The Water Nymph (4 page)

Crispin spoke not to him, but to Sophie. “This is my steward, Thurston. I propose we entrust the bets to him.”

Those who knew Thurston had long since ceased to be astonished by his ability to appear without ever making a noise and to anticipate every command before it could be spoken, but Sophie, new to his talents, was staring at him as if he were some sort of apparition. She nodded mutely and kept her eyes on him until he had, noiselessly, disappeared through the door.

When she turned them back to the plaguesome man behind the desk, she saw that he was extending one of the goblets toward her. “Let us drink to our wager.”

Sophie raised her vessel to him, then drank the contents down in three swallows.

That was a mistake.

Crispin leapt from his seat but was still not quite fast enough to keep Sophie’s head from grazing the corner of his desk before she lost consciousness.

I have always been a connoisseur of Beauty. From when I was a child, I understood that Beauty was the true and only good. Who can deny the evidence of their eyes when every day the old, the poor, the ugly, are removed from our world by death, in order to make it better and more perfect for the young, the rich—in a word, the beautiful? Everything I have done, and everything I will do, is for the sake of Beauty alone. She sanctifies my actions,
washes the blood from my hands,
and praises me for my
ruthlessness and
loyalty
.

I knew I had been elected when I was very young.
I was a striking child
I was a very striking child, and from the earliest age, I harbored a repugnance for the ugliness of my family’s poverty that even my mother deemed unnatural. She,
curse
bless her memory, had married for love beneath her station and had thus condemned me to a life of unadulterated horror, of watching others ride the fine horses I deserved to ride, wear the rich velvets and furs that I deserved to wear, wield the power I deserved to wield
.

I understood then that, of all things, poverty is the enemy of Beauty. It destroys her, covers her in its filth, drags her down so that

The servant heard his master’s pen drop with annoyance as he entered the room and knew he would receive a stern lecture for this interruption, but he had no choice. “A man to see you, Your Excellence,” he announced, then rushed to explain, “I would not have broken in on your writing like this, but he says he has important information for you. He told me to show you this.”

He extended a gold signet ring for his master’s perusal. He watched as his master ran a finger over the single feather embossed into the otherwise smooth surface of the ring, then finally said, “Send him in, Kit. The usual precautions.”

Kit returned leading a tall, blindfolded man with his hands bound behind his back. His clothes were slightly too small for him but well made, and he had a livid scar across his forehead. Kit pushed him into a chair near the desk, then stepped back two paces.

The blindfolded man turned his head from side to side as if trying to scent out the presence of the person he had come to see. He jumped slightly as a voice quite close to his ear whispered, “What do you have for me?” It was a voice the blindfolded man did not recognize, and he frowned, trying to decide if it came from a young person or an old one, a man or a woman.

“I sent my calling card,” he answered finally.

“Your calling card.” The whisper was tinged with amusement. “Where did you get it?”

“That does not matter. What matters is that I got it. I know how to find him. I can get you the Phoenix.”

“What makes you think I want the Phoenix?”

The blindfolded man squirmed against the restraints on his hand. “I beg your pardon for my mistake. Give me back the ring and I will go.” He rose to stand, but a powerful hand on his shoulder stopped him and shoved him back into the chair.

The man shifted uncomfortably as the whispering resumed, right in his ear. “You are overhasty. I did not say that I did not want the Phoenix. Do you mean to tell me that you know who he is?”

“I know how to find him,” the man replied, not answering the question. “I know how he thinks. He has already fallen out of favor with Her Majesty, so he does not have the power he is accustomed to. Weakened, he is easy prey. And I can get him for you.”

A hand touched the man’s shoulder, pulling him forward. He had the feeling of eyes boring into him, studying him, his scar, his clothes. Then he felt warm breath on his neck. “I believe you can get the Phoenix.” The hand on his shoulder relaxed somewhat. “And I believe we shall get along very well together. Contact me when you have destroyed him. And do not be slow about it. The time is ripe for our undertaking now.” The hand left his shoulder completely. “You are dismissed.”

The blindfolded man did not move. “We have not yet discussed my compensation,” he said slowly.

“You will get your share when our undertaking is successful.”

“I want one third of the profits.”

“What?” The pitch of the whisper rose precipitously. “One third? Are you mad?”

The man leaned forward, this time of his own accord, and lowered his voice. “Do you want the Phoenix or not?”

There was silence, during which the man heard only his adversary’s short, angry breathing, and then, in a staccato whisper, “One quarter of the profits.”

