Page 17 of The Return of the Rake

Certainly, he would far rather have braved that mixed company, as appalling as his reception might have been, than spend an evening with Bill Jenner. But he’d said he would, so he determined to get it over with. At least he might find out something interesting about the people he used to know.

The Dog and Duck was some distance out of town, crooked and crouched on the edge of thick woodland that had crept closer to the once handsome building than King remembered. It almost seemed as if the place was aware of the town’s disapproval and was trying to lie low.

The windows glowed in the dim evening light, the thick glass panes already fogged up, showing nothing but dark, shadowy figures moving on the other side.

King sighed, aware of the dangers lurking in such a place. The Dog and Duck had always had a shady reputation, a reputation he doubted had changed much since he’d left if Bill Jenner drank here. He did not doubt that Bill had lost no time in putting the word around that Jasper King was back and wondered how many men would fancy their chances.

There had always been someone ready to start a fight when he was a young man, usually for reasons King could not fathom past the fact he was the illegitimate son of a belligerent arsehole, and a good looking fellow the girls batted their eyelashes at. That alone had been enough to make half the town dislike him on sight. In those days he’d relished brawling too, never shy of an altercation when he was so filled with rage and resentment there was enough of it to go around.

But he’d had his fill of violence in the years since he’d left this place, and whilst he’d not back down if pressed, he had no desire to sully his hands nor ruin his suit, which had cost a small fortune. He set his jaw in a hard line as he pushed through the door, meeting the eyes of anyone who looked his way.

“Well, if it ain’t his bleedin’ highness,” boomed a slurred voice from beside the huge inglenook fireplace. “It’s me old mate, Jasper King. Good evening, your majesty,” Bill said, trying and failing to make an elegant bow and almost pitching headfirst into the fire.

King reached out and steadied him before he did so, though he’d more of a mind to give him a push and watch him burn.

“Sit down,” he said in disgust, shoving him backwards so he fell haphazardly into the chair he’d just vacated. “And shut your damned mouth.”

“Why?” Bill said, not doing anything of the sort. “It’s not every day a fellow has his best mate turn up, and looking like a bleedin’ toff, too. What d’ye do, Jasper, rob the Bank of England?”

“I’d treat the fellow with a little more respect, William, my old friend,” said a cool, sinuous voice from the shadows that raised the hairs on King’s neck. “You might be fool enough not to know with whom you sup, but I’d bring a long spoon if I were you.”

King stared into the dark corner, trying to make out the figure huddled there, but the hat he wore covered much of his face and he seemed disinclined to come into the light.

“What you talkin’ about?” Bill said, belligerent to the last.

“King of the Rookeries, they call him in London. Don’t cross him, Bill. Might be the last thing you do.”

“You seem to know a good deal about me, friend,” King said, wondering if he’d ever come across the man before. “Yet you have me at a disadvantage. That’s not something I enjoy.”

There was a sudden chuckle, and the fellow stood, making King instantly alert, tensed for an ambush, but the fellow only shook his head. He held up his hands, long elegant fingers covered in sparkling rings that glinted as he took the hat from his head and cast it aside. Hair so pale it glowed in the dim light made the man look somehow unearthly, an impression in no way diminished by his face. King wondered just how popular the fellow was with the ladies, for he had the face of an angel, though what an angel would be doing in the Dog and Duck boggled the mind.

“In these parts they call me Boreas, and I’ve no quarrel with you, King of the Rookeries. We’re peaceful fellows here, are we not, lads?”

“Aye, Captain.” The words rumbled about the place, making the hairs on the back of King’s neck prickle and in no way convincing him of his safety.

“So long as you keep to your kingdom, we’re the friendliest of folk,” Boreas added softly, before giving King a slap on the shoulder, and disappearing out of the door. The rest of the pub returned to what they were doing, apparently paying King no more mind.

“Who was that?” King asked Bill, who eyed him sullenly and held up an empty tankard.

Giving into the inevitable, King went to the bar and ordered a bottle of brandy. Mr Dawes, a fellow who’d clipped King round the ear times beyond counting when he was a lad and come to this place to find his da, gave him a sour look.

“Come ’ome, have ye?” he asked, setting the bottle and a glass down before him.

“No,” King replied, taking them both up and throwing the coins on the filthy bar before walking away again.

He put the bottle in front of Bill, who snatched it up, cradling it to his chest like a mother holding an infant. He grinned at King, showing a missing front tooth and others in varying stages of decay.

King considered how Bill had succumbed to the life their fathers had led. Before King had scarpered, Bill had said he was for the navy, but King hadn’t been so keen on that. His father had served as a young man, and his stories were not the kind to make a fellow keen to try his luck. Though his father had never had a good word for anyone or anything so perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad. As young men, they’d sworn they’d do better, that they’d get out and make their fortunes, anything but go to sea and risk their lives for a meagre living. Most of that pitiful wage would then inevitably be used to drown themselves in brandy instead of saltwater.

Would that have been him too if the town had not turned against him and forced him out? Had they unwittingly done him a favour? How it would stick in their throats to know it, he thought with wry amusement.

Bill tugged the cork from the bottle with his teeth and upended it into his tankard, filling it nigh to the brim, before giving King a small measure. He grinned, a malicious curve of his lips, but King did not bite. He could knock Bill down with ease should it come to it, but he’d just as soon not touch the filthy bastard if he could help it. As it was, he took care to sit far enough away that the smell was not so overpowering, but the combined perfumes of a fellow who cared little for himself or anything, fish, and drink, was enough to make King’s stomach roil.

Getting soft, my lad, he thought with a laugh, for the stench of the rookeries was so foul it lived in the nostrils for days and weeks after one had left the place behind. Sometimes he wondered if it had ingrained itself into the very fabric of his soul.

“Who is Boreas?” he said, returning to the question he’d asked before.

“Ask me no questions, I tells you no lies,” Bill replied, chuckling as he worked his way down the tankard of brandy with impressive speed. “Boreas weren’t here, nor nowhere. He’s a phantom, a trick of the light. Don’t exist.”