Absence of Mercy

by S. M. Goodwin

  He could always reject both choices and do nothing; he was a wealthy man, after all.

  But he recalled all too well what he’d done in the months before Sir George approached him. Yes, his memory of that time was crystal clear.

  Jasper stopped at yet another cross street. When he glanced up, he saw where his feet had carried him; he’d walked over two miles. He frowned at the elegant Georgian facade of his townhouse, looking past the soft glow of gaslights to the distinctive spider-web muntin above the front door. There were welcoming lights in the windows, and Paisley would have a hot meal waiting for him—no matter the time.

  Jasper tucked his stick under his arm and flexed his fingers. Even with fur-lined gloves, they were numb. He was wet, tired, and more than a little bosky, yet he was loath to go home. He took out his watch: it was after ten o’clock.

  There would be no sleep for him tonight, at least not without assistance. And there were only two things that helped him sleep. So, it was just a question of what type of assistance he needed—or wanted.

  He pocketed his watch and tipped the water from the brim of his high-crowned hat before stepping closer to the curb and raising a hand. When a hackney rolled to a stop beside him, Jasper was genuinely curious as to which of the two addresses he would give the driver.

  “Seven Curzon Street,” he said, and then climbed into the clammy darkness of the carriage.

  He tossed his hat onto the scarred leather bench across from him, pulled a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his coat, and put aside the decisions he’d have to make soon. But not today.

  His body, tense and tight only moments earlier, was now humming with anticipation of the night ahead.

  And if his current mistress—a lush, libidinous widow who shared Jasper’s appetites and never asked bothersome personal questions—was not at her snug townhouse on Curzon?

  Well, then he’d give the driver the second address—the one to an establishment in Limehouse that catered to his other vice and was never closed.

  CHAPTER 3

  London

  Late May 1857

  Jasper had hoped to leave London without encountering his parents at the going-away bash his brother insisted on hosting. It wasn’t an unreasonable hope, as the duke usually spent the Easter break at the family seat in Somerset.

  Usually. But not this year.

  The first people he saw upon entering the large salon at Kersey House were the duke and duchess.

  Crispin was engaged in a conversation across the room but caught Jasper’s eye. He grimaced and shrugged as if to say, Well, what did you expect?

  Jasper shot him a menacing look that was only partly feigned. The bastard had known their parents would be here—he’d probably invited them—and he’d withheld the information, fearing Jasper wouldn’t come. And he’d been right.

  “Darling!” the duchess cooed, a suffocating cloud of expensive perfume surrounding him when he leaned down to kiss her pale, smooth cheek.

  “Mother, you are looking w-well,” he said, not untruthfully. The Duchess of Kersey had always been an exceedingly lovely woman, but Jasper knew her youthful beauty came at a high cost. He could smell the faint odor of garlic beneath the cloying perfume, and the slight sheen of perspiration on her milky-white skin was not healthy.

  He could have told her the arsenic she took to maintain her flawless complexion would eventually kill her. But he knew the duchess well; she’d never listened to him in the past and was unlikely to begin now.

  “You are looking well too, Jasper.” She scrutinized his person more closely than the most exacting accountant studied a ledger, her brain totting up the cost of his clothing quicker than an abacus.

  It irked his mother that economizing measures had become necessary in the duke’s household; it irked her even more that Jasper had no need to stint himself anything.

  He studied her while she studied him. He’d hated his resemblance to his mother when he was younger. They shared the same thick, wavy chestnut hair, fine-boned good looks, and dark eyes fringed with long lashes—all well and good for a beautiful woman but mortifying for a boy.

  Like him, the duchess was taller than average, and her slender form was well proportioned. He’d shot to six feet before he reached thirteen, his arms and legs so skinny, fragile, and pale that they’d earned him the nickname Birch at Eton.

  His brother, on the other hand, was the spit and image of their father: short, stocky, and blue eyed, with thinning blond hair.

  “Gieves and Hawkes?”

