“A guide.” His eyelids drooped as he pretended to examine his fingernails. “Merely that.” He watched her from under his brows and saw when that lush mouth pursed.
“A guide to what?”
“St. Giles.”
“Why do you need a guide?”
Ah, this was where it got tricky. “I’m searching for… a certain person in St. Giles. I would like to interview some of the inhabitants, but I find my search confounded by my ignorance of the area and the people and by their reluctance to talk to me. Hence, a guide.”
Her eyes had narrowed as she listened, her fingers tapping against the teacup. “Whom do you search for?”
He shook his head slowly. “Not unless you agree to be my guide.”
“And that is all you want? A guide? Nothing else?”
He nodded, watching her.
She turned to look into the fire as if consulting it. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the snap of a piece of coal falling. He waited patiently, caressing the silver head of his cane.
Then she faced him fully. “You’re right. Your money does not tempt me. It’s a stopgap measure that would only delay our eventual eviction.”
He cocked his head, watching as she carefully licked those lush lips, preparing her argument, no doubt. He felt the beat of the pulse beneath his skin, his body’s response to her feminine vitality. “What do you want, then, Mrs. Dews?”
She met his gaze levelly, almost in challenge. “I want you to introduce me to the wealthy and titled people of London. I want you to help me find a new patron for our foundling home.”
Lazarus kept his mouth firmly straight, but he felt a surge of triumph as the prim widow ran headlong into his talons.
“Done.”
Chapter Two
Now, King Lockedheart was a very proud man. For though he had been born to a small and insignificant kingdom, he had, through courage, guile, and daring, defeated the surrounding larger countries until he controlled a vast and powerful kingdom. To the north were mountains rich in minerals and sparkling gems. To the east, fields of golden grains and fat cattle. To the south lay tall hardwood forests. And to the west was an ocean overflowing with silver fish. A man could start from the capital city and walk a month in any direction and not leave the lands belonging to King Lockedheart….
—from King Lockedheart
Temperance caught her breath, feeling suddenly as if the jaws of a trap had slammed shut around her. She didn’t let her gaze waver, however. Lord Caire struck her as something of a predator, and it wouldn’t do to show fear in his presence. Instead, she leaned forward and gently poured herself another dish of tea. She noted with some pride that her hands were steady.
When she’d taken a sip, she looked at him, this exotic creature lounging in her drab little sitting room, and squared her shoulders. “Let us discuss the particulars of our arrangement, my lord.”
His wide, sensuous lips quirked as if he found her amusing. “Such as, Mrs. Dews?”
She swallowed. Naturally, she’d never made a pact such as this in her life, but she did bargain regularly with the butcher and the fishmonger and the various tradespeople one dealt with when running a foundling home. And she fancied she was not such a bad bargainer.
Temperance set down her teacup. “I’ll need money for living expenses.”
“Living expenses?” His black eyebrows arched up his forehead.
She felt a bit brash asking for money when they’d already settled on his introducing her to potential patrons as his part of the bargain. But the truth was that the home needed the money. Desperately.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin. “As you yourself noted, our rent is in arrears. In addition, the children haven’t had a proper meal in days. I need money to buy some beef, vegetables, bread, tea, and milk. Not to mention both Joseph Tinbox and Joseph Smith need new shoes—”
“Joseph Tinbox?”
“And most of the younger Marys need new chemises,” Temperance finished in a defiant rush.
For a moment, Lord Caire merely watched her with those mysterious sapphire eyes. Then he stirred. “Exactly how many children do you house in this home?”
“Seven and twenty,” Temperance said promptly, then remembered tonight’s work. “I beg your pardon. Eight and twenty with the addition of Mary Hope—the babe I brought home tonight. We also have two infants who are under the care of wet nurses at the moment outside the home. When they are weaned, they’ll come to live here as well. And, of course, I live here with my brother, Winter, and our maidservant, Nell Jones.”
“Only three adults for so many children?”
“Yes.” Temperance leaned forward in her eagerness. “You see why we need a patron? If we had proper funding, we could hire another nursemaid or two and perhaps a cook and a manservant. We could serve meat at both luncheon and dinner, and all the boys could wear decent shoes. We could pay a good apprenticeship fee and outfit each child in new clothes and shoes when they leave the home. They’d be so much better prepared to face the world.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I can well afford to maintain your home if you wish to renegotiate my part of this bargain.”
Temperance pursed her lips. She didn’t know this man. How could she be certain that he’d take the position of patron responsibly? Or that he wouldn’t abandon them after only a month or two?
And, of course, there was an even more important consideration. “The home’s patron must be respectable.”
“Ah. I see.” She expected him to be insulted, but he merely gave her an ironic half smile. “Very well. I’ll stand you the monies needed to pay your home’s rent as well as enough for the various expenses the children have. In return, however, I will expect you to be ready to lead me into St. Giles tomorrow night.”
So soon? “Of course,” Temperance replied.
“And,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “I will expect you to serve me until such time as I no longer have need of your services.”
