Page 8 of Tempting the Scoundrel
Richard raised an eyebrow. “You call her Alex?”
“She can beLady Alexandraif you like. God knows she’d probably attack anyone who referred to her as Mrs. Thorne.” Thorne brushed past Richard. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Give my regards to your wife.”
“You’ve got to speak with her sometime, Thorne,” Richard called after him.
“Mind your own damn business, Grey,” Thorne called back.
* * *
The knock cameat Thorne’s office door during the very early hours of the morning. He had been at his desk, pouring over the club’s books—a distraction that kept his mind calm.
Words were difficult for him; he found reading a chore. Numbers, on the other hand, made sense. There was no emotional burden connected to the tallying of sums, the ease of arithmetic, the number of wine bottles, spirits, and card packs. For a few moments, he could forget the club, his errant wife, the dagger in his heart that twisted when he remembered making love to her.
Christ, he wanted to be here until morning. Tallying until he was too exhausted to think of her.
But someone knocked again.
“Come,” he called, setting down his pen. O’Sullivan pushed open the door, but lingered at the threshold. Thorne straightened at the factotum’s troubled expression. “What is it?”
O’Sullivan let out a gusty breath. “It’s Mary Watkins.”
“Flower seller, aye?” Thorne’s expression hardened. “If her brother’s returned to beat her again—”
“She’s dead,” O’Sullivan said, then he swore. “Murdered.”
Thorne shoved his chair away from his desk and rose. “Find her brother. Bring him to me.”
O’Sullivan shook his head. “I don’t think he was involved. You . . .” The factotum let out a breath. “You need to come see this.”
The look on the other man’s face was alarming. Thorne and O’Sullivan had both grown up in the Nichol—some of the worst streets in the East End. They made the rest look peaceful in comparison. Corpses were a sight more common than blue skies. While there were a thousand ways to die in the East End, murder was a frequent cause. Thorne and O’Sullivan had contributed a few in their day.
That’s why Thorne followed O’Sullivan out of the Brimstone without question.
Any onlooker from outside these streets might have scurried through them. The East End had an atmosphere that repulsed those unused to the overwhelming, burning odor of the coal-fire that kept families warm even as it choked them.
But it was home. Even its ugliest, most violent parts were under Thorne’s skin, in his blood, marked on his bones.
At the end of an alleyway stood the silhouettes of Casey and McCabe. The two men each raised a hand in greeting, but Thorne didn’t return it. He looked over the shadowed corpse on the ground; already, the stench had started to waft through the alleyway, mingling with the sharp tang of sick nearby. Thorne didn’t blame whoever vomited, not after he saw what had been done to Mary.
“Bastard slit ‘er throat twice, boss,” Casey said. “Fuckin’ sweet lass, she was. Christ.”
Thorne knelt beside Mary. “That she was,” he murmured, trying to avoid staring at her face. “Casey, McCabe, run to find a copper, bring him back here with the constable. Off you go.” As the other men left, Thorne looked up at O’Sullivan. “You don’t think her brother did this?”
Thorne slipped back into his old accent like a worn pair of leather boots. He’d never be completely rid of the Irish lilt, courtesy of being raised by a ma from the streets of Dublin. His work with toffs taught him to soften it, but every so often those dropped letters reminded him of where he came from. Here, the streets, not far from this corpse.
O’Sullivan shook his head. The other man’s spectacles had droplets on them, but he was a man well used to rain. O’Sullivan was Irish by both birth and blood, spent his earliest years with his ma in Cork before she died. Sent to London to live with his uncle, who perished after a bad spate of bilious fever six months later. Then, like Thorne, he was left to the mercy of men who preyed on desperate lads looking for a bit of food and shelter.
“Baily’s a fucking fool,” O’Sullivan said, “but he values his life enough not to bait you. Whoever did this wanted you to see her.” The other man passed Thorne a scrap of paper. “She had this in her hand when the lads found her.”
Thorne frowned, holding the folded note up to the lantern O’Sullivan held. “What is it? Page from a book? Mary couldn’t read.”
“Whoever killed her put it there. You might recognize the book it’s from,” O’Sullivan said, his eyes meeting Thorne’s. “Your wife wrote it.”
Chapter 3
Alexandra burst into her solicitor’s office. “Tell me what I need to do to petition for divorce.”
The morning had started off with another disastrous illustration in the dailies. By midmorning, Alexandra had been asked to leave a suffragist meeting held by her peers. Her last straw had been the chilly reception she received at the local hat shop.