  Jasper looked up. “Hmm?”

  “I asked if your suit is Gieves and Hawkes,” she said, naming the duke’s tailor.

  “P-Poole.” Jasper knew his mother would think his tailor not only a pushing upstart but also too modern with his design.

  Her arched eyebrows told him he’d guessed her thoughts correctly.

  His father came to stand on his other side, rather than beside his duchess, reminding Jasper that he was the duke’s second least favorite person.

  “Hallo again, Father.”

  The duke eyed him with open dislike, and Jasper knew they were both recalling the last time they’d spoken, two weeks before, after his father had learned that Jasper had accepted the New York posting rather than remaining in London and becoming his cipher.

  His Grace had arrived at Jasper’s house unannounced and pushed past the butler, marching into the library, his face a dangerous shade of red. They’d both proceeded to give vent to opinions and accusations that had simmered between them for decades and had been better left unsaid.

  Jasper’s memory, as faulty as it was, latched on to his father’s final salvo: I shall see you back here in six weeks with your tail between your legs.

  “Your brother told me you are leaving two days hence,” the duke said now. “Which ship are you taking?”

  “The P-P-Persia.”

  The duke’s mouth twisted with disgust; Jasper knew that his stammer upset the older man—even after all these years. Although he no longer cared what his father thought about him, Jasper’s stutter always became worse in the duke’s company.

  Still, he thought with amusement, the home secretary had done his fair share of stammering at that meeting too. So perhaps Jasper wasn’t the only person the duke affected that way.

  A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. “Jaz! It’s great to see you.” Crispin stepped into the wide gap between Jasper and their father. “I was beginning to think you’d not come.”

  “I could hardly m-miss my own p-p-party, could I?”

  “It’s a good thing, or Tish would have hopped on a packet and hunted you down in New York.” He glanced over Jasper’s shoulder, and his smile became dazzling. “Ah, there she is,” he said. “I was just telling Jaz it was a good thing he showed his face.”

  Jasper forced himself to turn and greet the woman who’d once been his fiancée. Not that he could recall much of their time together or why it had ended.

  “Hallo, L-L-Leticia.” His perfect sister-in-law was the only person who made him feel embarrassed by his stammer—not that she did so intentionally. No, Leticia was as kind as she was beautiful. Or at least he thought she was.

  He gestured to the cavernous room around them, which held a good seventy-five people. “Thank you f-for all this.”

  She took his hand, squeezing it with both hers. “Don’t be daft—of course we couldn’t let you go to the Wild West without a proper send-off.”

  Crispin laughed. “New York City is hardly the Wild West, darling.”

  She turned her extraordinary blue-violet eyes on her short, balding husband. “Crispin is going to miss you terribly, Jaz.”

  He flinched at her use of his pet name, but Leticia’s smile didn’t falter.

  Before Jasper could answer, the duchess said, “Are you certain of your decision, darling? I understand New York City is quite dangerous.”

  Jasper was stunned by her unprecedented display of maternal concern.

 
But then she continued, “Those American girls and their rapacious, title-hunting mamas are positively savage. They’re infesting even the best houses in London. You’ll need to take care you don’t fall victim to some dreadfully vulgar mushroom.”

  So, his mother wasn’t concerned for his life, merely his bank account and the family name. “It’s fortunate I don’t possess a title, M-Mother.”

  “You’ll be quite the most eligible bachelor in New York. You’ll have every American debutante on the run.” Leticia smiled up at him.

  “It’s more likely to be the other way round,” his brother quipped. “How are you at sprinting, Jaz?” Crispin chortled at his jest, and Leticia laid a slender hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re going to think me terribly scatterbrained, darling, but I can’t recall which case of champagne you wanted me to take next.” She cut Jasper an apologetic smile. “Would the three of you mind terribly if I borrowed Crispin for a moment?”

  Jasper knew the answer to that question was a resounding yes, but of course nobody admitted it.

  Leticia and Crispin took all conversation with them, leaving the three of them standing like wooden totems.

