“You will stop those accusations now,” Jack demanded. “Or you’ll feel the power of my fist again.”
“That’s the way of it with you, isn’t it?” Briarwood didn’t attempt to hide his scorn. “Barbaric. You don’t know the first thing about being civilized.”
“I believe the fact you still have your teeth is an indication that I do,” Jack ground out.
Briarwood turned back to Olivia. “Are you aware he keeps boys at his gaming club?”
“As a matter of fact I am. He provides them with employment and a safe haven. An admirable undertaking.”
“It’s not natural for a man to have such interest in boys.”
“What are you saying?” Olivia asked.
“I’m concerned for Henry’s welfare. Rumors abound that Dodger molests them.”
“Rumors, I have no doubt that can be laid at your door,” Jack said. “You should leave—”
“He’s never harmed Henry,” Olivia cut in.
“Would you know if he did?”
She looked at Jack, and he felt the weight of doubt in her gaze, knew she was remembering how she’d not known that Helen had harmed her son.
She nodded jerkily. “Yes, I would know if he hurt him, and I know he would not.”
The conviction in her words eased the tightness around Jack’s chest.
“You’ll not turn her against me, Briarwood. Whatever you hope to accomplish with these false accusations—”
“The boy is not safe here. Stanford agrees with me.”
“Rupert Stanford?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. My cousin and I are appalled we’re being investigated by Scotland Yard. The inspector will find nothing untoward regarding either of us. The same cannot be said of you, sir. The duchess here is proof.” He turned back to Olivia. “Look at what he has done to you.”
Jack grabbed Briarwood’s arm. “You’re leaving.”
Olivia held up her hand. “Wait. Let him have his say.”
“He has nothing of any importance—”
“Then let me hear it.”
Briarwood jerked free, straightened his jacket, while Jack struggled between insisting he leave and giving Livy an opportunity to prove…what? That she believed him over Briarwood? On the other hand, he needed to know what he was fighting.
“He has caused you to forget your place,” Briarwood said. “You are in mourning, yet you wear red. You are not married to him, yet I can see where his roughened jaw has abraded your skin. If he can turn you, a woman of such high morals, to his sinful ways, imagine what he’ll do to an impressionable lad. All I care about is your son, that he be raised to be a proper lord. I can achieve that end for you. And if you will not support me in this endeavor, I will go to the courts, I will go to Parliament. By God, I will go to the queen. But I cannot in all good conscience stand by and allow this devil—”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Jack stated calmly.
Both Livy and Briarwood jerked their heads around to look at him.
“You can spout all the good intentions in the world and all your concerns for Henry’s righteous upbringing that you want, Briarwood, but you and I both know at the heart of the matter rests finances. I will not be blackmailed.”
Briarwood straightened his shoulders. “I assure you, sir, I care only for the welfare of my cousin’s son. You will see your good name ruined—”
“As you’ve pointed out on several occasions I have no good name. The name I have means less to me than my money. Make all the threats you want, I’ll not pay you.”
Briarwood was losing his composure and Jack had little doubt he’d accurately guessed the man’s reason in coming here.
“I shall go see Beckwith in the morning. If you should change your mind—”
“I won’t,” Jack said.
Briarwood looked at Olivia. “Think on it. Together we can put matters to right.”
Without a further word, he lumbered out of the room.
“Is this blackmail? Is that what he’s doing?” Olivia asked quietly.
Jack turned back to her. “Yes.”
“Why not pay him to stop these vicious rumors?”
“His accusations are false. If I pay him, I give credence to them, and then he’ll only come back for more. It’ll become a circle and we’ll be left with no way out.”
“But what if he adds my indiscretions to his rumors?”
“We gain nothing by paying him.”
“We gain his silence.”
“I will not be blackmailed.”
“Briarwood thought you’d blackmailed Lovingdon. He thought that was the reason you were named guardian.”
“It seems Briarwood has an uncanny ability to be wrong.”
“You don’t like him.”
“Not particularly.”
She studied him a moment before saying, “I know you’d never hurt Henry.”
“Good.” He moved toward her and she skirted around him. It seemed she’d been paying more attention than he realized when he’d been teaching Henry how to dodge.
“But…” she began and stopped.
“But?”
She turned to face him. “But regarding me: I am loath to admit it, but Briarwood is correct. My behavior has been abominable.”
“Livy—”
“No. I know you have the wherewithal to convince me otherwise. If you but touch me, kiss me, I will follow you wherever you lead. Look at me.” She spread her arms wide. “I’m barely a month into mourning and here I am wearing red. Lying in bed with a man to whom I’m not married. For God’s sake—look what we did when traveling on a railway!”
“Livy, this is exactly what he wanted, to give you doubts, to make you question me. It only serves to strengthen his standing.”
“Did you seduce me to strengthen yours?”
He spun on his heel, went to his table, and poured whiskey into a glass. “I’ll not dignify that question with an answer.”
“Do I mean anything to you other than a bit of sport?”
“You’re playing right into his hands.”
