Ways to Be Wicked (17 page)

The fire leaped up, devouring a log—another expense, there, wood—throwing almost unnecessary heat into the room. But the fixtures and the murals always looked better in the firelight, and Tom and The General tended to keep it lit for that reason. Showmen, the two of them. He wouldn’t begin economizing in that regard just yet. He thought he’d change the subject.

“I meant to mention this before, Gen. Veils. Do you think you could do something with veils?”

“Mmmm...” The General said appreciatively, tilting his head back. “Wonderful idea, Shaughnessy. In fact— well, picture this. The girls will be dressed as a harem, and—”

“I have a son,” Tom blurted.

The General fell abruptly silent.

Tom didn’t look at him. He felt very nearly embarrassed, as though he’d broken wind. He instead took a sip of his brandy, as if the admission had taken something out of him, and he needed to replenish.

A most pronounced gap in the conversation ensued. The General cleared his throat.

“This son. He’s in Kent, I take it.”

“Yes. Kent.”

The exchange of confidences was not what their friendship was based upon; a benign and total acceptance of each other’s strengths and flaws and a manly appreciation of all things female comprised the most of it, and an underlying affection based on nothing more than that they suited each other comprised the rest of it. This was new and delicate territory for both of them.

“And he’s why you need. . . money? More than usual? It’s not just for the Gentleman’s Emporium?” was The General’s next careful question.

“Yes. In part. Also, because I prefer to be rich.” Tom was sounding a little testy now. The revelation had left him feeling a bit raw.

“A preference I share.” The General’s mouth quirked, an awkward attempt at humor.

Which led to an awkward silence.

“How did you get a son, Tom?” The General asked suddenly.

“The usual way, Gen,” Tom said irritably.

The General laughed. “Sorry. It’s just...well, who’s the mother? Do you plan to...” The General paused, deciding this next thing needed to be said very, very gingerly. “Do you plan to marry her?”

“I know who she is. I just don’t know
where
she is. She left him with her parents.” Answering yet not answering The General’s question.

Another silence fell.

Tom cleared his throat. “He’s almost two years old now.And I find...”

He inhaled, and stood up, restlessly paced over to the hearth and stared up at the mural on the way. Satyrs having their way with nymphs, who showed every indication of enjoying themselves as well.

“I find that I want him to go to
Eton,
” he said, half-wonderingly, incredulously. He gave a short laugh. “I want him to go to Oxford. For God’s sake, I want him to sit in bloody Parliament. I was in that room with the investors, those men the other day, some of them smug, all of them wealthy and comfortable and ordinary. And now I think...I want my son to grow up to have a chance to be one of those smug men, I honestly do. I can make it possible if I have enough money. But...if the world knows I’m his father, his road will be difficult.”

The General inhaled deeply, exhaled, taking in these words.

And not denying the truth of them.

“You’re a good man, Tom,” he finally said. It was inadequate, but it was about all that could be said.

Tom looked at The General wryly. “Hardly, Gen.”

“I mean it. You’re the best
I’ve
ever known, anyhow.”

“Now that I can believe.”

The General snorted softly, a laugh of sorts. And then he took a long draught of his tea, his own form of replenishment, and shifted his legs up onto a plump ottoman. Tea was the strongest brew he took since the days Tom had found him slumped against the wall outside the Green Apple Theater. He in fact took it so strongly that Tom could smell it from where he stood, even through cigar smoke and the wood being consumed by the fire.

“I’ve noticed there have been fewer duels lately, Tom. Smiling less?” Slyly said.

Tom gave him a sharp look. “Busy,” he said curtly.

“Or just smiling
more
...at one particular woman?” As though Tom had said nothing at all.

At this Tom threw a sharp warning glance at The General. The little man was a bit too observant.

“You do know it’s unwise, Tom,” The General said. “For too many reasons to enumerate. The other dancers, for instance, would perhaps expire from jealousy or heartbreak. You could confidently anticipate a mutiny.”

“I know it’s unwise.” Tom smiled crookedly. “My whole life has been an exercise in the unwise.”

“But perhaps...well, you might make things easier for yourself if you...”

