by Emily Larkin
Charlotte selected the most recent ledgers for the London residence and brought them back to the fireplace. She left her glass, with the dangerous brandy in it, sitting on the bookshelf.
Chapter Seven
The first window had been broken in April, the last just the previous week. On May 15th, the earl’s birthday, a total of twelve windows had been smashed, but most weeks only three or four windows were broken.
Charlotte listed each date and, alongside it, the number of windows smashed. At the bottom, she tallied both columns. The totals were sobering. She looked up at Cosgrove. “Someone hates you, sir.”
“I know.” The earl’s face was grim.
“When were you attacked, sir?”
“Last week. The tenth.”
She added it to the list. “And the nightsoil?”
“That started in May. The fifteenth.”
“Your birthday.”
“Yes. It was the most noteworthy gift I received this year.”
“And the other times, sir? Was the, er, shit always left on the same nights windows were broken?”
“Sometimes.” Cosgrove shrugged. “At least, I think so. I wasn’t in London for all of it.”
“Would your housekeeper remember?”
“Perhaps.” The earl rang the bellpull. “Fetch Mrs. Maby,” he told the footman who answered the summons. “And tell Guillaume that Mr. Albin and I will dine in an hour.”
“Yes, sir.” The footman bowed and withdrew.
Cosgrove turned to Charlotte. “After dinner we’ll visit my heir.”
* * *
She’d eaten lunch with the earl, but it had been daylight then. Dinner was a different matter entirely. The closed curtains and the candlelight made the meal seem much more intimate.
Charlotte swallowed a mouthful of veal and chased it down with some claret. The wine was smooth, expensive, all too drinkable. I must not have too much of this. She put the glass down. “Your heir, sir . . . how is he related to you?”
“Phillip? He’s my cousin’s son.”
“And why do you think he might be behind the attack?”
“Because he once told me he’d like to kill me.”
“He what?”
“Said he’d like to kill me.” The earl leaned back in his chair, wine glass held casually in one hand. “Said it to my face. In this very house. Not a twelvemonth ago.” He lifted the glass, as if in a toast, and drank.
“Why, sir?”
“Because I’d told him I wouldn’t pay any more of his debts.”
“Are you his guardian?”
“Thank God, no.” Cosgrove gave an expressive grimace. “His maternal uncles had that pleasure until he came of age.”
“He’s of age? Then why would he ask you to pay his debts?”
“Because he’s my heir.” Cosgrove put down the glass and pushed it away. “And unless I marry again, he will inherit the earldom. The estates, this house, everything. And that prospect, let me tell you, is the only reason I intend to remarry.” His mouth tightened. “I will not allow the earldom to pass to a spineless, drunken profligate.”
Charlotte laid her knife and fork on her plate. “Is he that, sir?”
Cosgrove nodded. “Phillip was still in swaddling clothes when my cousin died. He was indulged by his mother, cosseted, spoiled, allowed to do whatever he pleased. It ruined him.” He picked up his glass and frowned at the claret. “Phillip came down from Oxford last year. Since then he has distinguished himself by his drinking, his gambling, and his whoring.”
Cosgrove drained the glass in one swallow, poured himself another, and offered the decanter to Charlotte. She shook her head.
“The first time Phillip found himself in dun territory, he applied to me for funds. I extended him a loan. He is my cousin’s son, after all.” The earl picked up his glass, but didn’t drink. He turned the stem between his fingers. His frown deepened. “Edmund wouldn’t like the man his son has become.”
Charlotte met his eyes. She didn’t say anything.
“I told Phillip that when he applied to me for more money. Thought it might make him change his behavior. More fool me.”
“It would have made me change, sir.” Her father’s respect was something she’d treasured.
“Perhaps.” Cosgrove shrugged. “But you’re a different person from Phillip. And you knew your father. Phillip didn’t.”
Charlotte accepted this with a silent nod. She folded her linen napkin and laid it beside her plate. “Can you remember what date Phillip told you he wished you were dead, sir?”
