These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel (31 page)

“I highly doubt a docked ship can be so offensive to our sensibilities after this past week,” I replied. “I’m coming.”

He said nothing, studying me closely.

“It’s no use—she will,” Sebastian added, scuffing his heel along the hard ground. Robert snorted as an addendum.

“Ah, well,” Mr. Kent said with a shrug. “If you say so. Up we go.”

He led the way, climbing the wood-and-rope platform onto the deck. From the moment we stepped onboard, the loud, vulgar dialogues of the workers and sailors were rather audible and unavoidable,
though I must own that I scarcely understood their meanings. Only Sebastian’s raised eyebrows and reddened cheeks gave me some indication of the subjects of their discussion. As we made our
way along the balustrade, most of the men gave us strange glances and I soon felt out of place in my fashion.

Mr. Kent sent me a teasing smirk. “I warned you.”

“Yes, I cannot stand it any longer. Lead me to the bow of the ship, where I may toss myself into the Thames out of despair.”

“Surely you can find your own way. I have pressing business to see to right now,” he replied.

He stopped in front of a luxurious captain’s quarters on the main deck, where two finely dressed men stared at us curiously. One of them—a tall, bespectacled man—lurched
forward and spoke briskly: “Excuse me, but we don’t take passengers on this ship! She’s purely a merchant vess—”

“We are not looking for passage,” Mr. Kent interrupted. “We’re looking for Mr. Greene.”

“Who wants to know?” he seemed to grunt rather than ask.

“My name is Nicholas Kent. I’m a detective.” I groaned silently at the brazen lie. The tall man’s eyes involuntarily bulged for the briefest moment before he composed
himself.

Mr. Kent noticed. “I simply must ask a few questions related to your cargo. Are you the owner of this ship?”

“I am, but I’m busy!” Mr. Greene declared, waving his cane and stepping back toward the cabin.

“Are you really?” Kent asked, staring closely at him.

“No.” Mr. Greene frowned, confused by his honesty.

Mr. Kent slipped the merchant some money. “If we may speak in private for a moment.”

Mr. Greene turned to the other man. “Captain, one minute!” he said, and the captain disappeared into his cabin with a tip of his hat.

Mr. Greene led us to an empty part of the ship and made no effort to hide his irritation. “Now, what do you want?”

“I wish to know if you import and sell a rare chemical called barbital.”

“You want to buy it?”

“No, but is there someone who has purchased it recently or is due to purchase it in the next day or two?”

“Yes,” the merchant said, his eyes looking increasingly frustrated with his mouth’s poor decisions. “But Mr. Kent! I don’t discuss my customers!”

“I understand and admire that,” Mr. Kent replied, “but this is a matter of life and death. Who do you sell to?”

“The boy.”

“The boy? Who might he be?”

“A servant, I don’t know for who.”

“And why is his name preceded with
the
?”

“He’s a frequent customer, goes to all the docks, pays more than the asking price for these rare chemicals from anyone selling. He arranges with the customs men and dockers to take
it straight from the warehouse.”

Mr. Kent glanced back at us with a cocked eyebrow. He was on the right path. This had to be Dr. Beck’s servant.

“Where can I find him?”

“I don’t know.”

“When is he coming back here?”

“Always in the afternoon.”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s a boy,” the merchant replied bluntly. He held out his hand to denote height. “Like a man, but smaller.”

A long pause followed. Mr. Kent’s power could do nothing to improve Mr. Greene’s power of description.

Mr. Kent stretched over the railing, eyeing the docks. “Can you point out the boy to us when he returns?” he asked.

“Yes.” Mr. Greene straightened and puffed his chest out, to make himself appear more intimidating. “But I won’t! I’ve already told you, I respect my
customers’ privacy.”

Mr. Kent tried to hand him more money, but Mr. Greene slapped the coins away. “Who do you think you are, Mr. Kent?”

“I believe you just answered your own question,” Mr. Kent replied winningly.

