Page 2

Two

Eliza crept after the injured man feeling a little like Alice following the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole.

The narrow passage took a sharp turn, and the man walked toward the very last door.

He obviously meant to go inside that one, but before he could, he stumbled and would have fallen if she hadn’t rushed to catch him.

“I have you,” she murmured as he groaned in pain.

His arm looped around her shoulder, this time eager to accept her help.

Bloody fingers with their busted knuckles gripped at her body like a lifeline.

She faintly wondered if they would leave stains that she wouldn’t be able to explain, but the thought was whisked away as he nearly fell forward again.

It took all of her strength and concentration to keep them upright.

Even then, they managed to bump up against the door.

It opened immediately, as if the inhabitant inside the room had been waiting for him.

A man stared down at them with an expression of wild incomprehension.

The thick, ruddy skin of his face crumpled as his brows drew together and his eyes darted back and forth between her and the invalid.

Eliza couldn’t blame him for his momentary confusion.

She knew her own expression must mirror it back at him.

Her heart fluttered like a caught rodent’s. Was he friend or foe?

Someone had to say something. “Do you know this man?” she asked the stranger in the doorway.

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to take ownership of him. “Course I do, ma’am.” To the invalid leaning heavily on her he said, “Simon, you bloody twat, get in ’ere!” A powerful hand accompanied the gruff voice and yanked him inside, relieving her of the burden.

Simon. His name was Simon. For some reason it was very important that she knew his name.

The door would have closed behind them if Eliza hadn’t rushed forward to catch it. There was no way she was leaving without solving at least a little of this mystery. With a glance at the deserted corridor, she promised herself that she would stay only a minute and closed the door behind her.

The room was a lounge of sorts. It was a fairly large space, at least as large as Mr. Thorne’s dining room.

The walls were a rich brown, and that color was echoed in the rugs that were shot with threads of crimson and gold.

Oil paintings of hunting scenes dotted the walls all the way to the ceiling, except for one wall that was almost entirely covered in chalkboards with white scribbling and tick marks all over them.

Closed double doors were directly across from her.

They would no doubt lead to the club. She noted the key was turned, which would lock them in.

Good, no one would wander in and find her here.

Several groups of small tables and upholstered chairs were set around the room.

An intricately carved mahogany bar loaded with various liquors occupied an entire corner.

A scarlet sofa faced the hearth, and this is where the room’s occupant deposited Simon.

Simon groaned in pain. Her heart twisted for him. Whoever the man was that had helped him inside didn’t seem to be the least bit gentle.

“D-do you know what’s happened to him?” she asked.

Simon’s friend—she was fairly certain he was friend and not foe, at least to Simon—grunted but he didn’t answer her. He tore open Simon’s coat and clucked his tongue at the welts of rapidly forming bruises. “Simon, me boy, how much?”

Simon opened his eyes. They were blue, and they reminded her of the sea, deep and fathomless. To her amazement, he grinned. He had a gold eyetooth and it winked at her in the gaslight. “A hundred quid.”

The man exclaimed, jumped back, and landed a blow to Simon’s shoulder, but then he laughed so she took this to mean he was happy. Simon groaned again from the shock of the blow but his smile broadened. She was terribly confused.

His friend began patting Simon down, as if looking for a hidden pocket in his coat. “Where is it?”

“Me ones and twos. Where else?” Simon answered.

Seeming to understand this, the man switched his focus to Simon’s boots. Simon lay there in a daze staring at the ceiling as his friend quickly and none-too-gently unlaced his boot.

“Simon,” she said, finally addressing the invalid himself, and taking a few steps closer.

His dark hair, longer than was fashionable, had broken free of its pomade and now fell back over the arm of the sofa leaving his face exposed.

There was a cut over his cheekbone, beneath his eye, and another over his brow, and the flesh was swelling, promising a black eye come morning.

His bottom lip was split, as well. He’d clearly been in a fight. “What happened to you?”

He jerked at the sound of her voice and turned his head until his eyes met hers. His pupils were dilated, making the irises a slim swirl of indigo and midnight, and he seemed to have trouble focusing on her.

“Milady,” he said.

She didn’t bother to correct him. “Who did this to you?”

“Mum your dubber, mate.” Simon’s friend paused long enough to speak, give her a warning glare, and then went back to unlacing Simon’s boot. He’d already rid him of the right, and now he was on to the left one.

Eliza had never heard that phrase before, but she knew the man had warned Simon about giving her any information, or perhaps he had warned him against talking to her altogether.

“What is your name, sir?” she asked the man unlacing Simon’s boot.

She caught him glance at her from the corner of his eye. She didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he said, “Dunn.”

“Should we send for the police, Mr. Dunn? This man looks a fright.”

Mr. Dunn was already shaking his head. “No, no police.”

He pulled off Simon’s boot and held it aloft, upside down. A roll of bills fell out and dropped to the floor. A hundred pounds, she’d guess. His eyes widened in glee before he scooped the bills up and thumbed through them.

Growing irritated, she said, “A physician, then. He needs medical care.”

“No, we’ll get ’im fixed up.”

Mr. Dunn was proving himself to be of little help.

“Simon, do you need me to send for a doctor?” His gaze had already drifted unfocused to the ceiling again, so she reached out to touch his chin and gain his attention. The stubble on his jaw scraped the pads of her fingers in a way that was not completely unpleasant.

“Don’t bother yourself, milady. I’ll be better after a sleep.”

His coat had fallen open to reveal the terrible trauma he had endured. “At the very least you need to bind your ribs.” She knew next to nothing about medical care, but it seemed logical.

He moved to sit upright and let out a groan. “?’Tis not that bad.” Upright probably wasn’t the best way to describe how he leaned to the left. “I won the quid and ’tis all that matters.”

