by Merry Farmer
“That way.” Ram pointed to the south. “Two streets, then turn left on St. George’s Street and look for the shingle with the red lion.”
Noelle nodded. Her throat constricted, making it impossible for her to speak. She set her carpetbag down and gave Ram one last hug. He pressed his lips to her cheek.
“We’ll make it through this,” he said. “Ajay can’t keep us apart. He’ll see reason.”
“I hope so,” Noelle said, voice cracking. But the fact was, very few things in her life had turned out the way she’d wanted them to. She knew good and well that if she had to choose between Ram’s happiness or her own, she’d choose his.
“Promise you’ll be safe tonight,” Ram said, letting her go.
“I promise,” Noelle repeated. “I’ll be safe tonight.”
But come first light tomorrow, she would go find Lord Shayles and ask him for more details about what he wanted her to do and how much he’d be willing to pay. Then she would have to decide how much she was willing to pay for Ram’s sake.
CHAPTER 9
I t didn’t take long for Ram to suspect that Noelle was right about more things than he wanted to admit. It tore his heart out to watch her walk away, heading for the Red Lion and who knew what else. For years, he’d been certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that he knew what his future held, but watching her disappear into the cold mist left him with a hollowness in his chest that he couldn’t shake. She wanted him to mend fences with Ajay, to be the shop-owner he’d dreamed of being. But what was the point without her?
He shook himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets and marching back to Ajay’s house. Noelle valued family, and so would he.
But his determination to do what was right was checked a soon as he walked through the door.
“What are you doing here?” Ajay—who was in the process of wobbling his way down the stairs—demanded at the sight of Ram. “I told you to get out.”
Ram’s mouth fell open and his heart sank. “We can sort this out,” he said, climbing the stairs to help his brother to the ground floor and into the parlor, to his chair.
“Do you still intend to moon over that insidious woman?” Ajay asked as he flopped into his chair with a groan.
“Yes.” Ram was unwilling to budge on that point.
Ajay sniffed. “Then we have nothing to talk about. Get out of my house.”
Ram blew out an impatient breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “We can discuss this like men,” he said. “Like brothers.”
“Like brothers?” Ajay bellowed as though he’d been slapped. “A brother would not dishonor his elder in this manner. A brother would show obedience and gratitude to the one who has helped him through more difficulties than he can name.”
“I am grateful, Ajay,” Ram argued, frustration knotting his gut. “But I love Noelle.”
“You barely know her.”
“My heart feels as though it has known her for a lifetime.”
Ajay grunted. “Useless poetry.”
“Poetry is never useless.”
Ajay sent him an incredulous look. “Did poetry pick you up out of the dust of our family home and find employment for you with a respectable British merchant? Did poetry speak up for you when Captain Tennant was choosing a crew from the lowly dockhands in Karachi? Did poetry spoon broth past your parched lips when you took sick at sea, or teach you how to lash yourself to the deck in a storm?”
Ram’s frustration mounted. “Would a loving and caring brother toss his family out on a cold, January night?”
Ajay’s expression hardened, and he sunk back in his chair. Ram wasn’t sure if Ajay would continue the conversation at all. He waited for a few moments, but when Ajay said nothing, Ram gave up with a sigh.
He started to move away, heading for the door, when Ajay called, “You have tonight. Pack up your things. In the morning, you will leave my house.”
Ram clenched his jaw. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he had to take what he was given. A night might be enough for Ajay’s temper to cool and for the two of them to come to a calmer understanding. He nodded, leaving Ajay to stew as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
But after a restless night of frustration with his brother and worry about Noelle, Ram woke to pounding on his door.
“It’s morning,” Faye called from the stairs as Ram rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Gather your things and be gone with you.”
Sleep fled like a fox from hounds, and Ram leapt from his bed. “Ajay would never turn me out,” he said, walking to the door but not opening it.
“Ha! Think again,” Faye barked. “You have ten minutes.”
