Wicked Intentions 1 (20 page)

They crossed into another alley, this one smaller. Signs swung overhead, creaking in the wind. She heard laughter, sudden and close, and then it moved away. They passed a thin woman in a worn cloak carrying something in a bucket. The woman avoided their eyes as she hurried past. The alley widened abruptly into a courtyard with overhanging upper floors, making the square space seem close and cramped. Light flickered behind the shutters on each floor, and odd, muffled sounds leaked through—a cutoff laugh, a muttered word, rhythmic banging, and what sounded like moans.

Temperance shuddered. “This is Mrs. Whiteside’s establishment.”

“Stay close to me,” Lord Caire murmured before raising his stick to knock upon the only door in the courtyard.

It swung open to reveal a hulking guard, his broad, plain face marked with pox scars. His narrow little eyes showed no expression. “Boy or girl?”

“Neither,” Lord Caire said smoothly. “I wish to speak to Tommy Pett.”

The man began to close the door.

Lord Caire stuck his stick in the doorway with one hand and pressed his palm flat against the door with the other. The door halted, causing the guard to look faintly surprised.

“Please,” Lord Caire said with a hard smile.

“Jacky,” a deep voice rasped from behind the guard. “Let me see our visitor.”

The guard stepped aside. Lord Caire entered immediately, pulling Temperance behind him. She peered around his shoulder.

The hall inside was a small, square space, hardly big enough for the stairs leading to the upper levels. Immediately to the right was an open door that revealed a neat sitting room beyond. In the doorway was a woman in a pink satin gown, strewn with ribbons and bows. Her head barely came past Caire’s waist, and her body was thick and squat, her brow heavy and deformed.

She flicked clever eyes at Caire. “Lord Caire. I’ve often wondered when you might visit our house.”

Lord Caire bowed. “Am I speaking to Mrs. Whiteside?”

The dwarf threw back her head and laughed in a voice as deep as a man’s. “Dear me, no. I am merely an employee of that lady. You may call me Pansy.”

Lord Caire nodded. “Mistress Pansy. I would be very grateful for a moment’s conversation with Tommy Pett.”

“Why, may I ask?”

“He has some information I need.”

Pansy pursed her lips and cocked her head. “Why not? Jacky, go and see if Tommy is free.”

The guard lumbered off and Pansy gestured to the sitting room behind her. “Will you sit, my lord?”

“Thank you.”

They entered the little sitting room, and Lord Caire sank into a worn velvet settee, pulling Temperance down beside him. Across from them was a wide, low chair padded in sumptuous purple and pink. Pansy hitched one hip up and hopped backward into the chair. Her feet, shod in elegant heeled slippers, dangled inches from the floor.

She laid her pudgy hands on the chair’s arms and looked at Caire with a smile playing about her mouth. “You really ought to stop awhile with us, my lord, after you finish your business with my boy Tommy. I can offer you a special price.”

“I thank you, no,” Caire said with no inflection in his voice.

Pansy cocked her head. “We make a specialty of providing for the, ah, unusual requirements of gentlemen such as yourself. And, of course, your friend may participate as well.”

Temperance’s eyes widened as Pansy tilted her chin at her. She had no idea what Caire’s
unusual requirements
were, but she knew she should be disgusted at the mere suggestion that she would indulge in them with him. Except she was still trying to figure out her feelings when a pretty young man entered the room. He was slim with golden hair that fell in silken waves to his
shoulders. He hesitated inside the doorway, eyeing Lord Caire uneasily.

Pansy smiled at him. “Tommy, this is Lord Caire. I believe—”

Whatever Mistress Pansy had been about to say was cut short by Tommy darting from the room. Lord Caire surged off the settee, flying after the boy silently. There was a scuffling sound in the hall, a thump and a curse, and then Lord Caire reentered the room, holding Tommy firmly by the collar of his coat.

“All right! All right!” the boy panted. “You got me fair and square. Let me go an’ I’ll talk.”

“I think not,” Lord Caire drawled. “I’d rather keep a firm grip on you while you talk.”

Pansy had watched this byplay with narrowed but unsurprised eyes. She stirred now. “Tommy’s night isn’t over yet, my lord. I do hope you’ll bear that in mind when you handle him? His price goes down if he’s bruised.”

“I have no intention of hurting your employee as long as he tells me what I want to know,” Lord Caire said.

