Lady of Desire (22 page)

“O-of course, my lord,” the startled servant replied as Rackford left the entrance hall, jogging up the wide mahogany staircase to his apartment.

He had just passed the landing at the first floor and was continuing up to the second when a weak, wan voice called after him.

“William.”

Recognizing those helpless tones at once, he checked the current of bitter, long-nursed resentment that instantly flowed through his body. He stopped on the staircase and wearily turned around as his mother glided out of the salon below, as silently as some frail shadow.

At fifty, the thin, once-glamorous marchioness of Truro and St. Austell was a brittle, fading beauty with a haunted air. As a boy on the streets of London, he had sometimes felt a pang of homesickness recalling his mother’s smell, or rather, the smell of her cosmetics: the black frankincense mixture with which she blackened her eyebrows and lashes, the henna with which she lightened her hair, the oil of talc that gave her her milky smooth complexion, and the rouge he had sometimes watched her put on with a slender camel-hair pencil. Powerless to stop her husband from beating her younger child, the marchioness had fled from the reality of her shattered family, finding her escape in taking exquisite care of her appearance.

Rackford did not think he could ever forgive her, but he dared not express his anger at her for fear that the fragile creature would collapse and crumble into a pile of dust.

He bowed to her. “Good evening, madam.”

“You are home early.”

Home
? he wondered in jaded weariness.
Is that where I am
?

She wafted out onto the landing, where the wall candles made gaunt shadows in the hollows under her high cheekbones. “Was the Devonshire ball not to your liking?”

He stared at her, biting his tongue. He wanted to tell her to leave him the hell alone, that it was too late now for her to try to befriend him, but instead he merely shrugged. “I have a bit of the headache.” He could not keep the slight edge of irony from his tone, but she failed to catch it anyway.

Her eyebrows lifted with interest at his mention of a physical ailment, for illness was her second hobby. The almighty headache had been her favorite excuse for closeting herself in her rooms whenever she smelled a storm brewing, abandoning him when he had most needed an adult ally. Her nerves could not withstand all the yelling, she had often said, but now that he was an adult, Rackford understood her reasoning. If she did not actually see what was going on, in her mind, it didn’t exist.

“I will ring for a headache powder for you—”

“No, thank you, my lady. Some rest is all that I require. ”

“Oh.” Her delicate shoulders sagged with disappointment at his refusal to let her mother him at this late date. “As you wish, William.”

“Goodnight, madam.”

“Good… night,” she answered faintly as he turned away and hurried up the rest of the stairs.

Shaking off the clinging sense of her neediness, he reached his opulent apartment on the second floor and quietly let himself in. Light-boxes glowed on the pair of claw-footed parquetry tables in the dim sitting room, low candlelight shining through the tiny pinpricks in the perforated tin housings.

Closing the door behind him, he crossed the room and rang the bellpull. Filbert, his valet, would be expecting the summons and would be reporting back to the marquess. Nothing must appear amiss.

The efficient little man promptly arrived to attend him, lighting the candles, then putting away each luxurious article of formal clothing that Rackford took off. When he stripped down to his long white drawers and wool stockings, Filbert held up his dressing gown of rich blue satin. Rackford slipped his arms into the sleeves and shrugged it on. With the voluminous robe draping loosely from his shoulders, he picked up one of the books on India that he was reading to keep the ton guessing about where he had been all these years and sauntered across the large chamber, the book in one hand, a candle in a pewter holder in the other.

Absently, he asked Filbert for a brandy, which the servant duly poured and brought to him. “That will be all,” he said coolly.

“Very good, my lord.” Filbert bowed and retreated to the door, quietly slipping out.

Rackford cocked his head and listened keenly, waiting to hear the servant’s footsteps retreating down the corridor, but Filbert remained on the other side of the door for a moment, no doubt listening to him.

Fully aware he was being observed, Rackford merely sipped the brandy, riffled the pages of the book, and continued his slow pacing back and forth across the room. At last, the valet was satisfied that his master wasn’t up to anything that might be of interest to his sire. The moment the servant’s footsteps faded down the corridor, Rackford closed the book and set it swiftly on the table, going to lock the door. His robe billowed behind him as he strode through his bedchamber to his dressing room.

