Lord of London Town

by Tillie Cole

  Arthur took a sip of his gin. “Everything you’ve heard about me and my men will probably be true.” His lip curled a fraction—a flicker of amusement, or maybe pride. “What you’ve heard about my entire family will also no doubt be true. In fact …” He tilted his head to the side as he pushed a strand of hair back from my face. I held my breath at the action. “We’ve done worse than you’ve imagined.” Looking me straight in the eye, he said, “A lot fucking worse.”

  “You’re only eighteen, like me,” I said, dumbly, as if that would somehow make him innocent. I shook my head, trying to sort my thoughts into what I wanted to say, what I wanted to know. “I mean, you’re too young. And those men tonight … it was easy for you. Killing them.” His blank expression only confirmed that to be true. “And the last man. What you made him do to himself …”

  Arthur released my hand holding the ice pack and smudged his thumb over my cheek, dragging my skin downwards. The feel of his hand on my face caused my temperature to spike to ungodly degrees. “So innocent,” he said, his warm breath ghosting across my cheek. “A true little princess in an ivory tower.”

  I licked my lips. Arthur’s attention snapped to the movement. His addictive scent surrounded me, drowning me, pulling me down to whatever level of hell he resided in. I grew hot, Arthur’s clothes suddenly feeling like a blanket of fire.

  My gaze dropped to Arthur’s body, to the skyline of the gothic London Town tattooed across his chest and abdominals. I lifted my hand to his chest; his nose flared as my fingers brushed over his hard pecs. He put his gin down on the floor beside us and placed his hands on either side of me on the sofa.

  He was here, before me, cocooning me with his tall, muscled body, a cage of flesh and bone. I trailed my hand off his pecs and down to his abs. Arthur was as calm as he had been in the alley. I had never known anyone be able to mask their responses and feelings as well as he could. No reaction. Nothing seemed to shake him.

  I wanted to see him crack.

  I wanted to be the one to mine through whatever invisible shield he wore around him.

  “Arthur,” I whispered, my hand dipping lower, toward his narrow hips. I saw him harden under his pyjamas. I felt him pressing against my inner thigh as he leaned in even closer. I fought to steady my breathing, wanting to feel every part of him without clothes. Wanting to feel him pushing inside me, his chest pressing against mine as he made me fall apart …

  Then my phone rang, breaking the tension pulsing between us. When it was on its fifth ring, Arthur stood and took my phone from my bag. His eyes flared at the screen, and he handed it to me.

  I looked at the screen. Ollie. Ollie Lawson was calling. “Ollie?” I said when I answered. A dark storm broke out over Arthur’s features.

  It was the first crack in his armour I had witnessed.

  “Freya said you’re at your yacht,” he said. “I’m coming over.”

  “No!” I turned my head away from Arthur. “I’m already in bed. I’m going to sleep. I have a headache. I’ll … I’ll just see you tomorrow or something.”

  Ollie paused for so long I thought he’d disconnected. Then he said, “But you’re okay? You just left the club without telling anyone. I searched for you. I thought you must have gone outside, but the alley was deserted.” I turned to Arthur, who was looking out of the glass doors at the marina, a cigarette in his hand.

  The alley was already clear? Arthur’s men worked fast.

  “Ollie. I’m fine. Please, just enjoy your night.”

  “But you’re not hurt? Nothing happened?” A slither of unease sild along my skin at his persistent questions.

  “No. Why? Why would you think I’m hurt?”

  I heard someone speak to Ollie in the background but couldn’t make out the words. “Then fucking check again,” he snapped to whoever he was conversing with.

  Shaking my head in frustration, I said, “I’ve got to go, Ollie.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said after a long, stretched-out pause. His words sounded more of a threat than a caring promise. I hung up and walked to Arthur, confused about Ollie’s strange behaviour.

  My stomach was still sore as I took steady steps, but the initial pain was easing some after my shower and the pain meds that the doctor had given me.

  “You know Ollie Lawson?” Arthur asked casually when I stopped beside him. He kept his eyes on the glittering lights of the marina.

