A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(16)

Her heart was drumming now. “And in exchange, all I must do is copy you the letter?”

“A small favor,” he said. “Nothing much, between friends.”


One week later

Night was falling rapidly, a sallow fog choking out the last trace of sunset. Crispin stepped out of the church into the narrow street. The air was salted, thick with the odors of rotting fish and brackish mudflats. The cottages here sank into their foundations, pockmarked and crumbling, with broken shutters that swung in the wind.

It was not too late to turn back from this idiocy.

Behind him, the door slammed. The reverend had not enjoyed their discussion.

Crispin stared into the darkness down the road. He should not be here. Someone else, someone who could afford it, who would want the praise, who would revel in it—some pampered, celebrated idiot should be here right now.

Yet Crispin started down the pavement.

There was no name for this street. Evidently parts of London existed that even the mapmakers shunned. Something else to fix, once the power was his. But he was in the right place. The letter copied by Jane Mason, the record at the General Register, the reverend’s remarks—they all fit together. The puzzle was finally resolving, and it made him livid.

He was livid, too, at himself: this was not his problem. His temper had probably spilled out on the reverend. So be it. This was not his bloody concern.

Yet he was walking.

A movement flickered from a window ahead. When he squinted, he saw nobody. The flutter of a torn curtain, perhaps.

Curious, this sensation in his stomach. He had not felt his own nerves for some time. Bribery, intimidation, threats, betrayals—he dealt them expertly, then slept peacefully through the night. He made men weep by reciting the secrets that they’d imagined well hidden; he watched from a cold remove as they begged him to think of their livelihoods, their families. I will lose my seat. I made promises to constituents! My good name will be ruined. I’ll lose contracts; I’ll be bankrupted. Think of my daughters. My own borough will turn against me!

But that was politics. Men entered the game willingly. It was not Crispin’s fault if they failed to play well. He never felt a moment’s anxiety over breaking an opponent, whatever it took. There were no rules. Not at the top. His conscience, his nerves, did not bother him.

But now, walking down this darkened road, he felt . . . uneasy, and deeply, implacably angry. If he was correct—and in minutes, he would know for certain—then at last, for the first time, he might get to experience that most Christian of virtues: righteous indignation.

Perhaps he would even act on it. Perhaps, for once, he would play the hero rather than the villain.

He snorted at the thought. Once he was prime minister, then he would entertain the notion of heroism. But he had mapped a clear plan for himself, a climb both direct and brutal. Without money—without a fortune like Jane Mason’s sainted father’s—it took brutality to scale the peak. Once atop it, he might once again pause to consider how others saw him. They would be looking up at him then, rather than down on him. Perhaps, at last, they might take a different view and see him clearly.

Until then, what point? Climb, climb. This business tonight was a distraction. It would not lead him upward. It was useless.

Still, he kept walking.

How satisfied it would make that na?ve, self-righteous girl, her great luminous eyes alight with such easy-won certainty, to know that there were atrocities even he could not abide.

Tonight, then—tonight alone, he would make an exception. Tomorrow, he would hand the proof off to the authorities and set to climbing again, with no further distractions.

At last, he came to the door he’d been told to look for, the red paint peeling. His brief, hard rap did not merit an immediate response. He knocked again and then turned to survey the street.

The silence felt unnatural, thick and somehow staged. In any other neighborhood, one would catch the spill of conversations, of cooking pots knocking together, of children’s quarrels and cries. He took a long, steadying breath.

He knocked again, harder yet.

Was this a prank, then? Lure the nob into the seedy underbelly of the city and watch him piss himself for a laugh?

If so, he would not give onlookers the satisfaction of watching him wait. One more minute, and then he would walk back to the Great Northern Railway station, where civilization yet resided.

But as he turned to go, the door creaked open. He could see nothing of the interior, but a gruff voice said, “Come inside and pull shut the door.”

Enough with the games. “Your name,” he demanded—but received no reply, only the sound of footsteps retreating into darkness.

He laid a hand to the doorknob. No one in the entirety of the world knew where he was at this moment—no one but whoever waited within.

Another man would have come with company. But while Crispin was counted a man with many friends, he had no friend whom he would have asked for help in this matter. No one he could trust.

A noise sounded behind him. He nearly jumped, but it was only an alley kitten, mewling.

Need no one, trust no one. At the tender age of twelve, Crispin had coined this motto. During the rare holidays in which no school friend had offered to host him, his silent chant had carried him through his strained interviews with his father, often as he squeezed the tender web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger so the pain would anchor his focus. The same chant had drowned out the sound of his mother’s weeping in the night, and left him unmoved by his brother’s contempt.