Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Loose Lips
Late afternoon after the trip to the mortuary, I sat in my study attempting to occupy myself with the duties of my estate.
Papers lay spread across my desk in uneven stacks—financial accounts, correspondence from Thornburn Abbey, and a letter from the land agent my secretary had asked me to address.
I read the message three times, enough to know the words by heart, yet not once had I truly absorbed them.
My mind refused to remain where I put it.
Instead, it drifted to Finch’s report, to the Commissioner’s evasions, to Rosalynd’s face when she realized the damage inflicted upon the young woman.
One thought bled into the next until the work before me felt both trivial and insurmountable.
I pressed a thumb against the bridge of my nose, acknowledging the dull ache that had taken up permanent residence behind my eyes.
Milford’s knock came sharp and unwelcome.
“Your Grace,” he said, opening the door just far enough to announce himself, “Lord Nicholas is here to see you.”
I closed my eyes briefly. More than likely, he’d come to ensure I had followed through on his suggestions.
I braced myself. “Show him in.”
Nicky entered with a hurried stride, his expression urgent. He did not look like a man paying a social call. That alone set me on edge.
“If this is about Philip,” I began, rising from my chair before he could speak, “I have already written to my estate manager about him assuming some of the management responsibilities—”
“It is not about Philip,” Nicky interrupted, breathless.
The words landed with enough force that I looked at him properly. “It is not?”
“No.”
I waited for him to continue. But he did not. Instead, he studied me with a frankness that suggested he was taking stock—of my unshaven jaw, the ink stains on my cuffs, the barely restrained impatience I could not quite conceal.
Wisely, he made no comment.
I gestured to the chair opposite my desk. “Then sit and tell me why you are here.”
Rather than do that, he crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a small measure of brandy. When he offered the same for me, I waved him off. “I don’t—”
“You’re going to need it when you hear what I have to say.” And with that, he poured another measure and placed the snifter on my desk.
He did not drink his brandy at once. Merely turned the glass slowly in his hand, as though considering how best to begin.
“Do you remember Thomas Fairleigh?” he asked.
I frowned, searching my memory. “Oxford. A year behind you. Not the brightest.”
Nicky’s mouth twitched. “Still isn’t. But his fortunes have improved considerably of late.”
“In what way?”
“His mother’s brother died in February. No wife. No children. Invested heavily in industry. Fairleigh inherited the lot. He’s now a very wealthy man.”
That explained much. But it did not explain why Nicky was standing in my study instead of enjoying his afternoon. “And?” I prompted.
“And wealth,” he said, “has made him careless.”
I returned to my chair. “Careless how?”
“He has been drinking more than is wise, speaking more than is prudent, and congratulating himself on being invited to things he scarcely understands.”
The words caught my attention. “Invited where?”
Nicky met my gaze fully at last. “He approached me at the club last night. Quite deliberately.” His mouth turned down with disgust. “He actually wished to boast about it.”
“About?”
“An invitation.”
I waited, every instinct sharpening.
“He called it the Floralia.”
The word struck my chest with singular force.
Any man with a classical education knew what it implied.
The Floralia had been an ancient Roman festival, ostensibly held in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers and spring.
In practice, it had been an excuse for excess—masked revels, public licentiousness, the deliberate abandonment of restraint under the guise of tradition.
Understanding settled with sickening clarity.
This, then, was the “entertainment” for which the young women had been taken.
It was not merely a feast. It was permission—an absolution men granted themselves to abandon restraint entirely, to indulge appetites so base they could only be pursued in secrecy.
Acts condemned by law, conscience, and civilization itself were recast as sport, cloaked in silk and ritual, and excused as celebration.
Revulsion rose swift and cold. “How soon?” I took a swallow of the brandy.
“In two nights’ time,” Nicky said. “He complained the notice was shorter than he liked, as he will need a costume. His tailor, apparently, is performing miracles.” His lip curled. “As if that was the thing that mattered.”
I rose at once and paced the length of the rug. Two nights. Very little margin. And barely any time. “Did he say where?”
“No,” Nicky replied. “That was the part he found most amusing.” He took a sip of the brandy. “He is to present himself at a particular stretch of the river after dark. A barge will be waiting. From there, he is to be taken to an unknown destination. Masks are required. No names. No questions.”
I stopped pacing.
A barge. The river. Anonymity by design.
Every piece slid into place with sickening clarity.
I turned back to Nicky, forcing my voice into a steadiness I did not feel.
“As dissolute as it sounds,” I said, “this could still be a gathering of willing participants. Paid women. Courtesans who understand precisely what they are selling. Depraved, perhaps, but not unprecedented.”