Her footsteps marched down the stairs. Ram stood where he was, running his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. There was a chance she was bluffing. It seemed unreal that after all they’d been through as a family, Ajay would turn his back over a woman he refused to get to know. Ram debated racing downstairs to find his brother and argue him into sanity, but in the end, painful though it was, respecting Ajay’s whims for the moment meant he’d have a chance of repairing things later.
He dressed, hurriedly packing a bag, then left the house without saying goodbye, as he did every morning when heading out for work. He refused to think that anything was ending. Ajay would see reason and welcome him back with open arms. Eventually.
Ram turned south and headed straight toward St. George’s Street and the Red Lion Inn. His whole heart longed for Noelle. His body ached for her. With his family behind him, all he wanted to do was fold her in his arms and never let her go.
He searched for her the moment he stepped through the inn’s door. And searched. And searched.
“Tom, is my friend Miss Walters still asleep?” he asked the innkeeper, who stood behind the bar in the inn’s low-ceilinged common room, washing glasses.
Tom glanced warily in Ram’s direction. He shook his head. “She left.”
A cold knot gripped Ram’s stomach. “She what?”
Tom sent him a sympathetic look, slinging the cloth he was using to dry glasses over his shoulder. “She left before sunlight,” he said, approaching Ram from the other side of the bar. “Packed up her things and lit out of here in a hurry. Paid in full, though.”
“Where did she go?” Ram asked. Suspicion added acid to the knot in his gut.
Tom shrugged. “She didn’t say. She didn’t seem too happy. More kind of…resolved. Sorry, mate,” he added.
Ram hissed out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. “Thanks anyhow, Tom.”
He turned and rushed back out into the cold morning. As soon as the mist hit his face, he glanced up and down the street, as if he might still see Noelle’s retreating back about to turn a corner. The street bustled with its usual morning activity, nothing more.
Ram fought the wave of dread that threatened to turn him to lead. She couldn’t have gone far. London was huge, but Noelle didn’t know her way around. She had to have been within a few blocks.
Hoisting his bag over one shoulder like a traveler, Ram started down St. George’s Street toward Tower Hill. It was the same route he’d taken Noelle when she’d disembarked from the ship. He was convinced she’d stick with ways she was familiar with.
But an hour later, he still hadn’t seen so much as a scrap of red skirt or a flash of dark hair amongst the crush of people going about their business in Stepney. It was as if Noelle had disappeared completely into the bustle of London.
“Watch yer step,” a burly dock worker barked when Ram collided with him closer to the waterfront. He didn’t think Noelle would have headed south to the river, but the river was where his feet always took him when he was in distress.
“Sorry, mate.” Ram tipped his hat to the man in apology. He recognized the man as an employee of one of Captain Tennant’s friends, but didn’t know his name.
Captain Tennant. A rush of hope flooded Ram. If there was anyone who could help him figure out how to track Noelle in such a huge city—or who w
ould know how to investigate the place Ram feared she had gone—it would be Captain Tennant.
It was almost noon by the time Ram located his friend and mentor in the office of his warehouse. Ram spotted him at the far end of the vast room as soon as he stepped through the door. Captain Tennant sat on a brocade sofa, which stood amidst a small sea of other new, brocade furniture, completely out of place in a shipping warehouse. Another man with grey hair and an angular, impish face, that Ram didn’t know sat with him. The two men were smoking pipes and laughing over something.
Ram started toward them, but was stopped by Graham, Captain Tennant’s personal secretary.
“He’s in an important meeting,” Graham explained, all business as usual.
“I have to speak with him. This is a matter of life and death,” Ram said.
“The captain is in a meeting,” Graham repeated, shaking his head regretfully. “You can’t—”
“Ah, if it isn’t my loyal lascar right now,” Captain Tennant called across to them.
Ram thanked his luck that apparently Captain Tennant had been talking about him to his friend. He nodded to Graham and marched across the warehouse to the odd sea of furniture.
