The Heartbeat Thief (15 page)

“Jack was a champion at bedding them.” Posie sniffed. “I can see the attraction of the gambling parlours and the opium dens, but why he would debase himself to lie down with one of those women—”

“Well, he had no trouble doing it until day before yesterday.” Mr. Foster-Fink-Whomever laughed. “Apparently, he found the only woman in the East End who’s heard of the word
no
.”

“Yes, well.” Posie rubbed her hands together as if washing them of the situation. “All the same, Foster. It’s one thing to spend a weekend up the pole on a rowdy bend. It’s quite another to keep a whore. There’s a limit to things.”

Hmm.
Senza nodded, but didn’t speak her mind.
So. There was a place in London where limits could be crossed, where even the most reckless of her kind dared not tread.

These last seven years had done many things for her, but at the moment, the only one she could think about was that she had grown tired of limits. She’d simply outgrown her golden birdcage.

Senza chatted a while with the group, her attention far away from the petty trivialities about which the Royal Evanses seemed obsessed. The seed of discontent that had been germinating in her heart burst into bloom at last.

By the time Mrs. Branson’s carriage completed its circuit and pulled up beside her, Senza had made plans very different from the ones Mrs. Branson prattled on about the entire ride back to Lawrence Street.

Another opera. Oh, the joy. She could barely contain it.

She’d need to change, of course. Mrs. Branson would never approve of attending the theatre in riding attire. Each step she took up the stairs only increased the discontent in her chest, the suffocating swell growing heavier and heavier. Another night in the company of Branson’s fogies would completely unhinge her. Upon reaching her bedroom, however, she found a hope and a promise and the respite from her desperate sense of entrapment.

The wardrobe doors hung open, empty. The bureau and dressing table were bare. Two dresses lay on the bed. One was a deep sapphire party gown, her opera glasses laying upon its satin bodice. The other dress was new—well, not new, as it was a worn linen weave, a country plaid she’d never seen before. Her two bags were packed and waiting at the foot of the bed.

On the pillow lay a folded piece of yellow parchment. Senza crossed the room with a whoop of delight, snatching up the letter with a trembling hand.

A choice—more of the same, or time for a change? I think you are growing stagnant. Would you like to go slumming?

Senza tapped the paper against her lips and smiled a smile she hadn’t worn in a very long time.

Up in her room, Senza sat on the tidy bed, holding Knell’s journal, closed upon her lap. She’d checked it three times in the last ten minutes, steeling herself to accept what she’d read. The Chelsea address had been crossed off, and a new address scrawled below it.

Senza had not been the one who wrote it.

She begged Mrs. Branson’s pardon, feigning a headache. The matron issued orders for bed rest and a bowl of broth, which the Roberts faithfully supplied. Once the house had quieted, the staff retreating to their quarters to await Branson’s return, Senza crept down the stairs, dressed in the plain dress, bags in hand.

She hailed a cab at the corner of the block and read off her destination, repeating herself because the driver wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. He was familiar with the sight of Mrs. Branson’s ward, and probably could not imagine what business she could possibly have in such a neighborhood.

Money trumped a conscience, as it always did. A handful of coins helped him change his mind and he drove her there without further protest.

She barely noted the streets, the familiar sights that had been her home for seven years. Truthfully, the last seven had eventually felt as long as the decades that had led up to them. She wouldn’t miss Chelsea. Not at all.

Journal in hand, she noted the other changes Knell had made. More accounts, foreign holdings. More money than she’d know how to spend. And the address—a public house, it seemed, if the colorful name was any indication.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the carriage took her to a mixed neighborhood in the East End, where homes of both poor and more comfortable Londoners spotted the same streets. The cab stopped in front of a corner inn, with a weathered painted sign over its door. The Iron Lion.

She paid the cabbie, who urged his horses off, a streak of unease thinning his usually-booming voice.

The tavern was moderately lit, with greasy glass lamps leaking yellowed light onto the crowded tables. Rowdy patrons, working men and weary women. The serving girl seemed to have made a target for hands and crude words. No place for a respectable young lady, traveling alone. Senza paused in the doorway, waiting for the barkeep to notice her.

And he immediately noticed her, without a doubt. Nearly tripped over a bench to get to her.

“You be wantin’ a table, miss?” He wiped his hands on his stained apron, leaving an oily smear.

“A room.” Her voice held more than a chill. It was cold enough for frost to grow on his ears.

He squinted at her. “Rooms cost money.”

“Only if they are clean and secure.” She pulled her purse from her waist, and pinched out several coins. Holding them up for his inspection, she stowed her purse in a different pocket to thwart the pickpockets. “Clean sheets, a fresh basin, and a hot meal. A decent one.”

He reached for the money, his eyes devouring the sight of it. She snapped it out of his grasp. “And privacy. Have you such a room for sale?”

“I do, miss.” He bobbed his head and backed off. “Through here, miss. Let me fetch your bags. Molly, up here—”

He grabbed her bags and hurried through the door at the side of the bar. Grateful to leave the prying eyes of the crowed tavern, she followed, the serving girl in their wake.

The room was just as he’d said. Threadbare, but clean. Orange blossoms decorated the faded and worn wall paper, and a hand-woven rug of rust-colored wool covered the floor near the bed. Free of drafts, and surprisingly quiet for all the ruckus in the tavern below. She tested the lock on the door. It held. She nodded at the bartender, who’d been twisting his stained apron in his hands, waiting on her approval.