  “Yes.” I studied Arthur for another reaction. I didn’t know why I bothered. I was learning that Arthur gave absolutely nothing away unless he wanted to—I imagined that was almost never. “From school.” I felt a sudden chill in the room, so I wrapped my arms around me. “I went to an all-girls boarding school. Private, of course. Hugo was at the boys’ side of the school. Ollie went there for sixth form as a day student. I’ve only known him a couple of years. We have mutual friends.”

  “Hugo,” Arthur said. “Hugo Harrington. Your boyfriend.”

  I hated hearing the word “boyfriend” from Arthur’s lips in relation to Hugo.

  “Yes,” I said. Arthur drank the rest of his gin in one go. He stubbed his cigarette out on an ashtray and immediately lit up another one.

  “Let’s get you home, princess,” he said, and my stomach fell to the floor. I had bought us some more time with my friends. I wanted to stay with Arthur a while longer. But mostly, I didn’t want to go home. I’d been attacked. I wasn’t safe on my own. I knew I’d be safe with him.

  “What if they find me again tonight?” I said, my frayed nerves seeping into my words.

  “I’ve already got men watching your yacht. They’ve been on board and done a search. No one is there, and no one is getting to you. I can guarantee you that.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Thank you,” I said, taken aback by his generosity.

  Arthur walked back to the sofa and picked up my clutch, then passed me and opened the doors that led to the back deck.

  Disappointment accompanying my every step, I followed Arthur off the boat and to mine. I turned to face him. “Thank you, again,” I said. He handed me back my clutch.

  A cloud of tobacco washed over my face as Arthur exhaled. “Night, princess.” He walked back to his yacht without another glance. I jumped on seeing a couple of men in black suits move close by. My heart kicked into a heady, nervous beat, until they nodded at me in greeting and I realised they were Arthur’s men who he had ordered to protect me.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I climbed onto my boat and made my way to my bedroom. As I curled up on my bed, I smelled Arthur’s aftershave on my borrowed clothes and closed my eyes, letting it wrap around me. My stomach rolled when I thought back over the events of the night, at the attackers, but more at Arthur killing them so efficiently, so coldly, so brutally.

  I didn’t know what kind of person it made me, but as I replayed the scene over and over in my head, all I could think was that he’d saved me. He’d killed to save me, not a single ounce of remorse in his dark soul.

  I stared down at my hands, the hands that had run over his pecs, his abs and his hips. Despite knowing it was fucked up and wrong, I wanted to feel him like that again. Only this time I didn’t want him to hold back. I didn’t want him to keep his distance. I wanted him smothering me and making me forget my name. Maybe then I could shake myself of this obsession with him once and for all.

  Maybe.

  The music sailed through the yacht’s speakers, and the few glasses of sangria I’d had made me feel loose and free. My eyes travelled to the people dancing on the sun deck, the sun setting on the horizon casting a warm, orange glow. Arabella and Freya came over to me as I leaned against the rail of the yacht.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Arabella asked.

  I touched my face, letting my fingers graze down my neck. The swelling had reduced a little, but the bruising left an ugly shadow of purple on my cheek and red finger marks around my throat. My foundation and concealer covered them well enough that people couldn’t tell. I
’d told Arabella and Freya that I had taken a bad fall in my room. I wasn’t sure if they believed me, but neither of them had questioned me further. In our circles, lots of questions remained unasked. No one wanted to taint our seemingly perfect lives with a trivial thing like the truth.

  I glanced across to the Adley yacht beside us. I hadn’t seen Arthur last night or today at all. Hugo returned tomorrow, and we were scheduled to set sail for Ibiza. I looked at the people dancing on the sun deck. Mainly acquaintances of Arabella and Freya, some we knew from our social circles in Chelsea. Although some of our acquaintances were absent.

  Ollie Lawson had come to see me yesterday as promised. I had made sure it was off the yacht and in a restaurant with my friends. After the other night, a heavy feeling settled in my gut whenever I thought about Ollie. Something had seemed off about him. Something I could only describe as dark had seemed to linger in his eyes. However, he was his usual charming and attentive self at the restaurant. He had left Marbella now, called back to London by his father. That left tonight. One night without Hugo, without Ollie watching me closely.

