by Edith Layton
He’d seen nothing, he’d been so intent on his thoughts. So when the blow came it brought him to his knees; the pain and the blinding light felt like a thunderclap on the back of his head, more painful and shocking because it was unlooked-for. But he was a young man, and a fit one; handling teams of spirited horses on the high road gave a man stamina and muscle and sharpened his reflexes, so he was up on his knees and then on his feet again in the space of a breath. He managed to land an immediate satisfactory blow to his opponent, and hearing the man gasp with vengeful gladness, then had no doubt he could best the villain, and waded forward to do so, when he felt other hands grasp him from behind and pin his arms to his sides. As he grappled with this new assailant, his old one recovered enough to deliver a hard blow to his stomach that doubled him over, gagging, but still hanging firmly in that new ungentle embrace.
He struggled to free himself even as he gasped with pain and nausea, and as the next blow landed solidly to his body again, he heard a rough voice behind him say with a curious note of sympathy, “Eh. Easy, lad. Just take it easy now. It’ll soon be over.”
It was odd, he thought, above all the frustration and hurt of it, to be beaten senseless by such concerned torturers, for when the pain glazed his eyes so that he could not see whom to snarl at, and when he ceased to struggle, the voice said dispassionately, “Eh, Fred. It’s enough. He’s done.”
The arms behind loosed him and he dropped to his knees in the street.
“It’s just that we’d a message for you, lad,” the rough voice said easily, as the man hunkered down so that he could hear him above the thrumming of blood in his ears. “Stay away from the lady, ’e said, and so you can’t say you wasn’t warned, ’e said as to tell you next time it’d go worse for you. Fair enough? Ah, you’ll be better in the morning, lad, but next time we’ll do worse, so take a ’int, eh?”
He muttered a curse, and suddenly lurched upright, to kill or be killed if he must, when he was struck in the face with such force that he crashed to the pavement again.
“Filthy scum,” a familiar voice growled, and as he tried to place it, and shake the mist from his eyes and rise again, he felt a sharp pain in his head, and then another in his ribs, and another, until he lay still, trying to curl up on himself, unable to think of anything but pain.
“’Ere m’lord, ’ere, ’old on,” the rough voice spoke in alarm, “you don’t want to kill the lad, do you? Eh, well, even if you do, we want no part of it. You said to teach a lesson, m’lord, and that we did, but we’ll have no part of murder, no. You’re a gent, all you’d get would be a nice scold, but that’s the topping cheat for us.”
“Not murder, no,” the heavy voice said, panting, “I just want to rearrange his pretty face a bit.”
Julian looked up through his narrowing frame of vision to see a gentleman’s high, shining Hessian boot raising up and coming, as though in impossibly slow and measured movement, directly toward his face. He tried to turn, but found all he could do was to close his eyes against the assault that never came.
For, “No, my lord, I think not,” a new voice said, as the other gasped in outrage.
“What are you doing? Let me loose! I paid for this!”
“A lesson is all you paid for and all I’ll deliver, not surgery. As it is,” the voice said with steel beneath its low, rumbling tones, as it began to fade in and out, “there’s more damage here than I bargained for. It’s quite enough, my lord.”
The other voice began a protest that the viscount never heard the ending of, for suddenly the pain ebbed away, along with all his sense of sight and sound.
*
“There’s a person to see you, sir,” the butler said evenly. “He has your card.”
It was a simple enough statement, but Mr. Jones pricked up his ears at it, and laid down his fork at once. His eggs were never so interesting as the translation he’d just made of his butler’s announcement. It seemed he was being informed that a very inferior fellow had come to call (no other sort of man would be described as a “person”) and that though he looked unusual, his business had been deemed important enough that the astute butler had decided it warranted disturbing his master’s breakfast.
“You said as to ’ow you were ’is friend,” the guard of the Brighton Thunder said as he shuffled his big boots in the gentleman’s anteroom.
“I was, I am,” Mr. Jones answered with a growing sense of dread.
“Then I think you ought to come,” the guard said simply, “now.”
The gentleman remained silent all during the long ride to the Anchor, but the guard, seated beside him, who was a fellow who’d learned to read faces for his living, saw how his lips imperceptibly tightened the further they drove into the East End, and saw the olive skin grow pale as he was told to stop before the tavern. He didn’t see the haste with which the gentleman took the steps up to the viscount’s room, for he’d been asked to stay and watch his fine carriage. Nor then did he see those heavily lidded eyes spring wide when there was no answer to his imperious knock upon the scarred door to the high room. And it was as well that he didn’t see the quick pain which filled those midnight-blue eyes when he opened the door and stepped into the dim room, for it was mixed with a terrible fear that the gentleman had never allowed any man to see.
The single bed bore a body, its clothes bloodied and torn, and at first, in the dimness, for it was morning and the sun never found this room until the day began to wane, the gentleman only recognized the man by his hair, which, though disarranged and laced with clots of dirt and blood, was a distinctive dark gold. The face was too swollen, the fair skin already darkened with the insult it had received, for him to make sense of all the features at once. Without a word, the gentleman came near the bed, and wincing, reached out one hand to that disordered hair, to push back a lock which had become plastered to the high forehead. At that, one light eye opened and the swollen mouth twitched, and a tired, slurred voice said, shaking with what, incredibly enough, might possibly have been laughter, “You were right, Warwick. A very bad man.”
