Chapter Nine
The tavern was darker than last time, the weather dull and ominous. He’d brought his knife with him tucked into his right boot just in case. The sling he’d discarded because it didn’t pay to show the slightest bit of vulnerability in places like this one.
He knew that to the core of his being.
The ringmaster did not appear to be present yet, but that did not faze Nicholas. Ordering a drink as he came in the door, he strode over to sit at the same table as last time, making sure to leave the seat against the wall free.
His ale arrived, the barkeeper who had given him the bruised cheek last time looking belligerent.
‘He’ll be here soon.’
Nick did not answer.
Over in one corner a group of four men were playing cards. In the other a single occupant appeared to be almost asleep over his glass.
Such careful acts of staging were not new to him. For a while in the Americas before he perfected his methods at cards he’d used his other skill: his fists. It had been many a man he had thrown drunk from the tavern where he worked when they failed to see his role in the keeping of order by noticing all the small signs of discontent.
After ten or so moments the little door to the left opened.
‘Do you have the payment?’ The glass eye of the ringmaster glittered from the small light at the door.
‘It depends what you’ve brought to show me.’
As the man sat he placed a card on the table.
‘Vitium et Virtus.’
‘What is this?’
‘It’s the name he paid with, a well-spoken lord who set the mark on Viscount Bromley over the seas. A goodly sum, too, it was, by the accounts of my source, and all in gold. I keep every bit of paper clients give me, just to be safe, you understand. Toffs believe people like me to be reckless and illiterate, but I was never that. I make careful notes of people and keep tight records. They come in handy sometimes.’
‘Like now?’
The silence between them settled until the other broke it.
‘I imagine that you have many enemies, to do a job that brings you out to places such as these ones.’
When Nick nodded, he continued on. ‘Perhaps you believed in something once. Believed enough for others to want you hurt for it and now vengeance drives you?’
Such a warning from a street philosopher was all the more surprising because it was true. He had believed in Vitium et Virtus because it was like the home he had never had, a place away from his uncle and with as few rules as he wanted. A place where he could lose himself in fine wine, good women and high-stakes gambling, and be happy for a fleeting moment. Should he begin there in his search?
The well-spoken lord who set the mark on you. The sum was paid in gold. More clues. Someone of his own social standing, then? The ringmaster would not know of his own title for Nick had disguised his voice each time they met and worn clothes that fitted exactly into the setting of the docks. Here he was believed to be a thief-taker operating in the shadowy world between criminals and the law and caught in its complicated web.
With care he extracted his coins and placed them on the table.
‘We will not meet again, I think,’ the other said, ‘but I wish you luck.’
The money was gone in the blink of an eye and as the barman crossed the floor to collect the empty glass Nick’s fingers settled on the shaft of his knife.
Glancing down, the man cocked his head.
‘We don’t kill our own,’ he said, leaving Nicholas to wonder just who he had become in the eyes of these thieves.
He wandered the river on the way home, mindful of those who watched him, but not afraid. This sort of place had been his home, too, once and the dirt and the smell of it was almost comfortable. Before the Americas the man he was would have been fearful to venture anywhere near such poverty.
He would call a meeting between Jacob, Frederick and Oliver and between them they could try to think just who the perpetrator could be. It was time he was honest with them and time to ask for their help.
* * *
The youngest Challenger was waiting at the Bromley town house when he returned, scrambling up from the seat his butler had assigned him in the library. He was dressed well.
‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said as Nick walked in. ‘I am Frederick’s brother Christian Challenger. I should have perhaps come back another time, but there is an important matter I wish to discuss with you and so I elected to wait.’
When his eyes saw the workman’s clothing Nick was wearing they widened. ‘There are so many stories of who you are now, Lord Bromley, and how you walk in the East End of London without fear and often in disguise. You are a legend, sir, to all of those young men who come after you. No one ever truly knew quite who you were then or are now and if we could be half the man that you—’
Nick interrupted him. ‘What’s the important matter?’
‘Vitium et Virtus. Myself and a group of friends are wondering if perhaps you might sell your share in it to us.’
‘Why?’
That question made Christian Challenger frown and yet to give him his due he answered.
‘We’d like the chance to continue the club in the august tradition of friendship that you began, sir.’
A good retort. Perhaps Frederick himself had tutored the young man in an appropriate response. God, Nick suddenly felt every one of his twenty-nine years.
‘When do you require an answer?’
‘Oh, there is no hurry, Lord Bromley. It is just the promise of an affirmative endorsement in the future that we would like.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Nearly twenty.’
‘Do you gamble?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And drink?’
‘Copiously, my lord.’
A younger version of himself would have no doubt asked about the lad’s bedding habits but the older one was tired of such debauchery.
‘We will discuss it.’
‘I am most grateful for such a consideration. I am also thrilled to be in your company, my lord, and wondered if you are by any chance going to the New Year’s Eve party at the Jacksons tonight?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of it.’
