Since the Surrender (30 page)

There, in gold letters, it read: THE MYRTLEBERRY THEATER. He whirled on Rosalind. “The puppets have been speaking to me!”

he crowed in triumph.

he crowed in triumph.

He briefly registered her grave concern for his sanity as he dove toward the theater.

“And if ye thought ye’d nivver see

A saintly man called Evers—ack!”

Chase snatched the puppeteer by the shirt collar and dragged him backward. Myrtleberry went, trailing puppets and strings, and a chorus of frightened “Ohs!” went up from the crowd. Chase roughly released the puppeteer.

“Drop those puppets, Myrtleberry—”

“You mean marionettes,” Myrtleberry squeaked.

“—and stuff them into their little coffins—”

“They’re called cases,” the puppeteer corrected, faintly.

“—and ‘come along with me,’” Chase mimicked snidely. “We’re going to have a little chat. And don’t bother passing the hat. There won’t be a show today. It’s over.”

Rude whistling and shouting and general tumult had taken over the crowd. A few apple cores were hurled in their direction when it became clear that someone had interrupted their entertainment.

“Move from that spot upon pain of death,” he snarled at a blanched Myrtleberry.

He strode to the front and bellowed: “Myrtleberry will return with his theater next time the weather’s fine. With a new repertoire,” he added conciliatorily to the crowd.

added conciliatorily to the crowd.

And warningly to the puppeteer.

This seemed to placate everyone well enough. They filed away, grumbling and murmuring in speculation about what that repertoire might be.

He’d told Liam to amuse himself for an hour, marched Myrtleberry into the Mumford Arms, cleared a table of the people sitting at it with a single black scowl—they’d scrambled to get away—and now he and Rosalind and the puppeteer were seated together. He quickly told Rosalind of the songs he’d heard and his suspicions, to reassure her as to the state of his sanity. And she quite understood why he hadn’t said anything earlier.

“Myrtleberry sounds more like the name of a puppet than a man,”

Chase said testily. He threw back half a pint in a mighty swallow that widened Rosalind’s eyes. He winced and wiped his mouth. Donkey piss, he mouthed to her. He pushed it over to her, and she sipped at it.

Less confusing when she actually tasted it.

“It’s me real name.” Myrtleberry was a bit defensive. The theater, as it turned out, could be bundled into a bulky but portable trunk along with the puppets, and the trunk now rested at his feet beneath the table. Chase looked down at it askance. Gave it a nudge with his toe as if all the puppets might come springing out of it, and if they dared, he’d stomp them to splinters.

“Why do you feel the need to mock my family in song every time you see me? What the devil are you trying to tell me, old man? How do you see me in the crowd?”

“You’re quite distinctive, Captain Eversea. You’re very tall, your features are quite pronounced, your eyes are very bright, you look quite wealthy and haughty, and the top of your walking stick is quite distinctive, too. It shines in the sun, and in the type of crowd we get in the square, you rather stand out as a character. That’s how I see you.” He peered more closely at Chase. “You’d make a wonderful marionette.”

“Bite. Your. Tongue. Myrtleberry.”

He felt Rosalind press a restraining knee against his at the pub table.

“What do you know about that painting? What are you trying to tell me? And why couldn’t you have just told me directly? Instead of this cryptic nonsense?”

“Because they said they’d kill my Cora. And me.”

The man was trembling now.

Rosalind touched him very lightly, and just that touch induced calm. Chase inhaled. “Start at the beginning, Myrtleberry.”

Rosalind noticed that he seemed to be enjoying saying the name

“Myrtleberry.”

“I knew you would help, if you could. I overheard you speaking with Mrs. March by that painting in the museum, you see. And I’ve heard about you, Captain Eversea. A friend of mine served under you in the war. Clackham.”

the war. Clackham.”

“Good man, Clackham.”

All of his men had been good men, Rosalind noticed. Likely thanks to him. Chase sounded warily conciliatory.

“And I thought that if I could only draw your attention,” Myrtleberry went on, “you might pay attention to the songs, and they might strike a chord, as it were, and you’d be inspired for yourself to discover…what is going on. Since Mrs. March’s sister is missing, too.”

