Brentwood's Ward

by Michelle Griep

  “I may not know my lovelies’ names, but I knows ’em intimate well, I do. Come along.” Randall darted forward, trotting down a long line of marble slabs. Apparently he didn’t house the same qualms about slipping.

  Nicholas trailed behind Moore. Rarely did death make him flinch. Bodies were part of his job. Even the stench of putrefaction, while not pleasant, didn’t trigger his gag reflex. No…something deeper unsettled him. Something pregnant with hideous possibility. As Nicholas passed by sheet-covered corpses, he wondered where each soul had gone. It was here in this gallery of decay that he felt the enormity of eternity—and it stole his breath.

  God should so bless everyone with a visit to the dead house.

  “ ’Ere’s the one.” Randall stopped halfway down the row and peeled back the cloth. Though he professed great affection for his wards, Nicholas noticed the man took care not to let his sleeve come in contact with the sheet.

  “This the chap yer lookin’ for?”

  Moore stepped aside and inclined his head toward Nicholas, never once removing his arm from his nose. “You tell me.”

  Nicholas closed in.

  It was a man, distended to eye-popping proportions, though he’d probably not been a reed of a fellow to begin with. He wore the marbled color of one who’d died a fortnight ago, except for his legs. From midthigh on down, the skin was tar colored. The top half of his head was ragged, chewed to bits, probably by rats, judging from the bite sizes.

  Bending, Nicholas studied the cadaver’s neck. A ligature mark cut deep, and if he cared to look closer—which he didn’t—he’d likely find a sliver or two of hemp. He glanced up at Randall. “Does the impression go all the way around, or is there a gap?”

  “Gap at the back, guv’ner. Weren’t no strangulation. He were hanged.”

  Nicholas nodded. “Then the only question that remains is was it self-imposed or not? Though I’m not quite sure why you needed me to confirm what you already knew.”

  Randall shrugged, and Moore mumbled something. Hard to tell with a sleeve blocking his mouth. Nicholas cut him a lethal glance.

  Slowly, Moore pulled his arm from his nose. “Fine. Have it your way. But if I lose my stomach all over your shoes, don’t complain.”

  Nicholas frowned. “Go on.”

  “About a fortnight ago,” Moore began, “one of my informants—goes by the name of Badger—bumped into this fellow down near the wharves. Badger’s always on the lookout for me, let’s me know when something’s out of place. Like this fellow.” He nodded toward the body. “Said the man looked nervous, and well he should. Dandy clothes ought not be worn in that nest, as you know. A week later, he found the fellow’s body hanging in an abandoned warehouse two piers south. He let me know about it early this morning as I left my flat.”

  “Why didn’t he come to you right away?” Nicholas interrupted. “Why wait to tell you about it?”

  “Badger feared he was being watched. That mob I’m hunting suspects his loose lips. Rightly so. Badger waited till it was safe. By then, the body was taken down, gone over by ragpickers and street waifs, and delivered here to Randall.”

  Nicholas studied the body one more time. A fat dead man who may or may not have committed suicide. A mystery, but one he didn’t have time for at the moment. He shifted his gaze back to Moore. “I fail to see what this has to do with me.”

  “Badger told me he caught the fellow’s name. Badger’s that good. Got a way about him that loosens—”

  Moore continued talking, but Nicholas didn’t hear him anymore. His heart beat too loud in his ears. He snatched the soiled sheet from Randall’s hands and used a corner of it to shove aside the swelled tongue protruding from the corpse’s lips. Teeth stared back at him.

  Large.

  Overlarge.

  Nicholas scowled, holding back the base response that rose to his lips. He’d been right. There wasn’t anything even remotely routine about the business trip Payne had taken.

  Emily jerked awake then reached to massage the resulting kink in her neck from having dozed off on the settee. Her arm prickled as well, a sudden rush of blood stinging the sleeping flesh.

  She frowned, realizing she was in the drawing room. Had she dozed off? La, she’d much rather have stayed in dreamland. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. If she concentrated on the soothing tick-tock of the corner clock, maybe she could pick up where she’d left off. Mr. Henley was sweeping her around a ballroom, eyes fixed only on her, whispering sweet—

  “Hie yourself off!”

