Lord John and the Private Matter (Lord John Grey #1) 7

“Flatterer,” Caswell said again, though he looked less amused.

“The gentlemen in the library were not reserved,” Grey said, trying for advantage. “If I were to seek them out, outside the confines of your house, I imagine some of them might tell me what I wish to know.”

Caswell laughed, deeply enough to start a small fit of coughing.

“No, they won’t,” Caswell wheezed, groping for a fresh handkerchief. He mopped at his eyes and his shriveled mouth, drawn up in a smile once more. “No doubt one or two would tell you anything they thought you’d like to hear, if it would loosen your breeches, but they won’t tell you that.”

“Won’t they?” Grey affected indifference, sipping at his wine. “Trevelyan’s affairs must be of more importance than I thought, if it’s worth your threatening your members to keep his secrets.”

“Oh, perish the thought, perish the thought!” Caswell flapped a bony hand. “Threats? Me? You know better than that, dear boy. If I were given to threats, I should have ended in the Fleet Ditch with my head caved in, long since.”

A tingle of alertness shot through Grey at this remark, though he fought to keep his face blandly expressionless. Was this mere hyperbole, or warning? Caswell’s withered face gave nothing away, though the sparkling eyes watched his own for any clue to his intent.

He breathed deeply to slow the rapid beating of his heart, and took another sip of wine. It might be nothing more than a coincidence, a mere accident of speech; the Fleet was at hand, after all—and for what it was worth, Caswell was correct: He serviced men of wealth and influence, and if he were given to threats or blackmail, he would have been quietly put out of business long since, in one way or another.

Information, though, was something else. George had once told him that Caswell’s main stock in trade was information—and the profits from Lavender House likely were not great enough to provide the lavish furnishings evident in Caswell’s private quarters. Everyone knows Dickie Caswell, George had said, lolling indolently on the bed in one of the upstairs rooms. And Dickie knows everyone—and everything. Anything you want to know—for a price.

“Your tact and discretion are most commendable,” Grey said, seeking new footing for a fresh attack. “Why do you say they will not tell me, though?”

“Why, because it isn’t true,” Caswell replied promptly. “They’ve never seen a man called Trevelyan here—how could they tell you anything about him?”

“Not a man, no. I rather imagine they have seen him as a woman.”

He felt a small rush of exhilaration, seeing the violet swags under Caswell’s eyes deepen in hue as the color paled from his cheeks. First blood; he’d pinked his man.

“In a green velvet gown,” he added, pressing the advantage. “I told you—I know he comes here; the fact is not in question.”

“You are quite mistaken,” Caswell said, but a cough bubbling to the surface gave the words a quavering aspect.

“Let it go, Dickie,” Grey said, flicking his rapier with a touch of insolence. He lounged a little, looking tolerantly over his glass. “I say I know; you will scarcely convince me I do not. I require only a few small additional details.”

“But—”

“You need not trouble yourself that you will be blamed. If I have learned the main facts about Trevelyan from another source—as indeed I have—then why should I not have learned everything from this same source?”

Caswell had opened his mouth to say something, but instead narrowed his eyes and pursed his mouth in thought.

“Nor do you need to fear that I mean any harm to Mr. Trevelyan. He is about to become a part of my family, after all—perhaps you are aware that he is engaged to my cousin?”

Caswell nodded, almost imperceptibly. His mouth was pursed so tightly that it resembled nothing so much as a dog’s anus, which Grey thought very disagreeable. Still, it scarcely mattered what the evil old creature looked like, so long as he coughed up the necessary details.

“I am sure you will understand that my efforts in this regard are intended solely to protect my family.” Grey glanced away, toward a massive silver epergne filled with hothouse fruit, then back at Caswell. Time for the coup.

“So, then,” he said, spreading his hands with a graceful gesture. “It remains only to decide the price, does it not?”

