Chapter Fifteen
Four days after he and Lady Alice had entered the Black Dog tavern, Jamie was preparing to leave the house again.
It was late, and while he’d promised to let her know when and if he found or pursued another lead, she would not be accompanying him for this particular trip, and he would make sure she never found out.
She consumed Jamie’s thoughts. He constantly wondered what she was doing, and if she was taking risks and not telling him.
Which is exactly what you are doing. Jamie ignored that voice and took some money out of his desk.
Having returned from a musicale that bored him witless, and that Lady Alice had not attended, he’d changed into dark clothing and was ready to leave.
There had been plenty of pointless conversation and gossip, some awful singing, which usually didn’t bother him, but tonight had grated on his nerves.
He wasn’t sure why he felt like he was on the precipice of something.
He would fall or stand but something was about to change, and he didn’t know exactly what, but he could feel the tension inside him rising.
He’d been evasive with his friends earlier, and that wasn’t like him. But this wasn’t something he wanted them embroiled in. They had lives now, and people who would suffer deeply should any harm come to them.
Pushing his pistol into his pocket, he slipped a knife into his boot and made his way downstairs to the front door. His household was silent, his servants dismissed and likely now slumbering in their beds.
Opening the front door, Jamie slipped out, closing it softly behind him.
He then made his way through the front gate and onto the street.
The air was cold again this evening, slapping him in the face as he began to walk.
He would find a hackney, as the walk was a long one, and while he didn’t mind that, he wanted this done with.
“Take another step and there’s going to be trouble.”
He yelped, the very unmanly sound coming from Jamie as the deep words reached him. Turning, he found Anthony and Toby. Both dressed as he was, in dark colors.
“What the hell are you two idiots doing outside my house at such an hour?” He resisted pressing a hand to his chest to ease the pounding.
“You’re up to something, Jamie, and we want to know what,” Toby said.
“You couldn’t have asked me tomorrow? Or perhaps earlier this evening a few hours ago at the Thornton musicale?” Jamie demanded. His friends now stood before him, arms folded, which usually meant trouble.
“You’ve been avoiding us,” Anthony said flatly. “We”—he jabbed a finger into his own chest, then at Toby—“suspected you were up to something. And were fairly certain it would happen tonight, given how on edge you were at the musicale.”
“Which, I might add, my ears have yet to recover from,” Toby said dryly. “But Anthony’s right. What are you about, Jamie?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Jamie muttered. “You mean to tell me you were planning to stand out here all night just to see if I left the house? Would you have done the same tomorrow?”
Both men nodded.
“That’s what friends do,” Toby said with gravity. “Especially when the person they’re worried about refuses to tell them why they should be worried.”
“What’s going on?” Anthony said, his voice hard.
“Just so I’m clear on your intentions. You took your women home, then after presumably a few hours, where you what?”
“Drank brandy and ate food while our wives fell into bed exhausted due to their delicate conditions,” Anthony added.
“Now you’re here.” He looked around and saw a carriage parked along the street. “In Toby’s carriage.”
“Excellent deduction.”
“Ambushing me?” Jamie added. He had no reason to laugh, but it was there.
These two men knew him better than anyone, and cared what he did, or what happened to him. Sometimes he forgot that.
“Let’s get in the carriage, as presumably you are going somewhere you didn’t want us to know about,” Toby muttered. “Plus, I’m tired.”
“It’s only just after midnight,” Jamie said.
“I go to sleep earlier these days,” Toby said, heading back down the street to his carriage.
“You poor old men,” Jamie mocked, following with Anthony.
“Give my driver your address,” Toby ordered before climbing inside.
When Jamie had done as his friend asked, he joined them, taking the seat opposite, and not missing the fact his friends had chosen the same seat so they could glare at him.
“Now talk, Jamie,” Anthony snapped.
He sighed. “I’ve been hunting Jackson after word reached me that he’d been abusing children in a charity school.
“What?” Toby growled the word.
“I went there and spoke to two boys. They said the man who hurt them was Kenneth Jackson.”
Anthony swore loudly.
“We’ve never gone after him. In fact, we barely mention his name,” Toby said.
“He was the most evil,” Anthony said softly. “Also, as he doesn’t walk in our world, we never came across him, so it seemed easier never to mention his name.”