Emerging a couple minutes later in plain trousers and boots, a simple shirt and a loose black coat, he went stealthily to the parquetry table and pulled out the dagger he had hidden in one of its secret compartments.

He paused only for a moment to push aside the heavy velvet curtain, scanning the street below to see if the Bow Street runners who were assigned to shadow him were on duty.

He saw in satisfaction that he must have lost them somewhere back at Devonshire House. His abrupt exit from the ball had had unanticipated benefits. They were probably still posted outside the duke’s mansion. His eyes narrowed, his mouth a grim line, he looked out over the black city skyline in the direction of Bainbridge Street.

He let the curtain fall and blew out the candle.

A few moments later, he slipped out of the house by a side door, then scaled the garden wall and sprang down lightly on the other side.

His heart pounded with the fresh taste of freedom. For a man accustomed to doing whatever he liked and answering to no one, the past month had been sheer hell—under his father’s thumb, spied on by Bow Street and his own valet, under the constant scrutiny of Society with its rapacious appetite for gossip.

Reasoning with himself that since he was going to kill Jackals, not fraternize with them, he was not technically breaking his word to Sir Anthony, he ducked into the gloom of the nearest alleyway and began making his way toward St. Giles.

About half an hour later, he crept into position on the rooftop where he had once stationed his sentries.

Badly outnumbered
, he thought, counting fifteen of the Jackals loitering in the street and lounging on the front stoop of the gin shop that had been the Fire Hawks’ former headquarters.

His sole advantage was the fact that his enemies all thought he was dead. He stared down into the street where the party had been on the night he’d brought Jacinda into the rookery. His muscles tightened with the realization that the Jackals had thoroughly settled into the new territory they had taken over.

He narrowed his eyes in bristling hostility as O’Dell came strutting around the building with a musket resting over his shoulder and a liquor bottle dangling from his other hand. He sounded drunk on his newfound power as he yelled abuses at his men. O’Dell still appeared to be gloating over the way he had handed the Fire Hawks over to Bow Street, thus ridding himself of his enemies and safeguarding his own position with the authorities in one fell swoop. The police wouldn’t go after O’Dell after he had been so very helpful to them.

Then Rackford noticed the four large men flanking O’Dell.
Bodyguards
, he mused. Perhaps O’Dell was beginning to feel the constant dangers involved in being top dog in the rookery. Then his gaze traveled over the ransacked square, and his face darkened.
Look what they’ve done to this place
. The warehouse had been looted, and the poor quizzical building had taken a beating. Windows were broken, the windlass hung askew on tangled ropes, the door was torn off its hinges, and those sons of bitches were lounging around everywhere. The sight of it pained and infuriated him, an agonizing, guilty reminder of how he had failed his people, aye, while he now lived in luxury.

Well, tonight was his chance to strike back. He knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish. He longed to launch a full-out frontal assault, but with one man against dozens it would have been madness. His strategy was to turn the Jackals against each other until their group unity devolved into a war of every man for himself. Their gang would self-destruct from within, and when they went their separate ways, he could pick them off one by one.

His gaze flicked from where O’Dell was lording it over a few of his underlings to the old abandoned carriage manufacturer’s adjacent to the gang headquarters. What O’Dell did not know was that the abandoned factory connected to the building through one of those thieves’ trapdoors that existed throughout the rookeries of London.

As a boy, he had memorized the locations of as many of them as he could discover. He had quickly learned that, contrary to popular belief, thieves were anything but lazy. Over generations, the criminal classes of London had constructed a whole maze of claustrophobic tunnels between buildings, hidden ladders, holes knocked in brick walls just big enough for a man to fit through, then concealed with an advertising placard that swung on hinges for an easy escape. There were secret cellars and crawl spaces, false closet backs, hiding places under floors that gave out onto some back alley—all built and dedicated to the great game of giving thief-takers the slip.

Using this knowledge, he knew just how to get into his former headquarters and out again before any of the Jackals even realized he was there.