  Mrs. Hunt’s outburst carried in from the front foyer, shattering her fantasy once and for all. Straightening, she turned an ear toward the open drawing-room door and caught another round of Mrs. Hunt’s warning volleys. What in the world?

  Emily stood, wobbling momentarily on stiff legs, then crossed the room. An involuntary cringe tightened her shoulders as more of Mrs. Hunt’s words sliced through the air. A butcher’s cleaver couldn’t cut to the bone as deftly as her sharp tongue. The last hapless peddler that’d ventured upon their front stoop had lost his hat when he’d fled from her scolding.

  And he’d never returned to reclaim it.

  With a quick pat of her hair to tuck up any strays, Emily slipped into the foyer. “Is there a problem, Mrs.—”

  The door burst wide open. The housekeeper stumbled backward, tripped on her skirt hem, and crashed to the floor.

  A brute of a man shoved his way in. His oilskin cloak smelled of whiskey and salt and danger. Emily held her breath when, for one heart-stopping moment, he shoved his face into hers.

  “There’s no problem as long as I see Payne.” His voice was low and discordant, like an unresined bow skidding across a cello string. “Where is he?”

  Emily stiffened, fear clouding her thoughts. She couldn’t piece two words together if her life depended on it—which it might.

  “Stupid English wench.” The man’s greatcoat whapped against her as he wheeled about. He stalked over to the sitting room, stuck his head in the door, then stomped down the corridor and repeated the process at each room he passed.

  Emily spun to Mrs. Hunt. By now she’d propped herself up against the entry table, face pale as washed parchment.

  “Quick,” Emily ordered, “go get Mr. Brentwood.”

  “He’s not returned yet.” Mrs. Hunt nodded toward the open front door. “Run! Get yourself to safety.”

  Emily hoisted her skirts, eyeing the door. She took two steps then hesitated. This was her home. Before she could form another thought, boot heels thumped back into the foyer behind her.

  She turned, straightening her shoulders, and willed courage into her voice. “As you’ve seen, my father is not here. Now leave.”

  The man tramped toward her, a dark light in his gaze. Cold perspiration dotted the tender skin between her shoulder blades. This was entirely too much like what happened to her and Wren last summer…but in a different way.

  A murderous way.

  “Where is he?” The man stepped so close that his breath coated her forehead and slid over cheeks. If she inhaled, he’d be part of her.

  “Gone. On business.” Each word was a chore.

  A muscle jumped in the man’s jaw. His eyes bore down hard, the blue-black color of rage. “His business was with me.”

  Emily lifted her chin, hoping confidence would follow.

  It didn’t.

  He pressed closer, his cloak rustling the muslin of her day dress. “Maybe I should switch who I do business with, hmm?”

  She ought say something, anything, but her mouth had dried to dead leaves. Could he feel her body trembling?

  Mrs. Hunt sprang forward, heaving her shoulder against the stranger’s arm. “Leave her be!”

  Only the fabric of his sleeve moved.

  Emily’s heart thumped in her chest, pulsing a sickening beat in her temples. “My father will return in a fortnight. I suggest you call back then.”

  The man’s lips pulled into a hard-edged smile.
Mouse-colored teeth flashed beneath his moustache. “Perhaps I’ll stay and wait for him here.”

  “Perhaps you won’t.” Behind him, Mrs. Hunt advanced, a brass candlestick wielded high over her head.

  He turned. She swung. Metal cracked against bone.

  The man staggered, the growl of a wounded bear ripping from his throat. The candlestick clattered to the tiles.

  Without missing a step, Mrs. Hunt shoved him in the chest with both hands. As he toppled backward out the open door, the housekeeper grabbed Emily’s arm and yanked her aside then slammed shut the door and drove home the bolt.

  They both stood motionless, breathing hard, blinking. The maid Betsy gaped from the stairway landing. Even Mary had hobbled to join her side. Cook tromped down the corridor, rolling pin in hand. “What’s the ruckus?”

  Though surrounded by familiar faces, Emily felt eerily isolated.

