Marcus glanced up at the shabby façade of Mrs. Henshaw’s establishment. A torch flared in a bracket, throwing light over the cracked doorstep. “Ready, Albin?”
His secretary swallowed audibly. “Yes, sir.”
“Good lad.” Marcus rapped loudly on the warped wooden door panels.
“Have you ever been here before, sir?” Albin asked in an undertone.
Marcus turned his head and stared at him. Albin stared back, his blatant naivety taking the insult out of the question.
“I shall pretend you didn’t ask me that,” Marcus told him.
“Oh.” Albin blushed fierily and looked down at his top boots. “Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean—”
The opening door cut short his apology. Raucous laughter and the stench of sweat and cheap gin rolled out at them.
One of Mrs. Henshaw’s bullyboys stepped into the doorway, a burly man with shoulders as broad as the door was wide. He assessed the cost of Marcus’s clothing and stepped back without saying a word.
Marcus entered, his secretary at his heels.
The short hallway opened into a large salon. Marcus strolled into it and looked around, searching for his heir.
A boisterous crowd filled the room: half-dressed whores and the men who sought their services. The clientele were mainly working men—Thames River boatmen, coalmen, shopmen—but a red-coated soldier was disappearing up the staircase with a whore, and in the far corner two young bucks in tailcoats and knee breeches were haggling with a blowsy blonde.
Albin pressed close. “Do you see Mr. Langford, sir?” His voice was higher than usual.
“No.” The air was over-warm, heavy, sour. It filled Marcus’s mouth and nose, almost rancid on his tongue. “If he’s here, he must already be upstairs.”
“Up . . . upstairs, sir?”
Marcus nodded at the staircase. Another bullyboy lounged at the foot of it.
“But sir, if Mr. Langford is upstairs—”
“Then we go up.”
“But—”
Marcus pushed his way through the crowd, heading for the staircase and its guardian. The floorboards were sticky with spilled alcohol; his boots adhered slightly with each step.
A woman took hold of his arm. “Wot you be wantin’, luv?”
Marcus glanced at her.
She was young, no more than eighteen, her bodice open to expose lush breasts. Despite her ripe figure, there was nothing tantalizing about her; her skin was grubby and marked with bruises. Gin fumes wafted from her.
“Wotever you wan’, Sal can do it.” She pressed her naked breasts against his arm, rubbed her nipples across the blue superfine, and slid her free hand down to cup his groin intimately.
Marcus shrugged her off. “No thank you, madam.” He stepped aside and pressed on into the crowd. Albin scurried after him, almost treading on his heels. He had the impression the lad was barely restraining himself from clutching his sleeve.
The man guarding the foot of the stairs looked as if he’d spent time in the ring. His nose sat crookedly on his face.
“I’m looking for Phillip Langford.” Marcus gave the man a glimpse of a silver shilling. “He’s twenty-two, running to fat, dark hair—”
“Upstairs,” the man said, holding out his hand for the coin. “Room at the end.”
“Thank you.” Marcus set his foot on the first stair. The carpet was frayed and stained. “Come along, Albin.”
The bullyboy slid the shilling into his pocket. “We don’t want no trouble ’ere.”
“Trouble?” Marcus showed his teeth in a smile. “Us?”
The man shrugged and stepped aside.
Marcus climbed the stairs. At the top was a corridor with doors on either side. Most of them were closed.
He walked down the corridor. The smell of sweat and cheap gin was pervasive here, too. Noises came from behind several of the doors—squeals of feminine laughter, the rhythmic banging of a headboard against a wall. At the end were two doors, one on each side. Marcus glanced at his secretary. “Well? Which one shall it be?”
“Sir, are you certain we should—”
“Not thinking of quitting on me, are you, Albin?”
The lad flushed. “No, sir, of course not! But . . . but what if he’s busy—”
“Then we interrupt him.”
“But isn’t it rude—”
“Extremely rude. But don’t worry, lad, he might invite you to join in. I hear he likes ménages.” He almost laughed at Albin’s appalled expression. “Left or right?”
Albin swallowed. He lifted his chin. “Right, sir.”
Marcus gave a quick rap on the right-hand door and opened it without waiting for a response. Heaving buttocks met his eyes.
The whore and her client were on hands and knees, rutting like sheep in a paddock. They were too involved to notice their loss of privacy. The man’s buttocks quaked and jiggled with each thrust. They looked like large white blancmanges.
