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“The names and sailing dates for any ships licensed to the East India Company leaving England this month. Now.”
Stapleton had both eyes open now. He blinked slowly, scratching his ribs.
“How would I know such a thing?”
“I don’t suppose you would. Someone in Bowles’s employ does, though, and I expect you can find out where the information is, without undue loss of time. The matter is urgent.”
“Oh, is it?” Neil’s mouth twisted, and the lower lip protruded a little. His weight shifted subtly, so that he stood suddenly nearer. “How . . . urgent?”
“Much too urgent for games, Mr. Stapleton. Put on your clothes, please; I have a coach waiting.”
Neil did not reply, but smiled and lifted a hand. He touched Grey’s face, cupping his cheek, a thumb drawing languidly beneath the edge of his mouth. He was very warm, and smelt of bed.
“Not all that much of a rush, surely, Mary?”
Grey gripped the hand and pulled it away from his face, squeezing hard, so that the knucklebones cracked in his grasp.
“You will come with me at once,” he said, very clearly, “or I will inform Mr. Bowles officially of the circumstances under which we first met. Do you understand me, sir?”
He stared at Stapleton, eye to eye. The man was awake now, blue eyes snapping-bright and furious. He freed himself from Grey’s grasp with a wrench and took a half-step backward, trembling with rage.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Stapleton’s tongue flicked across his upper lip—not in attempted flirtation, but in desperation. The light was dying, but not yet so far gone that Grey could not see Stapleton’s face clearly, and discern the bone-deep fright that underlay the fury.
Stapleton glanced round, to be sure they were not overheard, and gripping Grey’s sleeve, drew him into the shelter of the doorway. Standing so near, it was plain that the man wore nothing beneath his shirt; Grey could see the smoothness of his chest in the open neck, golden skin falling away to alluring shadows farther down.
“Do you know what could happen to me if you were to do such a thing?” he hissed.
Grey did. Loss of position and social ruination were the least of it; imprisonment, public whipping, and the pillory were likely. And if it was discovered that Stapleton’s irregular attachments had contributed to a breach of confidence in his duties—which was precisely what Grey was inciting him to do—he would be fortunate to escape hanging for treason.
“I know what will happen to you if you don’t do as I tell you,” Grey said coldly. He pulled his sleeve away and stepped back. “Be quick about it; I have no time to waste.”
It took no more than an hour before they reached a dingy lane and a shabby building that housed a printing shop, closed and shuttered for the night. Without a glance at Grey, Stapleton jumped out of the coach and banged at the door. Within moments, a light showed between the cracks of the shutters, and the door opened. Stapleton murmured something to the old woman who stood there, and slipped inside.
Grey sat well back in the shadows, a slouch hat drawn down to hide his face. The coach was a livery affair, ramshackle enough—but still an oddity in the neighborhood. He could only hope that Stapleton was quick enough in his errand to allow them to remove before some inquisitive footpad thought to try his luck.
The rumble and stink of a night-soil wagon floated through the air, and he tugged the window shut against them.
He was relieved that Stapleton had given in without more struggle; the man was certainly clever enough to have realized that the sword Grey held over his head was a two-edged one. True, Grey claimed to have been in Lavender House only as a matter of inquiry—and the only person who could prove otherwise was the young man with dark hair—but Stapleton didn’t know that.
Still, if it came to a conflict of allegations between himself and Stapleton, there was no doubt who would be believed, and Stapleton obviously realized that, as well.
What he didn’trealize, just as obviously, was that Richard Caswell was one of the flies in Mr. Bowles’s web. Grey would wager half a year’s income that that fat little spider with the vague blue eyes knew the name of every man who had ever walked through the doors of Lavender House—and what they had done there. The thought gave him a cold feeling at the base of the neck, and he shivered, drawing his coat closer in spite of the mildness of the night.
A sudden slap at the window beside him jerked him upright, pistol drawn and pointed. No one was there, though; only the smeared print of a hand, excrement-smeared fingers leaving long dark streaks on the glass as they dragged away. A clump of noxious waste slid slowly down the window, and the guffaws of the night-soil men mingled with the bellows of the coach’s driver.
The coach heaved on its springs as the driver stood up, and then there was the crack of a whip and a sharp yelp of surprise from someone on the ground. Nothing like avoiding notice! Grey thought grimly, crouching back in his seat as a barrage of night soil thumped and splattered against the side of the coach, the night-soil men hooting and gibbering like Barbary apes as the coachman cursed, clinging to his reins to stop the team from bolting.
A rattling at the coach’s door brought his hand to his pistol again, but it was only Stapleton, flushed and breathless. The young man hurled himself onto the bench across from Grey, and tossed a scribbled sheet of paper into his lap.
“Only two,” he said brusquely. “The Antioch,sailing from the Pool of London in three weeks time, or the Nampara,from Southampton, day after tomorrow. That what you wanted?”
The coachman, hearing Stapleton’s return, drew up the reins and shouted to his horses. All too willing to escape the brouhaha, the team threw themselves forward and the coach leapt away, flinging Grey and Stapleton into a heap on the floor.
Grey hastily disentangled himself, still grasping the slip of paper tightly, and clambered back to his seat. Neil’s eyes gleamed up at him from the floor of the coach, where he swayed on hands and knees.
“I said—that’s what you wanted?” His voice was barely loud enough to carry over the rumble of the coach’s wheels, but Grey heard him well enough.
“It is,” he said. “I thank you.” He might have put out a hand to help Stapleton up, but didn’t. The young man rose by himself, long body swaying in the dark, and flung himself back into his seat.
They did not speak on the way back into London. Stapleton sat back, arms folded across his chest, head turned to stare out of the window. The moon was full, and dim light touched the aquiline nose and the sensual, spoilt mouth beneath it. He was a beautiful young man, to be sure, Grey thought—and knew it.
Ought he try to warn Stapleton, he wondered? He felt in some fashion guilty over his use of the man—and yet, warning him that Bowles was undoubtedly aware of his true nature would accomplish nothing. The spider would keep that knowledge to himself, hoarding it, until and unless he chose to make use of it. And once he did—no matter what that use might be—no power on earth would free Stapleton from the web.
The coach came to a stop outside Stapleton’s lodging, and the young man got out without speaking, though he cast a single, angry glance at Grey just before the coach door closed between them.
Grey rapped on the ceiling, and the driver’s panel slid back.
“To Jermyn Street,” he ordered, and sat silent on the drive back, scarcely noticing the stink of shit surrounding him.
Chapter 17
Nemesis
In frank revolt, Grey declined to consume further egg whites. In intractable opposition, Tom Byrd refused to allow him to drink wine. An uneasy compromise was achieved by the time they reached the first posthouse, and Grey dined nursery-fashion upon bread and milk for supper, to the outspoken amusement of his fellow coach passengers.