by Gwyn Cready
Bridgewater? The man who’d beaten Undine and threatened Sera?
He followed them, staying off the path to dampen the sound. When they disappeared into the hedges, he stepped from the trees, startling three men ahead of him on the path. He was nearly through them when he stumbled hard. An instant later, he knew he hadn’t misstepped. He’d been tripped, and an instant after that, he was flung onto his back and the night went black.
Forty-eight
Gerard awoke in a fog of pain. He smelled shit, which of course could put him in a lot of places in Edinburgh, but this shit was a low note to the smell of straw and the sounds of stamping hooves and whinnying. He was in a barn, and a fire crackled nearby. Men were talking nearby.
“…off the ship and back to the ship. It’s a foucking dumb show if ye ask me.”
“He didn’t ask you. No one asks you. Harrow? Cut me a wedge, aye?”
Harrow, a short, bearded man with a head the approximate shape of a mortar shell, was one of the men who’d followed him and Serafina through St. Giles.
“Get yer own foucking wedge,” Harrow said, continuing to chew.
What time was it? Gerard could see the starry night outside a hole in the roof above him. He bet Serafina could tell the time just by noting the position of the constellations. He closed his eyes.
He heard steps draw closer and held himself still. His stomach exploded, and he jerked into a ball, vomiting onto the cobbles.
Harrow said, “That’s for the fount. ‘Henry Dowling,’ my arse. It’s time for us to have a chat.”
The man pulled him to a sitting position and thrust him against a wall.
“We’re going to ask ye some questions, and if ye know what’s wise, ye’ll answer. If ye don’t, we’ll give ye the encouragement ye need.”
Gerard could make out an enormous jagged scar across his interrogator’s knuckles—as if he’d punched a brick wall. His mouth dried. The fire Gerard had heard crackled in a metal bowl beyond the barn doors. Two men stood beside it—the other two who’d followed them in the church. They were cooking hunks of meat on sticks.
Harrow swallowed and belched. “What interest do ye have in Lord Hiscock?”
“None,” Gerard said. “I can’t even begin to tell you how little. Wait—yes, I can. Imagine Hiscock is the size of the sun. Now imagine my interest in him is the size of the smallest thing you can imagine—say, your prick. That’s my interest in him.”
The man’s eyes bulged like he were having an apoplectic fit, an effect Gerard enjoyed for the split second it took the man’s fist to reach his chin. Gerard managed to turn enough to deflect most of the blow, but what remained was enough to make his ears ring.
Did Harrow and his stooges work for Hiscock, Bridgewater, Turnbull, or some combination? Gerard eliminated Turnbull. The man seemed too fastidious to have goons. They’d been following him and Serafina since before she’d ever mentioned Hiscock. Which left Bridgewater, the unhappiest answer of all. Bridgewater was not known for his mercy.
Harrow waited for Gerard to find his eyes. Then picked up a length of pipe in his gloved hand. “Shall we try again? What’s your interest in Hiscock?”
“Hey, the guy’s known for making money. I was hoping to partner with him on a venture or two,” Gerard said.
The man clucked his tongue. “Known for making money, yet tighter than an otter’s arse.”
Gerard lifted his head, stunned. “You don’t know then?”
“Know what?”
“Listen, boys, I have something you’re going to want to hear, and you’re going to want to hear it because it involves you.”
Harrow cocked his head. The other two slowed their chewing.
“You’re underpaid,” Gerard said. “You know it. I know it. Your master knows it. Yet you’re helping him help himself to more wealth than you could ever dream of. What did you move back onto the ship tonight?” They had to have meant La Trahison.
“Fabric, pepper, copper wire, dried fish, cotton, a bit o’ wine,” said the older of Harrow’s companions, a breathtakingly ugly man with ears like chicken drumsticks and a forehead as flat as the cliffs of Dover.
Which sounds exactly like Serafina’s missing cargo.
“Shut up, Bill,” Harrow growled.
“The wine was blessed by St. Peter,” the third man added solemnly and threw another stick in the fire bowl. “Heavy as a horse’s haunch too.”
