The Lady’s Lover

by Deb Marlowe

  Beth stepped forward. “For several months after that fight, I was naught but a numbwit. I knew my name, but I’d forgotten how to read. I couldn’t add numbers or tell them apart. I couldn’t remember how to get to my room at the end of the day. Hestia Wright did that to me—and then she left me behind.”

  Hestia’s heart wrenched. She wished suddenly, and with all of her heart, that Stoneacre was not here to hear this.

  “But after a while, things began to come back. It went slowly, but I began to feel like myself again. To think like myself again.” She glanced down. “And I hated Hestia Wright.”

  Marstoke stepped forward. “Now I urge you, as my most devoted followers, to pay tribute to this woman as the first among you. No one has played the Game so skillfully as she. She not only agreed to play a dangerous and cunning role, but she excelled at it.”

  There were dissatisfied mutters and murmurings from the gathered crowd.

  Marstoke paid it no heed. “I heard about it when Hestia Wright first moved back to England. And I heard the news when the Queen of Courtesans was going to open a house—a place where any woman could come to her for help. So, I gave her a challenge. I sent her the half-wit she had so hated.” He threw back his head and laughed. “And the foolish woman took her in.”

  Hestia held her breath steady. She would not cry. She would not give either of them a moment of triumph at her own expense.

  “This woman played her role and lived in Hestia Wright’s own house for years,” Marstoke crowed.

  She’d never seem him show such emotion.

  “She has been a mouse in Hestia’s house, burrowed in and scurrying about, finding what I need to know, lying to Hestia every day for years.”

  She fought not to be sick. She would not do it. How could she have been so blind? How many people had she endangered with her own inability to see?

  “And there you have it, the last and greatest accusation laid at Hestia Wright’s door. I think our case has been made.”

  A chair scraped against the floor. Hestia turned to find Stoneacre standing. “It’s a one-sided trial, if you’ve allowed no one to speak in Hestia’s defense,” he called out.

  The corner of Marstoke’s mouth twitched. “Who would speak for her?” He looked out across his gathered people.

  The silence held.

  “I will,” Stoneacre declared.

  Marstoke laughed out right. “A few of the boys might like to hear about her talents in bed, but I doubt anything else you have to say would be of interest.”

  Someone shouted a rude affirmation and the marquess just raised a brow.

  “Why not let me speak, Marstoke? Do you not want your followers to hear of the hundreds of women and children she’s saved? How she lifted them out of misery and poverty and abuse and helped them to live better, safer and more useful lives? Or don’t you want to remind them that you couldn’t win her or keep her? Or of the times she’s defeated you, foiled your scheming or blocked your treasonous plans?”

  “I think you’ve made our case for us, my lord. We all know it would be expedient to eliminate her before we begin the next phase of our great project.”

  “What have you told them?” Hestia asked wearily. “That the opium will fund your new order? Help to rid the country of unearned privilege and primogeniture?”

  Stoneacre turned to rake a scathing glance over the assembled crowd. “Idiots. You are all dumber than you appear, if you believe that. How do you think he came by his own power and wealth?”

  “Lord Marstoke understands that some of us born without a silver spoon deserve a chance at better,” someone called.

  “Some of us born down the family line deserve a piece of the pie!”

  “And yet, you all follow him because he has money and power,” she said over her shoulder. “You bow down before him, run to do his bidding, leave your homes and betray your families because you believe he has it, and you want it.” She shook her head. “But he doesn’t. It’s all a lie.” She nodded toward Stoneacre. “He has committed treason, his blood is attainted and the work has begun to deprive him of his title. Stoneacre and other men in His Majesty’s government have been dismantling Marstoke’s empire. It’s expensive to plot and scheme and play the Game, but his family funds are long gone. His estate sits an empty shell and his criminal enterprises have dried up.” She turned and looked over the other shoulder. “Those opium profits are slated for his pockets, not for your uprising. Marstoke is chasing money, just like so many others.”