*
“His breathing’s easy,” the physician reported as he drew on his gloves, “so I can be sure the lungs weren’t touched. And as several ribs were broken in several places, that was my first concern. But I’ve taped him up tight and if he remains at rest, his recovery should be certain. However, I should think,” he said, casting a wise glance at the gentleman who handed him a glass of brandy, “that would be the most difficult part of his recuperation.”
The gentleman smiled, remembering how much trouble the doctor’s newest patient had caused, even semiconscious as he’d been, as he’d been carried from his room to the waiting carriage and from there upstairs to the guestroom where he now lay, drugged into unwilling submission at last. The Thunder’s guard had been of the opinion that perhaps an extra clip on the chin would have made their chore easier, the butler had wistfully spoken of sleeping drafts, and a struggling footman had paused on the stair after laboring under the burden of the hastily improvised litter to wipe his brow on a sleeve and swear he didn’t know how such a slender half-dead fellow could get himself to weigh a ton.
The viscount had been assisted to his room without further difficulty only after his host, after his initial relief at the fact that his friend was alive enough to be so obstructive had faded, then grew annoyed enough with his protests to stop the halting procession and say, coldly and plainly enough for a man at the brink of the grave to understand, “Get the rocks out of your pockets and your head, Julian. You’ve been left alive, but not for long if you don’t stop being a fool. You are to stay here until you’re well enough to get revenge. I promise you that. Now, some cooperation, if you please.”
“Of course,” the doctor added after a swallow of his drink, “he won’t want to show his face for a while if he’s a vain chap…but no,” he said hurriedly, seeing the sudden alarm spring up in the gentleman’s eyes, “there should be no permanent damage. It looks bloody awful, b
ut there were no deep cuts, you see, only scratches, nothing broken in the face at all, lucky chap,” he mused, “but with that sort of skin, you see, healing will be an unattractive process.”
“He will be dissuaded from cotillions,” the gentleman agreed. “Thank you, doctor.”
When the physician had gone, promising a return in the morning, the gentleman stayed seated in his study for a long time, staring sightless into his fire. His staff knew well enough not to disturb him at such times. It was difficult for the butler to violate his master’s privacy, knowing how he disliked it when he retreated to think as he’d done, but the visitor who’d come to call was a gentleman of sorts. And as the butler recalled that he’d come a few times before and had been admitted then, he had no choice, he said with great regret when he disturbed Mr. Jones with the news, but to cut up his peace again.
“Quite right, Mr. Fox,” Mr. Jones interrupted his remorseful explanations to say, “and no problem, I’ve done with my musings and was only waiting for the hour to grow late enough for me to implement them. No matter,” he said, with a wry smile for the look of polite incomprehension on his butler’s face, “show Mr. Logan in.”
“Good afternoon, my friend,” Mr. Jones said, extending his hand to the fair heavyset gentleman as he entered, “and what may I do for you today? What have you decided is about to become indispensable to England and provident for us to invest in now? Is it to be copper, cotton, or calico we shall discuss the price of? Have a seat, Mr. Logan, I only jest, but as we met over a matter of ships just last month, I hadn’t looked to see you again so soon.”
His visitor took a seat opposite to Mr. Jones’s desk but didn’t speak directly; he appeared to be busy adjusting his large frame in his chair to his comfort. He was, in fact, buying time, for an astute businessman, like a good soldier, never begins an important matter until he’s surveyed the terrain for possible dangers. Things didn’t look well for his mission, he decided, as he smiled and offered a mindless social pleasantry. Warwick Jones usually displayed a calm, amused face to him. Today, he detected small but rare signs of uneasiness in his host: the way his slender fingers roved restlessly over objects on his desktop, the firm, almost clenched set to his jaw, above all, the unusually distracted look in his darker than normally dark blue eyes. And then too, even as he next reminded his host, he’d completely forgotten the fact that they’d met only a day before and he’d promised to pay him a visit when he got to London.
“But then, I never expected it to be so soon, either,” Mr. Logan said at once, letting his chuckling ride over Mr. Jones’s immediate frown and apology for his forgetfulness. “And I wouldn’t have come to bother you, not so soon, and maybe not ever, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m in a bit of a bind, and as I know few gentlemen in London as well as I do you, ah, I thought I perhaps could look you up… Ah, damnation, Mr. Jones, you’re a solid fellow, might as well spit it out,” he sighed, knowing flowers would only make this chap sneeze, honesty would be the only thing to move him. “The fact is that most of the gentlemen I work with aren’t willing to let the world know they work with me. You’re one of the few I can talk straight to…no, maybe the only one. You don’t style yourself too far above me to do anything but make money from me,” he said on an embarrassed laugh, for being a very good businessman, he was never too comfortable with the absolute truth out on the table.
