“Two and a half years.”
“Indeed?! That's quite the extended tryst. And to what end were the two of you carrying on?”
“The usual, I should think.” She fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly.
“My point . . . ,” he pressed on, “. . . is that I'm trying to understand if you and the Earl, your Samuel, had been entertaining any sort of more permanent plans? Marriage perhaps?”
Once again she threw her head back and roared with delight, the curls on top of her head shaking appreciably as she rocked back and forth.
“Marriage?!”
she gasped as she took a sip of champagne and tried without success to regain her composure. “Now why in the Queen's name would I
ever
want to marry that insolvent, self-absorbed, lecherous old bore? I simply will not believe that you're being serious.”
“Am I missing something?” Colin leaned forward and I could tell from his stiff posture and the slight pursing of his lips that he was finding this a great deal less amusing than she was. “Would I have found you so disparaging had we met in the midst of your inflagrante delicto?”
“Oh!” She brought a delicate hand up to her mouth. “Latin. Everything sounds so much better in a dead language.” She snickered.
“I'll have your answer, please.”
“Will you?” She kept her eyes on him as she emptied her glass. “My late husband left me a very wealthy woman. And as I'm cursed with childlessness . . . well, I think you can imagine how tiresome such an existence can become. I abhor gossip, which means that gallivanting about with my peers in their saber-toothed decimation of one another is out of the question. And you simply
cannot
expect me to take up with the servants, although I hear that's worked for some of the neighbors.” One side of her mouth curled up as she continued to smirk at him. “I don't know what more to tell you other than Samuel was available and I was crushingly bored. He was also exactly the man I described to you. Perhaps not at first, but even a chameleon shows its true color eventually. I even let him swindle me out of a bit of money just as he did to everyone else.” She shrugged. “Rather like paying him for his services, meager though they were.”
“Under what pretext did he take your money?”
“He called it an investment. Turned out to be opium. So banal.”
“You're talking about his business with Warren Vandemier?”
She gave a start. “Well, you really are as clever as they say.”
“You flatter me.”
“I doubt it.”
“What can you tell me about Mr. Vandemier?”
“Mr. Vandemier?” She curled her lips as she picked up a little bell and rang it delicately. Instantly the young woman who'd brought the champagne came back, moving to refill her mistress's glass. We were also topped off before she neatly plunged the bottle back into its bucket and made a hasty retreat, once again pulling the doors quietly shut.
“Now let me guess,” Abigail started again. “I'd be willing to wager a considerable sum that upon your meeting Warren he told you that Samuel came up with nary a farthing to start their venture, leaving him to front the entire enterprise himself. Am I correct?” She waited for Colin's nod. “Tell me you didn't believe the boorish little shit?”
“It seemed unlikely.”
She grinned. “Very wise.”
“I also wonder if perhaps he didn't decide to end your dalliance rather than pay you back. That would relieve him of a financial obligation you'd have had a sorry time trying to collect anyway. Am I close?”
Abigail Roynton looked positively buoyed with astonishment at Colin's having reached so obvious a possibility. “You clearly
are
a man worthy of his reputation.” She chuckled, but this time I knew she meant it. “And do you know
why
I let Samuel talk me into giving him that money?”
“Not for love.” He smirked.
“Heavens no.
Never
for love.”
He studied her a moment and I wondered if he was trying to divine an answer or determine whether he should share whatever else he suspected when he suddenly blurted out, “Because you are a shrewd businesswoman.”
She smiled wickedly, leering at him as people will do when they share a devious secret. “Do go on.”
“Opium,” he said.
She clapped her hands. “Yes, yes.” She shrieked with laughter. “You've got it!”
And indeed he did. For there is no more loyal customer than that of an opium dealer. Once an addict is hooked, you almost always have them for lifeâhowever long that proves to be.
Her amusement soured my mood. I was beginning to find this woman a great deal less principled than Mademoiselle Rendell.
“Shrewd,” Colin said dully.