“I want him to pay now because he deserves that for the suffering he put many Blackwood Boys through. But it is not just that. If we don’t stop him, he will hurt others again,” Jamie said, knowing it was time for the truth only.
“I thought I didn’t need to see Jackson brought to justice, but in all honesty I’m not sure I will ever be at peace until he has been. ”
The carriage passed under the glow of an oil lamp, throwing light and shadows on the dark walls. Elegant townhouses rose neatly to his right and left, some in brick, others in pale stone. The occasional glow of candlelight spilled out of windows.
“And you didn’t feel you could tell us?” Jamie could hear the hurt in Anthony’s words.
“We told you we are always there for you,” Toby added.
“I have done nothing to put myself in danger, and if I was to do that, I would have told you. Just as I know when the time comes to finally confront that bastard, I will have both of you with me.”
“At least I believe you in that,” Anthony said. “Now what of Lady Alice? What is her part in this? You said that day in the park you’d tell us, but as yet have not.”
He told them then—everything.
“Her brother was younger, I know that much, but I never met him,” Toby said when Jamie had finished.
“After he returned from Blackwood Hall, he never recovered in his mind or body,” Jamie said.
It wasn’t his right to tell them everything. He’d held Lady Alice when she’d told him it was her brother Charles who hurt her. Jamie had known anger that anyone would touch her, but he’d also known the dark places he’d gone to when his demons had haunted him.
He had to believe he would never hurt anyone, but clearly Lady Alice’s brother’s mind had become crazed.
Jamie had never felt close to a woman like he did to her.
They were united in their goal, but it was more.
Something about her, who had taken up the fight to seek retribution on behalf of her brother, touched him.
Even if he thought her reckless to do such a thing.
“It was she who cared for him, I believe, which is why she was rarely seen in society.”
“You and Lady Alice have clearly had more interactions than you are letting on,” Toby said.
“If I promise from this day forth to tell you everything, can we move on?” Jamie said.
“You’re holding something back from us still, I can tell,” Anthony said. “You care for her,” his friend said, smiling suddenly. “Lady Alice has stirred your interest.”
“You’re deluded, Anthony.” But Jamie could not deny that his heart was thudding a little faster at the thought of her. Not that he would act on that, or that she would in any way wish him to.
“Huckle is her informant,” Jamie said before they asked him yet more questions about Lady Alice.
Toby whistled. “I often wondered what became of him.”
Jamie filled them in on the man Huckle had become and what he’d told them in the Black Dog.
“And I suppose you are going to visit this den of depravity he mentioned now?” Anthony asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we shall be going with you.”
“Anthony, you and Toby are to become fathers. I have no wish—”
“Shut up. We are coming, and that is that. Besides, you are in my carriage, and presumably have just given the address to my driver,” Toby said.
The Crimson Serpent was located in St Giles, and by the time they’d arrived, they’d worked out a plan. Jamie would enter the premises through the front door as a client, and his friends would circle around the rear and find an entrance that way.
They walked in because the roads around here were too narrow for expensive carriages.
“Be alert,” Jamie said. “Are you armed?”
“I’m not sure if I’m insulted or pleased he’s so worried for us, considering we have been in more dangerous positions than this in our lifetimes,” Toby said to Anthony.
“You’re both soft now. I have to watch out for you,” Jamie replied.
The jab he received in his side from Anthony made him grunt. “You may be more athletic than Toby and me, but in no way are you more intelligent.”
They moved as though they had nowhere else to be, and yet all three were aware of everything around them.
The street they turned up was little more than a crooked lane between leaning tenements, their upper stories sagging so close they almost touched. What light the moon offered was swallowed by the overhanging eaves. The air was thick with scents Jamie had no wish to identify.
Laughter spilled from one of the doorways, the high-pitched giggles of a woman mingling with the gruff voice of a man.
“It’s at the end there.” Jamie pointed. “Huckle told me about the light.”
A red lantern burned faintly above the lintel, its glass filthy but the glow easy to see in the dark night. The door itself was scarred, half-hidden in shadow.
“The Crimson Serpent is hardly a name to inspire lust,” Anthony mused.
“No, but it does inspire intrigue and danger,” Toby added.