“The exact date?” Cosgrove shook his head. “March, I think. I know it wasn’t long after we’d lost the slavery vote. I wasn’t in the best of moods.” He grimaced. “I don’t blame Phillip for hating me. No man likes to be told he’s a bloodsucking leech.”
“You told him that, sir?”
“That, and that he didn’t need my money; he needed to grow a backbone and take responsibility for himself. It was ill done of me.” He placed his wine glass on the table, undrunk from, and pushed it away. “He’ll break his shins against Covent Garden’s rails, if he’s not careful. In fact, I’m astonished he hasn’t done so already.”
Charlotte blinked. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
“The Covent Garden ague.”
Charlotte shook her head to show her lack of comprehension.
“French gout.”
She shook her head again.
Cosgrove’s expression became bemused. “You truly don’t know?”
“No, sir.”
The earl leaned back in his chair and stared at her for a long moment before enlightening her: “Venereal disease.”
“Oh.” Charlotte felt her cheeks flush scarlet.
Cosgrove’s mouth twitched, but he was too polite to laugh aloud.
Charlotte fumbled to speak through her embarrassment. “So Mr. Langford is . . . er, he’s . . . a . . . a . . .”
“Phillip is a beard splitter, to put it crudely. And he’s none too careful where he finds his entertainment.”
Beard splitter. It was another term she’d never heard, but she could guess its meaning.
Charlotte fixed her eyes on her plate. Her knife and fork lay side by side. They were silver, with the Cosgrove crest stamped on them. She moved the knife handle a quarter of an inch, so that it was precisely parallel to the fork. She took a deep breath, mastered her embarrassment, and raised her head. “Mr. Langford is given to wenching, sir?”
“Addicted, would be more accurate.” Cosgrove glanced at her plate. “Are you finished?”
Charlotte nodded.
Cosgrove placed his hands palm-down on the table. “Let’s find Phillip. If I know anything of him, he’ll be in a bawdy house.” He pushed to his feet.
A bawdy house. That was a term she’d heard before. It meant a house where whores plied their trade.
Dread clenched in Charlotte’s chest. She pushed back her chair slowly.
Cosgrove strode to the door.
You chose this path, Charlotte told herself. This was what you wanted: to have a man’s career. She raised her chin and followed the earl from the dining room.
* * *
Phillip Langford’s manservant gave them the name of the brothel his master had been frequenting recently. “This will be an education for you, lad,” the earl said, as they clattered back down the stairs to the street.
He hailed a hackney and gave the jarvey an address.
“Is it in Covent Garden, sir?” Charlotte asked, as they climbed in.
“Worse.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until tomorrow morning, sir? When Mr. Langford is . . . isn’t occupied?”
“By tomorrow morning, Phillip will be too drunk to string two words together.” Cosgrove stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle.
“But wouldn’t that be the perfect time to question him, sir? When he’s unable to prevaricate?” Apprehension churned in her belly. She wished she hadn�
��t eaten so much for dinner.
“Chin up, lad. I won’t let Mrs. Henshaw’s girls debauch you.”
Charlotte’s cheeks burned in the dimness of the hackney carriage. “I am not afraid of whores,” she said stiffly.
Chapter Eight
Marcus glanced up at the shabby façade of Mrs. Henshaw’s establishment. A torch flared in a bracket, throwing light over the cracked doorstep. “Ready, Albin?”
His secretary swallowed audibly. “Yes, sir.”
“Good lad.” Marcus rapped loudly on the warped wooden door panels.
“Have you ever been here before, sir?” Albin asked in an undertone.
Marcus turned his head and stared at him. Albin stared back, his blatant naivety taking the insult out of the question.
“I shall pretend you didn’t ask me that,” Marcus told him.
“Oh.” Albin blushed fierily and looked down at his top boots. “Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean—”
The opening door cut short his apology. Raucous laughter and the stench of sweat and cheap gin rolled out at them.
One of Mrs. Henshaw’s bullyboys stepped into the doorway, a burly man with shoulders as broad as the door was wide. He assessed the cost of Marcus’s clothing and stepped back without saying a word.
