by Tessa Candle
Mr. DeGroen whispered back, “What a frightening thought. How is Mr. Rutherford?”
Tilly sighed and shook her head in reply. “I will see you at my brother's on Sunday, my dear. Be good.” She kissed his cheek. “Do not take the old puritan out to any gaming hells, now.”
“As much as I should like to see that,” he smiled with a thoughtful squint, “I should be petrified of killing the old boy.”
“True. That could complicate the good character clause attached to your inheritance.” She winked.
He gasped. “Good Lord you are a bad one, Tiddly-wink. I knew there was something I liked about you.”
“I had assumed it was my willingness to go along with this ridiculously long engagement.”
“You do not have much to complain about. An engaged woman has a great deal of freedom. In fact,” he shook his head in dismay, “that is the one among my grandfather's strange testamentary demands that I find least irksome.”
Tilly huffed. “Long engagements are a family tradition my left buttock! I think he just likes controlling people and is compensating himself for the fact that he will not be around much longer to do it in person.”
“You are awfully sweet to him, for someone who thinks him a bitter old tyrant.” He grinned.
“Well, he is not so very awful. He is the only one of your relatives that does not treat you deplorably badly. And I cannot help being diverted by difficult characters. Beside all that, I was taught to defer to the elderly. Especially the rich elderly.” Tilly gave him a significant look.
He put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “You are a gem among women, Tiddly.” Then he smiled mockingly. “Both of your men are so lucky to have you.”
Tilly left her fiancé and settled into her coach with her deaf companion, Mrs. Carlton. She permitted herself a moment to enjoy the scent of lavender from one of her many carriage-freshening sachets, before descending into a moment of sadness.
She wondered how Rutherford was supporting himself under the burden of her engagement. If only she could explain to him the real reason that she could not marry him. If only she could make him understand that her life was complicated and he was better off without her.
Or did she really want him to understand that? Did she really want him to be happy with another? Perhaps she was not quite as altruistic as she liked to suppose, for the thought immediately sent her over-active mind into machinations of how she might prevent such a match. She was roused from her thoughts by their rapid arrival at the London home of her brother, Frederick.
The entryway was lit by myriad candles, and the brass fittings seemed to gleam with a sort of well-polished self-satisfaction. Mrs. Carlton, her companion, smiled and nodded at Tilly before the servant showed the patient woman into the large parlour where she would wait by the great stone fireplace—so large it almost made one fearful—until Tilly returned from her meeting.
Tilly made her way unassisted to the main wine cellar. At the back of the extensive rows of dusty bottles stood a stack of crates that almost touched the low ceiling. She reached behind one corner and depressed a latch, which permitted a door concealed in the centre of the crates to spring open.
She went through, and was greeted on the other side by her brother and the two assistants she had recently hired. Both had got themselves into a spot of trouble last season, while aiding members of the Delacroix family in their plots against the Aldleys, and Tilly had helped them out and given them employment.
There was no point, after all, in imprisoning people who had shown themselves willing to go a long way for a small amount of money. That would be a wasted resource. Better to give them work, for their gratitude made them very loyal, and their history made them discreet. And loyalty and discretion were crucial.
Tilly only hoped her good friend Lydia, the Countess of Aldley, never discovered that she had hired them—particularly Crump, who had been involved in trying to abduct Lydia. She was uncertain she could make her friend see things clearly.
Tilly received a kiss on the cheek from her brother, before seating herself at the head of the oak table that took up most of the small room.
She nodded to Crump and Miss Wheeler. “Thank you all for waiting.”
“It hain't been long, Miss.” Crump checked the door to be sure it was latched, and then seated himself next to Miss Wheeler.
“Let us start with the Belle Hire. How have your researches at the servant registry been proceeding, Wheeler?”
“I got five. Three of them are quite happy to go through training for respect—ah that is to say to go through your servant academy. The other two weren't really the sorts. I can't imagine what made them think they'd find work as servants. Fresh from the country, too. I reckon I just snatched them out from under Red Martha's nose. She loves a country fool. They are pretty girls, and they know it. But they liked the offer, so Crats has got them settling in now.”
“Good. Do not turn your back to Red Martha. She is vicious. If she looks like she has noticed you, you get word to Crump or one of the lads.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Tilly smiled. “You are turning out to be a real asset, Wheeler. I want to help as many as possible, but if Red Martha should stab you for your troubles, I will not be pleased.”
“Yes, Miss.” Wheeler's lips betrayed a stifled little smile.
“Anything else?”
“Some of the street boys brought me a young one. Doesn't want to say where she comes from.”
“How old?”
“Five, or maybe six. She's a wee thing, so it is hard to say. Got eyes like an old crone, though, and she doesn't talk much. I reckon she has not had an easy time of things.”
Tilly nodded. “What did you do with her?”
“We gave her some work at the servant academy in the kitchen. She can stay in the servants quarters for now. Not sure she'll make a house servant, though.”
“Keep me apprised of her progress. Have you the numbers?”
Wheeler handed over some documents. Tilly looked over the accounts for a few minutes. “Very good. You may convey my thanks to Shaw.”
