“I’d wager Aldermaston would be none too pleased either.”
Beth’s smile faded and she tugged on his arm. “Come on, brother. Take me home.”
“Do you remember us locking you in the nursery closet when you wouldn’t stop following us all over creation and back, pestering us to no end?”
She pursed her lips. “Yes. You were horrible brothers.”
“I still know where the key is.”
“Bloody rotter.”
Robert laughed and relented, offering his arm to his sister. “Do we have time to collect my hat and your pelisse before you fall prone at my feet? We will have to wait until they bring the carriage around.”
She took his arm, and they turned toward the terrace doors. “Yes. But Ludlow went to fetch the carriage. It should be waiting.”
“So he is efficient as well as patient.”
“Will you—was that a compliment?”
“I am, my dear Elizabeth, full of surprises.”
*
Monday, 18 July 1825
Campion’s Gentlemen’s Emporium
Shortly after midnight
She almost missedhim.
Eloise knew she would never be able to follow Robert from Ashton House to Campion’s Gentlemen’s Emporium, especially if he hired a hackney. So, having obtained the direction of the club from one of Adrienne’s seamstresses, she donned the outfit her friend had provided, took her own hackney, and waited in an alcove near the club to watch for his arrival.
Delie, whose feathers were never ruffled, had a moment of panic when she realized what Eloise intended, and both Eloise and Adrienne had to assure her that the plan would be successful. After all, Adrienne had won her shop at a similar club because she had been disguised as a man—a disguise she continued to wear on a regular basis, for reasons neither of them questioned.
Adrienne had schooled Eloise and Delie on how to wrap Eloise’s breasts, how to keep a collar turned high with a scarf secured around it. How to braid Eloise’s hair so that it could be wound tightly about the crown of her head and covered with a hat. How to walk, to never remove her gloves. To speak low and infrequently.
Eloise had sent Delie home in the carriage, with a note to her father that she would be spending the night with her friend Adrienne—that the late hour meant it would be safer than trying to hire a hackney.
She was thirty years old and they trusted her. Eloise only hoped this night would not destroy that trust.
Lord Robert had arrived at the hell just after midnight, earlier than Eloise had expected, so she had been in the alcove a scant few minutes. She wanted to wait until she knew he was inside to lessen her chances of being discovered and ejected before he got there. She hesitated, then gained entrance with a group of boisterous university lads, obviously out for a gambol, slipping past the guard at the door with a bare glance.
Once inside, Eloise fought the urge to gawk as if she were a new calf. The cacophony of the main room swept over her, almost making her stumble. She moved quickly away from the door and found a support pillar, pressing against it to regain her sense of balance and orient herself to the facility.
The massive main room stretched before her, at least two hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. The roof rose forty feet over her head, the bare beams and metal roof creating an echo chamber for shouts and catcalls. Somewhere a bass voice slurred drunkenly and loudly through an ancient sea shanty. Eight chandeliers of at least one hundred candles each cast golden light and long shadows over the room, and the smoke from the candles and hundreds of cigars and cheroots massed near the ceiling.
The smells rolled over her in waves, almost as overwhelming as the sights and sounds. The varied smokes blended with the odors of sweat, a dozen perfumes and oils, and fried bread. Her eyes watered, and Eloise brushed away the tears, trying to decide what to do next.
Gaming tables—at least thirty of them—were interspersed on the open floor, each crowded with eager gamblers, painted women, and hovering guards. The guards—huge men wearing black and green armbands—moved easily through the crowds, their eyes darting and watchful.
Numerous doors lined the wall opposite the entrance, and servers, gaudily dressed women, and other workers moved in and out of them in what appeared to be a chaotic and riotous motion but soon fell into a type of repeating rhythm. A second-level walkway circled the room, with eight narrow staircases leading up from various points on the floor. As with the first level, several doors led into hidden parts of the building... with the exception of an enclosed area centered against the back wall. There the walkway dead-ended on both sides of room that filled the walkway and jutted out three feet beyond it. In the center of the room’s outer wall a large plate glass window overlooked the floor. Behind the window stood two men, their focus on the gaming activity below them.
One of them was Lord Robert Ashton, now dressed as the hell’s floor manager in a dark green suit, tartan waistcoat, and a green highland bonnet. Eloise assumed the man beside him could only be the notorious Bill Campion, a black man who had come to England with his American master, stayed on as a free man, and used his boxing and business skills to build a minor empire among the gamblers, drinkers, and whoremongers of London’s underbelly. Rumor had it that Campion now controlled more wealth than many of the aristocrats he catered to at his gaming tables.
Looking around her at the red faces of men desperate to place the next bet, Eloise could understand why.
She jumped as a hand slid along her back and up her side, and Eloise found herself looking into the brown, kohl-ringed eyes of a young woman with a friendly smile. Her bright red bodice hung off one shoulder, and her black muslin skirt fell in soft layers around ample hips and a flat stomach.
