Wicked Little Secrets (34 page)

What
would
Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Queen Elizabeth do to exact revenge on a hideous brothel owner?

Vivienne’s gaze drifted up to the floor with Fontaine’s parlor. Just where were those stolen masterpieces?

***

Fontaine escorted Vivienne back to the Jungle Room where she had previously changed into the robe. The walls were deep green and lined with mirrors painted with trees, vines, and wild jungle cats.

“Rest, my cherub,” the madam told her. “Dream of the money you will make tonight. I’ll come back to have you dressed in a few hours. I have a wonderful costume planned. You’ll adore it.” Fontaine closed the door. Vivienne heard the lock turn.

She crossed to the bed, where beneath the netting, her reticule and gloves waited. Her cloak, dress, and gown had been removed. She opened her reticule and dumped the contents on the leopard fur covers. She took the sketches of her aunt she had gotten from Jenkinson over to the grate and watched as the flames flared up and consumed them. Then, returning to bed, she picked through her candies, nail file, farthings, and notebook until she found what she wanted: four hair pins. She was going to need a strong lock pick.

Twenty

Dashiell’s mind was a raging tangle of thoughts as he sprinted to Teakesbury’s office. He tried to force himself to think of ways to get Vivienne free, but he wasn’t rational; everything circled back to killing Fontaine in the most primeval ways.

Teakesbury’s dull-witted clerk, Albert, opened the door and inquired if he needed assistance. Dashiell stormed past him, heading to the solicitor’s office.

He found the man at his desk, reading glasses perched on his nose, a notebook open before him. Across from him, in leather wing chairs, sat an elderly couple.

“And for my young nephew,” the woman was saying, “I would like to bequeath my grandmother’s doilies. I’m sure a young man would appreciate those.”

“Teakesbury, you’ve got to help me,” Dashiell cut in. “I need to have that damned abbess arrested, or I will bloody well commit murder.”

The woman gasped as her husband bolted from his chair. “There is a lady present! Watch your language, you… you miscreant!”

Behind Dashiell’s back, Albert was jumping about, waving his large hands, trying to get his attention. “Er, excuse me, my lord. If you please, Mr. Teakesbury is engaged at the moment.”

“Yes, with me,” Dashiell spat.

The solicitor tossed down his glasses, ran his hands down his face, and then rose. “Please wait in the parlor, my lord,” he said in a pleasant voice that could sharpen flint. “I will see you momentarily.” He took the doorknob and began to shut the door.

Dashiell stuck out his hand. “But I’ve got to kill someone.”

“Momentarily,” the solicitor hissed, giving the door a hard shove, sending Dashiell back into the parlor.

Albert stood, staring at him. “Would you like a bit of tea?” he asked.

Tea? Dashiell wanted poison. Something that he could slip into Fontaine’s glass. “How about some hemlock or belladonna?”

“W-we only have oolong or pekoe.”

“Never mind.”

Dashiell began to pace about Teakesbury’s glass cabinets, trying to connect lines. Jenkinson blackmailed Vivienne’s aunt. Fontaine knew Vivienne’s aunt was actually her mother. Both women knew Gertrude Bertis was James’s lover. He kept arranging the pieces in his head. Could Fontaine have been instrumental in the theft? He pressed the heels of his palms into his temples. “Think, damn you!” he muttered. But he couldn’t. His eyes kept drifting to the Roman javelin on Teakesbury’s shelf. He imagined throwing it, a swift smooth flight into Fontaine’s throat, and if that didn’t do her in, a deep jab of the well-preserved gladius could finish the job nicely.

Fifteen minutes of this mental torture passed. Where was Teakesbury? “To hell with this,” he spat. “Can you give me Mrs. James’s address?” he asked Albert. “I desire to speak to her. It’s pressing.”

Before the clerk could answer, there was a knock at the front door. Albert walked in his clumsy gait over and opened it. A courier handed the clerk a letter. “Urgent from Miss Whitcomb,” he said and ran off.

Clearly, Miss Whitcomb’s burning problem trumped Dashiell’s, because Albert broke into a jog, muttering “Whitcomb urgent.” He dashed into his employer’s office.

Dashiell gave Teakesbury a few more seconds and then stalked toward the door, giving up on the man. He would find Mrs. James’s address himself, but first he wanted to get his .34 pocket Paterson revolver—a clever little invention designed by an American named Samuel Colt that Dashiell had won in a card game with a member of the Texas legislation in London.

