by Edith Layton
“But are you a mute? Is that why they had such difficulty launching you into the ton? And here I had heard it was only because you were a common baggage masquerading as a lady, a fishmonger’s daughter foisted on society for love or money. Which was it, my child? One of the gentlemen needs money badly, and the other might have tired of your charms, for I understand he grows bored rapidly with his conquests, and so he might have used you to play his little joke on us. He was always fond of jests,” the gentleman said, suddenly angry, suddenly glaring at her.
She tried to be brave, and stared back at him steadily.
“But to whom am I speaking, sir? We’ve not been introduced. I was abducted, carried here, I assume you to be my rescuer, and I’d like an explanation.”
She knew she’d said the right things, for he seemed taken aback, but she knew she’d said them wrong, because what was meant to be cool and brazen came out weak and bewildered, in thin, trembling tones. Then she realized it hardly mattered, he had some plan in mind that words would not unravel, and when he spoke again she understood that what she’d seen in his eyes was so, and something had gone badly wrong in his mind itself that perhaps no mortal thing could unravel.
“My name is Lord Robert Moredon,” he answered, smiling at her again, “a name that ought to be well-known to you. One of your gentlemen wanted to sully that name, the other attempted to muddy it. Both have failed. I have you, you see. And from what I hear, and from what I know, and from what I think,” he said with a twinkle, putting his forefinger to the side of his nose, “that will distress them very much.
“But tell me,” he demanded, annoyed again, “why should that be so? You are pretty, yes, but the world is full of pretty girls. What is it that you do so well to be so important to them? I think,” he said charmingly, teasingly, coming close to her and putting his hand on her neck, “that you shall have to show me.”
She drew back, fighting against his hand, and that he let her do so without stopping her told her that he was enjoying himself.
“Oh,” he said with a great deal of mock sorrow, “she doesn’t want my touch. Perhaps it’s because there’s only one of me, and she’s used to two gentlemen. How do they do it, child?” he asked with great curiosity, seeming so sane and interested that she found it difficult to believe she had heard what he said correctly. “Both together, sandwich style? But which one front, and which one back? Ah, I know. The beautiful blond boy in front so that you can gaze at him in his pleasure, the other round the back where he belongs. Or do they hand you back and forth? Hmm? Why so shy?” he teased. “Is it that you’d rather do it than speak it? Why, that’s no problem, and if you’d like, I’ll call in some of the fellows in the next room so that you can show us the way, and it will feel just like home to you.
“But I am not so perverse as those two, no, who could be? For I’ve heard,” he whispered, “and I do believe it, that when you’re not available, they manage to do wonderfully without you, the Adonis and the Highwayman. And I am never so lost to cleanliness. So I think I’ll try you alone and then call the others in for their desserts.”
He took her in his arms, but then paused to look into her face again. And in that moment she feared his embrace so much that reason fled and she gave way to hopelessness. But when his kiss didn’t come, she opened her eyes to see him wearing the same sort of avid look that she had surprised briefly on Warwick’s face that day in the wood just before he’d released her. But Warwick had acquired that intent, tensely concentrated expression only after many long sweet embraces. Innocent of such matters as she was, when Lord Moredon still made no move to touch her as he greedily drank in her appearance, and when she remembered that even the foul-smelling brute in the next room had let his hands rove all over her whenever he could, and would have done far more if he could, she dimly perceived that this man would never know that sort of desire for her. And that he neither wanted nor needed her body for his gratification, since it was only her distaste and fear he fed upon. Then she vowed that since that was the one thing she could control in all this nightmare, she would die rather than continue to give him such pleasure.
“You will not,” she announced coldly and distinctly, her mouth inches from his, “get either of them this way, you know. No, for I am not Warwick Jones, nor am I the beautiful Viscount Hazelton, so having me, you still will not have either of them.”
He dropped his hands and stepped away from her at once as though she’d stung him. He frowned, for it seemed he heard her words in some altered fashion, from afar or with an echo, for it took some while for him to make sense of them. Then he gazed at her with such hatred that it took all her resolve not to shiver.
“I don’t want them,” he said scornfully, “I never wanted either of them! Don’t you understand? Why can’t you understand?” he whispered fervently. “I keep telling you, I don’t desire either of them, never, not even back at school. It’s not just that it’s a hanging offense, it’s an offense to me, I’m a man and a man doesn’t want other men, no matter how beautiful, how strong, or comely, or clever he is, with all his fair hair and golden skin. Let his sly, knowing friend Warwick have him, I don’t care, I’m not jealous in the least,” he snapped. “No. Not I!” he shouted.
He answered what she’d never meant to ask, but it told her more than she wished to know. He’d gone through a gamut of expressions as he’d spoken, wheedling, shouting, posing. Now he grew red-faced and writhed in distress, holding his hands tightly together as if he knew it was the last of his sanity he held there. She did not honestly think she would survive that moment.
