by Evie Dunmore
He finished his coffee seemingly unmoved, a wry smile on his lips, but her absence, compounded by the emptiness of the place, was palpable. The world quickened its pace again; the noise of the street below swelled, and he noted the room’s décor. His mind, usually sprawling and contemplating several different things at once, became calm the more his surroundings exploded; it was the reason he was a good soldier when it counted, and why he felt a remarkable sense of focus and quiet in Lucie’s presence, antagonistic force of nature that she was. An underrated feeling, quietness. If he had a conscience, he would probably regret having to wipe the laughter off her face so soon.
Chapter 7
The Great Western train from Oxford to Ashdown crept through the Cotswolds with remarkable slowness. Gently rolling hills were drifting past the window, so very civilized and English with their low peaks and quaint valleys and a lone gnarled oak tree here and there. How they paled in comparison to the emerald mountains of Afghanistan. England’s colors appeared to have faded since his return, and everything outside London was slow: the service, people’s minds, life. But renting his St. James apartment including seven staff had become too expensive the moment Rochester demanded he marry, and the family town house was out of the question. The walls there had eyes. The rooms he now rented off an old fellow student in Oxford’s Logic Lane were cheap as well as located much closer to Ashdown. Of course, it meant his valet was grumbling over a multitude of new duties, and he was stuck in Oxford, where the tailor was mediocre, the food stodgy, and the debauchery tepid. Unacceptably dull, having to keep an eye on the accounts.
He ran his palm down the slippery-smooth silk of his waistcoat. He had thought of costly, well-made things often during his time abroad. Amid heat and weevils and gore, he had envisioned sleek fabrics that wouldn’t make his whole body itch. The smell of fresh, clean bedding. Wine as rich and soft as velvet.
He would give it all up again before he bent to Rochester’s will.
He could not, however, give up his mother quite so easily, could he. It was, in fact, a lamentable habit of his to think of his mother whenever an opportunity to break his bonds with Ashdown presented itself. The first time he had chosen not to leave, he had been sixteen and in possession of a handsome sum from selling erotic short stories to the other boys at Eton and to an illegal shop in Whitechapel, enough to pay for a steamer ticket to America and keep him in comfortable lodgings until he’d found employment. Neither taking employment nor living among raucous Americans had held any appeal, but Rochester and his whip had increasingly appealed less. But there was Mother. If he left, how would she fare? Marcus had never been cruel, but he had been Rochester’s pet and had taken after him in disposition—he had no patience for eccentricity and moods. Neither did Tristan, in fairness, unless they were his own, but out of the three Ballentine men he was the one who felt protective rather than provoked when the countess did something silly. Such as locking herself away for a whole spring season to paint two mediocre Impressionist paintings a day, only to never touch a brush again after she had reemerged. The truth was, if one could not escape in a straightforward manner, because a man like Rochester had rules and all the money, one had to do it inwardly. By way of painting. Or writing. Or drinking and fucking, when one wasn’t crawling through dust in the East.
He sprawled back into the plush train seat. He should be writing now, because Lucie was, of course, correct; his war diaries would sell well indeed. His notebook lay already spread open on the coach table, the blank page demanding he jot down a structure for the narrative, and possibly some thoughts on which events to include and which ones to erase from history. However, the trouble with words was that putting them onto paper was a bloody slog even at the height of inspiration. Presently, he wasn’t inspired in the slightest. The war had not been his war, and he had no desire to tie himself to it more closely, now it was over. Granted, he had been made to fit the military boots by way of Rochester’s diligent training and a few generations’ worth of Ballentine vigor and valor rolling in his veins. And where chaos reigned, his impulsive decisions were superior to lengthy contemplations. Thus, he was occasionally compelled to do things the public loved. Covering his wounded captain with his own body rather than duck and run, for example. To make coin from it now left a cynical taste in his mouth, but damned if he wasn’t going to be pragmatic and edit these diaries. Tomorrow.
* * *
The sandstone quadrangle of Ashdown Castle glowed golden like a honeycomb in the afternoon sun. Any unsuspecting visitor would be fooled by the inviting façade; it was a sinister place.
Rochester was in London today, some business or such in the House of Lords, but Jarvis, his father’s thin-lipped butler-cum-spy, would try and sniff around his heels. And to reach the west wing, he had to walk past Marcus’s life-sized portrait in the Great Hall, and it did funny things to him. Under his brother’s fixed brown gaze, the signet ring grew heavy on his little finger, like a ball and chain, and his insides turned cold. He quickened his pace and felt Marcus’s stare between his shoulder blades until he reached the grand staircase.
He entered his mother’s bedchamber after a quick rap on the door. For a moment, he stood disoriented. The chamber was steeped in nightlike darkness. There was no sound. Had he not known better, he’d have thought the bed empty, but the air was thick with sadness.
He closed the door gently. “Mother?”
Silence.
He moved carefully in the shadows, in case something had been added to her room: a chair or a side table not yet on his mental map.
He halted by the nearest window.
“Mother, I’m going to open the curtains.”