“My lord, why do you care to commit murder?”

Dashiell turned. Teakesbury stood alone in his parlor, his hands stacked on the top of his mongoose cane.

“I need to speak to Mrs. James,” Dashiell said. “Vivienne’s in trouble. Fontaine has her.”

“Good God. How did that happen?”

“There’s no point in going into that. I, well, acted like a scoundrel. But—”

“Dashiell, can’t you keep your instrument in your trousers?”

“—I think Vivienne probably tried to settle things with Jenkinson and ended up at Fontaine’s. She’s getting debuted tonight.”

Teakesbury released a low breath and shook his head. “Let me go over and speak with her.”

“Be careful. The woman is mad! She held a gun at Vivienne’s head to get me to leave.”

“She
what
?” He spiked his cane on the floor. “I’ll talk to her and make her see reason.”

“I don’t want her to see reason. I want her to see the hanging rope. Give me Mrs. James’s address,” Dashiell said, grabbing the man’s arm.

“Why?” The solicitor brushed Dashiell off as if he were a piece of lint on his coat. “What has she to do with anything?”

“I want the exact details of the robbery. I’m going to put Fontaine in prison. I don’t think Jenkinson acted alone. She hasn’t the brains. Mrs. James might tell me more on the subject.”

“Listen to me, you want revenge on Fontaine so badly you’re drawing connections where there are none. And even if we did have a damn shred of evidence, she is one of the most powerful people in the city. She’s not going to crumble in a few hours. Have some sense.”

“Very well, I’ll just murder her.”

“Stop that talk! What you need now is money.”

Dashiell balled his fists in the air. “You don’t understand, she’s not going to let me win. She’s full of bitterness and wants to watch me suffer because she sees me as Lawrence James.” He slicked his hand down his face. “I’m scared I can’t save Vivienne.”

“I am going to do everything in my power to help you,” he said. “Albert! Bring my coat and hat.” He pointed at Dashiell. “Get some money and meet me at Seven Heavens.”

“I don’t have enough.”

“Then find a moneylender!” Teakesbury thundered. “For once, use your brains instead of your tallywag, my good man.”

***

Dashiell sat back in a hackney on the way to his man of business and stared out the window. His muscles were taut. His fingers drummed his kneecap. He felt like a bug trapped in Fontaine’s web, her spidery fangs about to sink into him. Teakesbury had better come through for him. Because if another man touched a hair on Vivienne’s head, Dashiell would make what the Romans did at Carthage look like child’s play.

Outside, the stately buildings of the west side of London gave way to the tarnished, narrow domiciles of older London to the east. The afternoon sun glinted over the rooftops, seeming to set the towers of St. Paul’s Cathedral ablaze. Dashiell closed his eyes. Behind his lids, the image of the great dome and towers still burned.

A thought like a clean sword blade pierced his mind: young Fontaine’s image in front of the obelisk steeple in Finsbury, the court case in
The
Proceedings
against Adele Jenkinson involving an Anne Whitcomb also in Finsbury, a Miss Whitcomb sending an urgent letter to Teakesbury.

Dashiell pounded on the roof. “Stop! Stop!” He swung open the door before the carriage had halted.

“Swing north to Finsbury,” he shouted to the driver.

“I thought we were going to—”

“Forget that. I need to go to…” Dashiell ran his bottom lip under his teeth as he tried to summon up the details of the case. But his mind was a jumbled wreck:
were
Angelica
Fontaine
and
Anne
Whitcomb
one
and
the
same, was Teakesbury a damned crooked lecher, get Vivienne, kill Fontaine and maybe Teakesbury.

Then the address arose from some recess in his addled memory. “Ironmonger Row 104! Hurry.”

The carriage turned into the neighborhood of Finsbury. The streets were cast in cold shadows. Ironmonger Row was a series of row houses. Long paned windows stretched across the ground floors with the name of the shop or pub painted above. The address in question was a narrow brick domicile. On the ground floor, shuttered windows flanked the door and a torn awning shaded the entrance. Above, two women conversed by an open window, displaying their scrawny arms and almost bare breasts to the men passing below.

He tapped for the carriage to stop. When it did, he stepped down. “How long have you been driving a hack in London?” he asked the driver.

“’Bout twenty years, sir.”

Dashiell nodded toward the women. “Has this residence always been a brothel?”