Temperance blinked, feeling wary. Surely it was the height of foolishness to bind herself to a stranger for an indefinite length of time? “How long do you think your search will take?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you must have an end date in mind? If you don’t find what you want, say, within a month, you’ll give up your search?”
He simply looked at her, a small smile flickering at the corner of his mouth, and it crashed down on her—again—that she didn’t know this man. She knew nothing about him, in fact, beyond Nell’s ominous warning about him. For a moment, Temperance felt fear creep on little spider feet up her spine.
She straightened. They’d made a bargain, and she’d not dishonor herself by reneging on it. The home and all the children in it depended on her.
“Very well,” she said slowly. “I will help you for an indefinite time. But I will need forewarning when you wish to go into St. Giles. I have duties within the home and will have to find someone to take my place.”
“I mainly search at night,” Lord Caire drawled. “If you require a replacement for your work at the home, I will fund that as well.”
“That’s very generous of you,” she murmured, “but if we are to go out at night, then the children should already be abed. Hopefully, I will not be needed.”
“Good.”
“How soon will you be able to take me to meet potential patrons for the home?” She would somehow have to find a new dress and shoes at the very minimum. Her usual black stuff workday clothes wouldn’t do for meeting the wealthy of society.
He shrugged. “A fortnight? Perhaps more. I may need to go begging for invitations to the more sedate parties.”
“Very well.” A fortnight was not very much time, but then again, the home needed immediate help. She couldn’t afford to wait longer.
He nodded. “Then I believe our negotiations are concluded.”
“Not quite,” she said.
He halted in the act of raising his hat to his hea
d. “Indeed, Mrs. Dews? You yourself have said I’ve been generous. What more do you need?”
The tiny smile was gone from his mouth, and he was looking rather intimidating, but Temperance swallowed and lifted her chin. “Information.”
He merely cocked an eyebrow.
“What is the name of the person you are looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
She frowned. “Do you know what they look like or the areas where they habitually frequent?”
“No.”
“Is this person a man or a woman?”
He smiled, deep lines incising themselves into his lean cheeks. “I have no idea.”
She blew out a breath, not a little frustrated. “How do you expect me to find this person for you, then?”
“I don’t,” he replied. “I merely expect you to help me search. I’d think that there would be several sources of gossip in St. Giles. Lead me to them and I will do the rest.”
“Very well.” She already had an idea of who might be a good source of “gossip.” Temperance stood and held out her hand. “I accept your bargain, Lord Caire.”
For an awful moment, he merely stared at her out-thrust hand. Perhaps he found the gesture too masculine or simply silly. But then he stood as well, and in the small space, she had to tilt her head to look him in the face. She was suddenly aware of how much bigger he was than she.
He took her hand, a strangely frozen expression on his face, shook it quickly, and let go as if her palm had burned him.
She was still puzzling over the odd little moment when he placed his hat on his head, swirled his cape about his shoulders, and nodded. “I shall come for you tomorrow evening in the alley outside your kitchen door at nine o’clock. Until then, I bid you good night, Mrs. Dews.”
And he was gone.
Temperance blinked and then hurried out to the kitchen to bar the back door. Soot got up from the hearth as she entered.
“That door was locked. I know it,” she muttered to the cat. “How did he get in?”
But the cat merely yawned and stretched lazily.
Temperance sighed and went back to her sitting room for her tea things. As she entered the room, she glanced at the chair in which Lord Caire had lounged. There, in the middle of the seat, was a small purse. Temperance snatched it up and opened it. Gold coins spilled into her palm, more than enough to pay Mr. Wedge his rent.
Lord Caire had paid in advance, it seemed.
* * *
BASHAM’S COFFEEHOUSE WAS boisterously loud by the time Lazarus entered the doors late the next afternoon. He wound his way past a table of elderly gentlemen in full-bottomed wigs arguing heatedly over a newspaper and made his way to a solitary gentleman in a gray wig in the corner. The man sat peering through half-moon spectacles at a pamphlet.
“You’ll ruin your eyes trying to read that dreck, St. John,” Lazarus said as he took a chair across from his old friend.
“Caire,” Godric St. John murmured. He tapped the pamphlet. “This writer’s thesis isn’t entirely unimaginable.”
“Only partially? I am relieved.” Lazarus snapped his fingers at one of the youths flying back and forth with loaded trays of coffee. “One here.”
He turned back to find St. John gazing at him over his spectacles. With his somber tie wig, spectacles, and plain dress, others sometimes mistook St. John for a grandfather. In fact, he and St. John were of the same age—four and thirty. On closer examination, one noticed St. John’s clear gray eyes, his strong jaw, and his dark brows. Only the truly perceptive saw the ever-present sorrow that wrapped St. John like a death shroud.
“I’ve got a translation for you to look at,” Lazarus said. He withdrew a sheaf of papers from his coat pocket and handed it to the other man.
St. John peered at the papers. “Catullus? This will set Burgess’s back up.”
Lazarus snorted. “Burgess thinks he’s the foremost authority on Catullus. The man has as much knowledge of Roman poetry as the average snot-nosed schoolboy.”
“Well, naturally.” St. John lifted an eyebrow behind his spectacles, looking faintly amused. “But you’ll start a nasty brawl with this.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Lazarus said. “Can you glance at it and give me your opinion?”