  The sound of voices from the Adley yacht drew my attention.

  “You boring twat!” Eric Mason shouted to someone inside the living quarters as he walked out in shorts and a white linen shirt, his hair swept over to one side as always.

  Freddie Williams was on his heels, slapping Eric around the back of the head. “He has business he’s got to get done, arsehole,” he said. “Or do you want to ring Alfie and tell him his son’s fucking off his work so we can go and get pissed instead?”

  “Good point,” Eric said after pretending to think for a few seconds, and they left the yacht and headed toward the bars of the main strip.

  “Ugh. At least they haven’t tried to get on board here tonight,” Freya said. She stood straighter when Benedict Shaw came over and took her hand, leading her to the makeshift dancefloor without a word.

  “She’s so cock-whipped,” Arabella said, then practically fell to her knees when Cassius Lock came up to her too. She quickly turned her back and downed her margarita. When I smiled and lifted a questioning brow, she flicked her middle finger at me. “Dutch courage, okay? Don’t judge me.”

  “Arabella?” Cassius said. He nudged his head in the direction of the bar inside. “You want to grab a drink?”

  Arabella smiled widely at me as Cassius led her inside the yacht. I watched people we knew from home get gradually drunker. People paired off, and the sky grew dark.

  “Come on, old boy,” a voice said from the Adley yacht. Charlie Adley and Vinnie Edwards were leaving the boat. Vinnie bounced as he walked, as if he’d been injected with pure adrenaline and his muscles had no choice but to move. Charlie, his arm around Vinnie’s shoulders, led him into a waiting car. They sped off, the taillights of the car disappearing into the distance.

  I drank the rest of my sangria as the DJ cranked up the music some more. The people on our yacht all gravitated to the dancefloor, pills and shots immediately being passed around. I saw Freya near the bar and Arabella leading Cassius toward her room.

  I stared at the people in front of me. Every one of them was wealthy. Every one spoke with received pronunciation like I did. Every one had attended a private school, and not just any—the best England had to offer. We all frequently lunched at the Bluebird in Chelsea—and we were all destined to marry into the same circles. Suitable “society” families.

  I was no different.

  And it was completely suffocating.

  Placing my glass on a nearby table, I left the lights and pounding dance music of the sun deck and made my way to the back of the yacht. The music quietened as I leaned over the back of the boat and stared unseeing at the restaurants behind us.

  The familiar smell of cigarette smoke cut through my reverie. Even in the darkness of the dock, I glimpsed the sight of a cigarette’s burning end, the orange flicker of tobacco morphing into ashes before it dropped to the ground.

  Arthur.

  I stood, seeing Arthur’s face illuminated as he took another drag. His yacht was in near darkness, barely a light in sight. But I saw the moment he caught me in his peripheral vision. His head cocked to the side, and his blue eyes ran down the length of my dress. It was purple and cut in a deep V to my belly button, the sides of my breasts peeking through the gauzy fabric. It flowed to my feet. My long dark hair was held back off my neck with a few well-placed grips.

  I swallowed down my nerves as he drank me in. His hand remained in his pocket, his posture the epitome of calm. I tried to mirror his frame, but inside, my heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

  The people on this yacht were the furthest thing from Arthur they could possibly be. Arthur may have been richer than sin, but he was brought up in the East End of London. He didn’t attend the best schools, or holiday in exotic countries like we all had. He was down-and-dirty Bethnal Green, with the trademark thick cockney accent to match. He had his rivals’ blood underneath his fingernails, and fragments of their bones locked away in the cage that was his dark heart.

  Yet here I was, following my feet as they left my yacht and took the few short steps to where he stood. Arthur was still smoking, still keeping one hand in his pocket. But he watched me approach like a lion watches a gazelle, the reflection of me flickering on the black-rimmed glasses he always wore. My chest felt as though it was being pressed down upon by a demon as I climbed the steps to the back of his yacht. The rich wooden floor creaked as I straightened and faced the man who had possessed my every thought lately. My dress blew in the warm Spanish breeze, the slits on the skirt exposing my bare legs.

