Adam had left Desirée in Lady Hester’s care. The Princess had not wanted him to go, particularly since he’d been so vague about his reason, but she’d bowed to his wishes. They still had a number of hours before they would leave and their packed bags were ready in Adam’s flat. Verbeux had somehow managed to smuggle Desirée there.
Taking action helped, keeping busy until the two of them could leave. The encounter with his father would never be forgotten and had left Adam wanting to find out his parents’ whole story.
Edward, Adam’s coachman, was a discreet and devoted man. He drove through the gray afternoon toward St. John’s Wood where a neighbor of Rolly Spade-Filbert’s had said he and Lucas could probably be found. The man, older, garrulous and apparently lonely for an audience, had produced the address but sworn Adam to secrecy about where he got it. Adam was glad to agree and would not have revealed his source anyway.
St. John’s Wood looked graceful, regal even, in its mantle of white. When the coach turned the corner at Circus Road, the area was quiet and there were no other conveyances in sight. It was as if this place where married gentlemen kept their ladybirds, and kept them in high style amid neighbors who were writers and painters, had fallen asleep by the fires that burned brightly inside the pretty semidetached villas.
For the sake of discretion, Adam had Edward wait in nearby Abbey Lane, and went the rest of the way on foot. The only living soul he passed was so swathed against the cold that he resembled a large gray beehive on booted feet.
Adam walked quickly, wanting to keep this encounter short and to return to Desirée as quickly as possible. The address he sought appeared closed up. Not a window was uncovered, but the place was kept in good condition. At the door he rang the bell and waited, deliberately keeping his head down in case someone looked through a window and saw who he was—and decided they didn’t want his company.
Adam had rung several times before he saw light and heard rapid footsteps. The door opened a crack and a pale, oval face with dark eyes appeared considerably below the level of his own. Hair with a reddish cast was caught up inside a white linen maid’s cap. The girl’s apron and brown linen frock were spotless.
Then she opened her mouth and spoiled everything. “Watcha want then? Nobody’s expected so don’t try nuthin’ funny.”
Adam plastered on a smile and added a wink for good measure. The wink had the required result since the maid fluttered her lashes and winked back. “My brother and his friend are visiting here,” he said. “Mr. Lucas Chillworth and Mr. Rolly Spade-Filbert.”
That earned him giggles “Silly name, ain’t it? Makes yer think of diggin’ up trees.”
It had never made Adam think exactly that, but he agreed on the comical quality of the name. “I’m Adam Chillworth, Lucas’s brother and I have important business with him.”
“Nice gent,” the girl said, opening the door a little wider. “Which is more than I can say about that other cove. Nasty one, he can be, and too sneaky wiv ’is ’ands.” She frowned and said, “Yer card, please. Just to satisfy meself.”
Adam produced a card and handed it through the door.
“Ooh, swish,” the girl said. “Mayfair Square. Very nice. You follow me.” Rather than put the card on a salver for her employer, the girl slipped it into a pocket in her apron and Adam hoped she would not decide to use it one day.
“Upstairs, sir. Me name’s Cherry Pick, by the way. You’ll be thinking I’m a fine one to laugh at anyone else’s name but I’ve learned to make fun of me moniker. Me mum and dad thought they was clever, choosin’ a name like that to go with the season. They ’ad cherry trees, see, and it was pickin’ time when I was born. O’course, I’d have been Pick anyway, wouldn’t I?”
“Mmm.” Adam rather thought that Picked might be more appropriate by now.
“All right,” Cherry said when they reached the third floor. “This is it. Wait here, please.” She slipped inside the room, closed the door behind her and took so long to return that Adam wondered if he should leave. At last she appeared and said, “In you go, now. A word of warning you may already know, but the tree digger’s got a temper on ’im. A wild one ’e is, specially when there’s been a lot of drink around.” This time she winked at him and trotted her shapely body quietly downstairs. Within seconds the front door slammed and he assumed Cherry had left.
Rolly Spade-Filbert’s slurred voice was easily recognized, as was feminine laughter. Adam stood, listening, wanting to be as sure as he could be of what awaited him on the other side of the door. That was to be no clearer before he gave a brief knock and walked into the room.
The scent assaulted him first: heavy, stale perfume, liquor and sex. In the semidark room his impression was of slithering among heaps of brilliant silks and satins piled on a bed and scattered in mounds about the room. Gradually he made out a chaise in shades of red, purple, green and black silk. Some of the mounds on the floor were made up of an abundance of fringed and jeweled pillows. In addition to silk, there were furs on the bed.
