Kissing Cousins

by Joan Smith

  “You’re too green by half, my girl. Wanda’s no lady, and neither is Amy.”

  “What age is Amy?”

  “Fifteen, and already hard at work.”

  “Poor child. What does she do?”

  “She’s following the family profession, isn’t she? Amy’s a hostess at Mike Skelton’s gaming hell, over on Queen’s Road, when she isn’t otherwise occupied. What I was thinking—Amy might know where her mama is.”

  “We should ask her!”

  “Aye, we should. It could save a deal of scrambling about town. Grab your pretty bonnet and let’s go.”

  Samantha looked uncertainly at the connecting door to Salverton’s room. No, she wouldn’t ask him to go along. It did occur to her, however, that Mr. Sykes might go alone. She suggested it to him.

  “My first thought was to spare you, Miss Oakleigh,” he said, gazing at her from a pair of eyes as beautiful and unfeeling as star sapphires. “The devil of it is, a fellow isn’t allowed into Mike’s place without a lady. It’s for couples only. The ladies feel uncomfortable with too many men leering over their shoulders. It’s a decent sort of place. I’ll see no harm comes to you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sykes,” she said, and picked up her bonnet and pelisse. Sykes smiled appreciatively while she put on the former, and helped her on with the latter. Of course he had lied about the necessity of Samantha’s accompanying him, but he meant her no harm. He did it as much to goad that toplofty Salverton as anything.

  Before they left, he picked up two slices of bread and butter, wrapped each one around a wedge of cheese, and handed her one. “No point wasting good food,” he said. Samantha agreed, and was happy he had thought of it.

  Salverton had realized by this time that Samantha was speaking to someone in her room. He could hear movement and the low hum of voices. He assumed it was Mabel. There had been some mention of tea, but on the off chance that that jackanapes of a Sykes had inveigled his way into her room, he hastened his dressing.

  His knock at the door brought no response. He opened it and looked into a perfectly empty room. In her eagerness to leave, she hadn’t even extinguished her lamp. He saw the teapot and food on the washstand. He saw the two used cups, and knew Samantha had not crept out into the night alone, or with Mabel Sykes. She was with that scoundrel! When he found them, he would wring both their necks. But first he had to find them—and it was four pence to a groat that Sykes had taken the carriage.

  Chapter Seven

  Salverton snatched up his jacket and hat on the run. He pelted into the road just as the carriage turned the corner to Castle Street. He ran after it, shouting, and managed to keep it in sight to the next corner, where it turned east on the Western Road. Sykes would take the Dyke Road north, out of town.

  The bastard was kidnapping Samantha! Salverton was gasping for breath from running, and all the while the carriage was drawing farther away from him. He cursed himself for having taken her to Sykes’s lair.

  He’d have to report it to the constable. Bow Street would be called in at once. Strangely, it was not the shame and disgrace of it that bothered Salverton, but the realization that Samantha was in danger. Why the devil hadn’t she called out for help? She knew he was right next door.

  He paused a moment and stood, rubbing his chin. The answer was staring him in the face. Samantha hadn’t been kidnapped. The baggage had gone off willingly with her Mr. Sykes, not realizing what a villain the man was. The thing to discover was where Sykes was taking her. At best, it would be to some déclassé party or gaming hell. That would be the lure he held out to get her away from the house in any case.

  Mabel would know his usual haunts. Salverton walked quickly back to the lodging house on Stone Street, in the front door, down the hallway, down a flight of stairs to the kitchen area, from which Mabel had appeared. He called loudly as he went.

  Mabel Sykes came scrambling out of a room off the kitchen.

  “ ‘Ere!” she exclaimed. “What’s going on, mister? Why are you shouting to wake the dead? We got paying guests to think of.” In her right hand she had a firm grasp on a butcher knife, which she kept under her pillow at night.

  “Where’s Sykes?” Salverton demanded.

  “He was taking tea up to you and your piece, the last I seen of him.”

  “He’s gone off in my carriage with my cousin. Where would he be taking her?”

