Greetings of the Season and Other Stories (14 page)

“Excuse me, I thought you just said gaming parlor.” The solicitor coughed. “Why yes, and very profitable it used to be, with Sir Otis at the helm. Made his fortune that way, he did.”

Johna sat forward on her seat. “A gambling den? I own a gambling den?” All she could think of was Selcrest’s hearing this news. He’d have her tossed out of the
belle monde
so fast her new horses couldn’t keep up. No scandals, he’d said. No improprieties. The only thing more improper than owning a gaming hell was owning a bordello. Johna might as well tie her garters on Bond Street as let it be known that she was financing her sister’s debut with the profits of such a place. Lud, how did she get into this coil?

“Mr. Bigelow, how is it that you let me be ignorant of this fact, when I specifically mentioned that I wished everything aboveboard?”

“Ahem. I, ah, didn’t want to bother your head with too many details. New widow and all. It was an emotional time, and I was trying to spare you more agonizing decisions. And you mentioned costly renovations and repairs. I was right: you did need the additional income.”

“I wonder how much additional income
you
were earning from this arrangement that you let it continue.” Johna was seething by now, that this greedy little man with his thinning hair and trembling fingers, this toad, might lose her everything.

Bigelow could hardly pick up the pen. “But, but that was my percentage, for handling the bookkeeping for the Black Parrot.”

“The Black Parrot? That’s known to be one of the worst hellholes in London, where young men are regularly cheated out of their fortunes and estates.”

“Not always. They were often permitted to mort
gage them back, on loans. That was how your husband made such a profit.”

“That was how he destroyed my father, charging blood money! I will shut down that cesspool before one more life is ruined.”

“Oh, but you can’t. The proprietor holds a lease.”

“I don’t care if he holds a gun to your head, I shall not own a havey-cavey establishment.”

Bigelow was starting to develop a twitch in his right eye. “Perhaps Marcel will be able to purchase the building from you. He used to cook for Sir Otis, you know, excellent French cuisine. I had the pleasure of dining with Sir Otis on a number of occasions. Marcel wanted to go into business for himself, so Sir Otis helped finance a gentlemen’s club, with supper and a card room. Then it seemed that the gambling became more profitable than the cooking. And the money-lending was most profitable of all. Unfortunately Marcel doesn’t seem to have the touch for that. Blancmange, yes. Interest rates, no. I do not know how much Marcel will be able to pay you for the building and for your share of the business.”

“I will not sell it. I will shut it down. Today. Get your coat.”

He had to wear it open. Buttons
were beyond his shaking grasp.

5

The lawyer was shivering, and not just from the cold. He didn’t dare reach into his pocket for the silver flask of comfort, not with those blue eyes fixed so accusingly on him. The widow was worse than the old codger, Bigelow thought. Ogden had been greedy; this female was righteous. One was predictable; the other made no sense whatsoever to the self-serving solicitor. Well, if the lady couldn’t see where her best interests lay, Bigelow could. That was his job, after all, protecting his clients from risky ventures. Charging into the Black Parrot like Joan of Arc, intent on displacing a corrupt cook, wasn’t just risky. It was suicidal.

As he scurried out of his office, therefore, Bigelow managed to whisper an urgent message into his clerk’s ear: “Find Viscount Selcrest. Tell him his lady is at the Black Parrot.” Bigelow had heard the rumors and believed them to be true. No man could
not
be interested in this black-haired beauty who was an heiress besides. And passionate, to judge from her outrage. A downy cove like the viscount would know how to take the female in hand, out of a gent’s business.

Who knew when Selcrest would get there, though? Marcel had a true Gallic temper—and a criminal past. Trust a makebate like Ogden to latch onto a convict no one else would hire. They said he’d stabbed his former employer because the man complained his roast was too well done. Then again, perhaps Marcel and the widow could compare recipes, like what was in that pudding she served Ogden. The devil take it, Bigelow would rather stand between a wolf and its next meal than get between these two. His father was right: he should have chosen the military instead of the law. He’d have lived longer. Bigelow kept shaking.

