An Honorable Deception (The Imposters #3)

Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

O ne wouldn’t have thought that a place with so many secrets would really trust them to something as easily stolen as a pin—but a mere two minutes later, Yates found himself ushered into that side door of the Empire House, and the doorman hadn’t done more than look down at his golden admission ticket and shown him in.

Music came softly from a gramophone somewhere. A light floral scent filled the air. His gaze moved over furnishings that could have come from the richest manor house, all polished to a shine, unmarred by dust, no fabrics frayed.

A far cry from any charity headquarters he’d ever been in. But then, in none of those had the people they were supposed to be helping been stationed about the room like furniture either. Nor wearing scant imitations of evening gowns.

“Fairfax! Shaken the brother-in-law, I see?”

Dunne. He’d known he’d likely run into him if he followed so quickly through the door, but it had been a risk he’d decided could work to his advantage. With one more silent prayer, he pushed aside the disgust and put on the same sort of smile he’d seen Arnold wearing. “After much maneuvering.”

Dunne laughed and moved to his side, slapping a friendly hand to his shoulder. He had a wine glass in his hand and was motioning toward a girl who couldn’t be more than twelve but who carried a tray. “Who took pity on you and gave you the pin? Vernon? Westcott? Not Rheams. I daresay he’s had his hands full with his wife’s passing, poor chap.”

Poor chap, indeed. Yates laughed, too, and waved the girl away, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stomach even a sip of wine. And not trusting a thing in this place.

The girl’s eyes were utterly empty. Dark, shadowed pools of nothing in a symmetrical face whose ethnicity he couldn’t readily place. She was the youngest person he saw in here at the moment, and she wasn’t dressed to entice ... but did that mean anything?

He dragged himself back to the conversation. “I’m not telling. It makes it back to Sir Merritt, and he’ll decide I can’t talk to him anymore either.”

Dunne didn’t seem to find the answer suspicious. He chuckled around a sip of his wine and then used the glass to motion about the room. “Well. This is just the place to show a young lord like yourself what his empire has to offer. What do you fancy, hmm? A native snow fairy from Canada? Princess from Guiana? Tropical queen from Jamaica?” He indicated a woman to go along with each location.

Dear Lord. He had no words to add to the prayer. Nothing but the plea inherent in the name itself. Lord. Lord!

They had bruises, those women. On their arms, on their necks. One’s wrists bore burn marks that could only be from the chafing of rope or cuffs. And though they smiled, only a fool could miss that it was false. Costumes, like the too-revealing gowns.

But then, society had plenty of fools. And far, far worse.

He took a moment to watch the other men in the room. They were drinking, smoking, but their roaming eyes said their purpose was singular. A different sort of woman moved among them, too, dressed in a sensible ensemble, looking as though she ought to be presiding over a family dinner.

She stopped beside one of the gents, and Yates heard him whisper a word that made his skin crawl. “Younger?”

The woman smiled. “Yes, my lord. Upstairs.”

Dunne didn’t rush him, thinking he was perusing the dozen women scattered within view. He kept pointing out this or that one, saying things like “Bornean priestess? Mermaid from Belize?”

“India?” He croaked out the word, but with a bit of luck, Dunne would attribute it to either his youth or his eagerness.

“Ahhh. The mysterious subcontinent. We have two lovely goddesses to tempt your taste for spice. Come, through here.”

He followed, praying God was walking right beside him. He couldn’t be, it seemed. Where could He possibly be in this? How could His holiness coexist with a den of sin?

And still, Yates had to believe He was. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there . This, Yates was sure, was hell—or at least its antechamber. But the psalmist had promised His presence.

This next room had a piano, and a vaguely familiar gent sat at the bench, a woman with gloriously rich ebony skin draped over him, laughing a laugh that was as much illusion as the others’ smiles.

Dunne led him toward two other girls, both Indian. He couldn’t tell their ages beneath the heavily kohled eyes, the gold draping their heads, the brilliantly colored saris. Was either of them Samira?

Alethia had provided no photograph, and her general description could have applied to either of these two. But she’d given him one distinguishing characteristic—a perfect line of three identically sized small moles in front of her right ear.

“What do you think?” Dunne moved to the woman on the left and trailed the back of his hand down the side of her face—no moles. “This is Aditi. She has been with us for a year now. Haven’t you, my lovely?”