“One quarter,” the man confirmed, adding, almost offhandedly, “And the girl.”

“What girl?”

“Sophie Champion. The girl you are trying to frame.”

A new tone crept into the whisper. “Why? Why do you want her?”

“Why do you want the Phoenix?” the man challenged.

“That is none of your business.”

The blindfolded man nodded. “Precisely.”

Another long moment passed in silence. “Very well, you shall have Sophie Champion. And one fifth of the profits.”

The man turned his face toward his invisible companion. “You said one quarter.”

“I changed my mind. I have no tolerance for weaknesses of the flesh.”

“You cheating bastard,” the blindfolded man said through clenched teeth.

“No names, please. A simple yes or no. Do you accept? The girl and one fifth of the profits?”

“Yes.” The man’s jaw was still tight. “Yes, I accept.”

“Good decision. “For one fifth of the profits, I shall have the Phoenix—”

“And I,” the blindfolded man interrupted, “shall have Sophie Champion.” A slow smile spread across his face as he spoke. He was still wearing it when he left the workshop a quarter of an hour later, a strange, inscrutable smile.

A smile, the old beggar woman slouched in a doorway outside Sandal Hall thought to herself, that she never wanted to see again. A smile that chilled her blood and haunted her dreams for days to come.

“Where have you been?” the stocky deputy demanded as his boss strode through the door. “I have had the boys looking all over London for you since daybreak.”

“‘My lord,’” Lawrence Pickering suggested to his second-in-command.

“My lord,” the deputy repeated with a clumsy bow. “I have had the boys looking all over London for you since daybreak, my lord.”

Lawrence Pickering was not, in fact, a peer of the realm, nor even distantly related to a gentleman by birth. But he was as rich as four earls put together and had far more influence over Alsatia—the quarter of London many referred to as “Little Eden” because of the endless proliferation of earthly pleasures available there—than most landed gentry had over their larders. People who dared to flout his control, or his will, were said to disappear, sometimes forever, more often for as long as it took for their bodies to wash up on the lower shoals of the Thames. He had originally been dubbed Lord Pickering by his enemies in an attempt to mock his ambition to rule London’s underworld, but as that ambition was realized, the title changed from taunt to truism, and he was now addressed that way by his loyal followers—and all others who valued their necks.

The deputy, whose neck was a short, thick, ugly one but none the less valuable to him for that, cringed under his master’s look of displeasure.

“Surely my men have better things to do than chase me around,” Lawrence said, handing his cape to the footman who had followed him in. “And surely I am allowed to run private errands.”

“Of course, my lord. It is just that something has happened and I thought you should know and I needed advice and…” He wilted under Lawrence’s unwavering displeasure and finally croaked out, “Your Excellency.”

“Let us not get above ourselves. ‘My lord’ will do,” Lawrence instructed, turning from his deputy so the man would not see the smile on his face. Grimley was a very good man, loyal and trustworthy to a fault, and he had somehow contrived to terrify every one of Lawrence’s fiercest henchmen, so that they did not dare oppose his orders. Lawrence had never asked what his deputy did to achieve this, but he was glad to capitalize on it, entrusting to Grimley the management of his army of informers and thugs. But the main reason Lawrence kept Grimley around was because of the pleasure he derived from making him crumple. It was really too easy, and he knew it was unkind, but there was something about cowing the little toadlike man that he found distinctly entertaining, especially on a lousy day like the one he was having.

Which seemed, if Grimley’s words were anything to go by, about to get lousier. Lawrence seated himself behind his wide desk, caressed its smooth mahogany top as if it were a beautiful woman, and brought his eyes once more to those of his deputy. “What exactly happened?”

“It’s Richard Tottle, my lord. Dead, my lord. In the smoking chamber at the Unicorn.”

The deputy took a step away from the desk when he saw his boss’s jaw tighten. “Do we know who did it?” Lawrence asked.

“No.”

Lawrence cursed under his breath. It was damn inconvenient, having one of his informers knocked off, and at his most profitable club. The last thing they needed were constables and the Queen’s guard roaming around the Unicorn, poking their noses into the business and requiring a share of the profits in exchange for their silence. “Who else knows about this?” he asked finally.

“No one,” Grimley replied. “Yet. A boy arrived shortly after midnight with this anonymous note.” Grimley held the crumpled paper out to Lawrence.

“‘Look in the smoking room of the Unicorn
,’“ he read aloud, then handed it back to the deputy. “Where did the boy get it from?”

“He said one of the Fleet Street ladies handed it to him, but he had difficulty recalling which one, even with persuasion.”