“You won? Did you fight for money?”

“The only reason to fight there is.” He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he had the aura of someone who was very pleased with himself.

“This…” She indicated the mess of his body.

The bruised, likely broken, ribs. The swollen face.

The lacerations that were too numerous to count.

“This is for money? One hundred pounds?” She couldn’t conceive of that amount being worth the damage.

Not that she had grown up with money. She and her mother and sisters had scraped by with very little extra, but this wasn’t worth it.

“Drink.” Mr. Dunn pressed a flask of what she felt certain was full of alcohol into Simon’s hand, and he dutifully drank down a healthy portion. To her, Mr. Dunn said, “Shouldn’t you be going, miss?” He pointedly looked down at her dinner gown. “Someone must be missing you.”

He was right. She had been here for far too long as it was, but she had learned shockingly little and her curiosity was running rampant. “But…”

“Go on with ye, milady,” Simon said. “I’ll be well.”

He did seem a bit better. His gaze seemed to be focused on her again, and he wasn’t staring at the ceiling. “Are you certain?” she asked because she simply couldn’t leave yet.

His answer was to sing. “She’s as sweet as a rosebud, and lily flow’r chang’d into one.

And who would not love such a beauty, like an Angel dropp’d from above.

” It sounded like a jaunty music hall tune.

Even inebriated, his voice wasn’t half-bad.

He paused in his singing to ask, “Are ye my guardian angel? Wot’s yer name? ”

She shouldn’t tell him, but something out of her control made her say it. “Eliza.”

He smiled up at her. The joy and admiration in his face at such an inopportune time and situation brought her up short. There was a charisma about him that made her breath catch.

“There ye go.” Mr. Dunn interjected himself between them and wrenched Simon’s coat off his shoulder.

Simon helped him as he was able and together they got it off him.

“If yer going to stay, ye might as well help.” Mr. Dunn nodded toward a bolt of cotton on the floor next to the sofa that she had missed seeing.

She walked over to pick it up, and Mr. Dunn directed her in how to get it started.

Together they wrapped it around him with Mr. Dunn pulling it tight and Eliza skirting it around Simon’s ribs with him balanced between them.

Simon wobbled as they worked and continued to sing under his breath, “ If ever I cease to love ,” over and over again with an endless list of ridiculous consequences.

“If ever I cease to love may cows lay eggs, may I be frozen to death with heat, or may we all turn into cats and dogs . ”

When they were done, Mr. Dunn said, “Have to get the coat back on him so no one’s the wiser when we walk to his room.”

She didn’t see how it was possible that no one would notice his swollen face but didn’t mention it. “In there?” She pointed toward the double doors. “He lives in the club?”

Mr. Dunn didn’t answer her as he struggled to pull the coat back on him and button it.

Eliza let her gaze roam the room again, looking for some clue to who Simon was.

He must be employed by the club. She searched the blackboard filled with writing that she had noticed earlier, but she didn’t see the name Simon written there.

She did, however, see the name Mainwaring, her fiancé.

She looked closer and realized his name was part of a large chart.

A vertical list of names was written, including Mainwaring and the men he traveled with to the Continent.

Horizontally, there was a list of women’s names: Maria Antoinetta, Lucia, Paolina, Giulia; the list went on with multiple tick marks beneath them, which corresponded to the men.

Mainwaring had tick marks next to his name beneath three women.

“What is this list?” She turned back to the men. They were now standing by the sofa and Mr. Dunn was supporting Simon as they headed toward the door. At her question, they paused.

“The blokes in It’ly,” Simon said.

“A tour o’ coffeehouses,” Mr. Dunn elaborated.

“Coffeehouses? Why would that be noteworthy?” It didn’t make sense. Why were the coffeehouses in Italy given women’s names?

Unease swirled through her stomach. Wouldn’t there be only one reason those men’s names would be associated with women? A white-hot heat made her face flame. She and Mainwaring were meant to marry when he returned at the end of the summer.

Simon sighed. “Wagers on how many courtesans the young lads will conquer on their trip. I’m winnin’…so far.” He smiled broadly.

Winning? Betrayal and anger and humiliation warred for dominance.

She and Mainwaring were by no means a love match, but she found it difficult to swallow that he would philander his way through Europe before their wedding.

It was unseemly. Is this what marriage to him meant?

She had assumed they would live a quiet life of comfort together.

There would be no great passion, but she had deemed that an acceptable trade for stability.

She had assumed she would be due a modicum of respect as his fiancée.

Perhaps this was all wrong. How did they even know the men were visiting these women? “How do you know? They haven’t returned yet.” And weren’t due back for a couple months.

“They wire their progress. The numbers are accurate because we always check with the houses. Why? Do you want to place a bet?” Mr. Dunn inquired, eyes alight at the prospect of adding to the pot.

They wired their progress! “No, and I can’t believe you would, either.” Her voice sounded sharper than she intended. The tone of a scorned woman.

He shrugged, completely uncaring or unaware that she was going through a crisis.

“I should go,” she said. She couldn’t risk someone seeing her when they opened the door to the club, though the prospect of being caught made a glimmer of hope perk up inside her.

If she was caught, then she wouldn’t have to go forward with this marriage.

It would serve him right. It would serve everyone right for arranging the marriage to begin with.

That thought was accompanied by a wave of guilt.

Her sisters didn’t deserve the scandal that would fall on the heels of her being caught in a gaming hell.

Mr. Dunn nodded and waited for her to reach the door to the corridor. “Goodbye, Mr. Dunn. Simon.”

Mr. Dunn ignored her, but Simon looked back. “Goodbye, Angel.”

With that word echoing in her head, she left the rabbit hole behind and hurried back to her life. Her perfectly boring life.