“Do you like the new merchandise?” Captain Tennant asked when Ram drew near. “Lord Campbell here convinced me to buy up the whole lot of it when another investor failed to come up with the blunt to purchase it.”
“You’ll make a fortune selling it to the newly rich looking to impress their neighbors,” Lord Campbell said in a rolling, Scottish accent. He pointed his pipe at Captain Tennant and winked.
“Malcolm here has investments on the brain,” Captain Tennant laughed in return.
“Investing is the modern way to make money,” Lord Campbell said.
Any other day, Ram would have enjoyed being introduced to the grinning, teasing Lord Campbell, but not when Noelle’s safety was on the line. “Sir,” he addressed Captain Tennant without preamble. “Have you seen or heard of Miss Walters’s whereabouts? She has been staying with me at Ajay’s house, but there was a…confusion, and now she’s gone.” That was all the explanation he had the time or heart to give.
Captain Tennant’s expression lost its good humor, replacing it with frowning concern. “Miss Noelle Walters is a remarkable American woman I brought over a fortnight or so ago,” he explained to Lord Campbell. “She came here to start a new life. Very brave.” He turned to Ram. “What happened to that new life? Why was she staying with you instead of taking up her position?”
“Because her position was with Lord Waltham,” Ram said.
Without further explanation, both men hummed in understanding. Lord Campbell looked downright grave. “Basil is a good friend,” he said, glancing from Ram to Captain Tennant. “That affair with Lady Gray did him in. He thinks he’s responsible for…you know,” he explained to Captain Tennant.
Ram nodded, but he didn’t have time for the scandals and machinations of the ruling class. He shifted his bag on his shoulder and said, “I sent her to the Red Lion Inn last night, and Tom confirms that she stayed there, but she headed out this morning.”
Captain Tennant shrugged. “Is that something to worry about? Perhaps she’s seeking a new position, since Lord Waltham’s fell through.”
“That’s the problem.” Ram blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “She’s been searching for a new position since the day she arrived. She worked briefly in a café on Oxford Street, but the owner refused to pay her. And….” He paused, wincing at the story he had to tell, hating how it might backfire and mar Noelle’s reputation even more. “A man named Lord Shayles singled her out almost as soon as she arrived. He’s spread rumors to keep decent folks from hiring her.”
Ram needn’t have finished his explanation. From the moment he mentioned Shayles’s name, Lord Campbell flushed with anger and sat straighter. “Shayles, you say?” he growled.
The sour knot in Ram’s gut pulsed with alarm. “You know him?”
“I know enough,” Lord Campbell said in warning tones. He stood. Captain Tennant stood as well. “And you have reason to believe your friend, Miss Walters, might have fallen under Shayles’s influence?”
Ram hissed out a breath, not liking where the conversation was going. “I understand that Shayles procures women for nefarious purposes.” He hesitated before going on with, “I have a bad feeling that if Noelle feels backed into a corner, she might turn to that as a way out.”
“She might see it as a more viable option than most women would,” Captain Tennant added carefully. Ram admired him more than ever for keeping Noelle’s past a secret when many other men would have bandied it about like a joke.
“Shayles was bragging last night that he would have fresh meat of an exotic vintage available for his dinner guests,” Lord Campbell went on, rubbing his chin.
Ram’s expression darkened. “You’re friends with Shayles?”
Lord Campbell huffed a dark laugh. “Not even close. We move in the same circles, though, and there is a…connection with my late wife. There was a gathering last night, and he was spreading the word. Everyone with even a little knowledge of the man knows what he meant, though.”
“And you think that fresh meat was Miss Walters?” Captain Tennant asked.
“It’s possible,” Lord Campbell said.
“Then we have to find her and get her to safety.” Ram’s heart pounded.
“Do you know where Shayles might have her?” Captain Tennant asked. “If, indeed, that is where Miss Walters has gone.”
“I know the house where Shayles and his ‘club’ meet,” Lord Campbell said.
