Her mother, feigning exhaustion, had closed her eyes and leaned back on the upholstered seat as the carriage carried them across Bond Street to St. George, where their rented house was located. Though they had Gadstoke Manor in Devonshire, her mother had demanded—on threat of her demise—to remain in London for their first year.
Verity piped in, “He was handsome, was he not?”
She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Who?”
Verity narrowed her eyes. “You know very well who. Lord Richard— Ooh, and he’ll be at dinner tomorrow night.” Verity’s face lit up, her cheeks turning pink with excitement. “Our first proper dinner party since we’ve been in London. It will be the highlight of the Season.”
Vic leaned forward, tapping her chin. “Oh, I think there are still plenty of exciting things to look forward to this season. Why, our own coming-out ball is next week.”
Grace waved her off. “I want to go to Gadstoke Manor. For me, the country seems a far better place than this crowded city.”
Vic knew that the only reason her father agreed to remain within the city was because it was the center for their continued work amongst the ton. Entering their homes as guests and uncovering their guilt or innocence.
“And we will,” their mother broke in, raising her head to look at her daughter. “We are still settling in, and you know how important your father’s new…position is. He and your sisters and brother have been rather…distracted lately.” To put it mildly. Her mother knew the truth, of course, but she was loath to live as though she were hostess to a house of bedlamites.
Faith looked about to argue when their carriage pulled up outside of their townhouse on St. George in Hanover Square. A three-story-tall edifice in white brick, it was an impressive home. But in Zhejiang, she’d had acres and acres of land to roam and practice on, while here, she was trapped in a box beside other boxes, with only the small dàochǎng on the upper floor, which had been converted from a nursery.
Sighing, she remembered how wistful she’d been about visiting London, seeing the sights, meeting the people…experiencing what life was like outside of all the training. She had yet to truly enjoy much of anything London had to offer, and it took everything in her to not let her disappointment taint everything else with its pall.
It could only get better— At least that’s what she chose to believe.
Their mother, having recovered sufficiently, apparently, stepped from the carriage first, flying up the front stairs. Once they were all inside their comfortable but richly decorated home, their mother spun toward them, agile for a woman of her age.
“There is much to be done before our guests arrive tomorrow night. I will send the invitation to her ladyship, Lady Ashbury, and the address card to the duke. Victoria, I expect you to keep your siblings out of my hair; I must focus on this dinner party.”
Faith hurried toward them, eyes bright. “Can I help, Mama?”
Their mother shuddered. “Absolutely not,” she snapped. “The last time you helped, Miss Marple and Lady Winthrope left our home drenched in Dutch sauce.”
Stifling a giggle at that memory, Victoria handed her purchases to Ping-Na, who had appeared, as usual, as if by magic.
“Mistress Lady Daring needs a stiff drink,” Ping-Na proclaimed in Mandarin, a language her mother had never been able to learn, before disappearing with an armful of packages.
Victoria could see how weary her mother was, but the paleness from the carriage was gone, replaced by a determined set of her flushed face. Her mother was in her element—planning elegant parties and ordering people around. It was her gift, one she could put to good use now that she had a household in London. Tomorrow night’s dinner would be their sixth evening affair since arriving in London, but it would be the first where guests were also suspected of crimes against the Crown.
Her sisters, eyeing their mother with wary gazes, made themselves scarce, and Victoria climbed the stairs to her room, where she intended to change into her jiànshēn fú and spend the next two hours working on her sword form. And, hopefully, she’d tire herself out enough that thoughts of Richard Downing and his liquid gold eyes would fall away.
Dressed in her training clothes, she headed up to the dàochǎng on the upper floor. It was a sweltering room, with only one window, but at least there was enough space for their practice dummies, their sword collection, and sparring space for at least four people. She entered the room to find it empty—for which she was grateful. She didn’t think she could withstand more of her sisters’ questions or comments about the smirking, golden-haired annoyance.
Richard… Moving into position on the bamboo mat her father had installed, she went through her warm-up routine: a series of movements that loosened the muscles and joints and would allow for better, smoother movements once she had her dao in hand.
Two hours and a grueling sword practice later, Vic was sore, sweating profusely…and still thinking about Richard Downing.
Chapter Seven
Entering the large, hexagonal room, the man climbed the steps to the dais where his seat stood out amongst the five others, arranged with one seat in each corner. His own seat was smaller, less ornate, and it was empty. The others had arrived before he had. That wasn’t a surprise…he’d slept most of the day and into the evening. It was only by the skin of his teeth that he remembered he’d been summoned to a midnight meeting of the Cards.
At the top of the stairs, he spun around to sit, his gaze caught on the elaborate mural on the wall opposite. It was of a cloaked man, raising his bloody sword over the head of a man wearing a golden crown.
In here, with their dark plans and inky machinations, even the king was at their mercy.
To an outside observer, the room, with its raised dais surrounding the center of the space, looked like the horrid theater of a tribunal, gathering together to hand out judgments to lesser beings.
“So, you have deigned to grace us with your presence,” that same voice from the previous week drawled acidly. “Once again you have shown yourself incapable of following simple instructions.”