“Yes, sahib .”

“And one of our newest treasures,” Dunne said, moving to the other and caressing her arm. She flinched. His caress tightened to a grip. “ Very new.” He turned back to Yates with a lifted brow. “If you’re seeking a recommendation, my lord, I would think you’d more enjoy Aditi. Saanvi still has much to learn.”

Saanvi!

He pursed his lips, looking from one to another while doing his best to study only their faces. “I don’t know. Neither is quite what I had in mind. Do you have no others from India?”

He held Saanvi’s gaze as he asked it, lifted his brow a smidge.

She couldn’t know why he did it. Couldn’t know what he was asking. Couldn’t know he was a friend.

But something flickered in her eyes, and she darted them upward, toward the ceiling, her chest heaving with a quick, shaky breath.

Dunne had released her arm and was turning back to Yates. He regarded him evenly, but again, not with suspicion. With calculation. “You have made your donation?”

Donation —was that what they called it? Were these men really not only paying for the indulgence of their vices but calling it an act of charity?

Yates forced a smirk. “Would I be here if I hadn’t?”

The maths practically marched through the older man’s eyes. The youngest man in Lords. From a family known for squandering their money on diversions. Unmarried, ostensi bly resentful of his sister and her strict husband. A man with many, many years of “donations” ahead of him.

Dunne’s smile was absolutely predatory. “There’s one more. A private reserve, not offered to the public. But for you, my lord...”

Yates had to work to keep his fingers from curling into his palm. To make his smile go smug. He was going to rip this place apart— that was the only thought that allowed it. He didn’t know how, but he would. “Private reserve sounds perfect.”

He glanced at Saanvi again as he turned to follow Dunne out, but her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips moving. He wasn’t certain at first what words she silently spoke, but then the movements aligned with the very ones parading through his mind. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...

Dunne led him up the staircase, though he was quick to direct him to the left when the older woman charged from a room, hands fluttering. “So sorry, my lord. She must have stepped out for the necessary. Wait there, I’ll bring her to you directly.”

Yates had only a moment to hope that the woman’s anxiety meant what it sounded like before Dunne gave a rap on an ornate door, pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, and unlocked it.

The baron wouldn’t know, of course, that Yates was studying each notch and matching it mentally to his own set of master keys. The key wasn’t the most popular one—but he’d wager number three would open this door.

A woman scurried away from the wardrobe as the door swung open, her eyes a mix of confusion, outrage, and something far more panicked. She wore a sari, but she had no kohl on her eyes, no headpiece, no jewelry.

There were, however, three tiny moles lined up in front of her right ear.

Samira .

She looked from Dunne to Yates and back again, the outrage building with each shift of her eyes. “What is the meaning of this? You know well his lordship is due—”

“In an hour.” Dunne’s tone wasn’t one Yates had heard from him before. Harsh, commanding. Though he flashed a smile at Yates as bright as ever. “I have no doubt you possess the wisdom to leave before that, hmm? And with perhaps a few minutes to spare so she can tidy herself up?”

Was it wrong of him to pray that before this was over, he had the opportunity to punch this man in the nose?

Yates turned his gaze back on Samira. He knew from Alethia’s description that she was twenty-seven years old, but she looked far younger than that. Had he passed her on the street, he would have thought her no more than sixteen. No doubt in part it was because she was so small. Perhaps five one, if that, and maybe six-and-a-half stone. There were a few lines around her eyes, yes, but if one wasn’t looking that closely, she could easily have been mistaken for an adolescent.

New unease unfurled in his stomach. He sent a questioning, uncertain look to Dunne. “Who is his lordship? Someone I should be concerned about angering?”

Dunne flicked a hand. “Leave him to me. He is a practical man; he’ll understand the importance of treating our newest patron well. If she suits your fancy? She is the last of our Indian stock, but we do have a beautiful Pakistani flower the next room over who ought to be free in a few moments. The look is similar.”

A punch in the nose might not suffice. He might have to deliver one to his gut too. Yates had never in his life got in a scrum that was anything but fun between friends, but his pacifism might not stand up to the Empire House. “This one will do.” He added a smirk for good measure, having a feeling that if any of his mounting thoughts of violence seeped into it, Dunne would find it normal. “He’ll never know I was here.”