‘The wine is from France and the gambling tables are very rich.’
Nick did not feel like being alone again this evening. He felt restless and ornery, the anger in him over his visit to the river today growing. Perhaps if he went out it would help?
‘Is your brother attending?’
‘He said he might call in.’
‘Wait until I change and I will join you. Help yourself to a drink.’
* * *
Once this would have been fun. Once he would have been the one to call for more wine and to set up games of chance that he had very little hope of winning. Once he would have had a woman on each arm and the promise of others all about him. Even now in the corner as far from the dance floor as he could manage he could see them observing him.
‘Bromley? Is that you?’ A particularly beautiful blonde came forward with a little entourage of more women of the same ilk. He felt like one of the sweetmeats he and Eleanor had probably fawned over in Fortnum and Masons all those years before.
Eleanor. He wished she was here with her wise eyes and laughter. He wanted her beside him more than he had ever wanted anything in his whole life.
‘You must remember me, my lord. Diane Kennings. Now Mrs Diane Morningside.’ If she could have added unfortunately without causing scandal he thought she might have. Nick had a slight recall of her visage through the drunken haze of sotted twenty-three-year-old eyes.
‘We have heard such stories of your time away, Lord Bromley, and you have returned looking like a pirate.’ The others giggled, but there was an undercurrent of anxiety.
The two men beside him whom he knew only vaguely looked on with interest, waiting for the start of a new scandal, he supposed. Once he would have enjoyed the challenge. Now he just wished fervently that young Christian Challenger might return forthwith, Frederick in tow.
‘I don’t think you can believe all you hear, Mrs Morningside. Mine is a fairly sedentary tale.’
‘They say you got rich at the game of cards and that you are every bit as reckless as you always were, my lord?’
The implication was clear as the woman flicked her fan this way and that.
‘Age mellows one and a seat at the gaming tables has palled in its excitement. If I could give you any idea of my future intentions, I would probably have them as being a simple farmer.’
‘At Bromworth Manor? Such a beautiful property, my lord. One of the finest in Essex, it is said.’
God, where the hell was Frederick? Nick looked around to see others glancing their way with as much interest on their faces as Diane Morningside seemed to have on hers.
How could he have possibly liked this, then? How could he not have seen the shallow amorality of such pointless conquests? He wished he did not remember all the many faces of his paramours, all the tears and pleading and the futile awful hope for so much more than he could give them.
Then Frederick was there and with a slight tip of his head Nick excused himself from the party and took him aside.
‘I am leaving. Now.’
‘I will come with you. You can drop me home.’
* * *
In the carriage five minutes later Nicholas leaned back against the leather cushion and began to laugh.
‘Was it always like that?’
‘As far as I can remember it was.’
‘And we liked it?’
‘Once we did.’
‘Your brother Christian and his friends want to buy out my share of Vitium et Virtus. As far as I am concerned he can have it for free.’
‘You’ve changed, Nick.’
‘I know.’
‘You seem happier.’
That wiped the smile off his face because he was happier and the person who was making him so was Eleanor Huntingdon.
‘When you met Georgiana, how did you know she was the one that you wanted as a wife?’
‘I could not stop thinking about her. She drove me so damn crazy I thought I would go mad.’
Hyde Park to one side was dark and cold as they passed it, small shadows in the undergrowth attesting to those who would sleep rough tonight. He was lucky with his friends and his house and his title. But he needed to protect himself and all those about him whom he loved.
‘I’d like your help with something. Is there any chance of a meeting at Vitium et Virtus tomorrow at around noon? I’ll ask Jacob and Oliver to be there as well.’
‘It sounds serious.’
‘It is, but it will be easier if we all put our heads together.’
‘I’m glad you asked. Count me in.’
* * *
‘I saw Nicholas earlier this evening.’
Georgiana Challenger looked up from her place on the thick rug at her husband’s feet. The fire before them in their bedchamber was warm and inviting and Frederick had opened a bottle of fine wine to share.
‘At the Jacksons’ town house?’
‘He asked me how I knew you were the one I wanted as a wife.’
At that she turned to kneel. ‘He is in love?’
‘Why would you say that?’
‘It is a known fact that every young and worried husband-to-be asks exactly that question of his good friends.’
‘How is it known? I have never heard of this truism.’
She placed her fingers against the line of his cheek, liking the way he smiled.
‘Because it is a feminine knowledge. Who was he with there?’
‘No one, although there were many female hearts a-fluttering.’
‘I will ask Rose tomorrow. Perhaps she has some idea. Oh, I do hope I like her.’
Fred laughed. ‘Only a woman would say something as ridiculous as that.’
‘And only a man would not know exactly why Nicholas Bartlett was asking in the first place. What did you tell him in answer, anyway?’
‘I said you drove me mad because I could not stop thinking about you.’
‘Do I still do that? Drive you mad with desire?’
‘Every single moment.’
‘Frederick?’
‘Yes.’
‘I love you.’