The Curse of the Brimstone Contract Read online

  She must know how Lady Grey had really died. Yet she had no starting point. The Scotland Yard investigator would either laugh at her or, if he believed her, might somehow decide she or their business was responsible. After all, the scarf came from her hand. And if Scotland Yard dug deeper and discovered the truth of her father’s illness? No one trusted the insane.

  Help was what she needed.

  She took the letter she’d stuffed into the pocket of her dress. The head cook’s advice couldn’t help her but it had been given out of kindness and concern. It wouldn’t hurt.

  She settled on her bed to read.

  Dear Mother:

  Gregor Sherringford. I want you to remember that name in your prayers because it is to him I owe my continued employment and to him that Lady Sarah owes her life and her happiness.

  I could not tell you in my last letter but Lady Sarah disappeared a fortnight ago. Everyone in the family, especially her father, was beside themselves, thinking she might have run off. After a week without word from Lady Sarah, the earl became distraught and hired this Gregor Sherringford. He claimed to be a consulting detective. I am not certain what that means, but he certainly gained a foothold on the situation at once.

  Within two nights, Lady Sarah was back under our roof. Oh, she was a sight! I spent over an hour helping her clean up. She had a horrible bruise on her shoulder. She wept silently in my arms.

  I could offer her no real comfort, save the safety of her own bed, as she was correct. Her reputation was ruined. So unfair! After she fell asleep, I crept down the stairs to have a nip of sherry myself from the cook, as Lady Sarah’s distress was contagious.

  I heard voices in the library and crept closer. Lady Sarah’s father was having a row with her rescuer! Sherringford insisted that while the lady had been hit, she had not been ruined, and anyone who suggested otherwise would answer to him. Well, that quieted milord. Sherringford suggested a quick match with a reliable young man to keep the scandal quiet and, do you know, he suggested young Mr. Gareth. Oh, that man is so perfect for Lady Sarah, but he had been turned away. Milord said the younger son of a knight was not good enough for his daughter.

  Then the old lord asked if Mr. Gareth had been the one who’d imprisoned Lady Sarah. Sherringford said “never”, and that the man who had hurt milady had been severely punished.

  “Dead?” the old lord asked.

  “Severely punished,” Sherringford repeated.

  And then I heard someone coming and ran to the kitchen for that sherry. I awoke this morning to hear milord tell Lady Sarah the news about her engagement to Mr. Gareth. She burst into tears. She was so happy. She has promised me that I will keep my place once she is married.

  I have been at my wits’ end, Mother, for how this would turn out, but now all is well. I swear, those who are in difficulty should go to this Sherringford. The way he stood up for Lady Sarah, even lying about how she had been abused to protect her—for I fear she had been hurt in that manner—shows the kind of man he is.

  Joan crumpled the letter in her hand. Gregor Sherringford. She’d never heard the name before. Yet this secondhand description was intriguing. If it was to be believed, he had found a missing lady, rescued her, punished her assailant, stood up for her virtue and ensured she would marry a man who cared about her.

  Lucky Lady Sarah, to have such a champion. A champion for hire? She was not a lady and these were not the same circumstances, of course, but…well…she had nothing left to lose by trying to find Gregor Sherringford.

  Joan hurriedly scraped out a note with her ink pen and called for one of Mr. Roylott’s assistants to deliver it to the late Lady Grey’s head cook. There. At least she had done something, even if it came to nothing.

  She sat at her sewing desk and closed her eyes, her hands resting on the machine. Her whole world was collapsing. She would not go meekly to her fate without knowing why.

  Chapter Four

  Joan marched down the alley, berating herself for being so foolish as to come here alone and without an appointment. But such was her need that she would pull at any thread, no matter how frayed.

  That included barging in on this mysterious “consulting detective” who headquartered his business in an office off an alley in the worst part of London.

  The bills for Krieger & Sims’s cancelled orders were due in thirty days. There was no time to observe all the niceties.

  She stopped and studied a brick wall. Her eyes watered from the strong smell of the refuse pushed to the corners of the alley. Had the cook’s daughter not supplied directions on exactly how to locate the entrance to Gregor Sherringford’s office, Joan would have walked right past it.

  The brick wall, she had been assured, was an illusion. True magic.

  Bracing herself to touch something magical for the first time, Joan pushed at the outline of a bricked-up window.

  At the touch of her gloved fingers, the brick wall shimmered and vanished, revealing a heavy wooden door with an iron knocker.

  She blinked. How clever.

  She pounded on the knocker, but, clumsy from nerves, she slammed her middle finger between the door and the knocker. She winced, less from the stab of pain and more at her carelessness and the smudge she had made on the expensive—and borrowed—leather gloves.

  No one answered.

  She knocked again, more insistent this time. Voices echoed down the alley from laborers gathered at the entrance. She caught the whispers. What was a well-dressed lady doing on this side of town beating on a brick wall?

  I am on a fool’s errand, of course.

