A Disappearance in Drury Lane (22 page)

I closed the book, wondering. Felicity had not written her name in the testament, so it could have belonged to a former lodger, or could already have been in the table when the landlady had purchased it. Or Felicity could be lonely and frightened, drawing comfort from scripture.

I returned the book where I’d found it, went back downstairs, gave the landlady another coin—which she stared at a moment before quickly dropping it inside her bodice—and departed. I walked Drury Lane to Russel Street and so to Covent Garden, and began asking the game girls there about Felicity.

“Whatcha want
her
for, Captain?” one of the regulars said, “When you can have
me
?”

They enjoyed teasing me. I dispensed shillings to them, and they gathered around me like birds to a man scattering breadcrumbs.

“I heard you was rich now,” another said. “Married to a gentry mort, an’ all. Lucky Captain. Now he has money for his girls.”

“Who are going to tell me where Felicity is,” I said, trying to sound stern. I handed out more coins. I knew much of it would go to their men, or to parents who sent them out to whore to feed the family. But if I gave them enough, they’d manage to keep a little for themselves.

“I saw her,” one of the quieter girls volunteered. The waif could not have been more than fourteen, and here she was, in worn finery, waiting for a gentleman to take her up for money. “I was walking behind them tonight. She had a bloke. They turned off to Maiden Lane. That was ’bout half an hour ago.”

“Thank you.” I handed around more coinage. “If you see her again before I do, tell her to come and talk to me. She can send a message to South Audley Street or to Mrs. Beltan’s bakeshop. Tell her I mean her no harm.”

“She won’t believe ya,” the first girl said. “But we’ll tell her.”

Hands reached out to me, this time to stroke my back or pat my arms, accompanied by a chorus of thanks and ribald suggestions. I backed away carefully, trying to make certain none of their fingers dipped into my pockets for more of the money I was freely handing them.

They laughed at me, and I made them a bow, turning away as soon as I deemed it safe. As it was, I discovered as I walked away, one of them had lifted my new handkerchief.

I made my way out of Covent Garden down Southampton Street to Maiden Lane. I walked along slowly, peering into dark openings or passages. The street was busy, filled with carts and wagons, people passing as they hurried through the cold to whatever errand they had to complete this night.

I did not see Felicity, with or without a gentleman. I paused to ask a young lady who eyed me hopefully whether she’d spied my quarry. The girl was interested in nothing but my money, but as soon as I gave it to her, impressing upon her that I wanted only information, she told me she’d seen Felicity and a gentleman walk into the tavern opposite.

I thanked her graciously, receiving a surprised stare, and left her.

The tavern was not the Rearing Pony, which was my local haunt on this street. This tavern, the Hen and Hound, was further along Maiden Lane, nearer Bedford Street. The regulars peered at me when I entered, but they did not seem unduly hostile to a new face in their midst. I ordered an ale in the taproom and flashed still more coins to ask the landlord whether he’d seen Felicity.

The landlord snatched up my offering but refused to answer. The barmaid, on the other hand, stepped close to me as she filled her tray with more tankards. “I know that one,” she said. “She ain’t nothing but trouble. She’s upstairs. Are you her gent? Because she don’t deserve you if you are. She’s with another, love, I’m sorry to tell you.”

“I’m a friend,” I said. “I’ll wait.”

The barmaid gave me a shrug, as if to say,
Just as you like.
Her look held sympathy for me and disgust at Felicity.

I waited, sipping ale and keeping my eye on the door the barmaid had indicated led to the stairs. I was halfway through the ale when I heard a thump on the floor above. The landlord, barmaid, and everyone around me either did not hear it or ignored it, but I did not like it.

The sound hadn’t been the rhythmic pounding of a man and woman taking their pleasure in a rickety bed. The sound had been that of a body falling.

I set aside my ale, walked to the door to the stairs, opened it, and slipped inside the stairwell. No one paid me any attention. I ascended the enclosed staircase, bracing my gloved hand on the wall close beside me.

Two doors led off a small landing at the top; the sounds came from the door on the left. That door was locked, but the latch easily broke under the shove of my shoulder.

