Viscount Vagabond (28 page)

Add to that the incompetence and corruption of a legal system that must persecute innocent boys, Madame’s helpless hysteria in the face of this injustice, Lord Browdie’s swaggering imbecility, and the provoking unavailability of the one man who could have quickly set matters right, and one had a young lady in a most unladylike state of temper.

From the time she’d entered the dressmaker’s shop, Catherine’s thinking—what there was of it—had been dictated by blind rage against a world that today utterly refused to behave itself. Being in such a state, it had not occurred to her to do anything but dash recklessly to Jemmy’s rescue since no one else was capable of handling the matter intelligently.

As she entered the back room of the shop, Catherine’s anger began to recede, and second thoughts crowded into its place. The room was a dark ugly one whose sole window was boarded up. The space contained two rickety chairs, one filthy mattress on an equally filthy floor, and nothing remotely resembling accoutrements for the tea Lord Browdie had promised.

It abruptly occurred to her to wonder how Lord Browdie proposed to have Jemmy removed from the Brown Bear when the baron was unable to identify the boy.

The door slammed shut and Catherine heard a key turn in a lock. A cold chill ran down the back of her neck as she turned
to
Lord Browdie. His avuncular smile had vanished, replaced by a sneer.

“Now, Miss Hoity Toity,” said he, “we’re going to settle this business once and for all.”

***

Mr. Langdon had not much to say for himself during the bumpy ride that seemed to taking them into the very heart of London’s underworld. He knew a good deal about it, having read many works on the subject—among others, the anonymously published
Letters from England,
Mr. Patrick Colquhoun’s
Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,
and the recently published report of the Parliamentary Select Committee that had enquired into the state of London’s Watch. He knew, therefore, that London’s criminal classes and their habitations flourished much as they had in Sir Henry Fielding’s time.

Mr. Langdon had never explored this world firsthand, however, and he was appalled. Around him he saw filth and wretchedness of every description, the population resembling rodents as they darted nervously into alleys and doorways or else stared with undisguised hostility at the vehicle that dared venture into their noisome haven. No wonder Max had not wanted to take his own carriage.

Mr. Langdon was equally shocked by the confident familiarity with which his friend directed the increasingly reluctant coachman. Occasionally Max halted the vehicle, alit, and disappeared into a noxious hole of a gin shop or a black alley that looked like the entrance to hell. Rarely did he stop more than a few minutes—though to Jack every second dragged by like centuries—before emerging with new directions for the driver.

Jack had a pistol, courtesy of the viscount, and was determined to use it if necessary. He would have preferred that he knew how to use it, and cursed himself for wasting his life away in books and never acquiring a productive skill. What earthly good was a bookworm to a young lady in danger?

Now, as the coach halted before a decrepit tavern, Mr. Langdon decided that if he was to be of any use at all, he must be confident. He’d been visiting the boxing saloon
religiously for a fortnight and, according to his instructor, was making rapid progress. He told himself he was not completely helpless.

Reassured, he contemplated the damsel in distress. Miss Pelliston was so agreeable. She always had intelligent comments or questions for him, never seemed bored or impatient. In fact, she was the only woman he’d ever met who understood him at all. He was not sure if he understood her—he sensed there was more to her than one saw on social occasions. That “more” occasionally made him uneasy. It was rather like the faint rumblings of a storm many miles away.

All the same, to be understood by a woman was a rarity. He doubted he’d ever find another with whom he felt so comfortable. Their acquaintance was developing into genuine friendship, and what better match than one between friends? A marriage begun in friendship could ripen into deep affection... even love.

Naturally he was willing to do or risk whatever he must to rescue her. He was not sure the very proper Miss Pelliston would, as Max had claimed, throw herself into his arms with admiration and gratitude and be swept completely off her feet. If that did happen, though, Jack must offer for her immediately. He who hesitates is lost, as his friend had repeatedly reminded him.

