Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0] Read online

  They passed the entrance to a street at a right angle to the one they were on. It looked as though this street were just awakening when all the others were going to rest for the day.

  Restaurants, she thought, as the smell of cooking food wafted her way and almost made her knees buckle. There were no gilded windows or signs that she could see. Private clubs, then, which only made the smells the more tempting for being forbidden.

  It was too much for her. Hiking her parcels higher, she turned to speak over her shoulder. “Master Robbie, perhaps we should secure a hired carriage for the rest of our—”

  Robbie was nowhere to be seen. Not behind her, not before her, not resting on the curb. Even burdened as she was, her panic spurred her to a run. She dashed back the way they had come for several blocks.

  There was no sign of him. She asked stranger after stranger, but no one had seen a small boy carrying a very large globe. She returned to the crossing where she’d lost him, then hesitated. She was positive that he hadn’t gone before her.

  The scent of beef and gravy snared her attention. Robbie was as hungry as herself. Could he have possibly thought that anyone from one of these exclusive clubs would feed a slightly grimy boy of ten?

  She trotted the length of the street calling his name. There was no sign of his sturdy little figure toting the globe.

  “He’s a smart lad,” she told herself, though true panic was welling up. She should never have snapped at him so. Oh, how could she have thought she could do this when she knew nothing of children? She was a failure as a tutor already and she’d been on the job for less than a day.

  “He’s been around London longer than you have,” she muttered to herself. Keeping her gaze low and shooting glances into every alleyway and under every cart, she turned and made her way down the street once more.

  She even ducked down to see into a stack of empty crates in the side alley of one of the establishments. Nothing. She stood, turning—

  The impact of a large male body knocked her flat.

  Papers slipped from their wrapping and fluttered down onto the sooty cobbles and her precious slate shattered on the stones.

  It was too much. “Bloody Roman cat-gutting hell!” She bounced to her feet, ready to take her worry and fear out on the first person she saw.

  Before her stood James Cunnington, charmingly disheveled from their impact and staring at her with lips pursed. He’d come up behind her silently once more.

  This habit of his was beginning to wear a bit thin.

  “I hope you don’t let Robbie hear you talking like that, Phillip.”

  “Oh! No—no, of course not.” Not a lie. She only cursed in Russian for Robbie. “Robbie! He’s gone! I’ve looked everywhere, but there’s not a trace—”

  “He’s fine. He just stopped at my club for a bite to eat. He’s a great favorite of the cook there. I think Kurt still hopes to win him from me entirely, but Robbie’s a lad who likes to keep his options open.”

  That made no sense to her whatever. Still, she was so relieved she didn’t much care. A last piece of paper fluttered down to her feet. She bent to retrieve her parcels and received a resounding swat on her backside.

  “Ow!” She whirled and glared at her assailant.

  James rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a girl, Flip. Your arse is dirty.”

  “Oh. Right.” Her arse was on fire, that’s what it was. What big hands he had! The tingle she felt was entirely because of the blow, of course. What else could it be from?

  James helped her gather the rest of her supplies into an untidy pile in her arms. Of course, he didn’t offer to carry it for her, she grumbled to herself as she followed him. Why should he? After all, she was only a girl when she reacted to a clout.

  She followed James to a set of unobtrusive double doors set into a rather Gothic façade. “This is where our miscreant fled to.” He nodded at the stout young doorman and entered the club.

  She followed, trying not to betray her wide-eyed curiosity. Women were never allowed into the hallowed halls of masculine retreats like this!

  She was a tad disappointed to find that the place resembled nothing more than a rather tawdry billiards room. There was a small stage at one end of the room but the curtains were closed.

  There were no customers as yet, but a few boys moved through the room, readying it for the night. The smell of something wondrous and decadent wafted from a pair of swinging doors in the back wall. Phillipa’s stomach made its approval evident.

  “Sorry.” She grimaced. “We missed our tea.”

