Free The Wages of Sin [The Mysterious] by Alex Beecroft

at night, quite another to act on them. He’d never really thought of himself as the kind of pervert who ended up on the gallows. Yet no jury in the land would hesitate to put him firmly in the same category.
    What had he been thinking? Yet how just was it to bitterly punish something so sweet? This sin so heartily abhorred by all—why? What harm did it do to any?
    He reached down and traced the brass lockplate of the topmost, left hand drawer. Inlaid ivory and walnut glimmered in cream and gold spirals about it, and the delicate brass handle made a satisfying click as he flicked it up and down again. He drew the drawer out gently and lifted the pile of papers within onto the scene of nymphs and satyrs who cavorted across the desktop.
    Spreading out the dog-eared bundle of old bills and letters, he found his gaze wandering again; the picture of the monarch stag that hung beside its preserved head, Ambrose’s smoking jacket hanging from an antler. A family portrait; himself like a little girl with his golden ringlets and white dress, the sash around it cornflower blue as his eyes, sitting primly upright on the lap of a mother he could not now remember. George, a rapscallion boy with a fishing rod; Elizabeth very demure, with a pet linnet.
    Jasper could not have been more right; he neither knew his own mind, nor could predict what it would fasten on next. And perhaps this thing between them, this mad oscillation of desire and rejection, suspicion and trust was responsible for that. It was a sin because it drove men mad? But wasn't love also a divine madness?
    Love! He tapped the papers back together, raised them like a shield against the thought. Whatever lay between them, it was at present the least of his problems. He read through a tailor’s bill, the date a month ago, and by the time he reached its obsequious signature his flutter of spirits had calmed a little.
    Here were letters from the doctor, some still with the stain and sharp tincture of opium smell folded into them. A ledger from the drawer above his knees confirmed the letters; entries for the purchase of laudanum stretched back, page after page, twice a month for the past five years.
    Only the initials changed by each entry; DF must surely be Doctor Floyd. DS puzzled him for a moment until he reckoned in the other items—fishing licence, a new rifle, an ostler’s bill for feeding and stabling the coach horses. Doctor Samuels then, from the estate in the Cotswolds, where Ambrose took his regular holidays.
    A cluster of entries for Samuels caught Charles’ eye. Night visit, two pounds, 4 shillings and sixpence. DS in attendance all day; 5 guineas. Four guineas to DS for services rendered. And the curious To Mrs. M, four pounds, the bedclothes and a quart of spirits.
    A day later and a DC paid back some of this bounty; received of DC two shillings and a hunter watch , but this name eluded Charles entirely. He knew of no family doctor with a name beginning with C.
    Three months ago. Yes, he did recall that his father had returned from that trip looking wan and nervous. Some shooting accident, perhaps? Or a duel, hushed up for the sake of his reputation? Charles made a pencilled note on the edge of the ledger to remind himself to find out. His father’s valet would never betray a confidence, but Ambrose had, as always, taken half of the household servants with him. One of them might be persuaded by coin or loyalty to disclose what they knew. He could even journey to the Cotswold house himself, make enquiries on the spot…
    Rain still tapped on the windows, and it was cold and damp in here, with the wind blowing in and no fire. Charles went over to close the window, and as he did, a faint shadow of grief came over him; such a lived-in room, now as empty as the body it had housed.
    Sighing, he returned to the desk, opened another drawer and pulled out more paper. The chill made him wish at first for a fire, and then for Jasper—for that moment of more than