Tom looked at him expectantly.

“Oh, bloody hell. Never mind.” The General sighed.

Tom absently worked his stiff fingers, bending them. Too much writing lately had made the old wound complain, even occasionally waking him up in the middle of the night, but there were plans and inquiries and ideas and permissions to be obtained before the dream of the Gentleman’s Emporium could take tangible shape. Securing the backing of his investors was only a very small part of it all.

Odd how soft and amorphous-sounding the word “dream” was. So many practical things, bits and pieces, tangible things, nails, wood and pound notes and people, went into the making of dreams.

He rather liked all of it, the dreams, and the bits and pieces. He liked making it all look effortless. He liked giving jobs to people.

“He’s too young to know who I am, Gen. The boy. And sometimes...well, I’ve begun to think I should just settle some money on him and quietly step aside.”

The General rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes. That sounds like you. Someone who would ‘quietly step aside.’ ” The General pointed at Tom’s hand. “Tell me again how you got the scar? This theater?”

Tom stopped working his fingers, glanced down at them.

“This is different,” he said shortly.

The General apparently didn’t believe he was qualified to argue this particular point. He was quiet, and after a moment he simply said, “So...harems, eh?” and stood, reaching for his coat.

“Have you heard of the story of Scheherazade, Gen?” Tom reached for his own coat.

And the two of them, immensely relieved to be talking of business again, prepared to plunge into the theater to greet their guests.

After the evening’s performance, back in the dark of the theater, Sylvie saw the girls take off out the door; saw the

fine carriage taking Molly away, and turned once more to go up to her little room.

But she saw a light shining in Tom’s office. Once again she couldn’t resist the urge to peer in.

Tom lifted his head a little, frowned, then leaped to his feet, hand on what she knew to be his knife, and peered out.

She jumped back, hand over her mouth.

He went very still when he saw her. And said nothing for a moment, only dropped his hand from his knife. “You were peeking, Miss Chapeau.”

“I wasn’t,” she said quickly. She was beginning to be tremendously sorry she’d given such a ridiculous name. She suspected he enjoyed using it for that very reason, and would have otherwise called her Sylvie the way everyone else did.

“You
were,
” he disagreed firmly. “You did”—Tom broadly mimed furtively peering around a corner, then ducked back and put a coy hand over his mouth, eyes wide—“this. I saw you.”

She tried, she did. But it proved impossible not to laugh.

“And did you see anything you liked while you were peeking?” he asked with all evidence of politeness.

Really, if a contest for flirting were ever held, Tom Shaughnessy had a duty to represent England.

“I saw a light, and wondered who it might be,” she told him coolly.

“This is my library. It’s where I work. You perhaps expected to see someone else in my place?”

He waited, and apparently decided just this once perhaps to not corner her into a response that would amuse him further. He sat back down at his desk and became brisk instead. “I’ve noticed that you and The General seemed to have reached a sort of détente. He doesn’t like you, but he doesn’t really like anyone, except perhaps me. And Daisy.”

“One would think he likes Daisy least of all.”

“One would think.” His smile was enigmatic and swiftly gone.

There was a silence while they regarded each other. And then Tom made a self-conscious little gesture, smoothing a hand over his hair, pushing it away from his face. She found it oddly touching. Though he obviously reveled and took advantage of his splendid looks, it was clear he wasn’t a slave to them. This little bit of vanity was clearly for her benefit, and it pleased her.

“Well? Will you sit down then?” He said it impatiently, in a rush, as though he’d actually issued an invitation and she’d been standing there mulling it in silence.

No,
she thought.
Because that would be foolish, foolish, foolish.

“All right,” she said evenly, softly.

She looked back at him for a moment. His fingers were stained with ink, his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose strong and corded forearms. Long fingers, tapered, hands blue-veined and strong and tanned, that scar across one, white, drawn tightly at the edges. His shirt was open at the throat a few buttons, cravat dispensed with entirely, and she struggled to keep her eyes from peering at the opening to see whether his chest might be smooth, or whether, as on Etienne, hair curled there. Regardless, his chest was certainly broad and in the lamplight, a lovely shade of gold, a sort of tea with a hint of milk. Whether it was the quiet of the evening, the dark of the theater, the lack of other things to occupy her senses, everything about him, all the little details suddenly stood out in stark relief. The scar on his hand, his lashes, the faintest, faintest of lines beneath his eyes.

