Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

“What privilege?”

Mme. Eugenie reared back as if astonished at his stupidity. “This young girl is a flower that has never been plucked.”

A virgin? Even in his inebriated state, Sinclair knew that that was the oldest con in the trade. Virgins commanded a premium price not only because they were, by definition, safe as houses, but because they were also reputed to be able to cure-through vigorous use-several of the amatory infections. It was all balderdash, of course, and Sinclair would normally have put the whole business out of mind already-what concern was it of his, after all? — were it not for that stricken look in the young girl's eye. She was either such an accomplished actress that she belonged on center stage at Covent Garden… or else it was genuine. There was no law against prostitution, and the age of consent was twelve; girls of her tender years were, quite legally, corrupted every day. Fitzroy had no doubt spent twenty-five or thirty pounds for the privilege.

“Come now,” Rutherford cajoled him. “That fat bastard's going to be your neighbor for years to come. Don't begin a fracas now.”

Mme. Eugenie winked at one of the other women, with bright red hair spread across a pair of creamy, well-exposed shoulders, who artfully drew Sinclair off the ottoman and onto a loveseat beneath a picture of a nymph fleeing a satyr. The servant appeared with the gin.

Frenchie had taken the country girl's place at the pianoforte, and was playing, as well as his own compromised condition would allow, a lugubrious version of something by Herr Mozart.

The redhead introduced herself as Marybeth, and tried to engage Sinclair in conversation, asking first about his regiment, then where they might be posted, before expressing deep concern- somewhat premature, in his view-for his continued safety. But all the while, Sinclair could only think of that girl, with the coltish frame and the frightened eyes, being dragged up the stairs behind John-O and his golden teeth.

Sinclair had had a sister once. She'd died about that age, of consumption.

“That's quite enough of that,” one of the other men called out to Le Maitre. “Give us something with a bit of a song to it. If I wanted to attend the Lyceum, I'd be off with my wife.”

A round of laughter and applause followed, and Frenchie, bowing to public opinion, launched into a sloppy rendition of “My Heart's in the Highlands.” He had finished with it, and played another number just then sweeping the Strand, when Sinclair heard a cry from upstairs.

Everyone else scrupulously ignored it-though Frenchie did pause for a second, and Marybeth took sudden pains to adjust the buttons and collar of Sinclair's shirt. An elderly gent with a matronly brunette on his arm continued his slow ascent of the stairs. When the song ended, Sinclair listened more closely, and even though the Suite des Dieux was a full floor above, he could hear a muffled cry, and the sound of something falling to the floor.

“The table d'hote has just been replenished,” Mme. Eugenie said, clapping her hands together. “Please, gentlemen, enjoy le canard aux cerises and oysters on the half shell.”

Several of the guests roused themselves-Rutherford among them-and made their way toward the buffet in the next room. But Sinclair neatly disengaged himself and went toward the stairs. As luck would have it, John-O was just then welcoming a trio of inebriated men about town, taking their cloaks and hats, and Sinclair was able to mount the stairs unobserved.

The suite was on the second floor, just above the porte-cochere; Sinclair had occupied it himself once or twice. And he knew that its door-like all the doors in the Salon d'Aphrodite-was not locked while occupied. Mme. Eugenie had long since discovered that exigencies of the trade required her, or John-O, to have immediate- if judiciously employed-access to any chamber.

He kept his feet to the carpet runner as he went to the door, and quietly put his ear against the wood. There were two small rooms, he knew-an antechamber with a few sticks of maple furniture, and a bedroom with a massive, canopied four-poster. He could hear the rumble of Fitzroy's voice, in the bedroom, and then a low sob from the girl.

“You will,” Fitzroy said, his voice raised.

The girl cried again, repeatedly calling him sir, and it sounded as if she were moving slowly, warily, about the room. A vase, or bottle, smashed on the floor.

“I'll not pay for that!” Fitzroy said, and Sinclair heard the whistle of a whip cutting the air, and a scream.

He threw open the door and ran through the antechamber to the bedroom. A bare-chested Fitzroy was standing, his white trousers still on, with one suspender hanging down; the other suspender he held in his hand.

“Sinclair, I'll be damned!”

The girl was naked, holding a bloodied sheet around her. All of her powder and rouge had run down her face in a flood of tears.

“You've got a bloody nerve to break in here!” Fitzroy said, moving toward his clothing thrown on the settee. “Where's John-O?”

“Put your things on and get out.”

Fitzroy, his belly hanging down like a market sack, said, “It's you who'll be leaving.”

He fumbled in his jacket, and pulled out a silver-plated derringer, the kind a cardsharp might carry. Sinclair should not have been surprised. The girl, seeing her chance, ran past them both and out of the room.

The sight of the gun did not diminish Sinclair's determination. Rather, it inflamed it. “You bloody fat coward. If you aim that thing at me, you'd better plan to use it.” Sinclair took a menacing step forward, and Fitzroy fell back toward the windows.

“I will,” he cried. “I will use it!”

“Give it to me,” Sinclair growled, throwing out one hand.

Sinclair took another step, and Fitzroy, closing his eyes, shot the gun. Sinclair heard a loud pop, the sleeve of his uniform ripped away, and an instant later he felt a wetness-his blood-running down his arm.

He lunged at Fitzroy, glass crunching beneath his boots. Fitzroy flailed at him with the gun, but Sinclair was able to grab it and yank it from his grip. Fitzroy twisted, looking for somewhere to run, but where could he go?

Sinclair heard the heavy tread of John-O running up the main staircase, and Fitzroy must have heard it, too.

“John-O!” he shouted. “In here!”

He leered in victory at Sinclair, and Sinclair, in a blind rage, whirled him around, snatched him by the seat of his trousers, ran him three paces toward the closed windows, and hurled him straight through the glass. Fitzroy, screaming in terror, tumbled out and landed with a huge thump and a rain of shattered glass a few feet below, atop the bricks of the porte-cochere. The horses of a carriage parked beneath it whinnied in alarm.

John-O stood stunned in the bedroom door, as Sinclair turned around, a bloody patch of his sleeve flapping loosely from his left arm.

“Please advise Madame,” he said, brushing past the Jamaican, “to send me the bill from her glazier.”

Rutherford and Le Maitre, along with several others, anxiously awaited him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Good God, you've been shot?” Rutherford exclaimed, as Sinclair descended the stairs.

“Who was it?” Frenchie insisted. “Was it that blackguard Fitzroy?”

“Take me to that hospital we passed,” Sinclair said. “The one on Harley Street.”

Rutherford and Frenchie looked puzzled. “But that's for indigent women,” Rutherford said.

“Any port in a storm,” Sinclair replied.

It might yet be possible, he thought, to salvage something from this night.

December 1, 11:45 a.m.

The storm raged for hours, and only let up by late morning the next day. The damaged aloft con had been abandoned and sealed off for the duration of the voyage.