Marcus took a step into the room to see if the man was Phillip. He was plump enough, dark-haired enough—
The man’s head jerked around. He wasn’t Phillip.
His rhythm faltered. His mouth began to form a question.
“I beg your pardon,” Marcus said, bowing. “My mistake.” He shut the door and turned to Albin with a grin. “Wrong choice, lad.”
Albin didn’t reply. He looked as startled as the man they’d interrupted, his mouth half-open in shock.
“Which means that Phillip must be in here . . .” Marcus opened the left-hand door, not bothering to knock.
Three people were inside. One was indeed Phillip. He sprawled on a sagging bed, naked, his shoulders propped against the headboard, his legs spread to accommodate the whore who had his cock in her mouth.
Marcus stepped into the room. Phillip didn’t notice. His attention was on the second whore. Her gown was down to her waist, her ample breasts bared to Phillip’s groping hands.
Marcus glanced back at Albin. The lad hadn’t moved. He stood rooted in the corridor, his expression appalled. “Come in, lad,” Marcus said. “Meet my heir.”
Phillip turned his head. “Wha’?”
“Ladies, if you don’t mind, I’d like a word with your client.” Marcus dug in his pocket and pulled out two shillings.
The woman kneeling between Phillip’s legs lifted her head. Her eyes fastened on the coins.
“I’ll ask you to wait outside, please,” Marcus said.
The woman scrambled off the bed. Her companion extricated herself from Phillip’s grasp and followed, not bothering to cover her breasts.
“Thank you, ladies.” Marcus handed them each a silver coin. “We won’t be long.”
He shut the door after them and turned back to his heir.
Phillip pushed himself up to sit. His cock was at half-mast. “What the devil are you doing here? Can’t send ’em away. I paid for ’em. Paid for ’em both!”
“I came to talk to you,” Marcus said, strolling to the bed.
“Me?” Phillip scowled. “Why?”
“I was attacked last week. In St. James’s Park.”
The scowl vanished. Phillip sniggered. “I heard.”
“Did you hire the men who attacked me?”
Phillip squinted up, blinking owlishly as he tried to focus on Marcus’s face. “Huh?”
“Did you hire the men who attacked me?”
Phillip thought this through for several seconds, then shook his head. “Wish I’d thought o’ it, though.” He sniggered again. “You’ve got a black eye.”
Marcus stepped closer until he loomed over Phillip. “What about the broken windows? The shit on my doorstep? Was that you?”
“Shit?” Phillip said. “What shit?”
“The shit on my doorstep.”
“Shit.” Phillip repeated. “Shit on your doorstep.” He flopped back on the bed, giggling, his arms wide, his belly heaving. “Shit.”
Lying back on the bed, his groin was prominently displayed. His cock had wilted and lay flaccid in a nest of dark hair.
“Did you do it?”
“Shit,” Phillip repeated, giggling. “Cuckold Cosgrove has shit on his doorstep.”
Marcus reached down and shook Phillip’s shoulder, digging his fingers into the soft flesh. “Did you do it?”
Phillip blinked blearily up at him. “Do what?”
“Put the shit on my doorstep.”
Phillip went off in a peal of giggles that ended with a hiccup.
Marcus shook him again. “Did you do it?”
Phillip batted at his hand. “Stop that.”
“Did. You. Do. It?”
Phillip glowered up at him. “Wish I had,” he said, between hiccups. “You deserve it.”
Marcus released his heir’s shoulder. He straightened and turned to Albin. His secretary was staring at Phillip, utter revulsion on his face. “Let’s go.”
Albin tore his gaze away from Phillip. He fumbled for the door handle, jerked the door open, and hurried out into the corridor.
The two whores were waiting outside. Marcus nodded to them. “Thank you for your patience, ladies.”
He walked down the corridor to where his secretary stood at the head of the stairs. Albin’s face was chalk-white. He looked as if he was about to be ill.
“Well?” Marcus asked. “What do you think of my heir?”
“I don’t like him, sir,” Albin blurted.
“Neither do I.” Marcus straightened his cuffs and headed downstairs.
At the foot of the staircase, the crowd engulfed them. Charlotte curled her fingers into her palms to stop herself grabbing the earl’s coat. I am a man, she told herself. I must act like one.
She set her jaw and followed the earl, her gaze resolutely on his back. In another minute they’d be outside, away from the stench and the heat and the press of unwashed bodies and the hubbub of voices—
Someone grabbed her arm.
