The rest of the day went well. Keir met with a hotel manager and then a tavernkeep in Farrington, both of whom had agreed to contracts for private bottling. After that he went to collect his men, Owen and Slorach, and accompanied them to the Victoria Railway Station, where they would take an express up to Glasgow, and from there proceed to Islay.
Slorach, a dour and wizened Calvinist of sixty-five, was more than eager to leave London, which he regarded as an unwholesome den of sin and beggary.
Owen, on the other hand, a lighthearted lad barely out of his teens, was reluctant to go back to Islay. “There are many things I havnae done yet in London,” he protested.
“Aye,” returned Slorach dryly, “and ’tis well that you’ll be gang back to Islay before the doing of them.” Turning to Keir, the elderly man said ruefully, “He’ll be griping all the way home. But I gave my word to his mither I’d keep him out of trooble.” Looking grim, he added, “’Twould be my preference to take you back with us.”
Keir grinned at him affectionately. “Dinna worry, I’ll be keeping myself out of trooble.”
“London’s no place for the like of you, young MacRae. Dinna tarry one day more than you must.”
“I won’t.”
After seeing the pair off, Keir went in search of a hansom cab. As he walked past construction scaffolding, a steam-engine excavator, a factory, and a tenement building, he reflected that Slorach’s reaction to the city of five million was entirely understandable. There was too much activity and noise, too much of everything, for a man accustomed to the cool green quiet of a Scottish island.
But as Keir thought about seeing Merritt that night, he was filled with anticipation. He yearned for her company, as if she were a drug. No, not a drug . . . a spark of magic in an ordinary life. A good life, which he happened to love.
But he knew down to his soul how much of a danger Merritt was to him. The more he came to know her, the stronger this yearning would grow, until any chance of happiness had slipped away like sand through his fingers. He’d spend the rest of his days consumed by desire for a woman who would always be as distant from his reach as the most far-flung star.
Still . . . he had to see her one last time. He’d allow himself that much. After that, he’d finish his business in London and return to Islay.
Five hundred miles wouldn’t be nearly enough distance to put between them.
Eight o’clock sharp, she’d said.
As Keir walked by a barbershop with a sign that advertised “penny cut, ha’penny shave,” he paused to look through the window. The shop was a tidy, prosperous-looking place, with framed mirrors on the wall, shelves filled with bottles of tonic, and a leather chair with adjustable head and foot rests.
Maybe he should spruce himself a bit before dinner tonight. He ran a hand through his overgrown hair. Aye . . . the wild locks could do with some taming.
Cautiously he entered the shop.
“Welcome, sir,” said the barber, a jovial-looking man with an intricately curled mustache. “Cut and a shave?”
“A cut,” Keir replied.
The barber gestured to the chair. “If you will, sir.”
After Keir sat, the barber adjusted the head and foot rests, and handed him a card printed with a dozen little illustrations of men’s heads.
“What’s this for?” Keir asked, looking at it closely.
“To choose a style.” The barber pointed at a few of the labeled drawings. “This is called the Favorite . . . and this is the French Cut . . . this is the Squire . . .”
Keir, who hadn’t been aware there was a choice beyond “short” or “not short,” scrutinized the little drawings. He pointed to one in which the hair was close-cropped and tidy. “That one?”
“A good choice,” the barber said, walking around the chair to assess his head from different angles. He tried to tug a fine-tooth comb through the heavy, slightly curly locks, and paused. “Hmm. This is going to be the work of two haircuts on one head.”
After washing and rinsing Keir’s hair in a porcelain sink with a spray connected to rubber tubing, the barber shepherded him back to the chair and fastened a cloth around his neck. A long session of snipping and shaping followed, first with scissors, then with clippers that cut layers into the locks with each squeeze of the spring-tension handles. Finally, the barber used a razor to neaten the back into a precise line.
“Shall I trim your beard, sir?” the barber asked.
“Aye.”
The man paused, viewing Keir speculatively. “You might consider a full shave,” he suggested. “You certainly have the chin for it.”
Keir shook his head. “I must keep the beard.”
Looking sympathetic, the barber asked, “Pockmarks? Scars?”
“No’ exactly.” Since the man seemed to expect an explanation, Keir continued uncomfortably, “It’s . . . well . . . my friends and I, we’re a rough lot, you ken. ’Tis our way to chaff and trade insults. Whenever I shave off the beard, they start mocking and jeering. Blowing kisses, calling me a fancy lad, and all that. They never tire of it. And the village lasses start flirting and mooning about my distillery, and interfering with work. ’Tis a vexation.”
