Virgins were so sought after that some women physically altered their bodies in an attempt to pass themselves off as never having been with a man. Procuresses liked virgins, too, because they sold for a premium. But Madeline had had a child. Max doubted she would ever try to pass herself off as untouched, even if she had sunk as low as prostitution.
“I prefer a woman with some experience,” he said. Those words weren’t simply his way of furthering his search. They were true—or used to be. Almost as soon as he said them, he thought of Abby. She had no experience whatsoever, and yet she appealed to him just as she was.
God, Abby again? He couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. At random moments, her pleasure over the mirror and brush set he’d bought her would pop into his head—and he’d smile. Or he’d remember the no-nonsense way she had described sexual intercourse, as if she knew so much when she knew next to nothing, and he would chuckle to himself.
“Rather than have me choose from a piece of paper, why don’t you bring them all out?” he asked Madame Davenport. “I’ll know what I want when I see it.”
She blinked in surprise. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Some are already working.”
“Then show me what you’ve got.” Since he couldn’t ask if she had seen someone of Madeline’s description, he would have to check for himself.
“As you wish.” Stepping back so he could sit down, she gave him a nod and bustled off.
When she returned some fifteen minutes later, she had ten women in tow.
Max nearly jumped to his feet when he spotted one, entering the room behind two others. She had hair the same color as Maddy’s! That shade was so unusual, he felt sure he had finally found his sister, so sure that his breath caught as he anticipated whisking her away.
But . . . no. As he shifted in his seat to see her face, he realized the girl was far too young. She wasn’t nearly as pretty, either.
The bitter taste of disappointment rose in his mouth as he pretended to consider the selection. “How many more possibilities do you have?” he asked.
“Six,” Madame Davenport informed him. “And we get more every week if we don’t have something here you like.”
He would have to come back to see the other six—just like he had to revisit all the other places he’d been, in case something had changed since he had been there before. He wanted to dismiss them all so he could move on, but he couldn’t leave the premises quite yet. He had to stay long enough to convince whomever had been following him that he had come for the usual reason.
After selecting a woman who reminded him, although remotely, of Abigail, which was somehow a positive association, he let her lead him into the back.
The girl told him her name was Kitty and wound her arms around his neck as soon as the door closed behind them, but he set her aside. Whatever he had imagined in this woman to be like Abigail—he could already tell she was nothing like her in reality. “I’m too tired for anything more than a good rub,” he said.
“A rub?” she echoed as if it were a disappointment.
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot of work,” she complained. “Takes longer, too, so it’ll cost you extra.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“Why? Why not use what you got ’tween your legs instead? Let me enjoy my work, for a change?”
“For a change?” he repeated.
Her lips curved into an appreciative smile as she cupped him. “It’s not often we get a man handsome as yourself. It’ll give me something to dream about later, when the next guy’s fat as butter.”
He stopped her from fondling him. “I just want the backrub.”
Offended that he would refuse, she stuck her bottom lip out. “Suit yourself, then.” She indicated the bed. “Lay down.”
Unwilling to touch the linens, he pulled a chair into the center of the room.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“That’s where I’m going to sit.”
She looked confused. “You don’t want to stretch out? If you lay down, maybe I can prove that you’re more interested than you thought.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“No one’ll believe you were such a disappointment,” she grumbled, but once she started to knead his shoulders, he thought he was the one who had the right to complain. He’d never had a worse backrub.
But her lack of skill didn’t matter. He was just biding his time. In another quarter of an hour, he could walk out without worrying that whoever had been nipping at his heels might find it strange that he had stayed for only a few minutes.
“Do you like this?” the girl asked.
He made a noise indicating assent.
“It would be nice if you remembered I’m in the room once in a while, you know.”
His mind had been drifting—he’d been thinking of Abby again, wondering what she was doing. He needed to hurry home so that he could make sure she had what she needed before going to work with Jack and the others.
“I’m paying you; you’re not paying me,” he reminded her. “I owe you no favors.”
She shut up after that, and they managed to whittle away twenty minutes. But after making himself dally that long, he walked out and headed down the street—and it was only a few minutes later when he felt that same creeping sensation that he was being followed.
Determined to figure out who it was—and to put a stop to it—he ducked into the alcove of a tavern but didn’t go inside. He slipped around a knot of men who were just exiting instead—and waited.
Sure enough, Emmett came skulking up, hesitant lest he be overeager and get himself caught, but so intent on seeing inside the entrance when the door opened again that he didn’t notice Max standing to the side.
“Why are you following me?” Max asked as he grabbed his arm.
Emmett didn’t seem overly concerned. He merely flipped his wet hair out of his face. “Why do you think? Jack asked me to. He’s asked me to do it a number of times.”