Charlotte spun around, trying to pull free. “Let go of me!”
“Where you orf to in such an ’urry, luv?” It was the same whore who’d stopped Cosgrove earlier, her gown open to show her breasts. They were as large as melons.
The whore’s lips were rouged. And her nipples.
“Sal can give you wot you wan’, luv.”
“No, thank you.” Charlotte tried to twist her arm free.
“Oh, but I can, luv.” The whore leaned close. “Anything you wan’. I does it all.”
Charlotte recoiled from the pressure of the girl’s breasts against her arm.
“Jus’ tell me wot it is an’ I’ll do it.” The whore’s other hand groped for Charlotte’s groin.
Charlotte swallowed a yelp. She wrenched her arm free, stumbling backward, almost falling over her own feet. “No!” She raised her chin and groped for her composure. “Thank you, madam, but no.”
She turned and hurried forward, pushing through the crowd, looking for Cosgrove.
He was nowhere in sight.
Panic lurched in her chest. If he left her here—
Control yourself. She wasn’t a woman alone amid drunken, rowdy men and whores; she was Christopher Albin. She was a man. She was in no danger.
Charlotte gulped a deep breath and headed for the door. Her gaze skidded off stubbled faces, off florid faces glistening with sweat, off whores’ painted faces—
There he is.
The height was unmistakable, the strong shoulders, the black hair beneath the elegant beaver hat.
He was almost at the other side of the salon. Don’t leave me here, sir! Charlotte scrambled after him, using her elbows, not caring if she trod on people’s feet.
She caught up with the earl just as he reached the corridor. He glanced back at her. “You may stay if you wish, Albin—although I don’t recommend it.”
It was a joke—she could tell from the way his eyes creased at the corners—but she couldn’t joke back. She was tense, trembling. “I don’t want to stay, sir.”
Cosgrove shrugged lightly. He strolled down the short corridor to the front door, completely unfazed by his surroundings.
The man guarding the door opened it for them.
“Thank you.” Cosgrove inclined his head politely, as if he were leaving an exclusive soirée, not a bawdy house on the edge of London’s slums.
Charlotte followed him down the steps, stepping over the open gutter. The air was cold after the fug of the brothel. Her breath plumed in front of her face.
The trembling eased as they walked down the street. I did it. She’d entered a brothel, been touched by a whore, seen people engaged in the sexual act—and she’d not betrayed herself.
“Well?” Cosgrove asked. “What do you think?”
Charlotte forced her mind back to the matter at hand. “I think . . . he had nothing to do with the attack, sir. But he would have liked to.”
She caught a glimpse of Cosgrove grimacing as they passed a flaring torch outside a tavern. “Yes. That was my impression, too.”
“He doesn’t like you, sir.”
“The feeling is mutual.” They turned into another street. “What about the broken windows? The shit?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Not him. Although he liked the idea of it.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Cosgrove grunted. “He’ll probably drop a few turds on my doorstep tonight.”
The crudeness of his language shocked Charlotte speechless for several seconds, and then she shook herself. He thinks I’m a man. He’d never talk like that to a woman.
How would a man respond? “I think he’ll be too drunk, sir.”
“With any luck.”
They stepped to one side of the street as a hackney trotted past. “Shall you take Phillip off the list, sir?”
“Not off it, but at the bottom.”
They walked in silence for another street.
Cosgrove made a choking noise. It sounded like—but couldn’t be—laughter.
Charlotte glanced at him enquiringly.
Cosgrove halted. “That first bedroom,” he said, in a strangled voice. “His expression—”
Memory supplied her with the image: a gaping mouth, eyes stretching wide with astonishment.
Cosgrove uttered a whoop of laughter.
Charlotte stared at him. He thought it was funny?
Perhaps it was male behavior, to be amused by such things?
She gave a half-hearted, unconvincing laugh.
Cosgrove doubled over, leaning against the nearest wall. His laughter rang in the street.
Charlotte shifted her weight from foot to foot, waiting. If that was what sex was, she was relieved she would never experience it. She’d not realized it was so grotesque, so ugly.
She glanced down the street. They were alone apart from a slinking dog.
Cosgrove pushed away from the wall, wiping his eyes. Footsteps approached from behind them. Charlotte stepped to one side to let whoever it was past.
Someone buffeted her shoulder, knocking her to one knee.
“Look out!” Cosgrove shouted.
A fist swung at her out of the darkness.