Caswell made a deep, catarrhal noise, and spat thickly into a new handkerchief, which he then balled up and cast into the fire after its fellows. Grey thought cynically that he must require a good deal of money merely to keep himself in linen.

“The price.” Caswell took a deep swallow of wine and put down the glass, licking his lips. “What do you have to offer? Always assuming that I have something to sell, mind.”

No more pretence of ignorance. The duel was over. Grey could not help a brief sigh, and was surprised to discover that not only were his palms damp but that he was sweating freely beneath his shirt, though the room was not warm.

“I have money—” he began, but Caswell interrupted him.

“Trevelyan gives me money. A lot of money. What else can you offer me?”

The small black eyes were fixed on him, unblinking, and he saw the tip of Caswell’s tongue steal out, barely visible, to lick away a drop of wine from the corner of his mouth.

Sweet Jesus. He sat dumbstruck for an instant, caught in those eyes, then glanced down, as though suddenly remembering his own wine. He lifted his glass, lowering his lashes to hide his eyes.

In defense of King, country, and family, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his virtue to Nessie, had that been required. If it was a question of Olivia marrying a man with syphilis and half the British army being exterminated in battle, versus himself experiencing a “personal interview” with Richard Caswell, though, he rather thought Olivia and the King had best look to their own devices.

He put down his glass, hoping that this conclusion was not reflected upon his features.

“I have something other than money,” he said, meeting Caswell’s gaze squarely. “Do you want to know how George Everett really died?”

If there was a flicker of disappointment in those black marble orbs, it was swamped at once beneath a wave of interest. Caswell tried to hide it, but there was no disguising the glint of curiosity, mixed with avarice.

“I heard that it was a hunting accident; broke his neck out in the country. Where was it? Wyvern?”

“Francis Dashwood’s place—Medmenham Abbey. It wasn’t his neck, and it was no accident. He was killed on purpose—a sword-thrust through the heart. I was there.”

These last three words were dropped like pebbles into a lake; he could feel their impact send ripples through the air of the room. Caswell sat immobile, scarcely breathing, contemplating the possibilities.

“Dashwood,” he whispered at last. “The Hellfire Club?”

Grey nodded. “I can tell you who was there—and everything that happened that night at Medmenham. Everything.”

Caswell fairly quivered with excitement, black eyes moist.

George had been right. Caswell was one of those who loved secrets, who hoarded information, who kept confidential information for the sheer joy of knowing things that no one else knew. And when the time might come that such things could be sold for a profit …

“Have we a bargain, Dickie?”

That recalled Caswell somewhat to himself. He took a deep breath, coughed twice, and nodded, pushing back his chair.

“That we have, my little love. Come along, then.”

The upper floors consisted mostly of private rooms; Grey couldn’t tell whether much had been changed—he had been in no condition to notice very much on the occasions of his previous visits to Lavender House.

Tonight was different; he noticed everything.

It was peculiar, he thought, following Caswell through an upper hall. The feel of this house was quite different from that of the brothel, even though the purpose of the establishments was the same. He could hear music below, and intimate sounds in some of the rooms they passed—and yet it was not the same at all.

Magda’s brothel had been much more explicit, with everything in the place intended to provoke libidinous intent. No molly-house he had ever been in did such things—there was seldom any ornamentation, nor even much furnishing beyond the simplest of beds. Sometimes, not even that; many were no more than taverns, with a room opening off the main taproom, where men could repair for sport, often to the applause and shouted comments of onlookers in the tavern.

He believed that even very poor brothels had doors. Was it that women insisted upon privacy, he wondered? Yet he doubted that many whores found stimulation in the sorts of objects Magda provided for the delectation of her customers. Perhaps there truly was a difference between men who were lured by women, and those who preferred the touch of their own sex? Or was it the women—did they perhaps require some decoration of the exchange?

As far as sexual feeling went … this house fairly vibrated with it. There were male voices and the scents of men everywhere; two lovers embraced at the end of the corridor, entwined against a wall, and his own skin prickled and jumped; he could not stop sweating.

