Chapter 7 #2
“She’s not for sale, sir.” The lad’s voice was respectful but firm, and there was something in the calm but hard set of his eyes that made the gentleman, even with his mind soaked through with wine, recognize that this woman dressed in blue was not to be trifled with.
But something teased her senses as they climbed the shallow steps up to the front door of Saffron House.
Phoebe was hardly aware of it herself, but she noticed her heart rate begin to increase.
She looked around at the street but saw hardly anyone in the dark shadows that were cast by the tall buildings even in the afternoon.
The boy rapped on the door, and it opened, revealing the same large butler who had greeted them the last time.
It took everything in Phoebe’s power not to gasp and recoil. Unlike last time, the smell of the Root wafted from the house.
The scent was very faint. Mr. Coulton-Jones had mentioned that the manager of Oliver Troy’s gentlemen’s club had been given only a mild dose, and Phoebe also recalled that the scent of the Root clinging to Doctors Lowald and Brady had seemed muted rather than sharp.
It was the same here.
Her aunt had already moved to enter, so Phoebe stepped up to her side and took her arm. “Careful, dearest,” she said in an overly soothing voice. “Your color is still not looking very good. Oh!”
She had subtly used her foot to nudge aside her aunt’s, causing her to stumble.
Phoebe grasped firm hold of Aunt Laura’s arm and pretended to be alarmed. “I fear you are still unwell.” She turned to the butler. “I regret to say that my aunt may not visit with your mistress today.”
The impassive face cracked slightly in surprise, although he smoothed it over quickly. “My mistress must speak with the Blue Madam quite urgently.”
The smell of the Root filled the entrance hall, but Phoebe could tell that it did not emanate from this man. It was perhaps from another one of her servants.
Nevertheless, Phoebe insisted, “It appears the carriage ride sapped the last of her strength. She must return home and be put to bed immediately.”
“Perhaps Madam should rest in the sitting room rather than entering the carriage once again?” He gestured toward one of the doors leading off from the entrance hall. “It is empty at the moment.”
“We would not wish to interfere with your mistress’s business.”
“She has canceled all appointments for the evening, in order to ensure privacy.”
Phoebe’s eyebrows rose. This was a departure from the last time they visited, for Saffron House had been fully occupied in entertaining gentlemen—and extracting information. “Do you mean to say that there are no clients within the house?”
“That is correct, miss.”
She could hardly object. If her aunt were truly unwell, it would be far better for her to lie down for half an hour than immediately leave the house to catch another hackney. Nodding reluctantly, she led her aunt into the sitting room.
Aunt Laura had remained silent, her face tilted down, so as not to interfere with Phoebe’s ruse. But as soon as the door closed behind the butler, her head popped up again. “Phoebe?—”
She raised a finger to her lips, and her aunt lapsed into silence again at the signal.
“Lie down here, Aunt Laura,” she said in a voice dripping with concern. “You are looking quite unwell.”
Meanwhile, Phoebe studied the room, especially the bay window in front and the two doors. One door led back into the entrance hall, so she moved closer to the other door, listening carefully.
She faintly heard the banging of pots and guessed that it led downstairs to the kitchen in the half-basement.
She and her aunt could escape that way, but she would need to protect her as they traversed the servants’ passage and past the kitchen, out to the sunken front area of the townhouse.
The same butler who guarded the entrance hall could easily prevent them from ascending the stairs from the area to the street.
Phoebe eyed the bay window, which was large and made of panes of thick, expensive glass.
She tried unlatching and pulling up the sash, but it didn’t move.
Before taking the Blood Nectar, she would have had great difficulty forcing it open, but now, when she gently tugged, she somehow knew that her strength could do it (although she might break the window).
Perhaps if she used the fireplace poker …
She heard footsteps behind the first door and immediately stiffened. There were three—no, four men. But there was also the light, graceful step of a woman one standing before the men and one standing behind them, holding back at the edge of the entrance hall.
The woman in front knocked on the door to the sitting room rather than allowing the butler to knock for her, surprising Phoebe.
“Enter.” Phoebe unbuttoned the front of her pelisse and swiftly removed it so that she would be able to better reach through the slit in her gown to grasp the knife attached to her stays.
Phoebe had suspected the Senhora was the woman she sensed, but it still shocked her to see the woman here in the sitting room rather than upstairs in her grand study.
She was followed by four men—the large butler and three footmen who were not much smaller in stature.
Phoebe glanced over them all, preventing her eyes from lingering on the footman in the dark green waistcoat.
The door closed behind them. The second woman had remained in the entrance hall, but Phoebe could tell that she hovered near the closed door.
The Senhora’s dark eyes took in Laura’s figure, sitting on the couch, and Phoebe standing next to her, her hands hanging at her sides. She kept her posture loose and seemingly unguarded, but she was ready to reach for her dagger at any moment.
The Senhora smiled faintly at Phoebe, as if perfectly aware that her calm stance was a pretense. Then in French, she asked, “Girl, which one?”
Phoebe was flooded with reactions—surprise, suspicion, then grudging respect. In French, she answered, “Green.”
The Senhora nodded and turned toward the four men.
Even before the woman faced him, the footman in the green waistcoat had begun moving. He was faster than a normal man, although not as fast as Jack’s men had been.
Fortunately, Phoebe was faster.
She was at his side in less than the blink of an eye.
He had begun to pull a knife from a coat pocket, but she grabbed his wrist, which jerked him backward as he attempted to rush toward the Senhora.
Phoebe twisted his arm behind him as the dagger clattered to the wooden floor, the sound muted when the knife tumbled onto the carpet.
She jumped at the sudden sound of a gunshot.
