The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  THE REST OF FRIDAY was, frankly, trying. He cleaned the shop with vindictive vigour, boiling with anger and going over the whole sorry business in his head, plus all the things he should have added while kicking Kim out.

  Bastard. Absolute bastard.

  He kept the shop open all the same, and sold a few books without breaking bits off his customers, for which he probably deserved another medal. He went along to a gymnasium that evening and pummelled a punchbag till his arms hurt. He slept in sheets that smelled of whisky and Kim, and ended up sitting on the side of the bed with his face in his hands at five a.m.

  The fact was, he had only himself to blame. Fool me once, shame on you...

  He didn’t think Kim had been lying throughout. That was the worst part. He knew that Kim’s desires matched his, that their growing intimacy had been real. It wouldn’t have hurt so much if it wasn’t real, because that way Kim would have discarded something of no value. Instead he’d looked at everything he and Will might have meant to one another—the truths, the secrets, the care—put it all in the balance, and decided it still wasn’t enough.

  Will didn’t give a damn if Capricorn was the Prime Minister himself. What difference could it possibly make for Kim to tell him? He wouldn’t have run to the bloody papers. If Kim was sitting on a major problem, why wouldn’t he let a trusted friend and ally help him with it?

  The only possible answer was, he didn’t want to. For all they’d been through and shared and done, he would always put his secrets first. Maybe Phoebe could love a man who hid everything that mattered and could only be known through the things he didn’t say, but Will wasn’t that generous-hearted, or that clever. And he really wasn’t in the market to play the enlisted man to a posh bloke’s officer. He’d done four years of that.

  To hell with Kim Secretan. If he wanted to be a lone wolf, he doubtless knew where the Russian steppes were. Will had more self-respect than to trail after him any more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Will put in a hard morning’s work with book catalogues on Saturday. He usually closed at noon on Saturdays, but he stayed open till past one as penance, then went to the cafe down the road to treat himself to a pie and mash lunch. He was sick of the sight of books.

  They usually had the papers, but he was late enough that all the copies were taken. He picked up a stray copy of London Life instead. It was all pictures of Bright Young Wankers, men in tuxedos photographed mid-bray, women in drapes and dresses sitting improbably on furniture. There was plenty of puffery about clothes and couturiers, including a piece on Molyneux’s salon in Paris. Maybe Maisie would be in these pages one day. Maybe he should drop in on Molyneux when he visited her, try out what it would be like with a man who wasn’t a bloody liar.

  He flicked through for anything readable. There was an entire page of guff about parties people were going to. Did ordinary people really pay money to read about events they’d never be invited to?

  He forked pie into his mouth as he scanned the page, and an image caught his eye.

  Miss Phoebe Stephens-Prince with Edward Molyneux, Adela Moran, Johnnie Cheveley, and rising designer Marguerite Zie, at the Criterion for a dinner given by Lord Arthur Secretan. Inset: Miss Stephens-Prince and Gloria Glade at Lord Waring’s Hertfordshire residence, Etchil.

  He’d seen the photographers at the party, not that any of them had wanted to photograph him. Phoebe doubtless had a press-agent who fed this guff to the papers. It was what people did in her world, the Lord Arthur world. He hated it.

  He hoped Maisie didn’t hate it. He hoped she was a success, and that Phoebe would launch her into a new and exciting life. He wasn’t the kind of arsehole who’d be bitter about his friend’s happiness just because his own brush with high life had brought him nothing but misery, hurt, and legal peril. He told himself that very strongly indeed.

  The next page held a piece entitled ‘What’s Next For The Cloche Hat?’ Will couldn’t imagine. He finished his meal without enthusiasm and went back to the bookshop.

  He needed to go back to his own sort, that was what it came down to. He had plenty of casual friends down the pub but he needed to put more effort in. Join a football team, perhaps. Spend time with people like himself, not starlight people. Maisie might be turning into one of them but Will’s feet would always be clay, and nothing but misery came of mixing with those who, in the end, didn’t see you as their equal.

