Ensnared by Innocence: Steamy Regency Shapeshifter Page 16

  “Hey, stranger.” Adam greeted him when he opened the office door. “Didn’t expect you here for several more days.” He took Erasmus’s outstretched hand in a firm grip, exchanging a good shake before releasing to glance at his unusual timepiece. “Though I think you shortchanged yourself on a night or two’s sleep to arrive home so quickly, it’s good to see you back safe and sound.”

  “Even better to be returned.” Erasmus gestured to the big room and pointed overhead. “How many are still here? Seems quieter than usual this time of night.”

  Adam checked his ever-present notebook, made a notation, then snapped it shut, a habit he’d developed when he discovered one of their patrons nosing around his notes. The “gentleman” had been escorted off the premises and invited never to return. “By my count, only eight remaining tonight. The five down here and three others upstairs. And it has been quiet—all night. From what I’ve gleaned, a couple of huge and competing society to-dos have drawn most of town before everyone heads to the country for the remainder of the summer.”

  A squeal came from the elevated platform across from their small nook.

  “Well, quiet except for Lucy Mae’s shrieks.”

  Adam, who always impressed him with his ability to remain unflappable in a crisis, might’ve gotten a little red around the ears. “That woman enjoys sex with a lusty abandon I never tire of hearing.”

  “Aye, that she does.” Erasmus confirmed, having been on the receiving end of that abandon more than once himself. But not recently. Not since his lascivious interest had fixated on a sun-bronzed beauty whose adorably tilted chin just begged for kisses. “How about the rest of her crew? Are they still amusing clientele or have they retired for the night?”

  Lucy Mae’s Lusty Ladies. She might not be the oldest, but her loud, cock-sucking mouth and obvious enjoyment had earned her appreciation from the men and respect from the other women Erasmus liked to have on hand. Mostly tough, street-bred wenches who weren’t averse to a bit of rough bed sport in exchange for a good time, a full belly, and significantly more renumeration than they would earn on the street or at a common bawdy house.

  Regardless, the primary reason his club never lacked for eager, employable evening “ladies”, Erasmus knew, was the safe place to reside during non-working hours he provided on the third level—exclusive to the women, the second floor being where they entertained club patrons who didn’t want to perform, share, or be seen in the larger common area.

  Adam consulted his notes before continuing. “Janie and Lizette are upstairs with Fullerton and Kendall, and young Anne’s with Tate.”

  Ew. Tate. Only years of practice kept the revulsion from showing.

  One of several challenges with courting unsavories, seeking to befriend and align to better oversee their activities and monitor any savage feline tendencies, was that after they turned five and twenty, and without a roar to be heard or a fluffy mane in sight, it often proved difficult—if nigh on impossible—to rid himself, and his club, of the rabble. Baron Tate was one such vermin.

  Adam chin-nodded across from them, pointing to the few people remaining. “Bunnie is keeping company with Lucy—”

  Who happened to choose that very moment to traipse in front of them, dragging the hand of a disheveled lordling, the newly fortunate recipient of her attentions, over to one of the settees set up for the express purpose of illicit entertainment.

  “I stand corrected. It seems Lucy Mae has found her own patron to pleasure.”

  And if Erasmus wasn’t mistaken, she was also doing all she could to snare the interest of his friend. “There stands no rule against dallying with her if you have a mind to.”

  “Ah… No.”

  Hmm. Brief answer for his normally verbose friend. “Have you prepared that roster of members we discussed? Looked into finding an investigator to delve into anyone I’m not already familiar with?” Ascertain their family origins. With the goal of giving him a more narrow focus of who needed watching.

  “Sure have. The tricky piece in all that is finding someone we can trust who’s capable of providing what we need and, moreover, doing it discreetly.” That went without saying. “The agency sent over two, but I wasn’t favorably impressed with either.”

  “That surprises me. The agency comes well recommended.”

  “I tried to like them, but it wasn’t happening. The first was too interested in trying to ogle the women. The second seemed more focused on pelting me with questions—and I was interviewing him. No. Neither struck me as particularly capable for our needs. Just mediocre. I choose not to settle.”

