Dex caught his wrist in a fluid motion, bending it back with subtle pressure. “Claridge, we have morebusinessin common than you realize, and you have every reason to listen to me.”
“Ow— How so? What exactly have we got in common?”
“For a start, you want to stay alive, and I have a way of making that happen. You will stay at your estate in Cornwall for the period of one year, lest the sight of you bring discomfort to my ward, Analise Crewe. You will never, ever attempt to force yourself on another woman. I will find out if you do. I have my ways. I willreceive reports from those close to you, who were frighteningly easy to bribe, I might add. You aren’t exactly a popular man, Claridge. And, finally, when Norwood publishes the next Clovercote novel, you will heartily endorse it as a welcome continuation of your aunt’s legacy.”
“But my aunt’s dead, damn you! I fail to see—” And then tardy clarity dawned on Claridge’s blotchy countenance. “Miss Crewe. That presumptuous little baggage. She’s still trying to take advantage of my dearest aunt’s largesse? Redheaded spindly pinch-faced thing, pah!” He attempted to spit, but his lips were loosened by booze and fear and the spittle settled ineffectually on his own waistcoat.
Dex breathed in. Out. In. Out. Breaking every bone in Claridge’s body in the man’s own hallway would be a trifle difficult to explain, even for a man of his social standing.Spindly. He thought of Ana’s deceptively slight frame and smiled.
“I’d have a care what you say next. I’m about three breaths away from knocking your head against the wall.”
“You can’t simply order me about, Warburton! If you hurt me, I’ll have you brought up on assault charges! You don’t own me, and I’ll do what I want.”
“Oh but I do! I literally own you. I’ve purchased all your debts. And they’re large ones. Largest I’ve seen, racked up in such a short amount of time, it’s almost impressive. How you managed to squander your ‘dearest aunt’s’ legacy with such haste boggles the mind. I am now the sole person you owe money to. And I won’t let you default on payment. Your estate, this townhouse, even your horses—they will fall to me unless you follow my every instruction.”
It paid to have friends who were lawyers, who were justice seekers and knew their way around the rougher gaming hells. It had been easy enough to obtain a list of the man’s staggering debts, easier still to purchase them from frustrated creditors.
He let go of Claridge’s wrist, certain by the man’s rapidly graying face that reality was sinking in. He gave him a gentle pat on the cheek.
“Don’t take too long thinking about it, old man. The city’s fairly clamoring to be rid of you. Do us all a favor and disappear.”
He left Claridge palpitating in the foyer, whey-colored and gasping. He had a feeling the man wouldn’t be a blight on the face of London for very much longer.
Another name crossed off the enemies list. On to the next.
The facade of Maggie Flanagan’s brothel was anything but subtle. Dex regarded it with a sort of horrified amazement as he approached.
He’d visited plenty of bawdy houses in his wild youth, filling the role of the young blood about town to the hilt. He couldn’t recall, however, having seen anything remotely like “La Maison de Mme D’Oiseaux,” as the scarlet sign proclaimed in gold-edged script. Every inch of its surface was crowded with architectural frippery, cornices and arches and florets crowding one another along the front, gawdy colors of paint that clashed violently with the blazingly orange velvet drapes hung in the windows. It had obviously started its life as a much humbler business, but its plain bones fairly sagged now with added-on ornamentation.
She had been hard to find, this Maggie Flanagan, the woman who would have sold his ward’s innocence for a pittance. He’d asked around at his club, but none of the younger set had heard of her or knew where her place of business was. It wasn’t until his queries had been overheard by a group of older gentlemen thatthings fell into place. “Maggie Flanagan?” a white-whiskered colonel had said with a snort of recognition. “It’s been ages since I’ve heard that name. She goes by something French now, something deucedly silly and fancified. Marguerite D’Oiseaux, I think it is? Outfit’s totally different now. Used to be one of those plain-and-simple places you visited if you weren’t feeling that particular about how you spent a quick quarter-hour. Girls were... an interesting lot.”
