Dark Angels (55 page)

He pulled her to him, kissed her, his mouth tasting her tears, moving to kiss them away wherever they fell, her cheek, her ear, her breast, and then he was back to her mouth, tracing her lips with his tongue, and then another kiss, savoring, demanding, hungry, angry. He felt the moment when her desire caught fire to match his. She kissed him as hard as he was kissing her, and he pulled them both onto a window seat, pulled the draperies shut, all without his mouth leaving hers. In the cold dusk, he pulled down the shoulders of her gown, and her breasts were exposed, and he put his mouth to them, doing what he’d dreamed of doing for too many nights. She wrapped her arms around his neck, saying his name, pulling his head closer. They kissed, and the kiss was a drowning. Richard’s hands were in her hair, on her shoulders, under her skirts, while his mouth was everywhere, lips, shoulders, sweet breasts. The draperies opened abruptly. Renée sat back, shielding herself, her hair out of its pins, her legs showing all the way to soft thigh.

“Mademoiselle de Keroualle, you will excuse yourself at once and go to your chamber!”

Renée stepped over Richard’s legs.

“At once, I say!”

Richard climbed out behind Renée and frowned at Dorothy Brownwell.

“She has done nothing of which to be ashamed or punished. She is my affianced, and if there is any fault to be handed out, it should go to me.”

“It will.”

And with that, he was left by himself. He stood before a pier glass in the horn room—called so for all the sets of stags’ antlers mounted on the walls—straightening the lace at his throat, pulling down his sleeves, his mind still in the window seat with Renée, still touching her, feeling her, smelling her, tasting her. He felt filled with desire and need, crazed. Crazed or not, he had to meet with the Duke of Balmoral, convince him to part with thirty guineas.

H
E WALKED TO
Balmoral’s in the cold dark of the evening.

“You told her you would give her how much?” asked Balmoral.

Richard repeated the sum, marshaling arguments in his mind, the way one marshaled troops before battle.

“And what if this man isn’t Henri Ange?”

“We don’t give her the other half.”

“No, Captain Saylor, we not only don’t give her the other half, we take back, by force, if necessary, the money we’ve just given her. And if she cries out, we tell her that she may call personally upon His Grace the Duke of Balmoral, and he will explain the situation to her himself. She is a greedy sow, always has been.”

“Yes, sir.”

Balmoral moved to a chest upon which rested a huge elephant tusk from the East Indies, glancing back to see if Richard was watching. Richard looked away, listened to the sound of keys jingling, the creak of hinges as the chest was opened, the sound of coins being poured, clinking against one another, a dry cough from the duke, the sound of the lid dropping. Balmoral handed him a bag of coins. “Half what Madame Neddie demands. A small fortune in itself. You could take this, disappear, and live like a king in the Colonies or Tangier.”

“And the letter she asks for?”

“My mood will have to improve. Bring me back Henri Ange.”

“Consider it done.”

“I do, Captain.”

T
INY KNOCKED UPON
Madame Neddie’s door. “It’s that soldier,” Tiny called, but the door didn’t open.

“I’ll wait downstairs,” said Richard. The parlors were crowded with people. He saw that Walter sat talking with the Earl of Rochester. Richard found a corner, put himself in it as Walter saw him and walked over.

“Buy a drink,” Walter told him, “and I can sit with you.”

“You have a customer.”

Walter flinched as if he’d been slapped. Richard watched him walk back to Rochester. Anger rose in him; it wasn’t precisely at Walter, and it wasn’t precisely at himself—but enough was. He signaled to the butler. “A drink for myself and for Etienne.”

“Who is visiting with someone,” the butler said smoothly.

“Who won’t be paying as much as I will,” said Richard.

“Very good,” answered the butler, and in a few moments, it was arranged, Walter walking to his table and Rochester being escorted toward another slim man, the butler smiling and gesturing, describing with his hands. Richard glanced around at the boys and lads and men in both women’s and men’s dress, at the flirting and kissing. “Let’s go. I’m waiting for Madame Neddie.”

