A Midsummer Night's Sin (19 page)

“Why?” Puck asked, forcing his eyes to go round as saucers. “Is…is he doing something illegal? Perhaps…perhaps I was being hasty. I don’t want to be involved in anything illegal, Silas. It’s bad enough I’m deceiving my sister. I am a banker, as I said. I have my reputation to consider.” He held out his hand across the desktop. “If you would kindly return the purses?”

“What?” Clearly Mr. Lamott was aghast. Not to
mention already drawing up a mental list of how he would spend his unexpected riches (and half of the ship captain’s share). “Oh no, no, Mr. Claridge. You misunderstand me. There is nothing illegal about what it is Mr. Hackett and Mr. Harley are about. The cargo’s that
precious,
you see, that’s what it is. Nobody can know it’s going aboard. Mr. Hackett is a very important man. Married to an earl’s daughter he is, and I hear he’s got his sights set on a duke for his own daughter. He’s probably rich enough to buy her
two
dukes.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with ambition, is there? Very well, Silas, I will take you at your word.” Puck stood up, repocketing the flask only after pouring the remainder of its contents in Lamott’s glass. With luck, the man would sleep away the afternoon and never realize his key was gone and then spend the remainder of the day looking for it. “Shall we go see about starting poor Cousin Yorick off on his final journey?”

“And his introduction to the fishes?” Lamott joked, already seeming to feel much happier than he had a few short minutes ago.

Puck stopped at the door to the outside and turned to look up at the strange, floating structure one last time. Size was difficult to gauge from this distance, but it seemed large enough. If one wasn’t overly concerned with the niceties, it could easily hold two dozen women and their jailers. But it could not hold them without gags, restraints, or else the workers would hear their struggles, their cries for help.

If Miranda was up there in that godawful limbo,
if any young women were up there, shut away in the dark, at the mercy of unscrupulous men, then God have mercy on all of them.

Puck reluctantly turned his back on what could be nothing, or the answer they’d been seeking, and stepped out through the small doorway, blinking against the sunlight.

“Trouble,” he heard as he held up a hand to shield his eyes. But, otherwise, he did not react to the beggar holding out his hand for a farthing. “Two buildings south of here, right on the docks. Three women, all dead. Bring Regina.”

“Get away from me, you raggedy piece of filth,” Puck demanded, waving a fist at Jack, whose bent-over figure was covered in rags, his frizzled gray wig and beard pure works of art. “Silas, can’t you keep these beggars clear of your place of business?”

Silas stepped menacingly toward the beggar, but Jack had already melted back into the constant milling crowds that populated the docks and had disappeared.

“Never mind,” Puck said pettishly, suddenly eager to get this over with and be on his way.
Three women. All dead. Bring Regina.

To identify her cousin’s body. Why else would Jack want her?

Gaston saw his master approaching, and hopped down from the seat, hastening to open the rear doors of the hearse even as Silas Lamott commandeered several dockworkers to take possession of the casket.

“I will order that a prayer is said over the body before it is—”

“Yes, yes, thank you, Silas. You’re a fine Christian man,” Puck said, clapping him on the back and turning for the front of the hearse. “Driver, I want my sister out of this place as quickly as you can manage.”

He hopped up on the bench seat beside Regina, who was looking rather upset about something. “Mission accomplished, puss. Why the long face?”

“You didn’t even introduce me,” she told him. “I had a lovely, small speech prepared. I was going to tell him about the summer Yorick and I went sailing, and he saved me when the boat tipped over. I was going to weep a little. I got the ring, but you got the wart. I got to be here, but you got to have all the fun. Do you think that’s fair?”

God, he could kiss her. She was splendid! But now was not the time.

“Gaston, turn this damn thing and head south, parallel to the docks. Two warehouses down and then stop. We’ll walk to the docks.”

“What’s happening, Puck? What’s going on? What happened back there?”

“Nothing happened back there,” he told her, taking her hand in his and squeezing it tightly. “You need to be brave, puss. Jack just got word to me that there’s been a discovery.”

“Jack? But how? I was watching, and no one approached you aside from that dirty old—oh, my. You’re all play actors, aren’t you? What sort of discovery?”

