“Really?” murmured Stephen, shifting closer. “Like what?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out when you’re chained to my bed. And I do mean chained. With iron, next time. I want you helpless.” He felt Stephen’s quiver over the motion of the carriage. “Naked, helpless, pleading. And absolutely vulnerable to everything I choose to do to you.”
Stephen gulped. “You do love to put me on my knees, don’t you?”
“I like to make you know your master,” Crane said. “It’s only fair. The rest of the time, you’ve got me so thoroughly enslaved, I might as well be wearing a collar with your name on it.”
“What? Lucien— Oh, God damn it!” Stephen said, as the hackney jolted to a stop.
Crane hissed, trying to force down his arousal. “I swear, we will have a proper conversation at some point today if I have to do murder to make it happen. We couldn’t just go home, I suppose?”
“Come on.” Stephen hopped out of the carriage. “Let’s get this over.”
They caught Town as he was on his way out of his lodgings for luncheon. Crane was startled to realise it was not quite noon. The day seemed to have gone on forever.
“Good to see you, dear chap,” Town told Crane. “And Mr. Day, nice to meet you again. Ah, I understood your interests lay with Java?” He gave Crane an interrogative and amused look.
“I may not have been strictly accurate with you the last time we met,” Crane said. “We need to pick your brains, Town. Can we go in?”
Town’s eyebrows rose, if possible, even higher, as he ushered them into his rooms. “My dear fellow. Do I scent a story?”
“A devil of a one. All yours, later. For now, I need some answers. Do you recall when Xan Ji-yin disappeared?”
“Hard to forget,” Town said. “The fuss went on for months. We had three or four rounds of guards and shamans asking questions. Didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t there. I was in the north for a year or more, missed the whole thing.”
“Of course. Yes, I recall. Well, I hope you won’t ask me to tell you what happened to him, because that’s beyond even my knowledge.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Stephen asked.
Town gave him a shrewd look. “I couldn’t speculate. There were some said he was translated, transfigured, lifted up bodily by the Jade Emperor in the sky, you know. Others thought he’d fallen foul of the emperor on the ground. I never heard a convincing tale. Did you?”
Crane shook his head. “But in any case, I’m not asking you to solve that mystery. This is something else, but around the same time. Did you happen to know any of the people from the Baptist mission?”
Town put a finger on his plump lips. “Mission. The big one on the hill? Yes…”
“There was a girl, or a woman, called Arabella,” Crane said. “She also went missing, just before Xan did. I’m hoping to find out her name.”
Town took a few thoughtful steps towards the window. “Arabella. Arabella… One wasn’t on first-name terms with the ladies, naturally.”
“Indeed not,” Crane said. “But I can’t imagine more than one of them vanished just before Xan did.”
“No, of course.” Town turned back to face them. “May I ask why?”
“Later. It’s a little urgent.”
Town’s brows went up again. “A girl who’s been missing thirteen years is urgent?”
“It’s complicated,” Crane assured him. “I need to know who she was.”
“Was? Is she dead?”
Crane hesitated, shrugged. “So I’m told. Did you know her?”
“Vaguely.” Town’s normally cheerful face was heavy. “Heavens, Vaudrey, I didn’t expect you to bring this up. It was a terrible thing.” He took a turn up and down the room, then stopped and put his hand on the back of a chair as if for support. “She went missing, as you say. A very lovely girl, very religious of course, but with so much life. She was in the mission to bring hope and joy, not like most of the crows and vultures that perched there. She was bright, like sunshine. And then she disappeared, and there was a fuss for a few days, and then Xan disappeared and nobody cared about her any more. The officers, the agents, the people—all the resources went to find Xan. She was forgotten. The mission kept looking, for a while, but there were spiteful rumours, slander really, accusations of a man—the usual rubbish—and it was easier for everyone to believe them and forget about her. And then life went on and nobody remembered. You must be the first person in years to have mentioned her.”
“What was her name?” Stephen asked.
“Peyton. Arabella Peyton.”