Love in disguise, p.24
Love in Disguise, page 24
He didn’t belong there any more than the little man did, though their business had caused one to sink lower and the other to rise higher so that they might meet in the middle to discuss it. For if the little man would never even be allowed to linger on the sidewalk outside the sort of place his visitor usually frequented, his visitor would not even step outside his carriage to enter the sort of hostelry the little man passed most of his time in. Even so, it was plain that the higher classes had less mobility than the lower, if only because there were fewer of them, for though the little man was profoundly ill-at-ease, where he sat, he did not look especially out of place. The gentleman who sat opposite him was so wildly mismatched with his surroundings that all conversation had ceased the moment he’d ducked his head down to walk in through the low door.
Still, they had privacy. The little man’s business was too well known, even here, for sane men to care to overhear what he was up to. The gentleman was too rare a sight to be a healthy one, and he had too dangerous a look to him, anyway, to even tempt a fellow to try to cadge a penny piece from him. The loiterers in the tavern might not be able to read, but they’d learned to read their fellowmen right early on, or else they wouldn’t have been able to survive to adulthood. And they could easily see that not only was the gent too tall and broad and well-set-up for one man to take on alone, but it would be wiser altogether to avoid a bloke with that sort of cold edge to his voice, that forbidding look in his wide, fair face, and that something they saw glittering now and again in those blue eyes that was far too cold for sanity.
That look sparkled in his light blue eyes now, and the little man shivered, but then, he often did, but then he said a thing he almost never did, for it was the truth, and it had been frightened out of him at last. “Sir,” he said anxiously, “I can’t do nuffink for you. No, and I mean that. It ain’t the job, for that’s my bread an’ butter. Snuffing a cove’s easy. Nuffink simpler. Be he high or low, if the price is right, Jimmy Spiv’s yer man, they told you right in that, all right. There’s not many who’d say it, fewer still who’d do it—takin’ on a highborn gent, for fear of their necks. But mine’s not worth much, an’ I know it. Aye, I’d dance on a rope if they caught me, but for what you’d gimme ’twould be a dance of joy, ’cause I’d die richer than I ever lived. But I can’t.”
“And why not?” the gentleman asked.
Jimmy Spiv kept his hand in his ragged jacket, and fingered the sharpest knife he had concealed there over his wildly beating heart, but for once it didn’t comfort him, no, not when he had to look back into those quietly cold eyes.
“Because of t’ Lion,” he said at last, and swore and then cursed himself for a fool, for as soon as the word was out he knew his mistake and knew he’d have to leave this tavern and then London itself for saying what he had.
“Ah, Lion, yes,” the gentleman said thoughtfully, “I know the man. But if you don’t fear the rope, Jimmy, why fear the Lion? Death’s death, when all’s said.”
“No, it ain’t,” the little man said, rising, beginning to dance away from the table sidewise, in a crabbed scuttle. “Lion’s worse’n death, sir. Bank on it. Good day to you, sir, good day.”
And hopping away from the table, he backed off, and moving quickly backward, left the tavern, leaving the gentleman alone at his table.
It was not the first time this day, nor even this week, that he’d been left so. But oddly, now here, where there was no one he knew, or cared to know, to watch him suffer the indignity, he was even angrier than he’d been before. Last week, at Watier’s, he’d been discouraged; the day before, at Madame Felice’s, he’d been displeased; this morning, at his club, he’d been disbelieving; but now he was beyond all that, he was enraged. Lord Moredon had never known defeat; though he’d suffered it before, as all men do, he’d always been able to disguise it for himself. Now he found there was no way to circumvent the thing. It was simplicity itself, that was why it was impossible to get around. He wanted revenge upon Julian Dylan, Viscount Hazelton, he needed revenge upon Mr. Warwick Jones. He could get neither, he could get none. Nor could he forget it.
He’d tried for revenge, he’d attempted obliviousness. So far he’d had no success with either.
