She waved him over. Hesitating only a moment, he strode to her, questions on the tip of his tongue.
“Where is the chapel?” he asked, his gaze landing on her collarbone that was protruding from her skin. She was a skeleton.
The woman tried to smile, and the blackened teeth in her mouth made him grimace.
“Ye lookin’ ta get married?” she purred, reaching out to drape a bony arm over his shoulder. She leaned into him; he leaned back, pushing her arm off his person. He shuddered.
“I am looking for a man. He would be with a finely dressed lady.” Elizabeth wouldn’t have left home without dressing to the nines. “Have you seen them?”
The woman pouted, clearly realizing she wasn’t getting “married” or paid for her less-than-desirous services.
“Aye, I seen ’em. Wot ye gonna give me fer talkin’?” Now that her wiles had no effect on him, she’d reverted to cold-hearted harlot in a blink. She planted a spidery-fingered hand on a hip and glared up at him.
“I don’t suppose they are in the chapel?” he asked, fighting back the urge to groan in frustration. “You speak, I’ll give you the sum of a usual night’s pay, plus another two sovereigns for food, and you can go home.”
She sneered. “Home? Ye think I’d be workin’ here if I had a home? Yer a daft git.”
He narrowed his eyes, standing straighter, taller. “Do we have a deal?”
Snapping her mouth shut, she stared up into his face, her gaze flicking from his eyes, to his clothes, to linger on his groin, then she met his gaze again.
“Aye.”
Richard let out a breath, then reached into his pocket to secure the crowns he always kept there.
Holding the money aloft, he demanded, “Speak.”
The woman reached up for the coins, dislodging the cloth from her shoulder, which bared a pale breast. He quickly looked away, allowing her to right herself.
“The chapel ain’t no real church. It’s wot the abbess calls the back room where the hoity toffs have their sex parties.” At the woman’s words, he snapped back to look at her. She pointed to a door in the corner.
“Orgies?” By God. Was his cousin, even now, being violated?
The woman grunted. “There’s no party in there now—don’t go blowin’ yer chimney. That’s where that man ye were askin’ about is, though. He came through here no more’n two hours ago, draggin’ that lady with the fancy clothes behind him. I thought it was peculiar that he’d trussed her up before they got to the chapel.” She shrugged. “But who am I to judge wot get ’em off?”
Dropping the coins into the woman’s outstretched hand, he wasted no time heading toward the door set into the back of the room.
Pausing at the door, his hand on the latch, he closed his eyes and dragged in a deep breath. Elizabeth was just behind the door. She could be hurt. The man who’d taken her could have set a trap. Most likely that’s what this all was: a crude trap to finally finish what he’d tried to accomplish behind Bennington’s. But why?
The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, reaching out to whoever was watching him. But it wasn’t alarm that slammed through him; it was a sense of…rightness. He knew without looking that Victoria was somewhere in the building, hiding in the abundant shadows, her beautiful sapphire eyes watching him. Pushing him on, bracing him with invisible waves of encouragement.
In his darkest moment, she was there, a resplendent beacon of warmth and strength that called to him.
Pushing down the latch, he swung the door open. He had expected to find a garish mockery of an actual chapel, and he wasn’t disappointed.
Instead of rows of pews on which the repentant would sit, there were groups of chaises on which sinners would recline. Instead of an altar crowned with holy accoutrements for worship of the Lord, there was a large, low bed on a dais.
Elizabeth was tied to it.
“Elizabeth, dear heavens,” he choked out, his chest squeezing painfully.
All my fault…
He took off at a sprint, desperate to get to her, but the sound of a pistol cocking made him skid to a halt several yards from where Elizabeth lay, her head lifted as she struggled against her bonds. Her eyes were wide and wet with tears and her mouth gagged with what looking like a balled-up cravat.
“Richard,” a familiar voice called. “So good of you to come.”
His body trembling with rage, his fists aching with the pressure of holding himself still, he turned his head to find a masked man standing to his right, beneath a large stained-glass window depicting the fall of the archangel Lucifer.
