Cold Stone and Ivy (41 page)

“I found your coat in the rubbish.”

“Are you drunk,” Sebastien panted, “or are you Welsh?”

She raised the flask. “I’m both, sir. And proud of it.”

The trap swung open. “To ’olbrook ’ouse, sir?”

“Please.”

“And Miss Ivy? Where shall Ah be takin’ ’er?”

“I’m sure she’s not particular, Castlewaite. Not at the moment.”

Ivy rolled her head and pouted. The bowler was tipped at an odd angle, so that it almost covered one eye. “I am
so
particular. Just ask Christien. I am very, very particular. But
you,
sir,
you
are
peculiar.”

“Are you Welsh?” He frowned. “Truly?”

She swung herself over to sit beside him and perched her chin on his shoulder.

“I am indeed. Did you really not notice?”

“Honestly, no.”

She smiled a ridiculously wide smile. “You, sir, are adorable. With your eye blackened like that, you look like a regular rogue. Alexander Dunn is a jewel thief, you know. Did I mention I saw a head tonight?”

The coach jerked and started to move. He swallowed, not knowing what to say.

She raised the flask. “Would you like some purl?”

He was bleeding out of many wounds, his one wrist useless due to the spade, the other useless because of the wall. The side of his head was red and purple and he was soaked to the very bottom of his toes. His dead father was the London Ripper and his brother’s fiancée was rather pretty and very, very close.

He snatched it out of her hand and downed it to the last as the carriage rattled its way to Holbrook House in Kensington.

THE SERVANTS WERE
discreet, he had to give them that. Even Pomfrey—prim, wigged Pomfrey—had not said a word as the master of the house showed up at the door looking as if he’d just lost a round with a champion boxer, hoisting his brother’s fiancée like a bag of fermented apples.

He carried her up the stair of Holbrook House, deciding on the Blue Room, the one with the wallpaper. He nudged the door with his foot, carried her in, and dropped her onto the spread. He placed her hat on the night table, began to unlace her boots. They were very fine boots, he thought. Perfect for riding. She couldn’t possibly have purchased them in Over Milling. No very fine shoe shops in Over Milling. He’d closed the last one down years ago.

He pulled the spread over her and she didn’t move at all. The locket lay in the cove of her breasts, and he stared at it for a moment. It was pulsing like a heartbeat, calling him like a siren the way mermaids called sailors to their deaths.

He raised his hand over it, willing it to move.

First it was the spinning, then the flashing—a lighthouse on a darkened shore. It moved from its nest in her corset, rising to hover and spin just beneath his palm.

Aperi me,
it sang in Latin.
Open me.

The voice of angels.

He wanted it more than anything he had ever wanted.

He reluctantly moved his hand, not watching as it dropped back down to her chest. He tucked her in, smoothed her wild hair across the pillow, and for the first time he noticed the freckles, just a few across the bridge of her nose.

Amazing the things he wanted now.

“You’re too perfect, Christien,” she purred and rolled over, a wide happy smile on her face. He straightened, feeling an unexpected sense of loss.

He rose quietly, closing the door and leaving the room in total darkness.

There was a woman waiting for him in the hall.

She was hideous. Her mouth and nose were gone. Ears too, from the looks of it. Her bodice was open and her skirts torn so that her organs were exposed and hanging. A shawl made of intestines draped across her right shoulder and her entire torso was splattered with blood. What was left of her clothes was shabby, all green and black velvet, and it struck him instantly who she was.

Blade slash throat ear kidney liver slice

He sagged against the wall, ran a hand down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned and suddenly, there were eight others in the hall—seven who had previously been in Seventh and an eighth—the one who had died in the lane before his encounter with his father. Nine women, standing in the fine Georgian hallway of Hollbrook House. The cold began to descend as he slid down the wall to sitting, and he cradled his head in his hands. He closed his eyes, but that did not remove the image of them from his mind, nor the feel of them in his bones.

The wailing began soon after and his teeth chattered in time. He wished he could be very small, wished he could escape. Wished he still had his father’s pistol. He would follow Lees’ advice and shoot his own head off with it tonight.

And so he sat like that for hours, shivering and wanting and numb until he felt arms pulling him to his feet and into his room.

Of Bond’s Boys, Criminal Behaviour,
and Another Letter from Jack

“GOOD LORD, BASTIEN
,” groaned Christien as he peeled the shirt from his brother’s chest. “Have you been shot?”

Sebastien nodded and closed his eyes, teeth chattering, head sinking into the soft pillow.

“Two days ago, in Milnethorpe.”

Christien pulled the old bandages away, tossed them to the floor. Began to examine the stitches that were pulling loose from the flesh.

“Damn Frankow and his wire stitches . . .” He shook his head. “They can hold a bull together but not you . . .”

Sebastien grimaced. “Is there any Scotch downstairs?”

“I’ll fetch some as soon as I’ve cleaned you up.” Christien rose from the bed, moving to the doorway where he had dropped his bag. He spied the chalk symbols across the doorframe, along the walls. The
ligaturae spirituum,
his brother called them. Prayers of binding and protection. They were old, but apparently still worked. A psychological crutch, he knew, and was thankful for the power of the mind. It was the only way the two of them could be in the same room. Sebastien would normally be clawing his eyes out by now.

With a sigh, he resumed his seat on the bed. “Why do you do this, Bastien? Why can’t you stay up north? You know what London does to you.”

“Bertie . . .”

The wound was oozing blood from where the stitches had pulled away. He dabbed at them with alcohol and cotton.

“Gads, Remy, you should have seen her face. She had no mouth, no nose. It was dreadful.”