Puck chanced a quick glance behind him to see that his small, diverse army was following the hearse. It was a shame a lecture or two on the subject of discretion hadn’t been possible in the short time he’d had to muster his troops. Because there they were: ruffians, harlots, hatters and the hapless Dickie Carstairs bringing up the rear in his red-and-white striped shirt. They were having their own parade.

“You have to be brave, Regina. You have to sit here and listen and not react. You have to be strong and prove to Jack that you will be a help and not a hindrance. Do you understand me?”

“What was discovered, Puck?” she said in a small voice. “Did Jack find Miranda? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Did he find her? Is…is she dead?”

“There are three bodies. We don’t know if Miranda is among them. We don’t know anything. I can take you back to Grosvenor Square, Regina. You don’t have to do this.”

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “But I do have to do this. I have to tell you if Miranda is one of these poor dead women. Oh, God, Puck, can’t we move any faster?”

O
NCE
, R
EGINA HAD CONSIDERED
herself the victim of circumstance. The circumstance of her father’s ambition to establish himself in society. The circumstance of her grandfather’s greed and his willingness to sell his only daughter. Indeed, her very birth only part of a larger plan. And she had resented it; she had resented all of it.

Miranda had been born through similar circumstances, with her father having sold his title for a price that included a haberdasher’s granddaughter, meant to produce children who could be traded for further influxes of funds. And in her own way, Miranda had chafed at her circumstances.

They neither of them had wished to be seen as bargaining chips, to be sold to, in Regina’s case, a title in exchange for a fortune, and in Miranda’s, a fortune in exchange for a title.

They were, the two of them, little more than pieces of merchandise with a heartbeat.

And powerless.

They both knew that one day, one day soon, the people in charge of their lives would point in some direction and say, “There, this is where we want you, and you have no voice in our decision.”

Regina knew she had hidden in her books and her anger, in denying the inevitable. Miranda had struck back more openly, engaging in silly exploits meant to torment her parents.

But certainly, neither of them had ever thought one of them could end up dead.

There was a slight
thump
on the glass behind the plank seat, and Regina turned to see Jack’s face behind that glass. He gave a slight nod in her direction even as he was tugging off the wild beard of his costume and picking bits of glue from his cheeks.

“How…?”

Puck opened the small glass door that separated the land of the living from that of the recently deceased (who certainly didn’t need a handle on their side of the glass). “Couldn’t afford your own hackney, Jack?” he asked his brother.

“Once the coffin was gone, I decided you had the room for another passenger. Did you tell her?”

“What little you told me, yes. Is there more?”

“There is.” Now he was stripping off his ragged jacket and shirt. “If you were to face forward, Regina, both our blushes would be spared.”

Regina quickly did as he said, as it would appear he was now reaching for the buttons on his trousers.

“You’ve acquired quite the entourage, brother,” Jack said conversationally. “I hesitate to give compliments, but you begin to impress me.”

“I shall treasure those words until I am old and gray,” Puck said, winking at Regina, who could only
feel her frustration, and her fear, growing. “Is it too hopeful for me to think you’ve brought other clothes with you?”

“I compliment you, and in return, you underestimate me? Very well, brother, if that’s how you wish to play it. Tell your man to turn this hulking thing at the next corner. He’ll not be able to miss the crowd, I’m afraid.”

“Is he going to tell us what he knows, or isn’t he?” Regina burst out at last, longing to murder both of them.

“Jack?”

“Yes, all right. I wish I knew more, and that we could spare you, Regina. It would seem that late last evening one of our intrepid Waterguard stumbled over a small craft of some sort being rowed through the darkness and shunning any need, it would seem, for lanterns to help guide them. Suspicious behavior, at the very least, you’ll agree.

“The Waterguard approached, called out for the small vessel to halt, submit to a search and whatever else those fellows say when they’re being officious. Before they could move closer, there was the sound of a splash as something was tossed overboard. A search of the craft revealed nothing and, again referring to our intrepid Waterguard, the vessel was released.”

“Go on,” Puck said, his jaw tight.

“I think you know where this is going, Puck, and I apologize in advance, for there is no easy way to say this. No more than two hours ago, something bobbed to the surface and became caught in someone’s oars.
Three women, bound together, gagged, weighted with chains. Like barrels of rum strung on a line and dumped by freetraders when there’s danger of being discovered by revenue officers. Only, in this case, once the contraband was submerged, there was no recourse to hauling up the booty later.”