  “I agree with you on that. Not with lives at stake.” And wasn’t Adam proving as particular and pernickety as he himself would have?

  “Yeah, if I don’t think they’ll do a better job than I could, we’re not hiring them.” Adam stretched his arms overhead from side to side, as though he, too, felt the weight of responsibility—which had never been Erasmus’s intent.

  When his arms came back down, Erasmus gripped one muscular forearm. “I do not consider this your problem. Trouble yourself no more—”

  “You can’t say that.” Adam slipped his arm free and gestured widely. “I may not have come into this by any explicable means, but here I am and here I’ll stay until my own quest is fulfilled. What’s more, not only did you give me a home”—Adam had converted rooms into a space of his own in the basement level—“but you’ve given me purpose. And I’m not dealing with nearly the amount of shit you are.”

  That brought a grim smile.

  “I’m good. Promise. Besides, I’ve got an appointment with another potential investigator tomorrow and one for early next week if needed.”

  “Fair enough. And for someone not interested in Lucy Mae, your gaze keeps seeking her out rather regularly.”

  That brought Adam’s attention back to him. His mustache rolled as he pursed his lips. “Didn’t say I wasn’t interested. Just that I wouldn’t have sex with her. Not while we both work here and I’m her boss.”

  “You, my friend, have some odd notions at times.”

  “Marsh and I do just fine. I prefer my bed partners to have fleas,” he said, referring to the feline who shared the basement with Adam and had free roam of the place once they were locked up for the night. “Not esteedees.”

  Another of those strange words his friend sometimes muttered. Erasmus had learned his lesson about asking, tended to let them pass without comment these days. No need to borrow his friend’s difficulties when he had enough of his own.

  With only a light grunt, Adam slid over a packet of papers. “Here. These are the first four I’ve started looking into. Didn’t want to wait.” He tapped his notebook. “I’ve added another three to that—do you recall how Tyndale asked if he could invite his two cousins? Well, they showed up while you were gone, and brought a friend. He’s an albino chap, seems cordial enough on the surface, but I don’t know, there’s something about his eyes that seem a bit peculiar.” Adam drummed fingers on the podium and winked at Lucy Mae when she slurped off the spent penis of the gentleman she’d fetched mettle on remarkably quickly, her gaze immediately going to Adam as though to make sure he’d noticed.

  Which he had.

  Neither had he lost his train of thought. “But it might be nothing. The last thing I want to do is take aversion to someone harmless just because of how they appear on the surface.”

  Adam wasn’t one to sense trouble from nothing. “Is he here now? Mayhap I could meet him, take his measure myself.”

  “Good idea. I’d like to hear your take. But he left about an hour ago, so you’ll—”

  A cacophony erupted from the portal that led to the club’s exterior, shielded from their inner sanctum by a manned entrance area.

  The heavy door separating the two thumped hard against the wall when three men shoved through. His guard and two new hires racing straight toward him. Men he’d employed recently, to keep an eye on the club and its environs. “Lord Blakely! Mr. N
icholsen! Both of ye, make haste.”

  “Come quick!” the other shouted, pointing back the way they’d come. “There’s another! The dogs are raising a rumpus—and the blood—’tis fearsome. Your missing Diana, I be thinking. He got ’er this time…”

  “Lord Blakely! Woo-hoo, Lord Blakely!” The loud, feminine summons jerked his attention back to the present.

  Erasmus glanced over and saw a couple bearing down on him. Actually, the flighty female of the two was waving, trying to snag his attention while her more sedate companion—a powerful man much on par with Erasmus himself, in size, stature and title—if not in curses and lady friends—was doing his best to hold her back without making it obvious.

  “Louise.”

  Just that one word, deliberately uttered by her companion, arrested her over-eager pursuit of Erasmus’s focus.

  But ’twas too late, for the spouting redhead, all excitable, jawing excitement, had caught Francine’s attention as well.

