The Perils of Pleasure (19 page)

“Excellent cigar,” he said mildly.

The doctor nodded his thanks. “They’re an in
dulgence.”

They smoked quietly for a moment. Cigars pointed toward the ceiling, pistols pointed at Colin and Dr. August.

“Did you know you’re rumored to be worth one hundred pounds by way of reward, Mr. Eversea? But I haven’t read it in a newspaper yet. ’Tis just rumor, heard from the staff here at the hospital, who heard it from others on the street. One . . . hundred . . . pounds.” The doctor shook his head with rueful respect.

“One hundred pounds? I’ve been longing to know just how much I’m worth. My creditors will fi nd that amusing, I’m certain.”

The doctor smiled faintly. “One hundred pounds would buy a lot of corpses.”

Colin, who normally knew how to respond to nearly everything, hadn’t the faintest idea how to respond to this.

“I don’t believe you killed Roland Tarbell, Mr. Ever-sea,” Dr. August said suddenly. He made it sound as though he was delivering a diagnosis.

“No?” Colin’s heart was knocking again. But the word was a masterpiece of nonchalance.

“Nothing about you strikes me as delusional, and I’ve met and studied many an incurably delusional man. The blackmail trail is very interesting—diaboli-cally clever, in fact. Your trial was a travesty of speed and simplicity. And why on earth would any guilty man linger in London?”

“Because the roads out of London are probably pa
trolled by soldiers?” Colin always became glib when pistols were pointed straight at him, he decided.

“One hundred pounds.” Dr. August smiled around his cigar, then pulled at it until it glowed as if in out
rage. As though he was sucking a decision from it.

Colin did the same to his. His heart had begun to beat a little faster, however, and suddenly the most minute motions leaped into prominence. He saw Mad-eleine’s thumb twitch a little on her pistol. Colin began to consider ways to make a grab for the doctor’s pistol. A leg kicked out into the doctor’s groin, perhaps, and then a lunge for the wrist?

Colin blew out the cigar smoke, and it made a ghost shape above his head, taking on the light of the lamp before drifting away. Heavenly, the flavor was. The fact that it might be his very last cigar lent a bit of piquancy to it.

“Are you going to tell the authorities that you saw me, Dr. August?” He made the question idle. “We won’t allow you to keep us, you know.”

He allowed the threat to hover like the smoke.

And they all sat in another silence that would have been characterized as cozy, if not for the brace of half-cocked pistols aimed at two-thirds of the people in the room.

The doctor took a very long time to reply. He glanced at Mr. Pallatine, as if looking for advice from that quarter.

And then he gave a short laugh. Colin wasn’t the least comforted by the sound.

“I was coerced by this man into betraying friends, Mr. Eversea. The information I provided, apparently, was used to save your hide. But
I
did it in order to save
my
hide. And possibly the hides of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of human beings, for this is my quest as a physician. We can argue over whose existence has more worth—mine or yours—but yours is the only existence currently assigned a value, Mr. Eversea.”

The doctor leaned back in his chair.
His
pistol was a plain one: brass, polished walnut. No mermaids.

“And . . . if you’re caught in your pursuit of proof of your innocence and betray my own secrets, I will wish I shot you here and now, with no one but Mrs. Green
way to witness it. As a man of logic, it’s difficult for me not to see this as an attractive solution. I could do it, because you see, despite the fact that Mrs. Greenway seems curiously comfortable with that pistol . . . she won’t use it to kill me.”

He said this last sentence gently, almost apologeti
cally. As though he was exposing yet another secret, this time hers. The doctor glanced toward Madeleine,
who gave him nothing back by way of expression, but tilted her chin up a fraction, perhaps in defi ance.

“And I have means to make your body vanish, Mr. Eversea, should I wish.” Another gesture to Mr. Pal
latine. “It would be Mrs. Greenway’s word against mine as to what became of you.”

