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Authors: Jillian Stone

BOOK: The Seduction of Phaeton Black
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“Mrs. Parker’s is a—”
“Bordello? Hooch house? Out with it, Mr. Black.” Her hands fisted on her hips. “And what sort of role do you play here?”
Without waiting for an answer she turned and descended to the street. Oddly enough he followed after mumbling protests. “I don’t play any sort of—do you think I work there? I assure you I do not.”
“Perhaps you service the residents as an avocation of sorts?”
He grabbed her elbow. “Miss Jones, I work for—” Damn the woman, he was actually flummoxed. “I am only a tenant.”
She pivoted on her heel. “Good day, Mr. Black.” The flounce of her ruffled overskirt bounced along to the rhythm of her gait and the sway of her hips.
“Good-bye, Miss Jones.”
 
Phaeton sprinkled the remaining garlic along the window ledge. “Would someone please explain to me how these tuberous bits of flora might ward off the chimera I chased after last evening?”
Lizzie sat up in bed, sipping hot bouillon from a cup. “Please tell me more about the creatures you encountered, Mr. Black.”
“Why would I unduly frighten you, Lizzie?” Phaeton sank down on the edge of the mattress and examined her carefully. “Besides, I now strongly suspect those phantasmagorical events were a ruse. Meant to distract me while a truly vicious killer stalked after you.”
The dear girl set cup to saucer. “She was quite beautiful. Pale and delicate, with lovely mesmerizing eyes.”
“So, you have begun to remember.”
She fingered the bandage wrapped around her throat and swallowed hard. “Will I become one, Mr. Black?”
“A lady of darkness. A nosferatu?” Phaeton lounged on his elbows. “According to the rules as stated forth in the
Feast of Blood
, Varney the Vampire was able to turn Clara Crofton only by draining her blood completely.” His head rolled back on his shoulders as he studied the ceiling. “And I believe there needs to be an exchange of blood.” He reached over and chuffed her chin. “You, on the other hand, have rosy cheeks. Far from the pale countenance of the undead, Miss Randall.”
She smiled the first bright smile of the afternoon.
Esmeralda poked her head in the door. “Phaeton? Mr. Skimpole is here.”
Unlike his spindly name, a rather good-sized chap entered the room with his cap in his hand. “Mr. Black.”
“Mr. Skimpole.” He stood up and approached the newly hired man. “Straight away, the wardrobe will need to be moved over here, against the window. And while I am gone this evening, you will station yourself against the door to this room and refuse any and all persons entry with the exception of either Mrs. Parker or myself.”
Lizzie wrinkled her brow. “You are leaving me, sir?”
“I have been invited to the opening of
Aida
, and I never refuse an opera. I promise to check in on you later tonight.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
Chapter Four
P
HAETON CLOSED HIS EYES
and held onto the last strains of the aria for one last glorious moment. Applause broke out in the opera house as he exhaled.
Someone tapped on his knee. “Glad you could make it.” Zander Farrell’s low voice barely registered. “I’m off in search of refreshment.” He looked up in time to see Zander exit the box along with a handful of his in-laws.
Sophrinia Farrell turned and smiled. “Mr. Black, come keep me company.”
He took a seat in the front and angled his chair to facilitate conversation.
“Are you enjoying the opera thus far?”
“Very much.” Phaeton adjusted his waistcoat and lounged against gilt chair rails. Zander’s lovely wife always brought out the devil in him. “I find nothing more restorative to my soul than good music or good sex.”
A smile tugged at the ends of Mrs. Farrell’s extraordinary mouth. A bit wide, with plump lips, dear God, a man could lose control of himself.
She sighed. “Alas, our brave young couple is soon captured and entombed alive. I find the poignancy nearly unbearable—to lie in your lover’s arms forever.”
“If one is to be sealed away in a dark vault, I do recommend finding a companion one can tolerate for eternity.”
Sophie chuckled softly. Her hand stroked a swollen belly. She was expectant again. He had not known that. This would be their second child in less than two years.
“Last night, my husband returned home inebriated on absinthe. Don’t bother to apologize, Mr. Black, for I have quite forgiven you.” While her gaze remained on the audience below, she leaned closer. “After we retired for the evening, Zander became so ... imaginative.” She flashed silver eyes, full of mischief.
He always enjoyed these flirtations with her. A woman of quality who amused him. So few did. “You never fail to delight me, Sophie. I believe I might consider marriage, if I could ever find a young lady as beautiful, intelligent, and as ...”
“Wanton?”
“Lusty, perhaps?”
Her laughter wafted into the air, musical as the evening itself.
Sophie swept a hand over her rounded girth. “
Heavenly Aida
was most inspiring, don’t you think?”
“Yes, lovely.”