Wheeler nodded.
Tilly turned to her brother. “And how are things at the Hell Fire?”
“The income is up about ten percent from this time last year. Part of that is the increase in the cut to the house, part of that is an increased enrolment in the enhanced memberships.”
“That is very good news.”
“Yes.” Frederick pursed his lips. “But I am afraid there may be a problem with one of our enhanced members.”
“Indeed?” Tilly knew that Frederick was more troubled than he let on. Enhanced memberships were a delicate matter. On the one hand, the Hell Fire profited from them obscenely well. On the other hand, they suffered from the fundamental tension between the libertine personalities that wished to enrol and the very high degree of discretion required by the nature of the club.
Running a gambling hell that encouraged vice and never closed its doors was one thing. Facilitating every imaginable type of congress and cavorting amongst the aristocracy and the unfathomably wealthy was quite another. No matter how carefully anonymity was protected, a problem with one of the members was a problem for everyone.
Tilly rubbed her temple. “Do you have any biscuits, Frederick?”
“I am sorry. I should have had some brought down.”
She smiled affectionately at her brother. “Not to worry. Perhaps we can talk about the Hell later.” She knew he would infer that she meant when we are alone. Wheeler and Crump were as loyal as anyone working for them could be, but this was not something they needed to know about.
Tilly turned to Crump. “Well then, how are the lads?”
He tilted his head and grinned. “Bit bored, really. And too well fed. Yer spoil them with what yer pay.”
“Worth every penny. Are the young ones having any problems with the new delivery schedule?”
“Not at all. Sharp, they are, a
nd lively. Little bastards.”
Tilly laughed. She knew very well that Crump had come to love the young mongrels who ran the deliveries and gathered information from the streets almost as though they were his own children—which some of them might be.
“Only thing is,” Crump continued, “Shaw did some reckonin', and seems as we may run short. Lot of new folks lookin' to buy.”
Not for the first time Tilly wished she were not in the business of growing, importing, and now distributing opium. But it had its uses, legitimate medical uses, and if someone were going to make a fortune off of it, it might as well be her.
Anyway, it was better that someone with morals had control of the trade, for people put all sorts of things in boxes and bottles and sold them. She had heard of one charlatan disguising horse manure as a mummy powder panacea.
And the money generated helped fund the servant academy and the orphanage. But she was conflicted. Opium could carry a person away entirely, and libertarian though she was, Tilly could not see how there was any liberty in being a slave to such a drug. Still it was better that the matter be in the hands of someone who cared about people.
She had started out supplying doctors and apothecaries, but now she had many customers in the upper classes who liked having discreet deliveries.
The problem was that if they could not get it, who knew what desperate things the customers might try? Lord, she really needed a confection. And maybe one of Rutherford's delicious shoulder rubs.
Tilly shook herself and wondered how that thought had come into her head. “Tell Shaw to calculate an appropriate increase in the price. But wait until Friday before you start charging more.”
She would get her importer to go to the competitors and buy up a portion of the stock from each. If done quickly, she should be able to acquire another eighth share of the market without extreme expense, before scarcity drove the price up.
“Yes, Miss. Yer not goin' to like it, but there is one other matter.”
“What is it?” She badly needed a biscuit.
“Lord Essington is askin' for more.”
“Of course he is.” Tilly shook her head. The man was hell bent on killing himself, and she did not want to have his death on her hands. He was her best friend’s brother in law. But she had little choice but to supply him with weekly deliveries, free of charge. It was the only way to keep him from talking about her brother's wife, who had been compromised by Essington.
In fact, nothing untoward had actually happened, however the matter needed to be hushed up for the sake of appearances, and Essington had a great flapping mouth, but was addicted to opium. Supplying it to him seemed quite a rational solution at the time.
“Only, the thing is, Miss, that he says he knows things, and he'll talk.”
Tilly toyed with the idea of giving Essington a stronger mix. No, she did not do such things, even to inconvenient bounders. She was not a monster. She just needed some sugar. She would suck on a chunk from the tea service if there were any—which there was not. Frederick could at least have provided them with tea.
“I see. Well then, give him more. An extra day's worth.” She considered for a moment that if he had said that much already, Essington might get incautious and let something slip. “And it would ease my mind if you would take over the deliveries personally, Crump.”
“Very good, Miss.”
When Wheeler and Crump departed, Frederick confided in Tilly about the problematic member at the club. “It is Lord Screwe.” He drew close to her on the stairs as they left the cellar and added sotto voce, “He has been boasting in the inner circle that he has procured a slave for his bed sport.”
“Good Lord. I wish we had never granted that cur an enhanced membership. I mean, we have almost no rules but one, consent, so it just had to be broken, didn't it? I suppose being thrown out of White’s was insufficient. He could go to prison for this. Is the man trying to get the Prince Regent to just give over and strip him of his title?”
“I am not sure that Prinny cares enough about such matters. Justice is not really his fascination.” Frederick shrugged sadly. “But in any case, to hear him tell of it, he has her locked up somewhere in his home.”
