“A bookkeeper at an underground boxing ring in Southwark. I went to ask about Richard’s gambling debts, and the man sent three of his associates after me in the alley outside.” Evander rolled his shoulder, where the stitches still pulled. “One of them had a knife.”
Mary’s face changed. The doubt deepened into something harder to read. “You have been doing this all alone?”
“I didn’t want you involved. This is not your burden.”
“Charlotte is my sister. Finding her isvery muchmy burden.” Mary looked past him at the house, the red-tinged windows, the figures moving behind them. “What is this place to the investigation?”
“The bookkeeper gave me this address. Richard was a regular here. I came tonight to speak to the woman who runs it.” Evander took her elbow, gently this time. “Now that you know, I’m taking you home.”
“No.”
“Mary.”
“We have ridden all the way to Hampstead. I am not going to sit in a carriage while you gather information about my sister’s disappearance.”
“I am not bringing the Duchess of Blackholm into a pleasure house,” he hissed.
“The Duchess of Blackholm is already inside one.” Mary squared her shoulders. “And she intends to stay.”
He stared at her in the entrance hall while the music played, and the laughter drifted, and the red lamplight made everything look like a painting from a world Mary had never set foot in. Evander searched her face for any sign of retreat.
And found none.
The same stubbornness that had driven her into his parlor in a wedding dress, the same refusal to be managed or dismissed or sent away.
“Stay close to me,” he said. “Do not speak to anyone. Do not wander off. And if I tell you to leave, you leave. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Evander exhaled. “Then come.”
The house unfolded around them like a fever dream dressed in velvet.
Evander guided Mary through the main corridor, his hand at the small of her back. The walls were papered in deep crimson, the gas lamps turned low, casting everything in shades of amber and shadow. Doors stood open on either side, and through them, the private world of Madame Fontaine’s revealed itself in glimpses.
In the first room, three women danced to the slow pull of a violin, their gowns sheer enough that the candlelight rendered them translucent. They moved with practiced grace, their bodies arching and swaying in rhythms that had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the men watching from the settees.
Mary’s step faltered. Evander’s hand pressed firmer against her back, steadying her. “I’m here,” was all he said.
With that, she kept walking.
The second room was a salon. Couples occupied chaises and divans, some talking, some sharing glasses of wine. A woman satin a man’s lap with her fingers threaded through his hair, her lips at his ear. In the corner, a couple kissed against the wall, the woman’s bodice loosened, the man’s hands moving with slow deliberation down her waist. The woman’s soft moan carried into the corridor like a whisper meant for no one and everyone.
Heat crept up the back of Evander’s neck. Mary walked beside him, close enough that her arm pressed against his, and he felt the warmth of her through the fabric of his coat.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes moved from doorway to doorway, taking it in, refusing to look away.
The corridor turned. The music faded. The doors here were half-closed, the light dimmer, and the sounds that drifted from behind them were softer, more private. The rustle of fabric. Low voices speaking words that were not meant to carry.
Mary’s fingers found his sleeve. She did not grip it, exactly. She rested her hand there, light as paper, and the contact traveled through the wool and into his skin and settled somewhere behind his sternum.
Evander covered her hand with his own without thinking. Her fingers were cold. His were not. The warmth passed between them, and neither pulled away.
They reached the end of the corridor. A door stood closed, heavier than the others, with a brass plate that readMadamein engraved script.
Evander knocked. A voice within called for them to enter.
He released Mary’s hand. She released his sleeve. They looked at each other in the dim hallway, flushed and aware and carrying the accumulated heat of every room they had walked through, and then Evander opened the door.