“It did,” Nick had to admit. Everything she’d showed him had the ring of truth. It didn’t account for the chance that she’d missed something, though.
“I assure you, I shall investigate everything in minute detail.”
“Everything, including any unintended consequences or unforeseen complications. And I don’t want one word of this getting out,” Nick went on. “I expect more than your usual discretion, Grantham.”
The other man nodded. “Of course. I’ll apprise you of my progress.”
“Do that.”
Grantham left and Nick went to make his rounds. He spotted Forbes at the back of the salon, where the tables were larger and the stakes higher, and headed there.
“Lord Fitchley is stirring up trouble again,” Forbes told him. “He made a very rude insinuation about Lady Alleyn and almost came to blows with one of the lady’s companions.”
Nick said a curse on that man’s name. “Offer Lady Alleyn and her companions the use of a private room and send Mr. Carter to attend them.” The baroness was one of his favorite members, an older widowed lady with immense sangfroid. She had a ribald sense of humor and a keen eye for the ridiculous, and she never caviled at losing. Would that more men were like her. “Lord Fitchley cannot seem to remember his manners.”
Forbes sighed. “No. Louis deterred him, but he’s gone to the dining room and ordered a great quantity of drink. He’s restive tonight.”
Nick stifled the thought that his patience with Fitchley had ebbed significantly since hearing Miss Greene say his name. The thought of her having to beg Fitchley for anything roused all manner of dark thoughts in his head, none of which he wanted to examine closely.
“I’ll speak to him,” he said. “By the bye, I shall be late coming in tomorrow night.”
He sensed Forbes’s start of surprise. “Very good,” was all the man said, though.
Nick had missed nights before, but not many. He’d been at the Vega Club when he was ill, when he was broke, even on the night he’d finally got word of Charlotte. The club was his everything, the precious jewel he guarded like a jealous dragon. He trusted Forbes and his other employees, but Vega’s was not theirs. Nobody cared for it like he did, nor needed it like he did. Just the thought of walking away from it, even for one night, made him irritable.
The perfect mood to confront Lord Fitchley.
“Carry on,” he told Forbes, and went to the dining room.
There he found, as expected, a rowdy group. Emmett, Baron Fitchley was the worst of the lot, but not because his mates weren’t trying their hardest to match him. Thomas Adams and Geoffrey Parker-Lloyd were arrogant asses, possessed of large fortunes despite rumors that they weren’t made in legal ways. Edmund LeMont was an inveterate gambler, although he didn’t dare cheat in Vega’s. Lord Julius Castor and Lord Bricklemore were the dissolute sons of wealthy noblemen, whose fathers had paid their losses thus far, although Nick didn’t expect that to continue indefinitely. He’d already had to revoke the membership of another of Fitchley’s circle, after the man lost almost four thousand pounds at the faro table and refused to pay it.
Tonight the six of them lounged around a table that already held several bottles. As Nick approached, Castor’s elbow hit one, sending it to the floor with a splash of burgundy on the carpet. Nick waited until a waiter swooped in and carried off the empty bottle.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
Adams glanced up blearily. “Our benevolent overlord!”
“Mind your manners, lads,” put in LeMont. Nick gazed at him, expressionless, until his eyes veered away. LeMont knew he was closely watched every moment he was in Vega’s.
“This club would be immeasurably improved with some whores.” Fitchley took a cigar case from his pocket. Nick felt a spike of fury. There was no smoking in the dining room; it was permitted in the private rooms and the smoking room, but out of deference to female members, it was prohibited in the dining room, and everyone knew it. “Get some tasty bits of skirt, Dashwood. Other hells have them.”
“Then you know where to find them,” said Nick evenly. “Might I have a word, Lord Fitchley?”
Trimming his cigar, the man squinted up at him. Fitchley’s face was narrow, with eyes set close to his nose, and his thin-lipped mouth turned down at the corners. He put one in mind of a shrew, even when he was in good temper. “Not now,” he replied in a patronizing drawl.
Nick said nothing. He had learned that argument was pointless, force was messy, and even polite request merely emboldened his quarry. Silent and immovable, he simply stood beside Fitchley’s chair and waited.
It took only a few minutes. Despite turning his back, Fitchley was unquestionably aware of him. Parker-Lloyd gazed boldly at Nick, a slight smirk on his face, but said nothing. No one said a word. Finally Fitchley stabbed his unlit cigar into his case and barked, “Oh, very well. As you wish.” He lurched out of his seat, though his dramatic storming off was somewhat spoilt by the way he collided with LeMont’s chair on the way and almost fell on his arse.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Nick murmured again, bowing his head to the table and walking off after the baron.
“What?” snarled Fitchley as they walked. He had to steady himself from time to time on a nearby pillar or chair. A fellow sitting in one of those chairs exclaimed indignantly at the jolt, but sank back down as he saw Nick.
“This way.” Nick directed him to a small room near the front hall. Most members he saw in his office, but this room was built for the others: the ones who might turn nasty. It was furnished with nothing but a pair of leather chairs, both heavy enough that they could not be wielded or smashed into weapons. When the Vega Club had been a home, it had been an antechamber where guests would await the master of the house. Now the windows were covered by stout shutters, firmly barred, the small fireplace had been bricked up, and the thick oak door had a lock that wouldn’t be out of place in Newgate.
Fitchley brushed hard against him as he entered, even though Nick had stepped back to make way. In spite of himself his temper began to spark.
“What?” growled Fitchley, prowling the room with his hands twitching.