How fitting.
“Ethan,” Richard ground out. “You have me here, now let Elizabeth go.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“No need for introductions, I see,” Ethan Crossley intoned, shrugging. He reached behind his head with one hand and untied the straps holding his black mask in place. Made to look like the dual faces of Comedy and Tragedy, the mask was a tragic comedy all its own.
Richard’s body thrumming with rage, Richard clenched and unclenched his hands, forcing down the urge to do bloody violence to a man he’d once counted as a friend.
“What have you done, Ethan? What is the meaning of all this?” he demanded, his voice carrying across the space.
Ethan stepped off the chaise on which he’d been standing and landed with a spring in his step. He tossed the mask on the floor and met Richard’s gaze.
“What have I done? Well, it’s obvious, is it not? I have taken your precious, witless cousin, and I have tied her to a bed.” Ethan glanced at Elizabeth’s prone form and smirked. “Do you think I should ravish her while you watch or after I kill you?”
Cold hatred filled his blood. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh? So confident in my self-restraint?” Ethan took a step toward Elizabeth, and her tears stopped as she began struggling all the harder.
He took a step toward Ethan, his boots sliding across the wooden planks of the “chapel” floor.
“Would you ravish my cousin, Ethan?” he asked, a sneer on his face. “Is it possible…since she is not a man?”
Yes, he knew, he’d always known. He wasn’t a fool, he could see the way Ethan would peer at other men when they weren’t looking. It wasn’t a look of companionship but a deep, dark lust that lit his eyes. But Richard hadn’t cared. It wasn’t his place to judge a man for his fleshly lusts, but now…he wondered what had happened to Ethan to turn him into such a wicked and heartless fiend.
Ethan gasped, his face turning a sickly green. “How?” he rasped. He seemed to wobble on his feet, as if the shock were sapping his strength. Too bad his pistol hand was still pointed directly at Richard. Unwavering.
“It doesn’t matter how I knew, Ethan. I didn’t care whom you chose to love. What I care about is what you have become—a burglar? An attempted murderer? An abductor of innocents?” He listed the offenses, disgust in his tone. “Why, Ethan? What happened to you?”
That question seemed to snap Ethan from his stupor. His eyes flashed fire.
“You have no idea the things I’ve done—the things I would do to keep my father from cutting me off like a dead limb. He knew of my ‘proclivities,’ as he called them, and he demanded I ‘fix it’ or he would denounce me publically, cutting off all my funds and leaving me destitute.” Ethan’s pistol had begun to shake, his finger on the trigger.
Richard’s heart thundered. “Ethan, put the pistol down… We can talk as friends,” he said coaxingly.
Ethan chuckled, his laugh hollow and haunted. “Friends? Even after I nearly had you killed, abducted your cousin, and pointed a pistol at your head?” He laughed again. “Come now, Richard. I am no fool.”
Swallowing a curse, Richard dared to take another step forward. He needed to get between Ethan and Elizabeth. He had to protect her from whatever Ethan might do.
“Fine, then. Tell me why I am here. Tell me why you have turned down this path.” Keep him talking. Keep him distracted.
“It’s a long story, though I suppose you have nowhere else to be right now.”
“No. I don’t,” he admitted.
“I’d hate to think of myself as a laughable dramatic villain, but when else will I have the opportunity to tell you all about my wrongs and those who wronged me?”
Richard grunted, his body tense. “Go on.”
“Very well then,” Ethan said, beaming. “Two years ago, after Father discovered me in bed with my tutor, he sent me to Shanghai to oversee his shipping investments. It was there I discovered the sweet oblivion of opium.”
The realization struck Richard like a hammer to the skull. Ethan had fallen into the trap of addiction to one of the most potent intoxicants on the planet. The poor sot.
Richard, nodding, said, “That is why you frequent this place…” Hedo’s House wasn’t just a seraglio; it was an opium den. A place for gentlemen and beggars to come and sink into the haze of smoke and sensuality.
“Yes. Here, no one cares who my father is or who I bugger. It is just me, my pipe, and my fantasies of freedom and b-bliss.” Ethan stumbled, his hand shaking in jerky movements.
