The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  “You can’t say the same for me,” she said, with impressive calm. “Can we just go?”

  “Waring told Kim his car’s out of action. He said if we tried to leave the house there’d be consequences. I think we need to take that seriously.”

  Maisie’s lips, normally a dusky pink, were rather pale. “I don’t like this, Will. If—if he isn’t even pretending to be nice any more—”

  “I’m not leaving you alone. I’m staying with you, including in your room if that’s all right.”

  “Yes, and never mind what my ma would say about it. Don’t tell her, though,” she added hastily.

  “If they want to get at you, they’ll have to come through me. We’ll get out of this, Maise. It’ll be all right.” He hoped that was true.

  “Will we? Where’s Kim? What’s he even doing now? He was putting away the booze—”

  “He might be drunk and crying on Phoebe’s shoulder because Lord Waring was mean to him,” Will said. “But I wouldn’t put money on that, myself.”

  Maisie looked at him. Then she went over to the chair where Kim had sat earlier, and felt the seat. “The side of the cushion’s wet and sticky. Like someone spilled a cocktail down it.”

  “He’s pretty quick with his hands. I think he wanted them to assume he was giving in.”

  “All right, I like him a bit more,” Maisie said. “What’s he up to, then?”

  “Don’t ask me, I just work here. Look, I want to get my knife.”

  “Your—”

  “The big one.”

  “You did not bring that to a house party.”

  “No manners. Come up with me?”

  Maisie nodded, but as she rose, the door opened and Kim and Phoebe entered. Kim seemed calm enough. Phoebe looked as close to furious as Will had seen, mouth tight and eyes stormy.

  “Ah, Will,” Kim said. “Just the man. Can I have a word?”

  “I need to get something from my room. Can I leave you two down here?” Will asked.

  “You go,” Maisie said. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Very much so,” Phoebe added rather sharply.

  Will hurried upstairs, alongside Kim, straight to Will’s room. He looked into his bag and snorted. “Someone’s been through this, and they haven’t tried to hide it. All my things are turned up.”

  “Shit,” Kim said. “They took the knife?”

  “Don’t know.” Will reached under the bedside table, and found the Messer where he’d taped it earlier. “No, here we are.”

  “Your suspicious nature is occasionally a very attractive quality. Did you speak to Maisie?”

  “Told her everything. I had to. Kim, listen, I thought of something. I said before that it was Skyrme’s fault you got interested in the High-Low because she sent that blackmailer after you, right? Well, suppose it wasn’t her who sent him?”

  If he’d hoped for a reaction he was disappointed. Kim was nodding. “The same thing occurred to me, forcibly. I think something else is going on, and if I wasn’t a bloody idiot in a flat panic, I’d have seen it days ago. None of this adds up. My intervention has led to a significant loss for Zodiac, which Waring clearly doesn’t appreciate. Mrs. Skyrme didn’t want me or you or Leinster looking into her business. And come to that I’m not convinced it was her who set the police on us. When she departed the club, she took her bankbook to the nearest branch, emptied the account, and got on a train to Dover without troubling to pack. Why would she waste time and money on that parting shot?”

  “Waring might have. That remark about strange bedfellows. Wanker.”

  “Indeed, but it has not previously been in his interest to expose my peccadillos. He likes having that in his back pocket, and if he’d done it at all, I think he’d have done it properly. I think someone else is at work, not operating under Waring’s instructions. The question is who.”

  “That’s what I thought. And then I thought about what you said—that you came back because I went to the High-Low, and you were afraid I was involved. And it seemed to me that someone who knew about us might have known they could drag you into it that way.”

  Kim’s eyes sharpened. “You said you’d gone there by chance. Maisie’s pick.”

  “I thought I had, but the thing is, Maisie was given a voucher for free champagne from a customer at her work. That doesn’t usually happen.”

  “I wish you’d mentioned that earlier,” Kim said. “Any idea—”

  “A woman called Mrs. Galloway. I just asked.”

  Kim’s face set. “Galloway. You’re sure?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Right. Right. The thing is, Will, Hetta Galloway is John Cheveley’s mistress.”

