Laura Kinsale (8 page)

“Go away, Eliot,” Falken said calmly. “You’re upsetting Louisa.”

Stephen Eliot turned, and gave a short bark of laughter. “Oh, it’s Louisa, is it? Things have got farther than I thought. Forgive me, I had no idea you were so high-strung, Miss Grant-Hastings. Come along, Everett, we’re entirely extraneous here.”

Gryf saw no choice but to follow Eliot out of the room. He choked back the growing knot of antagonism in his throat and nodded at Louisa and Falken. Outside the card room, Eliot showed no inclination to leave Gryf alone.

“What do you think of that?” Eliot asked, indicating the couple they had just left with a casual jerk of his head.

“Nothing,” Gryf said shortly. “It isn’t my business.”

“Oh, you scoff at a connection with Alderly? Or maybe just at the kind of connection that it is likely to be?”

Gryf stopped, willing Eliot to walk on without him. But the other man stopped too, and leaned against a pillar, fixing Gryf with that cool gaze. “Your cousin will never catch Falken. Especially now that the lovely and impossibly rich Lady Collier is in our midst.”

Gryf cut short the excuse he had formed to escape. He slanted a look toward Eliot. “Will Falken be dangling after Lady Collier?”

“To be sure. He’s in a bit of pinch, but all the sufficiently wealthy girls are regrettably plain this year, and so he amuses himself with Miss Grant-Hastings. But now—now there is a more appealing prospect available. Have you met her?”

“Lady Collier? Yes.”

“Through that little cow Larice, I assume. The real beauty of Lady Collier, you see, is that she is not only rich and ravishing, but she’s of age and has no immediate family. The sharks are circling. But I predict, this time, that they’ll not have the juicy morsel.”

Gryf felt his jaw stiffen, but he schooled his voice to calm interest. “You think not?”

“I know not.” Eliot straightened, and brushed an imaginary crumb from his coat. “I plan to have her myself, dear boy. She suits me perfectly.”

Gryf wasn’t surprised at this admission. His hands tightened behind his back, but he only said, mildly enough, “Good luck.”

Eliot smiled. “Thank you.” His blue eyes swept over Gryf with an unsettling intensity. “Are you tired of this little bash, Everett? Care to join me in a tour of the town?”

Gryf could guess at the itinerary of the proposed tour. A nocturnal visit to Haymarket was hardly a black mark against an unmarried man, but strong drink and lowered inhibitions would encourage confidences that might otherwise be impossible to obtain. He smiled darkly at his new acquaintance. “I’ve been looking for a guide.”

I
n the soft April darkness outside Morrow House, a pale glow from the gas lamps barely illuminated the long line of waiting carriages. Eliot waved away the footman who stepped forward, and strolled down the steps and along the wide promenade. Gryf followed in silence; they walked together past the patient horses, with Eliot whistling a tuneless ditty that Gryf recognized from the docks. The smell of budding foliage mingled with the horse scent, and faint strains of music rose and fell behind them. If he had been with anyone else, Gryf might have enjoyed the spring night. With Eliot, he simply walked, and tried to shut out all the savage memories that clamored at the fringes of his mind.

“So,” Eliot said casually, “you’ve just arrived in town?”

“A few weeks ago.” Gryf hesitated, and then added, “I’ve never been in London before,” figuring that his practiced persona of naive mediocrity was appropriate. He set his thoughts into that mold, careful not to appear too stupid. Eliot was a man who would be easily bored.

“Really? Where on earth have you been? Not in a backwater like Trinidad all your life, poor fellow?”

“India.”

“Ah. Father in the army?”

“Diplomatic service.” Once again, Gryf kept with the truth, and hoped Eliot had few acquaintances among the British Indians.

“Your family is still there?”

“No.” Gryf searched for some bombshell that would stop this line of questioning. He found it, and said slowly, “They were at Cawnpore.”