The trouble was, he rather suspected... but that was absurd. Max was engaged to Lady Diana Glencove. Those comments about Miss Pelliston and the bitterness Jack had heard must be blamed on the champagne. Max was having typical second thoughts about being leg-shackled and the champagne had made him maudlin. Whatever was troubling Max was Max’s problem. One had better concentrate on acting heroic.

Mr. Langdon stopped raking his hair and squared his shoulders instead. He met Jemmy’s puzzled gaze and flushed.

The coach door opened and Max climbed inside. “He just went into that coffee shop a couple of doors along.”

“Are we going in after him?” Jack asked, fumbling for the pistol.

“Of course not. The place is jammed to the rafters. We can’t take on the whole murdering crowd at once. We’ve got to get him out. There’s an alley next to the building. I should like to speak with him there, I think.” Max smiled thinly at Jemmy.

“Want me to get him out?” the boy asked eagerly. “I ken do it.”

“Good God, not,” Jack cried.

Max ignored his friend. “You’d better do it,” he told Jemmy, “or well have to wait until he comes out on his own and that could be hours. He went in with a female companion—Bellowser Bess, I think the name is.”

“I knows her,” said Jemmy. “Her old man got lagged.”

“Transported,” Max translated for his friend. “Thus the nickname—’bellowser’ is cant for transportation for life. Add that to your etymologies.” He turned back to Jemmy. “Can you do it, then, and not get your head broken? Because as it is Miss Pestilence is going to ring a peal over me about that black eye.”

Jemmy threw the viscount an indignant glare. “A baby could do it,” he retorted, “in a minute.”

In a fraction of that time he was out of the coach. The two men followed. The boy waited until they had turned into the alley before he disappeared into the coffee shop.

True to his word, Jemmy was out again in less than a minute, with Cholly in hot pursuit. Jemmy dashed into the alley. Cholly followed, but as he rounded the corner, he stumbled over a boot. A hand grabbed his shoulder, righting him roughly, and an instant later a fist that closely resembled a millstone drove itself into his face. Reeling from the blow, Granny’s employee fell back against the side of the building.

Lord Rand grabbed him by the throat and banged his head against the wall a few times, perhaps to clear Cholly’s mind.

“Good Lord, Max,” Mr. Langdon gasped. “He won’t be
any good to us dead.”

“He ain’t any good to anybody alive that I can see,” Max answered. “Are you, Cholly? No good to anyone.”

Cholly’s response was unintelligible.

“Get over here, Jack,” came the curt order. “Just rest the muzzle of your pistol against his ear.”

Mr. Langdon obeyed. He was amazed to discover that his hand did not shake.

“Now, my lad,” Max said to Cholly, releasing his grip just enough to allow the man to speak, “maybe you’ll tell us exactly what possessed you to kidnap this lad of tender years. Maybe you’ll tell us who paid you to do it and why and what else you’ve been doing lately that you shouldn’t. And you’d better say it fast and not think of calling for help because I’d as soon dash your brains out and my friend would like to shoot ‘em out and maybe well both get our wish if you make us impatient.”

Catherine stared coldly at her captor. She hoped her heart was not pounding as loudly as she thought it was.

“It is obvious what has happened,” she told him. “This is what comes of incessant gluttony and drunkenness. Your dissolute habits have led to mental decay. Don’t expect any pity from me. You have brought it all upon yourself.”

Lord Browdie was beginning to believe he
would
go mad if he spent another minute with this termagant. He had thought that the bare room and impossibility of escape would awaken her to a sense of her peril, that within five minutes at most the witch would be terrified into submission—but no.

For more than half an hour Catherine Pelliston had stoutly denied ever having been in the brothel. She had plenty else to say besides, enough to make his head throb. If it had not been for those rich acres and the dowry and a gnawing hunger for revenge on Lord Rand, the baron might have been more sensible and beaten a tactical retreat.

He was not sensible. A fortnight of watching, waiting, and plotting had in fact made Lord Browdie a trifle mad.