  As Lord Tremayne, a marquis in his own right, slowed the exuberant march of his mistress toward them, ’twas Erasmus who acceded to the inevitable.

  “Friends of yours?” Francine inquired, coming up to his side, in that soothing, poised voice of hers which never failed to do distracting things to his innards.

  “He is. We sparred at Jackson’s on a regular basis before I became quite so inundated with estate and family”—oh and pesky curse—“business.” One of the few men Erasmus didn’t have to hold back with, Tremayne being a fine and adept boxing man in his own right.

  Francine much closer, tipped her lips to his ear. “She’s not, then?”

  Louise, Last Name not Important enough to recall. Courtesan Extraordinaire.

  More sense betwixt her legs than her ears. Certainly not something he’d tell his betrothed about.

  Pretend betrothed, which you seem to have forgotten over the few days.

  Erasmus dismissed the reminder as easily as he had his prior interactions with the auburn-haired beauty.

  No denying her splendor, though. Her enthusiasm for life—always nattering on about one thing or another—the few times he’d been around her long enough to listen. Back when The Den was in its inception, before it had the name, location and elite reputation he’d worked to cultivate around the place, before Tremayne had ever made her his paramour, she’d entertained at the private parties Erasmus held.

  Hell, even before he worried about the silly curse himself, more interested in sowing his own youthful, naïve oats.

  “’Lakely,” Tremayne greeted him, the sedate confidence in his manner and bearing completely at odds with the over-excitable female at his side. The one who positioned herself between them and then—very inappropriately—proceeded to grope his backside.

  Something that might have incited an answering caress a dozen years ago but now left him cold, disgusted even, that she’d treat her protector with so little respect. Until he sensed Tremayne gripping her wrist and twisting her arm behind her back, slowly, with a chiding click of his tongue, just until she looked demurely away. Giving Erasmus the perfect moment to greet his friend.

  “Tremayne, good to see you.” Erasmus clapped his hand to the other man’s shoulder and gave a brief shake. “It’s been an age since we crossed paths.”

  Lord Tremayne gave a brief nod, a slight smile directed toward Francine, then looked back at Erasmus. “Aye, has.”

  Louise started to spout off—but the sharp shake of Lord Tremayne’s head—accompanied no doubt by the pressure on her arm, kept her quiet.

  Tremayne again looked at Francine and performed a subtle bow. “Lady Francine Mmm—”

  “Montfort, my lord.” She gave an airy laugh, accompanied by a gentle smile. “’Tis no wonder you forget. I don’t claim to know how anyone keeps all these names straight. Especially when we have only been introduced once and that years ago.”

  “’Ratulations,” sped from his mouth, the deeply rasped sentiment accompanied by a slightly wistful look, did he but know it.

  “Congratulations?” Louise trilled, a calculating expression filtering across her features as she looked between them. “You are married, Blakely?”

  “Engaged,” Erasmus all but bragged. Quite unlike him. But if Louise hadn’t known, giving her absolutely no doubt about his interest being fixed elsewhere, which would have two beneficial outcomes: one, she’d realize he was taken. Off the marriage mart. Pretend engagement, lest you forget. Two, the way she liked to socialize and chatter, everyone else in the world of demi-reps would know as well. “Aye. Delightfully so.”

  “When is the ceremony?” Demanded as though she didn’t quite believe it.

  “Louise.” Tremayne again, attempting to muzzle a dog who insisted on barking.

  Francine, eyes wide, stared up at him beneath the brim of her head-saving bonnet. When? she mouthed.

  Erasmus hugged her to him. Bent his knees slightly to kiss her cheek before straightening to answer, “November. Unless I convince her to have me sooner.”

  “Autumn.” Tremayne encompassed them both with the sincere grin that flashed across his features. “P-perfect season.”

  “Hopefully, one with less rain.” Francine recovered swiftly.

  “Oh, has not this entire week been utterly wretched?” Both arms now freed, Louise smoothed the front of her dress, making sure to draw the fabric snugly over her attributes. “It has been a veritable chore, I say, to get this one to take me out.” She rolled kohl-rimmed eyes toward the big man at her side.