It had the needed effect. Eliot stopped, and turned toward Gryf. “The devil—not during the Mutiny?”

Gryf let silence answer the question. The lie was even fairly close to reality—the reports of the horrible massacre of men, women, and children at Cawnpore seven years earlier had not been so different from the slaughter of his own family. Let him believe it, Gryf thought ferociously. Let him imagine what it was like, the “accident” that gave him what he has.

“I’m sorry, Everett,” Eliot said softly, and took Gryf’s arm. “Damned ghastly business.”

They walked on without speaking. Eliot leaned on Gryf’s shoulder a little, which made him wonder if his cousin had had more to drink than his self-possession indicated. But Eliot seemed to have no trouble recognizing the carriage with the green and silver arms of Ashland emblazoned on its side; he spotted it sooner than Gryf did, and led the way without releasing his arm.

The coachman, seeing their approach, leaped down and held open the door. Eliot shook his head. “Fetch my purse, Barron, and hail a hansom for us. You may take the horses home.”

The cab was signaled, and Gryf climbed after his companion into the padded leather seat. It was a tight space. Eliot called up some direction to the driver and
leaned into his corner as the hansom jolted into motion. He lowered the window shade nearest him and stretched his other arm across the seat behind Gryf. “Put your side down too, my friend. We’re going anonymous tonight.”

Gryf dropped the shade, cutting off the view from the street, though the space above the door in front of them remained open to admit some light. Eliot tossed the purse into Gryf’s lap. “Look in there. I’ve a present for you.”

Gryf worked the bag open, and pulled out something silken and black. He held it up, and looked curiously at Eliot. “A mask?”

The other man smiled without warmth. “I told you we’re going incognito, dear boy. You may call me Pygmalion, and you shall be my statue come to life. Living clay in my hands. I’ll show you all you need to see of London.”

Gryf gave him one long, hard look through the darkness, and then shrugged. “It’s your party.”

“Here, let me tie.” Without waiting for permission, Eliot grasped the black silk and swept it around Gryf’s head. He took a long time to secure the ends, his hands extraordinarily gentle as they moved in Gryf’s hair. When the task was finished, Gryf had to turn full face to see his cousin, in compensation for diminished peripheral vision.

“It’s fortunate you’re not well-known here,” Eliot said, reaching for the purse still in Gryf’s lap. “Anyone who saw that crop of gilded curls more than once would recognize it in a moment, mask or no. Will you tie mine?”

Gryf accepted the offered mask and tied it, without much ceremony. He was growing uneasy with Eliot’s quick assumption of intimacy, and a chilly, unreason
able suspicion that Eliot knew who Gryf was tugged annoyingly at his consciousness. When the mask was tied, Eliot smiled and gave Gryf’s hair a patronizing stroke, curling one lock around his forefinger. “Lovely,” he said. “I wonder how you come by it.”

“I was born with it,” Gryf said, on a barely veiled note of irritation.

Eliot laughed in his short, cold bark. “Of course. You’d never stoop to bleach, I’m sure. God knows, no bleach would ever result in that superb golden color.”

“Where are we going?” Gryf asked, to change the topic.

“To see the abbess, my colonial innocent.”

Gryf, who was as innocent as any boy who had grown to manhood on docks from Shanghai to San Francisco, only hoped that “the abbess” kept girls who were free from the pox.

The streets that the cab rattled along began to narrow, and the spring smell of horses and foliage changed. The odor of horses remained, but the waft of spring became the smell of sewage. Ahead, through the opening of the cab, Gryf could see women standing about under the lamps; they called to the hansom as it hurried past. Eliot appeared unaware of the bawdy invitations. He lounged back in the seat, his mouth and jaw a pale contrast to the black mask. He seemed to be watching Gryf, although it was impossible through the mask and the dimness to tell for certain. Gryf turned deliberately away and raised the window shade, which brought renewed calls from the street nymphs.

