Chapter 12
August 10th, 1881Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York
“I would like to make an extra-special toast.”
Angelo stood at the head of a white-clothed dining table, balancing a champagne flute by the stem. His dark gaze was cold and unyielding like that of a mountain lion as he stared at Henry from the rim of his glass.
Next to Angelo, Henry flexed his fingers around his own flute.
“I would like to thank my dear brother-in-law for a most fruitful business deal,” Angelo said, raising his glass. “Not only has he swayed the Chinese dragon, but he has also simultaneously pleased both his father, Edwin Asheford, and myself, which is a feat not so easily accomplished, I can assure you all.”
A wave of laughter rippled around the table.
Shame burned Henry’s cheeks. He hoped to God the heat would not burn through his skin. He did not want his face to give away his true feelings to the devil and his demons, praising him for his sinful deed. He desperately wanted to run from this opulent dining room and never return, but he was trapped. He had no choice but to play this tumultuous game of deceit until the shipment of pistols left the New York harbour in less than two weeks.
“So, Asheford, this toast is to you,” Angelo said, eyes glaring in anticipation.
Henry could feel the man’s power pulling at his strings, urging him to stand and meet his glass with his own. Ignoring the anger bubbling beneath his skin, Henry stood. With his hardened gaze on his puppeteer, he brought his champagne glass to touch his.
The glasses met with a delicate clink.
Angelo drank his champagne in one draft, let out a cry like an injured animal and threw his glass to the floor.
“Husband, you must do the same,” a small voice swept into Henry’s right ear. “It’s a family tradition.”
He flinched from Fanny’s hot breath against his skin.
“Smash the glass,” she urged, pushing at his elbow.
How despicably savage. His fingers curled tighter around the flute’s stem as he reluctantly lifted it to his lips and downed the bitter champagne. As soon as he had swallowed the last drop, he threw the glass at the wall.
A firework of glass shattered against the cream tapestry.
For a beat, no one spoke.
Angelo snorted a laugh, clapped his hands and shouted for the footmen to open more champagne. Corks exploded around the table. Within minutes, the crystal glasses were overflowing. The guests followed Angelo and Henry in drinking their champagne and smashing their glasses to the floor. It was a dizzying display of impropriety and waste.
The footmen swept away the broken glass, and Henry worked overtime to keep his emotions in check while he conversed with the lecherous beings around him. Trapped between Angelo’s hawk-like gaze and his wretched wife’s ever-insistent presence, he felt like a child’s toy being pulled every which way. His heirship to an old English crime empire was being used to elevate the party with a newfound status. Like a dog, he was expected to obey every command. His duty sent an uncontrollable rage running through his veins like a searing current. Even as he found a moment of quietness by the window, he could barely reign in his emotions.
The view was beautiful enough. The enclosed garden of the Davenport residence was lush with green shrubs, pink roses and glittering fountains. It should have elicited joy. It should have awoken a positive sensation within him, but there was nothing. Inside, he was completely and utterly devoid of life.
Laudanum.
He needed it now.
“You are the hero of the hour, it seems,” a woman said.
Henry tore his gaze from the window to look at the approaching stranger.
She wore her blonde hair in a bouquet of tight ringlets and red ostrich feathers. If it were not for the slight smirk on her pale pink lips, her intuitive green eyes would have come across as intrusive and stern.
He turned back to the window. He could not be bothered to show an inch of civility. “I am not in the mood for idle chatter. You’d best find another poor soul to bother with your sarcastic remarks.”
She made a tsk sound between her teeth.
The boldness of it made him look at her again.
“If you want to remain hidden, you should do a better job of blending in. Otherwise, you will give the game away,” she said, her voice a low hush amid the music and boisterous chatter.
His stomach lurched. “I beg your pardon?”
“There are eyes everywhere, Mr. Asheford.”
“There certainly are,” he said, narrowing his gaze. “And who are you?”
“A friend of a friend,” she replied. “I’ve come to deliver a message on his behalf.”
