City of Glory (42 page)

“You are a coward as well as a cad, monsieur. Otherwise you would not choose to exercise your power over a mere woman.”

“And if you were the
garçon
you are dressed to be, I would cut off your cock and put it in your mouth. But since you have none…
Adieu,
Madame Eugenie. If you go quickly, I am sure you will arrive home unmolested.” He picked up an oar and seemed ready to leave, but lingered a moment longer. “Ah, yes, I almost forgot…There is a woman in the town. She runs a gambling establishment called the Dancing Knave and goes by the name Delight Higgins. She is always very fashionably dressed. I wish to know the name of her mantua maker. I am sure it is information you can find out for me.”

“Very well, but please, if you would only accompany me as far as…”

Tintin pushed off and Eugenie allowed the plea to trail away.

Dear God! How was she to get home? Chatham Street was at least a mile away, and she had no knowledge of this area of the city. Damn you to hell, Tintin. Damn you to everlasting fire. Oh, why bother? If the preachers were correct, that’s where he was going, and probably herself as well. But she had no time just now to worry about what might await her in the afterlife, and cursing the pirate would not get her away from the waterfront and back to the civilized neighborhoods she knew. Not that they would be entirely safe at this hour. What would a watchman think if he spotted a lad walking the darkened streets of the city alone at this time of night? That he was up to no good, of course. And would her disguise bear a close look? Highly unlikely. And how, if it were discovered, would she explain a moneybag stuffed with coins? Damn you, Tintin! Damn you!

The shadows were thick at the edge of the quay. It was a place of reasonable safety, but she must cross the road and somehow get by the doors of the string of drinking establishments and head north. Wall Street was in that direction, she was fairly sure. Once she crossed it, she’d know her way.

The wretched boots were her worst enemy. They slid off her feet with every step and clattered and clicked on the cobbles. Eugenie slipped her feet out of them and out of Timothy’s silken hose as well. For a moment she considered stringing the boots around her neck by the laces as she’d seen boys do in summer. No, that would only be one more burden when she must be as free as possible. She knelt down and allowed the boots and the hose to slide into the river. Then, barefoot and trying to ignore the discomfort of the pebbles and gravel of the road, she moved out of the shadows into the light of the wanton world of the waterfront.

For a time luck was with her. Eugenie cleared Front Street without attracting any attention. Dock Street next, at least that’s what she thought it was called. Dear heaven, it was speckled with as much light as the area closer to the wharf. The sound of raucous singing and loud laughter rolled toward her. Eugenie paused and looked around. An alley, dark as pitch. She turned into the blackness, stretching one hand to her side to guide her through the narrow passage. If she could just…

“Hello! What have we here?”

The door to the grog shop had been closed. She hadn’t known it was there until it opened and the two men came out, allowing light and noise to tumble into the alley.

“Nice bit o’ young stuff, that’s what we have.”

“Oh my, yes! Bit of a nob as well. Wager you bend over nicely, dearie boy.” The man who spoke allowed the door to the groggery to close behind him, and they were once more in darkness. “Wager your arse is tight as a bunghole. Two coppers for both of us. What do you say?”

Eugenie pushed past them, walking as fast as she could.

“Here, that’s not very friendly. What you want to run away for? Three coppers then. Can’t say we’re not bein’ fair, dearie boy. Could just take what we want, ’stead we’re offerin’ to pay for it.”

They were keeping pace with her, but the end of the passage was just a few steps away, and the street she could see up ahead appeared to be lit by proper city oil lamps, not the glow of illicit nightlife. She hurried toward it.

One of the men put out a hand to stop her. Eugenie pulled away and ran. Her hat fell off, and some of her hair came loose. No matter. She must get to the light.

“Hold up,” she heard the second man say. “Let him go. No point in chasing him.”

“Plenty o’ point. I want to roll down those trousers and see if what’s underneath looks as good bare as it does covered.”

The footsteps behind her speeded up, but the men’s disagreement had given her two or three moments’ advantage. She was in the adjoining road, a short curved street with countinghouses and—Oh! She was on Hanover Street. And the sign illuminated by the nearest lamp said
BLAKEMAN COACHING
. Eugenie threw herself at the door and banged on it with both fists.

The door opened instantly. She was looking at the biggest man she’d ever seen, clothed entirely in black and holding a long, uncoiled bullwhip. Nonetheless, Eugenie found him less fearsome than what she’d just escaped. “Mr. Blakeman…” She could hardly speak for gasping. “Please…I must…Mr. Blakeman.”

The whipper looked not at her but over her shoulder. The pair of creatures who had been coming after the supplicant in the doorway paused, saw what waited for them at the countinghouse, and retreated into the alley.

“Mr. Blakeman,” Eugenie repeated, her words a little clearer now. “I am a friend of his. Please, you must let me in.”

“The lady is indeed my friend,” a voice said from the shadows. “You may let her in, Mr. Clifford.”

“Gornt! I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you.”

“I share the sentiment, my dear Eugenie, but…Dear God, let me get a look at you.”

“I can explain…It’s an extraordinary story, but—”

“Extraordinary it must surely be. Mr. Clifford, I take it there is no further disturbance outside to concern us?”

“Not now, Mr. Blakeman. ’Twas a couple o’ troublemakers from Buggers’ Alley as was chasing the boy—chasing your friend. They’re gone.”

“My friend is a lady in fancy dress, Mr. Clifford. Inadvertently separated from her party. Nothing so extraordinary in that. Come upstairs, my dear. I shall give you a glass of wine before taking you home.”

