“Apparently.” The duke didn’t seem perturbed either by Shrugg’s words or by her own caveat. “But mark: he didn’t have a foreign accent.”
“Pish!” Shrugg threw up pudgy hands. “That’s hardly damning evidence of the Lords, Your Grace.”
“No, but then Alf was followed and beaten last night,” Kyle said coolly.
Alf winced and cleared her throat. Both gentlemen glanced at her.
“About that,” she said. “See, the Scarlet Throats—those’re the roughs what tried to kill the duke ’ere,” she inserted for Shrugg’s benefit. “Them and me sort of ’ave a ’istory, you might say.”
“A history,” Kyle repeated, flat.
She nodded. “They ’ate my guts. And I’m not too fond of ’em, truth be told.”
“You never told me that,” Kyle said.
“’Adn’t ’ad the chance, ’ave I?” she retorted. “Between being stabbed last night and breakfast this morning and gallivanting off to see the King’s secretary, right nice gentleman though ’e is.” She smiled angelically at Shrugg.
Who cleared his throat and appeared to stifle a smile.
“Point is, they might’ve ’ad a reason other than me asking questions about your attack to beat on me,” she finished.
Kyle grunted. “Be that as it may, I still think this the work of the Lords.”
“I remain not entirely convinced, Your Grace,” Shrugg said, shaking his head lugubriously.
“’Oo are these Lords, exactly?” Alf asked.
Kyle answered her. “A club or society of aristocrats. They meet in secret, wear masks, and have a tattoo of a dolphin or porpoise on their person. When one shows another the tattoo the second must do whatever the first asks.”
“Like what?”
“They’re powerful men. They’re in the government, in the church, in the military, in society. One might ask another to back a bill in Parliament or to marry his daughter or to give his son a commission in the army.” He glanced at her, his black eyes grave. “The members don’t know each other, apparently. And if they try to leave the Lords or if they talk about the Lords to outsiders, they’re killed.”
“Huh,” Alf said, sitting back in her chair. “’Cepting for that killing people if’n they talk, I don’t see that much difference between these Lords and most of swell society.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “You’re always working together, ain’t you? Making deals, deciding amongst yourselves ’ow you’re gonna run the rest of us. These Lords ’ave just made themselves a smaller secret club within your whole bigger secret club.”
Shrugg frowned. “You are a very cynical young man.”
Kyle held up his hand to the older man without looking at him. He was watching her intently. “I suppose in an odd way you might be correct, though I think those in government might disagree.”
Shrugg snorted.
“However,” Kyle continued, “there’s another matter to consider—one much darker.”
Her eyes narrowed, unease trailing up her spine. “An’ what’s that, guv?”
“What these Lords of Chaos do at their meetings. They call them revels.” He grimaced and studied his hands, clasped between his legs. “More like drunken parties in obscure country locations. Various victims are brought in for the night. Women. Girls. Boys. Some do not leave alive.” Those black eyes flicked up to hers and for a moment they were unguarded. She saw anger, sorrow, and determination in his gaze, and it took her breath away. “Do you understand?”
She said slowly, “I’ve lived all my life in St Giles, guv. I knows well enough what men in their cups can do to women and girls and boys.”
It was why she donned a mask and motley and went hunting in the dark woods at night, after all.
To bring down the monsters.
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Then you know why the Lords of Chaos have to be destroyed.”
She stared at him a moment, transfixed. Oh, she knew why these animals must be stopped, but the very fact that he knew—knew and cared enough to do something about it—gave her pause. In her experience, aristocrats looked the other way or simply didn’t care when the poor, the weak, the less clean were hurt and exploited.
Any more than they’d care if a beetle were trampled underfoot.
Yet Kyle did seem to truly care.
“Alf?”
She blinked. He was waiting for her answer.
So she nodded once. “Aye, ’spect I do know why these Lords need to be destroyed.”
“And yet,” Shrugg sighed, “we still have not established that there is any link between the attack on you, Your Grace, and the Lords. Have you learned anything new from the information you already have?”