Clarkson had written that he would send help. But through this woman? No. Clarkson was smarter than that. He would have never been so bold as to approach Henry in the lion’s den before the king of the pride. On top of that, Henry had never revealed his true identity to Clarkson. How would Clarkson know with certainty he was the same man he had met that night in London opposite the Asheford Sons’ wharf?
Henry cast a careful glance around the room.
Angelo was busy dancing, cigar in hand. A tinge of red marked his soft features. Clearly drunk and too enthralled with the musicians to pay attention to Henry and the stranger. And what about his wretched wife? She was gone from the room, probably powdering her upturned nose in the lady’s water closet.
Henry looked back at the woman. There was something in her eyes that struck him as distrustful. Or maybe he had become such a cold-hearted bastard, he no longer recognized trust and kindness in strangers.
“What is the message?” he asked.
“Do you see that gentleman by the liquor table? The one wearing a red pin upon his right breast. That’s Frederick Durrett; he is with the New York police.”
A steely self-control kept Henry from grinding his teeth. Those words meant trouble. He shot a look at this Durrett character.
Standing tall among a group of men around the liquor table, Durrett was dressed in a rigid three-piece black suit with a maroon waistcoat. With his trimmed black hair, clean-shaven square face and glass of whisky, he appeared arrogant and full of hot air.
“And what am I to do with Mr. Durrett?” Henry said, feigning ignorance.
“He works with Clarkson.”
The name sprang a kick to Henry’s chest. If that were true, he was certain Clarkson would have informed him of his American acquaintance. Alarm bells rang. Something was not right. Poker-faced, he coolly beheld the stranger.
Play the ignorant fool. No one can know of your intentions.
“I did not catch your name,” Henry said.
“My name is of no importance.”
“Is it not?” he said with a voice that bordered on a growl. “You come to me with mentions of men with whom I have no connection, expecting me to do something with that information. Certainly, you understand me to be someone I am not, and I would like to thoroughly correct that notion.”
A modest flush spread over the woman’s soft cheeks, and she turned her head to gaze out the window. “He would like to speak with you about the Smith Wesson shipment.”
“Who?”
“Durrett.”
“Why?”
“He can tell you when the shipment is delivered to London and brought into the hands of your father, where Clarkson will be positioned to catch the devil red-handed.”
He stilled as if a bullet had shot clean through him. Having heard his plan said out loud, within a few metres of Angelo, forced his heart to hammer against his ribcage. The only person who would have knowledge of this plan was Clarkson, because Henry had written to him a week ago. Not enough time had passed for the letter to have been received and for communication to have been sent back to Clarkson’s supposed New York acquaintance, Frederick Durrett. Even so, why would Clarkson not deliver a letter to Henry too? He was certain Clarkson would not leave him in the dark, especially when he was at the forefront of the action.
His right hand trembled. He desperately needed another dose of laudanum. He clenched his hand into a tight fist by his side.
“We are here to help your ambition to bring ruin to Asheford Sons. Clarkson trusts Durrett. He always has,” she said.
Her words were too vague for his liking, and he refused to continue the conversation. “The only ruin I want to bring is to my own liver. If you would excuse me, I believe a bottle of whisky awaits.”
He made to turn, but her hand caught his.
“Take this,” she whispered, placing a note in his palm. “It’s the address to where Clarkson wants you to send your correspondence from now on.”
Quick as a whip, he rejected her note and brought his hand to his side.
“It would be in your best interest to halt this conversation at once. I have no need for such things,” he said.
As she opened her mouth, he left her with the note in her palm and without a chance to explain further. He stalked to the liquor cabinet and grabbed the whisky bottle. As he poured himself a drink, he listened to the conversation between Durrett and the surrounding men.
“The cooks have outdone themselves.”
“It is certainly lengths better than what my wife puts together in the kitchen,” Durrett said. “I think it’s time to hire a cook to put my poor stomach out of misery.”
The group of men laughed.
“What say you, Mr. Asheford? It is a magnificent party, isn’t it?” Durrett said.
