The Perils of Pleasure

by Julie Anne Long

  She was in fact now staring at him as if he were a Christmas pudding.

  “Colin Eversea,” she breathed worshipfully. “I bought a ticket to yer trial, I did. Saved up me wages. Saw a day of ye there. Critchley was none too pleased.”

  “Mary, we have questions for you,” he said gently. “We will pay you—” Behind Mary, Madeleine surreptitiously lifted up a pound note. “—one pound for answers.”

  “Well, then. Ask away,” she said, eager to cooperate with him now. “’Tisn’t like Mrs. Pallatine pays more than piss.”

  Chapter 15

  Madeleine persuaded Mary to climb aboard the cart, Colin closed the lid on his coffin, and Madeleine cracked the reins. They drove around the corner to the small wooded park.

  The only person they saw was a nurse grappling with a little boy still in dresses. The woman clung tight to the child’s hand, and the boy was thrashing and dancing like a kite in a stiff wind at the end of it, whining incessantly. Good. The woman was distracted.

  They saw no other visitors to the park, but they would need to do this before the morning got under way in earnest for the neighborhood, which meant quickly.

  Colin pulled himself out of the coffin, rolled surreptitiously over the side of the wagon and gulped in air as if he could store it for later use.

  Pretty little park, he noted. Mature oaks and beeches, flowers planted in bright orderly mounds, a few benches lining an informal path. He took it in with a glance, then turned, and was nearly brought up short by the glow of worship radiating his way from Mary.

  He glanced over at Madeleine, whom he was strangely grateful to see in her entirety. Despite her rumpled appearance, she, too, felt strangely like air. By means of an exchange of glances they arrived at a tacit agreement: he would do the talking.

  “Ah…very good, then, Mary,” he began. “We know that Dr. August paid you for information about Mr. Pallatine, and you gave him information about the Resurrectionists.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Eversea. Dr. August paid me right well up until Mr. Pallatine’s ’eart gave out. An’ then I told him on the sly about Critchley. Critchley is…me man.”

  She mumbled casually over the last words. And then beamed at Colin, as if she would willingly trade Critchley in for Colin the moment Colin said the word.

  “An’ a good customer, is Dr. August, Critchley says. Pays right well fer larges,” she added helpfully.

  “Do you know if Critchley works for or with anyone else besides Dr. August?”

  “’E sells bodies to Dr. August, an’ to doctors in Edinburgh for the school there.”

  “Edinburgh—how in God’s name—” Colin did not want to think about what condition stolen bodies would be in by the time they reached Edinburgh.

  “How does he get them to Edinburgh?”

  “Oh, e ’as use of a fine fast carriage, and takes them just as far as Marble Mile by night in about four, five hours or so. The men in the steamers take them down the coast to Scotland by water.”

  “Has use of a fine coach, Mary?” Madeleine asked sharply. “What do you mean by that? It’s not a hackney, or a wagon?”

  “Nay.” She was scornful. “’Tis fast as a mail coach, ’tis, wi’ fine leather seats inside, and shining on the outside, and the cattle—bays, all of ’em! Matched. Or so Critchley says. I’ve only seen it in the dark, ye see. Belongs to the Mercury Club.”

  Colin’s heart nearly stopped.

  “Do you remember anything about the outside, Mary? Did you notice a coat of arms, or a symbol of some sort, anything?”

  “I canna tell ye, Mr. Eversea.”

  “Cannot, or will not?” He was aware of his voice going more taut.

  Madeleine sent him a cautionary glance.

  “How often does Critchley go to Marble Mile, Mary, do you know?” Colin pressed.

  “But once every month. By the full moon, ye ken, because ’tis easier to dig fer the bodies then. More light.”

  It conjured such a vivid, grisly picture that neither Colin nor Madeleine could speak for a moment.

  “Er…I see. So…did he make the trip to Marble Mile recently? I haven’t been where I can track the moon, you see, so I don’t know when it was last full.”

  “Well, ’e’s about due for another trip, Mr. Eversea. ’E went more than a fortnight ago.”

