by Merry Farmer
“Just thought I’d let you know that Miss Terry is ill this evening, Mr. Jewel, and her understudy, Olivia, will be going on in her stead tonight,” the young man said without blinking an eye.
“Thank you, Foster.” As Foster started to duck out again, Everett said, “Oh, and Foster?”
“Yes, sir.” The young man opened the door all the way in spite of Everett’s state of undress. A couple of stagehands passed by in the hall, glancing into the room before walking on as though they saw Everett in his all together every day.
Everett turned to Wrexham, whose eyes had gone wide to match his pink face. “I’d like you to meet Officer Wrexham,” he said. “Scotland Yard has kindly loaned him to me as a bodyguard.”
Wrexham shifted slightly, staring hard at Everett.
“Sir.” Foster nodded to Wrexham.
“Officer Wrexham is to be treated like one of the family,” Everett said. “Let everyone know, will you? He has my leave to watch the show from the wings, if he’d like.”
“Yes, sir.” Foster nodded to Everett, then to Wrexham, then backed out, shutting the door behind him.
“There,” Everett said with a smile. “That takes care of that. Not a soul will question your presence by my side at all times.”
“Won’t they?” Wrexham raised one eyebrow.
Everett hadn’t seen him look half as clever as he did in that moment. So the man knew what others might be tempted to assume by catching him loitering in the dressing room of a man with a particular reputation after all, did he? His assessment of Wrexham changed once again. Perhaps he would be more than just a delightful toy to have his way with.
But, of course, that was ridiculous. Everett didn’t form attachments. Even with men who shared his determination to bring down evil of the likes that Adler perpetuated. He had affairs, dalliances, and good times, that was all. He didn’t deserve anything else.
The silence between them dragged on as Everett’s thoughts tunneled back to the dark recesses of his mind. He was grateful beyond telling when Wrexham’s gaze slipped south to his drawers, which, truth be told, didn’t hide much. It was so much easier to fall back on the physical. He gratefully shook off his moment of danger.
“Would you like a little taste?” he asked with a sultry smile, reaching for the drawstring of his drawers. “As long as you’re quick, we’ve got enough time before curtain for you to get your fill.”
“No,” Wrexham croaked. He cleared his throat and snapped his back straight in true policeman style.
Everett was genuinely disappointed. And disheartened. Something about Wrexham upset his apple cart, but he couldn’t for the life of him lay a finger on what it was. Yes, he wanted the man. That feeling was as normal as the stink that pervaded London in the summer. What wasn’t normal was the way his heart seemed to beat harder in the man’s presence. A man he knew nothing about.
He pushed himself into motion, striding toward the rack where his costumes hung.
“It’s just the usual performance tonight,” he said, taking his Act One costume from its hanger. “I meant it when I said you could watch from the wings. Afterwards, we’ll skip the carousing at the pub and dive straight into the investigation.”
“After your performance?” Wrexham asked, avoiding looking at Everett as he dressed.
“Yes.” Everett slipped into his costume trousers and shirt. Only then did Wrexham glance his way again.
“So you know where Adler is?” Wrexham asked.
“Not precisely,” Everett admitted. “But I know someone who will most certainly know exactly where he is. And he wouldn’t dare to hold back on me.”
Chapter 3
Patrick had never watched a theatrical performance from the wings before. There was more activity and more that held his attention backstage than there was in view of the audience. Stagehands rushed here and there, moving scenery and placing props where actors entering the stage could grab them. Women with costumes hovered near the stage, ready to help with quick-changes. The actors themselves hurried to make their entrances, stoic and focused as they skulked in the shadows, but glowing and alive the moment they stepped into the light on stage.
The theater where Jewel was performing had the very latest electrical stage lights in place, which dazzled Patrick with their modernity. He could only imagine that Jewel and the other actors were utterly blind on stage, the lights were so bright. There was no possible way they would be able to see the audience past the first few rows. Even from the wings, Patrick had a hard time seeing them.
