by Beverly Adam
“Not interested in any o’ them, are ye, sir? Sure ye won’t take one of me clean rooms off me hands for an hour or two?” Old Nancy asked, scratching a series of small red welts on her plump arms, the result of the establishment’s linens being undoubtedly infested with bed bugs.
“No,” he repeated.
He produced two silver guineas from his money purse. “I want some more information about your tenant, Mrs. Kaye—and anyone else who might have lived with her.”
Old Nancy reached out a gloved hand to greedily take the guineas from him. He quickly moved them out of her reach.
“The information first,” he said softly with a small, tight smile.
Eyeing the coins, Old Nancy nodded. Her eyes fixed themselves upon the coins he held. She was more than willing to give him the information he sought.
“Right, well before she became Mrs. Kaye, our Jemima, was one of me gels. A good worker she was. Officers and captains were eating out o’ her hands. Peculiar though about who she took to her room. But she was still mighty popular with the gents. She was almost as handsome a looker as that one there,” she said, nodding her head at Sarah, “’til she took to being ever so peculiar.”
The woman shook her straggly, gray curls.
“Jemima said her mother had once been a maid in the Spanish royal court and her father, a French merchant—but they both got drowned at sea, so she said.” Nancy paused in her tale, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her gown. “She came here to live with me and make her living after their deaths.”
“A year ago she took up with a foreign bloke by the name of Kaye. A dangerous fellow, he was, I can tell ye, Commander. He gave me the shivers, he did. Eyes like cold steel he had when he looked at ye, sir. And the men he brought with him were of the worst sort. Aye, none of me gels wanted to have anything to do with that rough lot. A right gang of cutthroats, they were. Scary, if ye get my meaning.”
“Did Jemima suddenly disappear with these men?” asked Sarah, thinking the woman might have been taken away by force from the house of ill repute.
“Nay,” spat Old Nancy, “she weren’t kidnapped if that what ye be thinking. Something worse than that occurred.”
She grimaced and spat into the street.
“She leg-shackled herself to Kaye. Up and married him, she did. She started putting on more airs than a drunken fairy walking about in her nightdress. Huh! Her who used to walk the streets with me others, telling us how to behave . . . but then a few months after the wedding, she came back out of the blue. She wanted her old room back and her money purse was full to the brim with blunt. Not that she gave Old Nancy any.”
“Was he with her?” asked Robert.
“Nay,” said Nancy, shaking her gray head.
“She came back alone and started drinking and cussing. She was wearing black widow’s weeds when she returned . . . apparently that cur she married had managed to get himself killed at sea.” She shrugged and said. “No surprise there, what with the dreadful company that one kept. Pirates and blockade runners, they all were. And I told her myself that she was better off without him. But the gel did pine so for that black-hearted devil.”
“What happened after she returned?” Robert asked, shining the guineas on his coat sleeve. “Did she perchance have a son named Jeremy?”
“Jeremy?” repeated the brothel owner. “Nay, Jemima never had any children. She’s got no living relations to speak of, that I know of, gov’nor. The man is probably just one of her lovers. She never was too picky about the age of the men she bedded. Just so long as he had the airs and blunt of a wealthy nob. Nay, she used to have a go at all of the puffed up gentlemen at one time or another.”
“I’d like to see her room,” he said quietly, so that the other women nearby could not overhear his words.
Old Nancy lifted her eyebrows at him. She eyed his leather pouch, which hung by his side. Aloud, she said, “You say ye wish to use one of me rooms, Commander? Two guineas, that’ll cost ye.”
He dropped the guineas into her hand. Her red-rimmed eyes lit up.
“Very well, follow me,” she said, tapping her pipe on the railing before opening the warped front door.
They obediently followed. The brothel owner’s broad backside swayed as she walked, going up and down, mimicking waves at sea. Although midday, the interior of the house was dark and dank. Cooked food and gentleman’s tobacco permeated the air. Dust mites floated in thick clouds in what little sunlight had managed to enter the old building.
They stepped onto tattered carpets, the floorboards creaking with every step. They walked up a narrow flight of stairs to the bedchambers above.
The inhabitants, ladies in their light under skirts and corsets lined up by their bedchamber doors to look the couple over. Hands on hips, they observed them.
Sarah’s cheeks reddened at some of the suggestive remarks directed at Lieutenant Smythe. She had never heard such explicit talk.
“If she gets boring, I’m just next door, love,” cooed the tightly corseted blonde at Robert. She batted her eyelashes suggestively at him before giving him a wink.
Another, an Irish trollop with freckles, smirked after looking over Sarah’s trim frame.
“If ye find she’s got something not quite right, come on over. We can have a wee bit o’ fun together . . . I’ll give you a bit of a tickle for sure to please all your fancies.”
“I wouldna even charge ye a pence, if you were mine,” put in another, the oldest working lady present. So emaciated and ill looking was her appearance, she looked to be on her way to the pearly gates. “It’d be a real pleasure, Commander.”
Sarah could tell this harlot was in her last days. The light-skirt might in reality be in her early twenties for all one could tell, but the soiled dove’s flesh was rotting fast and she looked vastly older than her years.