The room was small and cold, dimly lit with tallow candles. Felicity huddled in the middle of a threadbare rug, facedown and naked, her skin gleaming with sweat, her back striped with a crisscross of red welts. The man standing over her, his fine lawn shirt open to expose a rather pasty chest and twist of brown hair, was busily beating Felicity with a long strap of leather. She tried to protect her head with her hands, flinching as the strap came down.

I slammed the door, and the man swung around.

I recognized the weedy gentleman as a member of one of Grenville’s clubs. I could not remember his name or in which club I’d met him, and at the moment, I did not care. Before he could draw a breath to shout at me, I had snatched the whip from his hands, hauled him across the room, and slapped the whip across his chest.

Chapter Sixteen

The man’s eyes bulged, but with indignation, not fear. “Damn you! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“Preparing to beat you senseless,” I answered.

“Bloody hell, man, what is the matter with you? It’s only a game.”

Felicity had sat up, arms around her legs, knees drawn to her chest. She rocked a little, her face wet with tears.

I grabbed the man by the back of his neck and jerked him around to face her. “Does she look as though she’s enjoying your game?”

“She likes it. They want a bit of the lash, don’t they?”

I’d heard of gentlemen going to certain brothels for more exotic pleasures than simple coupling, but I could not believe that Felicity, who was bravely trying not to cry, had agreed to this. She’d been hired for the night, and this gentleman had decided what he wanted to do to her.

I shoved him against the wall and punched him full in the face. The man’s head rocked back into the whitewashed plaster, and blood streamed from his nose.

He finally started to show fear as I pulled back my fist again. “I’ll have the law on you,” he bleated. “Captain Lacey, isn’t it? Grenville’s toady? I’ll have you in court.”

Was I to be cowed and apologize? Tell him I did not mean to interrupt him whipping a young woman for his enjoyment?

I punched him again, and again. It felt good to my fists. When I released him, he slid down the wall, blood and tears on his cheeks.

I shoved the gentleman down on his face and cracked the lash once across his back. The whip split his thin shirt, drawing a narrow strip of blood. He cried out.

“Can’t you take a flogging?” I asked him through my rage. “You wouldn’t last a day in the King’s army.” I’d been flogged, and I’d ordered floggings. Never pretty, and they were damned painful, but they got their point across.

“I’m not . . . in . . . the army,” he wheezed.

“Neither is she. Now get dressed, and get the hell out.”

I raised the whip again. The man scrambled out of my way, snatched up his coat and waistcoat from where he’d folded them over the back of a chair, and fled the room.

I dropped the whip in disgust and turned back to Felicity. She’d remained curled in on herself, but her head was up, and she tried to smile, though her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears. “Well, now, that was something to see.”

“Are you all right? Are you badly hurt?” I crouched down but kept myself at arm’s length from her.

“I’ll weather it.” Felicity raised her slim shoulders. “He was right, you know. He promised to pay to do what he wanted. I just didn’t know what he’d want until too late.”

“Do not justify that bastard to me.” I was shaking a little, my fists still clenched. “He is filth.”

“He’s a posh gent, Captain. He’ll prosecute you.”

“And then I’ll reveal his shame to the world, and possibly pummel him again. I care nothing for him, Felicity. He has no business hurting you.”

She shrugged again. “It’s the way of the world.”

“It is a bad way. Get dressed, and we’ll leave this place.”

Felicity rose from the floor without bothering to cover herself. I spun around and faced the wall, and she laughed at me. She took her time while she dressed, slowly sliding on each piece of clothing, then finally she asked me to do up the buttons of her frock.

I turned around to find her fully dressed, her back to me. I pulled the placket together over her slender spine, hiding the angry welts on her dark skin, and competently did up the buttons.

She grinned at me when she turned around. “You’re skilled at that, aren’t you? I knew you were one for the ladies.”

I did not answer as I escorted her out and down the stairs. The landlord met us at the bottom, his lips pushed out in a surly expression.

“Ye owe me for the room.”

Felicity took a firmer hold of my arm. “I already paid you, you greedy pig.”

His lips pushed out further. “That gent was a lord. If he brings the law down on me place, I’ll be finding you, girl. And you.” He switched his glare to me.

I dug into my pocket, fished out the last of my coins, and dropped them into his hand. “For your trouble,” I said. “If the lordship bothers you, tell him to call upon Captain Lacey. I’ll make certain he does you no harm.”