Max had expected him to lie. He liked Emmett much better when he didn’t. “I left Farmer’s Landing well before you.”
“No. I started out immediately after, just as soon as we divided the money from Aldersgate.”
Max studied him. Did he know anything? Did he seem concerned or overly suspicious? “And?” he asked. “Have I done anything particularly interesting this evening? Or before, for that matter?”
“Not that I can tell. You do a lot of walking, I can say that.”
He hadn’t been walking; he’d been searching. Besides Madame Davenport’s brothel, he had visited several taverns. He’d asked about Madeline at each. Had Emmett gone in afterward to inquire as to his business there? Or had he simply continued to follow? “Why would Jack be interested in what I do on my own time?” he asked.
“He thinks you’re up to something.” Emmett spat at the ground. “You know Jack. He always thinks the worst.”
“That’s true enough, but I’m a little surprised you’d tell me. You know he wouldn’t like it.”
Emmett kicked a stone as they started down the street together. “You gonna give me away?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Answer my question, and we’ll see.”
“You’re a decent chap, not angry like Jack and not weak like Bill. I like having you around; I don’t want him to run you off.”
Max couldn’t help feeling sorry for Emmett. He’d been born into the squalor of Whitechapel. After being abandoned by a destitute mother, he’d had to shift for himself on these streets—by begging, trading sex for money or pickpocketing. Emmett knew Aldgate, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Limehouse, Bow and the other villages east of London better than the rats that infested the area.
“He won’t run me off for visiting a brothel, will he?”
“Not normally.”
“Is this somehow dif
ferent?”
“Can’t say as he’ll understand it now that you got that pretty surgeon’s daughter he wants so badly for himself. I mean, what would you want with a common whore when you can dip your wick in something like her—especially you, clean as you are?”
Max had pulled on his gloves before leaving Madame Davenport’s. He smoothed them on tighter as they reached Whitechapel Road. “Maybe I have a predilection for things Abby doesn’t know how to do.”
“A pre . . . what?”
Emmett might not know what the word meant, but he certainly understood more about human fetishes and perversion than most people. After he had worked as a mudlarker—a child who scavenged the coal that spilled from coal barges down at the docks—he had become a male prostitute until he grew too old to be attractive to the type of men who typically hired him. “A common whore will perform certain . . . favors a man can’t ask of a regular woman.”
“Oh. Aye. But you don’t seem the type to need . . .” He stretched his neck. “Never mind. I’m just glad you came out of Madame Davenport’s when you did. Jack remembered something right after you left and changed our meeting spot for tonight. He wouldn’t have been happy if you didn’t show up for work tonight.”
Max thought of Abby. He’d assumed he would have the chance to take her more food before going to work with the others. What he had left couldn’t be enough to keep her from going to bed hungry. “I just need to head home and make sure Abby has everything she needs. Then I’ll join you.”
“I’d let Abby wait, if I were you.”
“Excuse me?”
He shoved past two men who were haggling over something and standing in their way. “If you go all the way to Wapping, you won’t get back in time. And it’ll seem strange that you’ve got so much to do you can’t make a midnight rendezvous, especially when you need money as bad as you do.”
Something about the way Emmett said that last part made Max uneasy. Was he simply trying to be helpful, to look out for him? Or did he know more than he’d let on? “Why wouldn’t I make it back? Where are we meeting?”
“Just down the street here, at St. Mary’s. We’re almost there now.”
But Abby had to be getting hungry . . . “I’ll have to be late. We have a corpse on the sofa. We have to deliver that, anyway—before it starts to putrefy.”
“Jack and Bill said they’d take care of that. I’m guessing they already have.”
Max got the impression that this was some sort of test—and figured he and Abby would probably both be safer if he complied. “Fine. She won’t starve in one night. We’ll go now and get it over with.”
They traveled the remaining blocks in silence. But once they could see St. Mary’s, Emmett pulled Max to a stop. “So . . . what is it you wanted that whore to do?”
Max hid a smile. He had the boy’s imagination going. “I guess you should have followed me inside.”
He offered Max a sheepish look and wiped the rain out of his face. “I was afraid you might break my jaw if I did.”
“You’re smart to trust your instincts there,” he said and clapped him on the back. “Because if I ever find you following me again, I will break your jaw.”
Emmett’s eyes widened when he realized that Max was serious. “I was just doing what I was told.”
“Then you might want to apprise Jack of the danger.”
“That means tell him, right?”
Max dipped his head to confirm it. “That’s exactly what it means.”
The house had been silent for some time, making Abby believe Jack had left. She didn’t hear from him or Tom, but as the hours inched along on leaden feet, she grew more and more worried about Max. Darkness fell and he didn’t return. He had left her a platter of bread and cheese and a pot of tea, but the food was gone. Surely, he would remember that she needed more to eat and would arrive soon to tend to her needs, since she had no way of tending to herself . . .