The smell of opium emitted from the prostitute’s room as she passed. Oblivion had its rewards. Sarah paused, noticing a small painted portrait of a seaman on the bureau and the smoking hookah next to it.
“He was my husband,” the woman said with a toss of her head. “What little good it did me. When he died, I lost everything.”
Sarah did not dare ask what she meant by “everything.” She had heard enough from widowed women abandoned by seafaring husbands and seen starving orphaned children dying in dank back rooms. This lady’s story would be no different or unique than the others. It would even end the same way, with an untimely death.
Sarah carefully hid the pity she felt. She knew by the fierce look in the woman’s eyes that she would resent it. What little pride the woman had managed to retain and what disdain she felt towards those whose lives were more fortunate than her own, could cause the soiled dove to become vicious and spiteful.
There had unfortunately been times in the past when Sarah had been attacked. She had learned to be prudent with her compassion. She said nothing to the woman as she walked by her.
“Enough of this chatting,” said Old Nancy pointedly to the ladies of the house. “You lot either are abed sleeping one off or out getting yourself a customer . . . and if I see any of you ladies watching these two, I’ll have ye out in the streets with the rest of the gutter snipes—ye hear? Now get off with you.”
“All right, Nance, no need to get your knickers bunched up. You know we always do what ye tell us to,” said one of the women, throwing a shawl over her shoulders in a slight huff.
The ladies docilely returned to their rooms and their beds. Old Nancy might be a right nasty cow, but working for her was a lot better than being alone and out on the cold wet streets of Portsmouth.
Doors were heard closing and a few of the ladies could be heard flopping back onto their beds in preparation for the long evening ahead. The women knew that if they didn’t contribute some shillings, they would quickly find themselves kicked-out. Sleeping in the cold was not desirable. At least in this rundown boarding house, they had a bed to call their own and regular meals to fill their bellies
. Aye, it was better than no place at all.
Old Nancy unlocked the door to Jemima Kaye’s bedchamber with a heavy key.
Sarah suspected this wasn’t the first time the down-at-the-heel brothel owner had rented the room when the original renter was absent. None of the other ladies had said a word about Old Nancy letting the couple use Jemima’s room in her absence. This apparently was routine.
The room was sparse with a rickety chair, a scratched roll top writing desk and a small single bed. A smudged window, streaked with soot, looked out onto the back alley and the brick wall of the building next door.
“I’ll give you two some time alone,” said Old Nancy, giving a significant sideways glance at the writing desk.
From the sly glance she gave them, Sarah surmised that the old brothel owner had already taken a look herself. It didn’t look like it would be difficult to do. A pen-knife would easily open the desk’s flimsy lock.
The moment she closed the door behind her, Robert opened the desk. A neat pile of writing paper was stacked on the upper right hand part of the desk, an ink well situated next to it.
“Examine the letters. We might learn something from any past correspondence she may have had with Jeremy,” he said, nodding at the letters written on cheap parchment paper.
Going quickly through them, Sarah scanned them for Jeremy’s name. Robert busied himself with opening the lower drawers.
“Nothing,” he said, flipping through what looked like a pile of old gazettes. They listed the various brothels and their occupants in Portsmouth, including this one.
One of the gazettes was Harris’s listing of Covent Garden Demimonde Courtesans and Prostitutes, a lively description of the harbor trollops living around Portsmouth. Many descriptions were given in nautical terms. Several hundred ladies, bawdy establishments, taverns, and brothels were listed. Prostitution was a thriving trade, setup to part bored, lonely seamen and merchant sailors from their hard earned wages.
Jemima had circled her own listing.
“She lists herself as a lover of the sons of Neptune,” said Sarah, reading aloud the gazette entry. “She’s been working for the past four years as a harlot and it states that not a Jack-man has been the worse for knowing her. Although in her early thirties, many a shipmate has found her company to be most agreeable and easy to board for an afternoon of pleasuring . . . her islet being narrow enough to accommodate—”
She abruptly stopped in her reading. She was slightly embarrassed by the lyrical seaman’s jargon that went on to describe the prostitute’s body in detail.
“And it, um, lists her fee . . . at the time she was available for thirty shillings.”
“A modest sum, a fee almost any ordinary seaman could have afforded. And from what Old Nancy told us,” commented Robert sardonically, “I suspect her price went up considerably once she met Kaye. She probably no longer needed or desired to work that trade. That is if she continued whoring after falling in love with the dangerous rogue.”
“I suppose so,” murmured Sarah, thoughtfully closing the gazette.
She tried not to think of what it must have been like for the woman to return to this lowly place after her husband’s untimely death. It would have been disheartening.
Aloud, she said, “For Jemima it must have been shameful to come back here . . . especially as she probably thought she would never have to return to this place. It was no wonder she took to drink. It undoubtedly helped her numb herself to having to come back here.”
She looked over the room. It felt cold and impersonal. There was very little warmth or comfort to offer its occupant.
“Aha!” he said significantly, drawing out a playbill for a tavern. It had an ink drawing of a woman standing on stage in a gaudy, revealing costume.