Caswell led him to a staircase, past the lovers. One was Goldie-Locks, Neil the Cunt, who looked up, disheveled, mouth swollen, and gave him a languorous smile before returning to his companion—who was not the brown-haired lad. Grey carefully did not look back as they started up the stair.

Things were quieter on the topmost floor of the house. The furnishing seemed more luxurious, as well; a wide oriental carpet ran the length of the corridor, and tasteful pictures decorated the walls, above small tables that held vases of flowers.

“Up here, we have several suites of rooms; sometimes a gentleman will come in from the provinces to stay for a few days, a week …”

“Quite the little home away from home. I see. And Trevelyan engages one of these suites now and again?”

“Oh, no.” Caswell stopped at a varnished door, and shook loose a large key from the bunch he carried. “He keeps this particular suite on a permanent basis.”

The door swung open on darkness, showing the pale rectangle of a window on the far wall. It had clouded over, and Grey could see the moon, now high and small in the sky, nearly lost amid layers of hazy cloud.

Caswell had brought a taper; he touched it to a candlestick near the door, and the light caught and grew, shedding a wavering light over a large room with a canopied bed. The room was clean and empty; Grey breathed in, but smelled nothing other than wax and floor polish, with a faint whiff of long-dead fires. The hearth was freshly swept, and a fire laid, but the room was cold; clearly no one had been here recently.

Grey prowled the room, but there was no evidence of its occupants.

“Does he entertain the same companion each time?” he asked. The keeping of a suite argued some long-term affair.

“Yes, I believe he does.” There was an odd tone in Caswell’s voice that made him glance sharply at the man.

“You believe? You have not seen his companion?”

“No—he is very particular, our Mr. Trevelyan.” Caswell’s voice was ironic. “He always arrives first, changes his clothes, and then goes down to wait near the door. He brings his companion in and up the stairs at once; all the servants have instructions to be elsewhere.”

That was a disappointment. He had hoped for a name. Still, a tendency to thoroughness made him turn back to Caswell, probing for further information.

“I am sure your servants are meticulous in observing your instructions,” he said. “But you, Dickie? Surely you don’t expect me to believe that anyone comes into your house without your finding out everything there is to know about them. You’ve only heard my Christian name before, to my knowledge—and yet, if you know about Trevelyan’s engagement to my cousin, plainly you know who I am.”

“Oh, yes—my lord.” Caswell smiled, lips drawn into a puckish point. The bargain struck, he was enjoying his revelations as much as he had his earlier reticence.

“You are right, to a degree. In fact, I do not know the name of Mr. Trevelyan’s inamorata; he is very careful. I do, however, know one rather important thing about her.”

“Which is?”

“That she is an inamorata—rather than an inamorato.”

Grey stared at him for an instant, deciphering this.

“What? Trevelyan is meeting a woman? A real woman? Here?”

Caswell inclined his head, hands folded gravely at his waist like a butler.

“How do you know?” Grey demanded. “Are you sure?”

The candlelight danced like laughter in Caswell’s small black eyes.

“Ever smelt a woman? Close to, I mean.” Caswell shook his head, the loose folds of skin on his neck quivering with the movement. “Let alone a room where someone’s been swiving one of the creatures for hours on end. Of course I’m sure.”

“Of course you are,” Grey murmured, repelled by the mental image of Caswell nosing ratlike through sheets and pillows in the vacated rooms of his house, pilfering crumbs of information from the rubble left by careless love.

“She has dark hair,” Caswell offered helpfully. “Nearly black. Your cousin is fair, I believe?”

Grey didn’t bother answering that.

“And?” he asked tersely.

Caswell pursed his lips, considering.

“She wears considerable paint—but I cannot say, of course, whether that is her normal habit, or part of the guise she adopts when coming here.”

Grey nodded, taking the point. Those mollies who liked to dress as women normally were painted like French noblewomen; a woman hoping to be mistaken for one would likely do the same.