“Thing is,” he went on quickly, “I’m needed at home in Suffolk, my wife’s about to present me with another babe. It’ll be our second. There was some difficulty the first time so I don’t like being away from her now, which accounts for my hurry. But I don’t want our Sukey to know of it… Lord, listen to me,” he sighed. “I can sell you a shipyard with a few good words, but talk of myself and I jabber.”
“No, talk of yourself and I’ll listen, never fear,” Mr. Jones said, relaxing and finally giving his guest his complete attention. “Come, have a drop with me to celebrate that forthcoming event, and take your time, only not too much, if the happy event is quite that imminent,” he added with his usual sad, sweet smile, “and then tell me the whole of it. I have nowhere to go until this evening.”
After more than a few drops of port, Mr. Logan found he was entirely capable of divulging his story, swiftly and surprisingly coherently. Mr. Jones was a good listener, and it was a brief enough tale. He spoke of his clever, beautiful sister, and her inability, burdened as she was with education, to get a husband from among his cronies, and lumbered as she was with her family background, to land one from the ranks of the gentry she resembled. It took a moment to tell him of his plans for her, and then, because it was most unpleasant, only seconds to tell him about the bibulous Mrs. Pruit they’d met this very day.
“And so how can I leave her there with that sot?” he asked angrily. “Introduce Sukey to the fancy? Ho,” he laughed mirthlessly, “the only titled gentlemen she ever sees are on the labels of all the bottles she empties.
“I can’t leave Susannah in a hotel, like a homeless waif,” he explained miserably. “I closed up the house we had here in London when I moved the family down to Suffolk for the air. Even if I reopened it, she’d still be alone. We’ve a small family,” he explained. “Maybe that’s why I’m so excited about this new one coming.
“And as to that,” he said, becoming animated with woe again, “if I tell her about the new babe, why, she’ll fly to help me at home, and then I’ll never get her back to London. She’d stay, I know her, for she gets on with my good wife like a house afire, and she’d be the best aunt that ever lived, and live with me all her life and never get to be the best mama that ever lived, neither. That’s why I keep her away, though I love her. But she’s here now, and she should stay and get her chance to get her pick of the best,” he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the arm of his chair, “for she’s good and bright as she can hold together and a rare, rare beauty.”
Mr. Jones nodded agreement; it was easy enough, for he thought, on an interior smile, breathed there a man who did not have the most beautiful sister in the world?
“So I was wondering,” Mr. Logan said then in a smaller voice, because suddenly he didn’t feel at all like a businessman but rather like a street beggar with his hat in hand, “if you knew of someone, someone of quality, there’d be no sense finding someone just like me, who could give her house room for a while? For only a little while,” he hastened to add, “until the babe arrives and all’s well enough for me to come back and see to her permanent disposition.”
“Surely not so final?” his host asked easily, and when Mr. Logan didn’t smile at his simple jest, his own smile faded and he shook his head, saying slowly, “I’m not terribly social, I’m afraid, Mr. Logan. Indeed, I believe I’m the closest thing you may find to a recluse outside of a forest. Not that I don’t get about, but I’m not in the habit of hobnobbing with the ‘quality,’ as it were. I do have a viscount staying with me now,” he said musingly, “but the fellow can’t help that. He’s here against his will, actually, as he’s quite ill. You saw him at the Swan the other night, my friend from the Brighton Thunder that you inquired after, the Viscount Hazelton. No, don’t worry, nothing contagious, the poor fellow just had a rather bad accident.”
But from the way Mr. Jones said it, Mr. Logan, who always listened particularly carefully to what was not said, narrowed his eyes.
“Oh yes, the fair-haired fellow with the handsome face. My sister remarked him,” Mr. Logan said too casually, so that his host’s heavy eyes opened a bit wider. “Accident? With that sort of a phiz I’m not surprised. Bit of a devil, eh?”
“Not in the least,” Mr. Jones said coolly. “His face is the only happy accident he’s experienced in a long while. As decent a man as you’d wish, but, as I said, unfortunate, in both his present circumstances and his latest ones.”
“Ah,” Mr. Logan said, his attitude changing slightly, his tone becoming more the way it ordinarily did when he discussed prices and commissions, “I didn’t realize you w
ere that close with him. Far more than merely a passing acquaintance then,” he said wisely. “So you’d vouch for him, would you?”
“I would, absolutely,” Mr. Jones answered negligently, although now watching his guest carefully.
“Decent, honorable…and he’d be hardworking too, I expect?”
“Extremely.”
“But impoverished?”
“Unfortunately, at the moment, yes, utterly.”
“And no family to help him, or interfere with him?”
“None living.”
“Well, then,” the ruddy gentleman said, leaning forward, “I might have mentioned my sister’s interest, but I believe I neglected to mention her dowry,” and lowering his voice, he whispered a sum that made Mr. Jones look at him with some interest and then lean back in his chair, but “Indeed?” was all he said.
But as it was said in the same tone of voice he’d used before he’d bid on the opal mines he’d bought a few months past, Mr. Logan, knowing when a man ought not to press too hard, only said, “Oh yes, and all of it would go to her, or rather, her husband, immediately on their marriage. In cash,” he added, when his host did not speak at once.