  “Lord love me, is that all? I thought you was robbed, at least. Now, how should I know where they’ve gone to? Jon is friends with every rake and rattle in town. It’s the touch of quality that gets to him every time, mister. Your bit o’ muslin was very ladylike, for one of them. He’s very particular in his flirts, is Jonathon. How did she get away on you? You’ve hardly had time—”

  “I have reason to believe your nephew used some stunt to get my cousin to go with him. Where is he?”

  “You can ask till the cows come home, mister, and neither you nor me nor the doorknob will be any the wiser. I don’t know where he’s gone, and that’s a fact. I ain’t his wife or his ma. He’s a grown man. He does what he likes. But I’ll tell you this, you needn’t fear for her safety, one way or t’other. Jon don’t have to force them. He treats a lady proper. Just go on back to bed, and if she’s a mind to, she’ll be back waiting for you by morning.”

  On this speech she turned to leave. After taking one step, she turned to look back over her shoulder. “You wasn’t fool enough to pay him in advance, by chance?”

  “He’s been well rewarded,” Salverton replied, stinging from that thoughtless and well-deserved “fool.”

  “Well then, he’s gone to a gaming hell, hasn’t he? Try Mrs. Nesbitt’s on Golden Lane, or Meg— No, he’d not take a lady there. He could be at Mrs. Minchin’s.”

  “He headed north up the Dyke Road.”

  “The Dyke Road, you say? That’d be Mike Skelton’s place, then. Odd he’d take her there. There’s no shortage of lightskirts at Mike’s place.”

  Salverton fumed in silent rage. ‘“Where is it?”

  “On the Dyke Road, just north of the cemetery.”

  “Is there a mount here I can ride?” Mabel’s gooseberry eyes emitted a curious gleam, half fear, half greed. Salverton drew out his purse and extracted a golden boy. “It’s urgent,” he said, fingering the coin enticingly.

  Mabel reached out and snatched it from his fingers. “Caesar. A gray gelding hitched to the tree in the backyard. Gelding hasn’t tamed the brute much. Mind you have it back before morning or Jon’ll have my head on a platter like the martyr I am.”

  Salverton didn’t reply, but pelted out the door and around to the backyard. He heard a whicker and followed it to a spreading mulberry, where he discovered a well-groomed gray, instead of the tired jade with a spavined back he expected to see. The saddle hung conveniently nearby on the lower branch of the mulberry tree. After saddling the mount, he had some difficulty convincing Caesar he meant business, but eventually he was in the saddle and on his way north. It took every ounce of his strength to control the powerful animal.

  As he entered the Dyke Road, he left polite Brighton behind. Ahead lay a dark, lonesome path. He increased his pace to a gallop. The mount’s hooves thundered over the metaled road. A cold moon lent an eerie air to the countryside. Wind stirred the trees that edged the roadside. Beyond the trees lay barren fields and an occasional small dwelling. Salverton regretted he hadn’t brought his pistol with him. It was ideal highwayman country. But the big gray set such a fast pace, he doubted anyone could outride him. It was a magnificent mount.

  Before long he spotted the spire of a church on his right, and on his left a cemetery. The headstones and monuments shone with a wan and ghastly light. Mike Skelton’s gaming hell was not far beyond, according to Mabel.

  Salverton wasted no time getting past the cemetery, then he slowed to a canter. After half a mile, he spotted a low, spreading house nestled among a bank of sheltering bushes. There was no sign to indicate it was a public establishme
nt, but the number of lit windows suggested it was more than a private residence.

  A young stable boy popped out of nowhere. “Can I stable your nag, mister?” he asked. “ ‘Ere! That’s Jon’s Caesar, that is.”

  “What of it? Is Sykes here?” Salverton asked.

  “Aye, he just drove his rig ‘round to the back hisself. Nipcheese! Too clutch-fisted to pay for a driver, and him with a lady, too.”

  Salverton flipped the helpful lad a coin. He dismounted and handed him the reins, then strode angrily to the rear of the building. The carriage he had hired was there, empty. The back door of the house was locked, but that, of course, would provide no impediment to Sykes and his passe-partout. Salverton’s gorge rose higher as he returned to the front door and walked in without knocking.

  A bruiser with shoulders like a clothespress examined him and decided against ejecting him. His pockets looked deep.

