The Devil to Pay (3 page)

George lifted one shoulder. “Sid is no bad judge of character.”

Maurice drained the rest of his wine. “Well, I shall give him a place, then.”

Sidonie was shocked. “Will you, Maurice? But why?”

Maurice gave a wintry smile. “I feel sorry for anyone thwarted in love,” he said. “Besides, old Hallings has asked to be pensioned come October. If the lad can inventory cloth and keep accounts, he can apprentice for a few months. It isn’t much, my dear, but the chit shan’t starve.”

“Well!” said Sidonie, feeling as if she’d just been caught up in a whirlwind. “The two of you are frightfully helpful—not to mention a veritable spouting font of scandal and gossip.”

Maurice patted her hand. “We work with the
haute monde,
dear girl,” he said. “They have no secrets. Our business depends upon it.”

Sidonie laughed. “I wonder if there is anything the two of you do not know—or cannot discover.”

“I doubt it,” said George.

“Oh, speaking of scandal, gossip, and discoveries!” Maurice leaned across the table, his eye twinkling. “I have something which meets all three criteria—and it’s just too rich!”

“Go on,” said George.

“Guess who the Black Angel’s latest victim was!”

“I cannot,” said Sidonie. “You must tell us, Maurice.”

The haberdasher grinned. “That silly pup, Lord Francis Tenby.”

George rolled his eyes. “Oh, it could not have happened to a more deserving fellow.”

Maurice wrinkled his nose. “I myself think he has abysmal taste in waistcoats,” he said. “But I have also heard he is spoiled and a little petulant, too. He is trying to hush up his little interlude with the Black Angel, of course, but servants will talk.”

“Hmm,” said George. “And what are they saying?”

Maurice leaned even nearer. “That the Black Angel pinched a sapphire pin worth a hundred pounds,” he whispered. “And left him bound, gagged, and naked in a moving hackney.”

“Bound, gagged, and naked?” murmured Sidonie. “How perfectly fascinating. Tell me, Maurice, what is being said of the Angel? Who do people believe she—or
he
—is?”

“A scorned mistress,” he swiftly answered. “Perhaps even an actress. That is why she keeps changing her appearance and targets men of wealth and power. She is angry. Avenging. Not to mention hilariously entertaining.”

Sidonie smiled. “Do the unfortunate victims know why they are singled out?”

Maurice and George exchanged glances. “I have heard it said,” George began, “that the Angel fancies herself something of a Robin Hood.”

Sidonie lifted her brows. “To whom, then, does she give?”

Something flickered in her brother’s quick golden gaze. “I am not perfectly sure.”

“But can you not find out, George?” she teased. “I thought you knew everything.”

“I can
discover
anything,” he corrected. “If it pleases me to do so. But I need not know the Angel’s identity or whom she helps. Frankly, I wish her well.”

Sidonie lifted her gaze to his and allowed a hint of a challenge to light her eyes. “Very well, then,” she said. “I wish you to discover something else. Something of particular interest to me. It should not prove difficult for a man of your talents.”

“By all means, dear girl,” George agreed. “What is it you wish to know?”

“I wish to know who owns the house almost directly across the street from mine.”

Her brother drew back and looked at her. “I keep up with gossip and crime, Sid, not the Bloomsbury real estate records.”

“But this is all of a piece,” she said. “A gentleman—a nobleman, I’m told—keeps the house for his mistresses.”

“Ah!” said Maurice and George at once.

“The poor women come and go faster than the seasons,” Sidonie complained. “And I should simply like to know his name, that is all.”

“What is the number?” asked George.

“Seventeen.”

Maurice frowned. “And the woman, is she a blonde? A brunette?”

Sidonie shook her head. “A redhead—and, according to the crossing sweep, an actress,” she answered. “She moved out just this afternoon, obviously distraught. But there was a blonde this winter. Pale blond, with a mincing walk and a very sharp chin. And before that, an Italian dancer. Her name, I believe, was Maria. She left in tears. Indeed, I think he must be very cruel.”

George looked suddenly ill at ease. “I believe the gentleman in question is Lord Devellyn,” he said quietly.

He and Maurice exchanged odd glances. “Hmm,” said Maurice. “Tell us, Sidonie, is he quite a large man?”

Sidonie shrugged. “I have never seen him,” she said. “He comes and goes in a carriage or a hackney.”

George swirled the port in his glass and stared at the ceiling. “A marked carriage?”

“Indeed.”

“Describe his crest.”

