Page 43 of Never a Duke
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Tryphena Dorinda Hepplewhite had parlayed tiny size and giant ambition into a thriving institution of venery two streets back from the docks. She was no longer young by the standards of her trade, and the passing years, in Ned’s opinion, had made her ruthlessly determined to keep her riverside empire safe from all encroachments.
“Well, if it isn’t my wee Neddy, come to call.”
I am not now, nor have I ever been, your anything.“Tryphena, good evening.” Ned did not bow, nor did he surrender his hat to the waiting footman-muscle. Tryphena had received him in the room that passed for her personal parlor, a shrine to gilt, hung silk, and what she doubtless considered imperial shades of red.
The result was a parody of grandeur, much as the gin palaces springing up all over London were parodies of the fine domiciles they aped.
“No word, Neddy,” Tryphena said. “Hasn’t been any word for years. You’re like that Penelope fool from the Greek story, ’cept your pa won’t ever come back.”
She didn’t bother mimicking the speech of her betters, and why should she? Her clientele had no aspirations beyond the next pint of ale or interlude upstairs, which Tryphena limited to thirty minutes, paid in advance.
“As it happens, I’m not here to inquire about my father.”
Tryphena gave him a look that made his flesh crawl. She affected the appearance of a doll, from her use of bright red lip paint, to her hair done in elaborate ringlets, to a wardrobe in the pale colors chosen to adorn little girls still in the nursery.
The result, given her age and the knowledge in her eyes, was ghoulish.
“You aren’t here to ask after your pa?” The leer she turned on Ned embodied both lechery and a coldness of soul so depraved it should have been recounted in Dante’s description of hell.
She walked a slow circle around him. “I’d make an exception for you, wee Neddy. I have a soft spot for dark-eyed lads. A lot of my customers do too. You could give up all that nobbery and snobbery, come back to where you belong. I’d make you rich.”
She reached out as if to pat his flank. Ned used his walking stick to gently deflect the caress. Not even provocation from her would tempt him to raise a hand to a woman.
“Somebody is taking decent girls from the streets of Mayfair, Tryphena. The young ladies aren’t being held for ransom, they aren’t taking up with some chance-met sailor or drover. These are lady’s maids and companions, young women without family in Town and without lofty connections.”
Tryphena stalked away and took a seat on a raised gilt chair upholstered in red velvet. Her perch was at such a height that she needed a stepstool to ascend to it, much as a child might.
“I ain’t took ’em, so don’t be askin’ what I did wif ’em. The fancy ones are more trouble than they’re worth. They don’t know nuffink, and they don’t hold up to the trade. Ask that Nimitz bitch wot she done with yer missin’ maids.”
“I won’t be asking anybody anything, least of all you,” Ned said, summoning all the icy hauteur he’d learned from watching Walden. “I am here to warn you, Tryphena. You have enemies without number. Every bawd in London despises you, your employees hate you, and the reformers would love to see your den of iniquity burned to the ground.”
She sat upon her throne, the queen of indifference. “I’m an honest business woman, I am, running an honest business. I don’t water me gin and me whores are willin’.”
“Then why are your windows nailed shut?” Ned knew exactly why and how that practice had begun.
“Can’t have the lads pikin’ off with the goods, can I?” The goods, in Tryphena’s estimation, were the women and boys she provided to her customers.
“Heed me, Tryphena. When it becomes apparent that somebody is preying on decent women, suspicion will turn on you. Informants will implicate you whether you have a hand in this evil or not. They will swear under oath that they’ve seen the missing women at your establishment, and there won’t be a rock left in England that you can hide under.”
“Talk never did nothin’. Billy will show you out.”
Ned tapped his hat onto his head with every evidence of nonchalance. He had dressed for this occasion in worn attire, scuffed boots, and a hat with a slightly crumpled brim. No watch, no cravat pin, no rings. Just a knife in each boot and a peashooter in each pocket.
“You don’t know who you’re up against,” he said, sending her a pitying smile. “You rile the Quality, and it becomes a matter of pride with them to seek retribution. Your guilt or innocence won’t matter. You’ve committed enough wrongdoing generally that in their eyes you deserve their wrath. I know how they think, and you have but one choice if you want to continue on your puppet throne.”
“Say your piece and get out.” She tried for insouciance, but Ned saw the fear behind the façade. Tryphena had carved out a piece of turf for herself through grit, meanness, bribes, and determination, but she held that ground in a precarious grip. With her own kind, the truces were in place for now, but she couldn’t indefinitely escape the notice of aristocrats and prosperous merchants determined to “clean up the docks.”
“If you want to avoid the noose, you find these women, Tryphena. You listen to your sailors and dockhands, you ply the able seamen and bargemen with drink. Somebody has started a new game, right under your nose, and it’s a game that bodes ill for your trade. When you learn something, you send Billy to me. No notes, no messengers I won’t recognize. Find these women, find them fast, and don’t think to involve yourself in whatever is afoot.”
Tryphena stood on her stepstool, her glower almost convincing. “I ain’t took ’em, and I don’t know who did, and I don’t wanna know.”
“Yes, Tryphena, you do want to know. Because it’s only a matter of time before whoever is behind this brings your little dollhouse crashing down around you. On that happy day, you will finally swing for kidnapping, among your many other trespasses. You are small, and your hanging would be a protracted entertainment for the mob at Newgate. I’ll bid you good evening.”
Ned turned his back on her without a farewell. As he reached the door, Billy abandoned his eyes-front impersonation of liveried statuary. The glance was fleeting and fraught, and confirmed what Ned had hoped to learn from this most distasteful interview.
Tryphena knew something. Unlike Mrs. Nimitz, who had probably heard rumors or caught a whiff of gossip, Tryphenaknewsomething.