“What do you know about Lucy?” Rosalind’s voice was taut now. It was Chase’s turn to press a restraining knee. Myrtleberry sighed. “Cora made a mistake, aye? She was arrested by a Charley who said she nicked fruit from a costermonger wagon, and she may have done. She’s nay a saint, my girl, though she’s a good heart. And then she disappeared. I couldn’t find her anywhere, the magistrate said he hadn’t seen her, and my heart was near to breaking—she’s all I had in the world.”

This was quite a familiar theme, a dastardly one, and Chase’s fist closed tightly around his pint.

“And then I was sent a letter saying that Cora was safe, that she was enduring a different but easier sort of punishment. And that she would not be harmed if I were to build a few things to specifications. I’m a carpenter, aye? In addition to being a puppeteer.”

It took a moment for this to register, because they weren’t expecting to hear anything of the sort.

Chase asked, “Build a few things? What kind of things?”

“I built a pirate ship. I built a small forest—a stage set, really

—featuring miniature toadstools, a rainbow, and a pot of gold. I was asked to build something resembling a large rock surrounded by sea.”

More astounded silence.

“But where did all of this take place?” Rosalind asked.

“Start at the beginning as best you can, Mr. Myrtleberry,” Chase ordered evenly.

Myrtleberry looked up hopefully at the brisk, dispassionate question. Bracing, as always, Chase’s tone.

“I was told to come to the museum alone one night, very late, if I would do the work for them. I was worried about me Cora, aye? So I did. I was met by a masked man in front of it—he had a pistol drawn, and he was much taller than I—who was I to resist? He blindfolded me and marched me—with the pistol in my back—well, I still cannot tell you precisely where. Though I know—I would swear it—we walked through the museum. I could smell it. The linseed oil. The candles. I could feel the air. I know the museum, you see. And so we walked for—ten minutes or so. Went through a door of some kind—I heard it open. The air changed from close to musty and cool…”

He paused. Rosalind pushed over the rest of Chase’s pint, and Myrtleberry drank it thankfully.

“When they removed my blindfold, I found myself in a very large room, grand, mind you, with a high ceiling and a marble floor, but with naught in it. The walls were painted pink, and there was molding all around, and a hearth. Like a bedchamber, aye, only much larger? And the materials I needed to build these things were much larger? And the materials I needed to build these things were in the room. Hammers and nails and a saw and an awl and the like; wood and paint. They knew as a puppeteer I could build sets; I’d built sets for stage shows in Covent Garden once or twice. I was given specifications, told to begin, and then they locked the door behind me.”

He paused. And drew in a shaky breath.

“Go on,” Chase urged.

Rosalind put a hand over the puppeteer’s big gnarled hand.

“A few hours later a masked man would return—same man, same voice, very aristocratic—and I was blindfolded again and led back out. Always at pistol point. Each day, for a few weeks, this very same thing happened, until everything was built to satisfaction. If I told him there was something—a tool, or some such—I needed to get the work done, it always appeared. If he wanted something I’d built altered, I was told to alter it. And then at last I was told I no longer needed to go to the museum. But that Cora wasn’t yet free to go, because they might need me again, aye?”

“What do you remember about this man? His voice, anything distinctive about it?”

“He seemed tall. Voice came from a great height over me. Very aristocratic. I would know it anywhere again.”

“When was the last time you were marched at pistol point, Mr. Myrtleberry?”

“It’s been well nigh a month now. And me Cora…she’s still gone.”

Rosalind felt the ache in the man’s voice squarely in her chest.

“And why…but why are you singing about the painting in the museum? The Rubinetto? Angels and so forth?”

“Well, I look after the puppets at the Montmorency, aye? And sometimes…” He inhaled. “Sometimes I think can hear me Cora laughing when I’m in the museum. But distant like. Like a memory, not a real laugh. And when I hear it, it’s always when I’m in that room with the Slovakian marionette. And each time I was marched through to the room where I worked, I could smell the oil I use on the puppets. It’s much stronger in that room.

“And Captain Eversea…once, when I was locked in the room, when I stopped hammering, and the like, I heard through the walls, too: men laughing. And one of them…well, one of them said something about girls on their backs.”

The three of them were suddenly chilled silent.

“I’m afraid, Captain Eversea. I want my Cora back, what e’r she done.”