  “Of course you’re hungry.” James laughed. “You’re still growing yourself.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Growing?”

  He held up his hands as if to fend off a glare. “Sorry, sorry, my mistake. You’re a man, through and through. You just forgot to let your beard in on the secret.”

  She slapped a hand to her face. She hadn’t thought about the fact that by this time of day even the most clean-shaven of men had a shadowy growth in evidence.

  He thought her a boy, too young to shave . . .

  James clapped her on the back. “Don’t be so sensitive. You’ll be as hairy as Kurt someday, mark my words.”

  As she was introduced to Kurt a moment later, Phillipa had time to wonder about that statement. She’d never in her life seen anyone as hairy as Kurt. Or as large. Or as frightening.

  Yet the kitchen felt warm and familiar, with the herbs hanging from the beams and the large pots bubbling with savory mysteries. She was reminded of when her mother had been well enough to indulge her love of cooking—warm memories indeed. So, when the intimidating Kurt handed her a plate full of beef and leeks that slopped to the brim with gravy, Phillipa promptly decided that he was her favorite person on earth.

  She carried her plate of aromatic treasure to the heavy worktable that currently held Robbie and a mostly empty plate of his own. She flicked him across the top of his skull with her fingertips as she sat on the bench beside him. “Scared me to death, you know.”

  He shrugged apologetically but didn’t answer due to the fact that his mouth was comically stuffed. Then he made a manful effort to swallow and leaned close. “Birds aren’t allowed, you see,” he whispered. “ ’S the rules.”

  “Oh, of course. And you always follow the rules, do you?”

  He smirked. She tilted her head at him. It wouldn’t do for him to discover how he amused her sometimes. Or how he exhausted her. “Run off on me again and I’ll teach you to sew.”

  His eyes widened, but he put on a show of bravado. “Don’t scare me. Tailors sew. Tailoring’s good work.”

  She smiled mean. “I’m talking about embroidery, me lad. Needlework. Doilies.”

  He finally quailed. “I won’t run again.”

  “Your word as a gentleman?”

  He looked at her sideways, as if he suspected mockery. Poor little in-between Robbie. Not sure which world he would belong to in the end. She raised a brow. “I’m waiting.”

  “All right, then. My word as a gentleman,” he grumbled.

  She nodded her satisfaction. “That’s all I ask.” She tucked into her food, grateful yet again for her masculine disguise. Men were allowed to truly enjoy their food, not simply to pick daintily at it as if too sensitive for such common fare.

  She decided that—carrying one’s own parcels aside—men had all the goods.

  Chapter Six

  James snagged a roll for himself and left his two lads to their meal. He hadn’t meant to spend so much time at the club when he had an important appointment with a certain lady. Still, since he was here . . .

  Passing through the public part of the club, he entered the hidden doorway and made his way to the code room.

  “Tell me you’ve got something for me.”

  Fisher shrugged woefully. “I’m trying, James, but you know I get new documents every day from France. With only one code-breaker left—” The man paled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”r />
  James held up one hand. “Don’t apologize. Please don’t.”

  “It’s just that I’m not even supposed to be doing this. I was still apprenticing when Upkirk died. And until Weatherby comes back, if he ever recovers . . .” Fisher shrugged again. “What about on your end? Has anyone ever appeared at the Post Office to pick them up?”

  James grimaced. “We don’t have a great deal to go on. They are addressed to ‘Mr. Amor, General Delivery, London.’ Yet all your copies sit there still.”

  Fisher sniffed. “Mr. Amor.”

  James nodded. Considering the torrid contents of each and every letter, the pun had long ago lost any humor for them.

  “Thank you, Fish.” James had that one last unpleasant errand to run, then it would be time to get Phillip and Robbie home. Funny that going home didn’t seem like so much of a chore today.

  “You’re welcome,” Fisher called out as James left. “And don’t call me Fish.”