“Give over, Crimson, we haven’t the time to berate the dog,” the voice of the Silver Harlequin rang through the air, landing squarely in his opium-addled mind. “Black, tell us what you’ve discovered.”
Discovered? What had he discovered—oh, yes! “His Grace the Duke of Billings has a bastard son.”
A derisive snort, then, “Who doesn’t? This isn’t news, Black. What else?” Their leader and master of funds, the Golden Man, shifted in his much larger seat—a throne really—and pinned him with a stare from behind his golden mask. Of all the members of the House of Cards Society, none protected their true identity as vehemently as the Golden Man. All six members knew who he was, who his father was…what his secrets were. But to them, in here, he was the Black Jack, the handler of things that required dirty hands.
They all had their places within the Society: the Golden Man made all the decisions, ruling over them; the Silver Harlequin was connected to the Crown spy organization; the Crimson King was connected to many of the most affluent families; the Scarlet Queen’s value to the Cards was yet to be determined; and The Man in White, the most silent of their membership, was the man who made the plans. Plans for blackmailing, kidnapping, smuggling, and all manner of money-making schemes. They weren’t there for the companionship, but rather to see to their own ends. Money. Power.
But, for him, the House of Cards Society was a prison in a jeweled octagonal palace. They knew what he’d done, holding it over his head to keep him in line. And they knew his weakness…supplying him with the highest quality of opium—if he succeeded. The chances of which, because of his damned weakness for the mind-altering drug, were dwindling.
His father’s voice echoed through his thoughts: “…you wretch. You can’t even do this one simple thing for me. What am I supposed to do with a drunken whore for a son?” That had been only a small part of his last conversation with his father, a duke o
f some standing in society. A man who would skin him alive if his son’s failings ever came to light. And that’s why he had to do as the House of Cards demanded.
“…are you even listening?” The Silver Harlequin’s voice ripped through his tumultuous meanderings. “Goddammit, Black!”
He was failing, yet again. “I am sorry. I have been feeling…under the weather,” he mewled, his voice as weak and plaintive as he felt. “What would you have me do now?”
The Crimson King cursed under his breath. “Tell us what Billings’s bastard son has to do with us. How can we use this information for our cause?”
Cause? Oh yes…their cause was to fell the monarchy. Wasn’t it?
He cleared his throat. “It is not that Billings has a bastard son, but rather who the mother is.”
“And who is the mother?” The Scarlet Queen finally spoke, her soft, lyrical voice easily setting her apart as the only female member of their order.
“Amelia Manderby,” he answered.
Gasps filled the room. “But isn’t that—”
“How absolutely deplorable—”
“His sister? My God…that is something we can use.”
“How did you discover this?”
“Amelia Manderby is Countess of Maybury—and the daughter of the Duke of Marsdon. She has more connections than all the patronesses at Almacks.”
That last one was the Scarlet Queen, who, no doubt, knew each of the patronesses personally. But he couldn’t know that for sure. He knew little about the Queen’s identity other than that she’d inherited her seat in the Society from her husband, the Scarlet King, when he’d died of consumption the year before. As the Black Jack, he wasn’t privy to the names and ranks of those higher up in the order. He was a toady, a dog sent to do his master’s bidding— A twinge of outrage bit at him. He was the son of a duke, the heir to a dukedom; they should treat him with more respect, as befitted his station.
He sniffed, raising himself to sit erect in his low seat. Damn, but he deserved a better place in their chambers. He was the one who dug through the muck and mire of the ton and uncovered most all the intrigues they were using to squeeze funds from men like Billings.
“How did I discover this?” he repeated, drawing it out. He shrugged. “I have my own connections, ones you would never think to use. But I do, and that is why I should have more than just your derision and sneers.”
The Golden Man chuckled menacingly. “You forget, Black, you are here at my mercy. Nothing you do is done without my knowing about it.”
Stunned by the venom in the man’s tone, he leaned back in his seat, his heart pounding. What could Golden mean? He had been so careful to keep his underworld contacts to himself— It was a matter of life and death, being able to keep names and doings of such people a closely guarded secret. But if Golden knew…
No. He is bluffing.
“Is that so?” he murmured, pushing the words through the lump in his throat. “You have been watching me?”
He could feel the Golden Man sneer behind his mask.
“I know all. I see all. There is nothing anyone in this room can hide from me.”
The silence in the space squeezed his throat, a noose of fear and tension strangling his moment of bravado.
The Scarlet Queen broke in. “What should we do with this information? Blackmail? We could keep it close to the breast…perhaps hold it over him when the need arises?” Even in his wasted state, he could hear the apprehension in her voice. She’d always been the one to advise caution—waiting and watching before taking any drastic steps. He couldn’t fathom why Golden hadn’t stripped her of her place in the order yet.
The Man in White stood, his cloaked figure all the more difficult to see because of the shadows swallowing him.
“Black will deliver the letter. We will let Billings know of our discovery and tell him to be ready for the next letter…when we will it,” the Man in White, the strategist of the organization, announced. Even the Golden Man deferred to the Man in White’s brilliance in all things illicit.
