by Edith Layton
He’d tried for revenge, he’d attempted obliviousness. So far he’d had no success with either.
He couldn’t get the incident at Gentleman Jackson’s out of his mind. Neither wine, nor women, nor sleep, his usual retreats, could get the sight of that dark, avenging, implacable face from his mind’s eye, or take the shock he’d felt as he’d found himself unable to defend himself from his memory, or take the taste of the shame of defeat from his mouth, and that taste has been more bitter than the blood he’d tasted there. It was Warwick Jones’s blood he wanted now. Nothing else would mend the insult. But Warwick Jones, who ought to have been the easiest target for retribution, had turned out to be the most impervious to it.
The first step to destroying a man, if it were to be done well, and done entirely, was to take his good name away. Warwick Jones lived alone, he wasn’t an ornament of society, but was part of it by birth, and known to be odd, unusual, and reclusive. That being the case, that being famous in fact, who would have believed, Lord Moredon thought, staring down at the bare table he sat at, that the man would be so well-defended?
For he’d gone to Watier’s not four nights past, so soon as his face had healed enough for the sight of it not to cause talk, and he’d gambled for such high stakes at that gilded gaming house that he’d attracted attention to himself for it, and that was what he’d been after. He was annoyed to discover himself realizing it was wildly extravagant, dimly recalling the exigencies his man-at-business had lately been plaguing him about. But he’d needed one scandal to overshadow the other, believing it better to be discussed for being reckless with money than to be spoken of as having been defeated by a man younger, leaner, and altogether less sizable than himself. Then, as all had gone according to plan, when he’d had wine with a group of influential gentlemen after, he’d dropped the name, so cleverly working it into the conversation that he believed it looked as though the drubbing had slipped his mind, and that if he recalled it at all, it was only as the merest jest.
Then at that table with the other bored gentlemen—an earl, a duke, a famous poet, and a confidant of the Prince among their number—he dropped the hint. He’d mentioned that though he wasn’t best pleased with losing the blunt tonight, he certainly wouldn’t set about repairing his purse the way some supposed gentlemen did. And when no one inquired further, he began to speak of rumors he’d heard of certain persons who trafficked in certain secrets for their money. And then he’d mentioned such names as Napoleon, and Joseph Bonaparte, and Warwick Jones.
He’d offered to say more. They’d left. At once, en masse, silently, and immediately.
It transpired that they all admired Jones. Some of them had been to school with him, some knew him through various businesses he involved himself with. Warwick Jones might ignore society, but society never ignored him. Lord Moredon hadn’t known that then, but found it out later that night, from a drunken fop too castaway to care what he said, much less care that it was no longer considered correct to be speaking with him.
He hadn’t wanted a girl from Madame Felice’s the next night, but he’d known that there would be other influential men gathered in the grand salon of that ornate bawdy house. And so, as he’d gossiped and bought wine for several gentlemen and prostitutes there, as he’d circled his own choice’s breast with one hand and his wineglass with the other, he’d laughed and mentioned that it was too bad he couldn’t meet Mr. Warwick Jones or his pretty friend Viscount Hazelton there as well, but then, everyone knew those two were such good, intimate friends that they had no need of the sort of sport Madame Felice could provide them. The silence that met that remark had been so profound that others in the huge and gaudy room had turned to see what had caused it, as surely as if they’d heard a scream ring out instead of the sudden, utterly complete hush that fell over that quarter of the room. He’d had to pay Madame Felice extra that night for the damage he did later in his fury at how all of the gentlemen had left him alone at the table with the whore, but it was worth it, since Madame Felice then swore the girl would never talk about what had been done to her.
This morning at his club he’d been shocked to find that the few men he’d managed to collar had drifted away from him, making feeble excuses at best, or at worst, providing none. He’d never been treated so. Although he had no one close friend, he’d thought he had many, for he’d always been a popular man, at school, in society, in his world. He could scarcely believe it, he knew it was all Warwick Jones’s fault., He couldn’t see the expression on his face when he so much as mentioned Warwick Jones’s name now, nor could he hear the tone in his own voice when he did so, thus he’d no idea of how he terrified some of his listeners and disgusted others.
