Just a Little Temptation

by Merry Farmer

  Max tensed, twisting in anticipation of his father’s butler striding through the door.

  “Holmes,” his father called, louder, when the man didn’t appear.

  “Let me guess.” Max faced his father once more. “You’re going to sequester me in my room, forbid me to go out in company, and keep me locked away from the man I love.”

  “No,” his father answered with perfect calm. “I’m going to have you arrested and thrown in jail, and then I am going to contact my solicitor to have you stricken from the family rolls and denied any sort of financial benefit that comes with being a part of this family. You are no longer my son, nor are you anything to me. Holmes!”

  “Yes, my lord.” The butler appeared in the door at last.

  Max hissed out a breath, turning to stride out of the room without waiting for the scene that was bound to unfold with Holmes. His father wasn’t bluffing, but he didn’t care. It was well past time for him to cut ties with all the things that were holding him back and to embrace the future he was destined for. But as much as that filled him with hope and confidence, he knew for absolute certain that he’d made a deadly enemy of his father. He and Stephen would need all the protection they could get, and it might already have been too late.

  Chapter 20

  Stephen wasn’t entirely certain where he was, and it unnerved him. Without his glasses, he’d only been able to guess where the police officer who had arrested him dragged him off to once they’d disembarked from the train in London. Wherever it was, it was an unfamiliar part of the city to him. If he had to guess, he’d say he was somewhere north of his usual neighborhood in Limehouse. The jail he’d been thrown in was dim and dreary and smelled of unwashed bodies and hopelessness.

  “I demand to speak to my solicitor,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time since leaving Leicester as the officer tossed him into a filthy cell. “His name is Mr. David Wirth, and his office is at—”

  “You’ll speak to the devil before you speak to him,” the officer cut him off. Even without his spectacles, Stephen could see his sneer. “Filth like you should be kept away from decent folks.”

  The officer shoved him deeper into the cell—so hard Stephen nearly lost his balance—then slammed the cell door shut with a resounding clang.

  “What’d he do?” the clerk who had processed his arrival asked the officer with genuine bewilderment in his voice.

  “He’s a bloody queer,” the officer growled, marching back through a door to the front of the building.

  One of the two men already in Stephen’s cell snorted in derision and stepped to the other side of the cell as though Stephen were contagious. The other stayed where he was but muttered, “Aw, bloody hell,” and hunkered in on himself as though Stephen might attack him.

  Stephen didn’t need glasses to see that his two companions were rough men in mismatched clothes that had obviously come off of a rag pile. Neither had shaved or bathed in what smelled like days, and when he squinted, Stephen could see that one of them was missing more than a few teeth. And yet, they shied away from him, a man in a neat, if not expensive, suit who was only a little worse for wear after a trying day. Added to the mountain of insults that had already been hurled on him that day, their behavior was too much.

  “I demand to speak to my solicitor,” he shouted, grabbing the cell’s bars and shaking them. He knew his efforts would be ignored, but dammit, it felt good to rage and shake and try to take some sort of action.

  His outburst got him no attention whatsoever. It didn’t matter how loud he shouted or whom he demanded to see, from David to Mrs. Ross. Both his jailors and his cellmates ignored him. Hours passed with no sign of activity from the office at the front of the jail. Stephen eventually sank to a sitting position on the floor, his shoulder propped against the bars, hugging himself. Spending a night in jail was one thing, but the sinking, desperate feeling that he’d been thrown out like so much refuse, shunted aside to be forgotten about, and all because of what he was, wouldn’t leave him. Max didn’t know where he was. No one knew. He could disappear as certainly as any of the children who had been kidnapped by the ring, and like those children, no one would care or have the slightest idea where he’d gone.

  Those thoughts made for a restless and sleepless night. The men in the cell with him dropped into ear-splitting snores as darkness filled the cell. The only light that had been left to them was a sickly, sputtering lantern that burnt itself out somewhere in the middle of the night. That left Stephen completely in the dark, alone with his thoughts and fears, more alone than he had ever been in his life.