The joke only angered the merchant further. “I refuse! You can’t just—” He squinted closely at Mr. Kent.

“Kent!” he exclaimed with an uproarious laugh. “I knew I recognized the name. You’re Sir Peter Kent’s boy, that damned rotten thief and vile human being!”

Mr. Kent put on an easy smile. “Besides the human being part, I wholeheartedly agree. I cannot stand my father.”

“No, that won’t work! You dandy detectives with your tricks!”

“I can honestly assure you, this is no trick,” Mr. Kent replied.

“Honesty! From a Kent? Ha! We’re done here, my boy. Get off my ship. And don’t expect to find that servant boy! He’ll be warned before you ever spot him.” Mr.
Greene struck the ship’s steel railing with his cane as an exclamation point and stomped back toward the captain’s cabin.

Mr. Kent stiffened and clenched the railing. I had never before seen him frustrated, but I knew what he was feeling. Mr. Greene’s grudge against the Kent name left us in an even worse
place than before. The boy would be warned off the minute he passed through the dock gates, and we’d never find him.

“What do we do now?” Robert muttered. No one had a response. Even Mr. Kent was uncharacteristically quiet as he watched Mr. Greene’s departure.

Then, snapping into motion, he slammed his own cane down onto the deck with a heavy thump and set out after the merchant, leaving us no choice but to follow.

“We’re not finished!” Mr. Kent yelled out, a newfound charge to his movements.

Mr. Greene twisted around and shot him a menacing look. “Must I have you lot escorted off this ship, Kent?”

“What is your deepest secret, Mr. Greene?”

Mr. Greene replied without hesitation. “I have stolen £40,000 from the company for my personal use.” After finishing, his face contorted into one of sheer horror.

“And where might I find evidence proving it?”

“A safe in my office,” answered Mr. Greene, clamping a hand to his mouth and endeavoring to escape.

Mr. Kent pulled the merchant’s arm away. “What is the combination?”

“Sixteen, thirty-six, four! Stop it! What in heaven’s name are you doing?” Mr. Greene yelled desperately.

“And just to be safe, what is your next most damaging secret?”

Sebastian took several uneasy steps toward them. “Perhaps . . . we’re finished,” he said.

“I have been unfaithful to my wife,” Mr. Greene said, furiously struggling out of Mr. Kent’s grip.

“How many times?” There was a cruel pleasure in Mr. Kent’s voice. It was going too far.

“Twenty-seven.”

In a rage, the merchant broke free and swung his fist straight at Mr. Kent, striking him on the left cheek and sending his hat flying off. Mr. Greene followed with another punch, but a hand
stopped the attack inches away from Mr. Kent’s face.

Mr. Kent stumbled away while Mr. Greene, dumbfounded, stared at Sebastian’s grip on his fist and fell to his knees, coughing and gasping for breath until Sebastian released him. I kept my
distance but remained on the threshold in case anything else went wrong.

“Yes, well. Ahem, thank you, Mr. Braddock,” Mr. Kent said, brushing off his suit. “But that was going quite according to the plan.”

“Then let’s hope we never see you forced to improvise,” Sebastian replied, slipping his glove back on.

“Wha—who—who are you people?” Mr. Greene managed to choke out.

Mr. Kent, now with a little gloat to his step, hopped back toward the merchant. “Sir, I am an honest man who simply wanted to make an honest deal. I’m sorry you have no faith in my
honesty, but there’s no need to blame or attack me because of yours. So please, before you act rashly again, keep in mind that it is entirely within my means to destroy your life.”

He let that friendly threat sink in and then continued with a big smile. “Now, with that unpleasantness out of the way, perhaps we can finally return to the subject at hand—the
boy!”

T
HE DEAL BROKERED
was an exceedingly simple one.

Mr. Greene generously cleared his busy afternoon schedule to wait with us on the docks and point out Dr. Beck’s errand boy. In return, Mr. Kent promised not to reveal Mr. Greene’s
dark secrets and wreak havoc on the merchant’s life. Then we could all happily go our separate ways.