He must be in withdrawal… Opium was a strong drug, rooting its tentacles into its host and binding them to it. From what Richard had learned through some of his friends who owned merchant fleets to the Orient, opium could kill—simply by making you so desperate for it that you would do anything to get it. It made one careless, reckless.
“Is that why you don’t want your father to know of your addiction? He would cut you off and you would be without the funds to secure what you need to maintain your habit?”
Ethan nodded. “Yes. Yes.” His words came out clipped, sharp.
“What about the housebreaking… Were you looking for money to buy the opium?” Richard asked, trying to maneuver the conversation into answering questions he and the Darings had.
Grunting, Ethan shuddered. “No. That wasn’t my doing— Well, I did break into the houses, but I didn’t do it for me…”
“Who was it for?”
“The Cards,” Ethan spat, redirecting the pistol to a newcomer who was slinking into the room from a doorway Richard hadn’t seen.
Tense, Richard watched as Benjamin came into view.
“Ethan, what madness is this? What have you done?” Ben exploded, his face a mottled red mass of jiggling flesh. “Why did you call me here?”
Ethan giggled, his eyes widening. There was a glaze over his gaze… He was weakening.
“Don’t act as though you never set foot here. I have it on good authority that you’ve been collected from here—drunk and replete—on more than one occasion.”
Ben harrumphed. “Every man has his vice.”
“Does your brother?” Ethan drawled, his eyes flashing with something Richard didn’t quite catch.
“Enough of this!” Ben bellowed, then repeated, “Why did you call me here?”
“It was all part of my plan—the Cards’ plan.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ben demanded.
There was movement from the corner, a shadow sliding within the shadows. Richard’s body vibrated with awareness.
Victoria. She was there; she was watching. A new sense of strength filled him.
“Tell us what this is all about, Ethan.”
“I told you I went to Liverpool… Well, that wasn’t a lie. But I wasn’t there to see to my father’s business interests. I was there smoking and buggering and falling deeper into debt for my habit. I wrote to my father, asking for more money, but he refused, saying that if he discovered anything else of which to be ashamed, he would remove me from his life without hesitation. I am his only son. He can’t dismiss me like that.”
Richard took a step forward slowly. “That is truly terrible, Ethan. But what does that have to do with us?” he asked, pointing to Ben and Elizabeth.
Ethan, in turn, pointed the pistol at Benjamin. “I met a man in Liverpool—a bastard wearing a golden mask. He said he could use my knowledge of the underbelly of society and my connections through my father to get me all the money I could ever need. He said I could help bring down society completely and dance on the embers after the consuming fire.”
Richard sucked in a gulp of air. The man before him was sounding more and more unhinged.
“What the hell does that have to do with me? I am a second son. I have no connections,” Ben interjected.
“You were to be a sacrifice!” Ethan screamed, his pistol hand straightening. The muzzle still pointed at Ben’s chest.
“What?” Ben gasped.
“What the man in the golden mask didn’t tell me was that I had no choice but to do what he commanded. You see, he knew all about me and what I’d been doing in Liverpool. He said he would tell my father everything if I didn’t go along with his plans. But, the more I acted on his orders, the more I realized I could take back my future if I proved myself too valuable an asset. Then he would keep my secrets—because he couldn’t afford to lose me.”
“So, you decided to kill Benjamin? Why?” Richard asked, the puzzle pieces forming a horrible image.
“Benford,” he answered simply.
“My father? What about him?” Ben blurted.
Ethan giggled again, his glazed eyes sharpening for a moment. “What about him, indeed? From the time I met the man in the mask, the Golden Man, I suspected there was something about him that was familiar. It might have been his eyes, so similar to those of a childhood friend… I knew he was your father, Benjamin. Your father was the Golden Man, the despised leader of the House of Cards Society.”
The second-to-final puzzle piece snapped into place. “The playing card? You’re the Black Jack…”
“Yes.”
“Who are the others?”