  The silence disappeared as the crowd erupted into shouted debate.

  Marstoke’s color heightened, but he kept calm. “Spill what lies you will, Hestia. It will not change what is to come.”

  But Hestia had noticed Beth, staring intently at the marquess. “No money? No title?” The woman took a step closer to him.

  “You should know better than believe anything she says,” Marstoke snarled. He turned to the crowd. “That’s enough foolishness,” he shouted. “Enough distraction. The woman is only trying to save her own skin. We know our mission here—and today it is to destroy her before she interferes with us again.”

  “Before she tells any more inconvenient truths,” Stoneacre shouted.

  “That’s enough!” Marstoke roared suddenly—and the quiet descended again. “She needs to die. I’m offering up the honor to you all. Who will grab favor and acclaim by killing Hestia Wright?”

  A chorus of volunteers and arguments erupted again.

  “No!” Hestia tried to stand, but her bonds brought the chair with her. She pulled it close and kept to her feet. “No!” She slammed the chair back down and fell into it. The crash echoed through the room.

  “You do it, Marstoke,” she called. “You complain about my crimes against you. You claim the new world will be different and that justice and progress will depend on merit? Prove yours, then! If I must die, then you should kill me with your own hand.”

  “She’s right,” someone said.

  “Show us!” That one sounded like Eustace.

  “Prove it!”

  Marstoke stared disbelieving at her, as if he could not believe she’d defied him again.

  She shrugged. One last time. And if she died today, she wanted her blood on his hands.

  “No!” Stoneacre shouted behind her. “I’m the one who has done the work to empty your pockets. I testified before the Crown as to your treason! Let her go!” She could hear the rattle of furniture, as he struggled against his captors.

  But suddenly, Beth left her position by the chair and stepped forward to the front of the dais. “I’ll do it,” she declared. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.”

  Beth watched Marstoke intently again, as if gauging his reaction, but Hestia saw that he only looked relieved.

  “No! Marstoke should do it!” she yelled.

  “A weapon,” the marquess called. “Someone lend us a weapon!”

  At least six men crowded up around her, offering up a selection of knives and pistols.

  “No need,” Beth said. She dropped her cloak and held out the dagger she gripped in her hand. “I brought my own.”

  “Enterprising girl,” Marstoke began. He reached for her other hand to help her down the stairs, but Beth stepped past it.

  She moved in close to the marquess. Touched his cheek. “You said I would be your marchioness,” she said. “Over and over you told me to hang on. Keep going. Keep acting a fool and telling lies and you would marry me when it was over. I would be your lady. But it wasn’t ever true, was it?” She snorted. “You married nearly every skirt in the land—except me. It wasn’t true and I’ve wasted my life.”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, she raised her hand and plunged her dagger into Marstoke’s heart.

  Stoneacre was on his feet, straining against the men who held him, when the girl stabbed Marstoke. The marquess, eyes bulging in disbelief, slumped slowly to the floor. All three of them went slack at the shock of it.

>   Stoneacre recovered first, wrenching free as chaos erupted in the room. He swung at the man on his left, the one more directly in the way of the path between him and Hestia.

  But the guard stepped back. He exchanged a long, speaking glance with his counterpart, and then they both moved away, heading for the door at a trot.

  They were not the only ones. People fought to get out, their numbers clogging the doorway. He saw a couple of people slip out the windows. Others stood still in shock, or cried or fought with each other. One slight and incredibly dirty man caught his attention because he marched against the crowd, moving toward the small crowd around Hestia with murder in his eye.

  Stoneacre couldn’t see her. The men around her were in a heated argument. On the stage above them, Marstoke lay still in a growing pool of blood. One of the hulking men who had stood at either end had grabbed Beth, holding her back pressed tight against his chest. She fought to get away, her limbs flailing as she screamed and cried. “It was all lies!” she shouted. “Pain and lies!”

  “Hush,” the behemoth holding her said. He dragged her while she fought tooth and nail to escape.