He couldn’t get the incident at Gentleman Jackson’s out of his mind. Neither wine, nor women, nor sleep, his usual retreats, could get the sight of that dark, avenging, implacable face from his mind’s eye, or take the shock he’d felt as he’d found himself unable to defend himself from his memory, or take the taste of the shame of defeat from his mouth, and that taste has been more bitter than the blood he’d tasted there. It was Warwick Jones’s blood he wanted now. Nothing else would mend the insult. But Warwick Jones, who ought to have been the easiest target for retribution, had turned out to be the most impervious to it.
The first step to destroying a man, if it were to be done well, and done entirely, was to take his good name away. Warwick Jones lived alone, he wasn’t an ornament of society, but was part of it by birth, and known to be odd, unusual, and reclusive. That being the case, that being famous in fact, who would have believed, Lord Moredon thought, staring down at the bare table he sat at, that the man would be so well-defended?
For he’d gone to Watier’s not four nights past, so soon as his face had healed enough for the sight of it not to cause talk, and he’d gambled for such high stakes at that gilded gaming house that he’d attracted attention to himself for it, and that was what he’d been after. He was annoyed to discover himself realizing it was wildly extravagant, dimly recalling the exigencies his man-at-business had lately been plaguing him about. But he’d needed one scandal to overshadow the other, believing it better to be discussed for being reckless with money than to be spoken of as having been defeated by a man younger, leaner, and altogether less sizable than himself. Then, as all had gone according to plan, when he’d had wine with a group of influential gentlemen after, he’d dropped the name, so cleverly working it into the conversation that he believed it looked as though the drubbing had slipped his mind, and that if he recalled it at all, it was only as the merest jest.
Then at that table with the other bored gentlemen—an earl, a duke, a famous poet, and a confidant of the Prince among their number—he dropped the hint. He’d mentioned that though he wasn’t best pleased with losing the blunt tonight, he certainly wouldn’t set about repairing his purse the way some supposed gentlemen did. And when no one inquired further, he began to speak of rumors he’d heard of certain persons who trafficked in certain secrets for their money. And then he’d mentioned such names as Napoleon, and Joseph Bonaparte, and Warwick Jones.
He’d offered to say more. They’d left. At once, en masse, silently, and immediately.
It transpired that they all admired Jones. Some of them had been to school with him, some knew him through various businesses he involved himself with. Warwick Jones might ignore society, but society never ignored him. Lord Moredon hadn’t known that then, but found it out later that night, from a drunken fop too castaway to care what he said, much less care that it was no longer considered correct to be speaking with him.
He hadn’t wanted a girl from Madame Felice’s the next night, but he’d known that there would be other influential men gathered in the grand salon of that ornate bawdy house. And so, as he’d gossiped and bought wine for several gentlemen and prostitutes there, as he’d circled his own choice’s breast with one hand and his wineglass with the other, he’d laughed and mentioned that it was too bad he couldn’t meet Mr. Warwick Jones or his pretty friend Viscount Hazelton there as well, but then, everyone knew those two were such good, intimate friends that they had no need of the sort of sport Madame Felice could provide them. The silence that met that remark had been so profound that others in the huge and gaudy room had turned to see what had caused it, as surely as if they’d heard a scream ring out instead of the sudden, utterly complete hush that fell over that quarter of the room. He’d had to pay Madame Felice extra that night for the damage he did later in his fury at how all of the gentlemen had left him alone at the table with the whore, but it was worth it, since Madame Felice then swore the girl would never talk about what had been done to her.
This morning at his club he’d been shocked to find that the few men he’d managed to collar had drifted away from him, making feeble excuses at best, or at worst, providing none. He’d never been treated so. Although he had no one close friend, he’d thought he had many, for he’d always been a popular man, at school, in society, in his world. He could scarcely believe it, he knew it was all Warwick Jones’s fault., He couldn’t see the expression on his face when he so much as mentioned Warwick Jones’s name now, nor could he hear the tone in his own voice when he did so, thus he’d no idea of how he terrified some of his listeners and disgusted others.
