It Happened One Midnight (PG8) (13 page)

“Thank you for coming. She’s in here.” She’d already told Sally that The Doctor, like Mr. Friend, had also had the collywobbles a long time ago, to ensure a peaceful examination, and Sally, who fortunately was fascinated by anything and anyone new, sat wide-eyed, silent, one finger in her mouth. She’d slept like a rock—or rather, like a child—the moment they’d arrived home the night before.

“Let’s have a look at your sore head, shall we?”

The Doctor peeled the bandage from Sally’s head with his long thin white fingers and took a peek beneath. “It ought to have been stitched,” he said. His voice was arid and sandy and scarcely inflected. He turned to her with a little smile. He looked, Tommy thought guiltily, like a fish. His watery blue eyes were small and round, his mouth was moist and pink and fleshy. “A bit late for that now, unfortunately. She’ll have a scar.”

Sally held onto Tommy’s hand and squeezed hard. “You are a very brave girl. You’ll have a grand scar. Scars are dashing. I’ve quite a number of them.”

“Does Mr. Friend have scars?”

“Doubtless many of them. All truly dashing people do.” Most likely in his eardrums this morning, Tommy thought.

Sally had mentioned Mr. Friend a good half-dozen times this morning. Jonathan Redmond had made another conquest. She felt a bit guilty about sending the truly dashing man off so ignominiously last night, but she’d fulfilled her part of the bargain—she’d sent the pearls over this morning.

Tommy held Sally’s hand while The Doctor cleaned Sally’s wound, bound up her head neatly and efficiently, and examined her vision and reflexes for any lasting damage.

“Does it hurt anywhere else, sweets?” Tommy asked her gently.

“Here.” She pointed to her shoulder. When she’d been struck, she’d knocked into the side of a wood stove. The Doctor had a look. “Just a bit bruised, and it will feel right again in a few days with a bit of rest.”

“Thank you,” Sally said sweetly. And glanced at Tommy, who winked approvingly at her good manners.

“You’re welcome,” The Doctor said flatly. “Now, Miss de Ballesteros, if you would be so kind as to escort me to the door?”

“I . . .” Tommy hesitated. She’d squared her account with The Doctor, who had been kind enough to wait for payment in the past. Something else must be on his mind. “Certainly. One moment.” She pulled from a shelf an aging but carefully tended picture book—colorful letters of the alphabet, accompanied by vivid illustrations.

“Will you be a good girl and wait for me? I won’t be long. Here is a picture book I loved when I was a girl.”

Sally took it in both hands with something like awe and settled down at the table with it, opening it with an instinctive care that squeezed Tommy’s heart.

“Shall we?” she said to The Doctor. They proceeded up the stairs and through the dimly lit corridor in an odd silence. When he stopped near the door rather than opening it, she was suddenly intensely uncomfortable with his closeness in such narrow confines. She took comfort in the proximity of the door, and put one hand on the doorknob, gave it a half turn.

He noticed.

And he smiled a little smile that made the back of her neck prickle uneasily.

“As you are aware, Miss de Ballesteros, we’ve enjoyed a certain arrangement for some time.”

“Enjoyed” was certainly an interesting way to put it. Tommy brought a number of patients to him or he came here to see them, he stitched them up or reset bones or administered powders as necessary, and departed. And though he had worked on account more than once, she’d recently paid him what she owed.

“Are you abandoning us, Doctor? I would regret it. I was pleased to settle our account recently,” she said lightly.

“Ah, yes. About that. I fear I must raise your fees, my dear, for I find my own expenses have risen over the past year. And given the clandestine nature of our arrangement, I believe my silence on the matter may warrant additional compensation.”

She went still. Her smile remained fixed and friendly. All the while she thought,
That’s a whole bloody lot of words to use when one would have sufficed: extortion
.

It occurred to her then that she’d never seen the man blink.

“Come now,” she cajoled faintly, trying to charm. “I thought you agreed that you were handsomely compensated for your work.”

“I had another type of compensation in mind.”

He said it bluntly. Evenly. Without a moment’s hesitation.

His meaning was unmistakable.

Take this powder twice a day. Change the dressings once a day.

Spread your legs for me.

The tone was just that dry and officious.

Hot little worms of revulsion crawled over her skin. Breathing was suddenly more difficult.

“I see that I’ve surprised you. But I think you’ll agree that you and I undeniably share a special rapport. You have made clear your attraction for me.”

She blinked. Surely she was
dreaming
this conversation?

“Doctor,” she said gently, carefully, “if you have interpreted my politeness and appreciation as something more, I am truly sorry. It was meant only as good manners.”

“Nevertheless. I think you’ll find me a thorough and considerate lover, Miss de Ballesteros.”

She couldn’t decide which of those words horrified her the most.

She
did
shiver then.

“And surely you can find room in your social schedule to accommodate me. I shan’t be unreasonable. Once a week should suffice, beginning tomorrow?”

He closed his case. Gave a tight polite professional smile.

“Surely . . . Doctor, you can’t mean it?”

He was surprised. “I never jest.”

That
she believed.

“But your wife . . .” Was he married?

“Will never know, now, will she? And for a woman like you, one more man should surely be no hardship.”

She drew herself up to her full height, rather like a spitting cobra. Such a wave of fury rippled out from her that The Doctor at last blinked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by a ‘woman like me,’ ” she said evenly. “And the fact that you would say such a thing is evidence that you don’t know me at all, let alone well enough to assume we share a special rapport.”

He just smiled ruefully, as if they both knew she was lying.

“The child will still be here tomorrow, as well, Doctor.”

“Well, I’m not an animal, Miss de Ballesteros. The door of her room has a lock on it. I shan’t be long. I expect it will go very quickly, as I’ve been imagining it for a good long while, and anticipation has rather a way of hastening the outcome of these things.”