“Then we should go there immediately,” Ram said, itching to drag the two men out the door and on to the rescue mission.
“We won’t be able to walk right in and scoop your friend up,” Lord Campbell warned, raising a hand to settle Ram. “Shayles is an earl and a member of the House of Lords, after all.”
“We can’t just let him hurt Noelle,” Ram growled.
“I wasn’t suggesting that,” Lord Campbell assured him. He glanced to Captain Tennant. “We can get into The Black Strap Club’s house, but it will take some maneuvering.”
“I’ll do anything to reach Noelle,” Ram said, his heart behind every word.
“Then, if you can spare a few strong men,” Lord Campbell began, glancing to Captain Tennant. Captain Tennant nodded. “I have an idea for how we can infiltrate the club.”
“Let’s go,” Ram said. He wanted the whole sorry chapter to be over with as quickly as possible so that he and Noelle could begin their life together.
CHAPTER 10
Even though the house that contained The Black Strap Club was in the heart of a beautiful neighborhood within sight of Kensington Palace, lined with sculpted shrubs and ornate flower beds—devoid of blooms in the winter, but artistic all the same—the moment Noelle opened the gate and walked up to the front door, she was reminded of the seediest flop-houses and filthiest cribs of her old western haunts. The only thing that kept her from turning tail and running was gnawing desperation and the belief that Ram would thank her for setting him free…someday.
She knocked, then took a step back, pressing a hand to her stomach, uncertain whether she was being brave in the face of impossible odds or unspeakably stupid.
“Hello?” The door was opened by a rail-thin young man with slicked-back hair and a too-high voice. He eyed her up and down, his mouth stretching to a wicked, gap-toothed smile.
That smile was all she needed to see. Forget setting Ram free. There was nothing brave about what she was doing. Going to Lord Shayles to solve her problems was a terrible, coward’s idea. Ram loved her and would take care of her, just as soon as she stopped acting like a heroine in a tragic fairy tale.
“I’m sorry,” she said, backing up farther still. “This was a mistake.”
The door flung open all the way, and Lord Shayles himself stepped out onto the steps as Noelle tried to turn and flee. “It’s no
mistake,” he said. “It’s your destiny, my dear.”
They shouldn’t have, but his words struck a chord. That, and the fact that he grabbed her upper arm, physically stopping her from leaving, made Noelle rethink everything yet again. She turned to him, trying her best to remain determined and clear-headed. “I only came her for information,” she said. “To ask what it is exactly that you expect from me and what you would pay. But I’ve changed my mind.”
“No you haven’t.” Lord Shayles didn’t let go of her arm. “And as for what I expect from you, why, I expect greatness, my dear. Greatness.” He whispered the final word, infernal fire in his eyes.
Again, Noelle told herself to break free and run. But the flash of a deep red skirt in the hall behind Shayles grabbed her attention. She looked, spotting a girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, her hair and skin as pale as a ghost, peering around a huge, black marble statue of a horse…with rather large genitalia. The girl seemed lost and defeated. Noelle’s heart went out to her. She knew too many girls like that.
Shayles took her hesitation as a sign of acceptance and pulled Noelle into the house before she could think to stop him. She only resisted at the last minute, when the sallow, grinning butler slammed and locked the door behind her. The sad girl in red gasped and dashed off down some unseen corridor.
“This is a mistake,” Noelle repeated, trying to turn and leave. “I don’t belong here.”
“Oh, but you do, my dear,” Shayles said, his voice a vile caress. He followed that by brushing her hair away from her neck so he could slip his fingertips across her pulse. “This is your place, and you will be taught to enjoy it.”
A cold shiver shot down Noelle’s back. “No, you’re wrong. I don’t want to work for you after all.”
“But you haven’t heard the terms I’m offering.” Shayles placed a hand on the small of her back and nudged her toward a room off to the side of the front hall.
“I’m not interested,” Noelle insisted. But Shayles had her trapped.
