Notorious Pleasures

The queen looked at her suitors and asked them this question: “What is the foundation of my kingdom? You have until midnight tonight to bring me your answer.”

Well, Prince Eastsun looked at Prince Westmoon, and Prince Westmoon looked at Prince Northwind, and then all three princes hurried from the room.

But when the stable master heard the question, he merely smiled to himself….

—from Queen Ravenhair

Hero couldn’t believe it, but the evidence was right before her eyes—and nose. The great warehouse held huge copper barrels set over smoldering fires, and the air smelled of alcohol and juniper berries. This was a gin distillery—most probably an illegal one.

And Reading wasn’t at all perturbed to be found out.

“What is going on? Was that a dead man I saw in the courtyard?” She looked at him, waiting for an explanation, but he turned his back on her.

Actually, it was the large, burly man by his side who seemed the most embarrassed. “M’lord, the lady—”

“The lady can wait,” Reading said quite clearly.

Hero felt her face heat. Never had she been so cavalierly dismissed. And to think she’d let this cad kiss her just last night!

She swiveled to leave the awful building, but suddenly he was there beside her, his hard hands holding her arms.

“Let me go,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

His face held absolutely no compassion. “I have business here. When I am done, I’ll escort you home—”

She wrenched her arms free and turned.

“Hero,” he said quietly, then louder to someone else, “See that her carriage doesn’t leave without me.”

“M’lord.” Two men darted past her and out the door, no doubt to help keep her prisoner while Reading did his disreputable “business.” She continued sedately to her carriage—she’d not let him see her in a hysterical flurry. Once outside the wall and at her carriage, she ignored Reading’s guards and climbed in.

Her wait was short, but even so, she was not in the best of spirits when the carriage rocked and Reading climbed inside. He knocked on the roof and then sat down, gazing out the window. They rolled along for a few minutes until Hero couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what that was about?”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he drawled—expressly, she was sure, to enrage her.

“That was a distillery.”

“Yes, it was.”

“For gin.”

“Indeed.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling anger pounding in her breast. She was perilously close to losing her facade—again. Hero fought to control her voice, but even so the words seemed to scrape against her throat. “Do you have any idea the amount and depth of misery that gin brings to the people who live here in St. Giles?”

He was silent.

She leaned forward and slapped him on the knee. “Do you? Is this some kind of lark for you?”

He sighed and turned toward her finally, and she was shocked to see the exhaustion lining his face. “No, not a lark.”

Tears bit at the corner of her eyes, and she found to her horror that her voice trembled. “Haven’t you seen the babies starving while their mothers drink gin? Haven’t you stumbled over the bodies of broken men, mere skeletons from drink? My God, haven’t you wept at the corruption that drink brings?”

He closed his eyes.

“I have.” She bit her lip, struggled to control her emotions, to control herself. Reading wasn’t stupid. There must be some reason for his madness. “Explain it to me. Why? Why would you dabble in such a filthy trade?”

“That ‘filthy trade’ saved the Mandeville fortunes, my Lady Perfect.”

She shook her head sharply. “I don’t understand. I’ve never heard that the Mandeville fortune needed saving.”

His mouth twisted wryly. “Thank you. That means I did my job well.”

“Explain.”

“You know my father died some ten years ago?”

“Yes.” She remembered the conversation she’d had with Cousin Bathilda on her engagement night. “You immediately left Cambridge to go carouse about the town.”

His smile was genuine this time. “Yes, well, that tale was more palatable than the truth.”

“Which was?”

“Our pockets were to let. Yes”—he nodded at her incredulous expression—“my father had managed to lose the family fortune with a series of investments that were ill advised at best. I had no idea of the family’s finances. As I was the second son, Father and Thomas considered it none of my business. So when Mater told me at the funeral the straits we were in, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.”

“And you left school to manage the family’s finances?” Hero asked skeptically.

He spread his hands and inclined his head.

“But why you? Wasn’t it Thomas’s job to find a financial manager?”

“One”—he ticked off his point on a long finger—“we couldn’t afford a financial manager, and two, Thomas’s head for money is about the same as our dear, late father’s. He spent the last of what we had in the week after Father died.”

“And money is the one thing you’re good at,” Hero said slowly. “That’s what you told me when you offered me a loan. When it comes to financial dealings, you can be relied on.” Did he think that was the only thing he could be relied upon to do correctly?

Griffin nodded. “Thank God my mother caught wind of what Thomas was doing. She had a small inheritance of her own that she’d kept hidden from Father. We lived for the first year or so on that bit of pin money until my distillery started bringing in money.”

