Notorious Pleasures (32 page)

He’d not sufficiently trusted any of the men at the still to put them in charge, so he’d been forced to press Deedle into service. His valet stood, armed like a buccaneer, two pistols in his belt and a sword as well. Griffin looked up at the sky. The day was fleeing fast as night cast long shadows in St. Giles.

Deedle pushed his tongue through the hole in the front of his teeth. “What’s ’appened to you, m’lord?”

Griffin shook his head, then stopped as it throbbed in warning. “Nothing to worry yourself over.”

Deedle snorted. “If you say so.”

“Take it or leave it, I don’t give a damn.” Griffin strode into the dim interior of the still warehouse. He hadn’t the patience to argue semantics with Deedle this evening.

“Then I’ll leave it,” Deedle said, skipping to keep up with him.

“What’s happened since I was here last?” Griffin asked.

Deedle sighed. “We’ve lost two more men overnight. That brings us to five, not including we two.”

“You doubled their pay again?”

Deedle nodded. “Just like you said to. Didn’t keep those two fellows from doin’ a runner.”

“I don’t suppose it matters much anymore anyway,” Griffin said. He watched dispassionately as his remaining men filled oaken barrels with gin. “The whole thing’ll be over after tonight.”

Deedle came around to face him. “Then it’s tonight?”

“Yes.” Griffin gazed at the big copper kettles, the barrels of waiting gin, the fires, and the huge warehouse itself. Everything he and Nick had worked so hard to build. “Yes, tonight.”

“Jesus,” Deedle breathed. “Are you sure? We’ve less than a dozen men and not all the supplies you wanted. M’lord, it’ll be near suicide.”

Griffin stared back at Deedle, his gaze level, his head pounding, his mouth tasting of blood and bile. He’d lost Hero, would lose his mother to London, never had a chance of reconciling with Thomas in the first place, and Nick, his dear friend, was dead and buried. The bloody still was the last thing he had left in London.

“Tonight or never. I’m not waiting any longer. I want this over with.” He turned and picked up one of the wicked-looking swords his men used and then glared back at Deedle. “Are you with me or not?”

Deedle swallowed and gripped his pistol. “Aye, m’lord, I am.”

“Told ’im and is leading ’im to Reading’s still as we speak,” Freddy said. So great was his glee that he almost looked Charlie full in the face.

Almost, but not quite.

Charlie spilled the dice to the table. Two aces. Deuce. For a moment he stared, mesmerized by the ill omen. Deuce could foretell death, but whose—his enemy’s or his own… or perhaps the woman who lay above?

“We’ll draw him out,” Charlie whispered, still mesmerized by the unlucky dice throw. “Draw him out, kill him, and fire the still.”

A shout rose from the group of men arguing over an overturned cart in the road. Her carriage was stuck behind the accident in a street too narrow to turn around.

“I understand your objections,” Hero murmured. “But I cannot wait for them to clear the road. It could take hours.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, my lady, but couldn’t we send word back home for another footman or two to join us?”

“I’ve told you. I haven’t the time.” Hero picked up her skirts and began to walk briskly away from her carriage and the accident.

“But after dark,” George fretted. “What if we’re attacked, my lady?”

“You’ve got the pistols,” Hero said soothingly.

George looked unconvinced by this assurance, but he made no more protestations. Instead he fixed a suspicious eye on their surroundings.

Hero bit her lip as she wrapped her cloak about herself. She couldn’t blame George. This expedition was dangerous—
very
dangerous. Normally she’d never even contemplate going into St. Giles after dark, let alone on foot and with but a single bodyguard. She was quite aware of the dangers St. Giles posed.

But what other choice did she have? She needed to get to Griffin’s still as soon as possible. She hadn’t wanted to risk arousing Cousin Bathilda’s suspicions by taking more than one footman.

Hero glanced about them. The street they were in was darkening and becoming deserted as she watched. Everyone seemed to want to get inside before full dark. She shivered. Dear Lord, what if she was too late and Maximus had already made his raid on the still? The thought of Griffin in chains, of him being thrown into some wretched prison, was almost more than she could bear. He was so proud! Worse, what if he resisted being taken? What if he were shot?

She nearly sobbed at the thought. This was insane. Just last night she’d rejected him as thoroughly as if she’d written it all down on paper. Now she was racing through the St. Giles alleys in fear for his life.

Had she gone insane? Or had she simply made a terrible mistake?

Why had she sent him away in the first place? All the considered arguments she’d given him, all the well-reasoned points, none of them made sense anymore. All she knew was what her innermost heart felt: she wanted Griffin. Despite his wild ways, despite his shady past, despite the fact that her brother was about to arrest him for distilling gin.

She wanted Griffin. She’d die if anything happened to him, and she very much feared that her life would be a long, gray, boring test of endurance without him in it. She wanted him, she needed him, and
yes
, she loved him—she’d admit it now that it might be too late. She loved him.

And that was all that mattered.

Of course, the shadows also hid those who
preyed
upon the predators. Tonight that included Griffin and Deedle.