  James didn’t smile this time. He never felt like smiling when he was on his way to see Lady Winchell.

  When Robbie and Phillipa had finished their enormous meal, Kurt picked up their plates with an approving grunt at the pristine condition of the thick china.

  Phillipa fought back a belch and smiled up at the scarred giant. He seemed slightly familiar to her suddenly. Yet surely she would clearly remember such a face. Then again, she had seen so many people, in so many places. Sometimes the images in her memory tended to blur. In any event, he was a marvelous cook. ‘That was a lovely roast. It tasted just like my mother’s. Did you use a snippet of dill in the gravy?”

  Kurt stared down at her for a long moment, then blinked and nodded shortly. Phillipa made a mental note—apparently men did not discuss recipes.

  Robbie grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door of the kitchen. “C’mon, I want to show you the club.”

  A rumble came from Kurt in the far end of the kitchen. Robbie looked back at him. “I know, sir.”

  Phillipa only stared from one to the other. That had been speech? She’d thought it was the big man’s stomach.

  She was as curious about the club as Robbie was eager to show it to her. To think, she was a woman in a gentleman’s club!

  The largest room seemed to be the front gaming room, with its gleaming woodwork and the green-felted playing tables. At the far end of the L-shaped room was a raised dais, curtained like a stage in red velvet. Robbie saw her interest.

  “There’s entertainment,” he said importantly. “Like dancers with snakes and such.”

  “Goodness,” Phillipa muttered. “How exotic.” She wagered the dancer wouldn’t be wearing much more than the snake would. “I certainly hope you’re not speaking from personal experience.”

  While what she saw—the stage, the gaming tables, the smoking room which apparently doubled as a drinking room to judge by the liquor bottles lining one mirrored wall—did not seem too terribly depraved, neither did the club seem entirely respectable somehow.

  She’d always pictured gentlemen’s clubs being staid places where men read the newssheet and discussed politics in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke and male camaraderie. James’s club seemed a bit more . . . wicked.

  “Keep a close watch on James Cunnington.”

  Mr. Cunnington continued to show new facets daily.

  Phillipa saw a hall leading back into the building. “What is down there?”

  Robbie shrugged and toyed with a cork he’d found in the smoking room. “Nothin’ much. Manager’s office, storerooms—wait, don’t go down there!”

  Phillipa was already striding down the hall. Most terraced buildings were much deeper than they were wide. This one seemed very nearly square. She was struck by a powerful certainty that there was more to the Liar’s Club than met the eye.

  The hallway ended with access only to two doors. One was nicely carved and oiled. The office. The other was plainer, blending into the wood-paneled walls. The storeroom.

  She put a hand to the latch of the storeroom. It moved easily. Poking her head within, she was greeted by standing ranks of broom, swab mop, pail and brush. There were shelves of folded linen, tablecloths, and such. There were jars of this and bins of that, mostly items for cleaning and maintaining furniture and floor.

  Nothing odd at all. Phillipa backed from the room and closed the storeroom carefully, not letting the latch make a sound. Then she turned—

  To find herself facing an older man with grizzled hair and a sincerely ugly waistcoat, watching her from the doorway of the office. She froze, her mouth half open to explain herself, but she couldn’t think of a bloody thing to say.

  The man folded his arms and raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Now why do you suppose a bloke—who isn’t even a member of this very private club, mind you—why do you suppose he would be pokin’ his nose into the broom closet?”

  Robbie came up. “ ’E’s my tutor, Mr. Jackham. ‘Is name is Phillip Walters.”

  “His name, Robbie. Mind the h,” Phillipa muttered automatically. Another reminder. Must teach Robbie the proper method of performing introductions.

  Her thoughts swirled with such unimportant details while the man before her continued to gaze at her in unbroken suspicion. She’d been caught in the very act of snooping. What could she do, claim a broom fixation?

