Page 47 of A Treacherous Trade
Izzy shook her head. “You weren’t introduced, and you aren’t like to be, either. Moved up to The Velvet Glove, did Sophia. She was the first to break poor Bea’s ’eart.”
“Lord, but this place be bleeding its whores.” Morag crossed herself. “I suppose it makes more sense, Bea bringing ye on after losing three girls in such short order. She’s hoping fresh blood will bring the wolves back to sniffing at our door and paying for a piece of the pink meat.”
My brows drew together at her choice of words.
Belle chucked me on the arm that still held Night Horse’s donation. “You don’t want Bea to catch you with that. She takes the coin and gives your cut at the end of the night. She’ll toss you out with the rubbish for handling the money yourself.”
Surely Night Horse had known that. So why leave it on the bed for me?
“Better take it to her immediately,” Izzy said. “And then we’ll see if we can’t find something else for you to wear before your appointment arrives, yes?”
“Of course.”
We heard Beatrice before we found her, smoky voice filling the great room like that of a lieutenant colonel dressing down a cretin of inferior rank. Except, in this case, she flayed none other than a vicar with an outrage every bit as cutting as Night Horse’s blade.
The portly man was tall as a Viking and built with the dimensions of a cooper’s barrel, except rounder about the middle. He’d more hair coming out of his ears and nose than gracing his pate, and his skin was mottled so dark a red I wondered if he’d be left with a rash.
He clutched this morning’s paper, the headline of which shouted Jane’s untimely death in the boldest font imaginable. In the other hand, he brandished the Bible, from which he quoted with a fanatic’s zeal. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness—”
“Oh, stuff your gob, vicar.” Bea puffed out her chest and flicked the textured flesh of the Good Book. “Does not the verse right after the one you just quoted me have some strong things to say against ‘hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, and strife’?” She lifted a carefully shaped brow. “Seems we’re both sinners here.”
The preacher sputtered and pulled the gold-leafed treasure in close to his chest as he searched the lavish great room for an ally.
Five men of various ages and states ofdeshabillesprawled about the chaises and chairs, caught in the middle of a smoke or a whisky. One fellow, doing his best to cover his youth with a golden mustache and long sideburns, had allowed the woman on his lap to undo his cravat and unbutton his shirt past his breastbone. They each sat frozen as a painting, apparently satisfied to let poor Bea fight this battle on her own.
“Listen, all of you!” the vicar beseeched the room. “The tragedies befalling this establishment are God’s call to repentance. Do you not see? His retributions will spread across this city of sin, rippling out from this central spot like a drop on still waters. Washing the streets clean of abominations such asher.” A long, gnarled finger unfurled mere inches from Bea’s nose. “The abominable! Whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the seconddeath.”
From beside me, Izzy seized my hand, and I read in her eyes the same thought that occurred to me.
What about thefirstdeath? Could this evidently obsessive vicar be responsible for the deaths of those he called abominations? Had he committed the same horrors Aidan had done, sending sinners to meet God before their time?
To my utter shock, Beatrice reacted to his threat with a very unladylike snort that dissolved into a chortle, and then an uncontrolled fit of laughter. “Sweet Christ, Reverend Jewett,” she said finally, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. “Does it ever get lonely up there on the moral high ground? Come on, now. Why don’t you go save the souls of those who are asking for it, and leave us sprightly sinners to our vices?”
“I’ll thank you not to take the name of our Lord in vain.” Vitriol squeezed his eyes so narrow that he could have been blindfolded with a bit of twine. “And it is my duty to spread the word of God to the faithless and the fornicators, the reprobates and degenerates. To bring them into the fold.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t it say something in that book about ‘if ye forgive not us our trespasses, neither will your father forgive yours’? If you want to take a seat for a minute, I could quote you passages on judgment, forgiveness, charity, love,et cetera. It seems to me you should leave the Lord’s wrath to the Lord, and maybe take a page from his book and keep company with a few prostitutes and sinners before you condemn them to damnation.”
I’d admit it was a decent attempt to defuse an explosive situation, but as I watched the large man step toe-to-toe with Bea, I knew it had failed.
A shadow moved, and the man they called “Butler” stepped into the light from the foyer, effectively flanking the vicar. One indistinguishable gesture from Bea froze him into an ever-ready sentinel.
Reverend Jewett lifted the Bible against Beatrice like a talisman, brandishing the paper behind it. “Keep thee from the evil woman,” he sneered at her, at us, a dark hatred emanating from him. “The evilwomen! From the flattery of the tongue of a fallen woman.”
“My tongue can do much more than flatter, vicar.” Indira rose and ran the tip of her tongue against her wide, full mouth. “Why not pay a bob or two to find out?”
The scarlet of his skin deepened into a rather concerning shade of violet. “How dare you—”
“Enough!” Beatrice snatched both the Bible and the paper from the stunned holy man’s grip and hurled them into the large, ornate fireplace. The patron’s gasps barely had a chance to echo up to the third and fourth floors before her hand snapped back and slapped him with such force that his head wrenched to the side.
“How dareyou, you sanctimonious bastard!” she bellowed at him, seeming to grow taller, or perhaps he shrank before the embodiment of her feminine fury. Either way, she was now—somehow—towering over a man a good head taller than she. “Do I go to your church and solicit customers? Do I come into your fucking house and bully you about your hypocritical heresy? Do I bother those men of the cloth who bury their seed in the bellies ofmywhores on Saturday night and then slander them at the pulpit on the Sabbath?No!No, I do not. But so help meGod, if I see you anywhere near Orchard Lane again, no one—not even your Lord—will be able to save you from my wrath. Is that fucking clear, reverend? Now, Butler, throw this ass back onto the street so he can bray at his flock of sheep. I’ll hear no more of it.”
By the time she’d finished, I realized I was breathing as if I’d run a pace.
Not because I was afraid—quite the opposite. I was thrilled.
Something I hadn’t felt in a long time gathered in my chest. A fervent, warm energy welled within me until I glowed with it.
Admiration, perhaps? Pride?