“I’ve played right into yours often enough, haven’t I? What are we doing here, you and I?”
Did she really expect an answer to that question? Did she truly think he knew? Yes, she was a bit of sport, but she was more, and he didn’t know how to define their relationship. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it. But neither could he imagine telling her that.
“Do you still intend to try to marry me off?”
Did he? The thought of another man touching her was enough to send riotous fury rushing through him. He’d never before had a problem sharing women. Why her? Why could he not stand the thought of her going to any other man?
“What then?” she asked, as though growing tired of waiting for him to form some sort of comprehendible answer to what should have been such a simple question. “Your mistress? I think not. I fear Briarwood was correct. I have forgotten myself.” He heard her swallow. “Jack, tomorrow I’d like to take Henry to the country,” she said quietly.
“No.”
“Please don’t insist I go alone.”
Alone. She was leaving him, with or without Henry. God, that she would want to be rid of him badly enough to go without Henry said everything. He looked over his shoulder at her. The sadness in her eyes almost brought him to his knees. The sadness and the regret. He’d taught her the enjoyment of immediate pleasures, encouraged her to taste them without giving thought to the hard price to be paid later. She was now paying a dearer price than he ever would.
“I’m going to the club.” He strode past her, stopped. “I want you and Henry gone before I return late tomorrow morning. And take the damn dog with you.”
He was almost to the door when he heard her first sob. It took every ounce of strength he possessed to continue on.
Henry wasn’t nearly as excited at the prospect of going to the country as Olivia expected him to be. It was because Jack wasn’t going with them. He
nry adored the man.
Not that she could blame him. He could be charming when he wanted to be, and he certainly seemed to have a way with Henry. Was it because of all the boys at his club?
Sitting in a chair beside his bed, she read to Henry, her words flat, his interest flagging. Not because he was tired. She could see that he wasn’t. Each creak of the residence had his gaze darting to the door as though he was expecting—hoping—Jack would come through it and tell him that he wouldn’t be going to the country.
Had Henry loved his father even half as much as he seemed to love Jack?
Olivia closed the book. Henry gave her a guilty look. She thought it unlikely that he was going to fall asleep anytime soon, which would make him grumpy in the morning when they began the journey.
“I’m thinking of going for a walk in the garden,” she said. It was dark but not terribly late. She wasn’t in the mood for bed either, or for being alone. “Would you like to go with me?”
He nodded. “Can I take Pippin?”
She couldn’t remember the last time he’d stammered. “Of course.” She turned to Ida. “Henry and I are going for a walk in the garden.”
“I’ll get him ready for you, Your Grace.”
It was only a few minutes before she and Henry were strolling through the garden, the occasional lantern providing a shadowy path.
“I think Pippin will like the country, don’t you?” Olivia asked.
She could see Henry nodding.
“Why isn’t Jack coming?”
“He has business to see to here.” She crouched before him, turned him to face her. “Henry, you have to understand—”
A shadow stepped out of the darkness.
Chapter 21
Damn her. What did she want him to do? Profess undying love? Ask for her hand in marriage? She was a duchess, for God’s sake. She acted as though he’d forgotten what she was, what he was. He hadn’t. All the money in the world wouldn’t cleanse his origins from him, wouldn’t make it acceptable for him to marry her.
Not that he’d ever consider marriage.
Still, he couldn’t imagine his house without her in it. Couldn’t imagine not hearing the echo of her sharp steps as she strode through the hallways to confront him about one matter or another. Couldn’t imagine the scent of her perfume not wafting from her bedchamber into his via the dressing room, couldn’t imagine it not being on the pillow next to his. Couldn’t imagine silence at meals, laughter unheard, smiles unseen.
He, who had always longed for the next coin, now yearned for something more. A woman. He thought he’d give up every coin he possessed if she would bestow upon him just one more smile.
The knock on his office door made him glower. He didn’t want company, but before he could tell whoever it was that he wasn’t at home—what a silly bit of nonsense that was—the door opened and Swindler stepped in.
“Frannie said I’d find you here.”
No doubt after he’d spent considerable time talking with her. Jack didn’t know why the man didn’t just profess his love for her, ask for her hand in marriage, and be done with it.
On the other hand, maybe he should ask the same of himself regarding Olivia. What was the worst that would happen? She’d say no and he’d send her to the country.
“You all right?” Swindler asked.
“Of course.” Jack reached back and grabbed a glass. He filled it with whiskey, set it in front of Swindler as he took his seat, and then refilled his own glass. “You’re a bit late in informing me that Briarwood is spreading rumors about me.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve had several things I’ve been investigating of late, and you’re not the one who pays my salary.”
“Quit your job and come work for me exclusively. I’ll pay you more than Scotland Yard does.”
“I like my job, thank you very much.”
Jack shrugged. “So what do you have? Did you find out anything about my mother?”
“I’m not hopeful there of ever finding anything. But the other matter you asked me about—Lovingdon engaging in any perversions…”
A hint of something in Swindler’s voice had Jack sitting up straighter. “Yes?”
