Chapter Nineteen
“I don’t trust Madly,” Constance said abruptly to Solomon during a quiet moment.
They were both in the upper salon of the establishment, entertaining guests. It was still the early part of the evening, though the daylight had faded.
“Neither would I, if the matter did not concern Jacintha.”
“But if Kenny vanishes,” Constance insisted, “so does any danger of her exposure. Madly will just warn him—if he does anything at all—and use our agreement to get into this house.”
He caught her gaze, which was anxious behind her social smile. “It isn’t like you not to allow someone the benefit of the doubt.”
“I’ve met men like him all my life,” Constance said. “Even before we heard about Jacintha, I knew what he was. Keeping his mouth shut about the past is not the same as making an effort or forgoing an imagined pleasure.”
“He gets under your skin,” Solomon observed. “Why?”
Constance sighed but didn’t drop her gaze. “Because he tempted me once. On a personal level, when I was young and lonely. Not enough to overthrow my instincts, but enough to regret them occasionally. That always annoyed me.”
It would annoy Solomon, filling him with rampaging jealousy, if he let it. But he wasn’t a schoolboy, and he understood her past and her present.
He brushed his fingers against hers in a deliberate caress, felt their instant response. “Why?” he said gently. “You’re only human. And there is something likeable about him, when he remembers.”
“You trust him,” she accused.
“Not entirely,” Solomon admitted. “But if he can find Kenny, I think he’ll do as we agreed.”
“Maybe tonight is too soon,” Constance fretted. “After all, four of us and the Metropolitan Police couldn’t find him during the day.”
“I don’t think so.” Solomon nodded toward the salon door. Max was making his way purposefully toward them through the chatting, flirting couples.
“Two gentlemen at the door, madam,” he said to Constance. “They have no cards but say they’re invited. One of them gave the name Madly.”
“I’ll come down,” Constance said calmly.
Solomon followed her, his steps unhurried. He just hoped it was that Kenny that Madly had with him.
The lower hall was empty of all, save two footmen. Which was as it should be. Madly would have been put in the anteroom next to the closed doors of the main reception room. The anteroom door was open.
Solomon was right. He hadn’t been as sure as he pretended that Madly would help.
But he had indeed brought Veronique’s equally large husband with him.
Both men were standing. Kenny looked a trifle crushed compared with last night, and there was a small cut on his chin, as though Madly had made him shave to fit the part.
Madly himself bowed with impeccable grace.
“Ma’am, your devoted servant,” he said to Constance, while Solomon waited in the passage outside. “This is a friend of mine, one—er…Mr. Jones, whom I would like to recommend to your membership. He is, of course, happy to answer questions.”
Constance looked Kenny up and down and flared her nostrils with distaste. “I will speak to him,” she said with undisguised doubt. “Please, go upstairs, Mr. Madly. Mr. Jones, do sit down.”
Solomon did not like the air of triumph with which Madly swaggered from the room. It faltered slightly at sight of Solomon, who spread his hand to show him the way.
Madly laughed. “Damn, but you’re a complacent husband, Grey.”
“Not in the least,” Solomon said calmly. “No, this way,” he added, getting in the way of the staircase and pointing to the open door opposite the main reception room. It was lit but empty.
Madly stopped outside it, but his eyes held more mockery than threat. “She said upstairs.”
“That was for Kenny’s benefit.”
Madly elected to stroll into the small room. “I daresay I might make it upstairs when the kerfuffle begins. Although…would the kerfuffle be more interesting? A man likes a good fight.”
“Not in this house he doesn’t.”
“Hmm. Aren’t you afraid to leave her alone with that thug?”
In truth, he was. It was necessary, but every sense was on full alert, and Solomon stood by the open door, casting frequent glances down the passage.
“No,” he said. “Constance has ways of taking care of herself. And she is surrounded by her own very capable people.”
“You’re not at all as I expected, you know,” Madly said, sauntering toward the window and throwing him a curious look over his shoulder.
“Yes, I did my own—er…investigation there. I thought you must be some poor sap the incomparable Constance was leading by the nose, tricked into marriage by a true professional.”
“Somehow I didn’t expect you to have quite such a common mind.”
Madly blinked. Unexpected color seeped into his cheeks. “Oh, I left my aristocratic manners behind me decades ago. Constance always intrigued me, though I never got near her. Call me jealous. And impressed in my own common way. Are you going to guard me all night? Even through the kerfuffle?”
“One hopes for very little kerfuffling.”
