Lord Libertine

by Gail Ranstrom

  “Miss O’Rourke, you could not possibly know what lay ahead.”

  “I am not a simpleton, sir. Of course I knew. And I knew that I should be more vigorous in my protests, but, well, I was not, and that is my fault, is it not?”

  “No.” His voice was emphatic, as if he insisted upon accepting the entire blame.

  She ignored him to finish as quickly as possible—at least before she lost her courage for such forthrightness. “So, you see, you needn’t worry about paying me off, buying my silence or spending your days in gaol. As to your other offers, I would be grateful if you could keep our indiscretion to yourself. This is not an attempt on my part to deceive, but a desire to salvage what I can of my family’s reputation. If you cannot do it for me, then do it for them. And if you intend to avoid me, sir, you will have to change your habits.”

  “Me? Avoid you?”

  “I…I must continue on as I have been. Please stay out of my way.”

  “You expect me to stand aside and allow you to continue ruining your reputation?” A note of disbelief tinged his voice.

  She nodded. “You cannot stop me, Mr. Hunter. You can only make it more difficult.”

  He stopped and turned her to face him. He seemed to be struggling for words as he adjusted the hood of her cloak and brushed her hair back from her cheek—such sweet commonplace ministrations for someone as fierce as Andrew Hunter.

  He hesitated, then shook his head as if changing his mind about something, dropped his hands to his sides and turned back in the direction they’d come. “I will not try to stop you again, but I will not stay out of your way. Somehow, Miss Isabella O’Rourke from Belfast, you are going to have to find a way to deal with me. Now come. It is time you were home safe in your own bed.”

  When all was said and done, it was a small matter to find a man like Wilson. In the way of the rookeries, one only had to know the right people and the right questions.

  After seeing Bella home, Andrew wound his way through a maze of ramshackle buildings to one of the worst, and then down a corridor lined on each side with cribs—rooms where prostitutes serviced their marks. And there, in a room at the end, sitting in an overstuffed chair to accommodate his bulk, was John Wilson, pimp extraordinaire. A small lad led Andrew into the room and announced his name.

  Wilson’s round ruddy cheeks looked like apples when he smiled at Andrew, but he made no effort to rise from his comfortable chair. “Andrew Hunter! I’ve ’eard o’ ye. I knew ’twas just a matter o’ time before ye found yer way to my cribs. We got all ye could imagine ’ere. So what is it ye wants?”

  Andrew glanced around. Although living in the middle of squalor, Wilson displayed signs of his wealth, made on the backs of countless women. The expensive upholstered chair, the remains of quail and puddings soiling the fine china on a side table, even the servant girl cowering in a corner were all conspicuous displays of Wilson’s superiority over his minions.

  “You look to be doing well, Wilson.”

  “Aye, ’tis easy catering to the likes of ye and yer fellows. Such predictable sods, ye are.”

  “No surprises?”

  “Now an’agin. Rare, though. Takes more than ye’re capable of to surprise me. Sit down.”

  Andrew noted that the only available chair looked to be soiled with something greasy. He shrugged. “No, thanks. I’ll stand. This shouldn’t take long.”

  “Out wiv it, then. I know ye didn’t come to ol’ Wilson for the usual. A couple o’ girls at once? Mayhap a mixup of lads and girls? Or do ye just have a taste for the lads? C’mon, Hunter. Surprise me, if ye can.”

  He’d like to surprise the man with a fist to his gloating face, but that would not get him the answers he needed. “I’m looking for a couple of girls, but I haven’t been able to find them. Thought you might know where they’d got to, since they are some of yours.”

  The smile faded from Wilson’s face. “You suggestin’ somethin’, Hunter?”

  “What do you think I’m suggesting?”

  “I had somethin’ to do wiv my girls disappearin’.”

  “That would be logical, would it not? After all, they were your girls. They did what you ordered. Went where and with whoever you told them.”

  “Ye got names?”

  “Oh, I hardly think that necessary. You and I both know who I am talking about, do we not?”

