Notorious Pleasures (24 page)

Hero frowned. “Someone is always about—it’s a home for children, after all.”

She sighed and glanced up the street nervously. She still half expected Griffin to discover that she’d journeyed into St. Giles without his escort. He’d seemed to have an uncanny ability to know when she was planning to go into St. Giles. Yet today there’d been no sign of him.

The door opened and Hero turned in relief, but her smile soon faltered when she saw the grave little figure in the doorway. “Why, Mary Evening, whatever is the matter?”

The child ducked her head, opening the door wider to let her in. Hero instructed George to wait by the door. She crossed the threshold and was immediately struck by how silent the house was. Instead of letting her into the sitting room, Mary Evening led her back to the kitchen. The child darted out of the room, leaving her alone.

Hero looked around. A kettle was simmering on the fireplace, and clean dishes were stacked to dry on a sideboard, the obvious debris from luncheon. She wandered to a cabinet and opened a door curiously, finding tea, flour, sugar, and salt.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Silence Hollingbrook entered. For a moment Hero couldn’t figure out the difference in the woman’s appearance. Then she realized that instead of her usual brown or gray costume, Mrs. Hollingbrook was clad entirely in flat black.

There could be only one reason.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said distractedly. “I don’t know why Mary Evening put you in the kitchen.”

“You’re in mourning,” Hero said.

“Yes.” Mrs. Hollingbrook smoothed a hand down her black skirts. “Mr. Hollingbrook… my husband, I mean.”

She inhaled on a broken gasp.

“Sit down.” Hero hurried over, pulling out one of the kitchen benches.

“No, I’m sorry, I just… I…”

“Sit,” Hero repeated, pushing gently on Mrs. Hollingbrook’s shoulder. “Please.”

Mrs. Hollingbrook sank onto the bench, her expression dazed.

“When did you find out?” Hero went back to the cabinet and took down the tin of tea leaves. A brown pottery teapot was drying with the other dishes. She righted it and began spooning in tea leaves.

“Yesterday. I… Yes, it was only yesterday,” Mrs. Hollingbrook murmured wonderingly. “It seems so long ago.”

Hero went to the hearth and, catching up a cloth, picked up the kettle and poured boiling water into the teapot. Fragrant steam rolled up from the teapot before she replaced the lid. She’d come to inform Mrs. Hollingbrook about the new architect and the further delays in building the new home, but that information would obviously have to wait. This was more important.

She brought the full teapot to the table. “He was lost at sea?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Hollingbrook fingered her skirt. “His ship went down. One and fifty men aboard, and all lost at sea.”

“I’m so sorry.” Hero fetched two cups from the sideboard.

“It is sad, isn’t it?” the other woman said. “At sea. I keep remembering those lines from
The Tempest:
‘Full fathom five your father lies/ Of his bones are coral made/ Those were pearls that were his eyes…’ ” Her voice trailed away as she stared fixedly at the table.

Hero poured some tea and put a heaping spoonful of sugar into the cup before placing it in front of Mrs. Hollingbrook.

“How long does it take, do you think?” Mrs. Hollingbrook murmured.

“What?” Hero asked.

The other woman glanced up, her eyes looking bruised. “For a corpse to turn into something else in the sea? I’ve always found it somewhat comforting that we all turn to dirt in the end—when we’re buried in the ground at least. Dirt can be a very good thing, after all. It nourishes the flowers, makes the grass grow that sheep and cattle feed upon. A cemetery can be a very peaceful place, I think. But the sea… It’s so very cold and lonely. So lonely.”

Hero swallowed, looking at her tea. “Did Captain Hollingbrook like sailing?”

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Hollingbrook seemed surprised. “He talked about it even when he was home on land. He’d always wanted to be a sailor ever since he was a little boy.”

“Then perhaps he never saw the sea quite like you and I would,” Hero said tentatively. “I mean, I don’t presume to know what his mind was like, but wouldn’t it make sense that he might have a different opinion of the sea? That he might even like it?”

Mrs. Hollingbrook blinked. “Maybe. Maybe so.”

She reached forward and took the hot tea in both hands, raising it to take a tentative sip.

Hero drank from her own cup. Although the tea wasn’t as fine as the type she was used to, it was strong and hot and at the moment seemed just the thing.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said vaguely. “I should… What did you come for today?”

Hero thought of the news she’d wanted to share about the new architect for the home. “Nothing important.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hollingbrook knit her brows, seemingly deep in thought. “It’s just…”

“What?” Hero asked gently.

“I shouldn’t tell you these things,” Mrs. Hollingbrook murmured distractedly. “It’s not your concern.”

“I think,” Hero said, “that I would like it to be my concern. If that would be all right with you.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said. “That would be all right with me.” She took a breath and said in a rush, “It’s just that when he left—when William sailed last—we were not in the concord of mind that we usually were.”

Hero looked down at her tea, remembering the rumors that had swirled last winter about this woman. There were those who had been quite eager to tell her then that it was well known that Mrs. Hollingbrook had sold her virtue to a man called Mickey O’Connor. At the time, she’d decided to disregard the rumors. She trusted both Temperance and Winter Makepeace, and if they had confidence that their sister was fit to run a foundling home, then she was content with their opinion.

Hero had dealt directly with Mrs. Hollingbrook all summer and fall, and in that time she had found no reason to doubt her. She didn’t know the truth of the rumors, whether they were groundless or if Mrs. Hollingbrook had somehow compromised herself. But she no longer had quite the moral authority to judge other women on their failings, did she? And even if she had, Hero would still feel at a soul-deep level that Mrs. Hollingbrook was a good woman. A woman deserving of the epithet “virtuous.”