  Maybe he should get stuck into politics. Labour’s stint in government had had a shaky start: they probably needed more support on the ground. He didn’t have much appetite for the Communists after what he’d heard from Kim, but then again if they weren’t worth Kim’s time and nor was he, maybe he should take that as a hint. Obviously he should be with people who wanted to bring down barriers of class and privilege, rather than sitting in whatever Phoebe’s ancestral home was called again, surrounded by bloody toffs.

  Homes with names. He resented that to an irrational degree. Numbers were good enough for most people, or descriptive names like Bluebell Cottage or what-have-you, but of course the posh lot needed houses with their own identity, ones so big they were marked on maps. Wankers.

  Maisie had sounded so thrilled at her visit. She’d be able to swank now, like those people Kim had mentioned: Oh, I took a bolt down to Etchil for the grouse shooting, la di da. Will tried to imagine himself visiting whatever Kim’s family estate was called. The idea was laughable.

  The Kelly’s Blue Book on his desk had a list of the aristocracy. He turned the pages in a scab-picking sort of way, and found Kim’s family right there. The Marquess of Flitby, family name Secretan, heir Earl of Chingford, London address Belgrave Square, family seat Holmclere. All those names and places, belonging to just one man. But then, their sort had to own everything.

  Phoebe’s father was in there too. The Viscount Waring, family name Stephens-Prince, family seat Etchil, pronounced Eye-shull because obviously it was. No name for an heir since there was no son.

  Will slammed the book shut. He was not going to sit here any longer, brooding over things he couldn’t have like an idiot. He’d pursue things he could have instead, starting with a cup of tea.

  He got up, went to the back room, and was half way through putting the kettle on when the penny dropped.

  He didn’t drop the kettle along with it, though he might have. He stood still, holding it in mid-air, then he put it down very carefully, turned off the gas, and said, “Gas is off,” aloud in case he couldn’t remember later. Then he went back to his desk, sat down, and opened the Blue Book again.

  Viscount Waring, family name Stephens-Prince, family seat Etchil. Pronounced Eye-shull.

  “Fuck,” Will said aloud. The word had a dead sound in the empty, book-lined room.

  Kim had demanded Capricorn’s name of Fuller and he’d screamed what Will had taken for agreement to speak, because it hadn’t meant anything else. I shall! And Kim hadn’t waited for him to say more. Will had assumed he’d noticed it was inhuman to let the man swing there, as if being inhuman had stopped Kim before.

  Christ, he’d even said it. The words of the dead. Will had assumed that was Leinster. Kim had meant Fuller.

  And Kim wouldn’t, couldn’t tell him who Capricorn was, not at any price.

  And Maisie was down at Eye-shull, Etchil, now.

  “Fuck!” Will said again, louder this time, and lunged for the telephone.

  He barked Kim’s number at the operator. The phone rang and rang and rang. He was on the verge of giving up and going over to kick the door down when there was a click and a near-snarl of, “Secretan.”

  “It’s Will.”

  “Oh God,” Kim said, sounding exhausted. “I don’t—”

  “Shut up. Phoebe’s father’s house. How do you say its name?”

  Silence. Long, damning silence.

  “How do you say it?”

  “Right,” Kim said, very calmly. “Listen—”

  “Maisie is there!”

  “Wha
t?”

  “Phoebe’s taken her to this Etchil place. Lord Waring wanted her there badly enough to send a car. They’re there right now. And we just pissed Zodiac off badly, and they know all about me—I even took her to the fucking High-Low Club—”

  “Will—”

  “Is she safe, damn you? Is she safe?”

  “Stop!” Kim shouted down the line. “Let me think.”

  Will forced himself to be silent. The line hung empty in space for perhaps thirty seconds, then Kim spoke, more calmly. “Get over here. Come round to the mews entrance, I’ll order the car. But, and listen to me: shave first, change into something decent, pack your evening clothes. Do it carefully, don’t rush. And come armed.”