“Okay,” Gerard said. “And what do you think he’s going to sell all that for?”
Bill shrugged his shoulders. “A hundred pounds?”
“Blessed by St. Peter? At the very least. And are you getting ten percent for your troubles?”
“Ten percent?” the third man said. “Try ten shillings. And we had to pay for the wagon.”
“I paid for it,” Bill said to Gerard. “Cambers here never has a goddamned ha’penny on ’im, and Harrow dinna pay for nothin’.”
Gerard said, “I can get you your ten percent, no problem. Know why? I am very well connected when it comes to that ship’s cargo. In fact, I’m having a bit of a flirtation with the ship’s owner.”
“Jesus God.” Camber’s face twisted in horror. “Edward Turnbull?”
“No. The actual owner. A woman. Silent partner, that sort of thing.”
Harrow snorted. “Never known a woman to be silent, myself.”
“Ten percent, fellows. C’mon, what do you think?”
Camber and Bill were salivating. Their gazes went to Harrow, whose face betrayed nothing. He jerked a leather glove tighter over his fist. “What you propose is to rob our master.”
“No, no, no!” Gerard said. “Nothing like that. The cargo master meets the buyer, tacks on a delivery surcharge. Boom. You get your money, I get my money. Nobody’s the wiser. Why should your master keep it all? Sure, he provides the capital, but who does the legwork? Doesn’t your labor contribute to the end result?”
Harrow rolled his tongue inside his cheek. “You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like a good way to get killed.”
Gerard’s heart fell. If he was going to die, he really wished he could have done it after he’d told Serafina he loved her.
“‘Killed’?” Bridgewater appeared beside the fire. “Such an ugly word,” he said. “I prefer ‘meeting one’s fate.’ Who is he? Did you find out?”
Harrow looked at Gerard thoughtfully, then at Bridgewater.
“Couldna get much out of him,” Harrow said, “except that he intended to rob Lady Hiscock.”
Gerard was impressed. The man lied nearly as well as he did.
Cambers offered Bridgewater a skewer of meat. Bridgewater waved it away.
“What do you want us to do?” Harrow asked.
Bridgewater looked around the small space. “Tie him up, put him in the cart, then go. I want to talk to him for a bit. Leave the fire.”
Gerard’s gut turned to sludge. Harrow quickly bound his ankles and wrists. Cambers and Bill carried him out and tossed him between some bales on the back of a wagon. Bridgewater appeared in the doorway.
“No money but a few coins,” Bridgewater said, gesturing to Gerard’s frock coat, which he’d apparently searched. “Nothing of a personal nature. Very unusual. No snuff. No watch. No papers. No knife. Just a small pair of pearl earrings.”
Sera’s earrings? Oh, why didn’t you give them to her?
“But Miss Hiscock did show me Undine’s potion,” Bridgewater said.
Gerard’s surprise must have shown on his face, for Bridgewater added. “Oh, come. You can’t be new to Undine’s tricks. You told Hiscock she was your sister, though I know she’s not. The orange paper and labels are a bit of a conceit on her part. A trademark, so to speak. And a fornication potion of all things. What does it do? Is that why you wished to befriend Miss Hiscock?”
Gerard shook his he
ad. “Fornication potion? What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m not a fool. I saw the cockstand on the tag.”
Gerard realized with a start that if the tag’s heart and arrow were turned upside down, it would very much resemble an erection.
“I’ve heard of potions to increase a man’s length and his ability to perform,” Bridgewater said. “How does it work? I assume the man’s the one who takes it.”
“You disgust me.”
“Elizabeth looked so forlorn at the orangery, I couldn’t help but talk to her. When she mentioned you, I was intrigued. Hiscock had already told me you pretended to know him in order to befriend his daughter and sell chemises to his wife. What exactly are you and Undine playing at?”
Gerard didn’t bother responding. It was his and Serafina’s connection to Undine that had caused the men to follow them.
