Chapter 14

Lori had never known just how acute her sense of smell was until that moment.

Nor had she known how cloying the scent of roses could be.

“’Ere ya go, luv,” Ella said, draping something over Lori’s shoulders that might once have been velvet but was now so threadbare and discolored it resembled a mangy, piebald cat.

“Er, thank you.” Lori adjusted the shawl around her shoulders and stared in fascinated horror at her reflection in the mirror.

Behind her, the prostitute—Ella Clent—smiled and nodded. “A sight for sore eyes, ye are.”

A sight to make eyes sore would be more like it, but Lori forced a smile. “Thank you.”

“Moy pleasure,” Ella said, adjusting one of Lori’s curls.

Ella had teased Lori’s hair and then formed it into sausage-like ringlets that had been gathered into two clusters, one on either side of her head. She’d then rouged her cheeks and lips and heavily kohled her eyes. As a crowning gesture, she’d put a patch at the corner of Lori’s mouth.

Lori pointed to the large black dot. “Are you sure about this?”

“It’s true that it’s been years since they was in style, but the gents like ‘em,” Ella assured her.

And Lori’s gown…

Well, it was also something that hadn’t been in style for years. The bodice was boned and tight with exposed lacing, shoving her breasts up in the neighborhood of her chin, until they resembled a very fat baby’s.

The skirt and petticoats were composed of acres of fabric and rustled whenever she moved, scenting the air with a musty rose smell, as if somebody had stored flowers in a trunk and then buried the trunk under six feet of dirt for half a century.

Lori would never be able to stomach the scent of a rose again.

“Ye look a treat,” Ella assured her.

“ A treat .” Lori repeated, laughing. “Well, that’s good. Now, let me see if I can walk in these shoes.” Lori stalked back and forth in Ella’s small room, her feet making a clomping sound in velvet shoes with scuffed carmine heels and flaking gold buckles.

Already her ankles hurt just from a few jaunts across the room.

She shook her head. “I will just wear my own ankle boots. Nobody will notice them beneath the gown.”

And it would also allow her to run, if need be. But Lori kept that thought to herself. Indeed, it felt cowardly to entertain such a notion. After all, Ella walked the same streets and entered the same drinking establishments every night of the week while Lori would only be visiting once and for a short time and a different business entirely. Poor Ella would be forced to sell her body until the day she died.

“We needs to ‘ave a plan if a gent wants some trade,” Ella said as Lori sat and changed her footwear.

“Trade? You mean if some man wishes to engage my, er, services?”

Ella laughed. “Aye, that’s wot oi mean, ducks.”

It was difficult to imagine any man wanting a woman who was wearing so much face paint, but then Ella herself wore a great deal—with two patches—and she claimed to make a decent, if not luxurious, living.

“I could tell anyone who approaches me that I’m on my courses,” she said as she buttoned up her boots.

Ella gave another of her cackles. “Men don’t care about that, luv.”

“Really?” She sat up straighter and grimaced when the boning dug into the side of her breast.

“Nah. Most men would fuck a knot’ole in a fence.”

Lori winced. “That is very vivid imagery.” She stood and took the money she’d pre-counted before arriving at Ella’s cramped little hovel. “Here is half of what we agreed upon. I’ll give you the rest once we’ve visited the last of the taverns.”

Ella nodded, took the small purse of money, and tucked it into her bodice.

“There is also a piece of paper in with the money that has an address written on it. If anything should happen to me, I’d be obliged if you’d let the lady who lives there know where you last saw me.”

Ella frowned. “Anyfing? Like what?” she asked, visibly perplexed as to what could possibly befall two unattended women wandering around down at the docks after midnight.

“I don’t know, Ella. But if I can’t get back home at the end of the evening, that is the address where I live. My housemate should be made aware if I have any problems.” Lord. She hated the thought of somebody bothering Freddie, but who else did she have? Not David, that was certain.

Ella shrugged. “Awright. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

***

Fast checked his watch and then lifted a hand for the serving wench, who sauntered over to his table with a come-hither smirk on her face.

“Aye, milord? Wot can I get ye?”

