Anabelle Bryant - The Den Of Iniquity

‘Oh, Crispin, you exaggerate. I think Vivienne’s logic makes a fine point.’ Sophie shook her head for emphasis. ‘All this talk of dark and dangerous strangers makes me more curious than ever. Besides, everyone deserves a chance for atonement.’

‘Perhaps,’ Crispin answered. ‘But not by the two of you. Father would lock you up for the rest of your life, darling sister.’

‘I never said I wished to provide salvation to the wayward.’ She backtracked with hurried explanation. ‘I merely suggested an idea to assist Vivienne to ease into social circles now that she’s returned to us.’

Vivienne half listened to the continued debate between brother and sister, stalled on Crispin’s description of Mr Sinclair as wicked and clever. He’d certainly seemed that way when he’d discovered her against the ivy. Lord, when he’d looked at her she’d gone all fluttery inside. And the more Crispin spoke of the man’s daunting reputation, the more she became convinced he warranted her attention. Besides, any man known to his friends as Sin begged for betterment, didn’t he?

Chapter Four

‘So did you spit on Rowley Johns’ grave?’ Cole shuffled a deck of cards with lightning speed before splaying them across the table to flip back and forth in senseless distraction. The reassuring chatter of conversation mingled with an occasional shout of celebration from below. The hell was crowded again tonight.

‘No.’ Sin answered with a grunt of regret. He hadn’t achieved his objective at the graveyard yesterday. Not because the man deserved better but because Sinclair was a better man. And, too, he’d become distracted by Ransom on the hunt for a runaway ebony-haired sprite. He should have learned more of her, but his mind had been all over the place, emotions a muddled mess.

It wasn’t until early this morning after closing the hell and returning home to his town house that he allowed himself the luxury of fantasy. She was no doubt a beauty, but something else about the lady fired his blood with unexpected desire. Jaded by wealth and opportunity, myriad women had warmed his sheets and left the next morning without his second glance. But this one, with her raven hair and emerald eyes, gave him pause. Not that he had any room in his life for a woman. Binding relationships were off limits. Life seemed much simpler when not emotionally anchored to another person. The remembrance spoke well of his mother’s hardship and father’s fickle attention.

Like the flick of an overturned card, Sin remembered being called to the headmaster’s office all those years ago. He’d worked hard to achieve the grades expected of him, though he knew his efforts were not valued. He walked a fine line with the headmaster and a false story had given cause to have his mother summoned. With a heartless economy of words, he’d learned his mother had been killed, set upon by highwaymen, and already buried while he’d studied for midterm exams, none the wiser.

His heart shattered in that moment, never to be mended, his mother the only person of value in his life. He was often at her hip, just the two of them through his formative years, and despite his father making brief appearances the rare meetings were composed of reserved conversation and a stilted report of his progress in school. His father would never fail to remind him of his place and the difference between Max and the legitimate heir he’d fathered across London.

From that rejection the bond with his mother grew stronger and they were inseparable until his schooling at Eton. Even then he’d begrudged having to leave her. She was an unending source of love and pride, determined to instil in him a belief his world was not limited by the circumstance of his birth. The impact of her death compounded every sorrowful regret he amassed since that horrible afternoon in the headmaster’s office. It wasn’t until years later that his world exploded for a second time.

Cole snapped his fingers a few inches from Sin’s face with impatient sarcasm. ‘Where are you? Are you listening?’

‘No.’ He smiled. Truth was truth and his friend wouldn’t be offended. ‘I was thinking about something else.’

‘When we met four years ago you told me you’d not rest until you located the three names on your list. With Ludlow having disappeared…’ he cleared his throat and smirked with the comment ‘…and Johns providing the local worms with a hearty meal, that leaves one last man to pursue. Am I correct?’

‘Yes.’ Sin rubbed a hand across the back of his neck in an attempt to ease the strain. One floor down the tables were busy, the girls worked the customers and liquor flowed. Everything was as it should be; yet he couldn’t shake the tension holding his muscles tight. ‘I hired a man to investigate the matter. Pimms will be the hardest to locate considering he’s recently regained his freedom. Instead of providing a clean path to his location, Pimms’ release from prison enables the sneaky cur a wide variety of alliances.’ It was the most he’d shared with Cole whenever the rare conversation of his personal goals arose.

The conversation fell silent as the door to the office swung open.

‘Aah, two for the price of one.’ Lucius Reece, Luke to his friends, completed the ‘three of a kind’ propriety of Underworld. He was the missing bastard of the trio. ‘Anything interesting happen while I was gone?’

‘When did you return?’ Sin motioned to the brandy decanter on the table near the side wall. Peculiar how they shared equal ownership in the hell and each had a spacious office, yet Max’s seemed to be the place where they congregated most frequently. Either that or they more often came looking for him instead of the other way around. True, he’d been distracted of late. Finding two of the men he’d sought for years had a way of monopolizing one’s attention.

‘I rode into London a few hours ago, visited my apartments and then headed here. Is something wrong? The two of you look morose.’ He splashed a generous amount of liquor into two glasses and handed one to Sin. Cole didn’t drink and no one pried into the reason.

‘Not at all.’ Cole abandoned the cards and strode to the glass overseeing the floor below. One yank of the curtain pull and the men had a clear view of the tables; though were anyone to peer up at them, the gambling gents spending money and risking wagers would see a mural on the wall depicting blue-black caverns, hollow and empty, a distant golden moon, untouchable and out of reach now that one had entered the Underworld.

The window offered an irreplaceable advantage, which kept everyone honest, most especially patrons who strove to achieve the opposite. Cheats, punters, sharps, and pickpockets were easily monitored from above. If a swindler fell into his cups too deep, threatened a ruckus or handled one of the girls in an unacceptable manner, the action was noticed and remedied with fluid alacrity.

Tonight the hell hummed with energy, the promise of profit thick in the air, a tangible force that crawled across the carpet, inched up the gilt paper wallcoverings, invigorated by each outrageous wager at the tables, whether piquet, loo or faro. The discreetly lit interior thrummed with the forbidden temptation of fortune to be won or lost, a temptation most all high-flyers and skittle-sharps failed to resist.

Sin, Cole and Luke weren’t lords. They were bastards, but in this place, on their property, they ruled with more power and conviction than any dandy wagering coin on the felts. The situation suited and pleased on the shallowest echelon, allaying the itch of unresolved dispute that accompanied daily existence. Still they were intelligent men who battled demons on a personal level that no measure of wealth, success or acknowledgement could conciliate.