LITMIR.BIZ

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a considered pause.

      “A rose.” Jago tapped Connie’s upper right arm. “On her shoulder. Told him the chances were slim to none, but the captain thinks it could be her name.”

      Connie went quiet.

      “What?” Jago said.

      She stared at him, her face suddenly serious. “You’re sure it was a rose?”

      Jago frowned. “I’m pretty sure the captain knows what a rose looks like. Why? You saying you might’ve known her?”

      “I’m saying if her name was Rose, it’s more likely it was a coincidence.”

      Jago sat up. “Sorry, girl, you’ve lost me.”

      Connie shook her head. Her eyes held his. “A rose tattoo doesn’t have to mean it’s her name. Chances are it was an owner’s mark.”

      “Come again?”

      Connie didn’t reply but waited for the penny to drop.

      “She was branded,” Jago said.

      “It’s why some people call them stables.” Anger flared briefly in Connie’s eyes.

      “So who owns this one?”

      “Those of us in the know call her the Widow.”

      Jago grimaced. “Cheery. I can see how that’d draw the customers in.”

      Connie’s mouth moved, but if it was meant as a smile, there was no humour in it.

      “Well, she doesn’t call herself that. Her real name’s Ellie Pearce. Doesn’t like to be called that either, though. These days, she goes by Lady Eleanor Rain.”

      “Does she now? Well, I suppose it’s a tad more swish than Lady Ellie. So, what’s her story? She got a tattoo?”

      Connie ignored the quip. “Supposedly started out with her ma. The old girl ran a business over in Half Moon Alley.”

      “You mean it was a knocking shop. Nothin’ like keeping it in the family.”

      “Well, she might have turned a trick or two in her younger days, but Ma Pearce was more purveyor than prossie.”

      “What’d she purvey?”

      “Perfumes, powders and oils, machines – you name it.”

      “Machines?” Jago said, startled. “What sort of machines?”

      Connie gazed back at him despairingly, dropped her eyes towards his crotch and then rewarded him with a look.

      “Ah, right, understood; that sort. Bloody glad you and me don’t bother; all that fiddling around. Mood’s bloody gone by the time you’ve tied the damned thing on. Talk about a passion killer. Sorry, you were sayin’?”

      “Word was that her mother used to pimp Ellie out to help pay the rent when business was slack.”

      “Wouldn’t’ve thought that kind of business was ever slack,” Jago murmured, earning himself another reproving look.

      “It happens. Anyway, supposedly, she took to it like a duck to water; went independent and started charging from a room above the Rose Inn over on Chick Lane.”

      “Nice neighbourhood.”

      “Nice for her. Made enough she was able to persuade the landlord to rent her a couple more rooms round the back. Started out with three molls, I think it was. That close to Smithfield, they weren’t short of customers.”

      Customers who weren’t particular about their surroundings, Jago thought. On market days, the gutters in the adjacent lanes ran red with the blood and offal that seeped out of the nearby slaughterhouses.

      “Wasn’t long before she’d earned enough to move to better premises. I don’t recall where; Holborn, maybe. That’s when she branched out. Found herself a rich patron – Sir Nicholas Rain. Bedded and wedded the poor bugger, wore him out; inherited when he died – hence the new name – and used the legacy to expand her business. I heard most of her early clients were swells she’d met through her husband: gentlemen of the nobility and so forth. Never looked back since.”

      A retort hovered on Jago’s lips but was quelled when Connie continued, “Likes to dress her girls in the latest fashions. Her promise is they’ll satisfy all desires – and I do mean all. Her speciality’s organizing tableaux. I heard the Rites of Venus is one. She’ll arrange for half a dozen virgins to lose their cherries in front of an audience. When that’s over, the spectators are allowed to join in; so long as they pay, of course.”

      “Of course,” Jago said drily.

      “Earned herself a fortune, by all accounts; bragged it’d take a working man a hundred years to earn what she’s managed to put away for her rainy day.”

      “She sounds … enterprisin’. And all her girls carry the brand?”

      Connie nodded. “A rose. That way, anyone trying to muscle in knows they’re already spoken for.”

      “Any idea where she’s set up her stall now?”

      “Last I heard, she has a fine townhouse up near Portman Square.”

      “Nice,” Jago said. “That way she gets the majors and the marquesses.”

      Portman Square lay to the west, to the north of Oxford Street, within an area containing some of the largest private houses in London. It was also close to Portman Barracks, one of the many London barracks used in rotation by an assortment of cavalry and infantry regiments, among them the Foot Guards who were responsible for protecting the Royal Family.

      “Calls it the Salon. Landed on her feet, did our Ellie.”

      “As opposed to her back, you mean. Don’t like her much, do you?”

      Connie made a face. “Don’t know her well enough to make that judgement. Can’t fault her ambition, though; she came up the hard way – yes, you can smile – saw an opportunity and took it. If I was honest, we’re probably a lot alike, though neither of us’d care to admit it.”

      “Reckon you just did,” Jago said. “Well, I ain’t sure how much that’ll help, but I’ll pass it on; give the captain the heads-up.”

      “Yes, well, when you do, you tell him to tread softly. Our Ellie has influential friends.”

      “Can’t say as that’ll stop him askin’ awkward questions,” Jago said doubtfully.

      “No,” Connie conceded. “I don’t suppose it will.”

      “Want me to go with you?” Jago asked.

      “To a knocking shop?”

      “Don’t think they call it that. Connie tells me it’s a salon.”

      “It’s still a knocking shop,” Hawkwood said. “Calling it a salon just means it’s got carpets on the floor instead of sawdust.”

      “You want me to tag along or don’t you? Guard your back?”

      “It’s not my back I’ll be worried about. No, I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll cope. How’s the shoulder, by the way?”

      “Hurts when I laugh.” Jago grinned.

      They were seated at the window table on the first floor of the Hanged Man. Both men had their backs to the newly replaced glass with the table between them and the room.

      “In case we ’as to hide behind it,” Jago had quipped when they’d sat down.

      Hawkwood doubted lightning would strike twice in the same place in the space of a few days, but as it was Jago’s home patch he wasn’t going to argue with the former sergeant’s logic. There was no sign of Jasper, Del or Ned, but Micah was there,

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