Those weeks lying in bed, not receiving visitors so as not to feed the rumors about what had happened to him, lying alone with himself day after day for the first time in his life, after his first real defeat, after his great public shame, with little to do but remember the indignity, had helped him plot his revenge but had also changed him. He soon forgot all else as the injustices the dark and the light young gentlemen had visited upon him grew clearer, grew larger. Thoughts of revenge ripened as well, becoming so much sweeter that soon even remembrance of the shameful incidents that made it necessary became delicious to think on. Of course, it changed him. But the change was so subtle that he himself couldn’t see it, for it was only an intensification, bringing out all that which he’d hidden for so long from the world, and more, from himself.
He’d been to gambling hells, he’d visited houses of pleasure—he’d been shunned there. He’d been ignored at his club, and then he had found no cards of invitation to select parties and teas and routs and ridottos and balls waiting for him when he’d returned home. Those cards had always begged his attendance at those affairs which occupied most of his life, and were usually stacked so high each day that he had to pick and choose from among them in order to winnow out the best each night. They came no longer. He’d sent his sister away to keep her clear, in name and person, from his doings. Now there was no one to speak with, there was no other recourse.
He’d have to see to the death of Warwick Jones, whether he could disgrace him first or not.
And as for the beggar viscount, the boy he’d remembered from school, the lad with the unearthly beautiful face and body, the one his sister thought to taunt him with, he, Lord Moredon thought, trembling with the force of his frustration, he’d find death preferable to what was planned for him. But that, he discovered to his relief whenever he allowed himself to think about it, could not be thought about, it would have to come second. First, he must bring down the viscount’s devoted friend, Warwick Jones.
Yet he discovered that even here in the slums, among creatures who scarcely qualified to be called human, he was refused. Now, because of a man named Lion. There were a great many terrible things Lord Moredon was, especially in his altered condition, but he was not a physical coward.
He rose from the table and strode to the sagging wooden bar. The barkeep looked at him in some apprehension. The tall fair gentleman spoke in loud, carrying accents, addressing the room: some huddled sots, the few dozing petty thieves, the failed procurers and cutpurses who frequented the tavern.
“I seek,” he announced, “the Lion. I want him to know this. I’ll pay a reward, a handsome reward to anyone who helps me in this. I want the Lion to know that I shall count him afraid of me if he avoids me. I want to speak with him. Now. Today. I’ll wait here. I shall await his pleasure.”
*
The alleyway twisted so many times that Lord Moredon gave up trying to memorize it in order to learn his exit. If he’d come this far, it was too late to turn back, even if he’d wanted to. It was obvious he didn’t want to, for it was that very look of eagerness, barely restrained, that his host first noticed when Lord Moredon was ushered into his parlor. The next thing he noted about his noble guest, to his great interest, was the fact that the gentleman was obviously having difficulty veiling that excitement, as well as other emotions which raced across his face. As this was a gentleman placed high in the ton, this was exceptional, since it was the style of such men always to display cool impassivity, especially to their social inferiors. And, as this was also a gentleman who clearly didn’t realize he suffered from this handicap, it was disturbing as well. But although he was no gentleman, only a King of Thieves, the Lion’s own face revealed none of these ruminations as he arose and offered his hand to Lord Moredon when the nobleman was shown into his presence.
Lord Moredon took the proffered hand, shook it, and with an expression of great affability, immediately ruined by the fleeting impression of secret self-congratulation that flickered upon his fair face, said heartily, “Well, Lion, we meet again. I’ll admit I wasn’t best pleased with you when we last parted. But, indeed, I’ve heard so many good things about you since, I find I cannot hold a grudge. Thank you for giving me an audience,” he said on a laugh of such falseness that the Lion looked at him sharply as he offered him a chair. But since the gentleman took the chair, crossed his legs, and seemed entirely at his ease, it was apparent to his host that he’d no idea of mockery, or rather, had not the smallest notion of how transparently he concealed the mockery he meant.
