semblance of order.

  She leered at him. “Enjoyin’ yourself, are ya?”

  “Not in the least.” Spencer let go of her skirts and tried not to wince. “I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said once she seemed to adjust to the bright sunlight.

  Even though sleep still filmed her over-painted eyes, the woman smirked. “No doubt you do.”

  Spencer refrained from rolling his eyes. He took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. “I’m happy to drop you anywhere you like and give you a good bit of coin for your cooperation.”

  The woman stilled. The fake, brittle smile she threw to customers disappeared, replaced by pursed lips and narrowed eyes. She smelled an opportunity. “What if I don’t want to find something else?”

  Spencer ran his hand through his hair, but stopped, grimacing as his fingers found nothing but slick pomade. He wiped his fingers on the plaid trousers. “You’d rather stay here?”

  The woman sneered. “Rather’s got nothing to do with it, luv.” She gestured at her surroundings. “Where d’you think I should go? The Rose’s the cleanest place I’ve worked in an age.”

  “What he’s trying to say is, you don’t have to do this anymore. Whoring, he means,” Meena said as she strode toward them. The mess of black curls bounced on her shoulders as she walked. “We’ll help you find a new line of work.”

  Eyes wide, mouth agape, the woman looked as if she didn’t dare believe in the future Meena dangled in front of her.

  The sight all but broke Spencer’s heart.

  “It’s true.” Briar fished in her purse and pulled out a crisp calling card. “Present our card at this address. There are good people there. They’ll provide you with food and shelter. Teach you a trade if you like. You can stay as long as you wish.”

  The woman snatched the card and her valise from Spencer with quick fingers. She squinted at the printing as if considering their offer.

  It occurred to Spencer that she likely couldn’t read.

  She tried to hand it back. “Thanks all the same, but I don’t care for religiosity. Can’t stomach those that grovel in church on Sunday and crawl into places like the Rose on Monday.”

  “No religion.” Meena shook her head. “Just a chance to make your own luck.”

  The tiniest bit of wonder seemed to blossom on her face, but it was quickly doused by world-weary disdain. “Who’d do such a thing? Makes no sense.” She narrowed her eyes, inspecting the three of them. “What’s in it for you lot?”

  Meena caught the woman’s hands. “Knowing one more woman is safe. That’s what’s in it for us.”

  “You look like a smart woman.” Briar studied the older prostitute’s face. “You’re not going to take guff from anybody. Why not see what these people have to say? You’ve got a nice little dagger under there somewhere, don’t you?” She pointed at the woman’s skirts.

  The woman jumped back. “How’d you know?”

  Briar grinned. “Because I would.” She raised her skirts. “Do, in fact.”

  Indeed, Spencer counted not one, but three small daggers of varying sizes tucked into a lacy red garter. “What, no throwing stars?”

  Briar dropped her skirts. She gave him a pitying look. “What do you think a corset’s for?”

  The woman was staring down at the card as if she could make sense of the printing. “I’ll try it then. I just might.” The ends of her lips curled up in what Spencer guessed was the closest thing to a smile she’d formed in quite some time. “It works out, I might be thanking you sometime.”

  Hands clasped together in front of her, Meena nodded. “Best of luck.”

  The woman grunted in reply and took off down the street without a backward glance.

  A lump appeared from nowhere, right in the center of his throat. The harder he swallowed, the more it hurt. He blinked, and studied the scraps of old newsprint, the broken glass, and cigar butts littering the pavement.

  “Well done.” Briar pulled Meena into a hug and kissed her on the cheek. “I do so love a happy ending.”

  Meena reached up to straighten her tilting wig. “Not
hing better, is there?”

  Her smile lifted his heart, making the damnable lump swell. He cleared his throat. “Like as not, she’ll be back,” he muttered.

  The surprised look on Meena’s face suggested his comment wasn’t all it could have been. Briar, too, was glaring daggers.

  Spencer fiddled with the buttons marching down the center of his waistcoat. How was it women always seemed to be hovering like brightly dressed vultures, just waiting for a man to put his foot straight into it?

  Meena closed her eyes as if the very sight of him pained her. She turned to her cousin, giving Spencer her back. “Let’s find Mr. Hapgood.”

  “Indeed.” Briar lifted her skirts clear of the debris on the pavement and followed after her. Blonde curls bouncing across her back, she sent Spencer a pitying look over her shoulder.

  Spencer yanked down on his waistcoat. Let them freeze him out.

  If Meena couldn’t even recognize a spot of humor, well, they weren’t going to get much further with this ill-conceived affair anyway.

  Meena tried not to fidget. She didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than necessary, but she could hardly stand the way the low cut gown itched the back of her neck.

  She was itchy, unaccountably irritable, and overly anxious. Far more anxious than such a simple operation warranted.

  At the far end of the tavern, Spencer nursed an ale while he waited to intercept White’s victim. This time, Briar had decked him out as a common laborer. His clothes were worn and dirty and smelled as if he’d been working in them for a week. The great door-knocker mustaches she glued beneath his nose were messy, as if he hadn’t the time nor the interest in keeping his whiskers neat.

  He’d taken the closest stool to White’s back office and slumped over his glass as if he was done in after a day of hard labor. As soon as she and Briar hustled Chesterfield upstairs, he would trip the device Edison had wired into an old box outside the pub’s small office.

  She and Briar were still wearing their flashy, tasteless dresses, and hers at least, itched like the devil. Meena tapped a finger on the table top. All this waiting was giving her time. Too much time. She squirmed in her chair, scratching at the stiff lace around her neck.