“And the idiot brags about it.” Tilly scowled. “That poor girl must be scared out of her wits. We cannot leave her there.”
“We also cannot call in the Bow Street Runners.”
Tilly waved her hand. “Of course not. I will come up with something, but in the meantime, be a dear and get me some confections.”
Frederick kissed her head, then hailed the footman as they entered the parlour.
Sample Chapter 4
Rutherford petted Molly's head where it lay in his lap. Her body stretched out indolently on the carriage seat. She had the definite air of a dog who had rapidly grown accustomed to her new lifestyle.
“That is right, little princess. Be at your ease. We are almost at Essington Hall.”
He had stopped the carriage several times on the journey to allow Molly to stretch her legs and relieve herself. She was delicate after all. He wondered if some day Tilly would let him look after her. Would she ever be delicate?
She was marvellously resourceful, and more than a little devious—definitely not some vapourish maiden who needed coddling. He admired her for it, but paradoxically could not help wanting to take care of her.
Molly offered him her belly for scratching and he obliged, shaking his head at his own dreamy foolishness. Tilly would marry DeGroen. She could never be his to care for. He could feel a great pit opening beneath him—an abyss of eternal loss which he felt powerless to fight. Molly licked his leg.
“You are my sweet girl, Molly. I know you mean to comfort me. But what I really need is to get a hold of myself and do something, instead of sitting about like a mawkish bacon-brain, waiting for her to marry DeGroen and plunge me into eternal misery.”
He resisted the urge to reach for his laudanum and instead toyed again with the idea of using stratagems to win Tilly’s hand. Surely she had some weakness. Aldley’s suggestion of a feigned abduction was, of course, absurd, but what if Rutherford made her jealous? Could he make her believe that he might marry someone else?
Lady Essington was not a bad candidate, for he had harboured a little calf love for her when a lad. The problem was, she was already married. Of course, affairs with married ladies were not unheard of—particularly amongst noble ladies who had married swine and already provided heirs.
He was not really certain an affair would be sufficient, however. He supposed he could find some quivering blancmange débutante. The trick would be making the courtship seem plausible when the very idea sent him into fits of annoyance and ennui in turns.
He had never met a debutante who did not bore him senseless—well, except Lady Aldley. She had been quite something. And Rutherford’s younger sister, Susan, was proving to be more interesting than most, so he supposed he should not dismiss débutantes as a whole. Yet he was convinced that these exceptions merely proved the rule.
But Tilly was utterly brilliant and fascinating. There was no one like her. She was a sparkling gem in the shale pile that was the London ton. It would be difficult to be convincing while courting a tedious little simpleton. Would Tilly even believe it?
His thoughts were interrupted by the carriage turning onto the long stone driveway of Essington Hall.
Rutherford and Molly were conducted through the high-ceilinged hallways of the manor, through arcades spattered with hunting trophies and indifferent paintings of ancestors or men shooting at birds, and cluttered by coarse bronze statues of men and horses, each looking about as brutish as the other. It was decidedly decorated by a disjointed committee—every generation of men tacking on their own bits to make a whole whose only cohesive elements were masculine themes and want of taste.
When Rutherford reached the grand parlour, he was transported into such a different aesthetic that he thought he might not recover from the shock. Floral motifs and
fancy embroidery asserted their feminine authority on every available surface. Lady Essington sat on a couch with her needlework, surrounded by a colony of cushions ensigned with enough fancy sewing and ruffles to forcibly evict masculinity from the whole of England, if released into the wild all at once.
She stood to receive him into her matronly refuge from the rest of Essington Hall. Rutherford permitted himself a moment of queasiness, but abandoned any hope of deciding which parts of the manor, the masculine or the feminine, were more virulent. Such an exercise could only lead to madness.
“Mr. Rutherford—it is still Mr. Rutherford, is it not? How very good to see you after all this long time. And you have brought your dog, I see.”
He smiled. “Indeed it is, Lady Essington. I am quite as enchanted by your beauty as ever. This is Molly. She is in a family way, so I like to keep an eye on her. I hope you will pardon the irregularity.”
“Nothing to pardon at all.” She bent to scratch Molly’s ears, then gestured that they should seat themselves. “She is adorable. So you are not yet the Duke of Bartholmer. No matter. The débutantes are not so near-sighted as that. You must be swarmed at Almack’s.”
Rutherford shuddered. “I avoid the place like a house of plague. I hope I will not disappoint you, Lady Essington, in confessing that I have no desire to become Bartholmer. My current life is far too much responsibility for a ne'er-do-well like myself, as it is. The heavy mantle of dukedom would be utterly oppressive.”
She laughed. “You must call me Lizzy, as when we were young.”
He smiled and bowed his head.
“However,” she continued, “I do not allow you to be so self-deprecating. It seems to me that only a responsible man would come all this way at a friend's behest, merely to reassure him that his sister is not in dire straits.”
“Did Aldley say that was the reason for my visit?”
“Of course not. But despite evidence to the contrary, I am not entirely dull-witted. Nor am I vain enough to believe that you came here to reignite the flame of our youth.”