“Yes, of course.” Sidonie closed her eyes and did so.

“It is he,” said George again. “There is no doubt.”

“None,” agreed Maurice. “I fitted him for a pair of new waistcoats just last week. I saw the coach draw up.”

Sidonie laid down her napkin. “Excellent!” she said. “Lord Devellyn. Do either of you know his club?”

George lifted one brow suspiciously. “The Beefsteak, the Yacht Club, and the MCC,” he rattled off. “And White’s, when they will let him in. Why do you ask?”

“Eating, sailing, and cricket!” she murmured, ignoring her brother’s question. “Lord, what a well-rounded individual. I suppose he gambles, too?”

“Like there’s no tomorrow,” said Maurice. “At Crockford’s, usually.”

Sidonie’s eyes widened. “A perilous place.”

“And at any low tavern or squalid hell that will have him,” George snipped. “Devellyn drinks like a parched pig, and has no standards whatsoever.”

“That’s not entirely true, George,” said Maurice, pressing his fingertips to his chest. “He bought waistcoats from me.”

“Well, you know what they say about swine,” sniffed George. “Even a blind hog occasionally roots out a truffle. Besides, you told me his valet chose the fabrics.”

“And where, pray tell, does this Renaissance man reside?” asked Sidonie.

“Oh, good Lord, Sidonie!” George was growing irritated. “He’s the man they call the Devil of Duke Street. Figure it out. Now, may we please dispense with the topic of Devellyn? I find him tedious in the extreme.”

The Beefsteak Club was, simply put, a organization of unruly bacchanalians who liked to sing bawdy songs, gnaw slabs of bloody meat, and swill vast quantities of port before going on to their equally unruly gaming hells. The phrase
in the gout
did not exist in their vocabulary, because Beefsteakers were expected to turn up their toes in a far more dashing fashion long before that dread disease could set in.

The club convened on Saturdays, and Beefsteakers were few, as seating at the table was limited. Death, insanity, and insolvency were the prospective members’ only hopes. There had been, regrettably, a few of each. Over its hundred-year history, the club had been moved from pillar to post, and was presently housed in a room at the Lyceum near Covent Garden.

The Black Angel had had no trouble at all finding the club’s entrance. Now she waited deep in the shadows across the street as the nightlife of Covent Garden began to flood forth. The market gardeners and costermongers had long since found their beds, and the pavements were now crowded with pleasure seekers headed for the coffeehouses and theaters. A laughing couple dressed in worn brown coats passed by her hiding place, their steps light, their shoes scuffing softly on the pavement.

Just then, a brewer’s dray came clattering up from the Strand, and for a moment, she could see nothing. Then the dray rattled on, and in the jovial crowd now spilling from the Lyceum, she saw him. She was certain. The man’s height and breadth made him unmistakable. His hair was dark, chestnut, perhaps, and he appeared to be dressed in solid black.

After a few moments of repartee and laughter, he and two companions stepped from the throng and into a pool of gaslight. For an instant, her heart stopped, and she feared she’d lost her mind entirely. The Marquess of Devellyn towered over his friends, and beneath his sweeping greatcoat, his shoulders looked as wide, and almost as thick, as a beer keg.

But it wasn’t that which made her heart lurch. It was his eyes. They were flat and cold, like gray slate. And horribly cynical, too, as if he knew more than he wished of the world and how it worked. For an instant, she felt an odd sort of kinship with him, then ruthlessly shut it away. But his laughter, still ringing down the street, seemed a sham to her now.

No crested carriage waited below the Lyceum. Instead, the three men set off, oddly enough, in the direction of Fleet Street. It was then that she began to worry just where her little lark might take her. But after a few minutes of brisk walking, the three men turned into the Cheshire Cheese, a tavern favored by the literati. She slid into the shadows of the alley for half an hour, then followed, but the rabbit warren of rooms filled with tables and benches made it impossible to see without being seen. No, this would not do. She circled through the crowded taproom and back into the street again, escaping with nothing worse than a drunken leer and a grope on the arse.

An hour later, they came out again, their pace less brisk but their steps still steady. All around them, a thick evening fog was rolling up off the Thames, muting the clopping hooves and creaking carriage wheels which passed along the street, until they sounded distant and disembodied. She could smell the river now, mixed with the strange effluence which drifted up from the east. In the gloom, the marquess’s long, dark coat swirled eerily around his boots. He moved with an easy grace as the trio circled around St. Paul’s and into Cheapside.

