Chapter Nineteen
Brett
Brett could never have conceived that watching a whorehouse all night would be a duty of his employment.
After witnessing a depressing number of men enter and exit the front door, he was finally rewarded.
The local errand boy, one who seemed much too knowledgeable about the goings-on in a brothel, straightened from the box he was sitting upon and jerked his head toward a woman walking down the street to the building.
Miss Peg Rogerson, Brett presumed.
Brett straightened from his own post, a wood beam supporting the small portico over the morality committee’s office, and crossed the street to meet her. “Miss Rogerson?”
She was quick to replace the startled look on her face with an overly welcome smile. “Yes? You’re an eager one, aren’t you?” She examined him from his boots to his top hat. She must have noticed that his garb wasn’t of the highest quality, for her smile dimmed.
“I was hoping to speak with you about Mr. Trent.” When she started for the door, he slid in front of her. “I’ll pay you for your time.” He actually didn’t know what the going rate was for a London light-skirt, but Lady Mary had given him provisions.
“Pay. To talk.” Raising her eyebrows, she chuckled harshly. “Sure.” She swept her hand toward the door of the bawdy house. “Let’s go talk.”
Heat crept up the back of Brett’s neck. If it weren’t for Marie, he wouldn’t have minded entering the lion’s den so to speak.
But he had an intended now. Marie might not know she held that position, but Brett was certain of it.
And a man with a betrothed shouldn’t enter into whorehouses, even if it was only for conversation.
“Perhaps a coffeehouse?” Those usually stayed open late.
“How much are you paying me?” She held out her hand, palm up.
He dropped a coin in it.
Her expression didn’t change.
He dropped another.
She snapped her hand closed. “There’s a tavern around the corner. You can buy me an ale.” And she turned on her heel and led him away.
Brett flipped a coin to the boy. “Thanks, Harold.” He followed after the prostitute.
Miss Rogerson made a lovely figure, he had to admit.
She didn’t have the bounteous curves that his Marie did, and her strawberry-blonde hair was just a paler imitation of Marie’s fiery curls, but he could understand why she had appealed to Trent.
Many men agreed, as several eyes latched on to Miss Rogerson when they entered the Leaning Oak. This obviously hadn’t been her first time in this establishment as once she’d led him to a corner table, the barman came without asking and placed two pints before them.
“Thanks, Bob.” She nodded to the proprietor and raised her glass with her left hand.
“How’s your arm?” Brett asked. He took his own sip and pursed his lips. Not bad.
“You know about that, do you?” She rolled her right shoulder. “It won’t ever be the same. He should have given me something. Restitution,” she enunciated. Her eyes had a slight sheen to them, and Brett realized this might not be the first pint she’d imbibed that night. “I deserved rest-i-tu-tion.”
“And Mr. Trent wasn’t willing to provide it?”
She shook her head.
“Hardly gentlemanly considering he had been visiting you for…how long was it?” Brett asked.
“Almost two years.” She smacked her palm on the table. “There’s no loyalty these days, I tell you. None a’tall.”
Brett tsked. “Two years.” It did seem quite a long time to patronize one doxy. He supposed men had favorites when it came to that sort of thing. “Even when you were at his home, he still showed you the same lack of respect?”
“I was never at his home.” She took a large swallow, a line of foam coating her upper lip.
“No? Never?” He removed the embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it. “I wonder how this found its way to his study then.”
Peg gave him a roguish smile. “Well, maybe I was there, just the once. When he knew that I knew how well he lived, I thought he’d understand he needed to be generous.”
“A sound plan,” he agreed. “Weren’t you worried Mrs. Trent might discover it?”
She lifted her shoulder. “A scolding wife makes a man realize how good he has it with someone else. I could have been there for him on a permanent basis. He could have set me up in my own apartment. He had the money.”
Brett blinked. Peg was pretty, but surely she must realize that men like Trent didn’t make mistresses of their common doxies. Especially not ones who downed pints like a stevedore and attempted to make mischief with the missus. “But he refused you?”
She smacked the table again. “Laughed at me. Treated the idea like a joke.”
“That must have made you angry.” He signaled the barman for another pint, hoping it would keep her tongue loose.
“Angry?” She huffed. “Oh, he got an earful, I promise you that.”
“When was this?” He tried to keep his tone casual, but either he failed or she hadn’t dipped as deeply as he’d thought.
She narrowed her gaze. “Not the night he died. I was in his house a full week before that.” She took a healthy swallow from the new pint. “You can’t put that on me.”
“You’ll have witnesses who saw you elsewhere that night?”
She scowled. “I wasn’t working that night. I was still sore so I was sleeping. Alone. But Mrs. McKendrick can tell you I didn’t go nowhere. Besides, with Eddie dead, I don’t get any money.”
“You weren’t getting any with him alive, either.” Brett could envision the woman letting her temper overcome her judgment, grabbing the nearest sharp object and attacking Trent.
He couldn’t see a fit man being overcome by her small stature, however. Nor allowing her to hold a hand to his mouth so he couldn’t yell out whilst being stabbed repeatedly. Even if she took him by surprise, it seemed improbable.
Peg stood up with only a slight wobble. “He laughed at me. He deserved what he got, but I wasn’t the one who gave it to him.” She made to take her handkerchief, but Brett stuffed it back into his pocket.
“I’ll need to keep this for now,” he said.
“Do as you will.” She sniffed. “It doesn’t mean anything. Unless you weren’t the first to find it.”
“What do you mean?”
Her eyes narrowed with a mean smile. “If Mrs. Trent found it, well, she might have been as unhappy with her husband as I was.”
“You think Mrs. Trent might have killed her husband because he was having an affair with you?”
“I don’t go around making accusations.” She pressed a hand to her bosom. “But a woman never likes to learn a man prefers another to her.” And with her head held high, she swept from the tavern.
When he’d spoken with the errand boy earlier, Harold hadn’t known of any other particular favorites of Peg’s. Didn’t think she was close to any of the male workers at the brothel. Brett also hadn’t discovered any family that might help Peg take revenge on the man who’d hurt her.
That didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
He paid the bill and left.
There were two too many scorned women in Trent’s life. Brett didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the man, or to think he’d gotten just what he’d deserved.