  She adjusted her hairpiece out of nerves. One of the pins had come loose already. The tightness of the unfamiliar high collar tickled her throat. The laborers had mistaken her for a lady of class or, at least, an adventurer of some sort. Modeled after clothing she’d seen female explorers wearing in the newspapers, this was more breastplate armor than a proper lady’s dress. Joan could have worn her one good dress but if she was going to toss convention aside, why not do so fully?

  Joan closed her hand around the heavy, heart-shaped silver pendant that hung around her neck, a gift from her late grandmother. At least the pendant, engraved with a Roman warrior woman’s face, went with the dress, even if gold would have matched the brown better. She must pass as someone of means. Sherringford had rescued a lady in his last case. Therefore, he took them seriously. She doubted he would take a Jewish seamstress as seriously, so this was her own version of an illusion. The pendant was her talisman of courage.

  But ladies were also, apparently, a target. She glanced at the laborers again.

  Joan pounded on the door. Answer, blast you!

  The door swung open but there was no one there.

  Another illusion?

  She stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind her with a whoosh of air. She started, turned and saw that the door had a hinge at the top that was rigged to a pulley. This was no magic. She had been let in by a machine.

  That made sense, given the person on whom she was calling.

  She walked down the short hallway to a room that threw a pocket of light onto the floor. Heat engulfed her, a certain sign this place was heated by mage coal. How did a detective living in this section of London afford such a luxury? Unsure and off-balance, she hesitated to step inside the room.

  “For hell’s sake, you had better be the devil himself to interrupt my work!” a voice boomed.

  “I am sorry,” Joan snapped as she walked into the room. “I seem to have quite forgotten to wear my horns.”

  She bit her tongue. All her prepared speeches, all her rehearsed pleas for help, and this was how she’d begun? Truly, her nerves were at breakpoint. A man stared rudely at her, though she supposed he had cause. Still, she could not help but stare back. She had anticipated an eccentric. She had not expected him to be so pleasing to the eye. There were faint lines around his mouth, his brown hair was thick and full, and his skin was an olive-brown shade that set off his dark eyes
nicely. His clean-shaven face revealed a jaw that hinted at a strong character. Gregor Sherringford seemed a champion, indeed.

  He scowled at her. Would this paragon throw her out?

  She glanced down at his clothes, which were more in keeping with what she’d been told to expect of him by the cook and her daughter. A scientist as well as a detective, they had said. He wore a stained leather apron, his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and something yellow had discolored the tips of the fingers on one hand.

  If he was a detective, truly, then perhaps he would be curious enough to let her speak her piece.

  “So, you are not the devil, though you may be as much trouble,” Sherringford finally said.

  As much trouble as you, she wanted to say, but this time held her tongue. “Good morning, Mr. Sherringford. I do apologize for my intrusion.” He must listen to her. “My name is Joan Krieger. I wish to contract for your services as an investigator.” She offered her hand like a man would do when conducting a business arrangement.

  He hesitated a second and then clasped her hand and shook it. He had a firm grip but his intent stare discomfited her. She had the distinct impression he could see all the way through her. Yet, to her, he seemed to contain endless depths of mystery. She’d met many men through her work but none like this one, who stirred something so deep inside her.

  “How did you hear of me and how did you find me?” He scowled again.

  “A mutual acquaintance told me of you and your office.”

  “Who?”

  “That would be indiscreet to reveal, sir.” The cook’s daughter had told her how to find this place but Joan had no idea how Sherringford would react to that information.

  “And is it discreet to interrupt a man in the middle of his work?” He stated the question in a whisper, almost as if he’d directed it at himself, so she did not answer.

  “Your presence here raises many questions,” he added in a normal tone.

  “Yes, I have many questions, sir. My hope is that you will provide the answers.” She tilted her chin up.

  “I hardly qualify as ‘sir’, any more than you are a lady, Miss Krieger, despite your efforts to appear so.”

  She flushed. “I wished only to appear as someone who needs your skills and has the means to pay for them.”

  Sherringford snorted. Truly, that was a nice change from his scowling. She wondered what he’d look like when he smiled. Charming, she guessed, and wondered if anyone had been lucky enough to be charmed by him. Probably not, as his biting tongue likely drove them away.

  “Very well. Stay if you can keep quiet while I finish the work you’ve interrupted. Refrain from any complaints. I well know this isn’t fit for a lady’s sight. But perhaps, not being a lady, you will not care about that.”

  She felt her face grow even warmer. Now he sneered at her.

  “Your room seems not only unfit for a lady but for anyone. The temperature is ungodly warm, Mr. Sherringford.”

  Oh, dear Lord, another snap of her suddenly waspish tongue. She had antagonized him again.

  “Ungodly? Some say that my work and I both fit that description.”

  “I’d call you and your work fascinating.”

  Unexpectedly, he smiled. She blinked. Oh yes, his smile definitely was charming.

  “Now, be quiet while I finish,” he said.

  Mortified, she vowed to not say another word. She took in Sherringford’s workshop. The rectangular room was filled with tables shoved against all four walls, with yet another table in the center. Metal pipes, wheels, gears and other objects she could not identify covered the tables. Beakers with tubes going in and out were set up in one corner, and unlit burners nestled underneath.