“Zander sang the very aria to me our first night together.”
“So, it becomes clear there was never a chance for me. I can’t manage a decent note.”
She patted her midriff. “I am much too big to be out and about in public, but I could not bear to miss this performance. Zander helped to secret the bulk of me into the theatre hidden under a large cape.”
Phaeton could not stem his fascination. Mesmerized by the perfectly shaped globe hidden beneath the delicate shirred skirt, he reached out. She took his hand and placed it on her belly.
Slowly, his senses submerged into a veil of membrane. A life form, suspended in warmth.
He sat straight up, eyes wide. “Does that hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not in the least.”
He took a furtive look about. Should he try it? With a quick head duck, his ear came to rest upon the roundness of her. A gentle hand hesitated before stroking his temple. Yes, there was a
sympatico
with this woman.
“Can you hear the babe thumping away?”
“She is humming, Mrs. Farrell.” He sat up. “
Se quel guerrier io fossi! ... Celeste Aida
.”
She smiled. “She?”
“Sorry I took so long. Dreadful crush of smokers in the upper lobby.” Zander stepped down into their row and handed her a glass. “Seltzer water and lemon, as ordered.”
“Thank you for braving the crowd, dear.” She sipped her fizzy refreshment. “Mr. Black informs me our second child is a girl.”
Phaeton nodded. “Most definitely, a she.”
“Excellent. We can narrow down names to Camille or Fiona.” Zander’s affectionate, possessive gaze caused a momentary pang of loneliness, a sensation Phaeton quickly set aside.
Zander settled an arm across the back of his wife’s chair. “My dear, has he been pestering you with unwanted advances?”
“I would never attempt a tryst with Sophie. It would break your heart.” Phaeton winked at her.
Zander snorted. “Not before I broke off your privates and sold them to cannibals.”
The chime signaled the end of
entr’acte.
Opera aficionados drifted back into the auditorium. A tall, striking gentleman caught Phaeton’s eye. Something familiar about the silhouette. It was obviously not Zander Farrell, for Scotland Yard’s finest sat one chair away, publicly nuzzling the neck of his prodigiously pregnant wife.
He straightened his chair. The intriguing gentleman stepped into a middle row and found his seat. Without a scan or search of eyes, the stranger looked directly at him. Phaeton met his gaze. He had not seen this man since his Trinity days, but sensed a more recent encounter, he was nearly sure of it.
As the lights dimmed, Phaeton shifted his attention to the stage. Disturbing recollections drifted in and out of his thoughts and the third act came and went before he once again immersed himself in the music and story.
By the end of act four, the entire audience was riveted. Radames is sealed in a vault below the temple and finds Aida hiding in the darkness. All the men readied their handkerchiefs for the ladies in the box.
La fatal pietra sovra me si chiuse.
Phaeton whispered the words, “The fatal stone now closes over me.”
Morir! Si pura e bella
. He sighed. “To die so pure and lovely.”
Outside the Royal Opera House, Phaeton tagged along beside the Farrells. With one eye on the front of the theatre, he held up his end of a lighthearted, informal banter. Zander stepped into the street and opened the coach door. “Can we drop you at home?”
He spotted the stranger. “Thank you, but no. A brisk walk will do me good right about now.” The tall man turned in the opposite direction and headed for the Strand. Phaeton nodded a bow. “Again, a memorable evening enjoyed in the company of excellent friends.”
Dodging pedestrians and a bustle of carriage traffic, he followed after a dark figure that appeared to alternate between genuine flesh and illusion. Wisps of cloud cover drifted across the moon, darkening the street ahead. Gas lamps flickered and shadows danced beneath the dim light. There, up ahead, footsteps echoed against cobblestone. Phaeton picked up the pace. He couldn’t risk losing the man for the second time in so many days.
Yes, he was quite sure the elusive silhouette he chased after would turn out to be the rooftop phantom that had frightened off the snow harpy, or whatever the odd apparition had been.
A few cobbled lanes and alleyways separated the wide thoroughfare of Strand from the Embankment along the river. He was back in familiar territory. It pained him to think this small enclave south of the theatre district had become a place of terror and death, not unlike those fifteen square blocks of Whitechapel. He needed to get to the bottom of this riddle posthaste. Catch the fiend, stop the murders, and try to keep the press out of it.
His pulse accelerated at the very idea of chimera chasing. He caught a slim glimpse of an opera cape vanishing around a bend in the lane and hastened his step.
The race was on. Each time Phaeton quickened his pace, the man ahead seemed to pull farther away. Frustrated, Phaeton sprinted down one row after another, able to catch nothing more than an occasional glimpse of a shadowed figure. He turned into a narrow passageway and ran straight into a dead end.
