Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Ah! MacPherson, just the man I was looking for,” Kendrick called the next evening.
Robbie MacPherson’s brows shot up in surprise. He stepped away from the huddle of men to whom he had been speaking and bowed.
“Are you sure you know what it is you do?” Etienne murmured beside Kendrick.
“No, but I know it needs to be done,” he said as they made their way towards the Scotsman. “MacPherson, you know Etienne?”
“Aye,” Robbie said as the two shook hands companionably. “Good evening to you both.”
“And you as well,” Kendrick said. “MacPherson, was Miss Dryden correct when she said you knew everyone in the Ossuary?”
“A fair number, sir,” he acknowledged.
“I could use your help. Rupert had a house, a grand place in Mayfair, that I understand he inherited from the previous master. It follows that the thing is mine now, but it needs a thorough cleaning and sprucing, top to bottom. Would you know people who would do good work and want to be paid for it?” Kendrick named the sum.
Robbie’s eyes widened a little. “Aye, sir, I can think of a fair few who would. Would you like me to spread the word?”
“I would—but I hoped you might be interested in overseeing the logistics.”
Robbie’s eyebrows shot up, but he hesitated. “Not Joseph? He was the previous master’s majordomo.”
“I haven’t ascertained if he wants to continue in the position,” Kendrick said.
“I’d like his help. He knows the house’s history.
But I got the impression he was not eager to return—at least in his prior function.
But you know the people. If you’ll get a preliminary work force together, I’ll ask him if he’d like to assist. If not, you’ll work with Etienne. ”
Etienne shot him a longsuffering look but didn’t comment.
Kendrick added, “And let me know if anyone gives those you recruit a difficult time of it.”
“Aye, sir. When would you like us to begin?”
“Whenever your interested work force can start. Etienne has the expenses for cleaning supplies and other items.” He had not found the banking records for the Ossuary’s funds, but he had accounts of his own, accrued over the centuries.
Until now, he had had little need to dip into them for more than new clothes and travel expenses.
Kendrick clapped them both on the shoulder.
“Thank you both.” Then he strode off to find Joseph.
He had not felt so electrified and purposeful in years.
Speaking with Genevieve had lit a fire in him—enough that he had spoken without thought when he had realized that he was attracted to her.
Like some green lad, Kendrick thought ruefully.
It was no wonder that she had stiffened up and retreated.
Gentlemen didn’t speak to ladies of wanting them.
“I don’t know why you’d say such an extraordinary thing,” she had said stiffly, after staring at him like he had sprouted another head.
“Forgive me for putting it that way,” he had said by way of apology. “I have never been truly civilized. But believe me that I meant it. And it is extraordinary—to me. It’s been decades since I’ve found myself wanting anything. I find myself surprised…and delighted, Jenny.”
He took some heart that the disturbed look on her face seemed to have more to do with the nickname he had bestowed upon her than by his declaration.
But all of it was true. Genevieve Dryden was a riddle of passion and hurts, fervent convictions and stubborn will wrapped in a highly attractive package that he wanted to unravel, one ribbon at a time.
And Kendrick believed the best way to go about showing that he was sincere, as well as proving that he had listened to her and he believed she was correct in her assertions, was to put some of what they had spoken of into practice.
Which was why he had approached Robbie MacPherson and was now looking for the former master’s majordomo.
Joseph was a harder character to find. He had to inquire of several people—and they were not as helpful as Robbie, though Kendrick made a point to be persuasive and nonthreatening.
But finally, he ran Joseph to ground on the streets above, outside a music hall teeming with life as performers wearing loud, colorful clothes danced and observers called encouragement and heckled in equal number.
“Listening again?” Kendrick asked, stopping beside the other vampire and gazing around at the crowd.
Men and women milled around, bundled in all sorts of clothes and layers, skin colors blending from the browns of Africa and Hindustan to swarthy Mediterranean shades and up to pale, sickly Englishmen.