And the bed? He had seen such things before but not in so-called private homes. Manacles and lengths of leather hung from the tall bedposts. Through openings in the canopy, two pieces of velvet-wrapped chain were bolted to the ceiling and they supported a trapeze some three feet above the mattress. Adam was staring at the trapeze when a somewhat plump woman wearing black lace from neck to ankle, nothing but black lace, emerged from somewhere on the floor and leaped onto the bed. She put her hands on her knees and bent to look at him, her blond hair wild. “Who are you, luscious one?” she said.
“I’m Adam Chillworth. I—”
“Lucas’s brother?” Her cultured voice was a surprise. “You must be. Welcome to the show. Take a seat. No, no, absolutely do not take a seat.” She grasped the trapeze and flipped herself upside down with ease. “I used to be with the circus, you see. I was a flyer and a contortionist—very useful skills—so I keep myself in practice.”
“Bloody get back here, you.” Rolly said, his head appearing behind the chaise. “I don’t pay you to give it away to anyone who wanders in.”
That the man didn’t recognize him—even after he’d spoken his name—was no surprise to Adam. Rolly’s hair hung over his face, which he repeatedly turned from side to side as if trying to bring the scene into focus. He held a bottle aloft.
“He’s no danger,” the woman said. “He couldn’t stand up if he wanted to.” With that she hooked her knees around the chains and leaned back. If she made a complete drop from the trapeze her head would not clear the mattress. Back and forth she swung and with each pass Adam was given a view of an open crotch in the long, lace things she wore. She released her knees and pulled up into a headstand on the bar. Spreading her legs she dropped them, one forward, one behind, in an unnatural movement that left her completely revealed. He looked away.
Apart from these two, the room was empty, but Lucas could be elsewhere in the house. Adam considered ways in which he might ask his whereabouts without sending Rolly off in some mad tirade.
“Leave your trousers behind, and anything else you can do without,” the woman said to Adam. “Come on up. You’re a tall one, you can help turn this into some fun, which is more than I can say for some people. Miserable pair. Rolly’s all right sometimes, aren’t you, my love? Until you get too much hock in you. The other one’s always morose. Never joins in.”
The other one? “You are as charming as you are inviting, Miss…”
“Mrs. Lavender Gay-Pierce. You, my lovely man, may call me Lavender.”
An animal-like roar, and Rolly’s stumbling scramble from the cover of the couch put Adam on his guard. The man might be too much in his cups to land a blow even, but taking him too lightly would be a mistake.
“Chillworth,” Rolly yelled. “Oportunished. Belay, I say. Pishtols or swords. Second a pick. Oh, gawd.” It was the sight of Lavender gently swaying on her trapeze, that stopped him. He ran his tongue around his lips and staggered toward the bed. “I’m coming, sweet handfuls, I’ll be there, my bouncy beauty.”
Adam all but swallowed his tongue. Laughing now wouldn’t be wise.
Bouncy Beauty had talked about a pair of men. He took note of two extra doors, one each side of a fireplace where the coals were dusty and cold. He would just have to start looking for Lucas.
“Oh, yes, yes,” Rolly said. “Let ’em out.”
Letting them out referred to Lavender Gay-Pierce unbuttoning her sleeveless upper garment and exposing her astonishing breasts. Bountiful and undoubtedly heavy, Adam wondered how their pressure, presently directed at Lavender’s neck, allowed her to breath at all.
From the way she used her hands to jiggle them, he decided the position she was in caused no problems at all.
She fascinated, but more repulsed than aroused him.
“Lucash is a sod,” Rolly mumbled. He’d landed on his knees and pulled himself slowly onto the bed. It was impossible not to note that he was very well-made and powerfully built. “Tries to spoil my fun every time. Just shits there and pouts.”
Adam frowned. “Sits where?” he asked, deciding Rolly was drunk enough not to have any coherent notions as to why Adam might be there.
“Shut up,” Rolly said. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Wait your turn.”
Adam leaned against the wall, crossed one foot over the other, and did as he was told. He didn’t want to consider too closely what Rolly meant by turn.
Long curtains drawn across a bay window twitched, then parted enough for Adam to see his brother’s face. True to what had been said, Lucas just sat there on a chair facing the window and looked grim. He narrowed his eyes at Adam and shook his head. He mouthed the word, “Wait,” and turned his chair around so that he could see what was going on in the room while he made sure he could drop the curtains again and effectively disappear.
Adam carried a small but deadly knife strapped inside one of his boots. He prayed he would never have to use it here but was glad he had it.