He was moody by nature, vengeful when thwarted in any whim. Catherine had thwarted him repeatedly since the day she’d run away and he blamed every unpleasantness that followed, from the humiliating rebuffs of other marriageable females to the tradesmen’s bills Lynnette mounted up, on her. Besides, Catherine had played him for a fool—was even now doing so, the lying slut.

“Going to keep it up, are you?” he growled. “Going to keep pretending it wasn’t you? Don’t think I’ve got witnesses? Well, I do, and you ain’t changed all that much they won’t know you close up. Lynnette seen you and Granny and Cholly and Jos.”

Catherine stared coldly past him at the wall, which enraged him further.

“You remember Cholly, don’t you? Big, handsome fellow. He told me you was pretty entertaining between the covers, for a beginner and one mostly asleep.”

The colour drained from Catherine’s face and her knees buckled. She had been standing behind one of the chairs. Rather inelegantly she sat down in it.

“Oh, that jogged your memory, I guess. Surprised? Don’t see why you should be. That’s what they always do with the new ones—give ‘em to Cholly or Jos first—so when the gal wakes up, it’s too late to be crying about her honour.”

The possibility that she’d been deflowered while unconscious had never occurred to Catherine, and the thought was devastating. Still, that could be lies. Lord Browdie did look half-demented. No wonder, she thought sourly. He hadn’t had a drink in over an hour at least.

Whatever happened, she must not give him the upper hand. She had betrayed herself for a moment, which was dangerous. Summoning up twenty-one years of rigid training, she stiffened her spine and retorted icily, “You are not only mad, but a swine. I have nothing further to say to you.”

He would like to beat her until she screamed for mercy, but he knew from painful experience that women didn’t fight fair. They kicked and clawed and yanked your hair and bit, behaving generally in the most unsporting way. Also, Catherine may have inherited her father’s temper, and that was an ugly thing unleashed. He’d rather save beating as a last resort. Besides, his throat was parched with all this palavering.

“The trouble with you, my girl, is you ain’t thinking straight. I’m going to get us something to drink, so we can sit and be cosy until you get sensible. Just remember that
if you’re gone too long—like ‘til tomorrow morning, maybe—you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”

He moved to the door. “Oh, by the way—your hostess is deaf as a post when she’s paid to be and screams ain’t nothing special around here. I won’t be but a minute, hut no one’ll pay you any mind, m’ dear, so make all the noise you like.”

True to his promise, he returned in a very few minutes with two bottles of wine and two greasy mugs. When Catherine disdainfully declined the cup offered her, he flung himself into the other chair and attended to quenching his own thirst. A bottle and a half later, he grew imperiously confident. She was only a slip of a girl, after all, easily overpowered if it came to that. Not a bit like the buxom milkmaid he’d tried to rape a few years back.

He pointed to the mattress and jovially informed her that while she was thinking things over she might as well show him what Cholly and Rand found so entertaining. Catherine suppressed a shudder and resolutely refused to understand him.

Lord Browdie’rose unsteadily from his chair and staggered towards her. He was breathing hard and she felt a surge of nausea as the wine-laden fumes rose to her nostrils. Then she saw a hairy hand reaching for her bodice. Shuddering, she knocked it away, and hastily made herself stand to face him.

Her limbs weak with fear, she clutched the chair back for support, but the chair overbalanced and she stumbled with it. As she was righting herself, he grabbed her hair, making her cry out with pain. Fear blazed into rage.
How dare he touch her!

Furious, she dug her nails into his hand. He jerked away with an angry yelp.

“You little hellcat!” he screeched. Then he lunged at her.

There was no time to think and nowhere to run. Catherine grabbed the chair and swung it at him. He tried to dodge her, but wasn’t fast enough. The chair caught him on the hip before it finally broke against the wall. Lord Browdie stumbled backwards, cursing. More cautious now, he stood a moment, eyeing her with hatred as he gasped for breath.

“That ain’t smart, Cathy,” he warned, his voice hoarse. “No use fighting me. It’ll end the same whether you do or don’t, only you’ll make me mad and that’ll be the worse for you.”