Bridgewater crossed his arms, regarding Gerard with deep curiosity. “Harrow said you were stalking Miss Hiscock and me. Are you a jealous lover? A chivalrous rescuer? A prurient Peeping Tom? You look too dull to be prurient, so I’m going to bet on rescuer. To be honest, I wasn’t particularly drawn to the girl. Oh, she’s pretty enough, I suppose, but I prefer them more seasoned.”
Gerard began to work the knot on his wrists. The fibers had the tiniest amount of give.
“I told her I’d look for you,” Bridgewater said. “And here I am. She’s waiting in the garden’s hedgerow maze. If only she knew you were just a few hundred feet away.” He laughed and put the pearl earrings in his pocket. “I think when I return, I’ll see if I can convince Miss Hiscock to let me try the potion. I’m not entirely sure what will happen, but I have the oddest feeling I’ll enjoy finding out. And if I swallow that, perhaps she’ll swallow something else.”
Bridgewater had drawn close enough during this disgusting monologue for Gerard to reach him. He shoved his feet, heels first, into Bridgewater’s knee, and the man squealed in pain.
Gerard rocked himself to the end of the wagon, but before he could roll out, Bridgewater butted him in the kidney and swung the gate closed, smashing Gerard’s foot in the process.
“How far exactly do you think you’d get with your ankles tied?” Bridgewater said, wheezing. “Idiot.”
Gerard heard an ominous clank of metal on the fire bowl.
“Do ye know what a malefactor is, Mr. Bond?”
The skin on Gerard’s arm rose in goose bumps.
Bridgewater said, “When I was a lad, the men who stole or raped or sodomized were run out of town—well, mostly hanged, but if they had the funds to convince the justice to be merciful, they were run out of town. But before they were carted away, they were marked with an M for malefactor.”
Bridgewater climbed up the side of the wagon and stepped lightly over the low wall. In his hand was a metal pole, red-hot on one end. He used his boot to press Gerard’s shoulder to the wagon. Then he tore open Gerard’s shirt and shoved the brand into his flesh.
An electric shock animated Gerard’s body, and he screamed. The horses stamped their feet and the iron stench of burnt flesh wafted out on the night air. Then Bridgewater turned the pole around and cracked Gerard on the head.
* * *
Gerard awoke groggily with two pictures in his head—Serafina’s smile as she fell onto a pillow and Colonel Bridgewater tied to a flogging post. He hoped to God he would get a chance to make both happen.
Am I time traveling? Am I dead?
He closed his eyes and tried summoning Serafina in his mind—eyes, rebellious; curls, tumbling; the gown of transcendent white.
Don’t leave me, he whispered.
Never. She shook her head. I’ll never leave ye.
Will you marry me, Sera?
Marry ye? Why would I marry ye?
Because I love you, he said.
Pshaw. All men love me.
Because I’ll fight for you, he said.
You and your advertisements?
Me and everything I am or ever will be.
She drew closer and looked, as if he were an image in a mirror fading into darkness.
It’s me. It’s me. Oh, Sera. I’m here. Don’t leave me. Please, please, please, don’t leave me.
Forty-nine
The rumble of conversation made Serafina turn, but no one was in sight. She heard it again, this time with bass and contralto parts, and identified it as coming from the hedgerow maze. She’d spent the last quarter hour searching the grounds and house for Gerard. She was terrified Undine’s herbs had lifted him away before she’d even had a chance to say… Well, there were so many things she needed to say.
The talking in the maze was too soft for her to recognize the speakers, though the breathy grunts and surprised moans left little question regarding their activity.
Then she heard Elizabeth Hiscock’s voice clearly. “Is this the way you like it?” Serafina’s heart broke—for herself, for Elizabeth, and for Gerard, whom she had misjudged so completely.
What carried her through the turns of the maze, she couldn’t say, for her feet felt like lead. She only knew she had to see the betrayal before her mind could accept what would come after.
With a deep breath, she turned the last corner. Poor Elizabeth Hiscock, clad in the infamous chemise, knelt on the ground, directly between a pair of naked booted legs, administering fellatio at an un-tender pace, her suitor’s hands on her head.
The man’s eyes were closed, and he was lost in his disgusting revelry, but all Serafina could register was relief.