Something that was almost a smile flashed in Madly’s hard eyes. “Just when I thought you were a serious man.”
“I thought I was a poor sap tricked into marriage.”
“You bear further study, but I can see why she likes you.”
Solomon did not reply.
Madly mused, “She was like some exotic butterfly, fluttering through an ugly swamp. Beautiful, incomprehensible in such surroundings, and fascinating for that reason. And yet so insubstantial she could not be touched, let alone caught. I know because I tried.”
Again, Solomon made no comment. He knew his Constance. She did not need a character reference from anyone, let alone from such a man as Jason Madly. And yet it struck him that Madly was giving her one, without request and without offense. His peculiar honor again? Or…
Solomon’s blood ran cold. Was Madly making up for betrayal?
*
“Sit,” Constance said regally to the unspeakable Horatio Kenny. “I shan’t waste time interviewing you, Mr. Jones. We both know you would never obtain membership here. What do you want?”
“Two thousand pounds,” Kenny said promptly. “And I’m out of your hair for good.”
“You are not in my hair,” Constance said. “And you don’t strike me as a deserving case for charity. You should also be aware I have the means of removing you from my house.”
“Bit hoity-toity for a whore, ain’t you?
” Kenny said, with the deliberate insult of the bully.
“We knew you for who and what you are as soon as you walked into the shop. Lowering the tone of a respectable establishment, Mrs. Silver.” He smiled, though it was more like a leer. “Or is that Mrs. Grey?”
Solomon—and Madly—were right. He really did think it was a huge revelation, that word of Solomon Grey’s very odd marriage had not begun to trickle out even before it happened.
No doubt she had her powerful clients to thank for the discretion of newspapers.
It had never even been blared across the worst scandal rags.
“That’s my price,” Kenny said. “Two thousand. Or I walk straight out of here into the office of a very good friend of mine. He works late at Hush Magazine.”
Constance knew how to look frightened. “You can’t go to the press. You have no proof.”
“Don’t need any. One paragraph’s all it will take. And everyone knows. You’ll have no punters ’cause the wives’ll keep ’em at home. And no one’ll do business with Mr. Solomon Grey no more. Pariahs,” Kenny pronounced with relish. “That’s what you’ll be. Unless I get my two thousand pounds.”
Constance swung away from him. She counted to ten, slowly, while the back of her neck prickled.
She knew better than to turn her back on an enemy, but she had to convince him.
Still, she didn’t put it past him to hit her over the head or strangle her before he rummaged about the house looking for money and jewels.
Her necklace alone was worth enough to get him abroad…
Eight, nine, ten. “I don’t keep that kind of money in the house,” she said. “I have nothing like it. If you wait until tomorrow—”
“Nope,” Kenny interrupted. “It’s all tonight. Payment—or Hush Magazine. Make up your mind. Unlike Mr. Madly, I ain’t got all night.”
Constance turned back to him at last. He hadn’t moved. “What if I give you this necklace, and the few hundred in cash I have in my safe? Is that enough to stop you from giving this story to the magazine and ruining my husband and me?”
Kenny scowled. “How many hundred?”
“Four, maybe five.”
“I ain’t that cheap,” he growled. He looked her up and down with studied insolence. “Still, I’m a gent. Throw in the earrings and the ring on your finger, and I’ll consider it.”
Constance drew in her breath. “Very well… On one condition.”
“No conditions.”
“You blackmailed a friend of mine,” Constance said, her voice shaky but determined.
“Mrs. St. John. I’ve been looking into that for her, and I know it was Veronique.
Give me the page you tore from your wife’s book, the page with Mrs. St. John’s name on it.
And I’ll give you the earrings, too. And one ring. ”
“Nope,” said Kenny, smiling wolfishly as he sat back and folded his hands across his small paunch. “All three rings. Including the wedding band.”
“No, please, not my wedding ring…”
“All of them. Or it’s Hush Magazine and no hush for you!” He laughed at his own feeble joke, clearly settling into his familiar and comfortable role. His little piggy eyes gleamed.
Constance swallowed. “Then show me the paper. Or…or there is no deal.”
Kenny laughed. He knew she was lying. But he did delve inside his coat for a paper that he let flutter to the floor at his feet. It was of no more use to him. He was fleeing. Constance went and picked it up. The St. John name leapt out at her, but she had no time for more at that moment.
She lifted her gaze slowly to his. “Did you kill Mr. St. John?”
There was no mistaking the startlement in his eyes. “Course I did,” he boasted.
The trouble was, she knew he was lying.