  Will took that in. “Cheveley? Jesus.”

  “Quite.”

  “Bit ripe, proposing to Phoebe five times if he’s got a mistress.”

  “So? Phoebe has a fiancé and Hetta Galloway has a husband. God, you’re bourgeois.”

  “One day I will thump you,” Will promised. “So, what, he wanted to be rid of Mrs. Skyrme? Does he want to be Aquarius instead?”

  “To eliminate her as a rival in Zodiac. Let’s say he sent the blackmailer to me—of course he’d know what to do there. Maybe he discovered that Beaumont was in the same regiment as you and that gave him the idea to drag you in, as a second means of keeping my attention on the High-Low? Either way, he pulled me in and the dominoes started to fall. Which got rid of Mrs. Skyrme very effectively, but has also destroyed a very profitable operation. If I were Johnnie, I’d very much hope Waring didn’t find out about that.”

  “Hold on, though. He couldn’t have known you’d get rid of Skyrme for him. She might have had you shoved under a train as well, or I might not have got to Fuller in time before he shot you. Jesus, Kim, was he trying to get rid of you?”

  Kim sat on the bed. “Yes, that does seem plausible, doesn’t it? Me—no, both. That’s it. He wanted both her and me gone, and he let us do the work. Set your enemies against each other and sit back while they halve their number.”

  Will looked down at him on the bed, the tension in his face, the slim wrists. Young Kim had been careful to keep the scars under his sleeves, as of course he would be. Always hiding, always hurting. A quivering, sensitive mass of nerve endings, clever and sensitive and stupid and unique, and that smug smooth-faced domineering bastard Cheveley had wanted to wipe him out as though he were nothing.

  “Will?”

  “I’m just working out how I’m going to kill the fucker,” Will said. “Don’t mind me. Why is Cheveley trying to get rid of you?”

  “The obvious answer is because he wants to secure Phoebe’s hand, and it’s still wearing my ring.”

  Will shook his head. “She’s told him no a few times now. Why would he think she’d say yes?”

  “Ah,” Kim said. “Well. Did she ever tell you the events that led to our engagement?”

  “I got the gist.”

  “I am going to give you more than the gist, in faith that you will not judge or condemn. Don’t let me down.”

  Will would normally have said Coming from you! but Kim’s eyes were as serious as he’d ever seen them. “Go on.”

  “You know that Phoebe required a husband sharpish. That or to be packed off to an aunt for a year to get rid of the evidence. Cheveley accepted his responsibility for her situation—”

  “Was he responsible? I thought she said he wasn’t interested.”

  “He didn’t love her, but since when has that been a precondition for fucking? As I say, he accepted responsibility, on conditions. A substantial settlement on marriage, with the promise of inheriting Waring’s fortune. In addition, Waring would attempt to amend the letters patent of his viscountcy to allow inheritance down the female line. That would let Phoebe become Viscountess Waring in due course, and make any son of Cheveley’s the next viscount.”

  “Cushy for him,” Will said. “What happened to marrying the girl you got in trouble because it’s the right thing to
do?”

  “Idealist. Anyway, Cheveley was willing to accept his responsibility on those terms, until Phoebe told him that it wasn’t necessarily his. There was another possible candidate.” He shrugged at Will’s blink. “Wild times. Phoebe hadn’t betrayed any understanding between them, since there was none. She told him the paternity was uncertain because she has never been less than honest and true, and he might have appreciated that. He did not.” Kim’s dark eyes were hard. “She never told me the whole of it, only that he slapped her, spoke to her in words that no decent man would use, and told her parents in detail why he declined to proceed with the marriage. She miscarried a fortnight later, and that was that.”

  “Right,” Will said. “Is there a reason you haven’t done something about this turd before?”

  “She told me not to, and she had lost enough control. If I had gone after Cheveley I would have been one more person running her life against her wishes.”

  Will wasn’t sure he’d have thought that way. That said something about himself, and for Kim. “You’re all right sometimes, you know that? I’m bloody glad Phoebe had you. All the same—”

  “Let’s disembowel him.”