The sun was in its slow decline by the time we had spread out along the dock. Robert waited near the front gate, Miss Grey in the middle beside a customs office, and Sebastian on the roof of a
storage warehouse, where there was no one he could hurt. My lucky spot was on a berth right next to the
Zephyr,
which happened to be unloading twenty nauseating tons of fish at the moment.
We all stood within sight of the
Aurora,
where Mr. Kent provided pleasant company for Mr. Greene, who kept watch from his vantage point, ready to signal the boy’s arrival.

The detective work might have sounded exciting when proposed, but in reality, the wait was dreadful. It was not quite as bad as a ball, but it was exhausting and demoralizing to scan through the
crowds, spot hundreds of young servants, and turn to see Mr. Greene shaking his head
no
like some sort of malfunctioning automaton. I couldn’t bear to imagine the pain Rose was
enduring every extra second this took.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kent’s waves, smiles, and attempts to amuse me bounced off the side of my head for hours. I looked up only for Mr. Greene’s signals and ignored everything else. I
paced and searched and paced and searched until I noticed the empty space by the customs office. Where did Miss Grey go? Had she found the boy? My eyes darted up to the
Aurora
and there
she stood, having taken the spot near Mr. Greene. And behind me, uncomfortably close, stood Mr. Kent, trapping me between himself and the water.

“A word please, Miss Wyndham,” he said.

“No, thank you,” I replied, refusing to look at him directly. His image, wavering and undefined, reflected back at me in the water along the edge of the dock.

“Right, I clearly don’t need to ask you if you’re angry.”

“Your detective skills continue to impress.”

He clasped my hands, pivoting my body toward him, and spoke with complete sincerity. “I—I want to apologize for not telling you earlier. But if you consider the time we’ve
known each other—”

I pulled away. “I knew something was wrong. I felt it that night at the brothel—”

“Dancing room.”

“Wherever it was that you were shamelessly flirting! Did you honestly know it was me?”

He frowned. “No, but it was to gain access to your sister. I just didn’t want to offend you about your . . . appearance.”

“That sounds like an excuse you came up with later. And you can’t very well ask yourself for the truth—”

“No, see, I can.” He walked over to the edge, perilously close, and waved to his reflection in the water. “Nicholas, were your intentions honest at the Argyll?”

“Why, yes! Of course they were, Nicholas,” he replied to himself. “How silly of you to ask. Nothing could distract me from serving Miss Wyndham. Except perhaps
you
,
you dashing fellow—”

“Fine! Forget the Argyll! You still have no excuse for the way you abused your powers!” I insisted.

“I know, but please consider this from my perspective,” he said, staring off beyond the
Zephyr
, straight at the horizon. “We both are of a rare breed already with
these abilities, but you are blessed even further. Your power to heal cannot be inconvenient or detrimental to any situation you may be in, except . . . perhaps if you were attempting to kill a man
on a cliff, and he was horribly injured and clutching the rocks on the very edge, clinging for dear life, when by chance, he grabs your arm and restores himself back to health, but now . . . how
often are you in that sort of situation—”

“Mr. Kent, I believe you were attempting to make a point.”

“Ah, yes, well, what I meant was that I cannot switch my ability off. I have to hear the truth from every person I speak to, and if you heard some of the things I’ve been privy to,
your opinion of the people in this world would not be . . .”

I snorted. “What? That sunny, optimistic opinion I have of society now?”

“You would think
even worse
of it, which I know is saying a great deal.” The sun glinted hard off the bay, covering his face in slants of light and making it impossible to
read.

“I’d prefer if everyone were not so deceitful and hypocritical,” I said. “And this diatribe of yours against the truth isn’t changing that.”

“That’s simply because you have not had to suffer it. Consider yourself fortunate. I’d much rather have false civility and feigned politeness.”

“Very well, your life is pure misery. You would have had my sympathy if you’d told me about your powers instead of constantly using them on me the whole time we’ve known each
other!”