“Given the content of our conversation thus far this evening, Doctor, this possibility did occur to me.” Again: glib.

Colin began to plan: he was fast—but could he duck a pistol fired at close range?

And then Dr. August leaned forward and the pointed barrel of the pistol came closer to him. The blood roared in his ears now, pumped by an overtaxed heart. It occurred to him that the doctor very likely knew all the physiological responses to terror, and would know precisely what was going on inside of him. Even as he betrayed nothing but insouciance.

The doctor continued. “And this speech is not to hor
rify you, believe it or not, Mr. Eversea. It’s so you un
derstand that I
do
understand the stakes. I understand all of my options, and the consequences of them.”

“I assure you, so do we, Dr. August.”

The doctor gave a short nod. “But here is the thing, Mr. Eversea: I don’t much care for what someone is doing to us, and I don’t believe you killed Roland Tar-bell, and I don’t need any more money than I have now. I have my work, my home, my family. But I do believe you are currently more motivated to find the perpetra
tors of this than I am.”

He locked the pistol and handed it to Colin. “You’ll need this.”

Colin was happy for the excuse of cigar smoke: it gushed out with his exhalation of relief.

He might not have hung by the neck yesterday morn
ing, but he had likely lost years of his life in the past few minutes.

He casually took the pistol from Dr. August. And de
spite the ferocious clang of his heart, a small, exultant part of him was saying:
At last! A pistol!

And once he had the pistol, Madeleine locked her own pistol and tucked it away. Colin saw her close her eyes very briefl y.

And he did wonder: did Madeleine have reason to feel a particular loyalty to the doctor? Had she really thought the doctor might shoot him? And why on earth should she feel any particular loyalty to
him
? Particu
larly since he was rumored to be worth one hundred pounds.

“I don’t keep powder and shot here in the surgery, Mr. Eversea. So you’ve one shot in there. It’s my hope you won’t need to use it. But please do find whoever is doing this. And make them stop.”

“Thank you, Dr. August. God willing, I’ll return the pistol to you. And I will keep your secrets . . . insofar as secrets can be kept.”

The doctor smiled ruefully at this. “I’ll do likewise, Mr. Eversea. And one more thing: you may have been able to move about London more or less unnoticed today, with your collar up and your hat down, but I wouldn’t count on that sort of safety in the days ahead. Word about the reward is bound to spread, and there are, as you know, greedy eyes everywhere. You may stay here in the surgery tonight, if you haven’t another place to stay. I know how to get you out of here in the morning, and to get you to your next destination with
out being detected. I vow you have my safety for the evening. The rest of . . . everything . . . is up to you.”

Colin inhaled deeply, and turned to Madeleine. “Shall we stay?” He thought he’d include her in the de
cision. And he thought it safest to assume they were still a “we.”

After a moment she nodded. As if she hadn’t yet re
covered full use of her voice.

Colin turned and clasped the doctor’s hand fi ercely for a moment. And the doctor made a very pretty bow to Madeleine.

He turned to leave.

“Dr. August . . . ” Madeleine’s voice sounded a bit rusty. She cleared her throat.

The doctor paused and turned to her expectantly.

“Would you first see to Mr. Eversea’s ankles?”

Colin slowly looked up at Madeleine, and gave his head the most minute of shakes. God, but he was weary of reminders of Newgate and weakness. He was
fi ne
.

“Shackles?” Dr. August said, in the tone anyone else might have used to say
table?
or
horse?
And he almost brightened a little. For this was where he was most comfortable, and where he could be of use; now, Colin Eversea was truly interesting to him.

“Let’s have the boots off, Eversea. Up on the table now.”

The doctor moved the lamp for better lighting, helped Colin off with his boots, and while Madeleine watched from her place against the wall, he unwound the cravat bandages. Made a noise that sounded like grunted approval.

“They’re healing, but you’ll need a bit more of a proper bandage to keep from chafing, or they’ll never heal properly.”