All the lords laugh at the girls on their backs. Rosalind looked at Chase, and he was looking at her, and the kaleidoscope of clues began to solidify into one awful suspicion. What felt like an iceberg mounded in Rosalind’s stomach. She felt Chase’s knee against hers again.

It struck her that they’d scarce spent a moment without subtly touching each other the entire time they’d sat in the Mumford Arms. He knew, she thought. He knows what his presence does to me, and how unable I am to think when he touches me, and he wants both to reassure me…and to ensure that we become lovers. reassure me…and to ensure that we become lovers. If you see my angels, like as not you’re in a brothel, Mr. Wyndham had said.

“Do you think the museum is being used as a brothel?” Chase said this quite evenly.

But Rosalind glanced at his hand. His knuckles had gone white around the tankard of…donkey piss, apparently.

Mr. Myrtleberry’s hard, round, red cheeks blanched.

“I could not say, sir,” he said faintly. “But to hear them laugh about girls on their backs…I cannot say what else it might mean. I swear to you it’s those are the very words I heard.”

“We’ve had a look around the museum during the day,” Chase mused. “We’ve had a look ’round it at night. We didn’t see any additional rooms.”

Mr. Myrtleberry gave a start, perhaps at the idea of them creeping around the museum at night. And regarded them both with great interest.

“A brothel would certainly explain why the Velvet Glove had seen a certain amount of attrition in its clientele in recent weeks,” Chase continued thoughtfully. “It’s been quiet, the Duchess said. I found it so. Very odd.” Rosalind didn’t think she’d ever grow accustomed to offhand references to brothels. Even Mr. Myrtleberry’s hard round cheeks blushed rosier.

But Chase was oblivious to the discomfort of his companions and quite clearly still thinking aloud.

“I suspect the painting must be an indication of the presence of a brothel, or at the very least a place for arranged assignations with

…indentured women.”

She recognized the almost dangerous calm in his voice. The thread of dark glee. He did like a challenge. He did like righting wrongs. And as usual, he seemed happiest in the presence of contrariness.

“Chase…I know I mentioned it, but the cigar smoke I thought I smelled that evening was fresh. Not stale smoke. As though someone had just passed through with a cigar.”

He drained the donkey piss, plunked town the tankard, and said to her, “Well, I think you and I will be visiting the Montmorency again tonight with a more specific plan.”

After promising Mr. Myrtleberry he would do what he could to find his daughter, Chase brought Rosalind home.

He walked her from the carriage all the way up to the bright red door.

“Rosalind…”

She looked up expectantly, thinking perhaps he’d had another inspiration regarding the whereabouts of the girls.

“I should like to make love to you again soon.”

The sudden words gave her vertigo, and he seemed to know, the devil. He casually reached out a hand and with two fingers braced her from toppling from the top step.

“You need only say yes when next I ask you. You’ll know the moment. I’ll fetch you at dawn.”

What could a woman say to that?

He took a step down. And turned back.

“And Rosalind…think back to the Velvet Glove, and a certain painting, and all of the things I told you were possible, and you’ll know precisely what I have in mind for us. In case that helps your decisions.”

He waited to ensure that she was properly scarlet and breathless from picturing it, for she could not have prevented it if she tried. He took the final step down.

“And Rosalind…I leave for India in one week, but I’m leaving for Sussex to say good-bye to my family tomorrow, and I don’t know how soon I’ll return.”

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and those blue eyes burned into her. Stripped her as surely as knowing hands. They were dark with intent but not with entreaty; he was a gentleman, but he had pride. Whatever they finally learned tonight, whatever they discovered, he still wanted her to choose what she wanted.

He tipped his hat, and nodded, and boarded the carriage, and was gone.

She was fetched by the Eversea carriage two hours before dawn. Rosalind had dressed herself in shadow-colored clothing in honor Rosalind had dressed herself in shadow-colored clothing in honor of their plans.

Once she was in the carriage, she pressed herself against the seat, folded her hands in her lap, held her body still, and wondered when he would say the word. It was all she could do, frankly, not to spring at Chase—his eyes burning into hers in the dark, shadows making a harlequin of his face—but anticipation was a potent aphrodisiac. You’re entitled to pleasure, Rosalind.