  “I’m sorry, Max,” he whispered, leaning his head against the bars, his heart aching like it’d never ached before. “I’m sorry for pushing you away when you care as much about the girls as I do.” Realizing that at such a late hour was bittersweet. Max did care for his girls, which made him so much more than just a distraction. It made him an ally and a partner on so many levels. He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” he murmured on. “Your life could be so free and easy now if not for—”

  He stopped his ramblings, sitting straighter and rolling his shoulders in an attempt to work the knots out. In fact, Max’s life wouldn’t have been any easier without him. Men like them were condemned to difficult lives, no matter what their fortunes were. He was being held without formal charges, and without his spectacles, for no reason other than whom he loved.

  Max’s father had to be behind his arrest somehow. That thought filtered through the fuzz in Stephen’s brain as the first hint of light crept through the single, small window at the back of the cell. Lord Eastleigh had threatened him directly and through Max, and a man of that stature wasn’t the sort to make hollow threats. In the midst of the confusion at the factory, he’d assumed Sister Constance had brought the Metropolitan Police officers with her after learning where he and Max had gone through Mrs. Ross. But the more Stephen thought about it, the less likely it seemed that a single nun from an impoverished orphanage in Limehouse would have the power to convince half a dozen police officers to travel all the way to Leicester. Only someone as powerful and well-connected as a duke could do something like that.

  A duke would be able to mastermind a vast kidnapping ring capable of transporting children not just out of London, but out of the country entirely. Details of the entire case as he’d discussed it with David and Lionel came back to him. David and Lionel had stopped a ship from departing Batcliff Cross Docks for the orient. It would take a man of extreme power and connection to organize an international trafficking ring. And if English children were being transported abroad for nefarious reasons, it stood to reason that foreign children might have been kidnapped and brought to European shores. They weren’t facing simple kidnappings, they were dealing with crime on an international scale.

  Only someone as powerful as Lord Eastleigh would be able to pull something like that off.

  But how? And what did Lord Eastleigh stand to gain from it all? Was Max’s father the highest rung in the ladder they were trying to bring down or could someone even higher be at the top?

  Those questions and more were rattling through Stephen’s brain, confusing him more and more, when the door from the office banged open and a harried-looking clerk wandered in with a pitcher of water and several heels of bread that looked like it had seen better days. Stephen pushed himself to his feet, feeling every sore muscle and weary bone in his body, as the young man brought the food to the cell and pushed it through the bars.

  “I would like to speak to my solicitor,” he told the young man as his two cellmates scrambled to claim the bread and water, leaving none for Stephen. “His name is David Wirth of the offices of Dandie & Wirth. Can you help me reach him?”

  The young man backed away, his face pale and his eyes wide, shaking his head.

  “Please,” Stephen appealed to him, desperation clawing at his insides once more. “I desperately need to speak to him about chi
ldren who have been kidnapped. I believe I know who is behind it all.”

  The young man turned tail and ran back to the office, slamming the door and leaving Stephen alone with his thoughts and the two thugs imprisoned with him.

  “Children been kidnapped?” one of the thugs asked as he chewed the dry bread.

  Stephen clenched his jaw, expecting the worst from the man, and turned toward him. “Yes,” he said. He couldn’t make out the man’s features distinctly across the cell, but he looked less hostile than he had the night before. “Children have gone missing all over the city. Yesterday, my colleague and I found dozens of them being put to work forcibly in a cloth mill in Leicestershire.”

  The two men stopped chewing and stared at him.

  “What happened to ’em?” the other man asked.

  Stephen rubbed a hand over his face. “I can only hope that Sister Constance and my friend managed to get them all to safety and can return them to their homes.”

  “Didn’t Bob’s boy go missing in the spring?” the second man asked the first.

