One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) (17 page)

Places where it was like to get chopped off.

Hiring a replacement for Mr. Bagley was more difficult and more costly than Nate expected. Once he reached O’Roary’s gymnasium, where he’d hired Bagley in the first place, he was informed that the former pugilist’s body had been dragged from the Thames only that morning.

“Poor devil was garroted afore he was fed to the fishes. Saw the gash across his neck myself. Seems guarding a bunch of reformed whores is a more dangerous enterprise than ye might expect,” O’Roary observed wryly. Then he called for those interested in filling the empty position to come forward.

Nate had to sweeten the guard’s salary considerably, but finally Manfred Hock, a great hulking fellow with a cauliflower ear, one eye, and a game leg, agreed to take the post on Lackaday Lane.

If
nothing
else, Mr. Hock’s face alone will scare away potential ne’er-do-wells
, Nate decided as he counted out the fellow’s pay a month in advance. Hock was ordered to report to Mrs. Throckmorten at once.

At White’s, Nathaniel wasn’t a bit surprised to find Lord Gobberd at the same poque table where Nate had left him a few weeks earlier. The gentleman had assembled a new gaggle of willing victims, all of them emptying their pockets into the pot.

“Do you want in, Colton?” he asked with a calculated lift of a wiry brow.

“No, but I’d like a private word if you can spare it, my lord.”

Even if Gobberd couldn’t, Nate would have his word in any case, but it never hurt to act the gentleman. At least while in the hearing of others.

Gobberd squinted at his cards and tossed them down. “Deal me out for the next couple hands, but don’t give away my seat. I’ll be back.”

He waddled to a distant corner and settled his bulk into a booth with his broad back to the wall. Dissolute and just shy of disreputable, the earl was known for shady business dealings and, it was whispered, occasional cheating at cards, though no one had ever called him out on it. But Lord Gobberd still didn’t seem the type to stoop to murder.

Any
man
is
capable
of
it
, Nate reminded himself. Beneath the lace and superfine, man was still an animal, with a barely suppressed predator’s instinct for both self-preservation and aggression.

“Bring us a pot of that Jamaican stuff that just came off the boat,” Gobberd ordered the waiting servant. “Good beans, those.”

While they waited for the coffee to arrive, Nate studied his companion. Lord Gobberd was an accomplished poque player. Whether he held a winning hand or nothing at all, his heavily jowled face never revealed a thing.

It stood to reason the earl could just as easily cloak murderous intent behind his pale, vacant-seeming eyes.

“I know what this is about,” Gobberd finally said, obviously tired of the silence.

Nate didn’t answer. He just continued to meet his opponent’s steady gaze.

“I don’t care what you say.” Lord Gobberd leaned forward and cast Nate a gimlet stare. “You won it fair and square. I won’t take it back.”

Nathaniel frowned in confusion.

“Now look. Right now, over at that table, I’ve got a viscount, a newly elevated baron, and his American friend who seems to be the heir to a shipping magnate or some such thing on the string. I’ve been letting them win all night, but I know their tells and the tide is set to turn,” Gobberd confided. “If you want, you can use it to buy into the game now. Toss it into the pot and be done with it. Easy enough to lose a hand when a body means to, isn’t it? Between the pair of us, we’ll pick the others clean.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The deed to that whorehouse, of course,” Gobberd said. “Don’t tell them what it is, or even where it is, for God’s sake, and I’ll let you bluff your way into the game without a single pence from your pocket.”

Nate exhaled noisily. If Gobberd didn’t want the deed to the House of Sirens back, he was evaporating from the short list of suspects rather rapidly. “Did you lose the property to me on purpose?”

Gobberd shot him a frown of derision. “No, there was too much else in that pot for that, but I suspected I was about to take a tumble. I had an inkling you’d come out on top and, to be perfectly frank, I couldn’t bear not to give you a little grief for it.”

He smiled unpleasantly.

“Abominable place, isn’t it? Roof leaks like a sieve. Rotten to the rafters. And don’t get me started on the madam who’s the tenant,” Gobberd said. “Never met such a whiny, demanding bitch in all my life and I’ve been married three times!”

“I bought out her lease and sent her packing.”