“No one has seen her today.”

In Walter’s tiny chamber, they played cards, ignoring the sounds around them. Every now and then, Tiny would report to Richard that there was still no answer. Finally, Richard lay down on the bed, one hand on the leather pouch tied to his belt that held the bag of coins.

“I’ve got to sleep for a bit, Walter. Keep a watch. I have to see Madame Neddie tonight. I don’t care how late it is. If you see that man who speaks Italian, wake me at once.”

“I’ve only seen him that time on the roof.”

But Richard had closed his eyes. Walter sat at the other end of the bed, his eyes on him, on the chest under the blue coat rising and falling. He reached out once and touched Richard’s leg lightly, but the rest of the time he dozed himself, his head and back against the wall. Late in the night, they opened their eyes to the sound of screams.

Richard lurched up from the bed. What men were left in the brothel were grabbing clothes and bolting past them out the front door, at which there was no Tiny. Richard ran toward the sound of the screams, up the stairs and into Madame Neddie’s antechamber. Those who worked for her were gathered in clusters, some of them hugging one another, some weeping. The butler stood in the doorway to the bedchamber. The face he turned to Richard was slack, the eyes wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sounds came.

The screams were from Tiny, who stood over a naked and bloodstained body. Tiny’s screams were cracked now, croaks crescendoing up to the ceiling and down again, making the hair on Richard’s neck rise. He took the big man’s arm, but Tiny didn’t stop the croaking sound. Richard slapped him hard, and Tiny stepped backward until his legs hit the bed, where he sat down. In shock himself at the sight of the body, whose beautiful blond hair had absorbed blood almost to the ears, Richard ordered everyone out, then shut the door, leaving the body alone. “Who has the key to this bedchamber?” he demanded.

The butler held up a key.

“I need paper and pen.”

The butler pointed to a table, and Richard sat down to write a series of notes, for a squad of the queen’s bodyguard to come here, for Balmoral, to ask what he’d have him do. “Walter, do you think you can ride Pharaoh to the mews?”

“Yes.”

“Find Effriam, have him escort you to the queen’s guardroom, find the sergeant, give him this note, have him give this other one to the Duke of Balmoral. Tell him it’s my direct order, even if he must wake the duke. The rest of you wait out on the stairs. I’m going to want to talk to each of you. Tiny, I want to begin with you.”

“He can’t,” said the butler. And indeed, Tiny sat slumped and sobbing.

“Can you?” Richard asked the butler.

“If I have a huge, and I do mean huge, glass of port.”

“Make that two, and let’s begin.”

Richard’s mind went to the body, to the surprise there, but he made himself focus on questions that needed to be asked.

B
ALMORAL ARRIVED BY
coach in the early morning. Richard was asleep on the floor in Madame Neddie’s antechamber when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He opened a window and put out his head, hoping the cold air would wake him, take away the sick feeling he couldn’t shake. The duke and several colonels of his regiment came into the chamber. Richard saluted and unlocked the bedchamber door.

“Nothing’s been touched,” he told Balmoral, who stood over the body.

“Ear to ear, by God. Poor Neddie. Search this bedchamber. I’ll want letters, bills of account, coin, jewels, anything of value. If you find any men’s clothing—”

“There’s none,” Richard said. “I searched after I’d talked with everyone here.”

Back in the antechamber, Balmoral sat down. “What have you found out?”

“She was a man. You didn’t tell me she was a man.”

“Best confounded actress in this town before the Restoration. No women were allowed onstage back then. Before your time, but for fifteen years Neddie held this town in the palm of her hand, not that there were that many theatricals—stiff-necked Presbyterians and the others, every joy a sin. She made Nell Gwynn and Moll Davis look like the sluts they are. Some important men and, may I add, righteous men, loved her. There were private plays given, if you get my meaning, but she was finished once the king was back on the throne. The theater troupes wanted women to do women’s roles. It was novel, exciting to the public. So she began this little specialty. You didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

“No.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have been the first to be surprised at the finish line.”