This statement rather opened up a window on horror. She froze, helpless not to imagine
him
imagining it.

“I’ll return tomorrow to collect what I’m due, and as I suspect you’re a sensible woman, I expect you’ll be in. One way or another, Miss de Ballesteros, I’ll have my prerogative. I think, upon reflection, you’ll agree with me that bartering for services is a very fair arrangement, and rather relieves you of an unwanted financial burden.”

“Yes. You’re an absolute Samaritan, Doctor, looking out for my best interests.”

“Good day.”

He donned his hat and bowed, and when he was gone, she bolted the door and threw her body against it.

Imagine that.

Yet another way in which she was in over her head.

A
LONG WITH THE
suddenly sinister heaps of invitations, which his mother gestured to with a smile and a pair of raised eyebrows, the next morning Jonathan found a package wrapped in brown paper and tied in string, addressed to himself, from a certain “Thomas B.”

“The most astonishing looking man delivered this to our doorstep this morning, from what I understand,” his mother told him. “The footman quite took a fright.”

Rutherford, no doubt.

He hefted it in one hand. And he set his jaw.

He would be damned if that woman would get the better of him. He wanted to know just what he’d done last night.

“It’s a lovely day to ride in the row,” his mother said pointedly. “And I’ve heard from Lady Worthington that her daughter Grace seats a mare beautifully.”

“It is a lovely day,” he agreed. “I’ve made plans, however, and my day is full.”

Of selling pearls, cheering up a German, and following a marzipan trail, specifically.

H
E KNEW OF
a small jeweler, Exley & Morrow, who would be ecstatic to get the pearls at Jonathan’s price rather than a merchant’s.

The transaction was smooth and pleased both Jonathan and Mr. Exley, who asked no uncomfortable questions about their origins. Flush with a comfortable amount of money, and feeling like he could exhale again, Jonathan stopped by the solicitor’s to pay the arrears rent on Klaus’s print shop on Bond Street.

He’d met—or rather, found—Klaus a few months ago when he’d bumped into him outside of a gaming hell. Klaus had been sobbing quietly, though not in a drunken way, and Jonathan learned (it was slow going, given that Klaus delivered his story in an arbitrary blend of German and English) he’d lost nearly all his money at the tables, and then had been robbed of the rest of it by a gang of thugs when he’d departed.

Jonathan had led him into a pub, bought him a drink, and loaned him a few pounds. Revived by ale and kindness, Klaus had become his voluble cheerful self and the whole of his story poured out in very good English—how he’d emigrated from Bavaria to London but a few months ago, had developed a process for printing cheaply in color and in great volume, and had rented a shop on Bond Street, which, due to a rare error of good sense (his first and last foray into a gaming hell), he could no longer afford.

And Jonathan had just . . .
known
the moment he heard. Good ideas were like that. It was difficult to describe, but it was if some internal bell sounded when one dropped into his mind.

And made his way to Bond Street to unfurl his good news to Klaus a bit at a time.

He told Klaus about the pornography first. Just to delight him.

Klaus thought pornography was a
wonderful
idea, but Jonathan, a bit to his own surprise, was regretfully yet adamantly opposed.

“You want to be associated with quality products. You want something seen as exclusive or unique, something all the ladies will wish to purchase or own, something a gentleman can purchase
for
them. You want something that will be coveted, traded, and commissioned. And you want to charge a price that’s
high,
but not too high. Liebman, are you ready?

Klaus leaned forward eagerly.

“We’ll start with playing cards with the members of the court on them.”

Klaus’s eyes went wide. He stared for a moment, mouth dropped into a little “O.” And then his arm shot out and he clapped Jonathan on the shoulder to steady himself against the sheer glory of the idea.

And then he clasped his hands together and rattled off something ecstatic in German. Jonathan’s French and Spanish and Italian were more than adequate, but German still sounded to him like blocks of wood being scraped and slapped together.

“Klaus! German!
Klaus!
Speak English! Please!”

“Oh, I am sorry, mein freund. It’s a wonderful idea. Everyone will want them.” Klaus had been in London long enough to get a sense for what oiled the wheels of the place: gossip and status and vanity. “We’ll need an artist.”

Klaus was practical, Jonathan had learned. And he’d vowed never again to visit another gaming hell. An excellent quality in a business partner.

Jonathan thought for a minute. And then snapped his fingers. “I know just the person.”

Finally
something useful about Tommy de Ballesteros’s salon! Wyndham, the artist who painted suggestive portraits for the brothel, The Velvet Glove, and who had allegedly painted Tommy’s portrait. His work was certainly competent enough to create simple plates for the color press.

He’d just have to persuade him to work for a percentage of profits.

“And . . . perhaps we shall need models.” This realization made Klaus’s face light up again with glee. “Imagine, Redmond, I lost my shirt in a game of cards, and now cards will give my future back to me. And models.”

Jonathan went motionless. It was his turn to stare in wonder at Klaus.

You could rely on the turn of a card for your future,
his father had said.

And then a slow smile spread all over his face.

A smile that boded no good for his father.

“Klaus. Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. I am brilliant,” he crowed softly. “We are brilliant. You shall have your models. And we’ll be making an
additional
deck that will likely prove just as popular, if not more so. With a little help from Argosy and the Betting Books at White’s, and that river that nourishes us all. Gossip.”

Chapter 12

W
ITH A BIT OF
sun pouring into the little rectangle of her window, and Sally giggling over her bread and cheese breakfast—surely a carefree child’s giggle was the sound of sunlight itself—Tommy couldn’t make herself believe that The Doctor had been serious. He’d actually
met
Rutherford, for one thing. Surely the proximity of such a behemoth was enough to give a man pause.