Marcus entered, his secretary at his heels.
The short hallway opened into a large salon. Marcus strolled into it and looked around, searching for his heir.
A boisterous crowd filled the room: half-dressed whores and the men who sought their services. The clientele were mainly working men—Thames River boatmen, coalmen, shopmen—but a red-coated soldier was disappearing up the staircase with a whore, and in the far corner two young bucks in tailcoats and knee breeches were haggling with a blowsy blonde.
Albin pressed close. “Do you see Mr. Langford, sir?” His voice was higher than usual.
“No.” The air was over-warm, heavy, sour. It filled Marcus’s mouth and nose, almost rancid on his tongue. “If he’s here, he must already be upstairs.”
“Up . . . upstairs, sir?”
Marcus nodded at the staircase. Another bullyboy lounged at the foot of it.
“But sir, if Mr. Langford is upstairs—”
“Then we go up.”
“But—”
Marcus pushed his way through the crowd, heading for the staircase and its guardian. The floorboards were sticky with spilled alcohol; his boots adhered slightly with each step.
A woman took hold of his arm. “Wot you be wantin’, luv?”
Marcus glanced at her.
She was young, no more than eighteen, her bodice open to expose lush breasts. Despite her ripe figure, there was nothing tantalizing about her; her skin was grubby and marked with bruises. Gin fumes wafted from her.
“Wotever you wan’, Sal can do it.” She pressed her naked breasts against his arm, rubbed her nipples across the blue superfine, and slid her free hand down to cup his groin intimately.
Marcus shrugged her off. “No thank you, madam.” He stepped aside and pressed on into the crowd. Albin scurried after him, almost treading on his heels. He had the impression the lad was barely restraining himself from clutching his sleeve.
The man guarding the foot of the stairs looked as if he’d spent time in the ring. His nose sat crookedly on his face.
“I’m looking for Phillip Langford.” Marcus gave the man a glimpse of a silver shilling. “He’s twenty-two, running to fat, dark hair—”
“Upstairs,” the man said, holding out his hand for the coin. “Room at the end.”
“Thank you.” Marcus set his foot on the first stair. The carpet was frayed and stained. “Come along, Albin.”
The bullyboy slid the shilling into his pocket. “We don’t want no trouble ’ere.”
“Trouble?” Marcus showed his teeth in a smile. “Us?”
The man shrugged and stepped aside.
Marcus climbed the stairs. At the top was a corridor with doors on either side. Most of them were closed.
He walked down the corridor. The smell of sweat and cheap gin was pervasive here, too. Noises came from behind several of the doors—squeals of feminine laughter, the rhythmic banging of a headboard against a wall. At the end were two doors, one on each side. Marcus glanced at his secretary. “Well? Which one shall it be?”
“Sir, are you certain we should—”
“Not thinking of quitting on me, are you, Albin?”
The lad flushed. “No, sir, of course not! But . . . but what if he’s busy—”
“Then we interrupt him.”
“But isn’t it rude—”
“Extremely rude. But don’t worry, lad, he might invite you to join in. I hear he likes ménages.” He almost laughed at Albin’s appalled expression. “Left or right?”
Albin swallowed. He lifted his chin. “Right, sir.”
Marcus gave a quick rap on the right-hand door and opened it without waiting for a response. Heaving buttocks met his eyes.
The whore and her client were on hands and knees, rutting like sheep in a paddock. They were too involved to notice their loss of privacy. The man’s buttocks quaked and jiggled with each thrust. They looked like large white blancmanges.
Marcus took a step into the room to see if the man was Phillip. He was plump enough, dark-haired enough—
The man’s head jerked around. He wasn’t Phillip.
His rhythm faltered. His mouth began to form a question.
“I beg your pardon,” Marcus said, bowing. “My mistake.” He shut the door and turned to Albin with a grin. “Wrong choice, lad.”
Albin didn’t reply. He looked as startled as the man they’d interrupted, his mouth half-open in shock.