Those weeks lying in bed, not receiving visitors so as not to feed the rumors about what had happened to him, lying alone with himself day after day for the first time in his life, after his first real defeat, after his great public shame, with little to do but remember the indignity, had helped him plot his revenge but had also changed him. He soon forgot all else as the injustices the dark and the light young gentlemen had visited upon him grew clearer, grew larger. Thoughts of revenge ripened as well, becoming so much sweeter that soon even remembrance of the shameful incidents that made it necessary became delicious to think on. Of course, it changed him. But the change was so subtle that he himself couldn’t see it, for it was only an intensification, bringing out all that which he’d hidden for so long from the world, and more, from himself.
He’d been to gambling hells, he’d visited houses of pleasure—he’d been shunned there. He’d been ignored at his club, and then he had found no cards of invitation to select parties and teas and routs and ridottos and balls waiting for him when he’d returned home. Those cards had always begged his attendance at those affairs which occupied most of his life, and were usually stacked so high each day that he had to pick and choose from among them in order to winnow out the best each night. They came no longer. He’d sent his sister away to keep her clear, in name and person, from his doings. Now there was no one to speak with, there was no other recourse.
He’d have to see to the death of Warwick Jones, whether he could disgrace him first or not.
And as for the beggar viscount, the boy he’d remembered from school, the lad with the unearthly beautiful face and body, the one his sister thought to taunt him with, he, Lord Moredon thought, trembling with the force of his frustration, he’d find death preferable to what was planned for him. But that, he discovered to his relief whenever he allowed himself to think about it, could not be thought about, it would have to come second. First, he must bring down the viscount’s devoted friend, Warwick Jones.
Yet he discovered that even here in the slums, among creatures who scarcely qualified to be called human, he was refused. Now, because of a man named Lion. There were a great many terrible things Lord Moredon was, especially in his altered condition, but he was not a physical coward.
He rose from the table and strode to the sagging wooden bar. The barkeep looked at him in some apprehension. The tall fair gentleman spoke in loud, carrying accents, addressing the room: some huddled sots, the few dozing petty thieves, the failed procurers and cutpurses who frequented the tavern.
“I seek,” he announced, “the Lion. I want him to know this. I’ll pay a reward, a handsome reward to anyone who helps me in this. I want the Lion to know that I shall count him afraid of me if he avoids me. I want to speak with him. Now. Today. I’ll wait here. I shall await his pleasure.”
*
The alleyway twisted so many times that Lord Moredon gave up trying to memorize it in order to learn his exit. If he’d come this far, it was too late to turn back, even if he’d wanted to. It was obvious he didn’t want to, for it was that very look of eagerness, barely restrained, that his host first noticed when Lord Moredon was ushered into his parlor. The next thing he noted about his noble guest, to his great interest, was the fact that the gentleman was obviously having difficulty veiling that excite
ment, as well as other emotions which raced across his face. As this was a gentleman placed high in the ton, this was exceptional, since it was the style of such men always to display cool impassivity, especially to their social inferiors. And, as this was also a gentleman who clearly didn’t realize he suffered from this handicap, it was disturbing as well. But although he was no gentleman, only a King of Thieves, the Lion’s own face revealed none of these ruminations as he arose and offered his hand to Lord Moredon when the nobleman was shown into his presence.
Lord Moredon took the proffered hand, shook it, and with an expression of great affability, immediately ruined by the fleeting impression of secret self-congratulation that flickered upon his fair face, said heartily, “Well, Lion, we meet again. I’ll admit I wasn’t best pleased with you when we last parted. But, indeed, I’ve heard so many good things about you since, I find I cannot hold a grudge. Thank you for giving me an audience,” he said on a laugh of such falseness that the Lion looked at him sharply as he offered him a chair. But since the gentleman took the chair, crossed his legs, and seemed entirely at his ease, it was apparent to his host that he’d no idea of mockery, or rather, had not the smallest notion of how transparently he concealed the mockery he meant.