He smiled up at her rather haggard face, not surprised that she knew who he was. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked her, sliding a shiny gold coin across the table.

A spark of interest entered her deadened eyes as she stared at the sovereign, a coin that had barely rolled out of the Mint. “These’re new, aye? I ain’t seen one yet.”

“Well, you have now. And it is yours.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Wot do I got to do fer it?”

“What is your name?”

“Cora, milord.” She dropped a curtsey, her eyes flickering back to the coin.

Cora had been pretty not too long ago but life on the water’s edge was not kind to women. Fast suspected the men she normally had commerce with hadn’t been too kind either, based on the hardened crew drinking at tables all around him.

“I need an extra set of eyes and ears, Cora.”

“Er, who is it you’re lookin’ for, milord?”

“He might have changed his name, but he was called Garcia. He crewed his way here from Gran Canaria and will speak with a heavy accent.” He smiled at her look of disbelief. “I know, I know —there are a great many foreigners milling about down here with heavy accents, but not so many are Spaniards. Do you know the accent?”

“Aye, milord.”

“If you come across him—even if you are not certain—send a message to The King’s Purse immediately. Ask for me or Mr. Gregg. You know him?”

“Aye, everyone knows Mr. Gregg, sir.”

Fast gestured to the sovereign and then stood as she tucked the coin away. “And Cora?”

“Yes, my lord?”

“This is just between us. If this man learns I’m looking for him he’ll go to ground.”

“I understand, sir.”

Fast made his way out of the bar, aware that dozens of eyes followed him out the door. That wasn’t unusual. He was an oddity on the docks—a peer who owned a whorehouse and had for years captained a ship. People knew who he was, which made it difficult to do anything without drawing attention. But they were running out of time, and he could no longer afford to be subtle.

The Virgin Queen—the bar he’d just left—had been his fourth tavern that night, and he’d handed out four sovereigns. But there were dozens of shady bars all along the waterfront.

Unfortunately, Gregg’s carefully devised trap for Mr. Garcia had fallen through earlier that evening. While it was true that Garcia had been snared, it had been the wrong Garcia. Even so, the meeting hadn’t been utterly useless as Mr. Garcia was, in fact, acquainted with the man they were seeking. Indeed, he claimed to have seen their quarry a scant hour before at the Jolly Taxpayer, a truly desperate tavern.

Gregg and Fast had hastened to the disreputable watering hole only to discover that Garcia had gone. They had decided to continue their canvassing, but to split up. Fast was working the establishments by Bell Wharf while Gregg was—

“Take your hands off me!”

Fast’s head whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice, which came from the alley he was just passing. Disbelief momentarily froze him in place before a feminine cry rang out and he sprang into action, bolting down the alley toward the source of the distress.

“You are hurting me!”

“Now, now, hen. Just come along wiff me nice an’ easy-like. All my guv wants is to ‘ave a word wiff you,” a male voice soothed. “If ye’ll juss— aaargh, you bitch! You bit me!”

“If you lay so much as a finger on her, it will be the last thing you do,” Fast said as the hulking brute raised his ham-sized fist, which was indeed bleeding.

The man went rigid, his forehead furrowed. “Oo the devil are you?”

He ignored the question and strode toward the giant, who was taller even than Fast and had another two stone on him. “Let her go. Now. ”

The huge brute lifted his bloody fist, but in a placating gesture, keeping a grip on Lorelei’s upper arm with his other hand. “Ere, then. No need to come the ugly, guv. I’ll pay the dibs if she belongs to you.”

Miss Fontenot gasped. “I do not belong to any—”

“Release her and step away,” Fast barked.

The other man’s small eyes suddenly widened in comprehension. “Yer Lor’ Severn, ain’t ye?”

Fast lunged for him and the man stumbled back, shoving Miss Fontenot toward him. “’Ere! Take ‘er!”

“Get behind me,” Fast snapped, relieved when she obeyed without any argument. He glared across the filthy alley at the giant, who’d raised both his hands, his posture defensive rather than aggressive. “You said your employer wants to talk to her. Who do you work for?”

“I wasn’t gonna ‘urt ‘er.”

“What did you want from her?”

“I jest…” The man’s jaws snapped shut.