  Wilson narrowed his red-rimmed eyes. “Think yer bein’ clever, do ye? Well, whatever yer lookin’ for, ye ain’t gettin’ it from me.”

  Andrew took a wad of folded banknotes from his waistcoat pocket and held them up for Wilson’s view. “I prefer to let my funds ask the questions.”

  There was a long, thoughtful pause before Wilson answered. “Why do ye want to know? You workin’ for the charleys?”

  He managed a laugh. “Come now, John. You said you knew of me. Had been expecting me. What do you think?”

  “Don’t know what to think, but I’d bet yer not workin’ for them. Ye got friends. Ye could ask ’em the same thing yer askin’ me an’ get better answers. All I know is that sometimes they goes out fer a job an’ don’t come back.”

  “And you are compensated for that fact, are you not?”

  Wilson waved one pudgy hand and the light flashed from a large gold ring. Bought with the payment for the last missing girl? He sniffed. “I miss ’em. Wish they’d come back.”

  “Hmm. But they cannot, can they? Unless they are like Lazarus.”

  “What makes ye think that, Hunter?”

  “Just an educated guess, judging by your new jewelry.”

  “I don’t think I like what yer hintin’ at.”

  Andrew realized he was not going to get answers from Wilson. He should have been more diplomatic, but the man set his teeth on edge. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that Wycliffe expected him to be discreet and to bring back answers. “Very well. Enough hinting. Shall we say that I am in the market for something exotic? Would you be the man I’d come to?” He waved the banknotes again.

  Wilson licked his lips and his fingers twitched on the arms of his chair as if he longed to snatch the cash from Andrew’s hand. “May as could be. What would ye mean by exotic?”

  “The same as you arranged before. Your girl would not be coming back.”

  Without registering the faintest hint of shock or denial, Wilson considered his words for a moment, his focus still on the wad of banknotes. “Ye ’ave surprised me, Hunter. Didn’t ’ave you figured for the like. Some of yer friends, aye. Should ’ave guessed by the company ye keep.”

  Friends? But it was too late. He could tell by the look on Wilson’s face that he had betrayed his own surprise.

  A veil fell over Wilson’s eyes and he dropped his hand. “I’ve got nothin’ for ye, Hunter. Get out.”

  What the hell had he gotten into? What the hell had his friends gotten into? And which friends?

  Bella haunted the parlor, waiting for Eugenia to come down. Breakfast had come and gone and lunch had just been cleared away. Mama and Lilly had gone to their rooms for a rest. And still there was no sign of Gina.

  Dim light had spilled beneath Gina’s door last night when Bella had returned from her walk with Andrew. She’d knocked lightly, but when she hadn’t gotten an answer, she assumed that Gina must be engrossed in a book. This morning, when she’d tried the latch, it was still locked. Nancy had shrugged and said that Gina was “lounging.”

  Bella was not so certain. Uneasiness sent a little shiver up her spine. She climbed the stairs for the fifth time, stood at Gina’s door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again, louder this time as something akin to panic crept into her heart.

  “Gina!” she called, not caring if Mama or Lilly overheard.

  She heard a thump and an unsteady stumble toward the door. The lock clicked and turned back to allow the door to open a crack. A small sliver of Gina appeared in the gap. “What?”

  She looked dreadful—pale and pinched. Her dark hair hung in listless strands,
and dark circles rimmed her eyes. Bella leaned her shoulder into the door and pushed her way in, not caring if Gina protested. The curtains were drawn and the room was shrouded in deep shadows.

  “Gina! For heaven’s sake! Are you ill? You look dreadful. Did you eat something that disagreed with you?”

  Her sister staggered back to her bed and threw herself onto the mattress. She mumbled indistinguishable words into the pillows.

  Bella went to the window and drew back the heavy drapes to open the window and let the bracing fresh air in, but Gina moaned something about the draperies. Bella closed them quickly and glanced around again for any clue to Gina’s illness.

  Her gown from the dinner party last night lay in a heap on the floor. Her garters and stockings were in a wadded lump on the dressing table and her underpinnings were strewn across the floor as if she’d had difficulty removing them.