So did Johna. Was she out of her mind, she asked herself, going into the bowels of London with no more protection than her spastic solicitor? She’d been concerned about gossip when she sent her coach home, along with the driver, the footman, and the maid who would have noted her destination. Johna insisted Bigelow hire a hackney, to protect her reputation. Lud, she should have worried about her life. This section of town was dark and dirty, filled with the reek of poverty. No one would know where she was going so no one would know if she ever got there.

Johna wished she had a pistol. She wished she knew how to use a pistol. She vowed to learn tomorrow, if she lived that long. No, she’d look on the bright side: it was still morning. Surely villains waited for dark to go about their evil business. After luncheon, for certain. Johna could get this imminent catastrophe averted and still be home in time for the jaunt to the museum, or a fit of apoplexy, whichever came first.

The hired coach pulled to a stop at the entrance to a shadowed alley. “Oi’ll bide ’ere an ’arf an ’our, then ye’re on yer own,” the jarvey told them, shaking his head at their foolhardy errand. He spit over the side of the carriage to punctuate his disdain for corkbrained Cits like Bigelow, bringing his gentry mort to a dive like this.

Bigelow gestured toward the painted board on the corner building. “Are you sure you want to do this, my lady?”

The black parrot on the sign looked more like a vulture to Johna. “What happens to this place if I die?”

Bigelow had his hand on the carriage door, rattling it. “Then it becomes your heir’s property, of course. According to the will you drew up, your sister’s.”

Nothing could have put courage into Johna’s steps faster than being reminded of the threat to Phillipa’s well-being. “Never!” She got down, holding her skirts away from the foulness in the street. She let Bigelow take her arm up the four grimy steps to the black wood door that had a parrot’s head for a knocker.

“Should we knock?” Johna was sure her knees were already knocking. “Is there a footman?” Was there a certain etiquette involved in evicting an unknown, unwanted tenant?

Mr. Bigelow just pushed the door open and led her inside. It took a few moments for Johna’s eyes to adjust from the dismal gray of the street to the more dismal gray of the interior. She almost gagged on the stench of rancid smoke, unwashed bodies, and cheap perfume. “I own this horrible place?”

The Black Parrot had its head tucked under its flea-bitten wing this early in the day. There were very few patrons, a handful of huddled men Johna didn’t recognize, thankfully, looking as if they hadn’t gone home for the night, for many nights. Two or three women sat or sprawled in the corners. One snored. Johna decided she wouldn’t examine the women too closely.

“Dealers,” Mr. Bigelow whispered, mopping his brow, hoping she wouldn’t ask what they dealt in. “I’ll go find Marcel.”

What, and leave her here? “I’ll go with you.”

“You cannot go upstairs!” Bigelow squeaked. “That is, perhaps the man is in his office. We’ll look there first.” He led her down an even darker corridor where damp-stained paintings of nude females hung unevenly on the paneled walls. Thank goodness for mildew, Johna thought for the first time in her tidy life.

The office was better lighted, so Marcel could count the piles of coins in front of him. He looked up with a snarl, a hyena defending its carrion booty.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
He stood when he recognized the lawyer, unfolding to spindly height.

The man was so emaciated, his cooking must be dreadful, Johna thought. And he was so dirty, filth under his nails, oil pasting his hair to his scalp, that she wouldn’t have let him in her kitchen to clean the stove. Bigelow made the introductions.

Marcel turned to Johna with an unctuously ingratiating smile, blackened teeth and all. “Ah, but you find me unprepared. If I had known of your visit, I would have made my
specialité
mousse a la Marcel.” He kissed his dirty fingertips, then waved them around the nearly empty room. “Instead I do not have even the chore to offer you.”

“He means ‘chair,’” Bigelow interpreted. At Johna’s nod of encouragement, he went on: “And this isn’t a social call. Lady Ogden wants to close down the Black Parrot and sell the building.” Having explained their mission, the solicitor spotted an unfinished glass of wine on Marcel’s desk. If the Frenchman was drinking it, the stuff couldn’t be dangerous. Bigelow gulped it down, almost wishing it were drugged.