  “Come for a game of cards, sir?” he asked, smiling and revealing the two or three teeth that remained in his head.

  “I’m looking for Sykes,” Salverton growled.

  The bruiser took one look at Salverton’s black scowl and said, “Casino parlor. Upstairs to your left. And no brawling, mind,” he called. Salverton had already brushed past him.

  He took the uncarpeted stairs two at a time, and soon found himself in a noisy corridor. The two rooms on either side of the hallway were full to overflowing with gamblers of both sexes, none of them respectable, to judge by their appearance. He looked in the closer rooms on either side of the hallway. When he heard the clicking of the roulette wheel and the rattle of dice, he passed on. Casino didn’t require either a wheel or dice. He strode on quickly to the next rooms.

  It was in the last one that he spotted Sykes. Salverton took one step forward, murder in his heart, and stopped. Samantha wasn’t with him. Sykes sat at the casino table, playing cards with three other men. A quick glance around told Salverton that Samantha wasn’t in the room. Three of the lower class of lightskirts made up the female contingent.

  Salverton hesitated a moment, trying to decide between making a scene and taking a closer look in the other rooms. He was about to leave, when he felt a jiggle on his arm, and a blowsy blonde in an exceedingly low-cut gown leered at him,

  “All alone, love?” she asked coyly. “Come and buy me a wee drink. I’ll bring you luck. They call me Lucky Lucy.”

  Salverton recoiled from her touch, and the stench of cheap toilet water that didn’t quite succeed in covering even more repugnant odors.

  “I’m looking for a young lady,” he said to be rid of the harridan.

  “Ain’t you lucky? You’ve found me.”

  “A lady in a blue gown. She came with Jonathon Sykes.”

  The woman looked Salverton up and down consideringly. “You don’t want to tangle with Sykes,” she cautioned.

  “Did you see her?”

  The blonde tossed her head toward a closed door at the end of the hall. “She’s with Amy in the ladies’ parlor.”

  “Ladies’ parlor?”

  “It’s all right. Gents are allowed in. It’s where they go to pick a girl if they come for something besides gambling,” she informed him with another leering smile.

  “Oh, Lord!”

  Without another word, he rushed to the closed door and threw it open. The ladies’ parlor was a large chamber with some pretentions to elegance. It held sofas and saloon furniture, and in one corner, a wine table where a servant was selling wine. A series of doors led off the room. One hung open, showing a bed with a garish red canopy. He checked to see the room was unoccupied before returning his attention to the main room, where he saw a dozen men and girls behaving in a way he considered licentious. Some of the girls were perched on the men’s knees. Other men had their arms around the girls’ waists. A few tame kisses were being exchanged.

  He soon spotted Samantha, sitting on a sofa with another girl much too young to be selling her charms. A man with graying hair took the young girl’s arm and led her from the room. She smiled flirtatiously over her shoulder at Salverton as she left. The man at Samantha’s side was younger, and rather handsome. He wasn’t actually touching her, but he looked as if he’d like to. Salverton’s face turned an alarming shade of red.

  “Samantha, come here at once!” he exclaimed. Every head in the room turned.

  Samantha looked up, and upon seeing Salverton, uttered a strangled gasp, and turned to the man beside her.

  “Is he your husband?” the man asked.

  “Yes!” Salverton said firmly, figuring that was the easiest way to extricate her.

  “Of course not!” she replied simultaneously.

  Salverton strode forward and seized Samantha’s hand. “You’re coming with me, now.”

  “I told Mr. Sykes I’d meet him here,” she replied, wrenching her hand free. “No need for you to remain, Cousin.”

  He reached out and took her hand again. It was too much for the man who was with her. He leapt up, bristling.

  “The young lady doesn’t wish to accompany you, sir.”

  “You shut your face,” Salverton scowled.

  “Mr. Sykes will take me home,” Samantha said.

  “You’re coming with me,” Salverton insisted.

  The altercation drew the attention of the others in the room. A crowd surged forward, sensing a brawl.