But there was a tentative tapping on the door, and a meek but audible voice asked, “Your lordship, be you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, “oh yes,” he repeated, “yes!” He nodded. “Better and better than ever. I would not,” he said loftily, sneering at Susannah, “dirty the lowest part of my person on you. No, I’ll leave you to them, they have no honor to besmirch by wallowing in your foul body. I’ve better ways to pass my time, better ways to have my little jokes. Oh, I enjoy a good joke too. I’ll be very merry when they’re both gone, I shall laugh for hours. And then I’ll have peace and honor and pride again too,” he said reverentially, before he smiled once more.
“But for now it’s very amusing, for the Highwayman rides again,” he laughed. “Didn’t you know? Oh yes, and all the king’s men are concerned at how Gentleman Jones’s ghost has risen from the grave, don’t you know. And the beautiful Julian drives a coach, too! Oh heavens,” he giggled, “how dangerous for him.
“But the first jest, little trull,” he said, sobering, and smoothing a glove over his fingers, “is on you. Gentlemen,” he said airily, throwing open the door and surprising the three men clustered close, who’d evidently been trying to hear all that had transpired within, “she’s yours. Have her with my blessings. Hearty appetite. Then kill her.”
The three looked at each other, then at Susannah.
“Ah, but, your lordship,” the fat fellow said, grinning like a dog begging for a scrap, “she said—”
“She lies,” Lord Moredon said, taking out his wallet, handing out bills to them as if they were calling cards. “Believe nothing she says. Or shouts out.” He grinned.
The tall man took his payment and slipped off a battered boot to briefly display a bony grime-edged ankle before he hid the money beneath his foot without looking at it, he was so busily eyeing Susannah. As he pulled on the boot again, he laughed.
“Good sport here,” he said to his companions, who were counting over their money. “I tole you she never knew Lion, lying bitch.”
“Oh, Lion,” Lord Moredon said, pausing as he was leaving the room. “Oh good. Yes. I’d forgot. I’ll have my joke on him too. Be sure I’ll tell him of your fate, little trollop, I think I’ll even have your demise laid at his door. Literally,” he said thoughtfully. “Deliver her to the Lion’s door when you’re done,” he said lightly, as he started to leave once again. “That will be amus
ing, yes.”
The tall man stopped in his tracks as he approached Susannah. His hand had been reaching out to her. She would, she thought, remember that cadaverous, filthy hand in all her nightmares forever, but at Lord Moredon’s words, he lowered it.
“Lion knows her?” he asked, even as the fat man stopped counting his money and swerved around, crying, “He knows her and you want us to lay her corpse on him?” and the thin man visibly shook as he asked slowly, for it seemed he thought that way, “The beautiful lady is a friend to Lion ’isself?”
“If either one can be called friend,” Lord Moredon scoffed. “But what matter?”
“But, your lordship—” the tall man began, as the gentleman wheeled round and stared at him.
“I have paid good money, in good faith, I want my will done,” Lord Moredon said coldly, slapping a tattoo with the glove he carried against his palm, his eyes wide with anger.
“Oh, never fear, never fear, your lordship, your will be done, all right and tight, never fear,” the fat man babbled, stepping down hard on the tall man’s toe, before he walked the mollified gentleman to the door, continually murmuring, “Never fear,” even after Lord Moredon’s footsteps had stopped echoing on the stair. Then he came back into the room and sighed heavily, looking at his two companions.
“He’s a crackbrain,” he said, “mad, entirely. Bedlam-ripe. But he can make trouble. The Lion can make more.”
“I don’t want nothin’ to do with the Lion, I don’t,” the thin man keened, shuffling his feet. “I din’t know this ’ad to do with Lion. You never tole me,” he accused the other sullenly.
“I didn’t know. But I suppose that’s why we got the hire,” the fat man said sorrowfully, “it’s likely no one else would take it, that does make a certain sad sense to me. So, since we can’t take a step right, we’d best take none at all, except in the direction of the door. I suggest we take the money and leave the premises, and don’t come back until this is all history.”
“Oh, good, thankee, Nipper,” the thin man breathed.
“Well then,” the fat man said happily, “that’s it, deeply regret your inconvenience, my lady, be pleased if in all charity you’d forget the incident, and the name my friend let slip, and we’ll be done with this. Good day to you.”
He turned and put his arm about the thin man and they went to the door, but then he stopped and looked back. “I want her,” the tall man said, staring fixedly at Susannah, “whatever. You go on, it don’t matter to me.”
“But, dear fellow,” the fat man said nervously, “it is known that we are comrades. Even the rats in the walls in this hovel tell tales. It is known that we snatched the young lady. We shall be judged as one and the Lion will be very angry with us all.”
“Let him. I can hide out after having her, or afore. Might as well have her then, eh? I won’t kill her, ’cept with happiness,” he laughed.
Susannah tensed. She knew no words would stop this man, and had no other weapons, but vowed she’d fight until he had to kill her. But as he smiled and swaggered toward her pulling at his makeshift belt, the thin man came up behind him, extracted a weighted bag from his floppy sleeve, and with no more fuss than a man putting out a lamp, swung the bag down at the base of the tall man’s neck and sent him crashing to the floor. Then he carefully replaced the bag, bent, picked up the tall man’s ankles, and began to drag him to the door.