But she didn't seem to catch his tone. “I thought so. So when it was over between us it wasn't so much that I'd lost the occasional afternoon's amusement as that I'd gained a share in a burgeoning business. Warren's only trying to peddle his story of self-funding because he thinks he can nip me out of my share of the profits. But he is sorely mistaken. He'll soon learn he can't play
me
for a fool.”
“I'm certain of that,” Colin said. “And would you happen to know who took your place in Samuel's bed?”
“Bed?!” She leaned back in her chair and rolled her champagne flute absently across the exposed skin of her plunging neckline. “Please don't think me so old-fashioned.”
“Nevertheless . . .”
“Of course I know.” She raised her glass and sipped from it, glaring at him from over the rim, the gleam in her eyes almost as hot as the embers in the fireplace. “But you won't believe me if I tell you.”
CHAPTER 22
F
oreign Minister Randolph Fitzherbert sent word the next morning that the men from Her Majesty's cutter the HMS
Renard,
had succeeded in running down and boarding the
Ilya Petrovina,
where it was discovered that she not only carried the cargo listed on her manifestâtobacco, spare carriage parts, and an assortment of fine ladies' undergarmentsâbut also sixteen young girls ranging in age from nine to thirteen with nary a traveling document among them. The
Ilya Petrovina's
captain had immediately accused them of being stowaways, but Her Majesty's naval staff had not been so easily deceived. With the information provided by Colin and transferred through Mr. Fitzherbert's office to the commanding officer of the
Renard,
the
Ilya Petrovina's
captain had been placed under arrest and the ship was being escorted back to Dover. The expected arrival date was five days hence. We had no way of being certain that Angelyne was one of the girls, yet the odds were in her favor and at the very least we were still rescuing sixteen innocents.
Colin sent word to Michael at once, so there was little surprise when he presented himself at our flat within the hour. He came bounding up our stairs as soon as Mrs. Behmoth opened the door, leaving her to trail along behind him in great huffs of annoyance. “Ya 'aven't been properly inerduced,” she snarled as she lunged into the study well behind the young man.
“Never mind, Mrs. Behmoth.” Colin gave her a nod as he sent the dumbbells he'd been wielding onto the floor.
“It ain't right,” she groused, but nevertheless withdrew.
“Right . . . wrong . . . ,” he chuckled as he turned back to Michael, “who among us is fit to judge what is and what isn't?”
“Bugger off!”
she hollered back.
I rolled my eyes, but Michael seemed to take no note as he hurried across the room to pepper Colin for news of his little sister.
“I can't tell you beyond all doubt that she is on her way back,” Colin said. “But I am fairly confident she'll be among those arriving in Dover next week.”
“Bless ya, Mr. Pendragon, Mr. Pruitt.” Michael grinned. “Yaâve been most kind. I'll not trouble ya no more.”
Colin gripped the young man's shoulder a moment. “We're here anytime should you ever need us again.”
Michael shuffled his feet exactly as I would have done at his age and demurred quietly. How well I understood this boy, which was why something at the back of my mind kept niggling at me.
“We shall see you Tuesday then,” Colin muttered as he turned to his knife play.
“No, no.” He stopped on the landing and turned back to us. “I couldn't ask ya ta do that. Ya've given me too much a yer time already. I'll collect me sister and we'll pop round so's you can see 'er.”
“As you wish.” Colin shrugged, setting the knife back onto the mantel and snatching up his dumbbells again, curling them steadily as he sat back down.
“Thank you then.” Michael nodded and tipped his cap before bounding down the stairs.
“Sounds like a blasted 'erd a wild boars!” Mrs. Behmoth bellowed as the front door slammed.
“More like a jackal,” I muttered.
“You're seeing too much of your own past in him.” Colin snickered as he continued to roll the dumbbells back and forth. “Can't you give the lad a bit of slack?”
“Hmmm . . .” I knit my brow. “I rather think that's what he's hoping for. That boy is almost certainly a pickpocket, a thief, a pimp, and probably a drug addict. I'll wager you his sister hasn't disappeared, he's probably sold her and has now received a better offer.”