Patrick stuck to the shadows, pressing his back against the wall on one side of the stage so that he wouldn’t be in the way. His spot gave him a surprisingly good view of the center of the stage, where Jewel spent most of the play. It gave him a perfect view of Jewel.
The man truly was beautiful. Patrick could deny it all he wanted, but his body and soul responded to everything about Everett Jewel. The way he moved was captivating. His voice was as rich and smooth as treacle. He had a presence about him that expanded through the theater, giving Patrick the feeling that Jewel was whispering his lines directly into his ear instead of speaking them for a full theater to hear.
He couldn’t shake the memory of Jewel stripping down to his drawers and offering to remove those as well. It had taken every ounce of concentration Patrick had not to drop to his knees and pleasure Jewel when he’d made the suggestion, even though he’d never done such a thing before or had it done to himself in return. If the stagehand hadn’t come along on with his message, Patrick could only imagine what would have happened.
But no, he couldn’t let anything like that happen, not in the theater, not anywhere. The only reason he was with Jewel at all was because David Wirth was relying on him to work with Jewel to bring down the leaders of the trafficking ring. And even if there were time for other things, Patrick couldn’t allow it. The very thought made his pulse race with lust, shame, and fear.
The final, roaring applause of the audience shook him out of his thoughts—thoughts that had gripped Patrick with so much tension that his back and jaw ached as he forced himself to breathe and shake it out. Jewel took his bow, then gave in to the audience pressure and sang a quick song, even though the play wasn’t a musical. Once that was done, Jewel motioned for the stage manager to bring the curtain down, and Jewel strode into the wings.
“That’s done,” he said to Patrick, gesturing for him to follow as he strode through the backstage area and on to the corridor with the dressing rooms. “Now we can get down to real business.” He glanced over his shoulder, raking Patrick from head to toe with a saucy grin, as though the business he spoke of was of the carnal variety.
Before they made it to his dressing room, a young stagehand rushed to intercept Jewel, handing him a bouquet of roses. “From Lady Darnell,” he said, eyes wide. “She said to tell you you’ll be richly rewarded if you spend the night with her.”
Patrick’s eyes went wide. “She’s a married duchess,” he murmured before he could stop himself.
“She’s a darling, but tell her I’m otherwise engaged tonight,” Jewel told the stagehand. Though he kept the roses, carrying them into his dressing room as the young lad ran off.
Once Patrick and Jewel were alone with the dressing room door closed, Patrick cleared his throat, took up a post near the door, and stood at attention to keep his wits about him. “You don’t actually take ladies like that up on their invitations, do you? I mean, I thought you were—I thought you preferred—” Heat flared through him, and he couldn’t finish his impertinent question.
Jewel laughed as he began undressing, tossing the pieces of his costume onto a chair in the corner of the room. “I’ve been singing for my supper far longer than anyone knows,” he said, a deep note of bitterness in his voice, in spite of his coy grin. “Women, men, it doesn’t matter when your life and livelihood is at stake. I perform whatever I need to perform when I need to perform it. The part I play doesn’t have a thing to do with who I rea
lly am.”
The way Jewel turned away from him as he murmured his last line filled Patrick with unexpected sorrow. “And who are you, really?” he asked, surprised at how gently his question came out.
Jewel paused in the middle of shrugging out of his shirt, his back to Patrick. His shoulders were hunched, and for a heartbeat he was still. The strong muscles of Jewel’s back distracted Patrick for a moment, but his uncomfortable feelings of lust were dampened when he noticed Jewel staring at himself in his dressing table mirror, a lost look in his eyes.
“I have no idea,” Jewel said, so quietly that Patrick wasn’t sure he heard him. Jewel took in a deep breath, straightened, and continued undressing, his rogue’s smile back on this face. “That’s not true. I’m Everett Jewel, darling of the stage and the most desired man in London.” He tossed his shirt aside and unfastened his trousers, stepping out of them and turning back to Patrick. “I know you want me,” he teased, dropping his trousers in a pile and approaching Patrick like a lion stalking his prey. “I can see it in your eyes, no matter how much you try to hide it.”