  “All this time! And Hestia was nothing but kind to me,” she sobbed. “He never told me the truth of it. He never meant any of it.” She let out a scream of rage toward Marstoke’s slack body. “He’s nothing but lies!”

  The filthy man reached the group around Hestia and entered the heated debate of what they would do with her. Stoneacre moved around their perimeter and came in from the back. Hestia’s chair had fallen over, or perhaps she had tipped it. The men were so busy arguing, they hadn’t noticed Beth’s dagger, flung from the stage and lying at the foot of the stairs. Hestia was moving toward it, dragging the chair with her.

  He knelt beside her, his own knife drawn, meaning to cut her bonds, but she reared back, hitting his chin with the back of her head and spitting defiance while his jaw clapped shut hard enough to rattle his brainbox.

  “Hestia,” he ground out, his skull ringing. “Leave off!”

  “Stoneacre?” She lifted her head and peered through her unbound hair. Her gown hung loose. A smear of dirt marred one perfect cheek—and still, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  He cut her loose and she scrambled away from the chair. The world shifted back into balance when he took her into his arms. He held her tight while she trembled and clutched him back.

  “You’re here,” she whispered. “And—he’s dead. Did you see?” She looked dazed.

  “I saw.”

  “And Beth—” Tears welled in her eyes. “Stoneacre, I didn’t know! How could I not know?”

  He gathered her closer—

  “Let ‘er go.” The order rang out, harsh and loud.

  He turned his head to see the dirt-covered man standing at the forefront of the angry group.

  “The bitch owes me.”

  “Your claim’s no better’n the rest of ours, Gordie.” One of the men snapped, stepping up behind him. “You’ve had yer turn,” he told Stoneacre. “Now move over and let the rest of us at ‘er.”

  He pushed Hestia behind him. “She’s mine.” Simple truth, but it held a thousand meanings.

  There was nothing more to be said.

  The filthy bugger stepped forward and the rest of the crowd decided to let him take first crack.

  “I’ll be but a moment,” Stoneacre told Hestia. “Wait here.”

  He stepped forward when Gordie growled and swung a raised fist.

  Stoneacre ducked under it and punched him hard, direct to the kidney. The other man gasped and staggered a step away, but he rounded back and swung again. Stoneacre feinted and hit him dead on the jaw, hard enough to set bells ringing in his ears.

  The man had clearly taken a beating before. He shook his head and cracked his neck, and, drawing in a couple of deep breaths, he straightened and rushed Stoneacre again.

  He let him come. Blocking a blow, he pushed, raising the man’s arm high and hit him right below his diaphragm. Gordie bent over, retching.

  The crowd of his compatriots shouted advice. One of them tossed him a knife.

  Stoneacre had left his blade next to the chair. Hestia should have picked it up, but the group of thugs stood between them and he didn’t want to draw their attention back to her. He needed to finish this.

  Gordie thrust at him. He dodged and had to continue to duck and weave for several more swings, dancing away to avoid the blade.

  Then his moment came.

  He blocked a vicious swipe and knocked the blade from Gordie’s hand. And while the man was stretched wide and vulnerable, he raised a knee and slammed it into his stones.

  Once. Twice.

  Gordie crumpled.

  The waiting men groaned. Stoneacre swept up the knife and turned to face them.

  Several held up hands and backed away. But one smiled evilly and raised a flintlock pistol. His finger caressed the trigger.

  Stoneacre braced himself. When the shot rang loud in the enclosed space, he flinched and winced—and then opened his eyes to see the other man clutching his neck while blood flowed through his fingers. He took a step and looked past the falling man to see Isaac, Hestia’s butler, lower a rifle and give him a grim nod.

  He didn’t even ask how or why. He snatched up the pistol from the falling man’s hand, then watched the rest of the group lose their enthusiasm for the fight. They started to melt away and he turned to grab Hestia up in his arms again.

  But she was gone.

  “Hestia?”

  She was nowhere in sight.

