Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(36)

The men went back to work. No one smiled or looked particularly cheerful, but at least they weren’t whispering mutiny among themselves anymore. Nick pulled two of the men aside and gave them instructions in low tones. A moment more and the two men had lifted Reese’s poor body between them and taken it out to the courtyard. Griffin turned back to watch broodingly as the stills were stoked.

“My God,” came a feminine voice behind Griffin.

He turned and met Lady Hero’s accusing eyes. “You’re running a gin still!”

Chapter Seven

Early the next morning, the queen greeted her suitors in her throne room. She wore a gown of silver and gold, her midnight-black hair was coiled and twisted beneath a golden crown, and every man in that room was amazed by her beauty and bearing.

The queen looked at her suitors and asked them this question: “What is the foundation of my kingdom? You have until midnight tonight to bring me your answer.”

Well, Prince Eastsun looked at Prince Westmoon, and Prince Westmoon looked at Prince Northwind, and then all three princes hurried from the room.

But when the stable master heard the question, he merely smiled to himself….

—from Queen Ravenhair

Hero couldn’t believe it, but the evidence was right before her eyes—and nose. The great warehouse held huge copper barrels set over smoldering fires, and the air smelled of alcohol and juniper berries. This was a gin distillery—most probably an illegal one.

And Reading wasn’t at all perturbed to be found out.

“What is going on? Was that a dead man I saw in the courtyard?” She looked at him, waiting for an explanation, but he turned his back on her.

Actually, it was the large, burly man by his side who seemed the most embarrassed. “M’lord, the lady—”

“The lady can wait,” Reading said quite clearly.

Hero felt her face heat. Never had she been so cavalierly dismissed. And to think she’d let this cad kiss her just last night!

She swiveled to leave the awful building, but suddenly he was there beside her, his hard hands holding her arms.

“Let me go,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

His face held absolutely no compassion. “I have business here. When I am done, I’ll escort you home—”

She wrenched her arms free and turned.

“Hero,” he said quietly, then louder to someone else, “See that her carriage doesn’t leave without me.”

“M’lord.” Two men darted past her and out the door, no doubt to help keep her prisoner while Reading did his disreputable “business.” She continued sedately to her carriage—she’d not let him see her in a hysterical flurry. Once outside the wall and at her carriage, she ignored Reading’s guards and climbed in.

Her wait was short, but even so, she was not in the best of spirits when the carriage rocked and Reading climbed inside. He knocked on the roof and then sat down, gazing out the window. They rolled along for a few minutes until Hero couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what that was about?”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he drawled—expressly, she was sure, to enrage her.

“That was a distillery.”

“Yes, it was.”

“For gin.”

“Indeed.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling anger pounding in her breast. She was perilously close to losing her facade—again. Hero fought to control her voice, but even so the words seemed to scrape against her throat. “Do you have any idea the amount and depth of misery that gin brings to the people who live here in St. Giles?”

He was silent.

She leaned forward and slapped him on the knee. “Do you? Is this some kind of lark for you?”

He sighed and turned toward her finally, and she was shocked to see the exhaustion lining his face. “No, not a lark.”

Tears bit at the corner of her eyes, and she found to her horror that her voice trembled. “Haven’t you seen the babies starving while their mothers drink gin? Haven’t you stumbled over the bodies of broken men, mere skeletons from drink? My God, haven’t you wept at the corruption that drink brings?”

He closed his eyes.

“I have.” She bit her lip, struggled to control her emotions, to control herself. Reading wasn’t stupid. There must be some reason for his madness. “Explain it to me. Why? Why would you dabble in such a filthy trade?”

“That ‘filthy trade’ saved the Mandeville fortunes, my Lady Perfect.”

She shook her head sharply. “I don’t understand. I’ve never heard that the Mandeville fortune needed saving.”

His mouth twisted wryly. “Thank you. That means I did my job well.”

“Explain.”

“You know my father died some ten years ago?”

“Yes.” She remembered the conversation she’d had with Cousin Bathilda on her engagement night. “You immediately left Cambridge to go carouse about the town.”

His smile was genuine this time. “Yes, well, that tale was more palatable than the truth.”

“Which was?”

“Our pockets were to let. Yes”—he nodded at her incredulous expression—“my father had managed to lose the family fortune with a series of investments that were ill advised at best. I had no idea of the family’s finances. As I was the second son, Father and Thomas considered it none of my business. So when Mater told me at the funeral the straits we were in, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.”