“I suppose,” Henry plainly stated as he set the whisky bottle down hard onto the table.
“I have heard rumours of the Davenports’ grandness when it comes to fireworks,” another man said. “Is it true, Mr. Asheford?”
Henry looked up from the liquor table. He gave each man a cool, unfriendly glare before a sardonic smile curled his lips.
“Isn’t that what they are known for? Magnificent parties and grand fireworks,” Henry said.
“Amongst other things,” Durrett said.
“Like their vexatious fondness for gold?” Henry said.
“Yes,” Durrett smiled. “Their fondness for gold and their natural talent in minting it.”
Henry slid his tongue across his bottom teeth. The tremble in his right hand returned, and he clutched his glass harder.
“Speaking of minting, I hear congratulations are in order for securing a lucrative trade deal between your families. I do believe that is a cause for a toast,” said the man to Durrett’s left. “Or, as they say in Britain, cheers are in order.”
“Yes, good idea, Mr. Davies. A cheers for Mr. Asheford,” Durrett said, raising his glass.
Henry narrowed his eyes at Mr. Davies. Had he imagined a slight Cockney accent?
Shorter than Durrett, Davies had dark hair, a curl of a thin moustache upon his upper lip and narrow, perceptive brown eyes.
“Well?” Davies said.
“Indeed,” Henry replied, wondering why the man seemed familiar. “Cheers.”
The men met their glasses in the centre and toasted the trade deal. They formed an odd group – an undercover policeman, a stranger with a familiar glint in his eye, and Henry the two-timing criminal rat. As soon as they had toasted, drunk and resumed the chatter, Henry left the room and hurried to the library. It was the only place he knew where to find a moment to breath.
Panting, he paused to remove the vial of laudanum from his waistcoat. He had barely sat in the padded leather chair than he raised the vial to his lips. He downed what was left of the bitter liquid. But it was not enough; he needed more.
With a sharp exhale, he dropped his head into his palms. Shaking with rage and fear, his fingers pulled at his hair and squeezed at his temples. The mention of his plan by a stranger had shaken him to the core.
Had he been caught?
If not, why did Clarkson not write to him with the news?
Question after question entered his head like a violent storm, sweeping him off his feet, twirling him every which way, until his mind was on the brink of shattering from the pressure. The path forward was no longer clear. It was quickly becoming a muddied mess of madness.
***
By the time they left Angelo’s home, night had fallen, and lanterns spilled yellow across the cobblestones of the near-empty street. Stevens, their chauffeur, had turned up late, and it had soured Henry’s mood to the point of irrational irritation. William, his trusted chauffeur back at Asheford Hall, would have never dared to arrive after the agreed time.
Stevens opened the carriage door. “Good evening, sir, madam.”
“Did I not instruct you to be here for ten sharp?” Henry said.
“You did, sir.”
Henry looked at his watch. “Then why are you nearly twenty minutes late?”
“I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Is that all? A pardon?”
Stevens gave him a quizzical look.
“At least make an excuse for your tardiness,” Henry said, stepping closer to the man, whose brown eyes widened in panic. “Perhaps the horse chose to be disobedient, or there was traffic on the main street. Or maybe you forgot your duties and fell asleep. Anything other than a bloody pardon.”
Stevens’s gaze shifted between Henry and Fanny.
“Leave the poor man alone,” Fanny said, sliding her gloved hand along Henry’s elbow. “Let us board the carriage and go home.”
Henry moved his elbow free from her touch.
Fanny climbed the first step. “Do not mind Mr. Asheford, Stevens. He has been drinking.” She cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered, “Again.”
Henry shot her a dark look. “Has it ever occurred to you that I may seek solace in drink because I am married to a woman who publicly humiliates me at the slightest opportunity?”
Her face was above him, resentful and pale in the yellow light of the distant lantern. He knew for certain that heated words would be exchanged within the privacy of their carriage. He wondered whether it would be about their marriage bed or his lack of sobriety. Either way, he could not be bothered to care.
Fanny turned and entered the depths of the carriage.