  The man with Samantha rose and gave Salverton’s shoulder a buffet. “The lady says she is not your wife,” he said. Salverton ignored the words but returned the buffet. Within seconds, a full-fledged brawl ensued. Without having the least notion who was in the right, the others chose sides and enjoyed a fine battle. Even the women took part. Lacking strength to deliver a telling blow, they availed themselves of vases and wine bottles.

  When Samantha saw that Salverton was being attacked by two men at once, she grabbed up one of the wine bottles and lowered it over the head of one of them.

  “Salverton, you idiot!” she said, and was rewarded with a murderous scowl.

  “There’s gratitude for you!” he growled.

  Neither of them noticed the female behind Salverton as she lifted a sturdy china jug and lowered it with considerable force over Salverton’s head. Samantha heard a menacing thump as it came in contact with his skull. Salverton cast a darkly accusing eye at her as he fell to the floor.

  A brace of bruisers came flying in to find the cause of the disturbance, and settle it.

  “ ‘Ere, this is going to cost someone a pretty penny,” a man of mule-like proportions exclaimed. "That’s it, folks. Fight’s over.”

  The regulars recognized in the bruiser the proprietor of the establishment, Mike Skelton.

  After a little scuffling, the battle dwindled to mere verbal abuse. “He’s the one started it,” the man who had been protecting Samantha said, pointing at Edward’s inert body. He was upheld by others who felt it safe to lay the blame on the unconscious.

  Samantha made some effort to revive her protector. When fanning him didn’t work, Mike poured a jug of water over his face. Salverton made a gargling sound, but he didn’t regain consciousness. Samantha was becoming worried. When she asked for a doctor, Skelton gave her to understand he didn’t want the body discovered on his premises.

  “I suggest you get him into his carriage and take him to town,” he said, but his tone made it a command. “As soon as he’s settled up for the damages here, that is to say.”

  It was all too much for Samantha. “Would you ask Mr. Sykes to join me?” she said. “He’s playing casino.”

  Sykes soon came hastening in. “I thought I heard a racket. I was winning, and didn’t care to leave the table. Ah, it’s him,” he said with a weary glance at the body on the floor. “Is he hurt much?” He bent over Salverton, lifted his eyelids, and announced he was hale and hearty.

  “We’ll take him home, Miss Oakleigh.”

  “There’s damages!” Skelton said, pointing to the various bits of broken crockery and wine bottles.


  Without batting an eyelash, Sykes put his hand into Salverton’s jacket and drew out his purse. He took out a couple of bills and handed them to Skelton.

  “This'll cover it, Mike, and a little something for your trouble.”

  Mike’s satisfied grin as he left the room told Samantha he’d been generously rewarded.

  “Are you sure Salverton is all right?” she asked Sykes when they were alone.

  “Just a tap on the head. Did you find out what you wanted to from Amy?”

  “Yes. A cottage in Tunbridge Wells.”

  “Then we’ll go back to the hotel.”

  He hoisted Salverton’s inert form over his shoulder as easily as if he were a rag doll and carried him out to the carriage. Samantha rushed to open the carriage door. When Salverton had been stowed within, she hopped in to watch over him.

  “Oh, you’re riding in there, then, are you?” Sykes said, disappointed. “I thought you’d sit with me on the perch, as you did coming, since you enjoyed it so.”

  “I’d best keep an eye on him, Mr. Sykes.”

  “Suit yourself. I wonder how he got here. He wouldn’t have borrowed—” He called for the stable boy, who had been watching them.

  “That’s the bloke as rode your Caesar here,” the boy said, pointing to the body in the carriage.

  “The devil you say! I didn’t think Caesar would let anyone on his back but myself. I’ll pick my nag up as soon as I can. Take care of him for me, lad.” He tossed the boy tuppence.

  “Don’t break your thumb, Jon,” the boy scowled, but he pocketed the coin.

  Sykes hopped onto the perch and the carriage left for the hotel.

  Chapter Eight

  When Salverton began sliding from the seat, Samantha moved to his banquette and held him in place, with his head in her lap. She wasn’t actually worried for Salverton’s life. She had seen the china jug that hit him, and didn’t think it capable of a fatal blow. What did concern her was what mood he would be in when he regained consciousness.