Unsheathing his knife with a whisper of metal, he melted into the shadows.

A few minutes later, he was moving stealthily through the hollow silence of the abandoned carriage factory. Only the faintest gleam of moonlight slanted in through the high, narrow windows, but he knew the way. The air was thick with dust. The Stygian gloom in the distant corners of the factory rustled with scampering rats.

Clamping his knife between his teeth, Rackford climbed the ladder to the old storage loft. At the top, he crept to the trapdoor and silently let himself into what was now the Jackals’ stronghold.

His selection of his dupes was a mixture of strategy and chance. He had to pick rooms that were easy to get into, but he only acted when he found the rooms occupied by strong members of the Jackals.

The first one he stung was Flash, the “good-looking one” of the gang, he thought drily. The black-haired, blue-eyed young man was singing a bawdy music hall song in front of the mirror, carefully combing and trimming his sideburns. Silently, Rackford reached down from the ceiling crawl space and lifted away the large, shiny fob watch lying on the chest of drawers. No doubt Flash had stolen it from some poor dupe in the streets. The young man paused midsong, inspecting his nostril hairs, then continued blithely with the next verse. Rackford vanished back into the crawl space, his heart pounding. It was bad of him, he knew, but to him, this was fun.

In another corner of the building, the second of the Jackals to be snared in his web was the infamous ogre Baumer. Rackford found the towering oaf, with his bulbous nose and tangle of dark hair, in flagrante delicto with a hefty whore built to withstand the siege. Like rutting giants, they took no notice of him stealthily slipping into the far end of the dimly lit room.

He tiptoed over to the pile of abandoned clothing, took Baumer’s small leather money purse, and left Flash’s pocket watch in its place. He looked over his shoulder quickly, realizing the giants’ crude groans were intensifying. Unseen, he slipped out again, only wishing he could be a fly on the wall when Baumer reached for his coin purse in order to pay his companion.

Lastly, he came to the lonely upper room of the weirdest gang member, Bloody Fred. Even O’Dell was a little afraid of Fred, who had been in and out of Bedlam. The corridor was empty, for the rest of the gang gave sweet little Freddie a wide berth.

When Rackford smelled opium smoke wafting out from under the crack of Fred’s door, he knew he had to take a gamble. Big Baumer against Bloody Fred. It was perfect.

A moment later, he opened the door and calmly walked in.

The wiry little man with a shock of red hair and a goatee beard was sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. His Turkish water pipe was knocked over beside him. With what seemed a huge effort, Fred looked up slowly, barely able to keep his bloodshot eyes open.

“Hullo, Fred,” Rackford said in a low, amiable tone, careful not to make any sudden movements.

“Blade?” Vague surprise registered on Fred’s pale, pointy face. “Thought you were dead.”

“I am,” he replied. “That’s why I’m here.”

“A—a ghost?” The drugged man scrambled back against the bed. “Stay back!”

“Don’t be afraid, Freddie. I’ve come to give you a present,” he said soothingly.

“Me?W-why?”

“Because you and I have the same enemy.”

“ W-what do you mean?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Here. Take this as a token of my goodwill.” He swung Baumer’s money purse gently before the man’s glazed eyes, then tossed it to him. It fell onto the floor with a soft clank between Fred and his pipe.

“For me? Thanks, Blade! Why you givin‘ me gold?” Fred turned and struggled to find it, muttering. “Nobody ever gives me nothin’.”

“Trust me, you deserve it.”

“Crikey!” he breathed, staring at the rain of coins as he poured them out onto the floor between his sprawled legs.

While he was distracted, Rackford deftly swiped the man’s little wooden box of first-rate Turkish opium.

Slowly, silently backing out of the room, he went and deposited it in the largest room in the building— the one that used to be his and which now belonged to Cullen O’Dell.

Before long, Rackford was free of the place, elated with his success as he strode down the street. Soon the thefts would be discovered and the Jackals would be at each other’s throats.

If Bloody Fred told the others he had seen Billy Blade’s ghost, they would consider it naught but the hallucination of an addicted opium-eater.