Regina threw back her veil. She leaned forward as quickly as she could and vomited up her breakfast as Puck held on to her so that she wouldn’t fall between the shafts.

“Where are they now?” Puck asked even as he handed Regina his handkerchief. “The bodies.”

“Still on the docks. I would say that the advent of a hearse could only be seen as a welcome relief for everyone involved. Let me handle this, Puck, and we can have the bodies loaded and removed somewhere for examination. We don’t want Regina to see them as they are now, agreed?”

“No!” Regina forced herself back under control, her concealing veil in place once more. “I can’t wait until you think everything is
proper
for me. I need to see those women now. I need to know
now!
”

She looked ahead, straining to see what she’d never wanted to see, as several in the crowd respectfully stepped back at the sight of the hearse, just as Jack had predicted.

Gaston, who had been quiet as the dead himself for all of this time, began shouting for everyone else to move aside, back away, that there was business to be done. But even he couldn’t get everyone to clear an area
large enough for the hearse and horses to progress more than another few yards. Death would seem to have a devoted audience when it was macabre rather than mundane.

“All right,” Jack said behind her. “Follow my lead.”

“I don’t see that we have any other choice,” Puck agreed, looking to Regina, who did her best to appear less terrified than she felt. “We will keep good thoughts, puss. There is no good news here, but that doesn’t mean it will be the worst news.”

There was another
thump
as the rear doors to the hearse opened and the equipage was lightened by the departure of one live body…which probably came as a bit of a shock to anyone within sight of the hearse.

Puck was already helping Regina down from the plank seat, making sure her veil was in place, when Jack reappeared beside them, this time clad as one of the famous Bow Street Runners, also called Robin Redbreasts because of the bright red waistcoats they favored.

Regina, even in her mental turmoil, was beginning to see a pattern emerging with the brothers. Remember a large emerald ring, remember a hideous wart on the side of a nose, remember a bright red vest. And forget to commit the rest to memory. Where had they learned such methods of deception?

And then Puck answered her unspoken question.

“We are both our mother’s children, aren’t we?” Puck said in seeming appreciation. “While others played at soldiers and sportsmen, we dressed up and
became part of Mama’s plays. Do you think, Jack, that we might both enjoy it too much?”

“‘The play’s the thing,’” Jack quoted shortly and then pulled a thick wooden baton from somewhere and began clearing a path through the throng, Puck and Regina in his wake…along with several of the ragtag parade that was Puck’s unconventional army.

Regina grabbed hold of Puck’s hand and held on tight. “He quotes Shakespeare at you? But that line was Hamlet’s, about his plan to drop hints about his uncle’s guilt into a play that he would write, just to see if the man reacted to the words.”

“True enough. And, if our admittedly hopeful suspicions prove correct and we’re lucky, at some point we will see King Claudius flinch.”

“See my father flinch,” Regina said quietly, still hating herself for her willingness to believe in her father’s guilt. No, more than that. The
hope
that her father was guilty, so that Miranda might yet be saved. “We aren’t that far from his warehouse, are we? That far from his ships. Not…not far from where everything happened?”

“Don’t think of that right now, Regina. I don’t want you to do this, but I can’t stop you. What you’re about to see will be far from pretty, understand?”

She nodded, biting down hard as another wave of nausea threatened her. “I can do this. I have to do this.”

Jack and his baton at last succeeded in peeling back the last remaining layer of interested bystanders, revealing an open circle of wharf. In the center of that
circle was a canvas tarp, hastily rolled out to receive the bodies as they’d been hauled up from the boat to be so crudely displayed.

“Oh, dear Christ, have mercy on them,”
Regina whispered at her first sight of the bodies.

They had not had quiet deaths, these women, and they seemed unquiet even now, their limbs bent here, there, locked into awkward positions. They’d been chained to each other, wrist to wrist; the weight of those chains more than enough to drag them beneath the surface of the water and keep them there.

They looked to be smiling, until it became understood that they had been tightly gagged, forcing their expressions into open-mouthed grimaces.

Their clothes were sodden and unrecognizable as to their quality. Their feet bare.

They were all much of a height. They were all three of them blonde.