“And if I were?” Joseph murmured.
“I would say this is an ideal place to do it, but I marvel that you have not gone deaf by now,” Kendrick said as another burst of laughter echoed. In the snatches of conversation and shouted comments in various languages and cants, he could even hear phrases of Mandarin.
“I assume you came looking for me for a reason. I have not found any more law books, though I have an appointment to meet with Dominic and go over the ones we have in hand later this week.”
“I wondered how much you enjoyed the job you did for Rupert.”
“Not at all,” Joseph said with a grim smile.
“So, you would not be interested in assisting with a project that involves the house?”
He frowned. “What sort of project?”
Kendrick explained his plan to offer at least a small portion of those living in the Ossuary a wage to clean out the house, and Robbie’s willingness to find people interested. “You are most familiar with it, but I understand if you would rather cut ties.”
“Did you know that for all the years I spent on the fringes of Rupert’s court, I never drew a wage?” Joseph tilted his head to the side, his eyes unfocused. “I was repaid with ‘status’ and ‘power.’”
“So, you really stayed for the less fortunate who intersected with his circles.”
“Yes. Those who drew his ire, who fell out of favor…those they wanted to make an example of. Or play with.” His mouth twisted. “But I can help. Truth be told, I would enjoy seeing it scoured free of the past. And money talks.”
Kendrick nodded. “I am hoping Miss Dryden’s suggestions to improve the fare of the Ossuary dwellers will bear fruit.”
“Miss Dryden?” Joseph shot him an odd look.
“You know her?” Kendrick questioned.
“Oh, yes. I know her. If she has given you suggestions, I am sure that they are good ones. Shall we go?” Joseph gestured away from the music hall.
Kendrick broke a trail through the crowd and wondered just how Joseph knew Genevieve—and how well.
When the insidious pull seized her, Elspeth dropped the piece of lace she was nearly finished tatting. Her throat closed.
She knew what that tug meant: Attend me. Now.
Laurent had decided to remember that she existed. And he was angry.
Dread cramping her stomach, Elspeth set aside her work with trembling hands and blew out the candle before the insistent call drew her out of their bolt hole.
She hurried along the stone and shored up passageways of the Ossuary; the tug dictated her direction.
Resistance would only bring pain and more ire when she finally appeared before Laurent.
She found herself at the Mayfair gate.
“I am called by my maker,” she forced past her lips in explanation to the gate guards even as the tug redoubled into an insistent banging behind her eyes. Now. Now. Now. She flinched and pressed a hand to her temple, avoiding their gazes, but she knew her eyes were red.
“Name?”
“Elspeth Gibbins,” she murmured.
They exchanged a glance and stepped aside. They could spot a blood bond being tugged. “Return through this gate before sunrise.”
Elspeth slipped past them and emerged into a dark alleyway.
She crept along until she reached the street.
Then, obeying the direction of the tug, she hurried through thoroughfares and lanes until she found herself in a slightly less opulent neighborhood, in front of a modest townhouse she vaguely recognized, embellished with a raven above the door.
As Elspeth mounted the steps, the door flew open. Oxley, a vampire dandy, stared down at her narrow-eyed. “He’s been waiting, girl, and not happy about the delay.”
“It was a far walk,” she whispered, her eyes on her toes. The headache was still banging away inside her skull.
The vampire scoffed, dusting off his lace cuffs. “Could have gotten a hackney, girl.”
With what money, and what address? “He will be further irritated if you impede me,” she pointed out.
The dandy jumped aside comically, and she entered.
The inside of the townhouse smelled like dust and blood.
Stale, thankfully. She had been called to awful scenes in the past, simply because Bacchus and Laurent liked an audience.
Bacchus, who had drawn the most glee from ordering her about, was dust and ash now, thanks be to a merciful God, but Laurent was the one who held her chains.