“Which means that Phillip must be in here . . .” Marcus opened the left-hand door, not bothering to knock.
Three people were inside. One was indeed Phillip. He sprawled on a sagging bed, naked, his shoulders propped against the headboard, his legs spread to accommodate the whore who had his cock in her mouth.
Marcus stepped into the room. Phillip didn’t notice. His attention was on the second whore. Her gown was down to her waist, her ample breasts bared to Phillip’s groping hands.
Marcus glanced back at Albin. The lad hadn’t moved. He stood rooted in the corridor, his expression appalled. “Come in, lad,” Marcus said. “Meet my heir.”
Phillip turned his head. “Wha’?”
“Ladies, if you don’t mind, I’d like a word with your client.” Marcus dug in his pocket and pulled out two shillings.
The woman kneeling between Phillip’s legs lifted her head. Her eyes fastened on the coins.
“I’ll ask you to wait outside, please,” Marcus said.
The woman scrambled off the bed. Her companion extricated herself from Phillip’s grasp and followed, not bothering to cover her breasts.
“Thank you, ladies.” Marcus handed them each a silver coin. “We won’t be long.”
He shut the door after them and turned back to his heir.
Phillip pushed himself up to sit. His cock was at half-mast. “What the devil are you doing here? Can’t send ’em away. I paid for ’em. Paid for ’em both!”
“I came to talk to you,” Marcus said, strolling to the bed.
“Me?” Phillip scowled. “Why?”
“I was attacked last week. In St. James’s Park.”
The scowl vanished. Phillip sniggered. “I heard.”
“Did you hire the men who attacked me?”
Phillip squinted up, blinking owlishly as he tried to focus on Marcus’s face. “Huh?”
“Did you hire the men who attacked me?”
Phillip thought this through for several seconds, then shook his head. “Wish I’d thought o’ it, though.” He sniggered again. “You’ve got a black eye.”
Marcus stepped closer until he loomed over Phillip. “What about the broken windows? The shit on my doorstep? Was that you?”
“Shit?” Phillip said. “What shit?”
“The shit on my doorstep.”
“Shit.” Phillip repeated. “Shit on your doorstep.” He flopped back on the bed, giggling, his arms wide, his belly heaving. “Shit.”
Lying back on the bed, his groin was prominently displayed. His cock had wilted and lay flaccid in a nest of dark hair.
“Did you do it?”
“Shit,” Phillip repeated, giggling. “Cuckold Cosgrove has shit on his doorstep.”
Marcus reached down and shook Phillip’s shoulder, digging his fingers into the soft flesh. “Did you do it?”
Phillip blinked blearily up at him. “Do what?”
“Put the shit on my doorstep.”
Phillip went off in a peal of giggles that ended with a hiccup.
Marcus shook him again. “Did you do it?”
Phillip batted at his hand. “Stop that.”
“Did. You. Do. It?”
Phillip glowered up at him. “Wish I had,” he said, between hiccups. “You deserve it.”
Marcus released his heir’s shoulder. He straightened and turned to Albin. His secretary was staring at Phillip, utter revulsion on his face. “Let’s go.”
Albin tore his gaze away from Phillip. He fumbled for the door handle, jerked the door open, and hurried out into the corridor.
The two whores were waiting outside. Marcus nodded to them. “Thank you for your patience, ladies.”
He walked down the corridor to where his secretary stood at the head of the stairs. Albin’s face was chalk-white. He looked as if he was about to be ill.
“Well?” Marcus asked. “What do you think of my heir?”
“I don’t like him, sir,” Albin blurted.
“Neither do I.” Marcus straightened his cuffs and headed downstairs.
* * *
At the foot of the staircase, the crowd engulfed them. Charlotte curled her fingers into her palms to stop herself grabbing the earl’s coat. I am a man, she told herself. I must act like one.
She set her jaw and followed the earl, her gaze resolutely on his back. In another minute they’d be outside, away from the stench and the heat and the press of unwashed bodies and the hubbub of voices—
