Page 5 of The Return of the Rake

The Palace, St Giles, London,15th March 1809

“King? There’s some woman to see you.”

Jasper King looked up from the ledger he was perusing and reached for the glass of brandy at his elbow. Regarding the wiry old fellow standing in the doorway of his office, he raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t there always?”

Mr Sidney Cogger snorted and shook his head. “Nah, leastways, yeah, there is, but this ain’t that sort of woman. Not unless you go for scrawny old birds these days?”

“I do not,” King replied crisply. “So why are you bothering me?”

“She says she knows you, and that you owe her a favour.”

“Do I, by God?” he replied, his interest piqued. It was a rare event for him to be in debt to anyone for anything, so if the woman spoke true…. “Is her name Fairway?”

“Aye, that’s it.”

King shoved to his feet. “Show her in.”

Sid looked somewhat startled by this unprecedented behaviour but knew better than to comment upon it. He hesitated though, causing King to quirk an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Lawson. He’s causing trouble again, stirring the men up. Thought you’d want to know.”

King nodded, though it was hardly news. Lawson was dangerous, which was the only reason King kept him around, where he could see him. The devil wanted to oust King and thought he was clever enough to do it too. Sadly for him, he was as subtle as a brick and King could read his next move before he thought it himself.

“I know it. Don’t trouble yourself.”

Cogger nodded and ducked out of the room and, a moment later, Mrs Hilda Fairway appeared before him. She was certainly older than he remembered, but it was her, right enough.

“Well, well,” he said, grinning. “I never thought I’d see the day you walk into my den of vice.”

The lady sniffed and shook her head. “Don’t mean I approve, but I’ve need of you. I can’t pretend I don’t. I did you a kindness once, so I’m asking you to return the favour you said you owed me. I wouldn’t if it were just for me, for I don’t believe kindness has a price. I did what I did because I wished to, and want no reward for it, but this is more in the way of business and the lady is in a terrible fix, so I hope you’ll help her for my sake.”

“A lady?” he asked, curious now. “Come, sit down and tell me what you’re mixed up in. Helping lame ducks again, is it?”

“I’ve no time for sitting, King,” she said tartly. “And the lady ain’t no lame duck. She’s been treated ill by every man what’s come her way, and I mean to see her safe, and with the means to keep herself that way.”

“Someone has harmed her?” he asked, his brow furrowing. King was no knight in shining armour, not by a long chalk, but he reviled men that would lay hands on a woman.

“Not physically, but they’ve dealt her a blow, nonetheless. She needs to start again, somewhere people won’t think to look for her. A place where she can have a home.”

“Is she respectable?” he asked, his mind turning over the possibilities.

The lady glared at him, which spoke eloquently enough.

“All right, don’t eat me,” he said, amused by the fury sparkling in her eyes. “Does she have funds?”

“Not much ready money, that’s the problem. But she has these.” Mrs Fairway reached inside her coat and pulled out a flat leather box. When she opened it, King could only stare in astonishment.

“Christ almighty,” he exclaimed, earning himself a rap across the knuckles as he reached for the box.

“Don’t blaspheme,” Mrs Fairway scolded.

King looked down at her, bemused, wondering if she knew anything about his reputation these days, and what kind of punishment might be expected from a man who ruled the rookeries in these parts.

“I beg your pardon,” he said sardonically, pronouncing the words in the careful manner he had been taught, the one that erased his past as the bastard son of a fisherman, and even those years of living rough in the gutters of St Giles, and made him sound like an educated man—like a gentleman. Though if there was one thing Jasper King was not, it was that.

He looked down at Hilda Fairway, wondering what she saw when she looked at him. Not the scrawny lad she had saved from starvation, that was for sure. He was a large fellow now by anyone’s standards. His dark gold skin spoke of warmer climes, for his mother had been a beautiful Italian woman who had arrived with a travelling circus in the town he had been born. She had returned a year later and left him on his father’s doorstep and never looked back. His father would never say more than that she’d been a whore. The town had labelled her a gypsy, seeing as she travelled with them, but King’s father had said she hailed from Italy. King neither knew nor care if he was half Romani or half Italian; it made no difference to how much people disliked him for his heritage. He was only surprised his father hadn’t drowned him on sight, for he was a nasty brute whose first love had been rum, followed only by the sea. King wondered idly if one of the two had killed him yet. He certainly hoped so.