He took down cotton wool and a bottle of something that turned out to be dark and pungent, and cleaned
Colin’s ankles gently, but with a brisk, knowledgeable thoroughness that reminded him of Madeleine. It stung a bit, but things that helped typically stung, and Colin watched, interested to see this man practice his craft.

The doctor dressed it with his own tin of Saint-John’s-wort and concluded with a proper bandage, a soft clean one for each ankle. Then Colin put his stock
ings back on, and it did feel better.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Anything else injured, wounded, needing seeing to?” the doctor asked.

“Not yet.” Colin offered up a crooked smile.

Dr. August smiled at that.
There’s always time
, were the unspoken words. Given the task facing him, Colin thought.

“Good luck to you, Mr. Eversea. I rather suspect you have nine lives. You’ve seven left to you, by my count. Good evening, Mrs. Greenway. I imagine the two of you would like to pay a visit to Mrs. Pallatine’s maid in the morning. I shall return at dawn to get you out of here. It would be helpful if you are awake and ready to go.”

“Is there a lock on the outside of this door, Dr. August?”

“I shan’t lock it. The night staff will assume it’s open. You’ll have to remain alert, however.”

As if they needed a reminder.

nm

nd the doctor left, and they were alone, and it was extraordinarily quiet. Colin wedged a chair under the doorknob. It was becoming quite a habit, he thought. The doorknob wedging.

When he turned, he saw Madeleine Greenway sliding down the wall where she’d been standing, all the way to the floor, as though tension alone had been keeping her upright.

Colin watched her uncertainly. At the moment, sit
ting quietly against the wall in the semidark with her dead husband’s pretty pistol in her lap, Madeleine didn’t look like the sort of woman who had outmaneuvered, outbribed and outthought British soldiers, a crowd of thousands, and the English justice system to snatch his sorry but undeniably attractive hide from the gallows. She looked small, rumpled and pale. He couldn’t presume what moved in her heart and mind right now. But she reminded him of someone stoically waiting out the effects of a sudden blow to an old injury: breathing through the pain, knowing it would ebb. Trusting her strength would return once it did.

Too many smalls
, the doctor had said to the Resur
rectionist. And this, Colin knew, was simply, brutally true. Children died so alarmingly frequently from all manner of illnesses that families clothed their grief in a sort of religious pragmatism:
God’s will be done
. Nearly every family Colin knew was large, and nearly every family he knew featured a small marker in the family graveyard, his own family’s included. Widows abounded, too. It was the nature of their time.

But the bottom had dropped out of Madeleine Green-way’s world five years ago. She’d lost everything she loved, everything she had, all at once.

Colin felt restless with this new knowledge. He knew an impulse to go over and smooth her hair, as much as an attempt to soothe himself as to soothe her, be
cause he was now all too aware of how soft it was. He was tempted to fuss with things in the room—to open all the jars and peer inside them, perhaps shake Mr. Pallatine’s hand, or pretend to introduce him formally to Mrs. Greenway—but wasn’t certain Mrs. Greenway would appreciate it. Ian would have laughed. Olivia
might
have. Louisa would have scolded him.

Perhaps if he just talked. About anything else.

“Do you think he’s mad?” Colin asked her. “Dr. August?”

Madeleine looked up at him then. “Perhaps a little. In the way that all geniuses are.”

“A genius, is he?” Colin suddenly felt unaccountably jealous. He would have liked to be a genius at
anything
. “Did you notice he said I’d seven lives yet? Do you be
lieve he was actually on the fence about killing me this evening?”

She tipped her head to the side, thinking. “I think it’s hard to say what anyone will do, Mr. Eversea,” she said softly. “He has a family to protect. And a career.

I believe he thinks he did the right thing by you. I sus
pect the doctor has a very distinct and singular sense of right and wrong. Perhaps you’re simply fortunate you fell into the ‘right’ category.’”