  “Ah,” the duke said, the first to seize an opportunity to escape. “There is Hilliars; I must have a word with him.”

  The duchess gave an equally vague excuse a moment later—but went in the opposite direction. His parents spoke to each other even more rarely than they spoke to him.

  The tension they’d brought with them drained away, and Jasper relaxed. He’d not seen his father and brother together for some time and was stunned by how much Crispin had come to resemble the duke.

  Jasper had been eight when he discovered that he would never look like their father.

  Like so many valuable pieces of information he’d acquired over the course of his life, the knowledge had come from a servant. His old nurse, Nanny Brown, had been chatting with some other domestic whose name he no longer recalled.

  “The young marquess is the very image of His Grace,” said Nanny’s companion.

  “Aye,” Nanny agreed. “But what he lacks in looks, he’ll make up for in disposition—he’s a sweet lad.”

  “And what about Master Jasper?” the forgotten servant asked in a hushed voice. “Now he’ll be a handsome one. He doesn’t look a bit like the duke; he’s Her Grace all over again, with his lovely hair and those romantic eyes.”

  Nanny had not responded immediately, and even at eight, Jasper knew the silence was significant.

  When she did speak, her voice was gruff. “Aye, the poor little lad. It’s a shame His Grace takes out his anger at the duchess on the boy. He had nothing to do with who his father is.”

  The ground shifted beneath him at her words.

  Up until then Jasper had assumed it was his stammer the duke despised. He’d believed that if he could fix himself, his father would love him as he did Crispin. That day he’d learned it was his very existence the duke loathed.

  As for his mother? Well, she didn’t hate him and had never been cruel—at least not intentionally. She hardly acknowledged his existence at all. She simply had no interest to spare for anyone but herself, not even her sons. Jasper couldn’t remember if she’d been different—more affectionate or caring—before his sister died, but he somehow doubted it.

  He could hardly recall the four-year-old girl who’d died when he was fifteen, but the portrait of her that hung at Kersey Hall was evidence that she too was some other man’s child, perhaps even Jasper’s full sibling.

  He’d never asked the duchess who his real father was; he didn’t care. He wondered now at his disinterest. Surely such a lack of curiosity could not be a good characteristic in a detective?

  Crispin returned. “So, have you sold off that fine bay you rode at Everton’s hunt last season? Or are you giving him to your favorite brother as an extremely early birthday gift?”

  The two of them drank Crispin’s fine brandy, insulted each other’s equestrian skills, and generally enjoyed themselves as more people packed into the huge room.

  All too soon they were interrupted as others drifted over to pay their respects to the guest of honor. It was challenging to meet so many people whom one was expected to know and remember, and it wasn’t long before his head began to ache. Jasper had avoided large functions since his return from the war, and today was baptism by fire.

  Sometimes he recognized faces he couldn’t put with names; sometimes he knew their name but had no recollection of who they were or how he knew them; and then—worst of all—sometimes there were people he knew nothing about.

  Thankfully, nobody appeared to notice anything amiss, and he navigated dozens of transactions without awkwardness. Either he was very good at hiding his defective memory or they were very good at hiding their surprised reactions.

  There was a third possibility, one he didn’t like to face: perhaps these people—supposedly his closest friends and family—had never known him well enough to notice that he was different now.

  They laughed, drank, made the same comments, and asked him the same questions: What a lark this will be; I should tag along with you! You’d better watch out, or you’ll come back with an American wife just like poor O’Toole did. You’re staying how long? And Jasper’s personal favorite: But how can you bear to go somewhere you won’t know anyone?

  He was chatting with yet another schoolmate he didn’t know and reminiscing about antics he couldn’t remember when an image of Joseph and Mary Bickle flashed through his mind. Jasper hadn’t thought about the dead couple since the day their bodies were found—not surprising, given what else had happened between then and now. But now they came back in a rush, flooding his mind with images, sensations, and even smells.

