Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The Zagreus Den moved fast. That was the first thing Penny learned on his initial visit to the bizarre, though deeply intriguing, place.
Before he left the pleasure den in Tyburnia as the first rays of the morning sun kissed the dusty, smoky London sky, he and Greer had already set a time for their Mayfair housebreak, and Brutus and Titus had provided them with a few tools and a description of the correspondence they had been charged with purloining,
Penny had a day and a half to prepare himself, which mostly consisted of sleeping as much as he could the first day, then preparing Helen for what was to come.
“Are we going to a palace?” Helen asked as she and Penny sat on the floor of their cramped room the afternoon of the heist, taking tea with Miss Kitty and the rest of the dolls.
“It’s something like a palace,” Penny said, nodding slowly.
He’d no idea how to describe what he’d seen of The Zagreus Den to someone like his sister.
“There are a lot of men, young and old there, but they won’t harm you,” he insisted.
Everything he’d observed told him none of the members of The Zagreus Den would be interested in interfering with Helen, and even if they were inclined that way, Brutus had intimated that he would keep Helen away from the Den’s more nefarious activities.
“Is there a queen?” Helen asked, hugging her ratty old cloth doll tight, her eyes bright with excitement. “Princesses?”
Penny’s mouth twitched into a smile as he thought about the nubile young men he’d watched dancing and fucking, both each other and the older guests who had come for the entertainments.
Most of them had been prettied up with cosmetics and powder.
He’d always fancied older, rougher men himself, but even he had seen the appeal of soft, pale skin and a bit of kohl around those young men’s eyes.
“I think there might be princesses,” he said, grinning as he remembered. “And pretty princes, too.”
“I want to see the pretty princes,” Helen said, beaming.
“If all goes well, you shall,” he laughed, reaching over to stroke his sister’s hair. “You’ll be one of the princesses in the palace, the prettiest of them all.”
Helen giggled and grinned bashfully. Seeing her so happy, even though she had no idea what they might be walking into, filled Penny’s heart with joy.
Whatever the next few days or weeks held, whatever the dangers he might face, as long as Helen was safe and happy, he would throw himself in harm’s way a thousand times over.
They spent the rest of the day enjoying each other’s company.
As the sun went down, Penny helped Helen into bed, told her a story, then kissed her forehead as she fell asleep.
He hated leaving her, that would never change, but as he headed out of Mrs. Hunt’s house, avoiding the odious woman on the way out as he did, Penny felt a new surge of hope that the uncertainty in their lives might be over soon.
Even though the housebreaking job was in Mayfair, Penny and Greer had made arrangements to meet in Whitechapel.
Penny’s usual patch was more subdued than usual after the police raid.
So many of the faces Penny was used to seeing every day were gone, perhaps never to return.
The Oyster was solemn and half empty by the time he walked through the door and took a seat at one of the tables near the window.
“I’m surprised someone like you is willing to sit where everyone on the outside can see him,” Bart, the pub’s owner, told Penny from where he was rubbing the counter behind the bar. “Too many of your friends are living at Her Majesty’s pleasure at the moment.”
Penny frowned and glanced up at Jenny, the pale-faced barmaid who came over to bring him his usual pint. “Was it that bad?” he asked.
Jenny sniffed. “They nabbed Pete,” she said, then grabbed her apron to dab at her eyes before rushing back behind the bar.
Penny glanced to Bart, who sighed.
“They locked up Jenny’s Pete and Davy Button, too,” he said. “And they caught Branston, so you’d better watch yourself.”
Penny’s brow shot up. “They really did capture Branston?”
“Aye, they did,” Bart said gravely. “You know what that means.”
Penny nodded and sank back into his chair.
Branston was the big man for several streets around The Oyster.
On the one hand, it meant he wouldn’t owe a cut of his takings to that cunt ever again.
On the other, it meant there would be a fight for someone to take Branston’s place.
Everyone who hadn’t been carted off to jail would likely end up forced to take sides as the new king of the castle was crowned.
Penny couldn’t have asked for a better time to leave London.
