The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

“Or maybe we’ll do what’s best for us and you can go to hell. I’m not playing your damned game, and if you’re being blackmailed you should think twice about forcing other people into things. Suppose I tell the authorities to take a close look at you, eh? What about that?”

  “Be my guest,” Kim said. “But if Mrs. Appleby does not oblige, she’ll pay.”

  Beaumont was white-faced. “You shit.” He swung around to Will. “Are you just going to stand there? This man is threatening me! You entrapped me!”

  “Your decisions led you here,” Kim said. “I suggest you take responsibility for them.”

  “I’ll speak for myself,” Will told him. “Beaumont, you don’t know what your girl friend has been mixed up in. If I were you, I’d do what he’s asking. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

  “Damned if I will. What the devil do you mean, what she’s been mixed up in? All she did was bring in a few bits and pieces!”

  “Quite,” Kim said. “And when my colleague, a man called Leinster, came to ask questions, she told Mrs. Skyrme all about him, and now he—a British agent—is dead.”

  Beaumont’s mouth opened soundlessly, fishlike. Kim’s lip curled. “There is blood on your mistress’s hands. If she wants to wash it off, she should help me now. If she doesn’t, I’ll make her pay in full for her part in Leinster’s death. Let me know which you prefer.”

  WILL HAD RATHER EXPECTED Kim to vanish again while he let Beaumont out of the shop, trying to ignore his look of open hatred. But he was still there, seated on the camp bed, back to the wall, waiting.

  “Get what you want?”

  “I think so. I’m sorry, Will. This is a dirty business.”

  “You warned me it would be.” He hesitated. “Does it get easier?”

  “Betrayal? Not much.”

  Will came and sat next to him, resting his shoulders against the chilly plaster, hearing the bed’s familiar creak. There was very little he wanted to say, so he didn’t, just listened to Kim breathe.

  “My first time was in 1920,” Kim said after a while. “Well, I say that: some people might place my first betrayal a great deal earlier. And I dare say I betrayed my family and my class very thoroughly when I changed my allegiances and refused to go to war. But the first time I set out to do it, quite deliberately to an individual...” He made a face.

  “Was this the Bolshie lot, the one you mentioned?”

  “Yes. Maclean, who you knew as Libra, had a little group with large ambitions. I, let us say, persuaded one of them to trust me, sufficiently that he introduced me as a new recruit, and with what I learned DS and the Private Bureau turned them inside out. Maclean got away, but three of them received hefty prison sentences, and my—the man I’d entrapped hanged himself before trial.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Quite.”

  Will wondered if he had the right to ask, and did it anyway. “How did you feel about that?”

  “Not much worse than I did every other day. That was the great advantage of my situation for DS, you see: it hardly mattered what sort of job he gave me.”

  “I’d like a word with this fellow.”

  “Don’t blame him,” Kim said. “The group in question was planning a large-scale bombing campaign, my dear friend included, so finer feelings be damned. If I had to do it again, I would. Some things need doing.”

  “You still have to live with yourself afterwards.”

  “How many men did you stab in the dark?” Kim flashed. “Is the dark so much better than the back?”

  “I’ve got to live with myself too. I’ll take your word you did the right things, or at least did things for the right reasons.”

  Kim’s shoulders dropped. “I wish you would, then perhaps you could persuade me of it. I’m truly sorry about Beaumont. He’ll loathe you now, and I dare say you’ll feel responsible if his girl friend pays the price. I should have found a way to get at him that didn’t involve you.”

  “You should, yes. Though you didn’t know what would come up.”

  “I knew it would be bad.” He sighed. “I have a lowering feeling I was giving myself an excuse to see you again.”

  Will had to take that in for a second. “Were you?”

  “Probably. Yes. Of course I was.”

  “That’s...” Will didn’t know what to say. “You couldn’t have just answered the ­­’phone? Oh, hell, Kim. Sometimes you have to get the job done. I understand that. Some things don’t happen in a gentlemanly way. You can’t stay clean if you’re knee deep in mud, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Some people would call that an argument not to get in the mud in the first place.”