“And what is that?” the dwarf asked softly.

“Marie Hume,” Lord Caire said. “What do you know about her death?”

For a boy who made his living in a St. Giles brothel, Tommy was a terrible liar. He looked away, licked his lips, and said, “Nothing.”

Temperance sighed. Even she could see that Tommy had some knowledge of Lord Caire’s mistress’s death.

Lord Caire merely shook the boy. “Try again.”

Pansy raised her eyebrows. “I’m afraid your use of Tommy’s time is costing me revenue, Lord Caire.”

Without a word, Lord Caire reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small purse. He tossed it at Pansy and she caught it deftly. After peering inside, she closed the purse again and hid it on her person.

She nodded at Tommy. “That’ll do nicely. Now talk to the gentleman, my lamb.”

Tommy sagged in Lord Caire’s grip. “I don’t know anything. She was dead when I found her.”

Temperance looked quickly at Lord Caire at this news, but if he was surprised to hear that Tommy, not Martha Swan, had found Marie, he gave nothing away.

“Were you the first to find her dead?” Lord Caire asked.

Tommy shot him a confused look. “Weren’t no one else there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“When did you find her?”

Tommy screwed up his face. “It was a while back—two months or more.”

“What day?”

“Saturday.” Tommy darted a look at Pansy. “Saturday morn is my day off.”

“And what time did you arrive at Marie’s rooms?”

Tommy shrugged. “Maybe nine of the clock? Or ten? Before noon anyway.”

Lord Caire shook him again. “Describe it.”

Tommy licked his lips, glancing at Pansy as if for permission. The little woman nodded her head.

He sighed. “Her rooms were on the second floor at the back of the house. ’Twern’t no one about when I went to climb the stairs, save a charwoman scrubbing the front step. I was going to knock at her door—Marie’s—but it gave under my hand. It wasn’t latched, so I went in. The
front room was neat as a pin; Marie liked to keep her things orderly, but the bedroom…”

Tommy halted his narrative, staring at the floor. He gulped visibly. “There was blood all about. On the walls and floor and even the ceiling. Lord, I’ve never seen such blood in my life. Her mattress was black with it and Marie…”

“What about Marie?” Lord Caire’s voice was soft, but Temperance didn’t mistake it for gentleness or pity.

“She were slit open,” Tommy said. “From throat to her privates. I could see her insides peeking out like gray snakes.”

He gulped once more, his face having turned ashen. “I cast up what I had inside me then, all over the floor. Couldn’t help it. The smell was that terrible.”

“And what did you do then?” Lord Caire asked.

“Why, I ran from the room,” Tommy said, but his eyes slid away again.

Lord Caire shook him. “You never thought to search the room? She had jewels—a diamond hair pin and pearl earrings—as well as diamond chip buckles for her shoes and a garnet ring.”

“I never—” Tommy began, but Lord Caire shook him so hard he couldn’t speak.

“Tommy, my darling lamb.” Pansy sighed. “Answer Lord Caire truthfully or I won’t have any use for you.”

Tommy hung his head sullenly. “She didn’t need them no more. She was dead right enough. And if I’d left them there, they would’ve just been stole by her landlord. I had more right to them than anyone.”

“Why is that?” Temperance asked.

Tommy lifted his head, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Why? Because I was her brother.”

Temperance glanced at Lord Caire. He was expressionless, but he’d frozen as if in surprise. She returned her attention to Tommy. “You were Marie Hume’s brother.”

“Aye, haven’t I just said so,” the boy sputtered. “Had the same mother, we did, though Marie was ten or more years older than me.”

Temperance frowned. She caught a fleeting glance between Lord Caire and Pansy. Something didn’t make any sense. She felt like she was missing some information that everyone else had in the room. “Then you knew her well?”

Tommy shrugged uncomfortably. “Fairly well, I guess.”

“Did she have any other visitors other than Lord Caire and yourself?” Temperance asked.

“As to that, I don’t know,” Tommy said slowly. “I saw her but once a week.”

Temperance leaned forward. “But surely you talked about each other’s lives? She must have told you about her days?”

The boy looked at his toes. “Mostly I asked for money from her.”

Temperance blinked, appalled at his lack of fraternal love. She would’ve thought that the boy was prevaricating to avoid giving more information were he not such a terrible liar.

“Can you guess who might’ve killed her?” Lord Caire asked suddenly.