“Certainly.”
There was a shout at the next table, and a tankard of coffee was flung to the floor.
Lazarus looked up. “Are they discussing politics or religion?”
“Politics.” St. John glanced at the arguing gentlemen dispassionately. “The newspapers are saying that Wakefield is calling for yet another gin bill.”
“You’d think by now he would have learned that too many of his fellow peers’ fortunes depend upon the sale of gin.”
St. John shrugged. “Wakefield’s argument is sound. When so many of the poor become enfeebled by gin, it hurts London’s industry.”
“Yes, and no doubt the fat country baron faced with either selling his excess grain to a gin distiller or letting it rot will put London’s health before money in his pocket. Wakefield’s a fool.”
“He’s an idealist.”
“And, I repeat, a fool,” Lazarus drawled. “His ideals do nothing but make him enemies. He’d do better pounding his head against a stone wall than trying to get Parliament to pass an effective gin bill.”
“You would have us simply sit back and let London go to rot?” St. John inquired.
Lazarus waved a hand. “You ask as if there is another option. I submit there is not. Wakefield and his ilk would like to believe that they can change the course we sail, but they are deluded. Mark me well: pigs will sprout feathered wings and fly about Westminster before gin is taken away from the London rabble.”
“The depth of your cynicism is breathtaking as always.”
A boy slid a tankard of coffee in front of Lazarus.
“Thank you, you young imp.”
Lazarus tossed a penny, and the coffee boy handily caught it before scampering back to the stall where the coffee was brewed. Lazarus took a sip of the hot liquid, and when he lowered his tankard, caught St. John examining him like an insect under a magnifying glass.
“You stare at me as if I had pox sores on my face,” Lazarus said.
“Someday you no doubt will,” St. John replied. “You’ve bedded enough whores.”
“I have needs—”
“You have indulgences,” St. John interrupted quietly, “and you make no effort to rein them in.”
“And why should I?” Lazarus asked. “Does the wolf mourn his joy at running down his prey? The hawk the desire to soar and then dive to catch the hare in his talons? It is in their nature, just as my… needs… are in mine.”
“The wolf and the hawk have no conscience, no soul, as you very well know.”
“The women I use are paid quite well for their time. My needs hurt no one.”
“Don’t they?” St. John asked softly. “I wonder if they hurt you, Caire.”
Lazarus curled his upper lip. “This is an old argument and one that neither one of us has yet to win.”
“If I give up the argument, I give up you as well.”
Lazarus rapped his fingers against the worn tabletop, saying nothing. Damned if he’d submit to St. John’s worries. His needs were unusual—strange, even—but certainly not morbid.
Of course, St. John had no problem with probing where he wasn’t wanted.
The other man shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “You were out last night.”
“Gracious me! Have you become a fortune-teller? Or were you ’round my town house last night and found me absent?”
“Neither.” St. John calmly pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead. “You wear the same look as last time I saw you, a kind of—”
“Weariness?”
“I was about to say desperation.”
Lazarus took a sip of the hot coffee, damnably aware that he was buying time, but in the end, all he could reply was, “I didn’t know you had s
uch a flair for the dramatic. Desperation seems to overstate the case by miles.”
“I don’t think so.” St. John peered absently into his own tankard of coffee. “You’ve worn that look since Marie’s death. Do you deny that you were searching for her killer last night yet again?”
“No.” Lazarus sat back in his chair, regarding his old friend from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “What of it?”
“You’re obsessed, man.” St. John said the words evenly, which somehow only gave them more impact. “She’s been dead nearly two months, and you’ve spent every night looking for her murderer. Tell me, Lazarus, when will you give up the hunt?”
“When would you give up if Clara were murdered?” Lazarus shot back.
The only sign of how deeply the arrow hit was a small tic on St. John’s jaw. “Never. But the cases are different.”
“How? Because you are married to your woman whilst Marie was merely my mistress?”
“No,” St. John said gently. “Because I love Clara.”
Lazarus looked away. However much a mean-spirited part of him wanted to deny that difference, he couldn’t in truth do it. For St. John was right: he did love his Clara.
Whereas Lazarus had never loved anyone at all.
“I DON’T LIKE this, ma’am. I don’t like it at all,” Nell said late that night in the foundling home kitchen.
“You’ve made your disapproval quite plain,” Temperance muttered as she tied her cloak under her chin.
Nell was undeterred by the reminder. “What if he has designs upon your virtue? What if he seduces and abandons you? Or worse—what if he sells you to a whoremonger? Oh, ma’am! Terrible things could happen to you!”
Temperance suppressed a shiver at the thought of Lord Caire doing “terrible things” to her. It should have been a shiver of revulsion. Instead, the thought of Lord Caire’s sexual proclivities made her unnaturally curious. That wicked wanton part of her sat up and twitched its nose, eager as ever to be let loose. That she couldn’t let happen. Once, long ago, she’d let her base nature take control and had committed an unforgivable sin. Ever since, she’d lived every day knowing she must atone and refrain from letting her demons loose again.