“As long as I can recall. Though it ain’t exactly a bordello. It’s a boarding house. Bawds rent rooms there.” A knowing smile spread his dry, cracked lips. “You want I should leave you here?”

“Yes.” Dashiell threw the man a thruppence. “Just circle the block and pick me up again.”

The man cocked a bushy incredulous brow. “Might you need more time, sir?”

“Oh no, it will only take me a minute,” Dashiell assured him.

The driver shook his head and clicked the reins.

“Ain’t you ’andsome!” one of the women called out. “Want to come up for a li’l company—a little sumpin’ sumpin’?” Her companion flashed a saucy smile and leaned over the sill, exposing more of her bosom.

“No, thank you,” Dashiell replied. “I’m just observing the beautiful view.” He reached into his pocket and tossed up a shilling. “But thank you for your kind offer.”

“Bless ya, sir! Bless ya!” the women cried.

Dashiell gazed up at the windows of 104. They were long and arched, like the ones in Fontaine’s portrait. He pivoted and looked south. The obelisk steeple rose over the rooftops, just as he recalled from the sketch on Fontaine’s wall. He pressed his thumb to the bridge of his nose.
Think, Dashiell, think
. Inside his brain, a creaking, rusted door slowly opened.

“That lying blackguard,” Dashiell spat and took off in a sprint to catch the hackney cab.

“Enjoy yourself, sir?” the driver asked.

“Take me back to Teakesbury’s office. Now.”

***

Dashiell tapped on the solicitor’s door. Through the heavy glass, he could see the wavy distorted form of Albert approaching.

The clerk opened the door. “My lord, Mr. Teakesbury is not back. Would you care for a bit of tea?”

“I need to leave a message for one of his clients.” Dashiell lowered his voice. “Your employer believes she could help me with a private matter.”

“Of course.”

“Her name is Anne Whit… Whitfield… Whitacre.”

“Whitcomb?” Albert suggested.

Dashiell snapped his fingers. “That’s it, my good man, Anne Whitcomb. Are you certain she’s a client?”

“Yes, my lord, she’s always sending Mr. Teakesbury letters.”

“Would you mind retrieving her address for me?”

Albert disappeared to the back of the office, muttering “retrieve address.” Dashiell didn’t wait for him to return. He headed down the walk, his mind reeling with what he had just learned. The street was jammed with people, yet he felt very alone. Vivienne was trapped, Fontaine wouldn’t let him near the brothel, and he couldn’t trust that treacherous rogue, Robert Teakesbury.

There was only one man who could help him.

***

“Just don’t make a scene,” Dashiell warned his grandfather. Overhead, a jewel orange striped the sky in the gloaming. The tall narrow building blocked the last of the light, casting the tiny lane behind Seven Heavens into darkness. The screeching meows of two amorous cats echoed through the alley.

“Go through the front door without saying a single word,” Dashiell continued as he straightened the man’s cravat in a desperate attempt to make the earl look inconspicuous. “If anyone asks about me, tell them I’ve been disowned and you aren’t speaking to me anymore. Then when no one is looking, nonchalantly walk to the back of the house and open a window or a door for me.”

“Son, I’ve snuck in and out of more places than you could shake your cock at. And I didn’t have to have someone open a window or door. This is embarrassing.”

“I really don’t need your commentary at the moment,” Dashiell hissed through his teeth. “Did the boys fetch someone from Scotland Yard?”

“Now don’t you worry. The boys are all concerned, seeing how you have to get your fiancée out of the bawdy house. We’ll save Trudie’s niece.”

The earl turned to leave. Dashiell’s blood rushed as the panic he had been struggling to keep pushed down surged forth. He grabbed his grandfather’s arm. “There’s something you need to know. Vivienne isn’t Gertrude’s niece, she’s her daughter.”

“What?”

“Vivienne is the daughter of Gertrude and Lawrence James. It was hushed up. The picture in my room that looks like Vivienne, some of the paintings at the Royal Academy—”

“The nude ones!”

“They are of young Gertrude.”

His grandfather’s lips parted as he gazed heavenward, his eyes glowing with a beautiful light. “She’s my soul mate. I knew the day I first spied her. I could see below the drab and truly scary surface to the naked seductress within. Had I known! Oh, son, I’ve been hiding my love all these years.”

“And you’re going to have to keep hiding it unless you save her daughter.”