With a silent curse, he dragged his numb body up the steps and took a seat across from her. He hardly waited for the carriage to jerk forward before he lit a cigarette.
“Must you smoke in here?” she said.
He locked his gaze onto hers. It was another dull question that probed into his unhealthy habits. Like Angelo, she too wanted to control him. The arrogance of this family was staggering.
“Will you not speak with me?” she said.
“You are in the mood to give me a tongue-lashing, and I’m hardly of mind to take it.”
“My brother held this party in your honour.”
He snorted. “Right.”
“Why can you never show an inch of gratitude? If I had known you were a sombre creature, I would have never—”
“Married me?”
She frowned, and it drew attention to her eyes. They were flecked with bottled-up frustration. But that frustration hardly amounted to the angst he felt.
“You are entirely correct. I am a sombre creature,” he said. “Every day I am burdened by a slow fever, and it burns to a painful degree. Do you understand what that means? No, how could you? I am not in the company of a woman who could sympathize with that level of isolation. I have no friends, no family, no lover. My days are filled with appeasing your brother and my father to generate further business between our families. And you, my dear wife, you desire that I appease your whims too, without a care for my well-being. It pains me that you do not stop to consider I am merely a mortal with a beating heart. So, please, keep your talk of gratitude to yourself and have some humility. I find it abhorrent you would demand this of me after everything you have done.”
“How can I appease you when you do not let me in?”
“It is better that way.”
“I do not understand.”
“Precisely my point,” he muttered.
He turned his woozy head to the window, signalling an end to the conversation. The slow trot of the carriage was lulling him to sleep. He would welcome the slumber if it were not for Fanny’s presence. Feeling the urge to curse a slew of filthy words, he muzzled himself with another drag of his cigarette.
He thought about Durrett and the messenger with the red plumes in her blonde hair and her secret note. Perhaps he should have taken it. Or at least probed more. What if she spoke the truth?
His eyes flicked to Fanny.
Dull light from the lamps outside crossed her pale face. She continued to look at him as if he were nothing but the mud beneath her boot.
Always watching and waiting to strike. Like her damned brother.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? He could not trust anyone here. So why bother wondering about the veracity of the messenger’s statement? As difficult as it was, it was easier to stay alone. It always had been.
The carriage came to an abrupt stop at a crossroads.
Outside the window, a sign advertising the Bronx Zoo was posted upon a wooden pole. It had a painted image of the lion-faced boy with the words Human Exhibition! Is it an Animal? Is it Human? Is it an extraordinary Freak of Nature? Visit our beasts for only a penny.
He scowled.
Like the zoo’s inhabitants, he would never be free. How could they be when those who boldly shackled innocents did so without fear of prosecution? In this world, there was no justice to be found. It was hopeless. Depressingly and heart-wrenchingly hopeless.
The carriage jolted forward.
Henry’s fist banged the side of the carriage. “Halt at once.”
The carriage continued to trot forward.
“What are you doing?” Fanny said.
“Walking,” he muttered as he banged on the wall again. “I said ‘halt’, you tardy idiot!”
“You are acting like a child,” Fanny said.
The carriage slowed to a stop.
Henry made to open the door, but Fanny’s gloved hands pressed against his chest, pushing him back.
“Stop this at once. You cannot—”
“I can and I will,” he sneered, pushing past her hand to open the door. “Childish or not, I want to walk. Can you not understand how badly I need—” His throat closed up. He wanted to say how badly I need to see the stars, feel the wind upon my face, walk with purpose toward my freedom. She would not understand, or worse, laugh and call him a child again.
“But you’re drunk and … and …”
Against her protests, he opened the door and clumsily stumbled to the ground. He popped the cigarette between his lips and looked up. There was no starry sky and the wind was stale and laced with smog. His mouth salivating for the one thing he needed most, he stumbled toward the nearest chemist without a sodden care for his spiralling descent.