  “Just checking. So why’s he changed his mind, and why does he think getting you out of the way will help?”

  “The latter, because he lacks any respect for her,” Kim said. “He believes she’ll do what a strong man tells her, and will be helpless once she doesn’t have me to lean on. I suspect he thinks she regards having any man as better than no man. He is quite hilariously wrong, but Johnnie didn’t get where he is by considering other people.”

  “Twat,” Will muttered.

  “Indeed. As to why now, that is the question, and the shape of the question suggests the answer.” He grinned at Will’s expression. “Does it not strike you that Cheveley seems to be in one hell of a rush?”

  “Well, I suppose— Did you hear that?”

  Kim rose, face sharp. Will pulled the door open, and heard the noise again—faint, muffled by distance, but unquestionably a female scream. He grabbed the Messer from the bedside table, tossed the sheath away, and ran like hell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Running with a bare eight-inch razor-edged blade was not a practice Will would generally recommend, but caution didn’t come into it. He took the great oak staircase three at a time, skidded round the corner at a speed that would have caused severe if very short-term problems to anyone he’d bumped into, and hit the door of the drawing room with a solid thump.

  There was a crash from inside. He rattled the door handle.

  “Locked?” demanded Kim, arriving breathlessly behind him. “I can—”

  Will took two paces back, and gave the door—panelled oak, beautiful workmanship, a good four hundred years old—an almighty kick. The oak held but a second boot split the lock out of the frame with a horrendous splintering noise, and Will was in.

  Maisie was backed up against the wall, and there was a man in there, one Will didn’t recognise. He’d turned from her to the door, and he was bleeding heavily from the nose. That would just be the start of his troubles, if Will had anything to say to it.

  The man thrust out an arm menacingly, showing a clasp-knife with a wicked little two-inch blade. Will extended the Messer in silent reply, took a moment to enjoy the enemy’s expression, and went for him.

  The man leapt away. Will assumed Kim was blocking the door, so he feinted with the Messer, driving the man back. His eyes flicked frantically around for escape.

  “Drop the knife, put your hands up,” Will said. “Or don’t and I’ll gut you. As you like.”

  The man retreated another step. It was the last one he took, because Maisie was behind him by then, with feet planted wide, a militant expression, and an elaborate gilt candlestick that she brought around in a two-handed swing reminiscent of WG Grace batting at Lord’s.

  The heavy base connected squarely, sending the man’s head sideways in an arc that was perfectly designed to meet Will’s left hook coming the other way. Blood sprayed from his mouth, a tooth flew, he went down like the dead, and Will said, “Fuck!”

  “Excuse me!” Maisie said. “There’s no—are you all right?”

  “Broke my bloody knuckle,” Will said through his teeth.

  “Oh, no. Are you sure?”

  Regrettably, he was. He’d done it before, and the internal crunch and dull hot pain were all too familiar. “I didn’t realise how fast he was moving. You caught him a cracking one.”

  Maisie looked at the candlestick she held. “Good manufacture, this. Solid. The factory stuff breaks when you look at it, not to mention when you hit people with it, I suppose, not that I usually—I’m going to sit down.” She did so, on a chair, heavily. “Oh God. Do you know who he is?”

  “His name is Anton,” Kim said. “He’s Waring’s chauffeur. Are you all right, Maisie?”

  “No, I am not. He drove us here. He was very polite. He opened the door and called me miss.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “He was going to,” she said thinly. “He told me so.”

  “Maisie!” It was a shriek, as Phoebe ran in. “Darling, what happened? I heard a scream—the door—Is that Anton? Will?”

  Will was standing over a prone man, holding a massive knife. It probably didn’t look marvellous. “I didn’t stab him,” he said, then realised he could have made that clearer. “That is—”

  “We left Maisie with you,” Kim said. “Where did you go?”

  Phoebe had flown over to embrace Maisie, but that made her look round. “Are you blaming me for this?”

  “I want to know where you were,” Kim said.

  “Johnnie wanted to talk to me. Why—”

  “I asked Phoebe for a private conversation,” Cheveley said, stepping in, Lord Waring behind him. “We had things to discuss. Dear me. Oh, dear.”