There, they went down a set of steep stairs beneath a tobacconist’s and into a pernicious, unmarked hell called Gallard’s. An unfortunate choice, for it was very private, and she knew no way in. Two hours later, just as she was longing for the warmth of her bed, her quarry came out and staggered off toward the even more dangerous environs of the East End. Devellyn, she decided, was either very bold or very stupid. She tucked her cloak close, felt for her knife, and kept to the shadows.

At Queen Street, the men stopped to light cheroots, then turned toward the river. They crossed the Southwark Bridge on foot, conversing in the bold, carrying tones of men who’d had far too much to drink. She hung back lest she be seen. But it little mattered. She’d already guessed where they were headed.

The Anchor was an old riverside inn frequented by pirates, smugglers, thieves, and the occasional nob out on a lark. Opium, untaxed brandy, sex of any sort; all could be had at the Anchor. She knew the place, but not well. She watched them enter, waited ten minutes, then followed. The weary, unshaven innkeeper didn’t blink an eye when she snapped a guinea against his counter and asked for a room upstairs—a room at the back, away from the river.

Upstairs, she pushed the window wide open and made a quick assessment of the inn’s exterior. Dark. Deserted. A solid-looking drainpipe and a low garden wall. All perfectly acceptable. After hanging her cloak and opening her small valise, she rouged her lips and went down again. The taproom was dark, but she could see that Devellyn and his companions had joined three other, rougher-looking fellows in a card game near the door. She swished carefully past and allowed her fingertips to trail lightly across the shoulder of the man on Devellyn’s left.

The marquess turned, and with heavy, hooded eyes, watched her hand slide away.

“How’ll you have it?” asked the tapster when she approached.

The smell of cold ashes and sour ale assailed her nostrils. “Just a dram o’ satin, lovey,” she said, propping her elbow on the bar and turning to survey the room. Most of the tables were filled, and smoke hung low in the air.

The man put down her drink and leaned nearer. “I need to tell you, miss,” he said quietly. “We’ll be having no trouble in here.”

She shot him a bemused smile over her shoulder. “Wot? Do I look like trouble ter yew?”

Devellyn noticed the fancy piece in the red velvet dress the moment she entered the room. One could scarcely miss the way her hand—a surprisingly clean, long-fingered hand—slid caressingly over Sir Alasdair MacLachlan’s shoulder. Alasdair, of course, did not notice. He had fifty guineas on the table and was holding a fistful of cards which were quivering with excitement. Warming the sheets with some wench was the furthest thing from his mind.

It should have been far from Devellyn’s. But he was losing, and looking for a little distraction. He was also foxed. He watched the tart lean against the bar and order a glass of gin.
Gin?
Good Lord. She certainly wasn’t his type.

She was also tall and lush, with a bosom that was about to burst from her dress, which was cut right down to the nipples. Her hair was a garish shade of red which clashed so violently with her velvet dress the vision could have stopped a mail coach. She had one elbow propped on the bar and was boldly surveying the noisy room. In short, she looked like just what she was, a dockside dolly-mop with big breasts and abysmal taste.

But her eyes.
Now there was something odd. She had quick, intelligent eyes. They did not seem to belong with the rest of her body. Devellyn kept glancing surreptitiously at them, wishing he could make out the color. Her cheeks were oddly high, giving her a bit of a tight, rabbity look about the face. The mouth, though, was not bad. She had a small mole just at one corner, and something about it tormented him. Yet the woman kept lowering her lashes and looking at Alasdair. That was beginning to annoy him.

Once, her tongue came out and teased lightly at the corner of her mouth, almost touching the mole. Devellyn ordered another bottle of brandy and hunkered down with his hand. Then again, a man who’d drunk as much as he had probably oughtn’t be playing cards. But Alasdair had insisted. Well, of course he had. His luck was in tonight. Devellyn’s, unfortunately, was not. He tossed down his hand and admitted it.

Again, the woman strolled through the room. Again, that hungry, sidelong look at Alasdair. Her hip brushed against his chair, but Alasdair held a handful of spades—enough to clear the table if he kept his wits, which he likely would. Alasdair was the consummate gambler. Devellyn pulled away from his friend’s shoulder and began to debate with himself over what to do.

He wanted to tumble the tart in the red dress, dash it. He didn’t know why. He just
did.
It was probably just the perversity of her behavior. She hadn’t looked at him once all night, which was odd. Women always looked at him, if for no other reason than to take in his size. Perhaps she meant to tease him. Or perhaps he wasn’t her type. On the other hand, perhaps he was? With a curt good night to his friends, he shoved back his chair, took what was left of his money, and ambled off to find out.