Rolly, on all fours, had made it onto the mattress where he held his face up and his mouth open, alternating between licking one breast, then the other. With each contact Lavender cried out. From a net attached to a bedpost behind her, she took a little pot from which she scooped something pink and oily. This she massaged onto her breasts before swinging toward Rolly again. This time he slid his hands over her flesh, moaning as he did so. Adam noticed that what had formerly hung between his legs was rising to the occasion. Quite impressive. He was losing all control over the pink oiled breasts. Squeezing them together, he pulled on the nipples with his lips and laughed each time he lost his grip.
Adam looked to Lucas and motioned for him to come out of the room, but Lucas ignored him and continued to observe the display on the bed.
Wavering as he did so, Rolly managed to hold a bedpost and stand up.
Mrs. Gay-Pierce’s laughter soared and she changed positions. With her upper body over the bar and her hair—among other things—hanging, she assumed the posture of an airborne frog getting ready for a mighty leap.
Rolly, who obviously knew the drill, hooted like a foxed owl, managed to walk toward the promised land and grip a chain in each hand. Strong legs clamped around his waist and drew him close. Adam saw Rolly take charge of swinging the trapeze ever so slowly and drop his head first back, then forward as he increased the pace.
There were points when even the unexpected became boring, sickening even, and Adam crossed the room, hauled his brother to his feet, and marched him from the room.
Once the door was closed and they stood on the landing, Lucas crossed his arms on the banister and settled his forehead on his hands.
“I’m taking you to your home,” Adam said, not relishing the prospect. “When you’re ready, we should talk. You are an unhappy man and if I can do something to change that, I will.”
Lucas rolled his head from side to side. “I’m not going home as you call it. I don’t have a home. I’m a failed man.”
“A hotel, then. Or perhaps there is another friend?”
“I have somewhere to go until I can collect myself. If you want to talk, we’ll do it here. Can’t imagine what we’d have to say.”
Adam looked down the landing at several closed doors. “What’s in those rooms, d’you know?”
“No.”
“You can be an unhelpful bastard,” Adam said.
Lucas grinned and said, “You aren’t the first to tell me that.”
Adam went to the last door, the one farthest from where Bouncy Beauty and her rubber-legged swain headed for the grand finale on a trapeze.
“We’re in luck,” Adam said. Lucas was right behind him. “Doesn’t look as if this is used.”
He walked into a sheet-draped bedroom and pulled the dusty cloths from two floral upholstered chairs set at an angle as if intended for intimate conversation. Exactly the thing. Lucas joined him and they both sat.
When they’d been there, quietly regarding the drab walls or their own fingernails, for far too long, Adam let out a long breath and said, “How did you let yourself get into such a mess?”
His brother inclined his head and regarded Adam steadily. “Do beat about the bush, won’t you?”
“You’re in debt. Father has suspended your allowance.” He hesitated before adding, “And you’re living with more guilt than most decent men can handle. Under all the swagger, you’re a decent man.” Adam didn’t add that their father had threatened his elder son’s ruin if Adam didn’t do as he was told.
Every vestige of color seeped from Lucas’s face. He wetted his lips and his breathing became more rapid. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you mean. There’s nothing worse than a little boredom wrong with me. Where have you been getting your so-called information?”
Lucas wasn’t stupid. He knew the most likely informant was their mother, although it could be possible that Gilbert had spoken to Adam about his brother. He wouldn’t mention Rolly’s visit to Gilbert yet. That might be more useful later. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, so forget it. Let’s just say that someone who knows a lot about you came and tried to get money out of me.” It could work, there had to be more than one or two who fit the description.
The ruse wasn’t a total failure. Lucas frowned and his eyes moved rapidly as he thought about what Adam had said. He put a shaky hand to his brow and wiped sweat from his hairline.
“I want to help.”
Lucas snorted. “Father just cut you out of his will. You’re supporting yourself from painting, which can’t pay as well as you’d like me to think, and you want to help me? You’re here because some swine told you my business and you want the pleasure of watching me squirm.”
“Right,” Adam said, and made to get up. “You obviously see right through me and I shan’t get any more fun out of your misery today, so I’ll be off.”
“Don’t go.” Lucas didn’t have far to reach to stay Adam’s hand on the arm of his chair. “For God’s sake don’t leave me like this. I’m a fool. I’m my own worst enemy and I don’t think I can go on as I am.”
Adam dropped down into the seat again and put his spare hand on top of Lucas’s. “Let me help you, then.”
“You can’t. I’ve got to buy time and figure out a way to tell them that if I’m dead, they’ll never get anything back. I don’t know if there’s a chance I can reason with them—I don’t even know if they’ll cut me down before I can say anything.”