  “What has happened here?” Waring demanded, pushing past him. “What the devil? Anton?”

  Maisie gave her eyes an angry wipe. “He attacked me. He came in—he locked the door and said— I hit out at him, and I screamed. And then Will came in and scared him, and I hit him with a candlestick.”

  “Oh, well done, darling,” Phoebe said.

  “Anton—attacked—you,” Waring repeated, enunciating each word.

  Maisie turned on him ferociously. “Are you calling me a liar, Lord Waring?”

  “In fact, I don’t think he is,” Kim said. “I think he’s probably surprised. You wouldn’t have expected your man to behave like that, would you, sir?”

  “I would not,” Cheveley said. “And I don’t believe he did. I’m afraid this story doesn’t hold water.”

  “Oh, it does, and enough for you to drown in,” Kim said. “What’s the plan, Johnnie? Get Anton to attack Maisie, force me and Will into direct conflict with Lord Waring? Another round of Last Man Standing, since the last one did for Mrs. Skyrme so nicely?”

  Cheveley looked at him with disgust. “I don’t know what you’re babbling about, Secretan. This poor fellow has been brutally attacked on the flimsiest of excuses—”

  “He attacked me!” Maisie said.

  “Be quiet, Johnnie,” Phoebe snapped. “Go and ’phone for a doctor if you want to be useful.”

  “My love—”

  “And stop calling me that!”

  Cheveley’s face went rigid, nose flaring. “You don’t see the situation, Phoebe. I do You’ve been dragged into a pretty murky business, and it’s time it was dealt with. I’m sorry you’ve trusted the wrong people, and I’m afraid you’ve been lied to a great deal, but it’s over now. I’ll see to it they won’t hurt you any more. Please, darling, go to bed and let me deal with it.”

  There was a brief silence. Then Maisie said, “Excuse me?”

  Phoebe’s face was a picture, and not one from Smart Set. She stood, tall and outraged. “Have you gone quite mad, Johnnie?”

  “Gone? No,” Kim said. “But it would be an excellent idea f
or you and Maisie to go upstairs now, Fee.”

  “So that you can talk without me?” she flashed.

  “With Maisie, Fee,” Kim said, voice very gentle. “Please. She’s had a bad shock and you need to look after her.”

  “I’m afraid that Miss Jones is not the innocent you pretend,” Cheveley said.

  “Do you like your teeth where they are, mate?” Will asked. “Because we can change that.”

  “Silence, all of you,” Waring said, in a tone that brooked no denial. He looked around the room, expression unwavering as he contemplated each of them. Will felt like a medical specimen as Waring’s merciless gaze swept over him. “This is indeed a peculiar and unfortunate situation, and one I shall lose no time in resolving. Phoebe, go upstairs. I shall deal with this.”

  “Certainly not,” Phoebe said. “Really, Daddy—”

  “Take her upstairs, John.”

  Cheveley grasped Phoebe’s wrist. She looked down at it with a bewildered expression, looked up, and cracked her free hand across his face so hard that Cheveley’s head snapped back. He turned on her, raising his arm.

  Will moved but Kim got there first, grabbing Cheveley’s wrist. “Oh, no. No you do not.”

  Cheveley snarled and wrenched his arm free. Will took a meaningful step forward, Messer in hand, and Waring said, “Telford.”

  Will turned to the door, and there he was, the bland, blank man he’d met outside the shop. This time, the gun in his hand was visible.

  Phoebe gave a shrill gasp, reaching out a groping hand to Maisie, who grabbed it. “Daddy!”

  “This man works for me. You need not be afraid of him.”

  “He has a gun!”

  “Arthur’s friend has a knife,” Waring said. “Telford is here to protect my family and property. Either he will take you upstairs or John will.”

  Phoebe looked between them all; Kim gave her a swift nod. “Very well. Then Maisie is coming with me.”

  “No,” Cheveley said.

  “You do not give the orders in this house,” Phoebe told him. “Maisie and I will go upstairs without supervision. I think I ought to be able to manage that, but I dare say she will help me if I get lost.”