Sadie O’Toole had screeched like a banshee, but in the end, she went because she knew she had no legal recourse. Nathaniel hadn’t seen or heard from the former madam since.

“Did you, now? Well, that’s one problem solved.” Gobberd gave him a nod of grudging respect. “But given the house’s location, I doubt you’ll attract any other tenants besides vagrant rats.”

“On the contrary, the House of Sirens’ rooms are all full,” Nate said.

Nearly
full
, he amended silently, remembering that Vesta’s chamber was now empty.

Then he went on to tell Gobberd how he’d become involved in Lady Georgette Yorkingham’s crusade to improve the lives of fallen women.

“Wouldn’t have figured you for a reformer, Colton. Don’t seem at all the type to go for that sort of meddling.” Gobberd gave him a slant-eyed squint. “What are you—some kind of secret Methodist?”

No, just a man who loves a meddlesome woman
.

“Well, someone doesn’t seem pleased about the meddling,” Nathaniel admitted and told Gobberd about the murders of both Vesta and Mr. Bagley. “Who do you think stands to lose if the House of Sirens is closed down?”

“No one really. I expect Sadie O’Toole has already set up a seedy little shop in Whitechapel by now.”

The coffee came then and both men paused to drink.

“One thing to bear in mind,” Gobberd said, “is that the House of Sirens catered to…particular tastes.”

This was news. None of the girls who’d stayed on had been very forthcoming about their former life with Madam Sadie, except to express relief that it had ended. “Such as?”

“Multiple women at once. Flagellation. Boys, on occasion. Don’t know where she got ’em, the poor little blighters. Even…” Gobberd’s gaze flitted around the room, then settled back on Nate. “Well, I’d best not say, but you should know that rumor has it that it wasn’t unusual for whores to come up missing there.”

“Missing,” he repeated. “Did they run away?”

Gobberd shook his head. “Not likely. For the girls who landed at the House of Sirens, there was no place else to go that wouldn’t be worse.”

Was
he
hinting
at
more
murders
in
the
area
that
had
gone
unreported?
“And nothing’s been done?”

“What’s to do? They’re just whores.” Gobberd shrugged. “Not that I know anything firsthand, you understand, but one hears rumors. It was another reason I was keen to unload the place. I keep a round little mistress in Cheapside, myself. She may not be the prettiest bint, but at least she’s reasonably clean. Limber, too. Do you know she can take her foot and put it—”

“Back to the subject at hand, if you please.” The last thing Nate wanted to hear about was Lord Gobberd’s odd exploits in the bedroom. “If the House of Sirens was a blight on a neighborhood that has pretty dim prospects to begin with, why would two murders come so quickly on the heels of it shutting down?”

“Men want what they want.” Gobberd spread his fleshy hands before him to accentuate his point. “But if Sadie’s is closed down, some of her clients with…unusual tastes might not be able to satisfy them in the usual way. Habits can be the very devil to break. And bad habits even worse.”

Nate’s gaze swept over the assembled gentlemen in the coffeehouse. Almost to a man, they were games-mad. If cards or dice weren’t available, they’d make up their own way to satisfy the urge to wager. They’d bet which raindrop would make it to the bottom of a windowpane first. They’d lay odds on whether a stray cat would head up or down the street. Anything to appease the need for that heady rush winning brings.

What would someone with even darker needs do if the place where they could be easily met was no longer available?

***

With every evidence of politeness, Georgette proffered her calling card to Mr. Duggins and asked that he deliver it to his mistress. Of course, the fresh loaf of quince bread she’d brought as a peace offering to the bully might have helped as well. And Reuben’s stalwart presence at her left shoulder undoubtedly improved the cordiality of her welcome.

The common room was cleaner than it had been last time Georgette was there. A girl with a pink ribbon holding back her long curls was playing a passable Mozart sonata on the upright pianoforte in the corner. The instrument was woefully out of tune, but the melody was still recognizable. A couple other girls, in various levels of dishabille but by no means indecently dressed for at-home wear, lounged on the red velvet couches.