“Impetuous. Foolish,” the fat man said, shaking his head, staring down at the unconscious man. “The cosh was the only remedy for it. Not that you’re not lovely,” he said hastily, “but our respect for the Lion surpasseth beauty. Tell him that, please. Good afternoon,” he said, bowing as he ducked out the door to the stair.
It was a long time after the sound the tall man’s head made as it bumped down the stairs had faded, and a long while after the muffled curses of his friends’ bearing up under his weight as they carried him from the alley were stilled before Susannah dared to move at last. And then she ran.
After she’d fled down three ragged streets, she paused, winded, her exhaustion finally allowing her brain to get control of her feet again. She realized, as she gasped for breath, that not only was it idiocy to run when there was no longer anyone to run from, it made no sense at all to run when one didn’t know where to run to. She paused against a wall and tried to reclaim all her higher reasoning from whatever dark recesses it had scurried into when sheer terror had sent her winging out into the streets.
She had no idea of where she was, but had little doubt that it wasn’t the sort of place she’d ever drive through, much less venture on foot, alone. Looking about at the deserted crumbling buildings crowded close to the filthy streets and scenting the ripe odors the wind blew to her nose, the purest of which was garbage, she realized she was a very long way from home. But, she decided, she’d had enough of fear for one day. She’d have to make do with her wit. It was her only remaining asset anyway, she discovered. Her portmanteau had gone with the carriage. And not only would it take a major modern miracle to get her to retrace her steps to the vile place where she’d been held captive, even though she hadn’t thought to look when she fled it, she very much doubted if her reticule or anything in her purse had been left for her use. She’d been freed, but was certain her money had been redistributed the moment she’d been taken captive.
It was then impossible to get back to Greenwood Hall straightaway, even if she found a way out of this maze of hideous streets. And all her friends were there, or en route back there by now. Dear Charlie was, of course, even further from her. And she knew no other soul in London. And night was coming on. She almost wept then. But she looked up to see that she’d attracted some attention, and a thievish, dangerous-looking boy was eyeing her with considerable interest. Then she remembered that, of course, there was someone she knew. So she walked up to the boy, alarming him considerably, for he’d thought that if she were in her right mind she’d be picking up her skirts and running in the opposite direction. Even as he backed away from the madwoman, hoping none of his friends could see him now, she asked, as politely as she was able, “Excuse me, young man, but can you tell me where the gentleman called Lion lives?”
Everyone, Susannah thought wearily, as she dragged down increasingly dark streets, knew the Lion. No one, however, wanted a word with her after she inquired after him. In one way she was glad of it, for she’d encountered a great many unsavory people in the last hours, from outright bad men and wicked women who’d tried to buy or menace her until she’d held up that one name, which like a flaming sword dispersed them—to the miracle of a shabby one-legged beggar who sprouted another leg to run with at the mention of that dread name—to one sweet, kindly older woman who had looked as misplaced as herself in these mean streets. The woman had appeared like a comforting angel from out of a handsome coach to offer her tea and charity, but then looked as if she were about to have a heart spasm when the Lion’s name was brought into Susannah’s grateful acceptance speech. The last Susannah saw of her was her back as she popped right back into her carriage. Tealess and terrified, Susannah then realized that however kindly the old dame had been, she must have actually been the living embodiment of what she’d always thought was a fabulous creature, talked about in girls’ schools only in the night in whispered cautionary tales: one of the infamous females like the notorious Mother Carey or Madame Felice, who dealt in other females’ services and resorted to kidnapping new employees right off the streets themselves now and again.
She’d almost decided that the Lion himself was a fabulous beast, and had paused to inspect a slipper to see if it had any sole left at all, when she heard a hoarse voice whisper, “If you be lookin’ for Lion, foller me, miss.”
The ragged man was thin and shifty. For one horrid moment Susannah thought he might be her erstwhile captor, but this man was thinner, and even more nervous. She hesitated only a second, and then decided that since the Lion’s name had frightened men twice this man’s size and twice his num
ber, he was scarcely likely to defy him and mislead her. Anyway, she was weary. And she really had little choice, she thought as she followed him.
But when she finally came to the neat house he led her to on a better street than she’d been traveling, she entered it and after she’d passed the muster of a series of grim guards, she found herself in a spacious, cheerful, comfortable set of rooms. And there in the center, ensconced in a huge leather chair, looking as ruddy and cheerful as the firelight reflecting on his wide, craggy, smiling face, was the most welcome sight she’d seen all day.
“Oh, Lion,” she sighed, her eyes filling with a mist of happy tears, “how glad I am to see you. I’ve been searching for you everywhere.”
“Yes, so I understand, Miss Logan. I am flattered, believe me. Now, what is your pleasure, beautiful lady, or is it,” he asked, beaming, as he arose, “the same as mine? I devoutly hope so,” he said enthusiastically as he approached near enough for her to see how largely he leered, “for that would save me a great deal of trouble tonight.”
At that, Susannah did the first ladylike thing she’d done all during the long, distressing day, although she hadn’t planned to. She crumpled, exceedingly gracefully, and fainted away at his feet.