“Who was, Bastien?”

“The little woman from Whitechapel.”

“God, no wonder the Club wants you,” he muttered under his breath. He reached for his brother’s wrists, made sure they were not broken. They were, however, purple and swelling. “Is Bertie asking you to search for this Ripper now?”

“Of course. But I would be obligated anyway. I have a houseful at Seventh and they’re beginning to follow me around. It’s Father, by the way.”

“What's that?”

“Father is your Ripper.”

“Father’s been dead for years, Bastien. Do you hear what you’re saying? How you sound?”

“I sound mad. I know. You tell me every time.”

Christien continued flexing the bruised wrist, twisting it to test the integrity of the bones. Sebastien winced.

“Sorry. Did you ride or take the airship?”

“The airship.” Sebastien grinned, eyes still closed. “She gets airsick, you know. Sat with a pot in her lap the entire time.”

“She . . .?”

“Ivy.”

Christien blinked slowly. “You brought Ivy to London with you?”

“We were going to try to find her mother at the docks. She’s fixed there with the little boy, the dead one. Tobias, I think his name was. I’m not sure if she’s willing to come back. I couldn’t ask, for someone tossed a head in the river and I was rather preoccupied after that.”

“By God, Bastien . . .” He sat up stiffly. “Where is she now?”

“Hm . . . The Blue Room. The one with the paper. She likes paper, I think.”

“She’s here? In Hollbrook?”

“Yes. She’s drunk and her father's a policeman.” His words were growing slurred. “I don’t get on well with policemen, so I brought her here.”

“You got drunk with my fiancée?”

“Castlewaite . . . He keeps a little flask for nights . . . like this . . .”

Christien sat for a long while on the edge of his brother’s bed, his mind spinning in many different directions. The locket. Surely, she’d have brought the locket with her. No wonder he'd lost two hours tonight.

He sat that way until a pounding on the door roused him from his thoughts and he went down to attend to it.

“BY
GOD
, BOYS
,” he groaned at the sight in the doorway. Pomfrey was holding it open, eyes sleepy, wig miraculously in place. It was well past three in the morning, but a well-paid servant was never off the clock.

Henry Bender was at the door, supporting Ambrose Pickett under one arm. Pickett was hobbling, and Christien knew instantly what had happened.

“Remy!” cried Bender, pushing into the foyer. “Rosie needs tending!”

“I been shot!” wailed Pickett. “By some bloke under the pier!”

“Quiet,” hissed Christien. “Into the study.
Now.
Pomfrey, my bag is upstairs in Bastien’s room.”

“I’ll fetch it at once, sir,” said the man, and he disappeared like a wraith into the darkness. He would ask no questions. He was good that way.

Christien slipped his arm under his friend and the trio hobbled to the study, dropping Rosie into a chair.

“Start up the fire, will you, Henry?” Christien pulled the French doors closed and moved to the side table to pour three glasses of port. He passed one to Bender before kneeling by the chair.

“Drink,” he ordered. Rosie did, all in one go.

As Bender stoked the fire, Christien pulled up an ottoman for the injured leg and got to work. “What the hell happened?”

Bender snorted. “We thought we were clear, so we tossed it, like we said. And some bugger shoots up from under the bloody dock!”

“Shot my leg, he did!” moaned Rosie. “Shot my bloody leg!”

Bender snorted again. “Took out a perfect hole in his trousers, too . . . Bloody hilarious, if you ask me . . .”

“It was
not
funny, you git!
You
get shot next time.”

“Enough,” growled Christien. He tore open the trousers to reveal a long, white leg with two perfect holes at a steep angle. He turned the leg, twisting it and eliciting a whimper from his friend.

“Damn him.” He smiled coolly. “He
is
a crackerjack shot.”

“Who?” said Bender. “Who’s a crackerjack shot?”

“My brother, that’s who. Bullet went clean between the bones.”

Bender swung around from the fire. “Are you saying—?”

Christien cleared his throat as Pomfrey entered the study to lay the medical bag at Christien’s side.

“Would you be wanting some cheese and biscuits to go with that port, sir?”

“No, but warm up a bit of that soup from supper, Pomfrey, if you would be so kind.”

“Yes, sir.” He disappeared as quietly as he had come.

“Are you saying that your
brother
shot Rosie?” Henry hissed. “The Mad Lord of Lasingstoke? What the hell was he doing under the pier?”

“I didn’t think he was in town,” groaned Rosie.

“Arrived last night.” Christien was cleaning the wound now, dabbing it with alcohol from a dark bottle. “Not in town eight hours and he nails one of you. Williams is right. You’re bloody useless, the pair of you.”

“Shut it, Remy. We had the arms
and
the head. You just had to do the legs.”

“Which they have not found, by the way . . .” He continued his work. “Is Lewie joining us here afterwards?”

“Yeah.” Bender straightened, downed his port in several anxious gulps, and shook his ginger head. “He thinks he’s got a bang-up place for the rest of her.”

“It’s not meant to be bang-up, you ass. It’s meant to be disposed of. Williams will not stand by us, you know, if this goes poorly. He could get fired for giving us those cadavers.”

Bender snorted again. “He could get fired for doing what he did to those girls, Remy. Or to the royals. It’s still illegal, even for him. In for one, in for all. That’s the way of it.”

There were voices from outside and the French doors swung open once again, admitting Lewis Powell-Smith. Marie was under one arm, looking very pretty in jewel-toned velvets and golden curls. Powell-Smith frowned as he took in the scene.

“What the hell, Remy?”

“Keep it down, Lewie.”

Powell-Smith closed the door behind them. Bender straightened. “Marie.”