  “He did,” the first man said. “Good boy he was too. Not the sort to wander off like that.”

  “With any luck, he was one of the children we rescued,” Stephen said on a sigh.

  The two men turned to him. “Hold on,” the second one said. “If you rescued ’em like you say, what are you doing locked in here with us?”

  “I’ve been asking the same question since last night.”

  The statement was made by David Wirth as he marched into the room lined with cells, Mrs. Ross and Annie a few steps behind him. Stephen could have wept for joy at the sight of the man, even if he couldn’t make out his features clearly.

  “Thank God you found me,” he said, turning and grabbing the bars.

  “You were not easy to find,” David said, arching an eyebrow ominously. “We’ve been checking every jail in London since Max stormed into The Chameleon Club last night. Not even Jack Craig could tell us where you’d been carted off to.” He paused, his mouth pulling into a lopsided grin. “Lionel will be green with envy when he learns I found you first based on Jewel’s information.”

  Stephen was certain he’d see the humor in that situation later, but for the time being, he just wanted his freedom. “Can you get me out of here?” he asked, gripping the bars as though he could rip them from the floor.

  “No, he cannot,” the officer who had arrested him said, striding over to the cell as though he were the cock of the walk. Stephen hadn’t noticed him enter the room. “This man’s here on charges of sodomy. He’s to be held until further notice.”

  “Sodomy?” Annie squeaked. Stephen wasn’t close enough to make out her expression clearly, but he winced all the same. Of all the times for Annie to finish putting the pieces together, this was the worst.

  “By whose authority have these charged been brought?” David asked, rounding on the man.

  David succeeded in intimidating the officer where Stephen had failed. “Um…well…I….”

  “He’s a dolt if ever I saw one,” Mrs. Ross added with a sniff.

  “Lord Eastleigh has to be behind this,” Stephen said, venom in his voice.

  He didn’t need to say more. David hummed in agreement, but kept his focus on the officer. “How do you intend to prove the charges?” he asked.

  “Prove?” The officer squirmed, glancing Stephen’s way. He cleared his throat. “Ain’t it obvious, sir?”

  Under any other circumstances, Stephen would have smirked at the man’s imbecility. He clearly had no idea whom he was talking to as he cowered under David’s commanding gaze.

  The farce was interrupted yet again as Max flew into the room, two new police officers with him. Stephen squinted, but he couldn’t make out who the officers were or decide if they were friend or foe.

  “I came as soon as I learned where he was being held,” Max said, anxious and out of breath. He rushed toward the cell, reaching for Stephen. Even without his spectacles, Stephen could see the ardent concern painting Max’s face.

  David stepped between the two of them before Max could reach the cell. “Thank you for your concern, Lord Hillsboro,” he said, completely businesslike. “Lord Hillsboro here, a viscount, is patron of Mr. Siddel’s orphanage,” he explained to the snide officer, who was beginning to look less and less certain of things by the moment. “I assume he has come to post bail.”

  Annie let out a long, painful, “Oh!”

  “Yes,” Max said, snapping straight and taking a large step back from the cell. He glanced to Annie with what Stephen hoped was a silencing look. Stephen thanked their lucky stars that Max was clever enough to immediately take his lead from David and not let on how attached they were, and that Annie kept her mouth shut. “Whatever the amount, I’ll pay it.”

  “You got that kind of money?” the snide officer asked, glancing between Max and Stephen with narrowed eyes. “Because what I heard is that you’re skint at the moment.”

  Stephen’s gut clenched. The officer clearly knew who Max was and the situation he was in. Which meant he knew Lord Eastleigh. It was proof that his thoughts had traveled down the right path after all.

  “Who is in charge of this jail?” he demanded, glancing to David in the hope that he could communicate his realizations to the man. “I am being held under false pretenses in order to satisfy a personal vendetta with Lord Eastleigh.”

  “I knew it,” Max growled.