“How very cynical.”
I scowled. “Tell me I'm not right.”
He chuckled as he kept the weights smoothly curling, but didn't say a word.
CHAPTER 23
B
y the time twilight was nestling outside our windows and the sounds of Mrs. Behmoth rattling pans downstairs in preparation of the evening's meal amplified, I could tell Colin's thoughts had moved somewhere far away. He'd long since given off tossing the dumbbells about and had reverted to shining the same knife blade he'd been working on so that its gleam was becoming nearly solar. For myself, I could not leave go of my wariness of Michael's story even though I had nothing more concrete to offer than my own intuition. I was familiar with him, I knew who he was, and I knew he was up to something.
“You seem preoccupied,” Colin said after a while.
“It's that little rogue, Michael . . . ,” I mumbled.
“Still doubtful of his motives.”
“I am.”
“And what if he is hiding something? Does it really matter? No matter the details, something
has
happened to his sister and we need to get her back. What happens when we do will be a topic for a later conversation. Assuming she's not come to some harm.”
I shook my head, remembering how many young girls I'd seen disappear so very long ago, most of whom were never accounted for again. “Tragic . . . ,” was all I said.
He set his knife on the table and sighed. “Well, we're sure to get your mind off it for the night when I tell you what I've decided.”
“And what would that be?”
“I think it's time for us to drop in on the dubious business of Warren Vandemier and the Earl. Tonight. With neither invitation nor notice.”
“Sounds perfectly underhanded.” I smiled, aware that his reticence was correlated to the yoke that had once tethered me so many years ago. I wanted to tell him that he needn't worry because I feared enough for the both of us, but instead muttered, “Mr. Vandemier will be livid if he finds out.”
“You know . . . ,” he looked at me keenly, “I can go alone. You needn't come.”
“Don't start that,” I said with finality. “I shall be at your side as always.”
And so it was that we found ourselves standing in a urine-soaked, litter-filled alley in Whitechapel not an hour after eating dinner in the warm solace of our humble Kensington flat. It was a staggering contradiction and one that set an ancient and familiar chill rattling through me in spite of my determination to deny it.
“Wretched place,” Colin muttered as he picked his way deeper into the alley toward the single scrubby gaslight hanging above a nondescript red-lacquered door. “Let's hope this club of Mr. Vandemier's looks less infective inside than it does out.”
“Not likelyâ” I started to say, before clamping my mouth shut and letting the thought go unheeded.
We reached the door and Colin took a moment to tug at his coat and tie as though anyone inside would notice or care whether he was suitably attired. He raised his fist to knock on the door but pulled up short, sliding his eyes over to mine as he stood there, arm coiled, and said, “You really don't have to do this.”
I reached out and pounded the door myself. “Don't be ridiculous.”
He gave me a crooked smile.
A small rectangular slot rocketed open to reveal a pair of almond-shaped eyes. “Who sent you?” a thin, gentle voice demanded.
“Warren Vandemier,” Colin answered at once.
The slot jerked shut and the door instantly swung open to reveal a delicate Oriental woman. She smiled generously, bowing her head as she waved us inside. Behind her stood two glowering, dark-haired Irish blokes who were clearly meant to intimidate, and did. Neither of them spoke or paid us much heed as we were led past by our diminutive hostess. I glanced back just in time to see another young woman slide onto the stool by the door, there to wait for the next guest's arrival. I'd rarely seen the custom before and knew Warren Vandemier was serious about setting his establishment above the rest.
Our exotic guide took us down a short hallway lined with doors on either side that I presumed led to private rooms for the gentry Mr. Vandemier had referenced. Even in a drug-addled state the city's aristocrats would find it anathema to mix with the commoners who frequented these sorts of clubs: sailors, stewards, mountebanks, shop men, beggars, outcasts, and thieves. All of them found a way to afford the pleasures promised by the seductive vapors once they'd woven their spell upon the addicts' receptive minds. Most of them could be counted on to prefer the ragged smoke of opium to food, leaving many of them to look as emaciated and near death as they truly were.