  “Except the mud is where the work is,” Will said. “Or the war. Clean hands were for people who didn’t go.”

  “I didn’t go, and look at my hands now.”

  Will took Kim’s manicured fingers in his own toughened ones. “Yes, I know. Put a lot more work in and they might end up like mine. Do you know the thing about stabbing people in the back?”

  “What?”

  “They don’t scream.”

  Kim twisted round to give him a look. Will said, “They just groan, can’t help it. It’s like the blow takes the breath out of them. So if you need someone to die quietly, that’s what you do, and never mind being honourable about it.”

  “I’ll...bear that in mind,” Kim said, and they sat together in silence.

  Chapter Ten

  Mrs. Appleby didn’t arrive in the country until Sunday and Kim had preparatory work to do. That left Will at a loose end for a bit, until he learned that he was non-negotiably invited to the couturiers’ dinner at the Criterion on Saturday evening.

  “But why on earth do you want me there?” he asked Maisie. “I’m no use to you. I don’t know anything about fashion.”

  “I know, but...” Maisie gave him a frantic look. “Edward Molyneux and a lady who works directly for Jeanne Lanvin are coming, Will! And Adela Moran, who Coco Chanel sometimes uses, and Gloria Glade the film star, and Kim and Phoebe will be there being Lord Arthur Secretan and the Honourable Miss Stephens-Prince—all in the Criterion, for me, and I’m terrified. You won’t be terrified. I need you there not being terrified, or I might be sick.”

  “You do want to do this fashion thing, right?”

  She gave him a look. “Yes. It’s what I’ve dreamed of for years, and now it’s not just a dream but a thing that might happen. A real hope. Is there anything more terrifying than getting what you hope for?”

  What Will might hope for wasn’t even something he could think about properly. “Fair point.”

  “It will be all right once I’ve started. Phoebe’s doing it for me, she’ll make it work. But I desperately don’t want to let her down, and it’s the first time, and everyone else will be posh, and—I need someone like me there, on my side. Please?”

  Oh God. But this was Maisie, so Will set his shoulders. “Any idea where I can get evening dress before Saturday?”

  “Phoebe said she’ll arrange it. Oh, thank you, Will, thank you. I know you won’t enjoy it.”

  “I just hope you do.”

  “If it kills me.” Maisie grinned wryly. “I have to get used to mixing with these people and the sooner, the better. And the sooner they get used to me, the sooner they’ll look at my designs instead of my skin or my shape or my accent.”

  “Aren’t you changing your accent? Only you were talking posh in the night-club.”

  “It’s one less way to be different. I think I might have to. My da would hate that.” She cocked her head at him. “You wouldn’t change how you talk to make other people more comfortable, would you? Not at any price.”

  “Probably not,” Will said. “We won’t find out because I’m not a brilliant young person, so nobody cares. Anyway, how many times have you told me I’m too stubborn for my own good?”

  “Almost every time you do anything.”

  “Exactly. Talk however you want.”

  Maisi
e screwed up her face. “Maybe when I have my own fashion house I’ll switch back. Or just make Welsh fashionable.” She adopted an accent so cut-glass you could shave with it. “‘Oh, bore da, darling, do give me a cwtch, it’s been positively ages.’”

  “Please, no.”

  WILL SPENT THE NEXT couple of days preparing, having borrowed some of Maisie’s magazines to read up on fashion houses and designers in the vain hope that he wouldn’t look completely ignorant. He ploughed through half a dozen copies each of Smart Set, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and London Life. Jean Patou and Coco Chanel jostled for page space with Lucile, Travis Banton, and a dozen more, amid reports of high life and film stars. The details slipped out of his brain as quickly as he read them, and he couldn’t summon up any interest in the Louis vs Cuban heel debate no matter how hard he tried. He was, however, pleased to learn that hemlines would continue rising, presumably taking spirits with them.

  He did stop dead at a piece on country houses.

  Pictured: The Hon. Phoebe Stephens-Prince and fiancé Lord Arthur Secretan with friends at the Viscount Waring’s graceful Hertfordshire home, Etchil.

