Frovtunes’ Kiss (32 page)

As quickly as Freddy's dragging feet allowed, they made their way outside and into the carriage. Sprawling across the seat, Freddy sneered once at Graham and promptly passed out. Letty climbed in after him and gently lifted his head into her lap. Graham settled into the seat facing them and rapped on the ceiling for the driver to move on.

“What was that awful place?” His sister raised a face sapped of color. “What was Freddy
doing
there?”

“It's an opium den, Letty.” Graham pinched the bridge of his nose, weary unto exhaustion.

“Opium? Isn't that what laudanum's made of?”

He gave a nod.

“So it's like medicine, then?”

God. Why had he brought her? Why the devil had Moira suggested it? He should have known better, should have realized what seeing such a place would do to Letty's naïve assumptions about the world.

“Such a den is where men go to escape,” he explained in a voice gone flat. “Where they go to forget who they are when drink alone is no longer equal to the task.”

Absorbing this information in silence, she stared down at her twin's prone form. Her fingertip traced his chin, identical to her own. “I'd no idea. I knew he was drinking, but all men his age do that, don't they? I never thought—”

“You're not to blame, Letty.”
No
. He tipped his head back against the seat.
I am
.

Yes, he was to blame for leaving, for not staying and contesting the charges against him at university, for not returning when their father died, for… Christ, the list went on. A dull pain knifed his chest as he regarded his brother's gray features, then Letty's pinched ones.

In that instant he realized exactly where his mischievous but engaging little sister had gone. Nowhere. She was simply hiding, keeping safe. The affectations, the attitudes, the ridiculous ringlets were all merely part of the shield Letty had erected around herself when Father died and left them nearly penniless. He could only imagine a young girl's horror to see both her family and her future—her very security—dissipate like sand sculptures on the tide.

“Is it very deadly? The opium, I mean.” Her forehead puckered. Her eyes pleaded for reassurance.

Graham hesitated before replying. It could be damned deadly, depending on how much and how often a man imbibed. Not information he planned on sharing with her. He was determined not to see her hurt again; was resolved to be patient and heedful and everything an elder brother should be.

With a colossal effort he summoned a benign smile. “He'll be just fine as long as we keep him away from that place and others like it. But he's not of a mind to heed me, Letty. Will he listen to you, do you think?”

Her chin pressed forward, suddenly bearing little resemblance to the slack curve of her twin's relaxed jaw. Her voice, when it came, held none of the childish complaint or girlish simper that had become so familiar of late, but bore a decidedly adult and, God help him, eerily Moira-like conviction. “I'll
make
him listen. I'll box his ears if I have to, but he'll listen.”

And Graham knew Moira had been right about bringing Letty.

       18      

W
e're looking for Mr. Oliphant. Is he…is he in?”

Moira's heart tapped an anxious rhythm as she waited for the woman in the doorway to reply. Perhaps now she would have her answers, finally understand why her stepfather had bequeathed a small fortune to a virtual stranger.

Mr. Paddington stood on the step directly below her, so close at her back she could hear his breathing, made all the heavier by his disapproval. He'd vehemently protested coming here, particularly when they hadn't been able to locate Miles Parker at the Bow Street Office. When she had insisted on continuing with or without Mr. Paddington's assistance, he had relented, however reluctantly.

Using the directions she and Graham had acquired from Mr. Bentley at the Bank of England, they had proceeded south on Bow Street to the Strand. Passing palatial homes along the way, her ire had steadily risen with imagined notions of Michael Oliphant's home, which in her mind had burgeoned to a lavish town house purchased with the funds from her stepfather's estate.

After circling St. Clement's Church and turning onto Essex Court in the heart of Butcher's Row, however, her half-mumbled indignation had lodged in her throat. Now, standing on this crumbling stoop from where she could see, beyond the woman's shoulder, walls blackened with mold and the vapors of second-rate coal, Moira saw no sign of the opulence she had been so ready to resent.

The woman leaned against the peeling doorjamb and boosted the baby in her arms higher on her hip. His pink little fist bunched the fabric of her bodice, thin and faded from countless washings.

“He ain't in.”

Moira's stomach dropped several notches. The baby, a few months old, made
blubbery-blub
sounds through his lips. Despite her disappointment, she smiled at him and was rewarded with a dribbly grin. Reaching out, she smoothed her fingers through his feathery blond wisps. The child snatched her forefinger and gripped it tight.

“Perhaps you'd be good enough to tell me when you expect Mr. Oliphant,” she said to the mother, a young woman close in age to her but as different in circumstance as could be. Then again, perhaps not so different, for Moira's boardinghouse in Southwark had certainly boasted no greater distinction than this centuries-old tenement.

The woman shook her head, a nervous, twitchy motion that sent strands of lank brown hair drifting in her face. “I ain't seen him in weeks.”

“Does he not live here? Oh, but…” She stopped just short of revealing how Mr. Bentley had broken bank rules by divulging Michael Oliphant's direction.

Flashing a dimpled grin that reminded her oddly of Graham, the baby chose that moment to attempt to insert her forefinger into his mouth.

His mother's lips formed a thin line in a face that should have been pretty, fine-boned and elfin as it was. Years of harsh living, too few comforts, and far too many worries had robbed those features of youth and allure. “Wot did ye say yer name was?”