Marcel was still being polite, although he did not offer her any of the wine. “Then I am sorry you made this visit for nothing, Madame Ogden. But you cannot close the Black Parrot,
n’est-ce-pas?
Your husband and I, we have the partnership.”

“My husband is dead. The partnership is dissolved. Besides, I thought it was a lease.”

Marcel shrugged. “Lease, partnership, my
Anglais
is not so good.
Tant pis.
Either way, you cannot be throwing me up. Out?
Oui,
throwing me out. You tell her, Monsieur Bigelow. It is a matter of law, no?”

Bigelow was feeling better. He’d feel better still if Marcel weren’t towering over him, so he backed toward a dark corner of the office, pretending to read the titles on the bookcase shelf. “I tried to explain.”

Johna had faced the Almack’s patronesses. One filthy French felon was not going to faze her. She did take a step backward, though, so she wasn’t having to crane her neck upward, and so she did not have to inhale Marcel’s foul breath. “What Mr. Bigelow tried to explain was that the usual money was not being paid to my account. That sounds very much as if the terms of the agreement are invalidated.”

“Ah, the money. Now I see. Marcel has a bad month, and madame grows impatient to buy another trumpet.”

“Trinket? No, you don’t see. I would not keep this…this insult to decency open for any amount of money, and there is nothing you can do about it. Are you going to take me to court? Do you think your operations will stand the light of day?”

“Bah, you will not make me try. You would not want your connection here to be made public.”

Bigelow choked. For once Johna didn’t care, she was so angry. Let the man suffocate on his own guilt. “Are you threatening to expose me? I’d rather it be known that I was trying to rid myself of this hellhole than that I condoned it! The club is closed as of immediately. You and your slime will be gone by the end of the week. The building is now for sale.
Le Parrot Noir c’est fini
.”

“Your accent, feh! And your demands, they are like cockroaches in the kitchen. You sweep them away or step on them”—he made a damp, sucking sound—“or you add them to the stew.”

Johna’s stomach turned at the thought. “No wonder you couldn’t make a go of this place as a supper club.”

“
Tiens,
now you insult Marcel’s cooking?”

Bigelow groaned.

“I don’t care if you cook bat blood for Beelzebub! You will
not
do it here!”

With a guttural roar, Marcel lunged. Before Johna could step back, his hands were at her throat, squeezing. “What, do you think Marcel takes orders from some murdering English whore? I’ll teach you to stick your nose in my business,
chérie.
I cut it off, eh, so you don’t have to smell Marcel’s bad breast. Close my rooms? I close your mouth—for good.”

Johna was struggling mightily, kicking out at his legs, trying to connect her flailing fists with the Frenchman’s head. The dastard’s arms were so wretchedly long, though, that she wasn’t reaching. A red haze was beginning to cloud her eyes, and she could barely hear Mr. Bigelow’s hysterical shouting. She started clawing at Marcel’s hands at her throat, digging her nails into his fingers.

“
Chien!
I’ll see you in hell. When you get there, say
bonjour
to your murdered—”

Marcel’s next words were abbreviated, stoppered by the fist in his mouth.

Merle didn’t know why Johna was here. He couldn’t begin to imagine, but he’d shake that out of her later, after he took apart this ape who dared to lay his foul hands on her.

Marcel shoved Johna away from him, into a wall, so he could face this new challenger.
“Mon Dieu,
the Black Widow has a new
chevalier.
You chose better this time,
chérie,
but this one won’t stick his fork in the wall so easily. Marcel will help, no?”

“No!” Johna croaked. “He’s not my—”

The men were trading punches. Selcrest had the strength and the science, but Marcel had the reach.

One of the viscount’s eyes was swelling shut, but Marcel kept spitting blood and teeth out of his mouth. When Selcrest’s next punch connected with the Frenchman’s nose and flattened it against his face, Marcel had enough.

The cook was cadaverously thin but he was strong, and he was a dirty fighter. A knife appeared in his hand. Johna screamed. Selcrest backed out of range. Hadn’t he played this role before, the day he met the impossible female? He shook his head to clear it.