But whether the rumors were true didn’t really matter at this moment. Trust could be broken over falsehoods as easily as lies.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

Mrs. Hollingbrook didn’t seem to need an eloquent speech. “I wish I could have but one more chance to speak to him. To tell him…” Her voice faded away, and she shook her head before drawing in a shaky breath. “I just wish we had not parted on such unfriendly terms.”

Hero hesitantly reached out a hand toward the other woman. She didn’t know her well—they were of different classes—but grief was universal.

Mrs. Hollingbrook clutched her hand convulsively. “It’s selfish, I know, but I keep thinking ‘it’s over now.’ ”

“What is?” Hero asked gently.

Mrs. Hollingbrook shook her head again, and tears suddenly ran down her cheeks. “My life, everything I… I thought I’d have. This was my love; this was my marriage. William and I were happy once. I’m explaining it badly.” She closed her eyes. “Love—
happiness—
isn’t so very common, really. Some people never find it in all their lives. I
had
it. And now it’s gone.” She opened her eyes, staring without hope. “I don’t think love like that comes twice in a lifetime. It’s over. I have to go on without it now.”

Hero looked down, tears misting her own eyes.
Love isn’t so very common.
She’d known that in an intellectual sort of way, but here was someone who’d had it and then lost it. She had a sudden, near-panicked urge to see Griffin. She had to warn him that Maximus knew of his distillery. She had to touch his hand, to assure herself that he was whole and alive. She had to hear him breathe. Was this love, this longing? Or was it a sly facsimile?

“Pardon me,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said, wiping at her tears. “I’m not usually so maudlin.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hero said firmly. “You have suffered a great shock. It would be strange if you were not melancholy.”

Mrs. Hollingbrook nodded wearily.

Hero stayed a few minutes longer, drinking the tea in companionable silence. But her urge to see Griffin—to feel for herself that he was alive and well—was still strong. She soon excused herself and walked rapidly to the door.

On the tedious carriage ride back to the better parts of the West End, she couldn’t stop herself from dwelling on the most grotesque thoughts: Griffin dragged before a magistrate, condemned and humiliated, and the most horrifying of all—his limp body swinging from a hangman’s knot.

By the time she mounted the step to his town house, she was near hysterical with her own morbid imaginings.

The door was pulled open by Griffin himself. He didn’t seem to employ very many servants. He scowled down at her, the stubble thick on his jaw, his shirt open at the throat, and his bare head tousled. Deep shadows circled his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he growled.

Her relief at seeing him well, albeit surly, brought contrary irritation to her chest. “Will you let me in?”

He shrugged and stepped back, his grudging movement ungracious.

She entered anyway, following when he turned his back and led the way into his library. She took a moment to look about. Last time she’d come here, their argument had flared so fast and intense she hadn’t had time to notice his house.

Now she saw that his library was expensively if carelessly appointed. An exquisite painted globe of the world was draped with a waistcoat. Several small paintings of saints, delicate and fine and looking very old, hung on the wall, but two were crooked and all were dusty. The bookshelves were filled to overflowing, the books crammed against each other in whatever way they’d fit. In just a glance, she saw a large book of maps, a history of Rome, a naturalist’s study, Greek poetry, and a recent edition of
Gulliver’s Travels
.

“Have you come to critique my reading taste, my lady?” Griffin poured himself a brandy.

“You know I have not.” She turned and looked at him. “I’ve begun the Thucydides, though I’m afraid I’m very slow. My Greek is rusty.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes,” she said simply, because it was true. The work necessary to understand the Greek script made her feel all the more accomplished when she did finish a paragraph.

She waited for a reply from him.

But he shrugged and tossed back the brandy. “Why have you come?”

“To warn you about my brother.” She removed a stack of books from one end of a settee and sat since he made no move to offer. “He knows that you’re distilling gin in St. Giles.”

He stared at her. “That’s it?”

She frowned, her irritation increasing. Didn’t he care about his own safety?

“Isn’t that enough? You must give up your still at once, before Maximus sends soldiers to arrest you.”

He studied the amber liquid in his glass. “No.”

She felt wild frustration rising within her breast. Maximus may have given his word that he wouldn’t act against Griffin, but as long as Griffin had his still, he was in danger. “Whyever not? You’re more than a man who is good at making money, Griffin. So much more. You’re caring and funny and noble. Can’t you see that—”

He looked up at her, and she caught her breath, cutting off her words. His green eyes shone as if with tears.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Nick is dead,” he said. “Nick Barnes. He started the still with me. You may not remember him—he was with me when you saw the still. The big man with the scarred face.”

“I remember.” She remembered that they had seemed to be friends despite the difference in their station. She looked at him. “What happened?”

“Nick went out this morning to get jellied eels.” Griffin made an odd face, half grimace, half smile. “He loved jellied eels. The Vicar’s men shot him and I found him….”

His voice trailed away as he shook his head.

She rose and crossed to him, unable to stay so far away when he was in pain. “I’m sorry.” She took his face between her palms. “I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t leave it now,” he rasped, his pale green eyes intense. “Don’t you see? They murdered Nick. I can’t let them get away with it.”

She bit her lip. “But your life is in danger.”

“And what is it to you?”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

He let his glass fall to the carpet, where it rolled under the settee. His hands grasped her shoulders. “What do you care if my life is endangered? Am I a friend you share a bed with? A brother-in-law you’ll invite to your wedding? What, Hero? What am I to you?”

She stared at him, trying to find the words. She cared for him, that much was true, but beyond that she couldn’t tell him. She hadn’t the words to describe her feelings.

She simply didn’t know.