The landlord eyed the gleaming silver on his palm, and then he closed his hand around it and spun away, as though fearing I’d take it from him again. He returned to his taps and completely ignored us.

I led Felicity out into the night. The street was freezing, her wrap was thin, and she clung to me.

“If you’re in the business of handing out coin, Captain, you can pass some my way. He never paid me.”

“Sorry, that was the end of my money. Let us get you home.”

Felicity halted, her hand dropping from my arm. “Not to your posh lady’s in Mayfair again. I’ve had enough of toffs to last me a lifetime. And I ain’t going anywhere near Mr. Denis.”

“Your own rooms,” I said. “They should be safe enough now.”

That she agreed to. We did not talk as she led me up the streets and through Drury Lane to the narrow passage to her lodgings. It was far too cold to speak, the wind carrying away any breath.

Felicity had recovered her spirits by the time she took me upstairs to her cold rooms and shut the door. “You can stay all night if you like. You need someplace warm to lay your head, since your lady’s not in London. And I can properly thank you for rescuing me.”

Felicity was lovely, but she did not entice me. Even before I’d proposed to Donata, she’d offered, and I’d declined. Felicity had a vulnerability about her, despite her obvious courage and resourcefulness, that I could not bring myself to take advantage of.

“No, thank you,” I said. “An evening of uninterrupted sleep is what I need.”

Her smile vanished. “It’s not just for gratitude, or for pay. We’d be a man and a woman, not a game girl and her flat.”

I knew she would not understand all my reasons, so I said, “I’ve only just married.”

She looked slightly mollified. “And your wife, she’s a formidable lady. I wager she’d have you sleeping in the scullery if she found out you were with the likes of me, wouldn’t she?”

“I rather think she’d bar me from the house altogether.”

“Is she not one to look the other way on a man’s weakness?” Felicity asked, her cocky smile returning.

“No, indeed.”

I went to Felicity’s fireplace and built a fire with what little wood was left in the box, using the flint and steel I carried in my pocket to strike sparks to tinder. Felicity plopped herself down on the room’s only chair and let me work.

That left me nowhere to sit but the floor. I made myself as comfortable as possible on the hearth rug, carefully stretching out my bad leg, the slowly growing fire starting to warm me.

“I want you to tell me the entire story of Mr. Perry,” I said. “Beginning to end. Leave nothing out.”

“Ain’t much more to tell than I already told you. He wanted to talk to you about something. Either you or Miss Simmons.”

“Miss Simmons?” I remembered walking with Marianne through the dark, and being relieved that she’d gone home safely to the house on Clarges Street. “Why?”

“Devil if I know, do I? Perry comes to me, says he knows I know you, and do I want to make a whole guinea for the night? I couldn’t say no to that. I am supposed to distract you, that’s all. Then his toughs come out of nowhere to beat on you, and then he says I have to keep you or he’ll have the law on me, or he’ll sell me off to Jamaica. He could do it, ’cause I know a girl he did it to. All the questions he asked you about the theatre I didn’t understand.” Felicity laughed. “He thought a lame man like yourself, unguarded, would be easy to take. The fool.”

“Well, he succeeded, didn’t he? With your help.”

Her smile died. “Not my fault. I told you, he forced me.”

“I know he did. Now, what did he want me to tell him?” I asked this half to myself. I knew now of his connection to Hannah Wolfe—what had he feared I’d learned at Drury Lane? What had he to do with Mrs. Collins, if anything? I could not ask him now, because he was conveniently dead. For the convenience of whom?

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Felicity said. “Mr. Perry didn’t get down on his knees and confess his sins to me. I’m just glad he’s gone.”

“Did you kill him? I wouldn’t much blame you if you had.”

“No.” Felicity sounded downcast. “Didn’t get the chance, did I? I was hiding from him, not following him to see if he’d notice me. Besides, he died in
your
rooms, didn’t he? Sure you didn’t whack him with your walking stick? You did a fine job of it on my gent tonight.”

“No, I did not kill him, though Bow Street would like to think I did.” I shifted my body as the heat from the fire grew stronger. “The trouble with this problem is I don’t know its players. Marianne is my connection, and I confess I know very little about her theatre life. This entire conundrum has been very like a play itself.”