  There were a couple of photographs of the house—it looked old and grand—and of elegantly dressed people standing around in it. Phoebe was in one, holding the arm of a handsome older man who the caption identified as her father, the viscount. He could see the resemblance and it made him uncomfortable all over again.

  He knew Kim and Phoebe were aristocracy. He thought he’d got used to it. But there was something about seeing them in print next to pictures of Noel Coward and Mary Pickford and Clara Bow that got right under his skin. He couldn’t reconcile Lord Arthur Secretan smiling blandly out of the pages of London Life with Kim naked and gasping under him.

  A suit arrived for him: evening dress, not new but nearly so, with shoes, tall shiny hat, and white gloves. It fit well enough, and made him feel like a circus chimpanzee, dressed in his betters’ clothing. Will tried it on a couple of times to see if he could do the tie properly, and also get used to his appearance. The answer to both was no.

  Overall, he was feeling decidedly apprehensive on Saturday morning, so he didn’t want to consider how Maisie must feel. It was a welcome distraction to hear the two-note cry that resolved itself into “Knives to grind! ... Sharp’ning!”

  He hailed the knife-grinder as he pushed his cart up the lane, and brought out the Messer. The wizened little man looked at it with a professional eye. “Looks like this saw some service, guv. German, ain’t it?”

  “Mine now.”

  “It’ll do to cut your nails with, anyhow,” the knife-grinder said, and went off into a wheezy laugh.

  Will stood and watched as he worked the treadle that set the grindstone spinning. He’d always loved watching knife-grinders as a boy—the shrill noise, the sparks—and he wasn’t particularly surprised when another man, strolling down May’s Buildings, stopped too.

  The knife-grinder withdrew the Messer and turned it assessingly as the grindstone slowed. “That’ll cut anything needs cutting, I dessay. Thruppence, guv.”

  Will fished out the coin. The watching man said, “That’s a proper blade.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s a bookseller do with a thing like that?”

  “Picked it up in Flanders,” Will said briefly.

  “Get a lot of use out of it, do you?”

  Will turned to look at him as the knife-grinder trundled on his way. “What was that, mate?”

  “I said, you like using your knife. Right, Mr. Darling?”

  The watcher was a man in unremarkable clothes, maybe in his forties, but could be ten years older or younger, with nothing to suggest an occupation. Bland was the only word for his featureless face, down to a pair of indeterminately coloured eyes that held no expression at all as they looked at Will. He might have been any of a million men in London, anonymous to all but their own loved ones, except the nape of Will’s neck was prickling viciously, and he didn’t think this fellow had loved ones, somehow. He settled the Messer into a comfortable, usable grip.

  “You know my name,” he said. “What’s yours?”

  “Telford. Tommy Telford.”

  “Is that right. I’ve heard of you.”

  “I’ve heard of you.” Telford’s hands were in his coat pockets, which were deep ones. Will glanced down in case he could spot the outline of a gun, and up again to see Telford’s blank eyes on his face. “Worried?”

  “Should I be?”

  “You tell me, Mr. Darling. You’re the one shoving your nose in where it’s not wanted.”

  “How’ve I done that?”

  “More to the point, why?”

  They were the deadest eyes Will had ever seen, eyes that said I don’t care without recklessness or dash or resignation, just a void where human feeling ought to be. Will had a sudden urge to stab the fucker now and get it over with.

  “Why what?” he said. “Or, no, let’s stop asking each other questions and you tell me why you’re here.”

  “It’s a public street. A free country. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Will sighed heavily. “We both know you’ve come to threaten me, so crack on. I’ve work to do.”

  Apparently Telford didn’t often get asked to hurry up with his menaces. He looked even blanker for a second, then narrowed his eyes. “You need to mind your own business, Mr. Darling. You’ve caused plenty of trouble. It’s time to stop.”

  “Who says?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll hear it from your boss, mate. The organ grinder, not his monkey.”

  The air between them was thick with aggression now. Better not get hit in the face, he thought. Maisie would not be pleased if he turned up to her posh dinner with a top hat and a shiner.

  “You need to listen better,” Telford said throatily. “And you and your posh friend need to watch yourselves, because you’ve had all the chances you’re going to get. Stick your fingers into our business again, I’ll cut ’em off.”