Regina knew she needed to get closer, even bend down over the bodies, if she was going to see if any of the dead women was Miranda, but her feet refused to move.

Suddenly she was pushed aside by a large man who strode toward the tarp with a purpose, his hamlike hands drawn up into fists. He was followed by three other men as well as a quartet of women…all of whom Regina recognized as being nearby as she’d sat waiting for Puck outside her father’s warehouse.

With the air of a businessman about him, the man
bent over the tragic tableau and then called for one of the women to join him, repeat his action.

The woman bent, looked and then screamed.

“Keep her here, Puck,” Jack ordered quietly before joining the man and his entourage. The trio of burly men began folding the tarp over the chained-together bodies and made to lift the awkward burden.

“What’s happening, Puck?”

“It would seem that my new friend, Mr. Porter, has identified the bodies and has claimed them as his property. Miranda isn’t among them, sweetheart. She’s not here.”

Regina’s knees nearly buckled as she collapsed against Puck, who pulled her away as the men and their burden passed by them, Mr. Porter walking behind, his
ladies
clinging to each other, weeping copiously.

The hatters followed, holding their bowlers against their stomachs by way of paying their respects.

“They’ll be making use of the hearse,” Jack told them as he rejoined them. “And your valet, I believe, until he’s taken them where they wish to go. Are you amenable? If so, I have a closed coach in the next street, which I suggest you retire to with both decorum and some haste. Unless I’m wrong, which I rarely am, and that isn’t one Mr. Reginald Hackett just now stepping down from that chaise. As you seem to be showing some interest in the man, I have done so, as well. I’ll see you both back in Grosvenor Square.”

Regina didn’t look; she didn’t dare. But from the
way Puck turned her about and insinuated them into the crowd, she felt certain Jack had been right.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a seaman appeared with two nondescript gray cloaks, tossing one to Puck and gently placing the other around Regina’s shoulders, lifting the hood up and over her head while asking if she would please consider removing her mourning veil.

“Coach just down that alley, in the next street. Good seeing you again, Mr. Blackthorn, if not that thing on your face. Good day to you, miss.”

“Thank you, Dickie,” Puck said, “it’s good to see you again, as well, and may I say I think those stripes suit you all hollow.”

“The devil they do. But it’s my job to be noticed, so’s that Henry and Jack back there aren’t, if you take my meaning.”

“Damned if I don’t, yes,” Puck told him in obvious admiration, and then he guided Regina into the mouth of the alleyway, leaving Mr. Carstairs behind to be
obvious.
“We’re almost there, puss. Or do you want me to carry you?”

“No, no, I’ll make it. I’ll be fine,” she promised him. She held true to her promise all the while they were making their way down the length of the narrow alley that ran between two huge, tall, brick warehouses, Puck turning often to check behind them, until they were safely inside the closed coach and on their way back to Grosvenor Square.

Only then did she begin to cry…believing she might never be able to stop.

P
UCK HAD BEEN MANY
things over the course of his not-all-that-inconsiderable time on this earth. But he had never before felt so powerless, not even in that nameless port, looking down on the body of a desperate woman who had solved her problem the only way she could.

It wasn’t a feeling he liked or wished to experience again.

He palmed the long black key, idly turning it over in his hand, wondering if he held the key that would answer all their questions, wondering how those answers would affect Regina.

“Mr. Blackthorn?”

Puck turned about to see that Lady Claire had quietly crept into his study and was now looking at him in some trepidation.

“My lady,” he said, bowing to her.

“I…I just spoke with my niece, Mr. Blackthorn. She told me you are making progress. Is that true?”

“We’re hopeful, yes,” Puck said, motioning with a small sweep of his right arm that her ladyship could be seated, if she so desired.

The lady, it would seem, chose to stand.

“Those poor, unfortunate women. Regina didn’t want to tell me about them, but I could see she was troubled, and insisted. I can only imagine their terror as they were forced to the rail…and then the dark water closing over them. I will have nightmares for weeks, if not forever. That anyone could be so cruel…”

“We’re not dealing with men of conscience, my lady. But as I’ve said, your daughter is more valuable to them
than most anyone else they’ve managed to take up as…as part of their cargo. Special care will be taken of her. Still, you must be prepared for her to be rather fragile when you are reunited.”