The noise was amplified in the small room, making her sensitive ears ring painfully. The acrid smell threatened to fill her eyes with tears, but she blinked them away. Through her touch on the footman, she could feel that he had stiffened.
The Senhora was pointing a pistol at her. The woman’s hand and her weapon had been hidden by the ends of the shawl draped elegantly over her elbows.
The footman suddenly collapsed, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
Behind them, one of the footmen shrieked like a hysterical young miss. The large butler turned pasty white. The third footman fainted.
Phoebe let the body slide to the ground, but turned to regard the Senhora, who was only slowly lowering the spent pistol. “Any others?” she asked Phoebe.
“No,” Phoebe answered. None of the other people in this room held the scent of the Goldensuit—except for Phoebe herself.
The Senhora nodded, then casually tossed the pistol onto the body of her footman.
The brothel madam hurried to Aunt Laura’s side, clasping her under her elbows and helping her to rise. “You poor darling,” she said like a mother soothing her child. “That was perhaps very shocking to you.”
Aunt Laura said nothing, but her gaze flickered to the body. Then she turned her head aside, her eyes closing.
Phoebe realized this was perhaps not the first time her aunt had seen a body that had come to a violent end. There had been Uncle Wynwood and also Dr. Heddetch, when Jack killed him. She hoped it would not stir up more nightmares for her aunt.
“Come upstairs,” the Senhora said. “I shall pour you a soothing cup of tea, with perhaps a bit of French brandy in it to settle your nerves.”
Phoebe’s aunt continued to remain silent, but she allowed the Senhora to guide her out of the room—with the madam placing her own body in between Aunt Laura and the dead footman—and up the stairs.
Phoebe followed in time to see the back of the woman who had lingered in the entrance hall as she slipped through a plain servants’ door tucked beside the staircase.
At the landing, the Senhora said to her in a sharp voice, “Keep your senses alert, my golden girl.”
She understood.
Phoebe listened and breathed deep as they passed each of the doors in the corridor. There was a melange of French perfumes, the odor of old musk, and various cadences of snoring. But none of the women in the bedrooms, and none of their clients from the last day or two, smelled of the Goldensuit.
Phoebe had not realized it the last time she came, but one of the doors at the end of the first-floor hallway led to a private sitting room for the women. She heard three of them chatting, the clink of teacups, the warm aroma of freshly baked scones and the tang of apricot jam.
One of the women was complaining that she preferred strawberry jam, and another one was teasing her about it. But there was no scent of the Goldensuit from these women, nor from any women who had entered this parlor in the past two or three days.
Perhaps for Aunt Laura’s sake, or perhaps to allow Phoebe time to check each room, the Senhora walked slowly down the hallway on the floor above, as well.
They entered the Senhora’s office silently, and she turned to them as soon as Phoebe closed the door behind her. Only then did she realize how strange it was that the Senhora had led them through her house without the presence of the butler or another footman or even a maid.
The Senhora turned and regarded Phoebe with hooded eyes, forcing her to halt only a few feet from the closed door while holding Aunt Laura’s arm.
“Any others?” the Senhora asked, this time in Portuguese.
Phoebe had only recently learned the language, and it was perhaps by accident.
While recovering from her wound, she had found a book of Portuguese poetry and looked through the Portuguese dictionary in order to try to read it.
The first hour of reading had left her with a dreadful headache, yet when she returned to the book the next day, she was startled to find the words fixed in her mind far more firmly than seemed natural.
She had continued to learn more Portuguese words and grammar, but she was also constantly assaulted by headaches when she was studying. It was also the reason why she had not attempted any other language.
Her memory had always been sound, but this newfound ease with which she recalled every word surpassed anything she had ever achieved. She said nothing to her aunt—the discovery would trouble her, for it implied that the Blood Nectar had acted upon Phoebe’s mind in some strange way.
So although she understood the Senhora, she glanced at her aunt for the translation.
“Any others?” Aunt Laura asked in French.
“None,” Phoebe replied, also in French.
The Senhora glanced thoughtfully at Phoebe for a moment before she finally nodded.
Now that she no longer needed to feign frailty, Aunt Laura straightened. “What is the meaning of this?” Her voice was cold. “Why did you ask me to bring Phoebe?”
The Senhora gave her a slight smile. “You were the one who decided to bring her. I merely asked you to bring your golden girl.”
Aunt Laura stiffened slightly, but quickly retorted, “To whom else could that refer? Phoebe is dearest to my heart.”
“She is not golden for any other reason?”
Her aunt refused to answer.
“What made you suppose that I might be of use in resolving your household difficulties?” Phoebe asked coolly. While walking through the building, she had felt rather like a hound sent after the fox.
“You needn’t worry that anyone has spoken out of turn.” The Senhora addressed Aunt Laura as much as Phoebe. “Mr. Drydale told the truth to one individual, and he told me so that I might help him to protect your niece.”
That shocked her. Uncle Sol had only told Sir Derrick the entire truth about the bargain with Jack. But instead of speaking to the other superior officers in the Ramparts, he had gone to the most infamous brothel madam in London. “Protect me from whom?” Phoebe asked.
“From men high in their fortress.”
The description could refer to Ramparts … or the Citadel. “Which men?”
The Senhora’s serene smile broadened. “Both.”
This would have been before Sir Derrick was killed. Had he already so distrusted the men within his own department? But why hadn’t he warned Uncle Sol?
“Come, sit.” The Senhora swept her hand toward the fireplace. “We have much to discuss, but there is little time.” She spoke briskly and sat in her usual burgundy and green striped chair.
“What has happened?” Aunt Laura asked anxiously. She sank onto a sofa with Phoebe beside her.
In a strange display of emotion, the Senhora’s hand gripped the arms of her chair. “Mrs. Coulton-Jones is in grave danger.”