The scene began to change again as they jolted through a cleaner section. The simple, well-swept front of the house where the hansom stopped was a relief to Gryf; his concerns about Eliot’s tastes eased a little. Two men, young and strong-looking, stepped forward as the
cab pulled up, and one moved to peer inside without speaking.

“We’re come to see Madame Birchini,” Eliot said. “She’s at home?”

This statement seemed to satisfy the suspicious doorman, and he stepped back, nodding. “She is. Come in, sirs, and welcome.”

Gryf disembarked, feeling a little silly in the black mask. But he had drunk deeply at the ball, in preparation to face Lady Collier, and that blunted the edge of self-consciousness. The two fancy men appeared to think nothing of his appearance, merely leading the way up the steps. Inside, he and Eliot were greeted by a surprisingly motherly figure in purple silk, not at all the kind of abbess Gryf had expected, and taken to a well-appointed parlor.

They were left alone there. Waiting for the girls to appear, Gryf assumed. He would have liked to take off his mask; it was unsettling to have his vision narrowed down to a third its normal field. But Eliot retained his, and so Gryf did likewise, sipping sherry from a glass he could not see.

“Do you come here often?” Gryf asked, breaking the quiet.

“On occasion.” Eliot downed his sherry and poured himself another glass. At that rate, Gryf thought, he would have the man’s life story out of him within an hour. Eliot topped off Gryf’s glass before sitting again. “Drink up, man,” Eliot urged. “You’re far too sober for this night’s work.”

Gryf took an obliging swig of his drink. The sherry burned a little going down. He turned his head to look for the door. “Are we expecting someone?”

“Later,” Eliot said. “I thought we might relax a bit—acquaint ourselves better. Have you been in a house like this before?”

Gryf thought that was carrying the joke of provincial naiveté a little too far. “On occasion,” he said shortly.

Eliot chuckled. “What a prickly fellow.” He stood up, and came to sit on the couch where Gryf had settled. “I had hoped we could be friends, but you seem disinclined.”

Gryf turned to look at his cousin in surprise. He thought he had been conducting himself amiably enough. “I imagine we can be friends,” he said, choosing his words. “Maybe you mistake my unpolished colonial manners for prickliness.”

Eliot laughed, and reached across for the decanter, refilling both glasses and replacing it. He made no effort to avoid touching Gryf, leaning instead for a long moment with one hand on Gryf’s thigh. It was not something that Gryf was used to, this casual and constant physical contact, but he supposed he would have to accustom himself to genteel mannerisms, if he planned to associate with gentlemen.

He was not finding out much about Eliot, except that the man appeared to have a weakness for sherry and held his drink well. The decanter was emptied rapidly, with no noticeable change in Eliot’s demeanor. Gryf tried to drink slower, but Eliot laughed and made a pointed remark about it, so that Gryf had to keep up and hope that he could retain his wits.

“Where are the girls?” he asked after a time, and heard the thickness in his own voice. He shook his head, to clear it, and focused again on Eliot. The other man was still smiling.

“Patience, my friend. Finish your drink.”

Remembering his mission, Gryf tried to think of a question that might reveal Eliot’s weaknesses, but the accumulating level of sherry in his brain made thoughts come more and more sluggishly. He frowned hard at the
man next to him and struggled with phrasing the only question that occurred. At last, with the bluntness of alcohol reasoning, he asked, “Do you get drunk?”

Eliot laughed, a pleased and giddy sound. He squeezed Gryf’s shoulder affectionately. “Yes, I believe I do. In fact, I think I am. And I know you are, my provincial potboy. Come now, don’t let yourself get dry.”

Gryf watched Eliot fill the glass. The decanter of sherry seemed to have gone from empty to full without Gryf’s noticing. It was already half-empty again, and when it was dry for the second time—or was it the third?—he caught a blur of movement at the edge of his restricted vision and turned in time to see the abbess refilling the decanter. She disappeared noiselessly, a trick which seemed to Gryf inordinately clever.