  IT TOOK WILL ABOUT twenty-five minutes to get himself together, and an irritating twenty more on the tram to Holborn with his bag, telling himself it would not be quicker to walk. He more or less ran to the mews, where Kim was waiting with the Daimler. The last time Will had ridden in that, he’d been escaping from imprisonment at the hands of Zodiac.

  “In you get,” Kim said. “I’ve called Etchil to let them know there’ll be extra guests.”

  “I suppose you know what you’re doing. Why are we going as guests?”

  “Because that’s how this is played.” Kim nosed the Daimler into traffic. “Waring pretends to welcome me as his future son-in-law, I pretend to think he’s a genial sort of chap, and we both pretend everything is normal. It’s why he’s going to win.”

  “What?”

  “When this blows up, he will not hesitate to use Phoebe as a weapon. I will hesitate, because I don’t want to hurt her, and he knows it. So I’m going to lose.”

  Will needed to say it out loud, no possibility of misunderstanding. “Etchil is Lord Waring’s house. He’s Capricorn. Phoebe’s father is Capricorn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus Christ, Kim.” Will couldn’t begin to imagine what that meant. “Jesus. You must have been living in hell.”

  There was a long silence. Will watched his profile. He could see the shimmer of his eyes, the tension of his lips, set hard against collapse.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “I have.”

  Will didn’t want to imagine it. He felt sick thinking about how it must have been: the growing fear, the knowledge that he might—would—hurt Phoebe, who Kim loved most in the world.

  “Oh, hell,” he said. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “Don’t apologise,” Kim said harshly. “Please don’t. You were absolutely right. I deserved everything you said, and I’ve screwed you around far too much to merit any faith. I just—I didn’t do it to hurt you, Will. I was truly trying to do better.”

  “I know.”

  Kim grimaced. “Do you?”

  “That’s why it hurt. You’ve made a flaming mess of things, yes, but I don’t know if I could have said anything either, in your shoes. Christ alive, what a business.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “Why, though?” Will demanded. “Capricorn, Waring. He’s a viscount. Why would he do that?”

  “Why not? He’s clever, persuasive, charming, and utterly without morals or scruples. I dare say a psychoanalyst would have a word for him. It’s not that he’s particularly cruel, though he is cruel, and he knows right from wrong very well: he just doesn’t care. It’s a game of chess to him. The only genuine emotion I have ever known him display is resentment.”

  “Of what?”

  “That he’s only a viscount, for a start.” Kim’s lips twisted. “There’s simply too many people in the world who have more than him. More important titles, more extensive lands, bigger houses. Happier marriages. Phoebe’s mother is profoundly unlikeable, but she knows bloody well there’s something wrong with her husband. She won’t be in the same room with him by choice, and she’s done her best to steer Phoebe away from him and get her married off. All she’s achieved is to drive her closer to the man, but it’s the thought that counts.”

  “Phoebe said her mother didn’t want her to marry you—”

  “But if she had to, to get on with it. She wants Phoebe away from Waring at any price, and she’s right to. Phoebe’s the only child, you know. Another resentment of Waring’s: he lost his son while other men still have theirs. Really, he is abused by Fate. It’s only reasonable he should take this course.” Kim whipped past a roundabout without slowing. “The engagement happened when I was already working for the Private Bureau. DS recruited me to cause trouble for Zodiac and I’d had my first direct tangle with them, which resulted in the previous Libra getting shoved off this mortal coil. I felt almost as if my existence might have a point. And then Phoebe got in trouble, and it seemed obvious to offer her my name, antiquated though that sounds. I really believed I was doing some good, making restitution. Look at me, the hero.”

  “You don’t have to feel guilty about wanting to help.”

  “But I can feel stupid for believing I could do so,” Kim said. “God knows what Waring thought was going on. He certainly encouraged the long engagement, which suited me very well. And he watched, and it must have dawned on him that I had no idea. DS hadn’t picked me because of my connection to Phoebe’s family, but simply because I was lost and potentially useful. I hadn’t proposed to Phoebe to get close to Waring, because I didn’t have a clue. God, he must have laughed.”

