The Price of Hannah Blake (17 page)

Charles had seated himself, still slightly bent, and watched the drama unfold. Hannah turned to look at Lilly and Rachael; they watched, their lips parted.

“Yes,” said Darlene, her voice almost too soft to hear. She moved closer to David, her breasts bare. Just inches from him, she looked into his eyes; her hand came up and moved in circles over the hair matted on his chest, thick over his nipples. She said, “These are not your nipples, David; they are the duke’s nipples.”

He seemed unable to look away from Darlene’s eyes. Hannah decided that earlier in the day she had only imagined he gazed at her. He said, “I suppose you are right.”

Darlene said, “Now, you have to turn around, David.”

He turned, and Hannah saw his back was long, rising to powerful shoulders. Darlene put her hands on his shoulders. “Bend over,” she said, almost too softly for Hannah to hear.

David’s shoulders seemed to shrug. He bent over. Darlene’s hand slid down his back, lower, and paused on his buttocks. She murmured, “I have to do this, David,” and her fingers slipped into his crack. David started. “I must,” murmured Darlene.

Her fingers moved. She said, “David, this is not your arsehole. It is the duke’s asshole.”

He straightened up, and said, “All right?”

“All right,” said Darlene. Now, her breasts were pressed to his chest, her face raised to his, radiant. Her hand rested on his chest, then began to move downward. Hannah could not help staring, waiting. She was getting excited—and that, too, disappointed her.

Darlene’s hand slid over the belly, down, into the black bed of hair. Then her slender fingers held David’s prick; they were moving, ever so softly, over the smooth brown flesh. When they found the uncovered head of the penis, David seemed to jerk backward, but then stopped. When he did, Darlene continued. Her delicate long fingers began to tickle him. She said, “David, this is not your prick, do you know that? It is duke’s prick. The duke can make a present of your dick to the Countess of Northcote, do you know that?”

His voice was husky; he said slowly, “Yes, all right.”

Once, briefly, Darlene’s lips pressed to David’s chest. Then, she turned away from him and walked back and sat down. For a moment, no one moved. Then Darlene rose and walked toward the door, still nude to the waist, as though she had not noticed.

Hannah heard in Charles’s voice a suppressed fury. He stared at David, his face rigid. He said, “I challenge you to the cock fight.”

Immediately, another of the boys said, “And if he is defeated, I challenge you.”

And another said, “And if he is defeated, I challenge you.”

David’s smile seemed amused. Still standing naked, he said, “I have seen cock fights. I did not know that men imitated roosters. But I accept.”

When the others rose to leave, Hannah didn’t move, at first. She was looking at David, who bent, now, to pick up his clothes. Finally, when the last of the others was at the door, Hannah rose quickly. At the door, she glanced back and David was watching her. He seemed to smile at her, didn’t he?

The man’s body coiled, lifting the axe high. Then he swung his shoulders through a smooth arc, driving the heavy blade into the oak precisely where he had aimed. A big chip flew. He was massive, the sweat-soaked white shirt with it sleeves rolled clung to broad shoulders, and his bare forearms were thick, but he knew to let the weight of the axe and his aim do most of the work. And to keep the axe sharp; that was essential.

He straightened up, now, pausing. It was summer in North Wales, the sun hot. He wanted to fell the fine, towering oak today, but he had the rest of the afternoon. Before dinner, he would see it sway, rock, and go accelerating in a rush of branches to crash resoundingly on the forest floor where he had planned. He was over 60, now, and had been cutting oaks and elms and beeches for decades, cutting them for exercise, for—well, fun, or satisfaction. He did not need the work or the wood. He was prime minister of the United Kingdom, in and out of office for decades, fighting wars—or fighting to prevent them—battering budgets into balance—winning and losing—but always getting better with the axe.

“Prime Minister…” The man who approached had been sitting with three others at decent remove from flying chips—and to give the prime minsiter some illusion of privacy. No shirtsleeves for him; he wore a brown suit, vest, and suspenders, and sweated heavily under the sun. The prime minister could not have had a hobby like collecting stamps, could he? Indoors, cool in the recesses of the mansion? But wherever the prime minister chose to go, including beneath the summer sun in a clearing in the woods, his job was to guard him.

When the prime minister turned to him, he gestured up the path that led back to the house. The massive, bearded face with the eyes that lanced righteousness, interrogation, now turned. The face actually registered surprise. It had been reported that once, as he chopped wood, a royal messenger had hastened up. The prime minister had opened the message, glanced at it, and passed it to a woman standing next to him. Then, he had picked up the axe, again, but before he swung, had said only: “significant.” It was from the Queen, directing him to form a new government.

But the extremely heavy-set man who came down the path, one hand lifted in greeting, was First Lord of the Admiralty. And he came alone. And, astoundingly, he came unannounced. The prime minister rested on his axe handle and waited. What new war for the kingdom was hurrying down that path? He had ended wars in Africa; he had fought brilliantly to reduce military expenditures; he had infuriated many by refusing to build the Royal Navy faster when there was no money in the budget to do so.

His gaze seemed to release flashes of warning to slow the man’s progress. He thought: now I shall be told—again—that there is no option but war and that there is no time to lose. He was ready, for that.

“Prime Minister,” said the man as his hand came out. He was puffing. Not enough exercise, too much port. No axe for him. The man was saying, “First, I beg pardon for coming unannounced.”

The prime minister’s nod was almost imperceptible. “And then, for bothering your holiday.” The man looked at the deep, precisely cut notch in the huge tree and smiled. He shook his head, “A giant!” And he added, “To be felled by another giant.”

It sounded very bad. The news—or request—the man brought must be calculated to dismay or why this unaccustomed flattery? The prime minister waited. When the man still did not speak, he said, “A long way, First Lord. You will stay to dinner and the night, at least. But he added, gloomily, “Unless we are to rush back to London before dinner.”