Colin pondered this. “Do you think he was right to stalk Mr. Pallatine? To buy bodies?”

“I cannot say. I do know he is a brilliant doctor, and I suspect that many people who are best at what they do are passionate and obsessive, sometimes to the point of losing perspective and becoming offensive. Everything he does is in service of his profession. I don’t think he’s a bad man. I don’t know a single human who hasn’t secrets, or has an entirely pure soul.”

Neither did he, for that matter. Unless, perhaps, it was Louisa Porter. Colin wondered what else might lie in Madeleine Greenway’s past.

“Was he . . . kind to you?” He asked it, knowing it could very well lead to more prickly one-word answers. He tried, and failed, to keep the softness from his voice. He sensed she wouldn’t welcome pity. It was just that he couldn’t imagine what Dr. August would say to a young woman who was ill and whose family was dying of smallpox, and then who lived on when everything she’d loved best in the world was gone. He wasn’t a gentle man, Dr. August.

She hesitated so long he thought she was ignoring the question, or didn’t understand it. But apparently she was taking the time to arrive at a proper answer, and her voice was reflective when she spoke.

“He didn’t need to be kind, Mr. Eversea. He needed to be
good.
At his profession, that is. He wasn’t . . .
unkind
. He did everything he could for us, I know. He did it in the interest of medicine, and perhaps somewhat in the interest of his own ego, and because I believe
he
does
care about mankind in a very encompassing way. But he isn’t a member of the clergy. He serves our bodies, not our souls. And when I lived, and my hus
band and baby died . . . ” She paused, rallying strength for the answer, perhaps. “I do think Dr. August suf
fered, too, in his own way. He’s not an unfeeling man. He’s just difficult to understand. And it was a long time ago,” she added shortly. “Five years ago.”

This was as revelatory as Mrs. Greenway had been since he’d met her.

Colin found himself holding his body very still, as though he’d been just handed something delicate to tend. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know her entire story, because to know it was to become more entangled in the life of Mrs. Madeleine Greenway. And though he was
certain
he wanted to entangle himself in her limbs, or in her long dark hair, at least for a half hour or so of his life, this was meshing of another sort.

In the end he couldn’t help it.

“Five years isn’t so very long ago,” he said softly. “Waterloo was five years ago. It seems like yesterday, some days.”

He saw one of her hands slowly curl into a fi st against her thigh. He wondered if she wished she could curl in upon herself at the moment and be alone for just a few moments. And here he was talking, and reminding her of all of it.

“It was a long time ago,” she reiterated evenly.

As if saying so could make it even longer ago.

“Have you any other family?”

“Oh, there are a few scattered cousins. But no family to whom I am close. My husband and son were
my
family.”

So she was alone. Colin felt that word—
alone
—in
his stomach, cold and solid, a slab of sharp-edged marble. He shifted his feet restlessly to accommodate its weight. Familial relationships could be sticky and un
expectedly complex. He thought of his brother Marcus, who had once saved his life, and who may have, for the love of a woman, attempted to end it. He pushed the thought away. No matter what, his family was what anchored him to this world. He couldn’t do without any of them.

“How did you become a mercenary, Mrs. Greenway?”

She actually laughed at that. “Mr. Eversea, do you
ever
mince words?”

“Just—”

“Making conversation. Of course.”

But she was smiling a little, which made him smile. Smiles were good, particularly hers.