“No!” Samira’s hand trembled as she lifted it, taking a step toward Dunne. “His lordship—”

“If he wanted you as a mistress, my dear,” Dunne said, flexing his fingers in a clear threat, “he oughtn’t to have set you up here . Leave Babs to me. You take care of Lord Fairfax.”

Babs? He filed it away. No point, really, in trying to assign the nickname to anyone when Samira could tell him to whom it belonged momentarily.

Dunne left without another word. Samira’s trembling spread from her hands to the rest of her. Yates waited only long enough to make certain the man’s footsteps had taken him out of earshot, and then he lifted his hands, palms out. “This isn’t what you think. I’m a friend of Alethia’s—I’m here to rescue you.”

Her nostrils flared. “What?”

He strode over to the window and yanked open the curtains. “Blast.” It was barred. But the grate was ornate, decorative, its bars widely enough spaced that it clearly wasn’t meant to keep a ninety-pound woman in , but rather a full-grown burglar out . He nodded. “It can still work. You’re small. I’ll have to go out the front, but I’ll make my way below and catch you.”

“I am not going anywhere with you.”

He spun around, not because she sounded as though she doubted his story, but at the note of determination in her voice. His brows drew down. “Forgive me. I ought to have explained myself better. You see, when Alethia called at the Ayahs’ Home and you weren’t there—”

“Please, my lord.” She stepped forward, holding up a hand of her own. “Saying Alethia was enough to tell me your purpose, I assure you. But it’s for Alethia that you must leave. Now. Pretend you were never here, that you never saw this. Tell her you couldn’t find me.”

Pretend it never happened . If only anything ever worked that way. Yates shook his head. “Why?”

“Because this has nothing to do with me . It’s about her, about controlling her—perhaps hurting her.”

“He’s already tried.” He still didn’t know who he was, this Babs, but he was absolutely confident that whoever “his lordship” was, he had something to do with the attempt on Alethia’s life. “She was shot three times last week.”

“What?” The tried ought to have reassured her, but Samira sank onto the edge of the four-poster bed, eyes glazed. “I didn’t think he would go so far. He only took me to try to force her to keep quiet. Prove he could still exert control. But he swore he wouldn’t hurt her if I came quietly!”

“She’s recovering, and he doesn’t know where.” He paused, shook his head, the pieces not quite fitting together in his head yet. “And how could you believe him anyway? Someone who would have a part in this?”

She trembled again, and this time she squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around herself in a clear attempt to hold herself together. “It was ... that was always the arrangement. Before. Me for her.”

The sick feeling that had been curling through him threatened to choke him now. “Before.” She had to mean when she and Alethia were a regular part of each other’s lives. She had to mean while they were in India.

But that would mean when Alethia was a child . Who had Samira protected her from? Who had she offered herself to in place of an innocent girl? Someone who had been there. Someone who was now here. Someone whose name lent itself to Babs . Could it be . . . . no. Barremore? The name wasn’t an exact match, but nicknames rarely were, and it did at least begin with the same two letters.

Yates wanted to deny the implications. Wanted to think that no gentleman—no father —would ever even think to harm his own daughter in such a depraved way. Would threaten to kill her if she revealed his darkest secret or use someone she loved to control her and make her stay silent.

But he’d seen too much of the world behind his Mr. A disguise. He’d watched Lady Hemming hold a gun on Lavinia. He knew that parents were as capable of atrocities as anyone else.

He dragged in a long breath to keep himself calm. Samira now. Babs later. “Alethia is safe. She’s at my estate in Northumberland, and I assure you no one will get past my security. You needn’t worry about her—but she is quite rightly worried for you .”

She was shaking her head. “You think any security can keep her safe for long? Any gate? Any guard?”

If it was her own father threatening her? Dread pulled him down. They’d left a note for her parents. He’d know where she was. He and Lady Barremore had returned from that house party a few days ago. Who knew if Vernon and Rheams and Dunne had confessed the failure yet or if they were still trying to cover it up, but he would find out. There was that second letter he’d left for the lady.

So then, they’d move her. To the Abbey, for now. Then perhaps to Merrit’s uncle Preston’s estate. Who would think to look there? He conjured up a smile. “I do have a lion with a stellar track record for protecting women in danger.”