He pulled at the heavy brocade fabric, and light blinded him for a moment. Then Ashdown Park unfolded before him in all the tender green shades of early summer.
Bedsheets rustled softly behind him. “Marcus?”
His mouth quirked ruefully.
He turned.
She lay on her side, a small heap in the vast bed, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
“No,” he said. “Just Tristan.”
Her eyes were tired. Her hair snaked over her shoulder in an untidy coil, more gray than brunette, he noted with unpleasant surprise.
She moved not a muscle as he approached, nor when he took a seat in the visitor’s chair.
An acrid medicinal smell accosted his nose.
Her nightstand was cluttered with the numerous bottles of poison they fed her. There was a tray with a bowl of soup and a slice of bread, looking dried up and untouched.
“Good afternoon, Mother.”
“My beautiful boy,” she said softly, her eyes searching his face.
He reached for her hand. The feel of her bony fingers sent a shudder down his back.
She appeared not to notice. “Why have you not come to see me sooner?”
“I have not been back for long.”
“Liar,” she said without heat. “Carey told me you returned before Christmas.”
“A faithful little spy, your lady’s maid.” It failed to draw a smile. When she was in this state, it was akin to talking into a void. Even her face changed in subtle ways. Her body was here; she was not. It would make the most jaded man believe in the human spirit, because its absence was plainly visible.
“Why are you not eating?” he said. “Should I have words with Cook?”
No reply.
His muscles were tense; his body demanded he walk away from this fragility. Her lady’s maid had kept it from him in her letters, how bad it was. Or perhaps he had refused to read between the lines.
He eyed the bottles on the nightstand more closely. Laudanum, naturally, and some other tinctures, likely snake oil. They used it on her when she had the morbs, and tried to use it on her when she became the overly bright, frantic version of herself who ordered thirty new dresses at once or tried to sail to Morocco
on her own. When he was a boy, either version of her had unsettled him. Being around her and Rochester during those times had felt precarious, like shoveling water from a sinking barge with a spoon.
“Mother, did I tell you, in Delhi, I was a guest of General Foster,” he said. “He keeps a pet elephant in his garden.”
His mother’s brows pulled together. “How curious—a whole elephant?”
“The whole thing. A small one, however, still a youngster. One day, he had figured out how to stick his trunk through the kitchen window and very prettily beg for food. You would like him.”
How would she fare, in India, under General Foster’s roof? She looked brittle, as though a mere carriage ride would shatter her. He wondered whether she was still a friend to Lucie’s mother, for the women had sometimes spent some leisure time together in one of Wycliffe’s smaller country homes. Friendly company might do her good. However, even if the women still shared a connection, Rochester would hardly allow his wife to convalesce away from Ashdown, since she was now his bargaining tool . . .
“An elephant,” she said, still puzzled. “How does he keep it from trampling the roses?”
“The general has his eccentricities, but he makes for good conversation,” he replied. “He fancies himself vastly knowledgeable on the gods of Hinduism and lectures for hours on the topic.”
Her frown lines deepened. “Do you think it wise to mingle with aspiring heathens, dear, and the lecturing kind, too?”
“Right,” he said lamely. “Well, I’m here now.”
A glimpse of her shimmered at the bottom of her blue eyes. “Will you stay?” she whispered.
He wanted to run.
“Only if you eat,” he said. He pulled the bell string over her nightstand and backed away, deciding to take his leave altogether. He had his information; she was obviously unfit for travel, and not particularly intrigued by Foster. He’d return some other time, when his plans had progressed. Any spoon-feeding of broth, the maid could do; he wasn’t a bloody saint, after all. As it was, tonight he had a tête-à-tête with a man they called Beelzebub.
* * *
Night had fallen when he arrived in London, but this corner of the city was always steeped in darkness regardless of the time of the day. The address was most elegant, and presently well-lit by tall streetlights, but the polished white façades and pillared entrances hid back rooms and basements where powerful men assembled to revel in their vices. And where power was limitless, so was the vice.
Years ago, this had been his routine—letting a door knocker fall in a certain pattern, presenting passwords to hulking gatekeepers, descending narrow staircases. In the very heart of London, he had passed through Sodom and Gomorrah. Had it not been for the poets and their lines about all that was noble and true, the murkiness might well have taken permanent root in him. People recognized him even now, their eyes lighting on him from the shadows as he crossed the darkened antechamber of the town house.
He could smell that Blackstone was here before he entered the last card room. It was the distinct absence of fresh cigarette smoke, which normally masked the stink of old carpets that had been soaked in various fluids over the course of decades. No one was allowed to smoke in the investor’s presence. Speculations abounded over the reasons, with half the people suspecting Blackstone had an unseemly concern for the condition of his teeth and lungs, and the other half insisting he just took pleasure in controlling the men around him. Tristan knew him long enough to be certain that both were the case.
Blackstone was sprawled in an armchair, facing the door with his back to the wall. His harsh features, made harsher by a once-broken nose, gave no indication he had taken notice of Tristan entering. He was not paying attention to anyone in particular, and his cards hung loosely from a careless pale hand. The other men in the circle who dared to gamble with him might as well not have been there at all. In looks and mien, Blackstone more resembled the underworld lords who ruled the docklands than his actual class of legitimate businessmen.