Bitter self-consciousness threatened to drown Patrick. He should deny his feelings. He was used to denying them, used to stuffing them so deep inside of himself that even he forgot he was just as much a sexual creature as any other man that had walked the earth. But those feelings were inconvenient. More than that, they were dangerous. They could end his life in a thousand different ways.
Jewel strode near enough for Patrick to smell the salt of his skin mingled with greasepaint and cologne. His mouth was so close that all Patrick would have to do was lean in and steal a kiss.
Instead, he cleared his throat and stiffened his body to attention. “The investigation,” he said. “You say you know where to find Adler?”
A flash of disappointment filled Jewel’s eyes, and he took a step back. “I know where to find someone who surely knows where Adler is.” He crossed to the rack where his street clothes hung and put on his trousers before heading to the dressing table to remove his make-up. “God only knows where Adler is and what he’s up to now.”
Jewel didn’t say anything else as he scrubbed stage make-up from his face, washed with some sort of creamy cleanser, dabbed his face and neck dry, then proceeded to outline his eyes with kohl all over again. Patrick watched, mesmerized, unable to decide whether he was shocked that a man would decorate his face like a strumpet or aroused by it. Either way, the effect brought out Jewel’s eyes to a degree that would stop even the stodgiest man in his tracks on sight.
When that was done, Jewel finished dressing, then headed for the door, motioning for Patrick to come with him.
“I’m skipping the stage door tonight,” he called out to one of the stagehands as they headed down the corridor. “Tell my adoring public not to be too disappointed. Imply that I have a private engagement if you have to.”
“Yes, sir,” the stagehand said, then jogged off in the opposite direction.
“The poor dears will be devastated,” Jewel told Patrick with a grin as they made their way to a small, nondescript door that let out into a side alley at the far end of the theater.
The strange thing was, in spite of the clear arrogance of Jewel’s statement, Patrick sensed the man really did care about disappointing whoever might have been lingering around, waiting to catch a glimpse of him. It only added to Patrick’s sense that Jewel had hidden depths, and it made him want the man more.
Jewel did nothing to hide his face as they walked away from the theater, but something about him changed. People passed the two of them in close quarters as they strode purposefully on, but no one recognized Jewel. Or, if they did, it was only in passing and without stopping him. Patrick could see at once it was because, unlike earlier in the day, Jewel didn’t want to be recognized. Patrick had used the tactic himself so many times that it had become second nature. Disappearing in plain sight was a skill that had saved his life more times than he could count growing up. It seemed as though Jewel knew the art as well.
“Where are we going?” Patrick asked after they’d walked eastward in silence for at least fifteen minutes.
“Home,” Jewel said with a shrug. His grin had slowly disappeared as they marched through the city, leaving the fashionable and bright area around Drury Lane behind and entering neighborhoods Patrick had only ever visited when he was called to investigate some horrible crime.
A thousand questions popped into Patrick’s mind, but he left all of them unasked, choosing to get his answers through observation instead. He wasn’t as surprised as he thought he’d be to hear a dazzling and celebrated actor hint that he was from one of the worst parts of London. The theater wasn’t exactly the most savory profession, even though performers were adored and sought after.
Patrick couldn’t hide his shock when Jewel marched into a building so dilapidated it looked as though it might collapse into a pile of matchsticks at any second. The place stank of soot, urine, and burned cooking. A dog barked somewhere, but the rat that scurried across the hall didn’t seem to care. Upstairs, a baby cried, but whether anyone attended to it was unclear.
“Roger,” Jewel shouted, storming through the hall and into the dingiest, most depressing sitting room Patrick had ever seen. “There you are, you filthy cunt.”