“I heard you were seeking me, my lord,” the Lion answered calmly, seating himself as well. “It was clever of you to offer a reward for getting the message to me, prudent of you to wait in the tavern for so many hours for my reply, brave of you to follow my man here, but foolish, very foolish, I’m afraid, to frame your request to see me as a challenge.”
There was a moment of silence as Lord Moredon looked at his host. The two men sat in a plain but well-furnished parlor in a ramshackle building. The interior of the house was as acceptable in cleanliness and taste as the exterior was not. In fact, if it weren’t for the pair of brutal-looking guards at the door, it would seem a commonplace social call between gentlemen. The two men were of a height, both were fair-skinned, both had fashionable hairstyles, though one had thin light hair and the other a springy ginger crop. Both were clad in proper gentlemen’s attire. But there their resemblance ended. For the Lion was twice as broad about the chest and neck, his features were as hewn from rock, and about as mobile as one too. But, after hearing his host’s statement, the other man’s refined features showed hasty anger, cupidity, and only after a brief struggle resolved themselves into the icy calm of a gentleman’s polite expression again. Only then did the Lion frown, and seeing that alarming change, Lord Moredon spoke.
“Brave? Hardly. And foolish? I don’t know. I knew you for a man of business, and so I believed you’d think any tactic that got us together for mutual profit would be acceptable. I’m certainly not mad enough to challenge you, sir,” he added, and for once, there seemed to be some honesty in his speech, for his face didn’t belie his words. But then, the Lion noted, it seemed that the gentleman, upon achieving his end, which was this interview, was rapidly settling down to normalcy again.
“You wouldn’t call laying evidence against me with Bow Street a challenge?” the Lion mused in a low rumble. “You don’t consider complaining about my activities to certain parties in the prime minister’s entourage, in Liverpool’s own circle, who’d made it very difficult for Bow Street to ignore me, a forthright challenge? My dear Lord Moredon, pray, what would you consider a challenge to me then?”
“A glove in the face,” he replied haughtily. “I’m direct, sir. As to the other unfortunate occurrences, why, I believe what has been said might be unsaid. Bow Street is none too eager to press forward without a push from behind. That pressure might be removed, with a word…or two.”
“Ah, and all this through your goodwill?” the Lion asked innocently.
“Alas,” Lord Moredon said, now so deeply into whatever game he was playing that only his lips moved in his serene face, “I’m a man of goodwill, but I’d require a little more than that to move me to such effort. But only a little more, only a trifle. You need do nothing, sir—in fact, you need only to do nothing.”
Lord Moredon laughed gaily at his play on words, but there was that in his laughter which caused the two men at the door to glance at him with sudden attention.
“Mmmm?” the Lion murmured in a low hum of interest.
“I require something done,” Lord Moredon said with great pleasure, that pleasure now showing in his eyes, “but I hear it can’t be done without your approval. Very well, plainly said, give me your approval, and there’s an end to it.”
“An end to what?”
“An end to Warwick Jones,” Lord Moredon said, and his face as he said it was suddenly so naked in its desire that the Lion, who had seen many worse things than desire, nevertheless looked away to his fingertips as he replied.
“Ah, no. I’m sorry, my lord. That I can’t do. That I won’t permit. The gentleman is a friend of mine. No, not strictly true, say ‘an acquaintance.’ But we’ve an understanding. You’ll recall the matter concerning the Viscount Haze1ton? Ah, yes, but how could you forget? That’s where we first met, as I was preventing you from kicking the young gentleman’s face in. Then I took action without knowing the fellow, only because I didn’t wish to see a work of art defaced. In a most literal sense,” he added, smiling to himself at his inadvertent pun.