“All right. I’ll tell you, if it’ll stop the questions. I fell into it by accident, really. I was good at it, Mr. Eversea. There was no money left after my husband died—being ill is very expensive, you see—and as I was ill for a long time, too, I lost the shop—we sold cheese—and there were debts, and it began to look like my future home would be the Marshalsea prison. But I knew of Croker, as he bought cheese from us for the Tiger’s Nest. In con
versation he told me about a problem a gentleman was having retrieving a necklace that belonged to his wife— he’d accidentally given it to his mistress. I told him pre
cisely how I’d go about getting it back. I’ve always been quite good at planning, you see—it’s why our shop pros
pered. And . . . well, I was hired to retrieve the necklace. Believe it or not, there’s a sort of man who doesn’t care whether a man or a woman is getting the job done, as long as it’s done. But these are desperate men, typically. I was successful. I retrieved the necklace. It was . . .

exhilarating. Word got out about my . . . skills. More work came my way. I paid off my debts. I never stopped working. It was interesting. Lucrative.”

“Dangerous.” And what a terribly inadequate word that was.

She looked up at him. “Yes,” she said gently. Almost humoring him.

And the realization jolted him: she hadn’t cared. She’d welcomed the danger. The work had been treach
erous and consuming; in the wake of everything she lost, it was both income and panacea.

Colin thought of himself dangling from that snapped trellis, mouthing prayers, his feet paddling air. And while a gardener had happened along and taken him down before he could either plummet to his death or be shot by Lord Malmsey, Madeleine Greenway had caught hold of Croker’s meaty fist on her free-fall down from her own figurative snapped trellis.

No one knew better than he how a perfectly pleasant life could shatter with shocking speed.

I was good at it
. But he thought of Madeleine Greenway tucking a penny into a little boy’s shoe, her hands softly tending to the shackle wounds of a man she couldn’t possibly know well enough to trust, her bad gunpowder. He knew the woman in her was much stronger than the mercenary. And that this would ulti
mately be her undoing.

Which was why she needed to leave all of it behind as soon as she could.

But
he
was the reason she couldn’t yet leave it behind, too. She’d spent her advance payment rescuing
him
. He wouldn’t blame her if all she saw when she looked at him was that rumored one hundred pound reward.

There was a silence, during which candle wax
dripped and spat as a result of some rogue breeze waft
ing through the surgery—perhaps the window needed to be closed more snugly. Mr. Pallatine glowed a fetch
ing shade of amber and began to even look somewhat companionable.

Colin wondered if this proved one could eventually get used to anything.

“Look, Mrs. Greenway, shall we compare sticks? Mine is larger.” He held up his new pistol.

Up winged one of her dark brows. “Mine is prettier.” She did smile a little, recognizing the innuendo, which had been his goal.

But then it was quiet again. And he tried not to stare at her, but it was diffi cult, as her arresting face was the most interesting thing in the room. So that was it, he thought. Love and grief and challenge were what gave her singular beauty its resonance. Her character had ac
quired . . . terrain . . . over the years. Some of it craggy and forbidding, granted; some soft as the hills of the Sussex Downs. Colin was strangely drawn to it, like the explorer he was.

But he wished he had something of use to say. If Madeleine Greenway had been one of his sisters, Gene
vieve or Olivia, who were prone to weeping or seething, respectively, when something troubled them, he might sling an arm about her shoulder. If she were Louisa, he would offer a handkerchief and a shoulder or a walk on the downs, a jest—these usually worked to soothe Louisa.

But Madeleine Greenway had earned her strength. He wondered if, in fact, she knew any longer how to be weak. It had likely been a long time since she could afford to be.

I’ll be strong for you
.

The thought unnerved him. He wasn’t certain strength of that sort had ever been required of him. Every woman in his life—including Louisa Porter, despite her genteel poverty—had always taken safety for granted. It was built into their particular place in society.

What he
wanted
to do was slide down next to Mad
eleine and pull her into his arms, because he was certain that what began in comfort would end as lovemaking. Mrs. Greenway’s control was formidable, but it was cultivated, while sensuality was her nature, and if Colin
did
have a genius for anything, it was knowing when a woman was most likely to capitulate, and tempting her into doing it. Then there was the matter of that ru
mored one hundred pound reward for his hide, which no doubt sang a siren song to Madeleine Greenway, and he suspected he could cement her allegiance by making love to her.