Tristan passed the group without slowing, but the small nod he gave indicated he wanted a word, and Blackstone’s dark lashes lowered a fraction in acknowledgment. This was promising, for while they might still follow each other’s moves privately, they had not purposefully crossed paths in a few years’ time.
He sought out an empty side chamber and made himself comfortable in a creaking leather wing chair. Blackstone could take ten minutes, or hours. A patently tedious game, sitting and waiting and breathing the fetid air. In the past, it hadn’t bothered him. He had been keen, then, eighteen years of age and greedy for the hunt. He had just become aware that not only women, but some men, too, were drawn to his face, and the entire demimonde had been enchanted by the newness and youth of him. They had pulled him into the dimly-lit, sweltering, and sleepless underworld of gambling and debauchery, and it had been quite easy, pulling them in in return, securing their trust when they were drunk on Scotch and pleasure or stupidly tight on ether. Incriminating secrets were easily extracted during those hours, and he had made others gamble deep, all while he was still stone sober beneath an exuberant veneer of intoxication. Soon he had had a ledger with a carefully calibrated mix of legitimately owed debts and favors as well as secrets he could occasionally turn into coin by way of extortion. His personal, portable bank account, his last trump card.
It was how he and Blackstone had met: attempting to pluck the same pigeon one glittering night. Their strengths had been too well matched to be pitted against each other effectively, and after some juvenile posturing, they had joined forces for their covert robberies. The brute and the snake. One had provided enforcement, the other access to exclusive circles. It had worked well for a few years. It had worked better for Blackstone, financially speaking—he was now one of the wealthiest businessmen in London. Then again, the man hadn’t been yanked from his early moneymaking activities by an overbearing father. Blackstone, Tristan assumed, did not have a father to call his own.
A shadow fell across the floor. Speak of the devil: the financier’s brawny build was darkening the door frame. Hard eyes the color of slate locked with his.
“I have business to discuss,” Tristan said.
Blackstone contemplated, then nodded, turned, and left. They both knew the chambers here had strategically placed holes in the plaster to accommodate the ears and eyes of third parties. They knew from their days on the other side of the wall.
They were headed toward the east exit where the coaches waited. Blackstone motioned for Tristan to climb aboard his unmarked carriage. The vehicle jerked into motion a moment later, and unless discussed otherwise, it would take them a few streets down to Belgravia, which allowed for enough time to talk business if one was succinct; then Tristan would alight and Blackstone would vanish, presumably to one of his various properties whose locations he liked to keep undisclosed. He did have one well-known town house, in Chelsea, filled entirely with his collection of art and antiques, and Blackstone knew the price of each of these objects and the value of none. The investor was crass—commonplace in someone born on the wrong side of the blanket who had come into his fortune later in life, Tristan supposed.
“I need money,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Across the footwell, Blackstone was watching the dark of night pass by the window, light and shadow playing over his blunt features. He apparently was still not much of a talker.
“How much,” he finally asked, his gravelly voice dispassionate, his Scottish lilt a mere whisper these days.
Tristan named the sum, and Blackstone slowly turned his head to face him.
It was a rather speaking glance the man gave him. Well, yes. It was rather a lot of money.
“I’m almost curious what brought this on,” Blackstone murmured.
“Women,” Tristan replied. Lucie, his mother, and the unknown, unwanted fiancée, to be precise.
“Naturall
y.” Blackstone was looking out the window again. “The money shall be in the account by noon,” he said after a pause. “Meet my man to sign the papers at Claridge’s tomorrow morning at eight.”
There was no need for further discussion. Blackstone clawed his money back come what may, and Tristan knew the conditions. The last time he had asked for a large sum, he had been two-and-twenty and had just received his marching orders. It had been the second occasion where he had seriously contemplated becoming disowned and emigrating to America, and again, he had held back. He had, however, had the presence of mind to make an investment with an eye on the future before his regiment’s ship sailed. In addition to an ambitious interest rate, his old friend had asked for a few debts to be transferred from Tristan’s ledger into his own—Blackstone loved owning the debts of noblemen, only to call them in at the most inopportune times, inopportune for the indebted noblemen, that was. Ruined livelihoods lay scattered in his wake. Tristan smiled faintly. A viscount had to be mad to do business with Blackstone.
Chapter 8
Lucie’s breakfast was disturbed by a disheveled runner boy ringing her doorbell. The note he delivered was from the Snug Oyster, and Lucie hastily dressed. When the Oxford brothel sent for her rather than have one of its occupants turn up at her doorstep in the black of night, something was afoot. She made her way toward Cowley Road in a hackney rather than on foot.
In the dim light of the brothel’s vestibule, the sweet smell of Far Eastern herbs was already overwhelming. Incense, but employed with deliberate overabundance. As always, it blasphemously forced her mind back to early mornings in the Wycliffe chapel.
It was eight o’clock, and the Oyster was readying for sleep. The woman who had let her in looked tired, the kohl lining her dark eyes dissolved into gray smudges.