Ethan shrugged. “They all wear masks…but I know who they are. They can’t hide their sins from me…the King of Sinners.” He hiccupped, nearly stumbling back to land on the chaise, but as Richard made to lunge for the pistol, he straightened, pointing the muzzle squarely at him. “And you. You ruined my chance to kill Ben. He was supposed to be in the alley that night, not you—and who was that woman with you? You both deserve to rot for what you did. So…I took what you love and tied it to a filthy bed, where filthy acts are committed by filthy people.”
Richard’s blood chilled, slowing to a crawl in his veins. Elizabeth…Victoria… He could feel the weight of their lives on his shoulders. If he failed to get Ethan to see reason, if his cousin or Victoria—or any of her family—were harmed, he would never forgive himself.
Steeling his nerves, he spoke as calmly as his thundering heart allowed. “Now, Ethan—”
“Don’t patronize me, Richard. I hold all the cards,” he yelled, then giggled. “Literally. The House of Cards will answer to me. I will become their new leader, I will rid myself of Benjamin and his pater, and I will rid myself of the need for my father or his sanctimonious money!”
Ethan raised his arm higher, pointing at Ben’s head, his finger squeezing on the trigger. But, before he could get off a shot, a silver star pierced his hand. Ethan screamed and dropped the pistol, cradling his hand to his chest.
Victoria had intervened.
Perfect timing.
Richard rushed toward Ethan’s shuddering frame, moving around the chaises and cushions between him and his onetime friend. Ethan’s eyes fairly popped from his head when a figure, cloaked in all black, emerged beside the bed where Elizabeth was lying.
“You!” Ethan bellowed, turning his gaze on Richard. “I told you not to bring her!” Screaming, Ethan dived for the pistol he’d dropped at his feet, and Richard was upon him, planting his shoulder in Ethan’s belly.
Ethan let out an oompf, and Richard and Ethan landed in a heap on the floor. But Ethan wasn’t finished. He used his good hand to push at Richard’s chest, forcing him back enough to get his knees under him, launching him off his body. Scrambli
ng to his knees, Ethan went for the pistol again, but Richard scrambled after him, slapping the weapon from Ethan’s reach. It slid across the floor and under one of the chaises.
Bracing himself, he launched a fist into Ethan’s face, a satisfying crunching sound meeting his ears. Ethan’s head flew back as blood began pouring from his nose. Sputtering, Ethan threw himself at Richard, his fists flying wildly. Richard blocked his punches easily; Ethan was weakening, the loss of blood and the opium withdrawal taking their toll.
Finally, he planted a fist in Ethan’s belly, knocking the man back to land on his arse against a chaise. Ethan slumped, his uninjured hand falling to the floor beside him, his face crumpling in pain and exhaustion.
“I’m done, aren’t I?” Ethan asked, his chest rising and falling with staggering breaths.
Richard nodded, his own breathing harsh. “I’m afraid so, old friend.” He looked over his shoulder, casting a glance at where Elizabeth had been lying.
She was gone, and Victoria with her.
Victoria will see Elizabeth to safety—but Elizabeth would never have been in this predicament if it weren’t for me. For my blindness with Victoria.
“I have lost everything, haven’t I?” Ethan murmured, his injured hand pressed to his belly.
“Not everything, Ethan… You can still help us. You can tell us everything you know about the House of Cards,” Richard said, his voice pleading, gentle. “Help us.”
Ethan’s gaze was pinned to the floor between his legs, his breathing still ragged. His body was limp, and Richard knew Ethan was in the worst throes of his withdrawal.
Finally, Ethan spoke. “I could help… I would still get what I want from the Cards. I could make them fall at my feet… Couldn’t I?”
He knew Ethan wasn’t asking him…he was lost in his own mind.
“Ethan…who else is in the House of Cards?” Richard prodded, a crackling urgency flowing through him. He rose to his feet but then crouched beside his friend’s limp form. “Tell me.”
Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but then a loud boom sounded and a crimson star opened upon his forehead, his head falling back as if punched.
A Lady Never Tells (Women of Daring) Page 25