He noticed her regard, and she looked up sharply to meet his eyes.

“Who are you
really,
Miss Chapeau?” He said it winningly, coaxingly, with a grin. As if the sheer outpouring of charm would flood the answer right from her.

And this made her laugh. “I am merely a visitor to England, Mr. Shaughnessy, who was unfortunate enough to lose all of her money.”

“When you first arrived, the General suggested you might be a. . . ballet dancer.” He said the words the way he might have said “a native of Borneo.”

She tensed a little with wariness, knowing The General had promised not to reveal her identity. Gave a pretty little laugh. “I wonder why he would think such a thing?”

Tom leaned back in his chair and regarded her for a disconcertingly long moment, hands linked behind and above his head, which only served to emphasize how very broad his chest was. She managed to look back at him evenly, eventually choosing to focus on his left eye, lest she go cross-eyed. She had the distinct sensation he was doing the very same thing to her that she was to him a moment earlier: inventorying her features.

And in the end, he looked more puzzled and a little uncomfortable more than anything else, which wasn’t terribly flattering.

“Do you know how I met The General?” he said, unexpectedly.

“I cannot begin to guess.”

“There’s a theater in the East End—the Green Apple. Right rough little place. Perhaps you know of it?”

She gave a tight little smile. He grinned in response.

“No? Well, I got my start in theater there, you see, at the Green Apple. I’d worked at a pub by the docks, and met a fellow who ran a theater, and...well, anyhow I decided to create a show, pretty girls dancing. Dressed as flowers. Daisy petals round their heads.” Tom circled the air around his face with a finger, illustrating. “Very clever, if I do say so myself. No one else had done anything quite like it, at least in the East End. And frankly, I very much enjoy pretty girls dancing.

“And, well, the first night of it, men came to the show, but not enough of them—the theater wasn’t full. And the next time it was the same. The Green Apple’s owner— well, he was right miffed, since he’d backed the show and was losing money. And I was getting right
nervous,
since the owner was a mad cove who would happily slit my gullet for losing his money.”

He said this matter-of-factly, and Sylvie tried not to flinch. Just when Tom Shaughnessy had begun to seem human, he demonstrated yet again that he hailed from an almost entirely different universe from hers. A universe where one did business with gullet-slitters.

“Well, I stepped outside the theater when the show was over, and I was leaning against the wall, wondering whether to smoke a cigar, my very last one, and wondering what the devil I was going to do, you see, as I hadn’t any money left, either.

“And then I heard this voice from somewhere down around my ankles. A drunk,
slurry
voice. And it said— well, I
thought
it said; ‘
Organza.
’

“Of all things! So I looked down toward the voice and saw a. . . little man, slumped there against the wall. He was only about as big as a child, thin, but with a full beard. Filthy bugger. And he smelled like a gin still—like he’d been soaked in the brew and tossed there against the wall. One spark from a tinderbox would have sent him up in flames.

“So I said to this filthy bugger, ‘I
beg
your pardon?’ Because I’m polite, you see.”

“Of course,” Sylvie said, mouth twitching.

“And so the little blighter says, from down around my ankles”—and here Tom adopted slurry, surly tones. “I said
organza,
you bloody idiot! Hangs better, and you can nearly see through it in the...in the”—Tom hiccuped for effect—“
lamplight.
You’ve got all those girls in
muslin,
you damn fool. You
deserve
to fail.’ ”

Imitation concluded, Tom looked at Sylvie. “And then, after he’d said these
most
inflammatory things, this nasty little bastard slumped back against the wall. And I was certain he’d blacked right out, and I was about to go on my way.

“And then while I was staring at him, damned if he didn’t stir and try to struggle to his feet. Rolling a bit, thrashing. It was taking him a good long while, so I found myself helping him up by the elbow.”