Apparently, he was her type.

“Wot, a big, strapping buck like you?” She grinned and dropped her eyes to his crotch. “Might ought’er charge you extra, I’m thinking.”

Devellyn grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the stairs. “You might just find yourself so grateful you give my money back,” he growled. Then halfway up, he stopped. He’d forgotten something, blister it. In the darkened stairwell, he pulled her around to face him. “What’s your name, girl?”

She dropped her gaze suggestively. “Ruby.” Despite her horrid cockney accent and oddly grating voice, the word came out silky, sending a chill down his spine. “Ruby Black.”

He let his eyes drift down the tawdry red dress again. Ruby Black looked like she knew what she was doing. Devellyn was suddenly grateful. He was in no mood to tutor a virgin or anything remotely near it. And he was in no mood for a quick rutting, either. Camelia’s leaving him had left him feeling bereft and severely sexually frustrated. He was in the mood for a woman that could take it hard and take it for a good long while. He stopped and jerked her around again.

“How much, Ruby, for the whole night?”

“Coo!” said Ruby. But she named her price. He gladly agreed.

Ruby tucked the money away, then looked up at him through her thick, dark lashes.

“I’m Devellyn,” he grunted by way of introduction.

Her room was narrow and squalid, barely lit by one sputtering, stinking tallow candle. The furnishings were threadbare, the floor just rough planking, but the narrow oak poster bed looked as though it could bear his weight. What did he care for ambiance? He wanted sex.

Ruby ran her hands down his chest, then brushed one teasingly over his belly. “Oh, yer something, Mr. Devellyn, ain’t you?” she said, her nostrils delicately flaring. She leaned into him, her thigh brushing his already jutting erection, and in the gloom, he saw her eyes widen. “Gawd,” she whispered. “I’d hate ter see that one when you’re stone-cold sober.”

He was flattered. He shouldn’t have been, and he knew it. He was half cup-shot, and she was just bought accommodation, and it was all artifice and show. But there was something, he thought, in her face. A hunger. A yearning. Suddenly, he wished he could be certain. “Damn it,” he said. “Why is it so infernal dark in here?”

Ruby looked suddenly injured. “I make me livin’ on me back, gov’nor,” she said. “And candles are a penny apiece at the Anchor.”

He started to pull away, but she slid her hands between his legs, cupping his ballocks in her small, warm palm. “Oh, Gawd, don’t go now,” she whispered, sounding a little desperate. Desperate was good. Devellyn liked his women desperate.

Then he jerked himself up short. She wasn’t
his
woman. She was a riverside strumpet, for pity’s sake. But at the moment, he was having trouble remembering that. Lord, he’d best keep his wits about him. He snared her wrist and pulled her against him. “Look here, girl,” he grumbled. “You’d best be clean.”

Her eyes drifted insolently over him. “I ain’t gonna tip you the token, me fine gent,” she said. “If that’s wot yer thinking.”

“Good,” he said, snarling a little. “The last bloody thing I need just now is a bad case of the clap.”

She jerked her wrist away and stepped back. “Look ’ere, Mr. Devellyn,” she said. “There’s plenty o’ warm coves’ll pay ready money for wot I’m sellin’. If you don’t want it, no ’ard feelings. Just move on, awright?”

Damn it all, he didn’t want to move on. The woman—
Ruby
—seemed to possess something special. He didn’t know what it was. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten a good look at her yet. But he wanted her badly, and he couldn’t say why. She seemed to ooze carnal hunger. He thought he could smell the lust on her skin. And she had a lot of skin.

Suddenly, he was eager to see more. His hand went to her breast, which was warm and heavy. He moved to tug the cheap velvet down so that he might fill his mouth with it, but she pulled his hand away and pushed it back.

“Wot’s yer hurry, gov?”

“I’m paying you,” he said. “What do you care?”

She pulled a little away. “You’re a big man, Mr. Devellyn,” she whispered. “P’raps I ought’er be afraid o’ you?”

He tried to smile. “I think not.”

She fluttered her lashes suggestively. “But I am a little,” she confessed, her voice growing husky. “I think a great big buck like you needs ter be managed a bit.”

“Managed?” he asked.

“Made ter go slow,” she whispered. “Made ter take his time wiv ’is business.”

He chuckled softly. “And how do you propose to do that?”