  “So you work for James Cunnington, do you?” Jackham looked her up and down with eyes that she feared might see too much. “Had some hard times, have you? Lookin’ for a kind master to take care of you?”

  He moved closer to Phillipa, until she had to look up into his colorless eyes. “James Cunnington is the best man I know. The best man you’ll ever know, I don’t doubt. A man with friends, if you take my meaning.”

  He leaned close, putting his mouth close to Phillipa’s ear. “There’s something wrong about you. I can’t place it, but I know I don’t like you one bit.”

  Jackham stepped back and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Now, Robbie, why don’t you take your new tutor up front where he belongs? There’s nothing back here but the mops and my accounts.”

  Phillipa escaped gladly, Robbie on her heels. She felt cold and a little sick, with her stomach sloshing her meal about. But why was she so alarmed? A man who had every right to scold her for snooping had said he didn’t like her. There was nothing so frightening in that.

  “Who was that man?” she asked Robbie.

  “Jackham runs the place, mostly. He was a great thief once, the best.”

  Taken aback, Phillipa added that item to her stock of information. James Cunnington, consorting with thieves. She could learn a lot from hanging about this club.

  Still, she was happy when Robbie was ready to leave. There was something very strange about this club. As they walked from the front door, Phillipa saw a small alleyway leading down the side. Impulsively, she turned into it.

  The way led to the rear of the building and around the back, where it narrowed until Phillipa could almost stretch out her arms to touch the high brick walls. It was a very long alley—much longer than one would have thought upon seeing the interior of the club.

  Unless one had only seen half of the interior of the club.

  Chapter Seven

  As James approached the room of the old palace that served as a cell for Lady Lavinia Winchell, he saw the Prime Minister himself departing from the other end of the hall. “My lord!” he called, and rushed to catch up to Lord Liverpool.

  The small spare man was accompanied by two others, one a guard, the other his secretary. As James caught up with the three, he saw Lord Liverpool raise a disapproving brow.

  “Your dignity, man,” his lordship said with mild reproof, except that reproof from the most powerful man in England was never mild.

  James halted his headlong rush, but his mind was too filled with questions to care for his dignity. “My lord, have you been to see Lady Winchell?”

  Liverpool pursed his lips and twitched a brow toward the men accompanying him. T
hen he stepped to one side, indicating that James should attend him. When he spoke, his voice was low. “Since you seem so eager for the knowledge, yes, I have just come from a talk with her ladyship.”

  “Did she say anything? Did you learn anything new?”

  Liverpool waited, merely gazing at James. Catching himself, James bobbed his head. “I beg your pardon, my lord. I wish only to know if she has given any evidence that may be used to convict her.”

  Liverpool shook his head, a short, brisk movement. “She would hardly do that, I fear. No, she is too mindful of her danger. She still maintains that she had no intention of shooting me and that she was only reacting to your rejection of her.”

  James’s shoulder burned where he had taken the bullet meant for this great man. His heart burned where he kept the memories of the men that Lavinia had killed. “We must break her, my lord! She is a traitor and a cold-blooded killer!”

  “So you say, and so I believe, but if a beautiful woman of rank goes before judge and jury, do you think they will not be swayed by tears and pretty pleas? As long as we have no evidence and no real witnesses, we have no case but that of adultery against her husband, and he will not pursue such charges. Lord Winchell is once again besotted with his young and lovely wife.”

  “Not to mention his public reputation,” James said bitterly. “I can find evidence. I know it. Our code-breaker is even now combing Lady Winchell’s outgoing and incoming post for clues.”

  Liverpool regarded him coolly. “You have had many weeks to present your case, Cunnington. I cannot continue to ignore Lord Winchell’s appeals to release his wife. More lords of Parliament are voicing their disapproval as well.”

  Liverpool’s secretary made a reminding noise. Liverpool nodded to the man, then turned back to James. “Without concrete evidence or witnesses, I cannot continue to hold her.”