The boy’s eyes widened. “She was tied to the bed, her arms stretched above her head, her legs spread apart, and her face was covered with a hood. I knew at once who had killed her.”

Lord Caire stared down at the boy. “Who?”

Tommy smiled, but somehow his lips twisted in a way that took away all his beauty. “Why, you, my lord. Isn’t that how you liked to enjoy my sister?”

L
AZARUS STARED AT
the pretty boy. Truly he hadn’t expected this charge—although he should have. He let the boy go, careful to keep from glancing at Mrs. Dews. What would she make of the boy’s revelation? What
could
she make of it, other than horror and disgust?

“I have no further need of you,” he said, dismissing the boy.

A look of disappointment crossed Tommy’s face. No doubt he’d expected an argument or even flustered denials.

Damned if Lazarus would give the boy that.

Tommy glanced at Mistress Pansy. She nodded at him, her odd face expressionless, and Tommy left.

When the door had closed behind the boy, she turned to Lazarus. “Is that all?”

“No.” He crossed to the small fireplace and stared into the flames, trying to think. This was a dead end in his investigations. If the boy—Marie’s brother, of all people—didn’t know who’d killed her, where could he turn now? He absently twisted his stick in his fist. And then the realization dawned. He knew he hadn’t tied Marie up in such a manner; therefore, some other man had—a man who in this, at least, shared his proclivities.

He turned to Mistress Pansy. “You said this establishment catered to the whims of men like me.”

The little woman raised her dark eyebrows. “Yes, of course. Would you like to see a selection of our wares?”

He was aware that Mrs. Dews had drawn in her breath
sharply. Though he still hadn’t looked at her, he knew she stood as if frozen in a corner of the room. Perhaps she was frozen in disgust.

He shook his head. “No. What I want is information.”

Mistress Pansy cocked her overlarge head, her eyes intelligent and sparkling now with the possibility of profit. “What kind of information, my lord?”

“I want to know the names of the men who like to use the ties and hood.”

She stared at him, her dark eyes considering. Then she abruptly shook her head. “You know I can’t give out the names of our customers.”

He took out a purse from his pocket—larger than the one he’d given her before—and tossed it to the table at her elbow. “There’s fifty pounds in there.”

She raised her eyebrows and picked up the purse, spilling it into her lap to count the coins one by one. She paused when she was finished as if considering; then she put them back into the purse and tucked it into her bosom.

She sat back in her low, wide chair and looked at him. “Some gentlemen find it enjoyable to watch the play of others.”

He cocked an eyebrow, waiting.

“Perhaps you’d like to indulge?”

Lazarus nodded once, his pulse speeding.

Pansy raised her voice. “Jacky!”

The lackey appeared at the door.

She gestured with her fingers. “Please take this gentleman to the peepholes. I think you’ll be most interested in room six, Lord Caire.”

Jacky turned without a word, and Lazarus strode over to grasp Mrs. Dews’s wrist.

She pulled against him, but he held her firm as he hauled her to the door. “What are you doing? I have no wish to see any ‘play.’ ”

“I can’t leave you alone,” he growled under his breath. It was the truth, but not quite all of it. He wanted to show her what lurked deep within his soul. She’d be repulsed by his truth, he knew that, but he had a morbid urge to find out for himself what her reaction would be. To lay his secrets bare before her and await her sentence.

Jacky led them up the narrow wooden stairs to a dim hallway above. Doors lined the hall, each marked with a crudely carved number. But instead of entering one, the man led them to the end of the hall to an unmarked door.

Jacky opened the lock with a key and gestured them inside. “Go to th’ end and turn. One hour. No more.”

And he closed the door behind them.

Mrs. Dews started against Lazarus, and he could feel the tremble of her body. He bent to whisper in her ear, “Hush. The door is unlocked. We may leave whenever we wish.”

“Then let’s go at once,” she hissed back.

“No.” His heart was beating fast, and he tightened his grip on her wrist.

They were in a low, narrow passage. He felt with his hand along one wall as he obeyed Jacky’s instructions to go to the end. The passage made an abrupt turn here, and he squinted down it. At first it had seemed pitch-black, but as his eyes adjusted, he could make out tiny pinpricks of light at regular intervals along one wall. He neared the first and saw it was a peephole. Underneath, just visible in the light from the room beyond, was the number nine.