We rounded a corner at the end of the hallway and entered a large, dimly lit room in which numerous swaths of gauzy fabric hung around tight clusters of cushions and reclining benches. The floor-to-ceiling fabric afforded a semblance of privacy, further raising the standard of the establishment. None of the furnishings were marred or discolored, though unless they were swapped out regularly it was only a matter of time. Yet the draw of these clubs was specific and singular and had little to do with the décor, for it was at the apex of this room that the gentle coaxing of the drug became obvious. Its dry, stinging odor permeated the air like creosote from a poorly venting fireplace. I could feel it squeezing my throat and nudging at my temples, and felt one of my eyelids quiver. Yet I also knew that none of those effects would last long as slowly, stealthily, like a hunter shadowing its prey, the drug would begin to caress the mind, and lure its victim deep within its web. Even as I stood on the threshold of this vast partitioned room, I could feel it tugging at me.
“You want company tonight?” the young woman asked.
“We do.” Colin gave a roguish smile and for a moment I thought I could see a haziness easing in behind his eyes as well.
“This way.”
She wound us through the middle of the room and down two steps to a sunken area where five men and two women were sitting. At the center of the group stood a large water pipe with a dozen flexible tubes sprouting from its sides. One of the women was stirring a black viscous mixture over a small open flame. After a moment she scraped the sticky, bubbling mess into a small metal bowl perched near the top of the pipe. She lit it for her six cohorts, all of whom were only too eager to drag the swirling vapor from the nearest mouthpiece. As I stood there staring at them, remembering the enfolding embrace that was assuredly fingering its way into their willing minds, I thought I could see them losing fractured bits, not of their consciousness, but of their very beings.
“Please . . .” Our escort gestured us to a pile of cushions still available in the midst of this decaying circle of addicts.
We sat down and Colin reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the wad of cash I'd pressed on him before we'd left our flat. He peeled off some bills with a great, showy flourish and handed them to our hostess. “I presume this will get us started?”
She looked at the notes as though he were offering something untoward and I knew this sort of business preferred payment at the end of the evening when the revelers were well past giving a whit about the expenses they'd incurred. That, of course, assumed they'd not already been picked clean by the hostesses themselves. Either way, it all ended up in the proprietor's pocket by the end of the night. “If you wish,” she said, delicately lifting the stack of bills from Colin's hand. I had to admit: Warren Vandemier's club was proving downright genteel.
We were left with the group of strangers and I felt my heart quicken the moment the man next to me shoved his mouthpiece in my direction. “Help yerself,” he said.
“Not just yet.” I smiled uneasily, aware that the dense smoke was already wiggling about my brain. “I'm rather in need of a drink first.”
“I recommend the whiskey,” my neighbor offered with a lopsided grin. “With a splash of water if you must.”
“Save the water for the pipe,” I shot back to great guffaws, suddenly struck by the feeling that I'd said that somewhere before. I glanced over at Colin, looking for some comfort in his solidity, and was caught by the nearly apoplectic look on his faceâthe result, I realized, of the proximity of the mouthpiece to my hand. In that moment I realized he'd been right, I shouldn't have come. “Can I get you something?” I squeaked as I fought the rising urge to flee.
“Go,” he answered quietly. “Let Mrs. Behmoth draw you a bath. I'll tend to things here and meet you across the pillows later.”
As I gazed into the glacial blue of his eyes, seeing the concern nestled within made me determined not to fail here. I could do this. I would do this. “No. I'm fine,” I said with a strength that surprised even me. “You've nothing to worry about.” I pushed myself up to get us something to drink, convinced that if I could just clear my head a moment I would be able to maintain my sanity.
He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me close. “You've nothing to prove,” he hissed.