She blinked at that, and the surprise of it had her arms dropping down a notch. That seemed promising. “I beg your pardon?”

He would have clarified. Would have tried another argument. If a sneeze hadn’t come from the wardrobe.

They both froze. Yates spun on his heel. Samira stood up, but if she meant to stop him, she wasn’t fast enough. He was already opening the wardrobe door.

A girl sat on the floor of it, her knees pulled up to her chest. She too had the features that said she’d come from India, a sheepish smile still innocent enough to make him think she hadn’t been here long. And when she said, “Pleasure to meet you, my lord,” it was a decidedly Cockney accent.

He didn’t know whether to smile or frown. He settled for crouching down so that he didn’t tower over her, and so that he wasn’t blocking the light. Even with it, he couldn’t tell how old she was. Eight? Ten? “And here my father swore there were no closet elves left in England, that the brownies had scared them off.”

The girl’s grin went brighter.

He held out a hand. “Yates.”

“Lucy.” She shook his hand like she greeted lords all the time and scurried out of the closet. Her gaze moved to Samira. “You should let him help you.”

Samira folded her arms over her chest. “I will let him help you .”

“Barclay will come for me. I told you, I only need a window. This place can’t keep me in.”

“Barclay?”

She smiled again. “My brother. More or less.”

Barclay didn’t sound like the name of an Indian lass’s brother—but then, Lucy didn’t sound like her own name either. “Where are you from, Lucy?”

“Poplar.” She darted over to the window and examined it with the same practiced eye he’d used. “But that’s not where the marks are. I was in Mayfair when they nabbed me yesterday and hauled me to this place—though apparently the ‘special patron’ they nabbed me for didn’t show until now. Barclay’d have been in a panic when I wasn’t back by nightfall, though, and my sisters will be scouring the city for me. Now’s definitely the time to get out.”

His brows rose a bit more with each additional piece of information. “Sisters?” he said. Marks? he thought.

She opened the window and peered down as best she could, given the grate. He had no doubt she could fit between the bars, but she eased back down off her toes, uncertainty on her face. “These stories are farther apart than I thought. Cathedral ceilings on the ground floor, I suppose?”

Too far a drop for her comfort, it seemed. Yates slipped his hands into his pockets. “If you don’t want to wait for Barclay, I’ll catch you. For that matter, if you’re not fond of heights, I can carry you down.”

She blinked at him like an owl. “The stairs? You seem to’ve pulled the wool over those blokes’ eyes, Yates, but they’re not going to let you carry me out of here. Five minutes ago was the first I’d been out of their guard’s sight.”

“Down the wall .” He nodded toward it. Grinned. “I’ll have to go down the stairs first. No way I’ll fit through there. But then I’ll climb up. You can slip through, get on my back. I’ll climb down with you.” Darkness had claimed the cityscape at this point, and these windows faced nothing but the blank brick wall of the next building, a narrow ribbon of alleyway between them. The perfect cover.

Samira moved to Lucy’s side, storm clouds in her eyes. “What kind of lord scales walls? And has lions on his estate?”

He shrugged. “The kind who gets bored easily?”

Lucy was nodding. “Deal. And then you can come back for Samira.”

“Deal,” he echoed.

But Samira backed up a step. “Take Lucy out. See her back to her family—but I’m not going.”

Maybe, if he couldn’t hear the shadowed symphony of dread and fear and resignation in her voice, he would have thought she really didn’t want to leave. That she was bound to his lordship by some twisted form of loyalty or affection.

But it wasn’t that. He knew it wasn’t. She honestly believed that if she stepped out of this house, Alethia would be harmed.

He prayed she would see his sincerity when he swore, “I’ll protect her, Samira. She’s safe. She’ll stay that way.”

“She’ll never be safe. Don’t you see?” She lifted a shaking hand to dash away the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. “Not if she thinks she has to save me, if she lets him control her with me. Tell her you found me dead—that’s the only hope she has. Tell her it was a random mugging, not to go looking. Don’t let her dig into this. Please .”

It was too late for that, and she had to know it—even if she didn’t know that another of Alethia’s friends had already fallen to a supposedly random mugging. That was probably why her tears still streamed down her cheeks, why her hands still shook.