“No,” said the man. “It is not…” He hesitated, then said, glancing at the men around the clearing, “I have come so far, and begged leave to walk down here alone, to find you, because I wish a private word.” He added, “A very private word.”

The massive head nodded. He said to the head of his security, “John, the men may take refreshment at the house. You yourself may sit in the pavilion house up the path. You can watch the path and I shall be able to call.”

The man hesitated. Always sending them away, when their job was to stay. The prime minister’s eyes fixed him and he said, with emphasis, “I shall be able to
call
you.”

The man cast a quick, half-accusing glance at the First Lord of the Admiralty, bowed, waved to his men, and led them up the path toward the house. “It is not war,” said the man. “All goes exceedingly well, even as you have wished. I come about…” He paused, shook his head as though hardly believing what he was about to say. “It is about the moral heart of England. I might say, ‘the soul.’”

“Perhaps then your journey should have been to Canterbury or Westminster.” The legendary wit, the fire that flared out to sear opponents in the House of Commons, was not entirely extinguished even here in the woodland clearing.

The man tried to smile. “No, sir. You are the head of the queen’s government and this perhaps concerns not only her majesty but…” again the hesitation. “But the very class itself most prepared and fitted—so we have believed—to govern the realm.” He raised his eyes to the prime minister’s as though to gauge the impact of this. He could see none.

The prime minister said, quite patiently, “Perhaps you should get to specifics, First Lord.”

“A scandal that may embrace the duke, some number of the 300 families, I not know who in our government, if any—and that if known would blacken…” He glanced down, frowning, as though weighing, again, the words he had so carefully rehearsed. He decided to use them: “would coat with
filth
the ruling class and, I fear, the royal family itself.”

He added hastily, “Not the queen. I do not mean Her Majesty, but…” He shrugged, “Her brother and that is the royal family.”

The prime minister wanted this to go away, not because he would refuse to face any needful situation, but because this was no doubt a tale of dalliance, infidelity, scandalous country weekends such as had hidden in the shabby closets of the realm for…well, for centuries. Nothing was new. It was a family affair, let the family, as ever, rein-in its own stallions and mares in heat—and suffer for it, if it came to that…

Now, he said, “We are so busy, First Lord, with what is
important
in the realm, and what it is our duty to do, that we seem not to realize what happens on weekends—or daily, I would imagine—that is shameful, pernicious to the reputation so essential for trust of the common people…” His eyes seemed to bombard the first lord with fire and shot as he added, “and not our concern, for which we may be grateful.”

The first lord must make himself unmistakably specific, he realized, and time might be running out. The prime minister had picked up his axe and turned to the afflicted oak. So he said: “On reliable and specific report, which is credible to me, the duke has built and inhabited a great brothel in the south of England where he has imprisoned young men and women who are trained to perform for him, on a stage, completely disrobed, sexually explicit acts of every kind, including such things as…” He now had delivered, word for word, the shock that he had planned and knew would be necessary to command the prime minister’s attention. “Such things as rape, canings, and what one hears of with utter incredulity…”

The prime minister’s axe bit deep into the white wood and a massive chip flew almost 10 feet. Then, he turned, lifted the axe, sunk its blade in a nearby stump, and turned to the first lord. He gestured at the simple chairs that had been vacated by the security team. “Let us sit, then.” He gave a long sigh, shaking his head, and began “Of all…”

The first lord was alarmed, thoroughly alarmed. Who ever had seen such signs of emotion from the prime minister—unless, of course, for the benefit of parliament, or the voters, where the great rhetorician employed every resource of face and hand and voice?

More than an hour passed. The first lord was grateful to see the sun had reached the tops of the trees. The prime minister’s head of security had come down the path four times, each time to be reassured by a wave of the prime minister’s big hand. Now, the prime minister leaned on the chair’s arm, facing the first lord, and asked: “And there is no way the duke can be warned, privately warned, from this… business?”

“Perhaps if the evidence in hand is damning and cannot be denied—as anonymous reports and hearsay can be denied—and the messenger excoriated for rumor-mongering.” He added very quickly, “reports entirely credible to me, prime minister—confirmed—but whose source cannot be identified.”

“Then identify it, sir.”

“I cannot.”

“It is unknown?”

“It is reported by an unimpeachable source who yet will not in turn reveal his source of the information. Will
not
.”

The prime minister lowered his head. “You know of my concern for the women who are forced into degradation.”

The first lord nodded enthusiastically. He had been about to refer to it—obliquely. The prime minister, decades ago when a new and junior minister to parliament, had walked the East End of London—at night, alone—and spoken to the fallen women of their plight. He had offered assistance. It was said he had a book of names. Nor did he make an attempt to keep his efforts secret; indeed, he became famous for it. And no scheme by his political opponents to launch campaigns of whispering and innuendo had succeeded. Though officially denied by the police, there were private estimates that 80,000 women in London made their living this way—many as near slaves. The prime minister, from the beginning and to this day, insisted that their plight be a matter not for public resignation and continued private abuse but for the reform efforts that had earned him the affectionate name, “Grand Old Man”—a man of the people.

The prime minister continued, “And therefore it is not indifference to the plight of these women…”

“And men,” insisted the first lord.

He nodded. “and the loathsome evil of this…” He shook his head. “Not lack of concern. But by your own account, no rumor, no whisper, of this thing ever has circulated in public—and certainly not to my ears, which hear much they are not supposed to hear. The risk of a scandal that would touch the queen and ruin great names and reputations seems small.” He looked up into the first lord’s eyes. “By your own account, sir.”

“But this, in England, in the royal family!”