“Henri Ange was here, but few people saw him. He never came downstairs.”

“Who tells you this?”

“Majew, the butler, and Simon, the cook. They saw him when they served meals, dinner or supper, but at no other time. There’s a back exit in her bedchamber.”

“Of course there’d be. So what happened here?”

“I don’t know. No one does. No one has seen Ange for days. Majew seldom saw him directly. His back was always turned, or he was in the other chamber. The most any one of them has seen of Ange was the night of Guy Fawkes, when they watched the bonfires from the roof.”

“Did Henri Ange kill her? Why?”

“Perhaps he knew how close we were to finding him?”

“But why kill her? Why not just disappear? I think it’s just as likely she had a patron who grew jealous of her keeping Ange and killed her in a rage.”

“Who would let someone slit his throat? I didn’t see bruises on the body.”

“It’s confounded likely Henri Ange has flown the coop, gone back to France. You tipped him off somehow in your visit yesterday, Captain.” Balmoral was not pleased.

“I’d like to post a soldier at the back entrance.”

“Why would you like to do that?”

“If he didn’t kill her, he won’t know she’s dead, and he might return.”

“If I were Henri Ange and saw a soldier, I’d turn the other way and disappear.”

“There’s a place a soldier could hide, a lodging that looks out on the back entrance. A man could be posted there, in disguise, on the doorstep like a beggar.”

“The word of Neddie’s death is already in the streets, Captain. There’s a network in the streets. She knew everything that was happening at a certain, shall we say, lower level. I always found her useful, very useful. Deuce take it, I’m going to miss her.”

“May I post the soldier?”

“Permission granted, until her funeral. I think Ange is gone, flown away on his angel wings. It’s what a wise man would do.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You have the coins?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Now leave me. We’ll finish what needs to be done here.”

Richard gone, Balmoral remained where he was. His colonels brought him letters and coins and jewels. He put them all in a saddlebag. When they’d cleaned the bedchamber of the items Balmoral asked, he sent one of them to do the same in the antechamber and the other for the body takers and walked into the bedchamber himself, closing the door. The body held an amazing amount of blood…who was it that talked about it, Robert Hooke at a lecture of the Royal Society? But hadn’t he seen it over and over on battlefields—heads blown off by cannon, limbs cut away by sword or, worse, hacked by pike. There were times he dreamed in red. He sat down in a handsome velvet armchair some distance from the body and the blood, closed his eyes. Thank God he was old and memories were weak, holding very little power anymore.

Majew, the butler, knocked on the door and entered with the body takers. He stood beside Balmoral as the body was lifted into the winding sheet.

“Her neck will be sewn, and I’ll put a lace cravat around it. No one will know. We’ll paste and powder and rouge and put a lace cap on her head, and she’ll be as beautiful as ever she was.”

“How old was she, Majew?”

“Thirty and five.”

“Thirty and five.”

“Shall you say good-bye? It will be too public later.”

Balmoral nodded, and Majew motioned for the body takers to put their charge before Balmoral, sent them from the chamber, and shut the door, waiting to be summoned again. Balmoral bent down, put his hand on the stark white forehead, and closed his eyes to say a prayer. He said aloud the words he had never spoken before, not that Neddie had asked for them; being born on the wrong side of the blanket to a whore shortened a man’s ambitions, and Balmoral would have denied any claim as a matter of course. The man who had sired Neddie was so long dead, Balmoral could barely remember him.

“Godspeed, grandson.” Beautiful grandson, whom I never wanted to know.

He called out, and they took the body away. He spoke to Majew, who’d served him in the army. “Close for a month, find another location, paint the door red, and open back up. You’ll pay me a monthly stipend, as Neddie did, and I’ll see you aren’t closed.”