“Good.” The Golden Man stood as well, his yellow mask glinting in the flickering light of the large candelabra hanging overhead. “Before that, though—” He spun. “Black, you will break into the home of Lady Manderby. We will need something with which to base our…information. Your connections cannot be counted on in the matter.”
Sod that. It was his connections that had uncovered a housemaid who’d worked in the Marsdon home twenty years ago, before the young Miss Billings married her earl. The maid had been privy to Miss Billings’s shocking pregnancy and her delivery. The murmurs around the mansion were that the young Lord Billings had raped his sister in the garden grotto and that her baby was a result of their immoral coupling.
Without his connections, he wouldn’t have found the bastard son, living as a bootblack in Seven Dials, adopted by a washerwoman who once lived in the mansion. He even knew that Lady Manderby’s late father, the duke, had paid the washerwoman fifty pounds to take the baby and never speak a word of the boy’s parentage. It was his knowledge, his work that had brought all of this to light. Without him, the House of Cards would have nothing with which to plot their schemes.
But he daren’t speak such things to the Golden Man…the man who held his bollocks in his hands.
He watched as each of the members rose from their seats and left, their cloaked forms bleeding into the shadows until they disappeared utterly. As per usual, he’d been left behind, treated as so much refuse, horseshit on their Hessians and slippers. He bit back a curse— One never knew which of the walls contained ears, men and women who worked for Golden, who would happily report back any possibly traitorous remarks.
Standing, he wiped at the sweat on his forehead with an already soiled handkerchief. It had been days since he’d had the thing washed, since he’d even washed himself. He hadn’t been back to his house for over a week… There was nothing there for him other than his father’s recriminating scowls, his mother’s disapproving pouts, and silence born of apathy. He could find no approval beneath his parents’ roof or in their hearts, and so he stopped seeking it. Started seeking pleasures instead…especially on one fateful trip to the Orient.
The telltale ache began behind his eyes, and he knew what would come next.
No…there was no love or joy in his parents’ house, but there were such things at Hedo’s House.
A grin cracked his parched lips and he licked them, suddenly thirsty for red wine, sweet opium, and eager wantons—three at a time.
He left the large building on Sutherland and hailed a hackney, giving the driver the direction of the third most popular seraglio in London. He couldn’t afford the second most popular, and he daren’t show his face at the first. There were too many familiar faces and prying eyes there. He preferred the den of iniquity where he was the highest ranked in attendance. It did wonders for the libido.
In less than thirty minutes, the brute at the door permitted access to the crimson-colored walls of his favored house of ill repute. Hedo’s House was a warehouse furnished with threadbare chaises, corners darkened by curtains hung between occupied settees, and long tables holding an array of suspicious foods—though few here ate. They were too busy filling their souls with regret to fill their bellies with three-day-old finger sandwiches and wine so weak it looked like rose water. But he wasn’t there for any of the offerings in this room; he directed his wobbling legs toward the door in the back corner, the door that led to a nearly pitch-black room, where the sweet, cloying scents of his greatest delight filled the air.
It was a room he often dreamed about—when he could dream. When his mind wasn’t on fire from going without.
He opened the door, closed his eyes, and stepped inside.
By the time he’d divested himself of his clothes and his inhibitions, wrapping himself in heavily perfumed arms and legs and the blessedness of an opium haze, he couldn’t remember what the man in the golden mask had ordered him to do.
>
Chapter Eight
Richard sat, staring into the fireplace in his bachelor apartments, his thoughts squarely on the woman he’d seen that day—or rather, seen again.
“Victoria…” he murmured, her name sounding much too perfect on his tongue. It suited her. He smirked, thinking of how quickly she’d recovered after the shock of seeing him again. He only wished he’d recovered as quickly as she had; he wouldn’t have made such a cake of himself in front of Justin, who had spent the remainder of their afternoon together growling at him about having to spend tomorrow evening with nattering misses rather than having a quiet night at home with his wife.
Richard knew he should feel guilty, and maybe he did, but more than anything he felt…unease. As a man who prided himself on his self-control, his strength of character—though, in his salad days, he’d been a careless lout—and his cold, analytical mind, he couldn’t understand his sudden interest in this one woman. It would be better for him to forget having met her before and just focus on her as she was now, the respectable daughter of an earl.
But dammit, he couldn’t stop thinking about her sneaking around Clouster Hall, dressed as a maid. He had spent much of the evening asking himself silent questions about the lady who disguised herself to break into a lord’s study—she even knew how to pick locks. How many women in his acquaintance could boast of something as alarmingly intriguing as that?
He’d bet his best watch fob that Victoria was one in a million…in more ways than one.
Picking up the tumbler of Scotch at his elbow, he lifted the crystal to his lips, sipping the slightly sweet yet ragingly strong liquor. It was just the right amount of bite to keep him focused, and he needed focus. More than anything, he wanted to meet Victoria fully armed against the strange sensations she awakened in him. Sensations like curiosity, awareness…desire.
A Lady Never Tells (Women of Daring) Page 7