  “Where did she go?” Isaac asked.

  Panic seized his soul. “She was right here!”

  He called again.

  The house was in chaos. Men fought or fled. One enterprising group was loading crates into a wagon. Stoneacre and Isaac sped through the house, searched through every crowd, every room.

  But there was no sign of her.

  Chapter 20

  You might also wonder at my purpose. Why should I list out this man’s foul deeds and expose you all to such ugliness?

  --from the Journal of the Infamous Miss Hestia Wright

  * * *

  Damn Gordie, he had a blade and dangerous reach in his freakishly long arms.

  Hestia scooped up the knife Stoneacre had dropped when she’d head-butted him. She took up the blood-stained dagger too, for good measure, and tucked it in a pocket. Then she crept forward, looking for an opening to slide the blade to Stoneacre and even up the odds.

  There. There was her chance. She moved forward—and pain exploded in her head.

  Darkness descended over her vision like a stage curtain.

  Someone poked her.

  Hestia flinched and the nudge came again.

  “Wake up. It’s time, now.”

  She rolled her head. Saints, but her headache was back and worse than—suddenly she sat up straight. “Stoneacre!”

  “No.”

  She stared wildly, uncomprehending, at the stranger across from her. “He was fighting Gordie! The dirty bastard had a blade! We have to go back!”

  “No. Far too late.”

  She wanted to cry. To scream in frustration. Her gaze traveled wildly, taking in her surroundings. Another carriage—this one luxuriously appointed. Another headache. At least she was dressed this time. “Let me out, I’ll go back on my own.”

  Something trickled down her neck. She reached up and her fingers came away bloody. Carefully, she explored the tight, pounding spot behind her ear and found a bump the size of a hen’s egg.

  “Sorry about that. It seemed the simplest way.”

  She shot the hulking man a sharp look. “To do what? Break my skull?”

  “Get you out.”

  Suddenly, she realized who he was—one of the behemoths standing guard over Marstoke’s stage play. “Listen. Just let me out. I’ll make my own way back. I have to help Stoneacre.”

  “One way or t’other, that fight’s long over. Your
fancy lordship might’a beat Gordie, but there was a crowd waitin’ to take ’im on.” He sat back and folded his arms. “That place was coming apart at the seams. Nothing good was going to happen to you, there. So, I got you out.”

  “But not Stoneacre?”

  “I don’t owe him.”

  She waited.

  He sighed. “My sister’s girl moved to Manchester to take up a mill job. The mill owner said she was too pretty, too likely to cause trouble, and handed her off to a brothel. A bad one. You got her out. The girl’s a maid at the British Museum now. Sweeps up and helps keep the displays neat. She’s happy.”

  “Oh, yes. Sylvie. I remember her.”

  “I figured I owed you fer her. So, I got you out. I’ll let you out here, though, and then yer on yer own.”

  “Here?” It was dark outside and rain battered against the carriage window, and she realized that they were passing over cobblestones instead of dirt road.

  “Bath.”

  “So far,” she said, dismayed.

  “Yes. No use goin’ back. The only ones left at that house by now are those that will never leave.”

  The carriage rolled to a stop. He reached out and opened the door from the inside. “Go on in. Stay there. Don’t go back and don’t go to the Red Fox. You just wait and let it all settle out. If your man made it out, he’ll find you.” He made a shooing motion. “Go on.”

  Dazed, her head aching, she slid out of the carriage. The door closed again. Rain pelted her while she watched it pull away. Slowly, she turned.

  Amelia’s house. She stood in front of Amelia’s house.

  How had he known? What else did she not know?

  Shaking, she made her way to the stoop and knocked on the door. It opened quickly and Amelia’s butler looked surprised, and then horrified, to find her there, wet and miserable.

  “Miss Wright?”

  “Just Hestia, please,” she said through trembling lips.

  He pulled her inside and then looked as if he didn’t know what to do with her. “Thomas, fetch Lady Cartweld. Right away!”