  Jasper recalled the almost vertiginous surprise he’d experienced when he realized that two people had been discovered dead that morning and that less than twelve hours later all traces of them were gone—forgotten.

  He threw back the contents of his glass, the fiery liquid burning its way down his throat, and looked around at the people who were nearest and dearest to him.

  It was morbid, but he couldn’t help wondering: if he were found dead by his own hand tomorrow, would any of these people be able to help a detective determine why he’d done it—or, at the least, who he’d been?

  He knew, with chilling certainty, that the answer to that question was no. How could it be otherwise? How could anyone know who Jasper was when he didn’t even know himself?

  CHAPTER 4

  Mid-June 1857

  On board the Persia, New York Harbor

  Jasper enjoyed a cigar as he watched the ship’s gradual arrival into New York Harbor. He was viewing the city from the stern, which did not provide the spectacular view he would have had from the bow but was considerably less crowded.

  Paisley came to stand beside him, emanating disapproval just as he’d been doing since the day Jasper told him they were moving. Although his valet was not happy about their relocation, he’d never said a word. But, like an old married couple, they no longer needed words to convey their displeasure.

  Jasper was accustomed to living in a city, but he’d never seen anything as vast as the one spread out before him. Eagerness to explore such a metropolis mingled with skepticism that he’d really been sent here to instruct New York policemen in investigatory techniques.

  One thing the duke had said that day had stuck with him: the police force was overwhelmingly Irish or of Irish extraction. The last thing a sane human would do was send an Englishman—not to mention an English lord—to instruct Irishmen.

  If Jasper were a paranoid man, he might wonder if his father had actually planned this posting as a tidy way to put a period to his existence. After all, if the duke could not force Jasper to pour his money into the family coffers, then surely the next best option was to get rid of him. Or better yet, have somebody else get rid of him. How convenient for the duke if American hooligans—of either the criminal or the law e
nforcement variety—took care of his ungovernable and screamingly wealthy offspring.

  Jasper exhaled a plume of smoke as he considered the seemingly improbable possibility.

  He knew his father believed that a dead Jasper would mean a great deal of money for the dukedom. After all, he had no wife or children and wasn’t close to any other family members; who else could Jasper possibly leave his wealth to but Crispin?

  Jasper smiled. It was a shame he’d never be able to witness the duke’s expression when he eventually learned the truth. Still, he was in no hurry to die merely to serve his father an unpleasant surprise. Not yet, at least.

  “My lord?”

  Jasper looked up at the sound of Paisley’s voice. “Hmm?”

  “The captain sent a steward to say he will ensure we disembark first.”

  He smiled at his servant, whose narrow-eyed expression told him that he already knew exactly what his obstreperous employer would say.

  “We are in the b-birthplace of democracy, Paisley.” He flicked the stub of his cigar over the side and watched its long arc to the churning waters below. “We should disembark in a d-democratic fashion.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Jasper was deeply regretting his decision. It wasn’t only the democratic press of humanity that was overwhelming—in smell, composition, and sheer numbers—it was the man who’d been sent to bear-lead him from the harbor into the city.

  Alderman Cornelius “call me Corny” Dell had not stopped talking from the moment they’d been introduced. Jasper was not clear on Dell’s relationship to the new Metropolitan Police or its superintendent—Frederick Tallmadge. One moment Dell intimated that the commissioners had personally chosen him to welcome Jasper; in the next breath he mentioned his friendship with Mayor Wood.

  Jasper had asked Dell twice to address him as Detective—not my lord, Your Lordship, or—heaven forfend—Your Grace.

  But what Mr. Dell lacked in auditory ability, he made up for in vocal skills.

  “Superintendent Tallmadge wanted to greet you personally, my lord, but he was called up to Albany at the last minute. The commissioners have put you up at the Astor House.” He cut Jasper a quick, uneasy look. “Tho’ money has been tight for the new department, with the procurement office in such a tangle—” He grimaced. “Anyhow, I think they ain’t planning to foot the bill more than a week.”