Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(14)

“Don’t worry about it, dear.”

“But it’s one of your emerald ones.” Phoebe’s voice was muffled.

Hero turned on the stool and saw her sister on her hands and knees, patting the carpet. Hero’s heart squeezed. The emerald pin was right in front of Phoebe, not more than a foot from her nose.

Hero cleared her throat, feeling a sudden constriction. “Here it is.” She bent and picked up the pin.

“Oh!” Phoebe stood and pushed her spectacles up her nose. A frown marred her sweet face. “Silly me. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”

“Never mind.” Hero gently placed the pin in the glass dish on her dresser. “It’s dark in here with only the candlelight.”

“Oh, of course,” Phoebe said, but her frown deepened.

“Shall I tell you how the ballroom was decorated?” Hero asked.

“Do!”

So Hero went into great detail about the decorations at Mandeville House, the refreshments, and each dance she took part in as Phoebe brushed her hair. Gradually her sister’s expression lightened, but Hero’s heart remained heavy as she watched the reflected light of the four candelabras in her mirror.

They made the room as bright as day.

ST. GILES WAS a veritable hellhole, especially after the bucolic beauty of the Lancashire countryside, Griffin mused early—very early—that morning. He guided Rambler, his bay gelding, through the darkness and across the stinking channel running down the middle of the lane. He couldn’t take the shortest route to his destination, because some of the alleys that way were too narrow to accommodate a man riding a horse. And he’d be damned if he left Rambler anywhere here. The horse would be stolen before his master was out of sight.

Griffin ducked his head as he rode under a swinging sign advertising a chandler’s shop. No lantern hung by the door of the shop as it would in the better parts of London. In fact, the only light he traveled by was the moon’s pale face. Thank God it was a clear night at least.

Up ahead, a low door burst open and two toughs staggered out. Griffin laid his right hand on the loaded pistol stuck in his saddle, but the men paid him no mind. Pausing only for one of them to cast up his accounts into the channel, they wandered off away from him.

Griffin let out his breath and moved his hand from the pistol’s grip to Rambler’s neck, patting the horse. “Not much farther now, boy.”

He rode down the lane and then turned into a slightly larger street, lined with brick and plaster buildings, some with overhanging upper stories. A nondescript door stood in a tall brick wall, hiding a courtyard beyond. Griffin pulled Rambler to a halt by the door. Taking the pistol from the saddle holster, he used the butt to knock upon the wooden door.

Almost immediately a gruff male voice called, “ ’Oo’s without?”

“Reading. Let me in.”

“ ’Ow’m I sure ’tis you, m’lord?”

Griffin raised his eyebrows at the door. “Because I’m the only one who knows about that night at the Lame Black Cockerel when you drank a dozen pints of ale and—”

The door flew open, revealing shifty black eyes in the ugliest face Griffin had ever known, in London or without. The nose was mashed nearly flat, causing the lipless mouth to always be parted so the man could breathe. Stubble perpetually dotted the lined cheeks and chin, like some spreading mildew, broken by old pox marks and scars far less benign. The man was of average height, but his arms and shoulders were disproportionately large, ending with hands that hung like great slabs of ham by his side. Most who saw him assumed he was either a professional boxer or a murderer for hire.

They’d be right on both counts.

“I’m that glad to see you, m’lord,” Nick Barnes said. “Me and the boys ’ave been staking out the place, but we could sure use your ’elp.”

“Have there been any more attacks?” Griffin swung down from Rambler but kept the gun in his hand and his eyes sharp as he led the horse through the door. Inside, the small courtyard was paved with cobblestones. Buildings rose up on three sides. Griffin had purchased the buildings to either side just last year as a precaution. Now he was grateful for the forethought.

“Some lads tried to come in night afore last, but we beat ’em back right smart,” Nick said, heaving a solid oak bar across the courtyard door.

Griffin led Rambler to an ancient stone water trough to let him drink. “Do you think he’s given up?”

“The Vicar won’t give up until ’e’s dead, and that’s a fact, m’lord,” Nick said soberly.

Griffin grunted. He’d not held high hopes that Charlie Grady, otherwise known rather blasphemously as the Vicar of Whitechapel, would give up so easily. The Vicar had a dirty finger in most of the illegal trades east of Bishopsgate, but recently he’d begun expanding his empire west into the Seven Dials area of St. Giles.

And that had impinged on Griffin’s interests.

Griffin gave a last pat to the gelding and turned to Nick. “You’d better show me, then.”

The other man nodded and led the way into the building directly across from the courtyard wall.

He opened a stout wooden door reinforced with iron and shouted, “Oy, Willis! You and Tim come ’ere and guard the courtyard.”

Two men lumbered out of the building, touching their hats as they passed Griffin. One held a cudgel, the other a long knife that looked suspiciously like a saber.