  “I’ll be back!” The man shouted through the door. “You hear me! I’m coming back!”

  His curses leached through the front door, pinning her in place. But only for a moment. Hiking her skirts, she bolted up the stairs, shoving past Betsy and bumping into Mary. She ought to stop and apologize for Mary’s grunt of pain, but her steps didn’t slow. She ran to her room and slammed the door shut, turning the lock into place.

  Across the room, the looking glass reflected her image. Pale. Shaken. And the longer she stared, the more she saw Wren’s face overlaying hers. Last summer’s wretched scene replayed in her head until she leaned back against the door and closed her eyes to escape.

  But that didn’t stop her from seeing the stranger’s savage smile—a leer that would visit her in nightmares and linger even in daylight.

  Suddenly she longed for the safety of Brentwood’s strong arms.

  Chapter 12

  Are you out of your mind?”

  Nicholas focused on the remaining daylight pooling on the floor in the magistrate’s office. He ought lift his head, show a measure of respect, but the cold wooden planks were preferable to the fire in Ford’s eyes. He sucked in a breath and held it, the tightness in his chest matching his taut nerves. Would this day never end? Keeping a foolish woman from harm, comforting his failing sister, finding his employer dead, and now this. Not that he’d never been dressed down by the magistrate before, but with fatigue fraying his tightly woven resolve, the man’s censure nipped particularly deep.

  “Bah! I’d expect such an appeal from a simkin like Flannery, not from a seasoned officer such as yourself.” The scrape of Ford’s chair and the accompanying footsteps pulled Nicholas’s face up.

  The magistrate leaned back against the front of his desk, arms folded.

  Nicholas worked his jaw. He knew exactly what was coming—and he deserved every bit of it. It’d been a foolish request to begin with. No…worse. A cowardly one.

  “The fact that your employer is dead is neither here nor there, and well you know it.” Ford’s tone scolded harsher than a fishwife’s. “You are committed, now more than ever, to remain with this case until it is solved.”

  It wasn’t often he argued with Ford, but this time, with his sister’s life on the line, he matched the magistrate’s even gaze. “For all I know, it could’ve been suicide. Case closed.”

  Ford scowled. “Merely conjecture, and you know it.”

  “For now, it’s all I have.” The words were ashes in his mouth. He shifted, the creak of the chair’s worn leather complaining with his every movement. Of course the magistrate was right. It was nothing but desperation that prodded him to ask to be relieved of the case in the first place. But unless he received another offer for hire—and soon—Jenny’s life would be forfeit.

  “Have you given thought to Miss Payne?” Ford’s question pierced, sharp and precise.

  Nicholas deflated with a long breath. How to tell Ford that other than his sister, Emily Payne invaded more of his thoughts than any woman since Adelina?

  Slowly, he reached into his pocket and retrieved his watch. Flipping it open, he ignored the time and instead rested his gaze upon the small image pressed inside the cover. The ink on the portrait’s dark curls had bleached to gray. The eyes, the nose, the crescent lips—barely distinguishable. When had the likeness faded so much? Why, when he tried to recall Adelina’s voice, could he only hear Emily’s?

  Re-pocketing the watch, he lifted his eyes to Ford’s. “Of course I’ve given her thought. Either way, murder or suicide, Miss Payne will have scandal attached to her name.”

  And her hopes to marry well—her future—would be dashed. The image of Emily’s friend, the pathetic figure clothed in fog and a thin cloak, rose like a specter. Without money, Emily could become that figure.

  Nicholas swallowed the chalky taste in his mouth. “She’ll be ruined.”

  Ford’s gaze bore down. Hard. “You sound as if you care.”

  For a snippet of a pampered girl who ran headlong into trouble? Did he? He shifted in the chair.

  Should he?

  He snorted. “What I care about is the rest of my payment for this assignment. How am I to collect from a dead man?”

  A shadow crossed Ford’s face. “Avarice? From you? I expected better.”

  Nicholas clenched his teeth and looked away. Ford was right. And if he looked deeper—which he wouldn’t—he suspected the roots of his anguish went far beyond the lack of money for Jen.