  Colin was aware of his palms sweating now. A quicksilver rush of hope nearly sickened him.

  “What day, Mary, did he last go?”

  He must have said this a little too intensely, because a mulish look came over her face and she took a step back and frowned, glancing down at the pound note in her hand, as if weighing whether she would tolerate anything other than gentle flirtation for a pound. Then glanced back at him.

  Damn. He might have to kiss the girl to get more information.

  He tried another soft smile, which was difficult to do given the weight of his impatience. Her mulish expression relaxed more toward rapt once more.

  “Do you recall the day of the week he went?”

  “It might have been…well, ’twas on a Tuesday, I believe. Fer I had just been to market, as I recall, and bought the cheese Critchley prefers, but he wasna ’ome to eat it, and then I…”

  She rambled on some more about cheese and other things after that, but Colin heard nothing more. Because that’s when he knew:

  Horace Peele had been taken to a romantic cottage in Marble Mile in a swift carriage full of bodies the day after Roland Tarbell was killed.

  God willing, Horace Peele was still alive. But why make the effort to take him all the way to Marble Mile in a “fiery winged chariot” if they planned to kill him? In London, anything could be bought, including murder. His murder could have been arranged easily enough.

  So it was possible they weren’t dealing with an evil person.

  But perhaps they were dealing with a…determined one.

  Colin breathed in, and tried not to let that thought settle in and leech the light of hope from him.

  “Does anyone else know about Critchley’s line of work, Mary?”

  “Only me sister. She used to work for Mrs. Pallatine, too. She got ’erself a better job, she did. She’s pretty, me sister,” she said with surprisingly little resentment, and as if this explained everything.

  Sadly, it probably did. It was also, Colin thought mercenarily, difficult to believe.

  “Where does she work now?”

  “Oh, she’s a maid fer the Mercury Club. Got ’erself a lover there, too.”

  Colin squeezed his eyes closed, said a prayer of hallelujah.

  And then, shocking everyone, including himself, he leaned down and kissed Mary Poe on her cheek.

  Mary Poe pressed her fingers to her now crimson face, as if she could hold the kiss in place forever.

  “Don’t tell Critchley,” Colin whispered. “And don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” Madeleine said after they’d taken Mary Poe back to Mrs. Pallatine’s and returned to the park to discuss the day. She was growing a trifle weary of talking to a coffin. It was absurd and macabre.

  One hundred pounds. And she wouldn’t have to feel this harrowing buffeting of emotions anymore.

  “You just want a kiss, too, Mrs. Greenway.”

  He gave her a wicked little smile that did alarming, melting things to her insides, and caused everything in her to both yearn toward him and pull back in great alarm simultaneously. And then he pulled his long body out of the coffin and leaned against it.

  “Why on earth would I want something you give away so freely?” she asked coolly.

  “Freely!” he mused. “That kiss was an investment. In loyalty and silence. One hopes.”

  “Do you think she’ll be able to resist bragging about it? The kiss?”

  “Oh, no one will believe her if she does,” he said with some satisfaction. “And Critchley didn’t strike me as the cuddly sort. If she told him about it, I’m willing to bet he’d take it badly.”

/>   One hundred pounds. It sat on her shoulder and sang into her ear like a dark little bird.

  Aloud, she said, “So…she said her sister works at the Mercury Club.”

  “Yes.”

  “Marcus is a member of the Mercury Club,” Madeleine observed.

  “Yes,” he said curtly. And then rallying his manners, he added quickly, “As are Isaiah Redmond and numerous other men. And the emblem on their coach is a pair of winged ankles trailing flames. Mean to indicate speed, I suppose. Mercury the messenger god and all that.”

  “A fiery chariot,” Madeleine said quietly. “Well, then.”

  “Well, then,” Colin agreed grimly.

  They allowed themselves a moment of silence to muse on how different their lives might have been at this moment had a particular drunk been more specific, and less filled with the poetry of gin.

  “Horace Peele was taken to Marble Mile that night in the Mercury Club carriage,” Colin said half to himself. “So I need to go to Marble Mile.”