“You should consider throwing your weight around a little,” Bart told him, leaning across the bar. “You’re young, I grant you, but there’s a good number of folks here and about who would follow you if you snapped your fingers. You could take Branston’s place as easy as the next bloke.”
Penny laughed, though he didn’t find the idea funny at all. As lofty as Branston had been and as profitable as his position was, being the big man also came with a big target on his back.
Although it would have been nice to be able to redirect some of the money that Whitechapel earned every night toward things like feeding the waifs who might otherwise die on the street and helping the young whores find respectable work instead of trading their favors and youth for bread.
But wasn’t that exactly what Brutus had said The Zagreus Den did?
Titus, too. They’d spent a good deal of the night, while others reveled and fucked, discussing the various missions of mercy The Zagreus Den was involved in.
As Brutus had said, if the toffs in Parliament refused to do anything to help the poor, they would.
Those thoughts were still rattling around Penny’s head and his pint was half-empty when the door opened and Greer strolled in.
Penny couldn’t help but feel a surge of appreciation at the man’s tall, gorgeous form.
He was dressed all in black, which suited him, and he wore a no-nonsense look of determination.
“What are you doing?” Greer asked as soon as he spotted Penny sitting there, enjoying his pint.
“Waiting for you,” he said with a nod. “Looks like you’re worth the wait.”
Greer puffed out a breath, and if Penny didn’t know better, he would have said the man blushed.
Greer sent a quick sideways look to Bart, who had seen far more in his day than two men flirting, then cleared his throat. “Are you ready? Time’s wasting.”
“Ready as I can be,” Penny said, standing, taking one last swig from his pint glass, then taking the pint glass to Bart at the bar. He winked at the man as he did.
“Off to cause trouble, are you?” Bart laughed. “You’ll be cock of the walk in these streets in no time.”
“What was he on about?” Greer asked once they were outside, strolling purposefully away from The Oyster.
Penny thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat and shrugged. “The man who ruled these streets was caught up in the police raid the other night. There’s suddenly room at the top, and Bart thinks I should make a bid for it.”
Greer glanced sideways at him in surprise. “You’d reach for that?” he asked, a hint of reluctance in his eyes.
“You think I shouldn’t?” Penny asked in return as they turned a corner and made their way to a street where they’d be more likely to hire a hack to take them to Mayfair.
“I’d never really considered you as a gang leader,” Greer said with a shrug.
Penny grinned at him, feeling unaccountably warm.
If he didn’t know better, he would have said Greer was jealous of the position he might reach.
He would also say that Greer felt left out, like their budding friendship, or whatever it was, might be in danger of disappearing if Penny was suddenly out of reach.
“Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve become my tutor in all things housebreaking,” he teased Greer as they reached Mile End Road. “The more skills I have when I make a bid for power the better.”
Greer turned to him with a frown just as one of the hacks waiting by the side of the road pulled forward. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” he asked.
“Love, everything we do is dangerous,” Penny laughed.
Greer was silent and sullen in the carriage as it rattled its way across London.
Penny thought it was charming that Greer was so moody.
He would have been just as moody if Greer had proposed to do something that might end up being a wedge between the two of them.
Especially now that their fates seemed to be tied so tightly together.
It was barely midnight when they reached Berkeley Square. Greer directed the hack’s driver to drop them one street over. They slipped out of the carriage, paid the man, and pretended that they belonged there as they walked around Hill Street and Hays Mews, observing the area around their target.
“The nobs stay out late,” Penny said as they completed their circuit and strolled back into the park in the center of Berkeley Square.
“They like a good party, they do,” Greer agreed. He lifted one foot up onto a bench directly across from the address they’d been charged with breaking into and pretended to fiddle with his boot. “It’s deep enough into the summer that most of them have retreated to their country houses.”
“Brutus and Titus said Lord Pennington was still in town, that he didn’t leave when he was expected to,” Penny reminded him, leaning against the back of the bench with his arms crossed and his back to Pennington’s house.
“But Lady Pennington and his daughters are already in Lincolnshire,” Greer said. “Which means we’ll have half the servants to worry about.”
“Houses like these keep servants in them even when the masters are away,” Penny said, recalling the little he knew about how the aristocracy lived.