He released a noisy breath and sent the girl into a flurry of activity. Molly fixed the bed and fetched clean water for the wash basin before disappearing again.

“I want fresh water always waiting.” Senza glanced out the small window, the haze of the street lamps like blurry orbs below. “You can leave the pitcher outside the door. Also, I require a newspaper every day. Is this room secure if I go out?”

“Yes, miss.” He fished a key off a ring tied to his belt and set it on the small table. “This side is private. Me and Molly, that’s me daughter—we sleep in the room across.”

Molly returned with a covered bowl and a cloth-wrapped bundle, setting it on the tiny table near the bed. “Stew, miss. And bread, still warm from the oven.”

For the first time, Senza noticed the girl, her ruddy eyes and scalded cheeks…and the determined cheer that spoke of true contentment. Molly seemed very proud to offer the wealthy stranger her very best.

The ability to find cheer in such harsh conditions spoke of tremendous strength. Senza thawed a bit, and lost some of the severity that had been lingering about her mouth.

Hearty aromas escaped in a fragrant steam from gaps in the bundle. It would be coarse bread, she knew, but the scent was no less sweet, evoking memories of large bright kitchens and the grandmother who insisted on kneading her own dough. “I’m sure it will be wonderful, Molly.”

Molly smiled a shy flash of relief and ducked out of the room. Senza thanked the tavern keep who left wearing a stunned look on his face. A decent, hard-working man, she surmised. He obviously didn’t hear
thank you
often in his line of work.

A meager meal alone in a Whitechapel pub. Certainly not the salon where she’d supped under guard only the night before.

She untucked the cloth, finding bread and a clean spoon within. Well. Life certainly was unpredictable, after all.

Senza ate quickly. The stew was heavily peppered, the bread on the salty side. Although the meal wasn’t quite to the standard to which she’d become accustomed, it was sturdy and of decent quality. She washed it down with a mug of watered wine the girl had brought up.

Stout stew, thick bread, yet she was still hollow. Unsatisfied. It wasn’t food she wanted.

She toyed with the locket a moment. It was time. She needed to feed for a different kind of hunger.

This meal, she knew, would have less ceremony than what she’d long endured with Mrs. Branson.

She hurried through the dirty streets, the poorest section along the docks. So different from the upper class London manors. Entire families lived in single rooms here. People moved in masses, consumed with work and the daily struggle to feed themselves and when that became too much for them, they found respite from their demons.

For some, it lay in the arms of a prostitute. For others, it lay in dingy den such as the one that stood before her—a dilapidated building, one of a seamless row of worn wooden shacks that was anything but abandoned.

Here, within its dank depths, men chased demons of their own.

They chased dragons.

The parchment slip scratched against her skin where she’d tucked in into her bodice. Tightening her woolen shawl around her shoulders, she drew a fortifying breath. She didn’t need to look at the address written upon it. She knew it was the right location.

These opium dens were a far cry from the decadent salons of high society. Dim, cloying, death and smoke. The exotic men that ran these parlors cared for none of the poor souls that languished within. All they wanted was their money. Bodies that pursued slow, dreamy deaths lay sprawled on low cots, soaked in their own filth.

The den masters eyed her when she walked in, her fine clothes, her cleanliness. It all translated into the clink of coins. That was the common language they spoke.

She slipped the master a pound note, careful not to touch his tarry fingers. “A back room, please.”

He bowed and led her deep into the hazy catacombs.

As the small man led her through the maze of bodies, she reached out her hands and dragged them across each person, stealing a heartbeat from each. In their altered state, they wouldn’t notice, let alone protest. Each beat singed a hot line up her arm, thumping into her chest. The locket warmed to a searing glow as beat after beat engorged it.

Senza closed her eyes and hummed, so great was the buzz that flooded through her. Twenty heartbeats in the space of a few minutes. It left little room to breathe.

Surrounded by death and slow decay…yet she’d never felt more alive.

In the far back corner, the man stopped in front of a door. He pulled it open, revealing a worn room. Hanging lanterns cast sleepy glows upon the velvet settees arranged within. A pedestal oil lamp stood next to one of the couches. He motioned with a hand, indicating she should sit.

She brushed off the cleaned-looking couch and spread out her thick shawl, settling down and reclining, tucking her feet under her skirts.

He selected a reed and held the tip to one of the lantern flames. Carefully, he carried the tiny glow to the lamp by the couch, tethering the sullen flame to its wick. A long metal pipe, a slender tube of brass, lay atop a low rectangular table next to a painted clay pot. Opening the pot, he spooned some of its contents into the bowl of the pipe, packing it with his thumb as he turned toward her.

He placed the pipe in her hand, motioning to her to lay back on the pillow. As she did, he held the bowl of the pipe over the orange flame. Fragrant smoke drifted low and lazily, catching the light and cascading itself into golden beams.

“I wish not to be disturbed,” she said

“Understood, madam.” He slipped out, closing the door behind him.

She lowered the pipe to the floor and fanned the smoke away. Repulsive habit, in any form.

However, she was sated, as if after a sumptuous feast, full of throbbing beats. As wretched as those souls had been, their heartbeats were pure, full of force and fury. She’d fill her locket to brimming before she quit this den. But for now…

Right now, she’d have a nap. Opium dreams weren’t the only to be found here, even if she had to pretend she actually dreamt.