He pointed to it. “Look . . . Jemima Kaye will be appearing here tonight direct from her Dublin debut.”
“She sings?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.
She took a good look at the singer. There was something about the performer that nagged at the back of her thoughts with an eerie sense of déjà-vu . . . they had met before, she was certain of it. She tried to remember. She could not place it. Perhaps Jemima had been in Ireland once? But when had they met?
“Our queen of song has appeared in all the great cities of the United Kingdom. And it says here, ‘For your pleasure, gents, we’ve retained her charming self for your viewing.’”
He handed her the playbill.
“The Hair of the Dog Tavern—that’s where we’ll find her.”
“It sounds disreputable and dangerous. But we’re going to pay it a visit, aren’t we, Robert?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to pay it a visit, yes.”
“No, we are going together,” she countered.
He frowned, shaking his head.
At his stern look of disapproval, she said with grim determination, “I have run into the ghost of a murdered seaman, been frightened out of my wits by a possible murderer, and viewed the corpse of a dead man. I repeat, sir, there is nothing that would keep me from this venture of hunting down Jeremy. I have the right to know what happened as much as you do.”
“But the men we may encounter might be unsavory characters, Sarah. I—”
“Cutthroats, low-lifes, in other words, the devil’s own men,” she said, nodding in emphatic agreement. “The sort you’ll be after telling me a lady shouldn’t be exposed to . . . aye, I understand, and in any other circumstance undoubtedly I would agree with you. But then, when in my entire life have I ever been considered by society to be respectable and proper?”
He opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, but she cut him short.
“Aye, I know you think a wise woman, such as I, has never been exposed to this less savory side of life. But I have. Indeed I’ve treated all sorts of ruffians. Some of whom I may add were not the least bit grateful for the help I gave. I’ve been in places a saner person would have refused to step into, and yet I’ve come out alive. Nay, there’s no reason to leave me behind, Robert.”
Her blue eyes sparkled with resolve. She was determined to follow him wherever this mystery might take them. She wanted to remain by his side.
He in turn smiled down at her. He moved closer, making her very aware of his attractive manliness. “But there is a reason you should not go, my dear. You see, I would rather fillet the first man who would dare to lay a finger on you with my own knife, than be promoted to first admiral of the king’s navy. I am that fond of you, Sarah.”
“Oh,” she said, eyes widened at his confession.
“Oh, indeed,” he echoed.
She rewarded him with a smile.
“Faith, it does seem rather a perilous course, Lieutenant, and to think I was that determined to go with you, too.”
“But you won’t go now, will you? You’ll do this favor for me, won’t you?” he asked, gently taking her hand into his.
He drew her over to the single bed.
They sat down. Their eyes on each other’s face, caught up in the emotions of two lovers drawn to each other by forces that had nothing to do with duty, ambition, or common sense—but had everything to do with mutual attraction and feelings of tender, warm affection.
“I’ll stay behind if that is what ye wish,” she said, reluctantly letting him win the argument. She squeezed his hand.
“It is,” he said firmly.
He looked down at her rosy lips. They parted slightly, invitingly . . . Unable to resist any further her winsome charms, he kissed her. It was full of sunny tenderness. It warmed them both, causing them to forget their rough surroundings and reason for being there. They forgot everything and everyone, only concerned with each other and their need to be close.
Robert’s mouth descended on hers and the warmth she’d experienced on the night of the betrothal party filled her again as he nibbled on her lower lip, his hands boldly plundering the front of her bodice, beneath her comfy shawl. He murmured endearments in her ear, whil
e gently rubbing the nipples of her breasts, kissing her.
“Oh, Robert,” she said softly, desiring more of his touch, wanting to continue exploring each other.
Breathing hard, he drew back and, looking around at the unsavory surroundings they found themselves in, said, “We shall have to continue this at another time.”
He planted a quick kiss on her forehead, resisting the temptation to continue, drawing the shawl she wore back around her shoulders.
A loud knock rapped on the door.
Old Nancy ambled into the room. She looked at them and shook her head disapprovingly.
“If ye want this room longer, Commander Smythe,” she said. “That’ll be another two guineas you’ll owe me. I run a proper brothel here, not some charity for cupid. And you two best be hoisting anchor and leave the premises before she returns. Jemima won’t take kindly to seeing you two aboard her bed.”
“Aye, aye.” Robert saluted the old woman mockingly.
Laughing, they hastily rose and left the house of ill repute and its residents far behind.
Chapter 11
The Hair of The Dog Tavern was without a doubt the seediest and most dangerous place Robert had ever stepped foot in. By the look of the men inside, it was questionable that even an ordinary seaman would have had the foolishness to poke his face into such a dangerous place.
Any decent man who stepped in here had best have no fear of dubious backgrounds and evil characters, thought Robert, looking over the tavern’s cavernous room.
Newgate Prison’s punishing bleak interior was not unknown to the patrons inside. The people who sat around the rough wooden tables laughing and joking were gamblers, robbers, and loose women. It would not have surprised Robert to know that members of the black-market, pirates, kidnappers, and paid assassins, as well as other evil assorted mercenaries, lingered over tankards, in the darker corners.