Where are you? Why aren’t you back?
While she’d spent her day worrying about how Max might react to the dress she had made at his expense, or remembering how warm and oddly content she had been at various moments when she was pressed up against him the night before, she’d spent the evening consumed with imagining Jack, or someone Jack had put to the task, trying to prevent Max from returning to Farmer’s Landing, possibly for good.
Had he been murdered like that woman downstairs probably was? Were Jack and Tom out right now, selling Max’s corpse to one of the colleges for ten guineas?
If so, he would soon be dissected and, more likely than not, no one would ever be the wiser . . .
Pivoting at the window, she recalled Max checking behind them repeatedly when they were walking to St. Catherine’s that morning.
She could only hope he was still watching his back as carefully—because if he didn’t return, she may never see her father again.
Chapter 12
Abigail must have fallen asleep. The next thing she knew, it was pitch-black, with just a thin sliver of moon grinning through the window and Max was climbing into bed with her. Knowing he was safe doused her worry. Thank God! But where had he been? And why would he leave her for so long?
“What time is it?” she mumbled.
“Late,” he replied. “I’ve brought food. Are you hungry?”
She could smell it, but she was too upset to eat. “I don’t want anything.”
“Are you sure? Do you need to go to the privy?”
“Now you ask?” She was secretly so relieved to see him she could cry, but she wasn’t about to throw her arms around him like she wanted to—not after what he had put her through.
He tried to pull her into the cradle of his body, to settle her for sleep as they had slept the night before, but she wouldn’t let him. She had taken off the dress she made—she still didn’t know how he was going to react to that—and was in her drawers and shift. She had decided to help him keep the linens clean since he was so meticulous about it, but that didn’t leave her with a lot of modest options. She didn’t want to sleep in her new dress and her gypsy rags were too filthy. She would have washed them but she didn’t want them to be wet when Max returned. Then she wouldn’t be able to wear them, and she wasn’t quite ready to show him that she’d cut up his clothes to make a dress.
“You scared me.” She kept her back, which was turned to him, ramrod straight.
“I know. You must have been terrified when I was gone for so long. I’m sorry. I came as soon as I could.” He caressed her arm, obviously trying to get her to forgive him, but she told herself she shouldn’t do that too easily. He deserved to be rebuffed after leaving her for hours and hours.
“Jack won’t let you get away with humiliating him in front of Tom,” she voiced, now that she had the chance, what had been going through her mind all evening. “He . . . he wants to best you in some way. Show you that you can’t outdo him. Maybe he even wants to . . . to seriously harm you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Abby,” he assured her. “Or you.”
She turned to look at him but could make out only the gleam of his eyes and a few of the planes and angles of his face. “How can you be so certain?”
“I will see to it.”
He had promised her safety, but he couldn’t control everything. With the animosity she sensed coming from Jack, it was difficult to believe Max would be able to keep himself safe, let alone her. “You don’t have eyes in the back of your head. Anything could happen.”
“Shh . . .” He stroked her hair, smoothing it away from her face. “If I don’t check in regularly with that man you saw me meet today, he will go straight to the police and your father. I have instructed him to do so.”
“Instructed him? Why would he listen to you?” Her voice cracked, offering proof that she was suddenly and inexplicably battling tears.
He mu
st have noticed because he pulled her closer in spite of her resistance. “He has good reason. Don’t cry. That makes me feel even worse.”
“My father didn’t come today,” she blurted. “Do you think he doesn’t care that I’m gone?” It was Thursday. Maybe he had been too busy to notice. He and Mr. Holthouse had their general and morbid anatomy lecture at half past two, but surely Mr. Holthouse could have covered the class. They didn’t even have a cadaver for their lectures this year, which was why she had been trying so hard to procure one. They had been limping along using various well-preserved samples her father had collected through the years, as well as some exhibits loaned to him by Sir Astley Cooper.
Max leaned up on one elbow. “I’m sure nothing could be further from the truth.”
“It could be that he’s glad to no longer be saddled with the burden of a daughter who should be married but isn’t.”
“He’s pushing you to marry?”
“Of course. What else is there for a woman?”
“That’s true. Perhaps you will be more amenable to it after this little adventure,” he said as he lay back down.
“Are you suggesting that being abducted should endear me to men?”
“I haven’t abducted you! You came to me.”
“You are holding me against my will. And I don’t even know why.”
“I am keeping you here for your own safety—and to guard against a surge of conscience. The more variables I control, the better off I will be.”
“And me? Will I be better off, too?”
“You won’t be here for very long.”
“I could be, if my father doesn’t care enough to even look for me.”
“Your father is probably searching right this very minute. No doubt he will be here by morning.”
A Matter of Grave Concern Page 12