  The Daimler was purring through Islington now, heading west. Kim kept talking, apparently desperate to get the words out.

  “He used to ask me what I was up to, I think to amuse himself, and he tried to use Phoebe to spy on me. That was what gave me the first hint, in fact. He gravely underestimates her, since she’s female and talks nonsense, and she thought he was being odd and spoke to me about it. There were other things, too. A paper I saw at Christmas that he ought not have had; his name coming up on lists of people who’d bought or sold stocks for companies that took unexpected dips or jumps. Some things were literally staring me in the face. It was nothing that couldn’t have been coincidence, but there were enough straws in the wind that the thought came to my mind. And once it was there, I started to see more and more. I felt morally certain by the start of this year. But I still don’t have solid proof.”

  “Can you not take this to your chief, this DS?”

  “I hoped to find hard evidence that I could hand over along with my resignation,” Kim said. “I can’t give him a tissue of suspicions and coincidences and unsupported accusations. DS would tell me to go off and find out more, and what would I say? Sorry, that’s my future father-in-law, no can do?”

  “Yes? Surely he’d put someone else on it?”

  “No. He’d tell me I was perfectly placed to do the job, and he’d be absolutely right. Cornering Capricorn isn’t going to be done from a distance, which is what I’ve been trying to do. It’ll be up close and personal, and it will be nasty. And he is Phoebe’s father, and she will know what I’ve done.”

  “She won’t side with him. Not when she knows what he’s done.”

  “Of course not. She’ll turn her back on the parent who doesn’t constantly tell her she’s a painful disappointment without a second thought. I’m sure she’ll get over it very quickly.”

  Will didn’t reply: the ugly sound in Kim’s voice didn’t brook answers. After a minute Kim said, “Sorry. It’s new to you. I’ve thought about very little else for months.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “It truly isn’t. I might have gone mad without you.”

  Will had to turn and look. Kim had his eyes on the road, but the tension in his face suggested that was a truth.

  “I could think about you,” Kim went on. “I could remember something better, something clean and decent. I decided to stay away from you at the start of the year because I’d realised what Waring was, and I feared him knowing that I knew. I couldn’t risk him targeting you b
ecause of me. And he would: Waring would destroy you without compunction if it seemed expedient. We hadn’t known each other long, so I hoped, if I stayed away, that Zodiac would decide you weren’t of interest to me. That would have been something, if I could keep you safe. But the High-Low business put the wind up me. I thought you must have been entrapped into it—they are very good at making unwitting recruits; look at Mrs. Appleby—and I couldn’t let them use you. That wouldn’t have ended well.”

  Will let a long breath out, and something hard and painful with it. “You should have told me. I don’t need—” He was going to say your protection but that wasn’t quite true. Kim had kept the law off him twice in a week, where he’d have been helpless. “I don’t need coddling. I’d rather have known the truth. I could have helped.”

  “You have no idea how much I wanted your help,” Kim said. “I thought about hurling myself on your shoulders on a near-daily basis, but...”

  He paused there so long, Will wasn’t sure there would be a conclusion. He still waited, because he wanted one. “But?” he said eventually.

  “I don’t know. But I hoped I could keep you out of it. But this is my burden to carry. But I didn’t trust myself to make a sensible, unselfish decision, and rightly so. I couldn’t have handled any of this worse. I should have handed Appleby over to DS and got Skyrme arrested, and let the whole business play out, no matter how much pain and humiliation it would cause Phoebe and her mother. I knew that, but I couldn’t do it. I told myself I was respecting your promise to Beaumont, but that was a lie.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d have liked it to be true. I owed you that much, and it sounds better than admitting I lack the courage of my convictions. I wanted to find some irrefutable proof to hand DS so he could force Waring’s submission and keep the business hushed up. A bad habit of the Private Bureau, I fear.”

  “Of course you don’t want it in the papers,” Will said. “But what’s the alternative? Give the man a bottle of whisky and a revolver?”