Alf frowned. “What information’s that?”
Kyle grimaced impatiently. “The Duke of Montgomery, before he sailed off to Istanbul last fall, was kind enough to leave me with a list of the names of four men he implied were members of the Lords. Nothing else, mind you, just the names. And no”—he turned to Shrugg—“I haven’t been able to find anything more on them, despite keeping them under watch. They all appear to be respectable members of London society. Very lucky members of society, mind—they’ve all improved their fortunes in the last ten or twenty years—but there’s nothing illegal that I can find.”
“Why can’t you just arrest them?” Alf asked.
“Because,” Kyle replied, sounding as if his patience was wearing thin, “they’re all aristocrats, and powerful aristocrats at that. One of them is the Earl of Exley. If I bring them in with only the say-so of Montgomery, of all people, it’ll do nothing but cause a great scandal, and they’ll be released and gone to ground before I learn anything at all.”
“But if they’re out there right now…” Alf bit her lip. She hated to think of these men possibly hurting children at this very moment.
“They aren’t the only ones,” Kyle said gently. “Remember it’s a society. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of members. Besides,” he continued, “Montgomery was kind enough to send me another letter, which I received yesterday.”
He took a letter out of the pocket of his coat and passed it across the desk to Shrugg.
The other man opened it and started reading, then grunted. “He’s prattling about water pipes here. Tell me the pertinent part.”
Kyle nodded. “He says that the old leader of the Lords was killed last fall and to his knowledge there wasn’t a successor.”
Shrugg threw the letter on the desk in apparent disgust. “That doesn’t mean much. I respect Montgomery’s sources of information—God knows the man has more spies than I do—but he’s been out of the country for over a month now.”
“Yes, but he goes on to say what I’ve always suspected: the leader had a list of names of the members,” Kyle said, tapping his finger on the letter. “Someone still has that list of names—either the new leader or simply someone keeping it safe until the new leader is chosen. If we find that list we have everyone.” He sat back in his chair. “And then we destroy the bastards.”
Shrugg narrowed his eyes and inhaled for a long moment, then said, “Even presuming I take your line of reasoning, how do you go about finding this list?”
“At the moment?” Kyle held out his hands. “I’m not sure. I’ve had men inside both the Earl of Exley’s and Lord Chase’s town houses. My men have looked in the obvious places for anything damning and didn’t find anything. Sir Aaron Crewe and Lord Dowling have proven harder to infiltrate.” Kyle shook his head. “But if I was attacked by the Lords instead of foreign spies, then I think my best option is to go looking for the Scarlet Throat gang. I want to know who hired them to kill me.”
Alf cleared her throat. “Erm… as to that…” She took a breath and made a decision. This was more important than her fear of the Scarlet Throats. “I knows a gin ’ouse in St Giles where we might find some of the gang. I can take you there tonight.”
Kyle frowned. “Why didn’t you tel
l me this last night?”
She gave him a hard smile. “I likes to keep my sources secret, guv. They’re my bread an’ butter.”
“I’m paying you for your information.”
“And I just gave you some.” She lifted her chin, swallowing. “If’n you don’t want to dirty yourself, I can do the investigating just fine on my own.”
But Kyle shook his head and she couldn’t help the relief that flooded her—that is, until he said his next words: “No. You need to heal that leg before you go into St Giles again. You’ll stay at Kyle House while I take my men tonight.”
She felt her mouth drop open. “Stay abed? What do you take me for, guv? A lily-livered coward?”
“I take you for a boy.” He stood, big and broad and cocksure. Well, he was a duke, after all, wasn’t he? “One that has been hurt in my service. I’ll not let it happen again. You’re under my protection now. Until this matter is resolved, you’ll do as I say.”
IRIS WATCHED IN her dressing table mirror as Parks, her lady’s maid, brushed her hair in preparation for bed. Parks had been with her for nearly two years now. She was efficient, neat, and quite taciturn. She also never pulled Iris’s hair when brushing it, so Iris supposed she should be grateful. Parks might not be as fashionable as a French lady’s maid, but she wasn’t as expensive, either.