  Marble Mile, a swift few hours coach ride away in Colin’s former life, might as well be America given their current conveyance. Not to mention the fact that Colin was a famous fugitive. And that he could scarcely breathe in the coffin.

  “But we can’t go to Marble Mile with you in a coffin and me driving this woeful cart. Perhaps you can somehow visit the Mercury Club to ascertain whether—”

  His head jerked up. “Four days, Mrs. Greenway.”

  He’d snapped it.

  Madeleine was stunned silent.

  Colin stared at her for a moment, his eyes distant and furious, not really seeing her.

  Then he sighed, and tipped his forehead into his hand and rubbed at it, as though trying to coax a genie from a lantern.

  Madeleine understood then: four days until his brother, whom he loved but who might have arranged for Horace Peele to disappear so he could wed the woman Colin loved, would live the life that was rightfully Colin’s.

  “My apologies, Mrs. Greenway,” he said stiffly. “What I meant to say is: I can use those four days to linger in London and try to find answers and perhaps learn nothing, or I can go straight to Kent and Marble Mile and perhaps find Horace Peele, and all of this will be…over.”

  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  Marble Mile was at least a half day or more away by hackney. A journey to look for Horace and return to London could take up two days, possibly more.

  And God only knew where Mutton Cottage was.

  It was a terrible choice to have to make.

  “Then again, it isn’t as though I have anything else on my schedule at the moment,” Colin added.

  Madeleine wondered where he found it, the wherewithal to be witty when things were absurdly, dauntingly thorny. She found herself deeply and unaccountably moved.

  “Then there’s the little matter of who tried to kill you, Mrs. Greenway,” he added. “And didn’t pay you.”

  “As of now, I would simply like to be paid. As I mentioned before, I need the money rather urgently.” And I need a bath, she wanted to add. And my rooms. And my clothes. And a life I can call my own again. I need to leave here.

  “And I’m worth one hundred pounds. So they say.” Colin Eversea’s head came up again then, and he fixed her with an even gaze.

  It was a test, and Madeleine knew it, even as the directness of it surprised her.

  She stared back at him. Behind him the scattering of leafy trees and the well-tended lawn of the park made his eyes more green than blue, and no less beautiful for all of that. He still had a noticeable pallor. Copper whiskers edged his jaw now, and weariness pulled at the skin beneath his eyes. But his gaze was steady and clear. She didn’t read challenge in it, or flirtation, or warmth, particularly.

  He was searching for an answer to some other question he hadn’t yet voiced. He was as tired as she of uncertainty.

  Would he shoot her if she did try to take him for the reward? Colin now knew important things about her. Such as the fact that no one in the world would realize or particularly care she was dead.

  She glanced down. Colin Eversea’s hand was on his pistol, but his body seemed loose, and both hands, including the pistol hand, rested easily on his thighs. But this meant nothing. She’d seen how quickly he could spring into action.

  Her pistol was unlocked, too.

  And then she watched, with a sense of unreality, as Colin slowly locked his pistol.

  He handed it to her grip first. “Decide,” he said simply.

  Madeleine stared at the outstretched pistol as though it were in flames.

  And then she watched her hand reach out for it, almost gingerly, and take it from him. He relinquished it easily.

  It was heavier than her pocket pistol. A reassuringly competent pistol, one that could blow a hole through anyone at fifty paces.

  And now Colin Eversea was at her mercy.

  Well, more or less at her mercy. He was a quick devil. He’d probably already planned how he’d disarm her if she tried to shoot.

  Still.

  The little boy’s whining had blossomed into a magnificent tantrum, and he’d sat down hard on the grass, a tiny bawling, kicking thing in white. Birds hadn’t a prayer of being heard over him. The sound of his wails came to them distantly, an odd counterpoint to their extraordinary, subtly charged exchange. A sound from her past. She hoped, one day, it would be a sound in her future, too. Children. She felt another twist in her heart.

  “I’d heard you excelled at dramatic gestures,” Madeleine finally said lightly

  His mouth quirked at the corners, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “Dramatic gestures are often the most efficient way to make a point.”