“I know,” I said, but knew he was wrong. I had spent nearly the whole of my adolescence and early adulthood hiding in places like this among the alluring opiate fumes and tattered lives of other addicts. Each of us hiding some secret, some compulsion, driving us to alter our consciousness as often as we could while all the while convincing ourselves that we chose to be here and could leave it behind at any time, but we were fools. These placesâthis habitâwound themselves around our lives so completely that if one was lucky enough to stumble upon redemption it was impossible to accept. I know it was for me. And just like that, even thirteen years later, I couldn't be sure that enough time had passed yet.
I girded myself to the task at hand and before long returned with two glasses filled with overpriced, watered-down tea to simulate the color of whiskey. I passed Colin a glass and almost laughed when I saw the look of relief dart across his face as he tasted it.
“Spot-on,” he said with a nod and a grin. “I have been speaking with these fine people in your absence,” he continued cheerfully. “It seems they're all familiar with our Mr. Vandemier.”
“E's in 'ere every night,” one of the men volunteered. “Smokes up 'alf the profits if ya ask me.”
Everybody laughed, including the two women, one of whom continued to take it upon herself to keep the pipe filled and circulating. She, I figured, was almost certainly his employee.
“But the most fascinating thing . . . ,” Colin leaned forward as though on the verge of sharing some tasty secret with our bleary band of eager fellows, “. . . is that most of them are also familiar with his late partner, the Earl of Arnifour.”
“Familiar?!”
The redheaded woman on Colin's far side leered. “That's one way a puttin' it.”
Once again all seven of them howled with laughter. It appeared the Earl's proclivities did not even exclude his clientele. Only the relighting of the pipe quieted them as the seven snake-like mouthpieces were once again put to use. Colin and I subtly demurred the opportunity to imbibe, but it was only a matter of time before we would need to at least appear to join in.
Colin shot me a grin. “Vanessa here was telling me she was
quite
close to the Earl at one time,” he said, referring to the redhead.
“Close?” She shrugged as she sucked in another hit from the pipe. “We 'ad it off a time or two if ya call that close. But then I'd shag his ruddy wife if it'd earn me a round in 'ere,” she cackled merrily. “I ain't no different than most a the birds in 'ere. I bet we all 'ad 'im sooner or later.”
“Until recently?” Colin prodded.
“Sure.” She let go of the mouthpiece and sank back on her cushion, clearly trying to steady herself as the opium seized her mind and seemed to arc it up and out of her body. “He changed a while ago. Tryin' ta set an example for 'is latest rummy that I was tellin' you about.”
“That one was a right chipper.” The man on my right shook his head and snorted. “Comin' in 'ere all tarted up like she owned the place.”
“And she weren't all that.” The man across from me spoke as he struggled to hold in a lungful of smoke.
“She knew 'ow ta fix up what she 'ad.” My neighbor cut him off. “She knew what a man likes.”
“Every woman knows what a man likes,” the redhead mumbled toward the ceiling, her head tilted back, eyes staring up as though waiting for something to appear out of the smoky haze. “No bloody mystery there.”
“Who . . . ,” I whispered to Colin, figuring he'd been able to get from this group what he'd been unable to extract from Abigail Roynton, “. . . are they talking about?”
Colin flicked his eyes toward mine and flashed that roguish grin. “Why, his late niece, Elsbeth.”
“I don't remember being told you two were coming tonight?” a familiar voice growled from over our shoulders.
We both turned to find Warren Vandemier standing there. He was as pale as the smoke wafting around his head and almost as ethereal. From our position on the cushions, sunken two steps below the main floor, I was struck by how curiously foreboding he looked, his harsh, angular frame towering above us with a mixture of accusation and fury. The woman who'd seated us hovered just behind him, obviously having been warned to summon him whenever anyone bandied about his name at the door.
“We didn't want to bother you.” Colin stood up. “We just wanted to see if your establishment lives up to its vaunted reputation.”
“And? ” There was no suggestion of a smile on his face.
“It is
indeed
a step above,” Colin smiled, “but then a snake pit is still home to vipers.”
Warren Vandemier's face showed little reaction. “I shall thank you to leave,” he said.