He became quieter and quieter as the sherry dwindled again, answering Eliot’s questions and comments with infinite care. Gryf had forgotten what he was or was not supposed to say, and so it seemed safer to say nothing. He sat staring down at his lap, thinking about Lady Collier’s alabaster-smooth shoulders above a gown of emerald-green. The vision fascinated him; he felt himself responding physically, a hot glow that seemed to spread outward to his fingers and toes. In a confused dream she came, leaned close and whispered—then suddenly, the abbess was in front of him with her hands on her waist, grinning broadly. The image of Lady Collier vanished like a swirl of smoke. He stared at the proprietress and then turned, remembering Eliot, but the other man was gone. The abbess held out her hand.

“Come on, now, he wants you.”

“Who?” Gryf blinked, his eyelashes brushing the soft silk of the mask.

But she only took him by the hands and pulled him
bodily to his feet. He stood, swaying a little, and looked around for Eliot, rubbing at the mask which blocked his vision. His efforts only made the trouble worse, and he yanked the annoyance off with a grunt.

“There now,” said the abbess. “You’re a fine-looking trick. But I’ll wager your friend wants you to wear it.”

She took the mask from his fingers and replaced it with the swift efficiency of an executioner. Gryf, concentrating on standing, made no objection. He was even glad of her support as she led him out of the room. He had a vague impression of a dark hallway with stairs, of many doors, and then one opening to a room hardly better lit than the hall.

With a light shove from the abbess, he stepped inside, stumbling only slightly. The mask still interfered with his vision, and he swung his head to see the room. His eyes fell first on a girl, wearing a volunteer uniform coat and nothing else. She held a birch rod, and when she moved, the coat fell open, revealing the flash of white breasts and belly. There was another woman, entirely naked except for boots and stockings, and a young, blond boy, not more than five or six, in a loose white flannel gown.

Gryf closed his eyes and opened them again. He took a step backward, but the abbess blocked his movement. From somewhere, she had procured a birch, and she pointed with it, drawing his attention back into the room. “There’s your naughty boy,” she said, giving him another little push as she pressed the rod into his hand.

Gryf’s fingers closed autothatically around the birch, then dropped it as his eyes focused on the silent silhouette standing in the shadows beyond the foot of the large bed. The figure held another rod, thicker and more menacing than the rest. The face was hidden beneath the eerie blankness of a full white mask; only the eyeholes glittered, inhuman wells of darkness.

With a terrible clarity that penetrated the alcohol haze, Gryf knew exactly who that specter was. He made a sound, an incoherent protest that was all his numbed tongue could manage.

“Another pretty gentleman,” the figure whispered. “Come in.”

The abbess pushed at Gryf again. He set his feet against her. “No.”

“Come in,” came the whisper again. “I have a bad boy here for you.” One black-gloved hand gestured toward the child, and the volunteer shoved him forward.

The boy made a small sound that might have been excitement or distress. He cast an apprehensive glance at the stick which the volunteer brandished; she wriggled it at him, and he climbed quickly onto the bed. The other stepped forward with a length of cord and began to tie his hands to the bedpost.

Gryf felt nausea rise in his throat. The dark spell that had bound him broke; he shut his eyes on the picture and turned, stumbling blindly for the door. He blundered into the corridor, tore off the mask, and strode down the hall, bewildered by the maze of stairs and doors, unable to bring himself to open one for fear of finding another such scene. When at last he broke into the parlor where Eliot had left him, it was to come face to face with the two fancy toughs who had first escorted him inside.

They arranged themselves meaningfully in front of the door to the central hall. Gryf looked at them, weighed probabilities, and sat down with a groan. He buried his face in his hands, fighting sickness. A long interval passed, silent except for the ringing in his ears. The turmoil in his belly subsided slowly, leaving him drained and sobered. When there was a movement at
the door and Eliot’s cold voice spoke to Gryf, he was able to stand and look without wavering into those icy blue eyes.