  “I’m the one with the knife,” Will said.

  Telford jabbed a hand forward without taking it out of his pocket, so that the cloth was visibly distorted. It looked like he had a gun in there, unless it was two fingers held together. Either way, Will tensed, swaying his weight to the balls of his feet, and nearly jumped out of his skin as Norris, the walking-stick seller next door, said, “Ah, Mr. Darling, there you are! Am I bothering you? Only it’s about those stray cats—Oh!”

  He had bustled up to them and was looking wide-eyed at the Messer. Will managed a laugh. “This? I just had it sharpened. My pal Tommy wanted a look. Didn’t you, Tommy?”

  “Lovely piece of kit,” Telford said, the words right, but the tone so flat and dead that Norris recoiled. “I’ll be off. Don’t forget what I said, will you?”

  He strolled away. Will nodded in his general direction, and turned to his neighbour with some relief. He couldn’t solve the local cat problem either, but at least it wasn’t life-threatening.

  HE COULD HAVE DONE without this bloody dinner after that, especially since, walking into the Criterion, he felt only slightly less apprehensive than about some battles he’d been in. The restaurant was a grand place, artistic and Bohemian in an extremely expensive-looking way. Kim was there to greet him in the private room he’d booked, unbearably sleek in his perfectly fitted evening dress. He shook Will’s hand, flicked a look over him, and said, “Very nice. Very nice indeed,” in a purr that tingled all the way to Will’s toes.

  “Pretty smart yourself,” he managed.

  “I try.” Kim’s eyes settled on his face, and his brows angled in a flicker of concern. “Is everything all right?”

  “Tell you later.”

  By Kim’s side, Phoebe wore a spectacular blue-grey dress that shifted and shimmered around her like mercury. She greeted Will with both hands and a kiss on the cheek, and breathed, “Sorry for snapping, darling,” in his ear.

  “Sorry for dictating,” he said equ
ally softly.

  She squeezed his hands. “And thank you for coming. You’re a poppet. Have you told Maisie she’s beautiful yet? Go and do that.”

  Maisie wore a dramatic beige and gold creation. She was perfectly groomed and painted, and grey with nerves.

  “You look absolutely wonderful,” Will said, with entire truth. “You’ll be the best-dressed woman in the room by miles.”

  “Watch it. I made Phoebe’s dress too.”

  “Equal first, then. She’s stunning.”

  “I know,” Maisie said on a breath, then gave him a nudge. “Oh, and my name’s Marguerite, Marguerite Zie. We’re calling me that, so don’t forget, and don’t laugh. Because ‘Maisie Jones’ doesn’t sound like a couturier, and my name is Margaret, actually, so it’s close, and everyone else uses professional names so it’s not as if I’m turning my back on where I come from—”

  “I don’t know who you’re arguing with, but it’s not me,” Will said. “It sounds fine. Good idea. Oh God, they’re coming, chin up.”

  A gaggle of elegant people had arrived, young and rich and braying. Phoebe swooped around the room doing introductions. “Now, Adela, you know Marguerite already, don’t you? But Will doesn’t know anyone, so this is Will Darling, darlings, which terribly easy to remember, and Will, this is Binkie Huckaback and Gloria Glade, who you’ll know from the pictures.”

  “Of course,” Will said, identifying the brassy blonde. She was perhaps a bit less perfect in reality than on the silver screen, and the juvenile by her side was stretching the definition of that term, but they were both extremely good-looking and dramatically dressed. “I saw Top Hat and Tails just the other day. You were both marvellous.”

  “Very kind of you,” Huckaback said with a manly sort of nod.

  “And Adela Moran, and her fiancé Bubby Fanshawe, who it’s quite delightful to see because I thought you weren’t coming, Bubby.”

  Miss Moran had an aggressively shapeless bright yellow dress, the sort of shingled hair that came to sharp points round her face, and lips painted an arterial shade of red. She was probably the height of fashion, and the least of Will’s worries, because Fanshawe was a chinless young man with a nasty black eye, and he was staring at Will.