“I found nothing where he was concerned, but his cousin gives me pause.”
“Briarwood?”
“Rupert Stanford. He’s very much a recluse. According to his maid-of-all-work, the only servant he had until he let her go two days ago, he nearly worked her into the ground keeping everything clean. She was with him for nearly twenty years. He took in maybe a dozen boys during that time. One at a time. Apparently with the intent of finding each boy a proper home. One day she would come into work and find the boy no longer there. She always assumed he’d carried through on his promise, found them someplace else to live.”
“Which he might have,” Jack said, but he wasn’t feeling good about this.
“He well might have. I have nothing conclusive, but I find it troubling in light of your earlier concerns.”
“Perhaps we should visit him.”
The house was not particularly grand, but it was vaguely familiar. Could this be the dwelling he’d been searching for when he aimlessly walked the streets? He remembered the man’s house as being larger, but then to a child of the rookeries—the child that Jack had been—a residence such as this would have taken on the mystique of a palace. Swindler banged the knocker.
“Doesn’t appear anyone’s home,” Swindler said.
“I want to see inside.”
The light from a nearby streetlamp cast a faint glow over Swindler’s face as he arched a brow and gave Jack a stare. Jack stared back until Swindler sighed. “Did you want to do the honors, or shall I?”
Jack felt the slightest of tremors in his hand. “You.”
“Your coachman and footman—”
“Are discreet.”
“They’d better be.”
Swindler reached into his pocket for his tools. Jack angled his body to form some cover for the illegal action. He heard the click and the door swung open with an ominous creak.
He walked in and was greeted with the fragrance of too much soap and furniture wax. A match flared to life. Swindler located an oil lamp and lit it.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Swindler asked.
“A bedchamber.” His voice rasped along his nerve endings.
“Upstairs, I’d say.”
With a nod, Jack bounded up the stairs. Swindler followed. The lamp Swindler carried cast an eerie glow, chasing back shadows, revealing things bit by bit. Nothing looked particularly familiar.
Then they reached the upstairs hallway. There were only four doors. Jack opened the second on the right.
And he was five years old again. Missing his mother, but excited at the prospect of having a bed to sleep in. It was winter. There was a fire in the hearth and it was so nice and toasty. His mother had begun to talk a lot about going to a place called heaven. He decided this had to be it.
“Let’s take a bath, shall we?”
Jack squeezed his eyes closed against the memories. Had Stanford met his mother when she was a servant in the Lovingdon household? He fought to remember—
“Miss Dawkins?”
She was holding Jack’s hand, late at night in the rookeries—
She turned, curtsied. “Mr. Stanford.”
“What have you here?”
“My son, Jack.”
“Jack? Jack? Are you all right?”
Jack opened his eyes at Swindler’s urging and walked farther into the room. “They talked. I couldn’t hear the words. We went to a tavern, ate this wonderful pie with meat in it. They kept talking. All the while he held her hand.”
“What are you talking about?” Swindler asked.
Jack shook his head. He couldn’t explain the unexplainable, but he remembered that when they left, Stanford gave Jack’s mother the coin purse and she’d given Jack the locket. Then Stanford had brought him here.
Jack walked to
the fireplace, bent down, and looked up the flue that had served as his escape tunnel. He’d worked to get the coals off the hearth, burned his feet and hands going up. That had been his first lesson in what a person would do if he wanted something badly enough. He’d been willing to suffer anything to get out.
He spun around and looked back at the bed with the four posts decorated with elaborate vines carved into them. His stomach roiled with memories of what had happened there.
Walking back to Swindler, Jack took the lamp from him and tossed it onto the bed. Flames erupted over the counterpane.
“Good God, have you gone mad?” Swindler asked.
Jack was already on his way through the door. “We have to find Stanford.”
They returned to the club—not as quickly as Jack would have preferred since Swindler insisted on alerting the fire brigade so they had an opportunity to prevent the flames from spreading beyond Stanford’s residence. Jack took some comfort in knowing at least the bed was destroyed.
“You do realize that I can’t arrest him,” Swindler said now as they sat in Jack’s office.
“Sodomy is against the law.”
“But I have no one to testify.”
“I’ll testify.”
Swindler looked away as though suddenly very uncomfortable. Jack supposed it was one thing to have suspicions, another to have confirmation.
“We should probably just handle it ourselves,” Swindler said quietly. “It’s not as though we haven’t done that before. I’m sure there’s someone scheduled for a hanging who doesn’t deserve it.”
“You’d switch prisoners? You don’t think anyone would notice?”
“You could beat him until he was unrecognizable. I’m certain you’d find some satisfaction in that.”
Jack nodded. “I would indeed.”
The door suddenly opened and Thomas Lark, one of the older boys who helped out in the gaming room, rushed in.
“Thomas, you’re supposed to knock,” Jack said.
“Yes, sir, I know, but this was just delivered by a gent who said it was of the utmost importance.”
Jack snatched the envelope Thomas extended. Inside he found a message that caused his heart to thunder.
Between the Devil and Desire Page 27