Which rather mattered, since James had left her a tidy but not extravagant income. Enough to live very comfortably on. Not enough to establish an independent household. As a result she made her home with her brother, Henry, and his wife, Harriet. Fortunately, she was fond of them both, but there were small inconveniences in living in someone else’s house, even a relative’s. For instance, lately she’d been thinking that she’d rather like to have a small dog, just to keep her company. But of course she couldn’t purchase one. Harriet loathed both dogs and cats. And sometimes Iris thought how nice it would be to paint her bedroom walls a soothing light blue. Right now they were a dark green—Harriet’s favorite color.
She supposed that when she married Hugh, things would be very different. She could have a dog or even two. Redecorate the house, if she so wished. Spend without worrying over the expense at all—though she really wasn’t the sort to be extravagant.
That was, if she married him.
Parks lifted the brush from her hair, cleaned it, and replaced it on her dressing table. “Will there be anything else, my lady?”
“No, thank you. Good night, Parks,” Iris murmured.
The lady’s maid curtsied and silently left the room.
Iris picked up the lit candle on her dresser and carried it to the bed. It was quite a nice bed, with emerald-green hangings and a lovely soft mattress, and now she felt guilty for even thinking unkind thoughts about living under Harriet’s roof.
She set the candle on her little bedside table and climbed into bed. She didn’t lie down, though. She liked to read a bit before falling asleep at night.
Iris reached over and picked up the slim red leather book lying on her bedside table—Katherine’s diary. She’d been reading it for the past several nights, in bits and pieces, because of course it was hard and she often ended in tears.
But it was also lovely.
She could hear Katherine’s voice when she described a new gown she was having made. Or when she wrote scathingly about a soiree where all the refreshments ran out before eleven of the clock. Or when she laughed at a gentleman she’d seen with an odd manner of snorting snuff.
It was a way of remembering her friend again.
Had it been anyone but Katherine, Iris might’ve hesitated to read the diary with its sometimes very frank details of her lovers. But Katherine had enjoyed the attention of others, loved it when both men and women stood waiting on her every word with bated breath.
She would’ve laughed to know that Iris was reading her diary now.
So Iris opened the book to the page where she’d left off—Katherine had just taken a new lover—and started reading.
Five minutes later Iris felt her entire body go cold at the words on the page.
The diary fell from her hands.
Chapter Six
The White Sorceress looked straight up and saw a small spot of blue sky. She knew she would burn and follow her husband and her four elder children soon, but she could not bear that her youngest child should also perish.
The Sorceress whispered a spell in the girl’s ear, and as she did so she opened her arms and a golden falcon flew up into the sky.
Then the flames consumed the White Sorceress with a curse upon her dying lips.…
—From The Black Prince and the Golden Falcon
That night Hugh walked down a narrow lane in St Giles, his men at his back. He’d had to use all his persuasive skills to talk Alf into giving up the location of the nameless gin house the gang that called itself the Scarlet Throats was sometimes known to frequent. The boy was as stubborn and as headstrong as any army mule he’d ever encountered in his years of service. Hugh had been forced to put Talbot on guard duty at Alf’s servants’ room door for most of the day, just to make sure the boy would stay and rest. When they’d left, he’d assigned two footmen in Talbot’s place. He hadn’t trusted only one against the imp’s native cunning and charm.
And that was the thing: Alf had a quick wit and the ability to make connections in trains of thought almost as well as Hugh himself. There was potential there. If he could but school some discipline into the boy, he might take Alf under his own command as one of his men.
But that was a consideration for later.
Right now he was on the hunt for the men who’d attacked him and Alf.
The gin house Alf had directed them to was off a small courtyard, in the cellar of a tenement.
Hugh glanced at Jenkins, Talbot, and Riley. “Ready?”
“Aye, sir,” Riley said with a white-toothed grin. He had two pistols strapped across his chest and a sword at his hip, and looked like nothing so much as a pirate.