The barber stared at him in bemusement. “So the flaw you’re trying to hide is . . . you’re too handsome?”
A balding middle-aged man seated in the waiting area reacted with a derisive snort. “Balderdash,” he exclaimed. “Enjoy it while you can, is my advice. A handsome shoe will someday be an ugly slipper.”
“What did he say, nephew?” asked the elderly man beside him, lifting a metal horn to his ear.
The middle-aged man spoke into the horn. “Young fellow says he’s too handsome.”
“Too handsome?” the old codger repeated, adjusting his spectacles and squinting at Keir. “Who does the cheeky bugger think he is, the Duke of Kingston?”
Amused, the barber proceeded to explain the reference to Keir. “His Grace the Duke of Kingston is generally considered one of the finest-looking men who’s ever lived.”
“I know—” Keir began.
“He caused many a scandal in his day,” the barber continued. “They still make jokes about it in Punch. Cartoons with fainting women, and so forth.”
“Handsome as Othello, they say,” said a man who was sweeping up hair clippings.
“Apollo,” the barber corrected dryly. He used a dry brush to whisk away the hair from Keir’s neck. “I suspect by now Kingston’s probably lost most of those famed golden locks.”
Keir was tempted to contradict him, since he’d met the duke earlier that very day and seen for himself the man still had a full head of hair. However, he thought better of it and held his tongue.
Upon returning to his flat, Keir heated enough water to scrub and wash thoroughly, using plenty of soap. He dressed in clean clothes, shined his shoes, and made himself as presentable as he could. A brief consultation of a map of London revealed that Carnation Lane was only a few minutes’ walk away. Before leaving, he tucked a half-pint glass bottle of Priobairneach in the inside pocket of his new coat.
The evening was cool and damp, the moon reduced to a pallid glow behind a murky haze. The wharf had quieted, with lighter barges, eel boats, and packets now moored, the spars of a large ship pointing upward like the ribs of a clean-picked carcass.
Keir walked away from the docks toward the main thoroughfare, passing small alleys and byways that were deeply shadowed from overhanging eaves. Laborers and shopkeepers had locked up and gone home for the night, and now a different sort of people had begun to emerge: prostitutes, swindlers, beggars, street musicians, sailors, navvies. Vagrants with gin bottles slouched in doorways, while others huddled in stairwells. A group had built a little fire of rubbish beneath the stone arch of a canal bridge.
Streetlamps were few and far between in this place, and so far, there hadn’t been a glimpse of a constable or anything resembling law enforcement. Keir kept to the side of the old wood block pavement as a group of drunken revelers staggered past, howling out a drinking song. A slight smile came to his lips as he thought of what his father had always said whenever someone was that far gone: “The lad has a brick in the hat tonight.”
As Keir began down the street again, he had a creeping, tingling sense that something wasn’t right. A shadow slid across the pavement—projecting from behind him—moving too fast. Before he could turn to see what it was, he felt a shove against his back. The force of it sent him into a dark alley, and he slammed into the side of a brick building.
Keir hadn’t yet drawn a full breath when a strong hand gripped the back of his neck to pin him against the wall. Enraged, he began to twist around, and felt a blow on the right side of his back.
He swung to face the attacker, using a raised forearm to break the restraining grip. Too late, he saw the flash of a knife in the man’s free hand. The knife came down to strike Keir’s chest in an overhand stab, but the blade was deflected by the glass bottle in his coat pocket.
Grabbing the attacker’s wrist and arm, Keir forced the elbow to bend, and turned sideways to gain leverage. Then it was a simple matter to twist the man’s arm as if he were ripping the wing from a roast chicken. The crunch of a dislocated shoulder was accompanied by a howl of agony, and the knife clattered to the ground.
Keir stepped on the knife deliberately, and gave him a mean look. Now it was a fair fight. “Come here,” he growled, “you sneakin’, bawfaced shitweasel.”
The attacker fled.
Panting, Keir reached down and picked up the small folding knife. A curse escaped him as he saw the streak of blood on it, and he reached around to feel the sore place on his back.
The cowardly bastard had managed to stab him.
Even worse, he’d made Keir late for dinner.