  Then she wagged fingers at both her protector and toward Erasmus, but spoke to Francine. “La, we certainly do not want to bore ourselves further with the weather or boxing, which is where conversation between these two brutes is heading, I wager. Come now…” And Louise tugged Francine a few feet away, in the guise of looking at another specimen.

  More likely to glean whatever gossip she could, Erasmus knew, lending one ear to the ladies while the rest of his focus remained on Tremayne.

  “I should offer my sympathies on the loss of your father,” Erasmus told the other man. A death that had occurred not that long before, giving his well-deserving friend the title his father had worn with all the grace of a worm. “But even to an outsider, he seemed a complete arse.”

  Tremayne chuckled. “Accurate assessment.”

  Courtesy made him add, “In truth, though it does pain me to express it, you and your sister—you only have the one sibling now, correct?”

  “Aye.”

  “You are both likely much better off with you at the helm.”

  The big man sighed. Nodded. Held Erasmus’s gaze in complete accord. “Astute of you.”

  Never was one to blather unnecessary sentences when a word or two would suffice.

  He suspected the other man was painfully shy.

  Never had visited The Den. Not for an oat-sowing or even to jaw over a glass. Good cove. Solid.

  Erasmus’s right arm twitched with the need to punch him. “Miss sparring with you, Tremayne.”

  What he wouldn’t give to just let loose right now. Exorcise the fears and frustration hounding him with an exhausting round of exercise. “We’re well suited in the ring,” he added. “Not something I can say about many others.”

  Tremayne smiled, and it reached his eyes this time. “Agreed on that score.”

  Or, some devilish part of him prompted, instead of swelling your knuckles, risking a sore arm or bruise to your face, you could simply exhaust yourself swiving Francine on the way home.

  The two ladies were stirring the air between them, exclaiming over different aspects of the exhibit. At one point he caught Louise blathering about “the mummified feline in the next hall” and barely avoided cringing when Francine glanced at him, eyes wide and curious.

  A glance that told him he’d likely not be enjoying her on the way home as soon as he’d hoped.

  What happened to flirtation not frisking?

  “’Angerous…business—that.” Tremayne eye-pointed
toward where the women were jabbering like long-lost bosom chums. “Should we halt it?”

  Given how he could still hear every word… “No need. Lady Francine, however sheltered her upbringing, is wiser in the ways of the world than you might think.” Only because you continue to corrupt her. He didn’t try to stifle his self-satisfied smile at that reminder. “I am fine to let them share a moment.” For now. “As long as you have no objections?”

  Tremayne inclined his head in tacit agreement.

  “Oh. Speaking of danger with all seriousness, Tremayne, there is one thing to note. …”

  “Aye?”

  “London’s become fraught of late, with new menaces lurking everywhere these days. Cut-purses turning to cutting throats not far from my club. Mind your lady folk, do not let them venture out. Alone. Or after dark.”

  “Never.” A single, decisive nod accompanied that, his jaw and the muscles in his neck growing taut. “Sister’s in London. Shipping her b-back…” He paused to clear his throat. “To the country p-posthaste.”

  “I think that is likely wise, especially if she’s agreeable.”

  His jaw relaxed marginally. “Very.”

  “Your sister need not feel banished indefinitely. I have some men on it, patrolling and whatnot. Hoping—”

  “Heavy…burden, ’Llakely.” Tremayne shifted, frowned. Brought one hand up to massage the muscles along the side of his neck, so his words came out a bit muffled. “N-not yours t-to carry.”

  “We both know the night watchmen are not exactly up for protecting our fair citizens.” London’s ill-equipped, under-trained, often elderly and bosky watchmen, armed with nothing more than a baton and their sleepy wits, were no match for the evils prowling the city.

  “So…” Erasmus didn’t want to antagonize his friend, but was vastly curious nevertheless. And determined to change the subject. “Cannot help but notice that you are still with Louise. Have not moved on nor made any effort to set up your nursery.”