“My dear, dear Elspeth.” Laurent descended the staircase slowly because he liked a dramatic entrance. Elspeth stood with her head down and face schooled to the carefully blank expression she had perfected over almost two decades, waiting for him to finally reach the parquet floor.
“It’s been too long,” Laurent said, gripping her chin with his long, cold fingers and raising her head.
He was a long, boney man, with a face that could have been considered handsome in the pale English aristocratic way, but the skin clung a little too close to the bones of his skull in death now.
In shadows, he maintained his appearance of striking attraction; in daylight, he would have appeared hideous and macabre.
He would also ignite in daylight, which would make the way he looked moot.
“Tell me, Elspeth, what is this I’m hearing about Genevieve? Oxley tells me she’s been rather friendly with our new master.”
“I don’t know.” Truth. She didn’t know what he’d heard. She always made it a careful practice to lie by omission to her maker.
“You don’t know? You, bosom friends with Genevieve, don’t know?” Laurent’s grip on her chin increased to a painful degree.
“He—He’s been meeting people in the Ossuary? Perhaps they ran into each other?” Please let it not occur to him to command me, Elspeth prayed.
“Oxley said Genevieve was bear-leading him.”
“Sh-She made the introductions—”
“Genevieve, poking her long nose into things that are none of her concern.” Laurent let her go and turned away, pacing up and down the black-and-white floor in thought. “And no one to keep her in check now.”
Elspeth stayed very still.
“Well, we’ll have to do something about that,” Laurent mused. “Elspeth, my dear—I release you of the command to stay close to the Ossuary except for feeding.”
Her dizzy rush of relief only lasted a second before he turned to her with a bright, fanged smile.
He reached out and smoothed her hair away from her face, tucking it behind what remained of her right ear after he and Bacchus had cut it off.
He put his lips directly against her mutilated flesh and murmured, “Listen carefully, now. You will keep an eye on Genevieve for me. You’ll remember what she says, whom she meets, and where she goes, and you’ll report back to me whenever there is aught to relate about the master and his plans for the Ossuary. I command you to do this, Elspeth.”
Her throat closed in dread.
Laurent smiled. “Now run along and listen for any pieces of choice news to bring me. And you’ll tell no one,” he added idly. “No one is to know what you’re doing for me. This is going to be our secret.”
Elspeth hurried down the Ossuary corridor, patting her hair carefully to make sure she had hidden her ears once more.
She had always been used as a weapon against Genevieve.
In the beginning, Bacchus and Laurent had delighted in “punishing” Genevieve for her infractions, but it was only when they had cut off Elspeth’s ear that Genevieve had stopped rebelling against them so openly.
She couldn’t bear to be the cause of Elspeth’s hurt.
Now I fear I will be forced to wound her far worse than anything they did to me, Elspeth thought in despair.
But how could she stop it?
She had barely made it to their shared bolt hole entrance before Robbie found her. “Did you go and feed, lass?” he asked, approaching nimbly on his crutch, even on the uneven surface of the tunnel.
“Yes.” She nodded, the lie heavy on her tongue like a scold’s bridle. “Were you looking for me?”
“Kendrick wants help to clean out Rupert’s house. He has put me in charge, and he’s going to pay, Elspeth! I wanted your opinion—and he’ll pay you, too, if you want to help.” He took her hand. “First step to independence.”
Robbie MacPherson was the best man she knew, good and patient and careful as only a man who had known war and pain could be.
He had been steady and constant, never pressing her, always there.
But she had always known that she could never love him—not when she was still chained.
And especially not now, when she was a knife in the dark, to be wielded against any she considered a friend.
Elspeth bit the inside of her cheek, hard. Which is worse—to wound a lover or betray a friend?
“What is it? Your eyes are glittering,” he asked, leaning closer as his brogue strengthened. “This is the turning point, you’ll see. There are better days ahead for us, lass.”
She smiled even as guilt and Laurent’s hateful mandates threatened to choke her. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said, in a voice she did not recognize. “Lead the way.”