That reminder snapped her attention back to her original concern. “But… gin distilling? Why that of all things?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You have to understand. I came home from university to my mother near prostrate with grief and worry, half the family furnishings sold to pay my father’s debts, bill collectors calling at all hours, and Thomas nattering on about how fine a new carriage with gilt trim would be. It was autumn and all I had was a rotten harvest of grain, mostly spoiled with damp. I could’ve sold it to a broker who would’ve then sold it again to a gin distiller, but I thought, wait a minute, why lose most of the profit? I bought a secondhand still and paid the old rascal I’d bought it from extra to show me how to use it.”

He sat back on the carriage seat and shrugged. “Two years later, we were able to afford Caro’s season.”

“And Mandeville?” she asked quietly. “Does he know what you do to support your family?”

“Never fear,” he said with deep and devastating cynicism. “Your fiancé’s hands are clean of all this. Thomas worries about far nobler things than where the money comes from to clothe him. His interests lie with parliament and such, not bill collectors.”

“But”—her brows knit as she tried to figure it out—“he must have some idea of where the money comes from. Hasn’t he ever asked?”

“No.” Reading shrugged. “Perhaps he does wonder, but if so, he’s never said a word about it to me.”

“And you’ve never tried to discuss it with him?”

“No.”

Troubled, she stared at her hands. What Reading did to make money was reprehensible, but what of a man who enjoyed wealth without once asking how it was made? Wasn’t Mandeville in some ways just as much to be condemned as Reading? Perhaps more so—he had all the benefits without suffering any of the soul-shredding consequences of dealing in gin. There was a name for such a man, she knew.

Coward, a tiny voice whispered deep in her heart.

She pushed the thought aside and looked at Reading. “If my brother finds out what you do, he’ll not hesitate to have you brought before a magistrate. Maximus cannot be reasoned with when it comes to the subject of gin.”

“Even at the risk of embroiling his dear younger sister in scandal?” He arched an eyebrow. “I think not.”

She shook her head, turning to gaze out the window. They’d left St. Giles behind and were rolling through a much nicer area. “You don’t know him. He’s obsessed with gin and the effects it has on the poor of London—he has been ever since our parents’ murders. He believes that gin is to blame for their deaths. I don’t know that he would stay his hand, even if you’re soon to be my brother-in-law.”

He shrugged. “That’s a chance I have to take.”

She pursed her lips. “What were you discussing with that man at the distillery?”

He sighed. “I have a competitor—though that word is a bit refined for what he is—who is bent on driving me out of business.”

She glanced at him, alarmed. “What kind of competitor?”

“The kind who likes to smash stills and throw the mangled body of one of my men over the courtyard wall,” he said. “It’s the reason I came to London—well, that and your engagement to Thomas.”

“Dear God.” She shook her head. How could he joke about becoming mixed up with such criminals? “Then that man was—”

“His name was Reese, and his only sin appears to have been going out for a drink yesterday.”

She shuddered. “That poor man.”

“You needn’t worry,” he said. “As I’ve said, Thomas isn’t involved.”

She looked at him incredulously. Did he really think her so shallow?

“I can understand that you were desperate to right your family’s finances,” Hero said slowly. “But they are no longer in peril, are they? My brother would have found out if there were financial concerns when he had my marriage contract drawn up.”

“Your brother is a shrewd man,” Reading said. “I’ve no doubt but that you are correct. The Mandeville fortune is safe now. He didn’t find anything amiss.”

“If that is the case, then why continue to distill gin?”

“You don’t understand—” he began.

“You’re patronizing me again,” she snapped.

He looked at her, his pale green eyes suddenly hard. “I have my family to consider, my Lady Perfect. Caro has made a fine match, but Megs is still unwed. If she is to find a suitable match, she needs to dress the part—as I’m sure you understand. I cannot give up the still until she is safely wed—until I am financially stable. We need the money from the still to finance her season.”

She closed her eyes and spoke from her heart. “We have had our differences, my Lord Shameless. There have been times in the last several days when I have thought I disliked you quite intensely.” He snorted, but she continued. She needed to make her point before she lost her courage. “But I think we have also learned something about each other. I would like to think that we are friends of a sort.”

The silence was so complete that she thought for a moment that he was holding his breath. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, his elbows propped on his knees, his green eyes still but with an expression in their depths that made her catch her breath. She clasped her hands, bolstering her bravery.

“Yes, friends,” she said quietly, as much to herself as to him. “And as a friend, I beg of you: please quit this way of making money.”

“Megs—”

She shook her head violently, cutting him off. “Yes, Lady Margaret needs gowns to catch a husband, but there must be other ways of making money. I’ve seen how gin destroys lives in the poorer parts of London. You may not care right now, you may only see your family and the money you need, but someday you’ll raise your head and look around. When that day comes, you’ll realize the misery you and your gin have caused. And when that happens, gin will destroy you, too.”