The Heartless City Read Online Free Page A

dresses.
    As he stepped inside the oily light and yeasty warmth of the crowded hall, Elliot wished again that Cam had chosen a gentlemen’s club. In dim, quiet rooms reserved for men of the upper crust, he’d only be exposed to clouds of cigar smoke and self-importance. Music halls were crowded, bright, and worst of all, filled with women, whose rivers of fear ran so deep he felt he might drown inside them. He’d already known their lives were more precarious than his own, as they were prey not only to Hydes but also to fiendish men, but he’d never truly understood the horror of living that way, of always feeling like hunted game in a world that didn’t care.
    But Cam, unburdened by Elliot’s knowledge, found gentlemen’s clubs to be boring. Five years ago, his father had closed every theatre, opera, ballet, museum, and symphony in London, declaring them all superfluous drains on the city’s meager resources. Music halls were the only “artistic” entertainment left, and Cam was starved for aestheticism and desperate for the arts.
    At the moment, a bevy of chorus girls were dancing on the stage. They were dressed in daffodil-yellow tights and bustled skirts so short they exposed the fullness of their thighs. Their bodices were nothing more than corsets lined with beads, and when they kicked their legs in the air, they exposed bright purple drawers. As they danced, they sang a bouncing song called “Get Away, Johnnie.”
    I’m a flirt as you’ll discover,
    All my sweethearts I can tease,
    When I stroll out with my lover,
    Don’t I like a gentle squeeze.
    Elliot sighed for Cam’s sake.
    This was London’s “art.”
    Bracing himself, he pressed through the heady haze of smoke and feeling, dodging bursts of heartache, yearning, and unbridled lust as he passed. He’d arrived early on purpose, knowing Cam would choose a place up front in the heart of the crowd, so when he spotted an empty box hanging high above the stage, he rushed toward the rickety steps in the back and started climbing.
    From below, it had seemed the entire second floor was unoccupied, but when he reached the top, he discovered two waitresses on their break. They were huddled at a grimy table, rubbing their feet and crouched over two dark pints of weak-looking stout. Their shoulders and arms were deflated from hours of carrying heavy trays, and their petal-pink dresses looked sallow, pinched, and too small for their frames. Elliot wondered how long they’d been working, and if those pints of stout were the only supper they’d had tonight. The gin had started to work a bit, so their stale fear and hollow dejection wasn’t overwhelming, but when they lifted their heads and saw him, a sudden rush of desperate hunger flooded the air between them.
    It wasn’t lust, though Elliot now knew women could feel that, too, contrary to what his father and friends at St. Thomas’s had told him. The waitresses’ yearning, however, was not for his looks but for his wealth, for the safety and protection that came with silk hats and silver cufflinks. Swallowing hard against the borrowed burn of their desire, he closed his eyes and walked away from the pair as fast as he could. Once he reached the empty box, he collapsed in a chair at its table, removing his hat and coat and then running a hand through his sweat-damp hair.
    At least he wouldn’t receive that kind of attention once Cam arrived. Not only was he the son of the mayor, who might as well be king, he was also arguably the handsomest man in London. His sleek hair was jet-black, and his eyes were a piercing ice blue, and there was something regal, smooth, and feline in his bearing. Even as a child, he’d had the air of a jungle cat, like the noble panther Bagheera in Rudyard Kipling’s
Jungle Book
stories.
    Elliot was tall, strong, and had an agreeable face, but if Cam was a polished, princely panther, he was an alley cat. He’d never possessed much poise or grace, and even before his affliction,