“A dubious paradise filled with goddesses eager to assuage your every whim for the right price,” he said grimly.
It was not that he looked down upon the women who earned their keep by catering to the voracious needs of their patrons. Rather, it was that he understood they were driven by the same desperation he had been. It was an uneven exchange by any standard, but far more for the females. He had only had to give his soul for The Sinner’s Palace. The ladies had to give their bodies, night after night.
“Nothing dubious about what I saw tonight,” Rafe said. “They’ve viewing rooms, and—”
“Did you seek me out at this time of the evening to tell me about your latest debauchery?” he interrupted, not wanting to hear more.
“No.” Rafe blinked, almost as if he had emerged from a spell. “Bit in my cups. Apologies and all that. I wanted to tell you I swear I saw Loge tonight.”
Jasper stilled. Everything within him seemed to freeze.
“Our brother Logan is dead. You know it as well as I do.”
“What if ‘e ain’t?” Rafe asked, hope in his voice.
“You don’t believe Loge’s alive,” he countered. “If you truly thought you’d seen ‘im, you would’ve said so before now.”
“You were questioning me like a charley.” Rafe shook his head, blond curls—entirely the opposite of angelic on him—swaying. “What else was I to say? But I swear to you, Jasper, it was him. I’d recognize that auburn nest anywhere.”
Their brother Logan and their sister Pen had been the only Suttons to inherit their father’s reddish-brown locks. All the rest of them had their mother’s dark hair. Except Rafe and Lily, who somehow had inherited golden hair. A complex lot, the sinful Sutton family.
Perhaps not all of them shared the same father. Jasper had suspected on more than one occasion. But it hardly mattered. They were family. Loyal to each other. Which was why Logan’s disappearance had been such a brutal blow. They’d had another brother none of them discussed much, Terrance, who had died as a babe. Never forgotten, but seldom spoken of, for the sadness such memories brought.
Jasper drummed his fingers atop the desk, disliking Rafe’s insistence. He was already twisted up like bedclothes inside. Whispers of Logan resurfacing, like a ghost from the past, made him feel ill.
“Did you see the cove’s face, Rafe?” he asked, trying to remain calm.
“The side was all,” his brother answered, shifting in his chair as if his arse was not finding enough comfort.
It was true that Jasper had required the chairs in his office to be rigid. The thought of anyone lingering too long opposite him was unsettling. Unwelcome. A sore arse meant a hasty retreat. But Rafe was foxed. A man could ignore all manner of discourtesies when he was soused.
“You didn’t see enough to determine whether or not it was Loge,” he said firmly. “You were at a pleasure house, likely deep in your cups. You could’ve seen Prinny himself and mistaken him for Loge.”
Rafe chortled. “No chance of that.”
Fair enough. There was precious little resemblance between their brother and the Prince Regent. But that was beside the matter altogether. Jasper had been attempting to make a point.
“You didn’t see Loge,” he pressed, needing to believe those words for reasons he did not dare examine. “Our brother is gone to Rothisbones. Dead. You know it as well as I. Thinking you saw him ain’t the same as seeing him.”
Rafe’s shoulders slumped. “Suppose you ain’t wrong. I wanted it to be him. To just up and be gone…it ain’t right.”
Jasper wholeheartedly echoed that sentiment. From the moment their brother had simply vanished to now, he had vacillated wildly between the belief Logan had been taken captive and the sure knowledge he’d been murdered like so many poor, sotted coves. Likely dumped into the Thames, never to be seen again.
“It ain’t right,” he repeated Rafe’s worse. “I agree. We
shall miss our brother forever.”
“Fuck,” his younger brother swore, heaving a heavy sigh of disappointment. “Don’t know what I supposed.”
“I know what you supposed,” Jasper said, knowing a pang of sympathy for Rafe’s plight. “You wanted to believe he ain’t gone. I want the same damned thing. But the truth is…Loge’s gone, Rafe. The badgers took ‘im. We can’t bring our brother back.”
Badgers were thieves who robbed near waterways, villains who had no qualms about tossing the bodies of the men they’d stuck with their knives into the waters, letting them bleed out and drown. The thought of that, of Logan suffering, sent a shudder straight through Jasper. On any other day, he would have reached for his gin.
Not today.
Not any longer.
“Apologies for making you think…of him,” Rafe said haltingly. “I’ll take the public rooms until they’re cleared at dawn. You should get some rest.”