“Be careful,” Anthony said before he and Toby slid into the shadows and disappeared.
Jamie walked on, senses open, and aware of every move around him. Reaching the building, he looked up as a shrill whistle filled the air.
In the window above him stood two women, their pale rouged faces peering down at him.
“Hello, lovely. You look like a fine gentleman!” one called down. “What you got a taste for? We can meet all your needs.”
“You’re too kind,” Jamie called up to them. “I shall come inside and see what takes my fancy.”
“You’re a big boy. I’m sure you could handle the both of us, and we might actually enjoy it.”
This produced raucous laughter from both ladies.
“I shall do my best,” Jamie said.
He rapped on the door with his gloved knuckles as the ladies continued to hurl bawdy comments down on him.
Jamie could feel a constant undercurrent swirling around them. Desperation, hunger, and menace. This was no Mayfair dalliance, no gilded boudoir with velvet curtains. Here, vices were raw and unchecked, in a place where men disappeared and no one thought to ask why.
The door swung open, and there stood a tall thin man with a moustache that could only be termed sinister.
With not a stitch of hair on his head, he was dressed in black like them, but unlike Jamie and his three friends, he was sure this man had not an ounce of civility in his body.
Eyes as black as the sky above them, his face was narrow.
Jamie knew what evil looked like; he’d seen it in many forms. It came off this man in waves.
“I wish to enter,” Jamie said.
“Have you frequented the Crimson Serpent before, sir?”
“I have not.”
The man eyed him thoroughly, and then stepped to one side.
“Please come in.”
He did, stepping into the entrance. Inside, the light was little better.
Jamie took in the heavy crimson drapes and the darkened floor beneath his feet.
To his right loomed a huge gilt-framed mirror, its surface dulled by grime, while flickering candles cast weak light over stained plaster and peeling wallpaper that had once been a garish red.
“If you’ll come this way,” the man said.
Jamie’s boots thudded on the hard floor as he followed him, and the sounds of music and the rumble of voices grew louder as he moved deeper into the house. He was ushered into a small parlor that held a chair, a fireplace, and little else.
“Someone will be with you soon.” The man left, closing the door behind him. It was not five minutes later when it opened again.
“Good evening, sir.”
Easily as tall as him, the woman had a hard look in her eyes that matched the man who had let him in, and if he was to guess, he’d say they were related. She had the same dark coloring and angular features.
“I am Madam Ravelle. May I have your name, sir?”
“I am Lord Stabler,” Jamie lied, giving a false name. The man no longer frequented society, so unless this woman knew him, he was safe.
“What desires do you wish us here at the Crimson Serpent to fulfill for you this evening, Lord Stabler?” She held out a tray, and he took a glass.
Unlike the women leaning out of the window, who had looked a little worn and faded, this one wore a gown of peacock blue silk, and the style could be seen at any society event. Her hair was piled high and held in place with sapphire pins that Jamie had a feeling were real jewels.
“What can you offer me?” he said after a sip of surprisingly good whiskey.
Were Anthony and Toby inside?
“Perhaps a tour, my lord?”
Those eyes were cat-like and cunning, he thought. Assessing, working out what was needed to achieve her needs. Whether he was worth her time.
“Thank you.”
Jamie followed her out the door.
“We offer viewings, where you will not be seen but can watch,” Madam Ravelle said as they climbed to the next floor. “We have prostitution at all levels. From cheap street girls to courtesans dressed in silks.”
Jamie listened as she listed all the services her girls offered as if she were reading a list of household supplies.
“Flagellation, bondage, and of course a particular favorite with nobility, role play. We also have restraints should that be your wish,” she continued as they walked down a long, dark hallway that had doors leading left and right off it.
“The depravity climbs with the floors,” she added calmly.
A loud scream followed by a crash had the woman cursing.
Was that noise due to his friends?
“Take the last door on the right. You can view what is going on in there. I shall return shortly.”
Before he could speak, she’d retraced her steps and started climbing to the upper floors.
He needed to find someone to talk. Someone he could pay to give him the information he sought, and he must do that now while Madam Ravelle wasn’t with him.
The thud of feet coming down the stairs had him reaching for the closest door. Opening it, he slid inside.