Georgette was ushered into the madam’s private parlor on the second floor almost immediately. Gone was the blowsy harridan she remembered from their first encounter. Now the owner of the House of Pleasure was dressed in a dark tweed morning dress that was only a tad threadbare. Madam Bouchard poured tea from a silver service into a set of china cups that would have done credit to a Mayfair matron, but for a few chips here and there.

“I hope you’ll forgive the initial impression I made upon our first acquaintance. My only defense is that I had forgotten myself in the press of competition here on Lackaday Lane. I have remembered me now.”

Georgette blinked in surprise.

“I know your ladyship is not in the habit of calling on folk of my station,” Madam Bouchard said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“May I be frank?”

“Please.”

“I’m surprised by the change in your establishment,” Georgette said.
And
yourself
, she thought but decided it would be impolite to admit.

The madam buried her nose in her teacup for a moment. “Well, for that I must credit you and Lord Nathaniel. You’ve made some real changes in the neighborhood.”

“And you’re not upset by those changes?”

“Heavens, no. Well, I will confess that I was upset about Vesta leaving at first, but if a woman’s heart isn’t in whoring, she’s not going to be much good at it in the long run, is she now?”

“That makes sense.” Georgette had expected to encounter a defensive, evasive woman instead of this polite one. If Madam Bouchard wasn’t angry about Vesta leaving her, she certainly wasn’t likely to have had her killed. “But you are still running a brothel, yes?”

“Oh, yes, but now that Sadie’s is gone, the clientele is much improved. We don’t have to sink to her level in order to compete now, you see.” Madam Bouchard gestured gracefully with her free hand and Georgette realized she must have been a real beauty in her day. “Better gentlemen. Better whores. Makes everyone happier.”

“And what if one of your girls wants to leave?”

“She’s free to walk right across the lane to the House of Sirens whenever she likes. I’ll help her pack.” Madam Bouchard offered a plate of mince biscuits, but Georgette declined with a shake of her head. “There are always more girls who’re willing to lift their skirts. Truth to tell, an establishment like mine benefits from a change in staff from time to time. Gentlemen do like variety.”

“But someone is unhappy about the changes around here,” Georgette said. “You’ve heard about Vesta’s death, I assume?”

The madam put her teacup down. “Aye, that’s bad business, is that.”

“You know everything that happens here on Lackaday Lane.” Georgette figured a little flattery couldn’t hurt, especially since it was likely the truth. “Who do you think did this terrible thing?”

The aging whore turned her lips inward for a moment. “Someone who couldn’t bear not to, I’d expect.”

Georgette blinked hard, not certain she’d heard her properly.

“I see I’ve shocked you. I’m about to do it a bit more, but I think it’s important that you understand,” Madam Bouchard said. “Sadie O’Toole had a few customers who needed to hurt people.”

Georgette’s belly roiled like a pan of jellied eels.

“Now since they don’t have a place where they can do so in peace, they may have decided to find ways to do it on the sly.” The madam cocked her head at Georgette, like a merlin eyeing the field mouse it intends for dinner. “I can see you still don’t understand. Well, you likely wouldn’t, being yet a maiden.”

So, the fact that she was no longer a virgin wasn’t as readily apparent as she feared.

“I understand Vesta was strangled,” the madam said.

Georgette nodded.

“It is a little known fact that for some people, pleasure during the act of love is enhanced if they are deprived of breath,” the madam said. “They call themselves ‘gaspers,’ and while I don’t quite understand the allure myself, I can’t deny the practice exists.”

Georgette shook her head in disbelief. Evidently, one night with a rake did not mean her education into sensual things was exhaustive.

“But this was brutal. Violent. Vesta’s neck was broken as well. Her clothing was undisturbed so no one was…I mean, she wasn’t…”

“No one sent her off with a good hard swive, you’re saying,” the madam said. “That puts this in a different category then. Most gaspers want to be choked and they trust the one who’s doing the choking.”

“That’s not true in this case. I’ve been told it was fast. This was an assault. And that Vesta likely didn’t even see her attacker. There was nothing…consensual about it.”

“Well, consensual or not, there’s ways of pleasing and ways of taking pleasure. It takes all sorts, they do say.”

“Not that sort,” Georgette said, wishing desperately for a bath. She’d never felt so dirty. “No one should be allowed to hurt someone in order to pleasure themselves.”