  Next to the beaker contraption, a wooden box with a blinking light made whirring sounds. She had never seen anything like it. It was possible these contraptions were part of some magical ritual, but it seemed more likely they were merely machinery, like the door. The cook’s daughter had said that Sherringford was familiar with mages, not that he was one. The door illusion argued otherwise, but perhaps that was commissioned work. She had heard mages could be hired, if one had enough money and knew the right people.

  Overhead, pipes ran along the ceiling. Some were connected to the equipment on the tables, though she thought perhaps their valves were closed. It was hard to tell from where she was standing.

  The room smelled vaguely of rotten eggs and fog. At least it was well lit. A large circular apparatus hung from the ceiling. She hesitated to call it a chandelier, as it looked so strange with all those pipes and gears whirling, but it served the same function.

  “You seem struck dumb, Miss Krieger,” Sherringford said. “Such an interesting change from when you arrived.”

  “It was you who asked me to remain silent.” Perhaps her arrival had discomfited him too. It was nice to think so. She blinked. “This is a most unusual room. Wherever do you sleep, Mr. Sherringford?”

  She regretted the question as soon as she asked. That was most impolite and hardly better than sniping at the man.

  “As it happens, there is a small room in the basement that serves my needs.”

  She nodded. At least he did not seem to have taken serious offense.

  He waved his hand at her. “I must finish now.”

  He bent to a device on the center table. On one side of the thing, a stylus was set over a handwritten note. A second stylus, twin to the first, perched over a blank piece of paper.

  Sherringford muttered to himself and pushed a lever. The pair of styluses burst into sudden movement. He smiled thinly, watching his contraption work.

  The stylus over the blank paper fell out of the brace holding it upright.

  Joan clearly heard Sherringford curse, which she ignored, as a polite person should. She tried to reconcile Lady Sarah’s protector, someone who had stood up to a lord, with this man puttering around his gadgets and gears. The two versions seemed like ill-cut pieces of clothing stitched together.

  He seemed to be copying something with his contraption, or at least trying to do so. She had adapted something similar for the shop so the work of the seamstresses would be uniform. The question was why he needed to do this. Was it part of some other investigation?

  Sherringford picked up a small circular clasp with a tiny gear at one end and slid it down the stylus.

  This clasp was too big, and the stylus fell off again. He cursed once more. Well, it sounded like a curse, though it was in a language unfamiliar to her. Perhaps one of the Indian dialects? His skin tone was darker than that of most Londoners. Being Indian might explain why he lived in this section of London, even if he did perform services for the nobility.

  But his ancestry was of no concern to her. All that mattered was whether he could help. And it seemed he could not help until he finished this, but she did not have time to wait all day. Someone would notice her absence.

  His fingertips tapped the table, obviously looking for a smaller clasp to fit the stylus better. He would never find anything in that mess. She looked down. Small objects could easily fall off tables, and circular ones tended to roll. She knelt, no easy feat in her stiff dress. She saw a glint of brass almost hidden behind the table leg.

  “There.” She pointed.

  “There what?” he snapped. But he followed where she had pointed. He saw the gleam, knelt and carefully lifted the metal piece. It was a clasp, just as she had guessed. And it turned out to be the one he was looking for.

  After he had placed the newfound piece securely around the stylus, Sherringford turned to her.

  “Humphf,” he said, as if that meant something.

  “Humphf,” she answered back.

  He raised an eyebrow. “If you will turn around, you will see there is a door. It leads to a room where we can discuss your problem. Wait and I will be with you in a moment.”

  She wanted to protest that she would rather watch him finish his fascinating project, but she had been forward enough already. She
had obtained her first objective. He was going to hear her out.

  She turned toward the corner of the room where he had pointed. What she had taken as part of the wall was actually a hidden door. Unlike the real illusion that concealed the outside door, this one was simply a clever design, with the doorknob recessed and hidden if one did not look carefully.

  Was Sherringford a mage of some sort? She had never met a wielder of magic, at least not knowingly. She had no idea what one would be like. Of course, she had never met a consulting detective before either. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying went.

  Joan pushed the door open.

  This room was as different from the workshop as a lordly manor was to the debtor’s prison.

  Bookshelves covered the walls, their dark color matched by the huge throw rug on the floor that was decorated with swirling Oriental-style designs against a black background. In the center sat a comfortable sitting couch with matching chairs on either side.

  Gregor Sherringford was not as indifferent to his surroundings as he had first appeared. She could certainly picture him here, curled up with a book, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes. A pleasing image.

  She heard the door close behind her. She turned, her face full of color. She had no reason to be embarrassed, but she was.

  “Why did you not tell me to wait here at the beginning, sir?” she asked.

  “It is interesting to see how people react to the workroom. If they are appalled or otherwise react badly, then they’re not people worthy of my time.” He hung his leather apron on a coatrack and rolled down his sleeves. “And I was in the middle of an experiment.”

  “I do not much like trusting my future to someone who tests me like that.”

  “And I don’t like being interrupted by someone ill-mannered enough to snap at me. If you wish to leave, you know where the door is located.”