  His voice was remarkably calm.

  One hundred pounds.

  Madeleine looked past Colin at the little boy and the nurse. And it occurred to her that she and Colin Eversea had one very important thing in common right now: they were both uniquely—emphasis on uniquely—alone in the world.

  Absurdly, she thought back to the first moment she’d voluntarily given him her hand, in the basement of a burnt-out inn in St. Giles. An honorable agreement. She could hide behind this, she supposed. But the truth of the matter was that she was now suspended between her old and new lives, and she wanted to see how this particular story ended, and despite everything, Colin Eversea was too embedded in her now to extract without some pain.

  And for now, she didn’t want to be alone.

  “I’d like two hundred pounds from your family.”

  “Done,” Colin said easily.

  But he gave her a slow smile, as though he’d heard every single thought that had led her to this particular pride-saving conclusion. And took the gun she handed back to him.

  Bloody man.

  Why was she smiling, too?

  “We’re going to Marble Mile,” she decided for them both. “No matter what that takes.”

  The brandy had been poured, and now that each member had a glass at his fingertips, Isaiah Redmond rose slowly from his chair—Marcus always imagined Isaiah rose slowly to give everyone an opportunity to think, Good heavens, isn’t he tall?—and began to speak.

  “Gentlemen, first, allow me to welcome everyone to this month’s meeting of the Mercury Club. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I’m pleased that every one of our members could be in attendance this evening.”

  Marcus lifted his brandy glass to his lips to hide his expression. Isaiah’s words were a subtle acknowledgement that one member had a very good reason to be elsewhere, given that said member’s brother had spectacularly disappeared from the gallows only two days ago and could be nearly anywhere now. Some families might construe this as a reason to lie low for a time. For the Everseas, it was a day in the life.

  Everyone in the room was either too well bred to glance in Marcus’s direction or already too brandy-filled to notice Redmond’s innuendo. Though doubtless everyone was dying to speak of the event. Marcus hoped he wouldn’t have to c
all anyone out after they did speak of it, which was a possibility after more brandy was downed and washed all sorts of wisely repressed thoughts from their berths.

  It was also entirely possible, Marcus conceded, that he was being too sensitive. Though this seemed unlikely. Sensitivity—not to mention duels—was Colin’s province.

  He forced his thoughts elsewhere. It was a warm, soothing, deliberately masculine room, but he’d never liked it, principally because Isaiah Redmond had furnished it. The scrupulously polished walnut table reflected back balding heads, brandy glasses, mother-of-pearl waistcoat buttons, spectacles. Three strategically situated gas lamps—a none-too-subtle testament to Isaiah’s money and vision for progress—contrived to fill the entire room with light, demoting the brass and crystal chandelier hanging above to a mere shining smear in the table’s surface.

  A reminder of the topic of today’s meeting. Marcus was here to discuss gas lighting.

  “Our first pleasant order of business is to officially welcome our new member. Mr. Baxter, if you would stand?”

  Standing, Mr. Baxter rather resembled the letter D propped up on two spindly legs. He was carefully and somberly dressed in clothing that looked almost too new, but his waistcoat fit the majestic arc of his stomach to perfection—the mother-of-pearl buttons didn’t strain at all. He wore spectacles, thick ones; his eyes were nearly indistinguishable behind them. His smile was peculiarly queasy, given the honor he was accepting.

  “As you all know, Mr. Baxter has been my associate—”

  And by this everyone knew Isaiah meant man of affairs.

  “—for many years, and his advice has been invaluable to me throughout that time, and has, in fact, informed some of the investment decisions I’ve made over the past few years. He has, on many an occasion, gone above and beyond the call of duty in his assistance to our membership, and for this and other reasons we are delighted to welcome you formally to our numbers, Mr. Baxter.”

  “Delighted to welcome” was perhaps too effusive, but “content to welcome” was certainly true, as long as Baxter could carry his own weight financially and possessed the wits to make proper investment decisions. If he could wield the ribbons with dexterity and dash, better still.