Certain that he had followed correctly, he scrutinized the brick wall in front of him. He pivoted slowly, scanning rooftops to each side of the alley.
“I am here.”
Phaeton jumped back. The man stood just a few paces away. Odd, he had not seen or detected the stranger’s presence. “Yes, you are.”
“Why do you follow me?”
He cleared his throat, hardly knowing where to begin. “I believe we have met twice before. Our first encounter was at Cambridge, eight years ago. Just outside The Green Dragon, I was accosted by a dangerous sort of creature with fangs and claws. Something between a dog and a wolf, but man-sized. I had more than a few pints in me, too bladdered to resist.”
Could that be a glimmer of recognition? Phaeton couldn’t be sure. “You came along and tossed the hairy beast off me as if it was a child’s toy.”
A faint, twisted smirk appeared on an otherwise perfectly chiseled and largely inscrutable face.
“I remember the incident.” The man cocked his head. “I take it you have the gift. Unusual abilities that are helpful in—what is your line of work, Mr.—?”
“Black.” Phaeton reached inside his overcoat. The stranger stepped back. This time it was his turn to grin. Slowly, he pulled out his card. “Scotland Yard. Investigating several murders down here along the Strand.”
The man grabbed him by the coat and flung him against the brick wall. Dazed, Phaeton shook off the ringing in his ears. “Very impressive.”
“You will never track down or catch this killer, Mr. Black.”
The stranger leaned in close—sniffing the ether. They each inhaled frosty air with the faint metallic scent of the other’s essence. “Yes, you have superior talents, but they are buried deep. A dangerous condition. You are both cunning and foolishly brave. These qualities attract the creature you seek, but you have not the experience to defend yourself nor the expertise to defeat her.”
Phaeton smiled. “It is a female. An Empusa, perhaps?”
The gleam in his rich, golden-green eyes narrowed. “I warn you once more, leave this to me. Continue to pursue this ancient Kemet goddess and you will be soon be dead. Another victim found along the Strand.”
Phaeton quickly ticked off his options. If there was a chance to catch this demonic virago, he could use a chap like this. “We could work together.”
He released his hold and backed off. “I do this alone.”
Phaeton was unconvinced. “Just a guess, but I think you could use some help.”
The man took one step back and leaped into air. One moment he stood in front of him, the very next—nothing. Vanished. . . but to where?
Phaeton turned in time to observe a familiar shadow leap from the top of the wall to a window ledge to the rooftop in three swift moves. Good Christ, he was seeing things. And he hadn’t had a drop of absinthe in over a day.
 
Curls of smoke and the crackle of blazing timber was all that was left of Number 67. Warehouse of the Seven Seas Tea Company, owned by Charles Jones & Partner. The enflamed storehouse in Wapping Basin had been declared lost beyond saving. The fire brigade would continue to defend the other buildings surrounding the facility until it burned to the ground.
America sat on the back of the fire wagon and struggled to keep her composure. Until now, there had been no time for tears.
Months ago, she had quit the expensive town house and fashioned a small apartment for herself in the offices of the warehouse. Now all was lost. Her clothes, a cache of money she kept hidden under the file cabinet, and an old daguerreotype, the only portrait she owned of her father. Handsome and dressed as a sea captain, the way she remembered him as a child.
She slipped into the distraction of memories. No more than six or seven years old, standing on the dock. Her father sternly protested as her mother handed her off to him. How frightened she had been on that first voyage. The nightmares. Waking in the dead of night to an unfamiliar rocking sea. Crying out, “
Maman
.”
“You’ll be needing to find another place to sit, Miss.” When she didn’t move, the fireman lifted her off the back of the hose wagon and set her on the steps of a nearby storehouse.
America stared blankly into the ruins. A blackened wood beam broke off and crashed to the ground, throwing a swathe of sparks into the air. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked. The gentle motion returned her mind to that first trip across the Atlantic. Days away from making port, she had taken a fever. Her father had sat with her, wringing out a cool damp rag and forcing down a bit of broth.
“You are a survivor,
Amiee
.” Papa had told her so just before he passed.
She would carry on, all right. And if she ever laid eyes on Yanky Willem again, she’d murder him without so much as a “good day.” She imagined her trial, and conviction, but not before blackening the man’s name in public with the truth of his crimes. She’d march to the gallows whistling.
“Miss Jones?”
Her gaze moved from the huge building in flame to a mild looking gentleman with a thick tuft of unruly grey hair falling over his forehead. He wore a dark suit and a clerical collar.
“My name is Father Lowell, Covenant of the Faithful Angel. I work with the Reverend Mother, who runs the Night Home on Lower Seymour Street—you’ve heard of us? A safe place to sleep for girls of good character.”
All she could manage was a blink.

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