“Fancy dress,” Eugenie said when a few sips of Madeira had restored her. “It’s an excellent explanation, Gornt. Will it satisfy you?”

“Not for one minute, my precious Eugenie. Though I must say, you look as luscious in cutaway and trousers as in any frock I’ve seen you wear. Your late husband’s?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. And I presume you had tucked your hair under a hat, a proper stovepipe no doubt, and that somehow you lost it when you tried to get away from the buggers.” He reached out and fondled one of the dark curls that now hung loose.

“Exactly,” Eugenie said.

“Whatever were you thinking, my dear?” One blunt finger outlined her lips.

Eugenie flicked her tongue out and licked the exploring fingertip, so quickly Gornt almost wasn’t sure it had happened. “Gornt, you have never really told me your plans…”

“Surely this night is not about my plans. Where have you been, my Eugenie? Do you, after all, have a taste for the louche and dangerous instead of the high society I’ve always thought you suited for? No, I think not. What then?”

“If I told you the story involved pirates, would you believe me?”

He laughed. “You? And pirates? Here? Of course I wouldn’t believe you.” Christ Almighty, some connection between Tintin and Eugenie. Now there was a circumstance that required investigation. Not, however, a task that must be performed tonight. “I think you are fibbing, my beauty, but I admit the idea excites me. As much as any time I’ve spent in your boudoir, trying to control the visions of your bedstead only a few steps away.”

“Now it is your bedstead, Gornt. And it’s no more than two steps away.” The bed he’d apparently rolled out of when he heard the disturbance below was hung with heavy damask curtains. They had been pulled back because of the night’s warmth, and the rumpled bedclothes were plainly evident in the light of the lamp he’d lit when they came upstairs.

“Close indeed,” he agreed. “Stand up and take off that cutaway, Eugenie. Let me see how you look in a man’s shirt and stock.” She was sitting in the very chair Jacob Astor had occupied a few hours earlier, and Bastard Devrey had left his rooms not two hours before she appeared. Sweet Christ. What a sauce for the meal he’d eaten earlier that evening. She still hadn’t moved. “Come, dear girl, it’s not much to ask. I’ve saved you from buggery after all.”

Eugenie took another sip of her wine and considered. If she took off the coat, no doubt whatever the rest would follow. And if she did not? What then? Tintin? A position in society that grew more precarious the more she tried to claw her way out of the quicksand of debt? Timothy had not lost his taste for her after the first time they bedded. Why should Gornt Blakeman be so easily satisfied? She was young enough to have lost none of her looks, and old enough to have honed her wiles. It was not a circumstance that would last much longer. She must seize the moment.

Eugenie leaned forward and set the wineglass on the table, then stood up and allowed the coat to slip from her shoulders to the floor. The bag of coins she’d gotten from Tintin was in the breast pocket, and there was a small thud as it hit the floor. She held her breath, but Gornt appeared not to have noticed. Damn the one-eyed pirate and his money. She had not planned it so, but suddenly she was playing for higher stakes.

“Delicious,” Gornt said, his eyes examining her from head to toe. “Your waist looks even tinier than usual, and your hips in those trousers…A sight to set a man’s teeth on edge, Eugenie.”

“I had to make adjustments to my undergarments to pass as a boy,” she said. “You would not believe the effort it required.”

“Not unless you showed me.”

“Then I suppose I must.” She loosed the ruffled stock and dropped it on top of the coat. Then, slowly and without haste, she opened the three buttons that held the neck of the shirt closed and pulled the garment over her head. The gesture caused the last of the pins to be dislodged from her hair, and her curls hung free. “See,” she said, displaying the linen wrapping that swaddled her breasts, “I am trussed like a chicken.”

“Poor Eugenie. You must be set free.”

“I must. But I cannot release all this by myself. You will have to assist me, Gornt.”

He stood up and she turned so her back was to him. “My maid fastened the cloth in the back so the pin wouldn’t show.”

“Clever maid.” He undid the pin.

“Too clever by half. Look what I must do to unwrap myself.”

Gornt held one end of the linen binding. She released the rest by spinning across the room, until at last she stood in the shadows beside the bed, and they each held one end of the long strip of linen. “Now,” she whispered, “I must be a tidy mistress and put this all neatly away.”

He said nothing. Eugenie began to wind the bandage, drawing him closer with each revolution. Her breasts were exactly the sort he liked best. Pear-shaped, the aureoles the color of a crushed rose. When he was close enough, he dropped his end of the cloth and put a finger on each taut and upward-facing nipple. “Mine,” he said. “At last.”

“Yours.” She could not control her trembling.

Gornt ran his hands down her midriff and slipped his fingers inside the snug waistband of the trousers. He gave a sharp tug and the buttons popped. He pushed the fabric down over her hips and thighs, then stopped. “Do the rest yourself,” he commanded. “Present yourself to me.”

Eugenie bent over and rolled the trousers down the rest of the way, then stepped out of them. She straightened, let him look, then backed up and threw herself on the bed, spreading her legs wide and opening her arms.

Gornt lunged over her and into her. Her legs gripped his hips and she arched to meet him, and he was not sure if it was her scream of triumph he heard or his own.

Chapter Seventeen

The Federal District,
the Roof of the Executive Mansion, Sunrise

T
HE SPYGLASS FELT HEAVY
. Dolley Madison had been pressing it to her eye since dawn, turning and looking in every direction to see if her husband was returning to take her to a place of safety. He’d promised he would. Indeed, he’d wanted her to leave the day before, when he went to see about defense preparations. She had refused then and she would refuse now. That they must flee seemed likely, but she would not go alone.