The words tasted foul even as I spoke them. But they needed to be said. Logic demanded it. Proof mattered.
Nicky did not answer at once. He set the brandy glass down carefully on the sideboard, aligning it with unnecessary precision, then faced me again. The color had drained from his face, leaving something tight and grim in its place.
“That is what I told myself at first,” he said. “That it was merely another indulgence for men with more money than conscience.”
I waited.
“But Fairleigh would not stop talking,” Nicky continued quietly. “And he said something, offhand, as though it were of no importance at all.”
My chest tightened.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Nicky met my gaze directly. “He said the women were not courtesans.”
The room seemed to narrow around us.
“Not willing participants,” he went on. “Not women who understood the bargain.”
Cold spread beneath my ribs. “What, then?” I asked.
Nicky did not soften it.
“They are virgins.”
The word echoed in my mind, stark and obscene in its implication.
Virgins. Young women selected for that particular perversion precisely because they had never been touched by a man.
But that would not be the fate of the girls from St. Agnes. They were unwed mothers. Already marked. Already fallen in the eyes of society. Which meant they would be valued differently. Set aside not for purity, but for degradation. For other appetites altogether.
Unbidden, the memory of the girl we had seen the night before rose before me.
The marks upon her back. Whip marks, laid on with care.
Deliberate. Measured. The work of a man who did not seek desire, but pain.
A man who required flesh already judged unworthy of protection in order to indulge his sick perversion.
The air felt suddenly insufficient. I turned away and gripped the edge of my desk until the polished wood bit into my palms.
“Are you certain?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“He was proud of it,” Nicky said. “Spoke of it as though it were a novelty. A rarity. Something that justified the very large fee he had to pay.”
The last of my doubt burned away, leaving only clarity and fury.
“That,” I said, my voice low and controlled, “is why you came to me.”
He let out a joyless laugh. “Who else would I go to? Who else could get to the bottom of this and stop this atrocity from taking place? Only you, Warwick. Only you.”
Every fragment of exhaustion vanished, replaced by a singular, lethal focus. I crossed to him and set my hand on his shoulder, pressing briefly. “You are right. I will stop it.”
He studied me closely. “You already know something.”
I exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of the decision.
Once spoken, it could not be withdrawn. “I do. Girls no older than seventeen are being taken from the streets of London,” I said.
“Some of their bodies are being pulled from the Thames.” I drained the remaining brandy.
“And no one in authority is doing a damned thing about it.”
Nicky’s expression hardened. “And this Floralia has something to do with it?”
“It belongs to the same world.”
He absorbed that in silence, his jaw tightening.
“Fairleigh does not understand the extent of it,” Nicky said at last. “He thinks it nothing but a lark.”
I glanced at the clock on the mantel. Dusk was already creeping in, the light thinning as though the day itself were retreating. Somewhere along the river, preparations for the Floralia were already underway.
I turned back to my desk, my thoughts shifting from outrage to geography and strategy.
“We need to know where they will sail from,” I said. “The precise point on the river. Without that, we are blind.”
Nicky did not hesitate. “That will come with the invitation. It arrives the afternoon of the Floralia and tells the guests exactly where to present themselves and at what hour.”
“Can you obtain it?” I asked.
“I believe so.” His jaw set. “I can call on him that afternoon, tell him I’m eager to hear more. He will not suspect anything. He enjoys boasting too much.”
I weighed the risk to my brother. The timing. The narrowness of the window. It would be tight, but it could be done.
“Do it,” I said. “I will wait for you in a nearby public house. Somewhere close to the river.”
“The Black Horse in Pimlico,” Nicky said at once. “It is far enough off the main thoroughfare to avoid notice, and close to Fairleigh’s residence and the Thames.”
“The moment you know the location, you come to the Black Horse,” I said. “I will be waiting.”
“Not alone?” Nicky asked, eyes wide. “You are quite capable, Warwick. But if we are to stop this, it will take more than one man.”
A short laugh escaped me. “No. Not alone. I will alert Finch and have him gather his associates. Quiet men. Capable ones, not afraid to shed a little blood if it comes to that.”
“We will not be able to follow them on horseback once they sail,” Nicky said.
“We won’t need to,” I replied. “We will secure a barge in advance. An unmarked one. Crewed by men who know how to keep their mouths shut. It will be waiting within reach of the Black Horse. Once we know the departure point, we will move toward it and remain out of sight.”
“That should work,” Nicky said after a moment.
I held his gaze. “When the Floralia barge departs,” he said, “we follow them to their destination.”
“And then?” he asked.
“We strike,” I said.