Lawrence glowered at him. “You did not hurt him, did you?”

“No,” Grimley replied sheepishly. “Not much.”

“What have I told you about hurting young boys? It achieves nothing, and it only adds to our list of enemies. Perhaps you never had to live by your wits on the street, but—” Lawrence broke off. “Never mind. Find the boy, give him ten pounds, and offer him a job. A good job. I guarantee that will restore his memory.”

Grimley moved grimly to the door, summoned a footman, gave a few, brisk instructions, and returned to face his master.

“What has become of the body?” Lawrence asked when the door was closed.

Grimley looked nervous again. “We left it there, my lord. I did not know where you wanted it, but no one will go to the club before three bells, so it is safe. I did not want it to be discovered before I had your orders about Tottle’s apartments.”

Lawrence nodded and gave a resigned sigh. “We may as well make use of the body. Leave it on the doorstep of whoever owes us the most money, and let them draw their own conclusions. In the meantime—”

The deputy was nodding briskly. “I know. Is there anything in particular we want from Master Tottle’s chambers, my lord, or should I just take it all?”

“You are, as ever, overhasty. It is your gravest flaw, Grimley. As I have told you before, it is not what you take from a room that matters, it is what you leave behind. And I have not yet decided what that ought to be.”

The deputy frowned. “But, Lord Pickering—”

Lawrence put up a hand. “We would not want to hinder the constabulary in their work. You know how my brother gets annoyed when we interfere with his cases.”

Grimley gave a resigned nod. Bull Pickering, Lawrence’s older brother, was a man of few words, few thoughts, and great strength. He had worked his way up from debt collector in his brother’s corps to the exalted role of London’s hangman, and he took his job very seriously. The last time Bull suspected his brother of having deprived him of a neck that was rightfully his, it had taken two days to put Lawrence’s office to rights again. In order to avoid such chaos, which Lawrence abhorred, he saw to it that every crime had a deserving neck attached to it.

“However, we should not be too generous to the constabulary,” Lawrence was going on. “Send someone to Tottle’s to empty his safe. And tell our other men to be on their guard in case someone is targeting our people.”

Grimley was opening the door to issue these new orders when a flustered footman pushed past him, apparently propelled by an otherworldly force.

“My lord, I am sorry. I tried to stop him, but there was nothing—”

The Otherworldly force was soon revealed to be the shiny blade of a rapier, held by a very tall, blond man with cold blue-gray eyes. “It is true, my lord,” the man said. “I insisted on seeing you. I believe we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

Grimley did not waste a minute, but had his own rapier out of its sheath and was pointing it at the intruder, ready to protect his boss to the death. “You go no farther, sir, if you value your life.”

With a single, deft movement of the wrist, the intruder had the deputy disarmed and prostrate on the floor before the footman had time to flee. Grimley was stunned by this performance, and then more stunned when he heard his boss practically cackling with merriment.

“Crispin, I see your sword skills have improved some since the time I got you in the arm. When did you get back?” Lawrence asked, brushing aside tears of laughter from his eyes as he moved around the desk to embrace the other man.

“Earlier this week.” Crispin returned the embrace warmly. “I would have been by sooner, but business kept me occupied.”

Lawrence raised one eyebrow, a trick he had learned from Crispin when they were ten. “What is her name? Anne? Mary? Or is she one of those French mademoiselles you used to tell me stories of?”

Crispin grinned noncommittally, then bent down to help the stunned Grimley to his feet and returned his sword to him. “I am sorry about that, my friend. I cannot resist a challenge.”

Grimley tried a smile, found that it did not work, and made a bow instead. “It is a pleasure to be disarmed by the Earl of Sandal,” he murmured finally, then turned to his boss. “Will you need me, my lord, or should I see to the business we were just discussing?”

“Please do that. We can resume our talk later.”

Grimley bowed again to each of the men and left the room.

“If I am interrupting something, I can come back another time,” Crispin offered, but Lawrence shook his head.

“Nothing important. Now come, tell me everything. Or rather, let me guess. She is slender and delicate, with hair so light it is almost silver, and small, round breasts the size of two ripe oranges.” Lawrence described to perfection every woman he and Crispin had fought over since the beginning of their friendship twenty-two years earlier.

