Page 44 of To Save a Scoundrel’s Soul

“Comfort yourself with the thought that it would only be a lie of any significance if Mickey had actually stolen the parure.” Rossingley swirled the brandy in his glass, then took a more conservative sip. “What is truth anyhow? One man’s version might be another man’s lie, skulking behind a mask. Inadvertently, Mickey took a wrong turn down a dark confusing passageway and ended up detouring home across a few flowerbeds and a stone wall, that’s all.”

“The only crime Mickey committed was to open a safe not belonging to him,” added Tommy. “Rather than lie, we simply omitted to share that part of Mickey’s eventful evening with Mr Pearson. Relax, Benedict. Your holier-than-thou dukeness is still perfectly preserved.”

Ashington squinted at him, and then at Rossingley and Mickey, before returning his attention to his remaining brandy, which disappeared down his throat in a second gulp. “You’re bending the truth, all of you, to make me feel better.” He ran his finger around the rim of his glass before sucking it clean. “But I like it. And it’s the least I could do, given that you nearly found yourself in shackles for me, Mickey.”

Mickey waved his acknowledgement away, too tired and miserable to afford him a fuller response. Despite hurling insults at Valentin and questioning Valentin’s morals, scruples, and pretty much everything else Mickey thought he knew about the man, Valentin had saved his bacon. And also confessed that he loved him. So, whilst the others weren’t overly concerned with Valentin’s fate, Mickey was.

And he was determined to do something about it.

Chapter Sixteen

ONLY AN ASS would risk being seen visiting him, Mickey, Tommy had advised after Ashington and Rossingley departed. Ashington had left to go and do whatever dukes did, and Rossingley to kill a few hours over at Fitzsimmons’s place, in a further effort to avoid Talybridge and an irate Mr Chesterton. You’ll be guilty by association.

Mickey didn’t care. The duke had spoken for him, thus turning Mickey into perhaps the only person in London who could visit Valentin and be beyond the arm of the law. Even if the Frenchman now hated him for his lack of faith in Valentin’s constancy. Even if he hated Mickey for twisting over on his ankle and impeding their escape, Valentin had still refused to name him. That counted for something, didn’t it?

The towering stone walls of Newgate prison loomed grimly over the narrow streets, its ragged silhouette cutting through fog hanging fusty and thick. As Mickey approached, rain started to fall, piling on another layer of hopelessness. Iron bars, fat as a man’s wrist, crisscrossed every window and, this close, the air smelled dank and rotten, of death and decay. God only knew the stench inside. As a rule, Mickey skirted this corner of town, as if somehow those within the forbidding walls and the dismal unfortunates scrabbling a living around its edges could reach out and suck him down into it.

“I’m here to visit a prisoner. Valentin Beauregard.” Not meeting their gaze, Mickey slid a pound across to the two bored-looking guards. He might have escaped the seedier parts of town, but he still remembered the rules. When nothing happened, Mickey slid across another. Satisfied, one of them pocketed the bribe and motioned him through.

“Who shall we tell him’s callin’?”

Even with the duke’s patronage, Mickey was loathe to give his full name. “Tell the monsieur that…that Mr London is here.”

He was prepared to find Valentin in irons, of course; he hadn’t forgotten how prisons worked. Yet it still managed to shock him. With them fastened around both ankles and attached to a chain around his waist, he heard his lover clanking and shuffling down the passageway a whole agonising minute before he clapped eyes on him.

At least Valentin wasn’t riveted to an iron ring cemented into the wall.

The guard shoved Valentin roughly into a chair. Like parched brittle bones, the chains binding his wrists rattled unkindly against one another.

“London,” Valentin rasped through dry lips. “You have a cane. Please tell me you didn’t have to walk far for this visit. You should be resting.”

Mickey’s eyes sprang with hot tears. A cut bled across the skin of Valentin’s cheek; already, his face was a canvas of exhaustion. “You are asking after my injury at a time like this? When you are so—”

A patchwork of angry bruises marred the pale white flesh covering Valentin’s shoulder, exposed to the bitter January air where yesterday evening’s linen was torn.

“Your coat,” Mickey managed, aghast.

“Was well fought over.”

A cascade of violent shivers accompanied Valentin’s reply. He coughed, then coughed again, pulling the cold deeper into his chest with every breath.

Mickey wrestled with his sleeve. “Here, you must have mine.”

Valentin lifted his useless bound wrists. Even that seemed to sap him. “Alas, I’m to be tried as a thief, not a contortionist.”

Afraid to meet the defeat in the man’s eyes, Mickey stared at Valentin’s lovely hands hanging loosely in his lap. If only he could snatch them up and warm them in his own. And then hold one, those long fingers laced in his as they strolled side by side out of this place.

As he stared, swallowing hard, Valentin rubbed his finger and thumb against each other. Subtle, yet persistent. Mickey jerked his gaze up to Valentin’s face, and the Frenchman’s dulled eyes flicked between the guard and a pocket in Mickey’s coat.

Lifting his chest and straightening, Mickey blew out a breath. He’d come here to help Valentin in any way he could, not wallow in despair. “You, sir.” He addressed the guard in what he hoped was an approximation of Rossingley’s imperious tones. “I require some time alone with Monsieur le Vicomte.” He reached for his coin purse, its weight lessening by the second.

“You’ve bought yerself five minutes.”

The snick of the door closing injected Valentin with some of his former vigour. “Put your hand down my trousers, Mickey,” he demanded hoarsely. “There’s no time to lose.”

“What? I…you…” Though always happy to oblige, that wasn’t the sort of help Mickey had in mind.

“Hurry.” With a hasty glance back at the door, Valentin lifted his chained hands up and away from his body. “Before he returns.” He motioned Mickey with his head. “Here, the fastening. Please, just do as I ask.”