***
She had smelled of lilacs. Sweet and warm like a spring day at Asheford Hall, utterly comforting in nature and soothing to his soul. She had hiked up her sky-blue skirt, unleashing a tidal wave of white underskirts around her ankles, and run to the edge of the cliff with the soaring determination of a bird.
For a beat, his heart lurched.
She stopped short of the cliff edge and held out her arms.
“Think I could fly if I tried?” Eva said with a fleeting giggle.
“You would fall like a boulder to your death,” he said.
She peered at him from behind her shoulder. “Maybe if you didn’t keep feeding me like a queen, I would be as light as a feather and not as heavy as a boulder.”
He approached and snatched her up in his arms.
She squealed.
With a few steps back, he brought her away from the edge of the cliff. At a safe distance, he placed his palms on her cheeks, securing her honey-coloured locks in place from the wind. He looked into her hazel eyes.
“Is that what you wish to do? Fly away?” he said.
Her smile fell.
He kissed her forehead. “Because you can. Know that you can always fly away if you wish. You are as free as a bird. You have always been, and always will be, my wicked little imp.”
A thump hit the floorboard.
Henry’s head jolted and he blinked away the dreamy haze from his heavy eyes.
Sprawled in the padded leather chair in his tomb-like bedchamber, he peered over the side. He had dropped a glass of whisky, and the contents had spilled across the floor. Without a care for the mess, he dropped his aching head against the chair’s headrest and stared at the white stuccoed ceiling.
Swirls of midnight blue painted the plaster in a dance of shadows.
His eyes fell shut.
He searched for the happy memories of Eva. With rabid desperation, he willed his mind to recall her scent, the taste of her lips against his, the feel of her warmth beneath his palms, the sound of her laugh in the coastal wind, but they would not come.
With a huff, he opened his eyes.
The embers in the grate had long ago faded. Save the rain hammering against the window, the gentle ticking of his pocket watch from the depths of his waistcoat was the only sound.
Cruel, cruel time.
He briefly wondered how long he had been asleep. He removed his watch from his pocket and squinted at the hour by the glint of the moon. Quarter to three in the morning. Since his return from Angelo’s party, he had been asleep for a mere two hours. With a groan, he shoved the watch back into his waistcoat and stared at the ceiling, hoping the pattern would put him back to sleep.
Insomnia had been his closest friend since the day his family was torn apart years back. Like the Danse Macabre, it took him on a horrific twirl, spinning him round and round to the rhythm of a haunting orchestra, reminding him that death would soon come for him. The piccolo was the fluttering spirit of his younger sister. The violin, his desperate loneliness. The horns were the constant looming threat brought on by his father. The tuba was a great signifier of the metal bars that always surrounded him. And the drum was the crushing reminder that his freedom would never come.
Over time, he had somehow managed to add more reasons to his insomnia list: a murderous father, his assimilation into the criminal world, his growing addiction to opium, and the loss of Eva, who, he was quite certain, had been his soulmate. How awful a creature he had become. A despicable monster. A hopeless fiend with no hope for a moral, happy future.
None of this would ever get better.
“Christ, what is the use in trying?” he muttered.
As he straightened in his chair, the Danse Macabre played louder and louder in his head. He reached for the laudanum on the table before him. The battle to maintain his sanity had come at a price and he was caught in the devil’s iron fist. He removed the cork plug from the newly purchased vial and knocked back a mouthful.
With a deep exhale, he settled into the chair.
Soon enough, an intoxicating darkness enveloped him. But it was not sleep. It was an inexplicable place between unconsciousness and awareness. He could hear the ticking of his watch and the gentle patter of rain against the windowpanes. He could feel the soft leather of his armrest beneath his fingers and the floorboards beneath his feet. He could even see figures in the darkness, shadowed silhouettes hiding in the crevices of his bedchamber, dancing to the melody of the concerto in his head.
“Henry,” a voice came from the haze.
His heart pounded unpleasantly fast. Was that Eva? Or the sound of a piccolo?
She spoke his name again.
His breath hitched. “Yes … yes, my love, come to me.”