“I heard you were seeking me, my lord,” the Lion answered calmly, seating himself as well. “It was clever of you to offer a reward for getting the message to me, prudent of you to wait in the tavern for so many hours for my reply, brave of you to follow my man here, but foolish, very foolish, I’m afraid, to frame your request to see me as a challenge.”
There was a moment of silence as Lord Moredon looked at his host. The two men sat in a plain but well-furnished parlor in a ramshackle building. The interior of the house was as acceptable in cleanliness and taste as the exterior was not. In fact, if it weren’t for the pair of brutal-looking guards at the door, it would seem a commonplace social call between gentlemen. The two men were of a height, both were fair-skinned, both had fashionable hairstyles, though one had thin light hair and the other a springy ginger crop. Both were clad in proper gentlemen’s attire. But there their resemblance ended. For the Lion was twice as broad about the chest and neck, his features were as hewn from rock, and about as mobile as one too. But, after hearing his host’s statement, the other man’s refined features showed hasty anger, cupidity, and only after a brief struggle resolved themselves into the icy calm of a gentleman’s polite expression again. Only then did the Lion frown, and seeing that alarming change, Lord Moredon spoke.
“Brave? Hardly. And foolish? I don’t know. I knew you for a man of business, and so I believed you’d think any tactic that got us together for mutual profit would be acceptable. I’m certainly not mad enough to challenge you, sir,” he added, and for once, there seemed to be some honesty in his speech, for his face didn’t belie his words. But then, the Lion noted, it seemed that the gentleman, upon achieving his end, which was this interview, was rapidly settling down to normalcy again.
“You wouldn’t call laying evidence against me with Bow Street a challenge?” the Lion mused in a low rumble. “You don’t consider complaining about my activities to certain parties in the prime minister’s entourage, in Liverpool’s own circle, who’d made it very difficult for Bow Street to ignore me, a forthright challenge? My dear Lord Moredon, pray, what would you consider a challenge to me then?”
“A glove in the face,” he replied haughtily. “I’m direct, sir. As to the other unfortunate occurrences, why, I believe what has been said might be unsaid. Bow Street is none too eager to press forward without a push from behind. That pressure might be removed, with a word…or two.”
“Ah, and all this through your goodwill?” the Lion asked innocently.
“Alas,” Lord Moredon said, now so deeply into whatever game he was playing that only his lips moved in his serene face, “I’m a man of goodwill, but I’d require a little more than that to move me to such effort. But only a little more, only a trifle. You need do nothing, sir—in fact, you need only to do nothing.”
Lord Moredon laughed gaily at his play on words, but there was that in his laughter which caused the two men at the door to glance at him with sudden attention.
“Mmmm?” the Lion murmured in a low hum of interest.
“I require something done,” Lord Moredon said with great pleasure, that pleasure now showing in his eyes, “but I hear it can’t be done without your approval. Very well, plainly said, give me your approval, and there’s an end to it.”
“An end to what?”
“An end to Warwick Jones,” Lord Moredon said, and his face as he said it was suddenly so naked in its desire that the Lion, who had seen many worse things than desire, nevertheless looked away to his fingertips as he replied.
“Ah, no. I’m sorry, my lord. That I can’t do. That I won’t permit. The gentleman is a friend of mine. No, not strictly true, say ‘an acquaintance.’ But we’ve an understanding. You’ll recall the matter concerning the Viscount Haze1ton? Ah, yes, but how could you forget? That’s where we first met, as I was preventing you from kicking the young gentleman’s face in. Then I took action without knowing the fellow, only because I didn’t wish to see a work of art defaced. In a most literal sense,” he added, smiling to himself at his inadvertent pun.