“And where is this Marguerite D’Oiseaux’s?” Dex had pressed, offering the talkative elder man a pour from his private decanter.
“Ahh thank you, this stuff’s divine. It’s near the Rose & Crown, off the docks, just look for the most overdone terrace on the block...”
An apt description, thought Dex, raising his hand to the bulbous knocker, made of two comely brass maidens pressing their lips together at the top and twining their bare legs together at the bottom. A brutish lug with a brick wall of a face, fully as tall as Dex, opened the door and grunted a welcome. After stating his intentions of meeting the famous Madame Marguerite D’Oiseaux, Dex was escorted into a salon so festooned with frills, drizzled with gilt, and dripping with draperies that he had the claustrophobic sensation of being on the inside of a ladies’ armoire.
The doorman lumbered away, leaving him to perch his tall frame on a rickety gold-and-fuchsia-striped divan. He was offered libations by a buxom woman in an absolute mockery of a maid’s uniform, with a décolletage so plunging he wondered if the seamstress had simply forgotten to add that part of the dress. He declined the drink and the smiling invitation that accompanied it.
A few minutes passed, then a door opened and into the roomcame the Madame, gliding in on a cloud of feathers. She was of an indeterminate age, with a face so covered in paint and powder that it resembled a masquerade ball mask. She had faded blonde curls tucked into a turban. Her plum-colored dress was trimmed with undulating marabou feathers; so too were her bodice and sleeves, and a gauzy robe covered the whole eye-opening ensemble. She stopped in front of him, feathers still gently waving to and fro, and cocked her head to the side.
“Bonsoir, monsieur. Welcome to my humble house of business. How may I be of service?” Her voice was husky and low, her words almost indecipherable beneath a thick French accent.
“Maggie Flanagan?” he said pointedly, rising to his feet. He watched a muscle twitch in her right cheek, just over an artificial beauty mark.
“Ah, that name. From a lifetime ago, n’est-ce pas!” She laughed delicately, musically. The accent remained. “I am she. But you may call me Madame Marguerite. And you are—?”
“I am Deckard, Duke of Warburton.” He said it loudly and forcefully, waiting for the usual fawning recognition, the thinly veiled fear that followed his famous name and infamous scarred visage. He wagered that not many men gave their real names in her establishment. But she seemed neither surprised nor excited.
“Well, Your Grace,” she said, smiling slightly and raising her inscrutable face toward him. “What flavor of entertainment may Marguerite and her lovely birds provide for you this evening?” She raised her right hand, snapped her tinted nails twice, and a panel at the far end of the salon slid open. Female bodies began to pour through, lining up to the left and right of the Madame, who controlled their placement via subtle eyebrow lifts and quick nods of her chin.
As the room began to fill, he contemplated his options both internal and external. He had intended to confront Maggie Flanagan, easily extract a promise from her to forget she’d ever heard the name Analise Crewe. He’d expected (as indicated by her sister’s sordid dwelling and Ana’s rather scant exposition) a hard-bitten harridan riding roughshod over a house of tired women, someone who would cower and beg for his mercy. He had been misled. The composed woman in front of him, with her implacable mask and steady dark eyes, was something else entirely.
She was brazen and unafraid, but the girls in the room were obviously the opposite. They ranged in size and shape, but all had a unifying factor: a nervous eye trained on the Madame. The ones standing closest to her shuddered from her touch as she guided them closer to Dex. He felt the slow river of fury that always flowed within him start to roil. But for a quirk of fate, this was where Ana would have landed—paraded in front of strangers, shrinking from the beringed ivory hand of this cold woman, this carefully constructed poseur.
He noted bruises on some of the women, partially concealed by gloves, hems, or garters. One of the youngest-looking lasses had the faint shadow of a black eye and was visibly shaking in her chemise.
Madame Marguerite wasn’t the only one who knew how to wear a mask.