  Arthur flicked his cigarette overboard, then turned and walked through the glass doors to the living quarters. I ran my hand over my chest to be sure my heart hadn’t leapt free of my ribcage. Every part of me screamed at me to leave, to stop this foolishness. Yet something inside me, something raw and savage and sadistic, forced me to stay. I saw Arthur move to the bar, the only light in the room sneaking in from the bars and restaurants outside.

  I glanced over at my yacht. Saw people dancing. Heard them laughing and drinking and having a good time. I should have turned around and left this boat. I should have gone back to Freya and Arabella and had a good time, looking forward to Hugo returning tomorrow and to living my steady, blessed life.

  I rubbed my arms, not to stave off the cold but to send blood to my brain, to wake myself up and avoid the temptation trying to lure me in. Because wanting someone like Arthur Adley was only acceptable in my fantasies. Not in real life. And never in my social circle.

  I closed my eyes, deciding it was time to go. To leave this pathetic obsession with him in the past. It was a stupid secondary-school crush on the bad boy from across town. I took a long deep breath and opened my eyes, set on doing the right thing. But when my vision focused, all my good intentions seeped out of me. Arthur stood in my line of sight, dead centre of the living room, his forbidden deep blue gaze fixed on me. He had a drink in his hand, a cigarette balancing on his bottom lip, and with his defined muscles clearly visible under his shirt, I knew I was staying. He had me in his snare, and I threw all logic away with the Spanish wind and was willingly drawn in.

  With trembling hands, I forced myself to tune out the sounds from my yacht and walked through the darkness, over the threshold to Arthur. Turning, I shut the doors behind me, sealing us inside and blocking out the real world. All noise from outside was expelled by the expensive soundproof doors. I was in a vacuum. A vacuum filled with temptation and sin and the forbidden object of my obsession.

  Arthur took a drag of his cigarette and pulled it from his mouth, the smoke clouding around us. Apart from when I was smoking them myself, I usually disliked the smell of cigarettes. But not when it came from Arthur. Never then. From him, it smelled like heaven itself.

  “You shouldn’t be here, princess,” Arthur said, his deep voice wrapping around me as tightly as the serpent from the Garden of Eden. He stepp
ed closer to me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end merely at his wickedly addictive presence. My mind tried to warn me to leave, showing me highlights of the night in the alley. Of Arthur cutting down men twice his age in cold blood. Of him ordering my attacker to castrate himself, no expression on his perfect face, no remorse in his corrupt soul.

  But he saved you, the newly acquired depraved side of me argued, overriding my brain. He saved your life.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I edged forward and stopped right before him. Arthur downed his gin; a half-empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire was on the bar behind him—his brand of choice. He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bar. The wash of midnight stubble on his jaw and cheeks only made him look more rugged and severe.

  Arthur met my eyes. Then he licked his lips, and I felt my cheeks blaze. “Run,” he said, voice thick with warning. Lifting his index finger, he placed it on my jaw. He moved it, light as a feather, down my neck, over the front of my throat and down the centre of my chest between my breasts. My breathing was laboured and my nipples hardened, sending heat flooding between my thighs. “Run, princess. Run far away, back to your ivory castle and the valiant knights that protect you.”

  I wasn’t thinking. I was purely acting on instinct. As his finger lifted from my chest, I caught it in my hand and brought it to my mouth. Following a rebel side of me I didn’t even know existed, I took his finger between my teeth and bit down hard.

  Arthur’s eyes flared, a napalm firestorm igniting in their sapphire depths. He didn’t make a sound as my teeth met his flesh. I wasn’t a delicate little princess. Right now, I wanted to be anything but perfect or good or someone Arthur didn’t want to corrupt.

  He acted quickly. In a flash, he pressed his hand to my face, his index finger still in my mouth, and pushed me against a wide breakfast bar. My back hit the marble countertop with a thud. I was numb to anything but Arthur and the godless look in his eyes. His spare fingers were splayed on my cheeks. His eyes were molten as they bored into mine. I bit down harder on his finger until I tasted blood. Arthur hissed, pressing his chest against my breasts, dragging a moan from my lips.