Jenkins and Talbot merely nodded.
Hugh stepped carefully down the cellar steps and opened the door to the gin house, ducking to enter.
The room was as dark as a cave and as low. Stone steps led down into a room lit only by a fire, a few flickering lanterns, and the sullen glow of smoking pipes. Hugh moved slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Men sat in hunched groups over barrels or makeshift tables made from boards and crates. A few were even slumped against the wall. Most held tin cups of gin. The place stank of smoke, urine, and alcohol.
No one looked up at their entrance, but Hugh would bet his right hand every man there had an eye on their movements.
Alf had intended to come here on his own, and the thought boggled Hugh’s mind. One scrawny lad unarmed, save for his bravado and a few knives, walking into this den of danger. Probably Alf’s plan had been to insinuate his way into this place, asking careful questions without raising an alarm.
Hugh had an entirely different strategy. There was no way he could come in here and not be known as an outsider.
Besides. They’d attacked and wounded Alf last night. They’d already proven that they knew he’d been asking questions about them and their attempt on Hugh. There was no need for pretense here.
And every need for bloody reprisal.
He walked deliberately through the low, smoky room, aware of Riley, Talbot, and Jenkins at his back. Heads ducked as he prowled past. By the fire, though, was a group of six men who sat unnaturally still. Two of them wore red neckcloths.
Hugh halted by the table. “I’m looking for the men who tried to kill the boy Alf last night.”
The man sitting to Hugh’s right had a drooping left eyelid and was one of the two wearing a red neckcloth. He leaned over slowly, hawked, and spit. A gob of spittle hit Hugh’s boot.
Hugh grabbed the back of the man’s head and slammed him face-first into the tabletop.
Behind him there was a shout, and one of Riley’s pistols went off with a boom.
&n
bsp; Hugh blocked a blow from the man to his left and then knocked him down, chair and all, with a fist to his jaw.
“Watch it, sir!” Talbot used one of his clubs to deflect a descending knife meant for Hugh’s back.
The man holding the knife launched himself at the grenadier.
Talbot almost casually smashed him on the side of the head, laying him flat.
Hugh drew his sword and slashed at another ruffian aiming a stool at Talbot’s back. Talbot grinned at the man and caught the stool, then wrested it from the ruffian’s hands and broke it over his head. Talbot pivoted and kicked another man in the legs as he started to charge.
Hugh turned.
Jenkins stood straight, a razor-sharp knife in each hand. Before him was a much larger man with a thin line of blood oozing from a cut along the side of his face. He held a knife in his own hand but didn’t seem entirely sure whether he wanted to engage Jenkins again. Smart man. Jenkins was proficient with his knives—both on his patients and on his enemies.
Riley was grinning and weaving like a madman, a pistol in one hand, his long knife in the other. He was fighting two toughs, and all the while he was insulting their heritage in the most filthy terms possible.
A movement near the door caught Hugh’s eye. The second man with the red neckcloth was creeping toward the door.
Hugh shoved aside a table, elbowed away two men fighting, and dashed up the stairs and to the door. Outside, the small courtyard was dark, lit only by the half moon high above. He glanced around, but didn’t see the Scarlet Throat. There were two narrow alleys leading from the courtyard, and several doors. Damn it! If the man got away—
A low whistle came from above.
He looked up.
The Ghost of St Giles crouched on the rooftop, and his pulse jolted at the sight. She pointed, straight-armed, at the nearest alley entrance.
Hugh grinned ferociously and ran down the alley the Ghost had indicated. Ahead he could just make out a movement in the shadows. The fleeing Scarlet Throat, it must be.
He glanced overhead.
The Ghost leaped, graceful and lithe, between buildings, and he felt a lightning bolt of something pure and wonderful in his chest, expanding like a small explosion. Something almost like joy. Here, in a stinking St Giles alley, late at night, his legs stretching, his lungs gulping icy winter air as he ran down the ruffian ahead.