  “Why did you not ring for Nancy? Or I’d have helped you, Gina.”

  Her sister rolled over and threw her forearm over her eyes. “Not at four in the morning.”

  Bella paused in the process of lifting Gina’s gown. “Four o’clock?”

  “I must say, I have new appreciation for your stamina, Bella.”

  She dropped the gown and hurried to Gina’s bed, gripped her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “What have you done, Gina? Tell me where you’ve been!”

  Gina scooted up and lay against the pillows. “I am doing my share to keep our promise to Cora.”

  “My promise, Gina. Mine. You made no such promise.”

  “I still think it is unfair that you bear the entire burden of avenging Cora. And I think it is making you ill.”

  Yes, that burning in her stomach was becoming quite familiar to her. And bless Gina for wanting to help her, but…“Nevertheless, it is my obligation. What would Mama do if she lost you, too, Gina? Now tell me what you have done.”

  “I…I heard some of the gentlemen at Lockwood’s dinner party discussing the Royal Cockpits. There was to be a fight last night, and I knew that would be an ideal place to find rogues and gamblers.”

  “Gina, you little fool! If they were talking about it, they were likely going! Did any of them recognize you?”

  “I did not get there,” she said, wincing at Bella’s strident voice. “I fell in with a group of people outside a theater. It was somewhere in…in…oh, I don’t know. My memory is a bit fuzzy. The ladies—demimondaine, I am certain—thought I was one of them, and the men must have believed the same. No one asked who I was or where I came from.”

  If anyone should see the resemblance to Cora…but no. Lilly resembled Cora, but Bella and Gina were darker and took after Papa’s side of the family. “Well, that is the last time you are venturing out. Never do anything so foolish again. Promise me, Gina.”

  She gave Bella a querulous look. “When you give me the same promise, Isabella.”

  “Did you…” She sat on the edge of the bed, almost afraid to frame the question. “Did you kiss anyone?”

  Gina closed her eyes. “My courage failed me. I could not think how to invite a kiss, and the only man who seemed intent upon having one did not fit Cora’s description. How do you do it, Bella? Night after night…”

  “You forfeit something of your soul,” she said with a little sigh. “But you will not be so foolish again, Gina. Now tell me, did anyone recognize you? Did you find anything familiar in any of them?”

  “I do not think anyone recognized me. And we have not been about in society, so how would I know any of them? The man who tried to kiss me was a Mr. Henley. I do not know why, but I did not like him at all.”

  “Mr. Henley? Was he blondish?”

  Gina nodded, flinging her arm across her eyes again.

  Andrew’s friend. She recalled him from Belmonde’s. Or was it Thackery’s? She had barely paid him attention, since he was neither dark nor tall. But if he was one of Andrew’s friends, Gina had likely found the right sort of group to ferret out Cora’s killer.

  She rubbed her temples, hoping to banish her sudden headache. “I am going out tonight, Gina. Lady V. does not have anything scheduled for us, and I fear such nights will be few in the future. Please stay at home in case Mama should need something.”

  “Oh, yes. After last night…do you know, they were drinking the most foul-tasting wine I have ever encountered? I’d rather drink vinegar. I vow that is what has upset my stomach so dreadfully and caused my thundering headache.”

  Bella gave her a rueful smile. “Oh, I am certain it had nothing to do with the quantity of wine you consumed.”

  “No. I swear to you, the wine tasted like…like sulfur.”

  “Sulfur?” Had Gina stumbled into the very group that Bella had been searching for? In all her kisses, she had never found one that tasted bitter, as Cora had said. Could it have been sulfur Cora had tasted? “Gina, do you recall any of their names? Or where they took you?”

  “Mayfair? Oh, I am not even certain it was Mayfair,” she confessed. “We took a coach, and one of the men gave the address. I did not recognize it, though.”

  “How did you get home?”

  “I…believe they brought me home. My mind is a bit fuzzy on that.”

  Good heavens! They knew where she lived! Where they all lived! It would be a small matter for them to find out who Gina was. “How much did you drink, Gina?”