“You just what?”

“Er, nuffink. I jes reconnoitered that she’s the wrong bird.”

Fast narrowed his gaze at the other man, who’d begun to back away. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Rather than answer, the man spun and ran full out.

“Damnation!” Fast gritted out, furious that he could not follow—not without leaving Miss Fontenot alone—and staring in seething frustration as the giant disappeared into the night before turning and getting his first good look at the woman who had been occupying far too many of his thoughts recently.

Fast stared down at her, rendered speechless. If he’d not heard her voice, he never in a hundred years would have recognized her.

“What the devil have you done to yourself?” he finally managed.

She pursed her lips and set about straightening her hideous clothing. “I am incognita.” She sounded normal enough, but he could see her hands were trembling, so she wasn’t as sanguine as she wished to appear.

“Why are you wearing those clothes? And why, in the name of all that is unholy, are you down here on the docks?”

“Why, pray, are either of those matters any business of yours, Lord Severn?”

He gave an unamused bark of laughter. “There is gratitude for me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding it. “I ought to thank you.”

“I shan’t hold my breath.” Fast pointed to her hand. “You are bleeding.”

She examined the back of her hand. The scratches—likely from the rough brick—went up her forearm.

“Come with me,” he said. “Those need seeing to or you will have an infection.”

She opened her mouth.

“I am offering you help. You would be wise to take it.”

Her mouth snapped shut and she nodded.

Fast took her arm and led her out of the alley.

“Where are we going?” she asked when they began to walk in the opposite direction from The King’s Purse.

“A hackney driver waits for me behind The Virgin Queen .”

“Is that where you were coming from when you heard me?”

He ignored her question, instead gesturing to her lewd garments. “ This is why you couldn’t dance the supper dance with me tonight? Because you were planning to wander the docks alone? What the devel are you looking for now, Lorelei? What could be so damned important that you would risk not only your virtue, but your life?”

She gave an exasperated sigh—the sound of a woman pushed beyond reason. “I cannot tell you that, my lord. I am investigating a matter for a story I’m writing. Until it is published, I won’t chatter about it as if it was the newest fashion for hats.”

“Does it have to do with me?”

She laughed, but Fast thought it sounded forced. “Not everything is about you, Lord Severn.”

“I dearly hope that is the case.”

“But it just so happens I was looking into something that involves you,” she added after a moment.

“You are nothing if not predictable.”

She glared at him. “If you spoke to me, I might be able to ensure the story fairly represents your point of view, my lord.”

Fast ignored the comment.

They rounded a corner and discovered the hackney driver leaning against a post chatting with a pair of whores. Or perhaps they could have been two more newspaperwomen in disguise for all Fast knew.

The thought amused him.

“Why are you smirking in that odious way?” she demanded as he handed her into the hackney.

“Oh, am I smiling? Back to The King’s Purse,” he told the driver, and then climbed inside and took the seat across from her.

“I demand to know what is so amusing, my lord.”

“I do not think you would be similarly amused.”

Her lips compressed and she shook her head. “You are the most provoking man it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.”

Fast laughed. “Coming from you, that is quite rich. Tell me, where did that big brute back there want to take you, Lorelei? Just who wants to talk to you badly enough they would send a ruffian to abduct you?”

The thick maquillage on her forehead creased as the skin beneath it puckered. She lifted both hands in an oddly distressing gesture and then let them drop limply back into her lap. “I don’t know,” she admitted, looking and sounding so forlorn that Fast actually believed her.

Fast reached out and took both her small hands in his before he could consider what he was doing. It was a sign of her abstraction that she did not pull away. Fast lightly squeezed her slender fingers. “You are angering people, Lorelei—and not just me.”

Something very much like fear flickered across her face.

Fast suffered an unpleasant twisting sensation in his gut at the sight and he softened his tone. “Tell me about this story you are investigating, Lorelei. If I am so inclined, I might give you the information you seek.”

Her eyes snapped to his, wonder rather than fear in her eyes. “You would?”

“I might.” His lips twitched into a smile. “Perhaps then you won’t feel the need to come poking around the docks at midnight dressed like a prostitute from the reign of George the First.”