The man wasn’t Gerard. It was Colonel Bridgewater, still in his shirt and frock coat. His breeks and gun belt lay on the ground.
“Miss Hiscock!” she said sharply, and the girl must have bitten down in surprise because Bridgewater let out a roar and flung her away. Serafina pounced on the belt and grabbed the pistol.
“Go back to the house,” Serafina said to the girl, and her tone brooked no disagreement. The girl burst into tears and stumbled toward the exit. “Wait.” Serafina pointed to Bridgewater. “Do ye want to marry him?”
Elizabeth wiped her eyes, shaking. “What?”
“I canna recommend it,” Serafina said. “He’s a thoroughly despicable man, and ye don’t have the experience to know, but a prick that size is going to leave you in a permanent state of unfulfillment. The man’s an earl, however. One word to your father, and I can ensure ye you’ll be a countess before the night is over.”
The girl’s bottom lip quivered. She eyed the blackguard, who was holding his shirttails primly over his cock.
“I do not.”
“Good girl,” Serafina said. “What’s happened here goes no further than these hedges. Not from my mouth, not from yours. No matter what happens. The secret stays between us. Do ye understand?”
Elizabeth Hiscock looked from Bridgewater to the pistol. “Aye.”
“Then go.”
The girl ran off.
“I sincerely doubt you’ll kill me,” Bridgewater said.
“Why is that?”
“They’ll hang you. The English army doesn’t care much for the murder of its officers.”
“’Tis not murder if I found you raping Miss Hiscock.”
“’Twas no rape, Miss Fallon. Ah. You’re surprised I know your name. You shouldn’t be. After all, you made quite an entrance tonight. However, I knew your name well enough before that. You are involved with some very unsavory women—Undine the witch and Abigail Kerr. The report on their activities is on my desk, and if anything happens to me involving you, I’m afraid your friends will be under suspicion for conspiracy to commit murder. Lady Kerr deserves a comeuppance. But I would be quite sad to see my favorite fortune-teller locked away for the rest of her life. The soldiers tend to be, shall we say, energetic when it comes to handsome blonds.”
Serafina cocked the pistol
. Every nerve in her body longed to pull the trigger.
“You do realize I haven’t primed the weapon,” he said.
“Do ye think me a schoolgirl, Colonel? I know a primed weapon when I smell one.”
He shrugged off the poor feint. “In truth, the powder may be damp.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
A sheen appeared on his forehead. “Perhaps I’d do better to beg.”
“Perhaps you might. Try it. I should enjoy listening.”
Undine rushed in. “Serafina.”
Bridgewater let out a tiny, heartfelt gasp. “Undine.”
“Leave us,” Serafina said to Undine.
“Listen to me,” Undine said. “Don’t waste your time here. You’re needed elsewhere.”
“Why?”
“He’s gone.”
A chill went through Serafina.
“Undine the witch,” Bridgewater said in a dreamy singsong voice, “the teller of fortunes and the maker of such lovely potions.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Serafina demanded.
“I thought of you tonight, Undine,” Bridgewater said, “when I brought Miss Hiscock here. I rather wish it had been you, not her, in that pretty chemise…”
Undine, who had been looking at Bridgewater, suddenly paled.
“What is it?” Serafina asked.
“Never mind.” Undine pulled Serafina to a far corner. “Duncan heard a man scream,” she said in a confidential tone, “and ran to the sound. He saw a cart being driven away. He ran after it as long as he could, but it outpaced him. It was heading toward the city.”
“I should like to dress you in sapphires and silk.” Bridgewater gazed drunkenly at Undine. “Then I should very much like to undress you.”
“What did you drink tonight, Colonel?” Undine demanded.
“Drink? Whiskey, of course. A little sherry. Hiscock is too cheap for the finer stuff though. Oh, do you mean the potion? Oh, aye, I drank it. And I liked it so much, I drank it all. Was that pear I tasted? I imagine that’s how you taste.”
“Is he drunk?” Serafina asked Undine.
“Worse, I’m afraid.”
