Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

North. The carriage was heading north, toward Suffolk where Starlings and the Dower House stood. Brandon had no proof they were headed there, he had only his instincts to rely on, but he had learned to trust them.

He reached for his pocket, digging for money to give the girl. “Thank you very much, miss. . .”

“Just Ermie, my lord. And I don’t wants no money—Mrs. Cadbury—she saved my life, and got me this job too, with a good wage. She’s a good woman, far better than that sorry lot.” She cast a contemptuous eye at the huddle of men who were watching them. “You find her and keep her safe.”

“I’ll do that, Ermie,” he said, clasping her hand in thanks, and she looked aghast. The gentry didn’t touch the lower orders. Too bad. He didn’t live by the rules. He’d made a stab at it while he’d been down here, but he’d had enough. “You need anything, you apply to Viscount Rohan and he’ll see to it. Will you do that?”

She nodded, pulling her hand away and looking at it gingerly, as if had turned into a foreign object. “I do just fine, my lord. But if something happens, I’ll tell the viscount.”

“Good girl,” he said, deciding it was better that he didn’t touch her again, though in truth he wanted to hug her in gratitude. He turned his head to his companion. “Noonan,” he said. “We need a fast carriage.”

Noonan nodded. “That we do, lad. That we do.”

The smell hadn’t improved, Emma thought with bitter satisfaction. Fenrush was sitting opposite her, crammed onto the bench seat with the bulky Collins, clad in vest and shirt sleeves, his ruined coat tossed out a window. She’d manage to direct the entirety of her stomach disruption on the man, and if he hadn’t been so disgusted he might have killed her on the spot.

“You’re awfully squeamish about a little indigestion for a man comfortable with hauling corpses,” she observed in a tranquil voice. Her wrists were tied too tightly in front of her, so there was no way she could work at the knot, and the bonds around her body kept her movement limited, but her spirits had improved. She wasn’t defeated yet, for all that things looked dire.

“Cadavers,” Fenrush corrected her sullenly. “They were entirely for medical purposes.”

“Except for the women, because treating women is of no importance.”

He glared at her. “Any medical advancements we discover with men are applicable to women’s bodies. They’re essentially the same.”

She managed to produce an actual laugh at that. “No, they’re not. I would have thought with your predilection for whores you might have realized that.”

“You were one of them.”

She didn’t even blink. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. “So I was. Actually I’d forgotten you. But then, I never paid the slightest attention to my clientele. There were simply a pack of rutting dogs, and I had better things to occupy my mind.”

He flushed, and she felt another trace of satisfaction. Whether she could escape or not, she could use her sharp tongue to weaken him as best she could.

She knew about syphilis and the terrible affects it had on the mind and body. Many of the women under her care had died from it, and the mental instability was one of the hallmarks of its latter stages. There had always been pressure to send the dying women to Bedlam, to end their lives in squalor and misery, but she had done her best to keep them at Temple Hospital, where they could be looked after until their death.

She had no idea how close Fenrush was. His normally high complexion was pasty, with a sallow undertone, and some of his bulk had lessened, leaving the waistcoat loose around his once-massive paunch. His hands trembled, his feet twitched, and he grimaced in pain. His initial infection could have been as recently as five years ago, as long ago as twenty, and she knew a moment’s panic. They had always done their best to keep the women safe when she ran the house, but after the first outbreak of the vicious infection came a period when all symptoms vanished, and there’d never been a guarantee.

And then her bitter amusement took charge. Chances were she was going to be dead in twenty-four hours, so anything else hardly mattered. In truth, had she been infected, symptoms of the early stages would have cropped up. Several of the women they’d rescued had contracted it, but none of them had earned her living under Emma’s care, and her oldest friends were safe.

“There’s no treatment for it, you know,” she said lazily, leaning back as best she could.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Do you think me a complete fool?”

She decided not to answer that.

“Don’t listen to her,” Collins advised. “She’s just trying to get yer goat.”

“I know that,” Fenrush snapped. He glared at her. “You know, I could be merciful. I could have Collins snap your neck before he sets the fire, but now I don’t think so. I want you to feel the flames licking at your skin, your eyeballs melting.” He was drooling.

“Eyeballs don’t melt in a fire.” Her voice was flat, prosaic. “Everything singes, then chars. Have you never examined a cadaver . . . oh, wait. You’re more than familiar with them. Perhaps you contracted your disease from one of them. I gather there are a specialized few who prefer relations with the recently deceased. . .”

This time it was Fenrush who lunged at her, and Collins who held him back with seemingly little effort, which could mean that Fenrush had been weakened by his disease. It was a useful thing to consider—any bit of knowledge might help.

“Now, now, Mr. Fenrush,” Collins chided in a soothing voice. “You don’t wants to go losing your temper, do you? She ain’t worth it, she ain’t, and you know it. You don’t want to be doing anything that might throw things off, do you now? These things can be very difficult, very difficult indeed, I can tell you. How many times has she managed to escape your careful plans? First, she breaks out of that rats’ nest of whores that Charity Carstairs set up. Then she makes such a fuss when I push her into the river that someone fishes her out again. Then, when I’ve got her dead to rights in a deserted field what happens but that ugly soldier with the torn-up face comes, and I’ve got no choice but to run.”

“You’re forgetting I kicked you in the bollocks,” Emma said helpfully. “You must admit that slowed you down a bit.”

The look in Collins’s tiny dark eyes promised a particularly evil retribution, but otherwise he ignored her. “And now everything’s set in motion. No one has any idea we’re behind this—the girl lives a dangerous life, after all, and it’s no wonder she’s had a few accidents. And these old buildings are bound to be firetraps, and what do whores know about anything? One untended candle and the place goes up in flames, taking everyone with it.”

“You said it was foolproof before.” Fenrush sounded like a sullen child, deprived of a sweet.