The sitting room contained a few pieces of broken, mismatched furniture. A woman who looked ancient, but who Patrick suspected was younger even than him, sat in the chair closest to the fire, swaying and shaking as she attempted to sew something by the light of its dull flames. A filthy young lad of about eight slept like the dead on the floor beside her. A portly man with a pock-marked face and dirty, mismatched clothes sat in the other chair, a nearly empty bottle in one hand.
“Get up, you useless, old prick.” Jewel marched across the room, grabbing a handful of the man’s shirt and wrenching him to his feet. “Where is Adler?”
The man snorted and struggled as he stood, clearly soused. “Get off me,” he drawled, swaying as he found his balance. “I don’t know.”
“You do,” Jewel insisted. “You always know.” He shook the man, then turned to give the woman a smile. “Hello, Bessie. Are you well?”
“Well, well,” the shaking woman, Bessie, said with a toothless smile.
Still holding the man with one hand, Jewel reached into his pocket, took out a gold coin, and tossed it to the woman. “Get yourself something decent to eat, love. And for the kids too.”
Patrick jerked a hand instinctively to his pouch of bread and sausage. His heart told him to give what he had to the miserable woman and anyone else in the house, who obviously needed it more than him. Fear kept him frozen, though, and the resulting stinginess made him hate himself.
Jewel turned back to the man, shaking him once more. “Where is Adler?” he repeated.
The man recovered enough to push Jewel away and to stand taller. “Get your hands off me, you putrid sodomite,” he slurred.
“I am what you made me, Father,” Jewel growled.
Patrick’s brow shot up. It came as no surprise to him that a man in filthy, ill-fitting clothes, who stank of piss and gin, would think he was better than Jewel, who was clean, well-groomed, and wealthy, simply because of whom he fancied. What shocked him was the name Jewel had called him. “Mr. Jewel?” He blinked at the man.
“Never!” The man sniffed and swayed, eyes bleary. “It’s Caldwell to you.”
“You thought I’d keep this cunt’s name when I began my career?” Jewel asked Patrick, offended.
Patrick shook his head and muttered something that didn’t form into words.
Jewel turned back to his father. “I’ll ask you once more, you conniving piece of shit. Where is Adler?”
“I don’t know,” his father shouted, then lost his balance and plopped back into his chair.
The boy on the floor stirred, but never fully woke.
“He don’t know,” Bessie mumbled. “Try Dora.”
Jewel’s face pinched in disgust
at the suggestion. He let out a sigh, rubbed a hand over his face, then motioned for Patrick to follow him out of the room.
They left the house without a word. The dog was still barking out back, and the baby was wailing louder than ever. Patrick’s teeth were on edge, as though he should do something to ease the suffering of people in the house but couldn’t imagine what.
“Are they your family?” he asked once they were back on the street.
“Not really, no,” Jewel said through a tight jaw. “Not since my dearest papa sold me to Adler when I was eight years old.”
Patrick swallowed the bile that rose up his throat at the thought. “Eight years old?” he asked, hoarse.
Jewel glanced morosely at him. “I was the weakest of my brothers and prettier than my sisters. That cunt was out of gin and too much of a drunkard to hold a job. All it took was for a passing merchant to lick his lips while staring at me to give Father ideas. He’d heard of the ways Adler brokered certain sorts of deals and completed the transaction before I knew what was what. I couldn’t refuse.”
Patrick’s stomach twisted. He didn’t need to be told how the story continued from there. He knew too well. He’d seen it happen more times than he could count growing up to the boys and girls who never learned to blend into the furniture.
They barged into another, crumbling building at the end of the street without Jewel saying another word. Instead of announcing his presence and shouting loud enough to bring down the rafters, Jewel merely mounted the stairs to the first floor and pushed open the door to the left.
“Aunt Dora,” he greeted the shriveled woman sitting in a rickety chair, glancing out the window.
The woman turned her head to greet Jewel with a vacant grin. The few teeth she had were blackened, and a horrible smell emanated from her that made Patrick recoil. She wore a cloak patched with a riot of rags that had once been colorful, but were now as faded as she was.