“Hughes. Moira Hughes.” She allowed her finger to reach the baby's lips before pulling it back and wiggling it against his nose. Delighted laughs filled the doorway while Moira's spirits plummeted. “Would Mr. Oliphant happen to be your husband?”

“Brother. But like I said, I ain't seen him in a good while. Comes and he goes. Wot d'ye want him for?”

“It's a business matter. Concerning a mutual acquaintance.”

“ ‘E owe ye money?”

Indeed. But Moira waved the notion away. “Nothing like that. Does he live nearby? Perhaps you might direct us, Mrs. ah…”

“It's Miss. Miss Oliphant. My brother's a drifter. Don't know where ‘e might be stayin' just now.”

“Oh…I see.” She reclaimed her hand from the baby's grasp. “Would you know if your brother was acquainted with the late Baron Monteith, also called Everett Foster?”

The woman shifted the baby to the other hip and blew strands of hair from her cheek. “Never heard of ‘im, ma'am.”

“No, of course not.” Disappointment sapped Moira's strength; her shoulders sagged beneath the burden of another dead end. “Thank you for your time.”

Miss Oliphant began backing away, closing the door. Moira wanted to stick out her foot to prevent the door from shutting in her face, but there was nothing else to say or to ask. Nothing to do but return home empty-handed.

The baby smiled then and held up his hand, opening and closing tiny fingers in an approximation of a farewell wave. Something in his sweet, cheerful countenance called directly to Moira's heart.

“Wait.” An impulse sent her digging through her reticule. Whatever money Michael Oliphant had gleaned from her stepfather, his sister and her child seemed none the richer for it. She pulled out several shillings and poured them into the woman's hand. “For your little boy.”

Miss Oliphant closed her fist around the coins. She held Moira in her gaze for a long moment while her wary expression turned pensive, almost sad, or so Moira thought. “Sorry I can't be more ‘elp, ma'am.” She shut the door.

Moira regarded the door with a maddening sense of failure. She wanted to beat her fists against its rotting boards, break it down, and barge inside, demanding answers. She wanted to dash her head against it, sink to the stoop, and cry.

She pivoted, seeking the street but marching instead smack into Shaun Paddington. The impact sent the breath rushing from both their lungs. Recovering first, Mr. Paddington steadied her with a hand at her elbow, then released her and stepped promptly out of her way.

“Oh, Mr. Paddington, what am I to do now?”

“Don't you worry your lovely head, Miss Hughes. We'll find him.” He matched her stride on the cracked foot pavement.

A boy, his lean form swallowed by a ragged shirt several sizes too big, scuttled from an alley between the houses. He stopped a few feet away, holding a begrimed wooden box in the crook of his elbow. “A ha'penny to shine yer shoes, sir.”

“No, thank you, lad, haven't the time.” Without breaking their stride, Shaun tossed the child a coin. They'd gone only a few paces more when a girl wearing little more than a soiled shift came trotting across the street.

“A flower for the lovely miss?”

Moira regarded the dirt-streaked face and matted hair, the handful of wilting carnations. She raised her reticule.

Shaun pushed the purse back to her side, flipped a second coin to the girl, and hurried Moira across the street. “They'll be on us like locusts if we don't leave now, Miss Hughes. Never should have brought you here.” He opened the door to their hired hackney. “Don't want to imagine what Graham will say when he finds out.”

“I'm not in the least bit afraid of Graham Foster, I assure you, Mr. Paddington.”

“Yes, but you're not the one he'll take to task, are you?”

“Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be busy enough with his own concerns. And we met with no danger here, merely disappointment.”

Merely
. The word echoed through her mind like a child's singsong mockery.

She was settling her skirts around her when an emphatic hissing caught her attention. Gazing out the open coach window to her left, she scanned the building front until she spied a stout figure beckoning from an open doorway. Weathered skin, a sharp nose, and a tuft of grizzled hair gave few hints as to the gender, but layers of colorful shawls pronounced the individual a woman. A leathery hand gestured from within the shapeless garments.

“Whatever can she want?” Moira asked Mr. Paddington, who had just slid in on her right and shut the coach door.

“A handout, to be sure. Never mind, Miss Hughes. It'll be dark soon. Let's be gone from here.”

“Psst. You there.”

“I believe she wishes to have a word with us.” Moira considered the swaddled figure and decided the elderly woman could pose no danger, especially with Mr. Paddington along She opened the door and hopped down to the street.

“Now, Miss Hughes, please get back in the coach. I say, Miss Hughes… Ah, hell.”

Like a faithful hound, Mr. Paddington slid out after her, shadowing her as she approached the old woman's doorstep.

“Do you wish to speak with us?”

A rheumy gaze darted right and left before settling on Moira. “I saw you talkin' with Susan Oliphant. Lookin' for her brother, are you?”

“Indeed, we are. Would you happen to know where he is?”

To Moira's complete shock, the old woman flung her head aside and spat over the stair rail. “He ain't been around, and good riddance. I mean to warn you, ma'am. He's a mean little blighter for all he puts on gentleman airs when he wants to.” She made a strange gesture in front of her, like a hex to ward off evil. “A fine young lady like yourself don't want no business with the likes o' Piers Oliphant.”