But seeing his visitor’s own blank white face so filled with suppressed emotion that it was obvious he was in no mood for humor, he went on smoothly. “Now I have the pleasure of knowing both gentlemen. And I’ll say only that if I wished them harm, I’d do it myself. I wouldn’t take hire to do it, nor, I believe, should any man of honor.”
“Man of honor!” Lord Moredon breathed, his eyes wide, so enraged that a vein pulsed noticeably in the center of his forehead. “Honor among thieves, more likely. Do you protect him because of his gallows-ripe ancestor? But that was centuries ago. I tell you I have a grievance against the man, and you’ve no right to thwart me!”
Lord Moredon sprang to his feet even as his host rose slowly to his and the two men at the door stepped forward. The Lion casually waved them back, and stepping forward himself until he was almost nose-to-nose with his furious guest, he said in such a sweetly reasonable voice that it was chilling, “I do not thwart you, my lord. If you want him…get him…but without my help.”
“I don’t know what he’s given you for protection, but I’ll double it!” Lord Moredon shouted.
“I doubt you can equal it, much less double it. It’s simply a matter of taste, my lord, and I’ve no taste for your business. And that business—taking a man’s life because you’ve taken a beating from him in a fair fight—it’s a trifle…excessive, is it not? Especially since, as I understand it, your quarrel originally was nothing to do with him at all, but only with his friend, and his honoring that friendship.”
“Friendship?” Lord Moredon sneered. “If that’s what it’s called now. But yes, that’s how it began. They were always friends, back in school, before that pauper began to court my sister, before he dared to try to lay his hands on her. It was always remarked how they stayed together, and mocked other people, and laughed together, as if no one else in the school or the world mattered except themselves. They needed a set-down then. And now?” Lord Moredon raged, “See how they still defy me? If you try to hurt the one, you must deal with the other. So,” he said, calming and casting a brilliant smile to his host, “it is simple: to deal with the one, you must hurt the other.”
“No,” the Lion said, “you must hurt the other—I will not. And I suspect you won’t either, though not from want of trying. And why should you? Come, my lord,” he said in a conciliatory tone, his voice purring so warmly and soothingly it was almost as if he’d actually laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder as he spoke, although he made no movement at all, “after all, what have they done except to be friends, the sort of friends you or I would be glad of? And what has the handsome viscount done, after all, except to fall in love, as either you or I might have done?”
“He�
��s been forbidden to go near my sister,” the other man said coldly. “He’s defied me.”
“But what of your sister?” the Lion asked reasonably. “She could discourage him, could she not?”
“How can she?” Lord Moredon said rapidly, dropping his voice to a fervent whisper, his face working as he strove to conceal whatever it was that struggled to be out. “Who could? I myself had not forgotten him, or anything about him, and I’d not clapped eyes on him for years before he met up with my dear sister. But he is beauty itself, he is beauty incarnate, his face, his form: manly perfection. He haunts her dreams, she dreams of his touch, of those mocking lips, not mocking, but touching, of his body, and of touching it, she cannot resist him, she can’t forget him, though she’s tried, don’t you see?”
“Ah,” the Lion breathed, seeing the white tense face of Lord Moredon, and taking a step back, as though he didn’t want even the other man’s breath to touch him now, “yes, my lord, I do see. But can’t you? Killing that which you desire doesn’t kill the yearning for it. You must kill the desire for it first.”
Lord Moredon blinked. It was possible he had heard and understood what was said, but then, if he had, he should have been hotly denying it, or been enraged to the point of battle. Instead, his expression became crafty as he said, brightly, as if he’d heard nothing but what had been discussed earlier, “But you don’t have to help me. There are many ways to kill a man. If you cannot get him, why then, you can get at those who matter to him. I’ve endless resources. I’m not done. But I’ve wasted my time here, and there’s little time to waste. Good day.”