  “You are not,” the officer protested, his face splashing with color. “You’re here because you’re a pervert.”

  “And what if I wasn’t?” Stephen asked, grasping at any straw that might help him.

  The officer barked a laugh. “You have the nerve to ask me to prove you’re not who we all know you are? Well, why don’t you prove you aren’t?”

  Heat flooded Stephen’s face and neck. He should have denied the accusation from the start, as much as it would have hurt his pride. The fact that he’d been silent for so long was damning.

  “He’s not what you say he is,” Annie blurted into the awkward silence that followed. All eyes turned on her. She stepped closer to the cell. “Stephen is my fiancé,” she insisted. “We’re going to be married.”

  In spite of the madness of the situation, Stephen grinned. God bless Annie Ross for keeping her head about her when everyone else was losing theirs. “Yes,” he said, reaching through the bars for her. “My friends have known the truth all along. Annie and I are to be married. We were just waiting for the time to be right.”

  “I cannot bear to see you shut away like this, my love,” Annie squeaked, rushing the rest of the way to the cell.

  Her arms were thin enough that she was able to reach straight through the bars to wrap her arms around him. She leaned her head against the bars for a moment as she hugged him, then glanced up at him. There was enough heartbreak in her big, round eyes to melt Stephen’s heart. She’d finally figured out that she would never get her wish of the two of them being together.

  “You are the bravest person I have ever known,” he whispered, bringing his face as close to hers as he could. “And you know that if I were able to, I would marry you in an instant.”

  Annie nodded, her eyes going glassy with tears that brought a lump to Stephen’s throat.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” the snide officer huffed. “I’m under orders to keep this one locked up until….” The man didn’t seem to know how to finish his sentence.

  “Until when?” David took an intimidating step toward him. “Until your master told you to let him go? Until you were paid off? How do you think your real bosses in the Met Police would react if they knew you were abusing your power to hold innocent men captive?”

  “I…I’ve done no such thing,” the officer protested, though it was clear he was on the back foot now.

  “Can you prove it?” David demanded, keeping the heat turned up and backing the officer away from the cell and toward the office. “Should I call my friend, Assistant Com
missioner Jack Craig, here to settle the matter?”

  The officer squealed and stammered, “N-no, sir.”

  “Then I suggest you release Mr. Siddel at once.”

  “But he’s….” The officer flung his arm toward Stephen, glancing to Max.

  Stephen snaked his arms through the bars in an attempt to hug Annie in return. He peeked at Max, who kept his expression carefully neutral. Stephen could feel that Max was fully on board with the ruse, which made it easier for him to commit to it.

  “I ask you.” David turned to the two policemen who had come in with Max. “Does this man look like the sort of criminal Officer Corrupt says he is?”

  “No, sir,” one of the policemen answered immediately.

  “Not at all,” the other agreed, then added, “I’ve got a mate whose sister died. Mr. Siddel’s orphanage took in her girl when no one else in the family would. He’s a saint, that one.” He nodded to Stephen.

  Stephen could have shouted in victory at the sudden twist of good luck.

  “He is a saint,” Annie said, breaking away from him and turning to stand with her back against the bars, as if she were protecting him. “He’s my saint.”

  “That settles it,” David said. “Unlock this cell at once.”

  The snide officer was forced to do as David said, though when he came close and unlocked the door, he glared at Stephen as though the whole thing were far from over. “You’d better watch your back,” the man growled.

  “I don’t need to watch my back,” Stephen muttered in return. “I’ve got plenty of people watching it for me. People your boss can’t touch. You tell him that. Tell him that we’re coming for him now and he will be held accountable for what he’s done.”

  The officer looked horrified at the prospect of being the one to deliver that message. Stephen hoped the bastard got everything he feared might be coming to him for being the bearer of bad news.

  As soon as the cell door was open, Stephen leapt out, charging right for the front office. “We need to get to the orphanage as soon as possible. We have to see to the safety of the girls before—”