  “Not much. Or I thought I hadn’t, but if not, why would I have such a colossal headache? Things went muzzy. Out of focus.”

  “These men from last night…were they from the ton, Gina? Can you remember any of their names aside from Mr. Henley?”

  “No. Why are you so angry, Bella? I was only trying to help.”

  “Anything could have happened to you last night. You say you cannot remember, but who’s to say you were not…that is, that someone did not take advantage…And you are helping, Gina,” she soothed. “What would have happened if you hadn’t been here to misdirect Mama the other night? I shudder to think what she might have done.”

  “Nothing happened to me,” Gina snapped. “I would know. Surely there would be signs. But time is growing short. If we do not find Cora’s killer soon, you could be recognizable in the ton. Why, last night at Lord Lockwood’s, his brothers recognized us from the park.”

  “That will not be a concern any longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Hunter—Andrew—has sworn they will not tell.” She’d agonized over the possibilities and could think of only one reasonable solution. “But the more people I am introduced to, the more likely I will be recognized as Lady Lace. Therefore, despite Lady V.’s insistence that we all attend the invitations, beginning tomorrow, I am going to plead a persistent malaise and retire from polite society. I shall stay at home with Mama every night until you and Lilly return, and then I shall go about my business while you keep watch here. Once I find the killer, I shall inform Lord Wycliffe of his identity and return to Belfast. It is the only way we can be certain you and Lilly will be safe from scandal.”

  She turned at the door to look over her shoulder at Gina. “Now wash up, little sister, and if you should recall anything at all about last night, come to me at once.”

  Andrew found Devlin Farrell in the back room of a prosperous gin house on Petticoat Lane. Farrell’s was a popular spot and moderately better than the rest that lined the street. One was less likely to be poisoned by the brew they served and also less likely to be stabbed for one’s purse. It was certainly a cut above Wilson’s common whorehouse, but that was not saying much.

  Farrell sat behind a highly polished desk, looking incongruously more like a businessman than a crime underlord. Though his black hair was longer than was fashionable and a dark stubble lined his jaw, his gray eyes, the color of Damascus steel, were sharp and shrewd. Though the sun had set, his day was just beginning, but he was none the worse for wear, and not looking a day older than the last time Andrew had seen him.

  He threw his pen down and push
ed the inkwell and paper away as he sat back in his chair. “Andrew Hunter,” he said. “As I live and breathe. I wondered when I might see you again.”

  Andrew smiled.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Some things never changed. Farrell never bothered with niceties and always cut right to the heart of matters. “Answers if you have them. Suggestions if you do not.”

  Farrell pulled a bottle from a drawer in his desk and produced two clean glasses. “Whiskey?”

  Andrew nodded again.

  When they both had a glass in front of them, Farrell said, “It has been a while, Hunter. I thought you might have forgotten I owe you a favor.”

  Andrew suppressed a smile. “I had, until circumstances required it.”

  “Interesting. What circumstances?”

  “Damned if I know.” Andrew took a deep swallow of the smooth whiskey—Farrell’s private stock, not the swill served at the bar. “That has been the major problem in finding answers. I am only guessing at the questions.”

  “Give me your best guess.”

  “Human sacrifice.”

  He expected a quirked eyebrow, a grunt or some other indication that he’d surprised Farrell, but the man just sipped his whiskey with a thoughtful frown before he stood and went to shut his door.

  “And what has your curiosity piqued about that?” he asked when he sat again.

  “Rumors. I’ve heard things but I cannot credit them.”

  Farrell leaned back in his chair and propped the heels of his polished brown boots on his desk as he regarded Andrew with a speculative narrowing of his eyes. “There’s more to it than that, Hunter, or I’ll eat my hat. You do not cross the street out of mere curiosity.”

  “I thought I knew every perversion in London, but this is one I hadn’t known. I could want in on such an exotic entertainment.”

  Farrell guffawed, a rarity for him. “Now I know you’re lying. Some of your friends have very little in the way of scruples, but you have not abandoned all of yours.”