A few seconds of tense silence passed, then a hand slipped over his right cheek. Her thumb stroked the hard edge of his jaw, the friction tingling his skin.
With a sigh, he fell into her touch. How real she felt against him. Through slitted eyes, he caught sight of honey-coloured locks, and he was quick to draw his fingers through her soft mane of hair. He gently pulled her closer.
They kissed.
An overwhelming emotion swelled within him. It made him feel hot and weak. He was always weak when around her. She had the power to disarm him with one kiss. Her lips, tongue – all of it unleashed a firework of sparks throughout his body.
But it was a shower of sparks he did not feel now.
He stilled.
She crawled onto his lap. Her lips came crashing down hard on his face, missing his mouth entirely. Quick to fix the error, she found his mouth again. Her tongue parted his lips. While her fingers clutched his neck in a chokehold, her thumb pushed against his Adam’s apple, momentarily strangling him.
She was too forceful, and it startled him.
“I want you so bad, Henry Asheford,” she said against his mouth.
Her words sent him into a frenzy, banishing his doubts. Eva had once said those very words. Yes, yes, this is your Eva. He kissed her again. Fingers clawing through her silky hair, he pressed his left hand against the small of her back to push her closer.
Closer.
He needed her so desperately close.
There was a scent of perfume. It was not expensive, nor remarkably attractive like the sweetness of lilacs. It was a scent that often drifted down the halls of his marital home.
The world halted.
He jerked his head away.
The face he saw before him was a blur of two people: Eva and Fanny. Swirling and dancing like the shadows on his ceiling, their features blended into one. If the woman on his lap was a drug-induced hallucination, why did she feel real? Why could he smell her? Why could he taste her?
“Husband?”
His pupils flared, adjusting to the darkness. Her voice drew him back to the sober reality of his miserable life. It was his wretched wife on his lap.
She reached to touch his face, and he caught her wrists.
“How dare you,” he said in a low rumble.
She did not reply.
“How bloody dare you force yourself upon me like that,” he said.
“But you told me to come.”
“I did no such thing.”
She blinked. “You called for me,” she said. “You kissed me.”
His muscles stiffened. No, no, no, he had kissed Eva. He would never willingly kiss Fanny. He was quick to release her wrists.
“Off. Now,” he demanded.
“But you wanted me,” she said.
“Off!”
She slid from his lap. In the darkness, her coal-like eyes blackened to dangerous depths, and her pale round face grimaced in frustration. “How much longer will you make me wait?”
“For what?”
“To consummate our marriage. To give you a child—”
He stood, but weakened by his inebriated state, he wobbled on unsteady legs. He supported himself on the back of the armchair.
“A child? Mark my words, you and I will never bring children into this world,” he sneered.
She appeared on the verge of tears. “You said you wanted your wife to see you as a mere mortal with a beating heart, and that’s what I am doing—”
“I did not mean this! Christ, Fanny, you continue to violate my privacy in repulsive ways. Was it not enough for the lot of you to clip my wings? Must you take my dignity too?”
“I don’t understand your hatred. You willingly married me—”
“We both know the truth behind our wedding. There was nothing willing about it.”
“What truth?”
“Greed, power, a business expansion for our families. Do I need to say more?” he snapped. “I beg you, stop with your ridiculous obsession with our love. There was never any love to begin with. Nor will there ever be.”
“That’s only the whisky talking.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
She reached for his hand. “I love you,” she whimpered. “Does that mean nothing?”
Taken aback by the confession, he stared.
“I love you, Henry.”
“That’s impossible,” he said quietly.
“You cannot question a woman’s heart.”
He wriggled free from her grasp. “No, but I can question her intention. Since the moment we met, you have been nothing but a conniving child. For God’s sake, I beg you to leave this instant. My self-control can only withstand so many of your tricks.”
Fanny gave a childlike squeal and hurried from the room, slamming the door.
He collapsed back into the chair.
Bringing a hand over his face, he could not stop the angry tears. It hurt to be this hateful. Yet another reason why sleep would not come tonight.