  But for now, he’d cling to that buoy. “My sister worsens, sir. If I don’t get some funding soon—”

  “Payne promised you a total of 250 pounds,” Ford interrupted. “How much have you received?”

  He snapped his face back to the magistrate. “Half, roughly.”

  “And the second half was to be yours upon his return, yes?”

  Nicholas cocked his head. “That was the arrangement.”

  “I’d say, Brentwood, that Payne has returned.” Ford unfolded his arms and strolled back to his seat. “Though not quite in the state you expected, eh?”

  He pondered that for a moment. Was Ford seriously suggesting…? “What are you getting at?”

  “I know that, second only to your precious pocket watch, is your lock-picking kit. I daresay it’s even now in your breast pocket, am I right? I merely propose you employ your skills and retrieve the balance of that payment for your sister’s sake. Then remain on the case until it is solved for Miss Payne’s benefit.”

  The idea lodged in his mind like a stone in a stream. Everything else circled around it in a silent whirlpool. Payne’s lockbox was in the bottom drawer of his desk. It would be easy enough to take what was owed him then bundle Jenny off to the seaside—and also free him to pursue unhindered some kind of justice for Emily.

  Nodding, he stood.

  “And, Brentwood,” Ford matched his stance, “I think it best if you keep Miss Payne in the dark about her father’s demise, for now, at any rate. I understand your hesitation about labeling Payne’s means of death, but it is undeniable his partner was murdered. If the two are related, you ought keep a sharp eye on her. For reasons we may not know, she might be next. Hearing of her father’s demise will be hard enough. Heaping fear for her own life atop that would be worse. Needless to say, the sooner you solve this, the better.”

  Ford’s ominous deductions shadowed Nicholas as he stalked out of the room, clung to him when he stepped into the twilight of Bow Street, and haunted him for the entire cab ride to Portman Square. Emily’s future was as precarious as Jenny’s—and both depended upon him. His heart missed a beat with the weight of it. As the hackney rolled to a stop, he swiped his tired eyes with the back of his hand and breathed out a prayer: “God, do not let me fail them as I did Adelina.”

  He smacked open the door with his fist and landed heavy feet onto the cobbles. After paying off the jarvey, he retrieved his key and unlocked the Payne’s front door.

  Two steps past the threshold, he froze.

  Only a small vigil lantern on the sideboard lit the foyer. No chandelier glowed overhead. To hi
s left, nothing but shadows gathered in the sitting room. He squinted down the corridor. The dining room was dark as well. If not for the subdued dong of the study’s clock chiming half past seven, he’d swear it was well past midnight.

  Nicholas frowned. Emily never turned in this early.

  A sharp intake of breath spun him around. There, in the single highback gracing the entryway’s corner, Mrs. Hunt jerked awake.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Brentwood.” The housekeeper shot to her feet, face flushing deep enough to be seen even in the spare light. Straightening her skewed mobcap, she bobbed a hasty greeting then wrinkled her nose.

  Immediately, he retreated a step. Though he was immune to the dead-house stench that had woven itself into the fibers of his clothing, apparently Mrs. Hunt’s nose was not. “My apologies for the odor, Mrs. Hunt. I shall change garments straightaway and send these off for a good cleaning. Now, please explain what the deuce is going on.”

  Her lips puckered, as if she were deciding whether to continue the conversation while inhaling such a stink. “Miss Payne asked me to keep watch by the door until you returned, and I regret to say I must’ve dozed off. It’s been a rather trying afternoon.”

  His frown cinched tighter. Trying afternoon, indeed. Had the pug escaped? Or the milk curdled before teatime? He shrugged out of his greatcoat and reached to hang the garment on the coat tree, nearly stumbling on an upturned corner at the edge of the rug hidden in shadow. Straightening it with the toe of his boot, he turned to Mrs. Hunt. “Did Miss Payne bid you douse the lights as well?”

  “That she did.”

  He spread his hands wide. “What on earth for?”

  “She wanted to give the impression she’d gone out for the evening.” Despite his smell, the housekeeper took a step closer and lowered her voice. “In case the man returned.”