Griffin checked with his fingers that his gun was cocked. “It might be barmy, but it’s our only chance.”

Deedle grunted. “The Vicar and ’is gang won’t be expecting us—that’s for certain. Not sitting out ’ere in the dark.”

Something scraped and Griffin turned his head toward the sound, alert and silent. A low shape darted across the alley.

“Cat,” Deedle whispered. “Think the Vicar will attack tonight?”

“He’s been waiting since they killed Nick,” Griffin murmured. “He’s hoping most of my men have fled—which they have, damn him—and he wants me desperate and afraid. I’d say there’s a good chance that tonight’s the night.”

Deedle gripped Griffin’s shoulder just as Griffin saw the shadow move. Three men were creeping up the alley. One leaped and clawed at the wall of the warehouse. They were going to stop the chimneys again in preparation for the rest of the attack, if Griffin wasn’t mistaken.

Griffin charged low and fast and without sound. He caught the first man by the hair and clubbed him with the butt of his gun. The man went down like a felled tree. The second man shouted, but Deedle shot him. Griffin turned and aimed at the man scaling the wall. He squeezed the trigger and felt his chest expand in savage triumph when the man fell.

Then someone hit him from the side. His pistol flew from his hand as he was thrown violently against the wall. His attacker was a giant with a giant’s fists, pounding at his face, his belly. Griffin gasped, winded, the world spinning. He drew his pistol and shot point-blank into the other man’s face.

He felt the sting of gunpowder against the side of his face, the spray of something wet and sticky. He pushed aside the body and glanced up, his ears strangely muffled. Men were pouring in at the far end of the alley, running toward him and Deedle, at least twenty of them, maybe more.

It was a trap, he thought, oddly composed. The Vicar had been waiting for them to emerge from the walls of the still warehouse. And they had. They had.

Griffin walked to the middle of the alley and turned, drawing his sword to face the oncoming slaughter.

“M’lord,” Deedle wheezed beside him. “Who the ’ell is that?”

And Griffin looked over his shoulder and realized that a
second
group of men blocked the
other
end of the alley, marching in line, coming toward them. Behind them were men on horseback.

“Soldiers.” He spat blood into the dust at his feet. “The Duke of Wakefield is coming to arrest me if I’m not mistaken.”

“Dear God in heaven,” Deedle muttered. “We’re dead, m’lord. Dead!”

And Griffin threw back his head and laughed. The sound echoed off the filthy brick walls that enclosed the alley he was about to die in.

She’d known of another possible wet nurse for the baby, but the second woman lived nearly a mile away from the first, and in the opposite direction of the home. She’d hurried there as fast as she could walk with the babe in her arms. And in the end, Silence had been very satisfied with the placement. The new wet nurse, Polly, had been employed in the past by the home and had always given satisfactory service. Although her own children were now weaned, Polly assured Silence that she had enough milk for the orphaned infant.

A good day’s work, but an exhausting one, and the reason she was now caught out after dark.

Silence pulled her light woolen cloak more securely about her shoulders and eyed a dark doorway as she passed it. She was trying very hard not to think of some of the awful tales she heard from Nell—an inveterate teller of horror stories. The woman who’d been strangled by a lover. The woman who’d been dragged into an alley and savagely attacked by three drunken men. The woman who had gone out to buy a meat pie for her four children and simply disappeared, her shoe found the next day in an alley.

Silence shivered. All of Nell’s stories had two common elements: They were all about women out alone.

And they all took place after dark.

A cry came from up ahead, and Silence’s steps faltered. She was in a wide street, but there were no cross streets nearby. Only a single flickering lantern hung over a tiny cobbler’s shop. Voices could be heard and lights, growing stronger, coming nearer.

Silence looked about desperately. A man shouted an angry curse. Then a crowd came tearing around the corner of the street up ahead. There were men holding torches, but also women. They milled and shouted, and in the middle was some kind of wretched
thing
that they were dragging by a collar.

Someone smashed a window and Silence flinched. She was already backing away, turning to hurry up the street she’d just walked down. But that direction was
away
from the home. She looked over her shoulder as two men dragged the wretch they’d caught to the middle of the street and began beating him with cudgels.

“ ’Ave mercy!” she heard their victim cry.

There were more curses and amid them a single hoarse shout she could make out:
“Informer!”

Dear Lord, they were lynching a gin informer.

Doors opened up ahead, but when she looked there hopefully, more people came out and ran toward the horrible scene behind her. The street was suddenly filled with shouting madmen. Someone jostled her and Silence tripped. She fell against a house wall, pressing herself back.

A drunken man loomed in front of her, hands twitching, ugly mouth leering. Without a word, he snatched the hood from her head, pulling her hair painfully as he did so. Behind him, flames shot up to the sky, framing his black face with orange. What in God’s name were they doing to the poor informer?

But she had worse to think about right in front of her. The ugly man leaned over her menacingly.

Silence darted to the right and for a split second felt a rush of welcome relief because she thought she was free.

Then a heavy hand caught her by the hair, and she knew the night was about to become a nightmare.