They had met at the age of ten, and despite being from radically different backgrounds—Lawrence from incredible poverty, and Crispin from incredible wealth—the two had grown up together and shared a relationship that Crispin’s cousins, the other Arboretti, envied. Crispin could still recall the day they met. From the river steps of Sandal Hall, he had been studying the churning brown water of the Thames and trying to decide whether to swim for Venice on his own or return to the house and face the torture of two more weeks with The Aunts. He had just opted for swimming, reasoning that even a watery grave was better than another lecture about gentlemanly deportment, when he heard a shout and saw a head bobbing in the river. The next moment the head was gone, replaced by a pair of flailing arms. Without stopping to think, Crispin leapt in and dragged the flailing arms to the river steps.

The arms turned out to belong to a boy of about his same age, who, as soon as he had coughed the water out of his lungs, demanded, “What did you do that for?”

Crispin stared down at him. “You were drowning. I saved your life.”

The boy glared up at him. “And lost a three-ha’penny wager.” Then he looked around, noted the immense house looming behind his savior, and smiled genially. “But you can make it up to me for a pound.”

Crispin, whose allowance had been stopped by The Aunts when he failed to observe The Appropriate Method of Eating a Squab (which did not, it seemed, include spearing it on your fork and having it perform a song-and-dance routine with the turnips, despite the approbation of the pretty housemaid), had countered that Lawrence owed him at least that for saving his life.

“I like you,” the waterlogged boy had replied. “You are a man of sense.” And from that moment on, the friendship was cemented. Crispin taught Lawrence to swim, and Lawrence taught Crispin to live. Crispin found in Lawrence the perfect antidote to The Aunts’ teachings, and Lawrence found in Crispin a pattern of the gentleman he was ambitious to become. As the years passed, the Sandal cook ceased to be surprised when Crispin’s consumption of mutton, pigeon pie, roast pig, and especially cream pudding doubled every summer, and the steward came to expect the haberdasher’s bills for two identical sets of every item of clothing Crispin ordered.

At first, the economic disparity between the boys meant that Crispin had to subsidize all their activities, but by the time they were fifteen, Lawrence had begun piecemeal to acquire the properties that would soon turn into his empire. While even then Lawrence refused all offers of financial help, he was happy to accept the assistance of the Arboretti in managing his growing portfolio of gaming houses and taverns. Crispin, his brother, Ian, and his cousins Miles, Tristan, and Sebastian would spend the summers they passed in England watching from behind invisible sliding panels as men entered and left gaming houses, each cousin computing the potential profits and losses at different tables; or they would sit, struggling to contain their thirst, as they observed the flow of traffic and ale inside Lawrence’s newest inn. Late at night, they would argue together heatedly about the advisability of having a gaming house where all the tables were overseen by topless women (yes), an open-air tavern where cream pudding and only cream pudding was served at all hours (no, too many bees), a drinking establishment where the servingwomen wore jewels and nothing else (yes, yes, yes), and whether red or black velvet upholstery encouraged people to spend more money (red).

This advice, and the polish Lawrence acquired by rubbing shoulders with the Arboretti, had proved invaluable for the building of the Pickering empire, giving him an edge over his competitors and earning him their respect, but Crispin knew that the two most important keys to his friend’s success were Lawrence’s incredible intelligence and his network of informers. Very little happened in London that Lawrence did not know about or somehow profit from. His sources of information rivaled those of the Queen, and indeed, one of the ways in which he had managed to evade the hand of the law for so long was through carefully orchestrated collaborations with the Crown.

It was information that Crispin had come for that day, and as he still had several other places to go, he decided not to waste time. “You are wrong,” Crispin said with a smirk. “She is not small, nor fair, nor orange-endowed.”

Lawrence looked concerned. “I have long feared this. All that time on the continent has ruined your palate. We shall have to commence retraining at once.”

Crispin laughed and shook his head. “No, no, you need not worry. My tastes are constant, as ever. This one is not, thank god, my mistress, but I need information about her. Do you know anything about a woman called Sophie Champion?”

Lawrence frowned, then crossed to a door in the far wall and hollered, “Elwood!”

Before he was even reseated, a tall, thin, serious-looking young man with scraggly dark hair that flopped over a scar on his forehead, loped into the room carrying a red leather-bound volume. “Yes, my lord?”

“Elwood is in charge of the alphabet from
A
to
F
,” Lawrence explained to Crispin, then turned to his employee. “What do we know about Sophie Champion?”

The man rolled his eyes to the ceiling and tapped a finger on the red book. “Sophie Champion,” he began, as if reciting a chronicle of her crimes. “Age, about twenty-six. Height, too tall. Supposed to be very wealthy, but the source is unknown. Not,” Elwood rushed to affirm, lest his master think he was slatternly, “for lack of trying. Familiarly called the Siren.”