Adam’s scalp prickled. “You’re talking about your creditors.” He turned sideways in the chair and looked straight into Lucas’s face. “We’ll get the money. I want you in hiding until I can finish some business I have in hand, then I’ll do what has to be done.”
The slightest sign of hope entered Lucas’s eyes. “You can do it?”
“Yes. Wait until nightfall, then get to Vauxhall Gardens. Snow or no snow the party will be in full swing. Find a fortune teller who calls herself Crystal. Say this to her: I stayed too long. Tell her you are my brother and I told you to come to her. She’ll hide you.”
“Why would she hide—”
“Because, in a particular way, she loves me. I’ll tell you the story one day.”
“Thank you,” Lucas said, his fingers like an armored glove on Adam’s arm.
“Just wait wherever she puts you until I come. There is something else I must ask you before I go. You won’t be happy, but I have to do this. You were…close to a young woman who died. What was her name?”
Lucas’s head fell forward as if he’d taken a blow. “Don’t ask me this,” he said in a hoarse voice that broke. “Let it be.”
“You are pained by it?”
“Don’t ask.”
Adam struggled to decide if he should pursue the question further.
“She wasn’t sophisticated. I thought she was and the result was disastrous.”
“Lucas—”
“No. Let me think, please. I see her face and it’s killing me. There’s no way to change the ending now. If I’d known what was happening, I would have saved her.”
“She is definitely dead?” Adam asked.
Lucas nodded, yes, and withdrew his hand from Adam’s arm. He rested the back of his head on the chair and his eyes closed. “Drowned. She walked into a river until the water was deep enough to cover her if she sat down. That’s what she did, she sat down.”
Freshly appalled, Adam couldn’t speak. Tears streaked his brother’s face but he made no sound.
Adam didn’t think his mouth would be moist again, or that his throat would ever stop hurting. “And the child died with her?”
Lucas pulled his lips back from his teeth. The awful distortion of his face twisted Adam’s heart. “One night she just didn’t meet as we’d arranged. It was like that. We met and went to a rooming house. I brought food and we stayed together for hours. Sometimes all we did was talk about things that would seem foolish to anyone else. Parting was unbearable. She was respectably dressed but poor, I was sure of that, and she would never tell me who her people were or where she lived.
“Then like I said, she didn’t come one night. She never came again. For months I searched for her but I had no clue where to find her.” He looked at Adam. “Her father didn’t come to me. He went to our father who turned him away at once and said nothing to me. I can’t go on.” He leaned forward, lacing his fingers at the back of his neck.
Their mother had told the tale differently but Adam couldn’t bring himself to probe further. It would be easier to stop now. Sympathize and let it be. But Adam had to be sure of one thing. “I just want to be certain the baby hadn’t already been born, that there isn’t a child you sired somewhere.”
“I don’t know.” Lucas glared at him with bloodshot eyes. “She was still alive herself when her father was first turned away by ours. Her father returned within days to tell how Enid had killed herself when she heard I didn’t want anything to do with her. Father had told him that. The man threatened to let the world know about me and Father paid him off. That was more than a year ago. I was told about the death shortly after that second visit because Father wanted to punish me and watch me suffer.”
“Let it go,” Adam said. He would discover the truth of it but not now.
Lucas pointed a finger at him. “You always had your love, your painting. You knew what you wanted and it made you happy enough not to care that the old man favored me. I had nothing but the man’s so-called favor until I met Enid but I didn’t have the courage to throw everything in to be with her. I could have found a way for us to make a living.
“I’ve calculated and recalculated—dozens of times—trying to decide how pregnant she might have been when she died, or if there was a chance the child was still alive. Impossible. And pointless. The only woman I shall ever love is dead. And if there should be a child, the only way I’ll ever know is when he or she is old enough to settle the debt for Enid.”
Only a couple of hours of daylight remained. With a heavy heart, Adam hurried along Circus Road toward his coach. Lucas had promised he would go to Crystal in the Vauxhall Gardens, which gave Adam some relief. She would keep him hidden if anyone could. Later, when the journey to Gretna Green had been made, Adam would set about discovering the identity of Lucas’s Enid.
But first there was Desirée.
He was beset on all sides, but just thinking her name caused a hammering in his chest and an excitement that felt like fire in his blood and bones.
The sight of the coach was a relief. Abbey Lane was quiet with few buildings to be seen. Adam marched the last few yards and called out, “Edward.”
He wasn’t surprised to get no response. Edward had a habit of falling asleep beneath the blankets inside his master’s conveyance.
The horses. Adam peered into the coach to find it empty. He took a few more steps and looked in all directions. “Where are the bloody horses?”