Page 42 of Razors & Ruin
Being too shallow to see past my surface attire, she assumes I’m one of her people; a young woman who went to boarding school or had a governess, swooned over my friend’s older brothers, and entertained lurid but fairly safe fantasies of clean but naughty rakes.
The we’re-all-girls-here smile gives her away; she will spill like a freshly slashed vein in every sense of the word.
“That barber is such aman, don’t you think?” She pulls me to sit beside her. “Sorry, I’m Bee.”
Ofcourseshe calls herself Bee. That’s why Sweeney’s honey is doing such an excellent job of getting her buzzing.
I place my palm on my chest. “Eleanor. So, who is he, anyway? Where did he come from? He’s so handsome.”
“He’s got me a little…warm, shall we say.” She giggles, and I suppress the wrinkle in my nose as she drops her voice to aconspiratorial whisper. “He said he’d sneak back in and find me.”
“What about your husband?” I ask.
She gives a haughty snort. “Dear Francis has tastes that run contrary to appearances. I am window dressing to camouflage his affliction.”
I arch a brow. “He’s a?—
“No. The other thing. Theworsething.” She waves her hand as she sips her drink. “So many of them are at it, now and again, but My Lord over there is seasoned.”
Ha. Hewillbe, I have no doubt. It’ll take a fair bit of pepper and more than a touch of sage to stop that greasy bastard from sticking in the craw.
I glance at Wetherby, imagining him wearing a little pastry hat, and a gassy hiccup of laughter escapes my lips.
“So tell me.” I watch as Bee guzzles her fizz eagerly. This will be easy. “How does he get his hands on, you know…children?”
She shuffles closer. “The ones who go to the poorhouse? Many are never registered, and those who do make the books are easily explained away. Typhoid here, an injury there. No one cares when the great and good like Lord Francis Wetherby patronizes the facilities and takes such good care of them. Who would look into it? Wealthy men like him pay a lot to maintain an image of philanthropy and keep mouths shut.”
There’s bitterness in her voice, and I wonder if she ever suffered the late-night visits from her own Papa like me. Pretending to be asleep, groping hands stealing beneath the sheets, me hoping he’d get bored quickly.
I shake off the fledging sense of affinity and stay the course.
“I knew a little girl once whose parents died,” I say. “She went into Porter’s workhouse about ten years ago and was never heard from again.”
Bee nods. “That’s when it began in earnest. There’s a clergyman who took some of them for a spell. Different ages, mostly girls, although he was not above training boys. As long as someone pays. They’re meant to go into service, and they do, but their duties…” her eyes fill, surprising me, “well, you understand. It’s hardly a secret in this social circuit, but we don’t speak of it openly. Too unsavory.”
All of you sick fucks are entirely savory enough for my purposes, dearie.
At least Mr. T and I have the guts to take on people of our own size, with power and weight, not snatch from cradles and lonely corners where orphans huddle, waiting to be picked off.
“So that’s where Johanna Cope ended up, I suppose.”
“If she was a baby, then I would bet on it.”
“And dead now, I’ll warrant.”
She frowns. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Quite the investment, these children. She’s very possibly alive somewhere. I wouldn’t get involved,” she tosses her curls, “but?—”
He’s back.
Just like that, Sweeney is right there, towering over the two of us, resplendent in his fine outfit and mask. Once again, he sees nothing; not me, nor the haziness of Beatrix, the soporific easewith which he wordlessly takes her hand and draws her to her feet.
It was a simple matter to dose her drink with hemlock tincture; I extracted the vial from my cleavage and added a drop or two right before I came over to join her.
Its grassy, lemony taste was made to sit well with champagne, and the bitch never noticed a thing. She’s feeling it now, but I see a twitch in her cheek and wonder if I gave her too much.
Sweeney leads the swaying Beatrix toward the door, and I understand—he’s taking her to the courtyard outside, to a quiet nook, where she will open her legs and her stupid careless mouth for him. The Regent’s Ball is known for such shenanigans; her kiddy-fiddling husband will not look for her there.
If Sweeney hears what I just heard about Johanna, he will never give up. He will take the city—the world—to pieces, searching for the only part of him that still lives in the light.