“Victoria Rheams contacted her, said they had to meet, that she had information about you. Only Mrs. Rheams never showed up, so Alethia went to the Ayahs’ Home to see you,” he said softly. Gently. “But you were gone. She saw Rheams and Vernon taking Saanvi out—drugged. Hours later, someone named Courtney and another man barged into the church where Alethia had gone and shot her. We learned later that Mrs. Rheams never arrived for lunch be cause she’d already been attacked too. The injuries killed her a few days later.”

He was making a few assumptions on motivations and the identity of the gunmen, but they seemed reasonable. And it ought to demonstrate that things had already gone too far for Alethia to keep quiet and let it go away. Someone had already died, quite possibly to protect this secret, if she’d learned of it.

The way Samira blanched supported his hypothesis. “She saw me—Mrs. Rheams, at the Ayahs’ Home. She was volunteering that day. She saw him getting into his car and ... and followed us. Here. Into the back rooms the ladies are never supposed to see. I tried to signal her to leave it alone, but that woman.” She squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head. “She always thought herself unstoppable. Thought she alone, with her grit and determination, could right the wrongs of the world.”

And then Mrs. Rheams had contacted Alethia. Perhaps had noted their appointment in her book but hadn’t corrected the time. Those men, those murderers must think Alethia knew the same things about this place that Victoria Rheams had learned, about how the board of directors found the “poor creatures” they were going to “help.”

“Do you think ... do you think Rheams would have had his own wife killed to protect this place?”

Samira’s face twisted. “From what I’ve seen at the Home, he’d have had her killed just to shut her up in general. One time last year, I overheard her hissing at him that she would reveal to the world all his sins, all his secrets, that she would tell her father and ruin him. When he pointed out it would ruin her, too, she only laughed and said her life was a ruin already. Though she must have kept quiet, for some reason, about whatever else she’d discovered. But this?” She motioned to the room, shook her head again. “Mrs. Rheams would not countenance this. Would not let it go on once she knew. She’d tear her own life apart to stop it, without a doubt.”

Only the board members had torn it apart first, quite literally. And instead of helping the friend whose ayah had been kidnapped, she’d put Alethia into their crosshairs too. Alethia was a loose thread they couldn’t leave hanging. She wasn’t a child they could claim misunderstood. She was one of the most well-regarded young ladies of society. If she decried Lords Vernon and Dunne, if she pointed the finger at Rheams and the others, she wouldn’t be ignored, especially if she got her parents ...

A wrinkle that made it even more dangerous. What would happen if a young lady denounced her own father? She wouldn’t be believed so easily then. Other men, yes, perhaps, if her parents stood with her. But if they didn’t ... she could be labeled a lunatic. That accusation wouldn’t work for anyone else, but it would for her father.

Regardless, it would be messy. It could spell disaster for a political career. But if one’s only daughter were brutally killed—in a church, no less— that would give one a platform for whatever reforms one wanted to spearhead in Lords. That would get one limitless press. Allow one to tell whatever narrative would best suit one’s purposes.

Samira sank back to a seat on the edge of the bed, pulling him back to the conversation. “Weiss would have been the other thug. Courtney and Weiss.”

He nodded and noted the name. “You’re not protecting her by staying here, Samira.”

A loud guffaw of laughter broke through from below. Yates wasn’t surprised when moments later someone scratched at the door, and the woman’s voice said through it, “His lord ship is here. Hurry out now—we’ll give you five minutes but can’t promise more. You’ll have a credit for next time, though.”

Samira’s expression shifted back to resigned. “Go. Get Lucy out. There’s no time for anything else.”

Lucy was already scrabbling into the window.

Yates held Samira’s gaze. “Tomorrow.”

No hope flickered in her eyes. “He’ll know they let you in. He’ll have moved me somewhere else by then.”

“Then—”

“I can take care of myself, my lord. I’ve been doing so my entire life. You keep Alethia safe.”

He didn’t like it. But he didn’t know what else to do. “You could be wrong. I’ll check. Promise me you’ll come with me tomorrow if you can.”

Something about her shrug put him oddly in mind of Lavinia when she’d capitulated to the insistence of food. An acknowledgment of a need—and a deeper knowledge that it would change nothing. “If so, then yes.”

It would have to do for now. After a glance and a nod to Lucy, he let himself out of the room.