The Lady's Deception

by Susanna Craig

  Henry had regarded him with an unreadable expression for a long moment before cracking something meant to be a smile. “Very carefully.”

  Shortly thereafter, Henry had proposed to Erica and been accepted. Paris had thought it an odd match, persuaded Henry’s interest lay in another direction and believing Erica unsuited to marriage at all. No doubt a true friend and a responsible elder brother would have tried to keep the two of them from making a terrible mistake.

  Paris had merely shrugged off his concerns and offered them his felicitations.

  “Do you remember what became of that hedgehog?” he asked Molly.

  “Not I.” The maid looked thoughtful. “You don’t suppose Cook managed to sneak it into a stew?”

  As he sputtered into the coffee he’d been sipping, Molly began straightening the piles he’d left on the desk. Wordlessly, she placed last night’s dirty glass on her tray, but the assessing look she sent over her shoulder drove him from the room.

  Outside the door to his bedchamber, he paused. He’d listened to the girls troop down to the kitchen for breakfast and Rosamund’s lighter ascent to the schoolroom sometime later. Molly would be occupied downstairs for some time. He would be safe, finally, in collapsing into oblivion. But a comfortable bed was the last thing he deserved.

  Instead, he went in, removed his wrinkled coat, and hung it over the back of a chair. Molly had left hot water. Somehow, she managed the near-impossible task of keeping the household running smoothly, even anticipating its occupants’ needs. For that, he was more than willing to put up with a little sauciness. After shedding his waistcoat, cravat, and shirt, he shaved—though where he was going, no one would notice if he looked like death warmed over—then donned fresh linen and a brown coat that he knew from experience wouldn’t show the grime.

  When he left the house, a steady drizzle was falling. He flipped up the collar on his greatcoat, tugged his hat lower over his ears, and considered a hackney. But cabs were few and far between on the Dublin streets, and none would want to take him where he was headed. He’d reach his destination sooner on foot.

  In an hour—during which time the drizzle had turned to rain and he’d been splashed with mud and worse by a passing dray—he stood before the hulking gray stone walls of the New Gaol in Kilmainham, larger than its predecessor but already almost as fetid.

  Even outside, the odor of unwashed bodies hung thick in the air. The guard recognized him and let him through the gate with a sneer. Of late, Paris had expended all of his considerable legal acumen trying to save at least a few of those whom the system was designed to damn. He almost always failed, as Graves had surely known when he’d presented him with the Kilready case.

  Part of him wondered whether he was supposed to fail this time, too.

  Inside the jail, men, women, and children were penned together indiscriminately, murderers beside pickpockets, like hogs allowed to fatten by feeding on one another as they awaited slaughter. On every visit, Paris fought the temptation to clutch a handkerchief over his nose and mouth to filter the air, too thick with the stench of human misery to breathe. Each time, he made himself go on without it. If the prisoners could survive it, he could too.

  Of course, a good many of them would not survive. A steady noise of moaning, coughing, and keening nearly drowned out his footsteps as he walked through the dark corridor lined with cells.

  But silence would be more frightening still.

  A few eyes had already begun to follow him. “Fagan?” he called out, dreading what would follow. “I’m looking for Thomas Fagan.”

  The replies, as always, ran the gamut. Some men claimed an identity that wasn’t theirs, clutching at the mere flicker of hope it offered. Others, whose hope had long since died, loudly denied the existence of such a fellow. From the shadows, someone offered to suck his cock. Whether the lewd words were intended to draw him closer or drive him away, Paris had never tried to determine.

  The women and children were quieter, though they watched him with hollow eyes from the corners of the crowded cells, where they’d been driven by the men. While he stood waiting, one elbowed her way to the front of her cage, snarling at those who would refuse her passage. “’Tis here you’ll find him, sirrah.”

  It might have been a trap. Nevertheless, Paris stepped closer. “Yes?”

  “T’ lad took sick in the night,” she explained, and she bravely nudged a few more bodies aside so that he could see a figure lying on the dirty straw, his face turned toward the wall.

  “You, there,” Paris called to the guard at the far end of the corridor. “I need to speak with this prisoner.”

  With a great show of reluctance, the man rose from the battered table at which he’d been seated, dealing himself a solitary hand of cards, and slowly approached. Paris had never seen him before. He must have been newly appointed to his post. “How’s that?” the man grunted.

  “I need to enter this cell.” A wiser man wouldn’t have made a habit of it. No one inside that cage had a thing to lose.

  But Paris had also lost a great deal. Too much to fear disease or a makeshift knife between the ribs.

  The guard looked from the gathered prisoners to Paris and gave a mirthless laugh, revealing a mouthful of rotted teeth. “It’s your funeral.” He shrugged. “All right, then. Back, you. Back!” he shouted, rattling the bars with a club to drive the men away. The ring of keys at his side jingled, but there was no merriment in the sound.

  The woman who’d called Paris over had returned to the boy’s side. “What ails him?” Paris asked her. Typhoid, cholera…the possibilities were legion.

  That foolish question earned him another guffaw from the guard. “Naught but what this club would cure.”

  Paris caught the end of the man’s cudgel in one hand and shoved him backward with it. “Enough. Unlock the cell.”

  The guard’s eyes narrowed, clearly weighing whether or not to use the weapon on Paris. Paris held his ground. At last, the man grabbed his keys and thrust one into the lock. On rusty, squawking hinges, the door swung open just wide enough to admit Paris, then slammed shut again. Once more the key grated in the lock. By sheer force of will, Paris contained the familiar shudder of dread that accompanied the sound.

  Privacy was a thing unheard of in prison. He’d planned defenses and heard confessions within these cells, while other prisoners chimed in with unsolicited advice and opinions. But this time, perhaps because of the boy’s illness, the crowd held back a bit, leaving as wide a berth as possible around the body curled on the mangy straw. Only the woman stayed close enough to hear their quiet conversation.

  “Do you know him?” Paris asked her.

  She hesitated, then shook her head. When she laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, he moaned. “Fever,” she explained. “Though not so’s t’ make ’im mad. Come now, Tommy, show yourself. Here’s Mr. Burke come t’ halp ee.”

  He couldn’t remember having seen the woman before. But perhaps he had. Or perhaps his reputation had preceded him—whatever it might be. He squatted in the muck and joined the woman in her efforts to rouse Tommy Fagan.

  At last the boy eased from the coil into which he’d wound himself and rolled onto his back, eyes still tightly closed. Paris could not prevent a gasp from escaping his lips. Fagan was crusted with dirt. Tracks had formed on his cheeks where tears had fallen and not been wiped away. Neither the dirt nor the tears surprised him. Beneath the layer of grime and the slight flush of fever, however, the boy’s skin was almost translucent, like a creature born and raised in utter darkness. His hair, which poked through the holes in a tattered wool cap, was whiter than Rosamund’s kitten. The effect was unearthly: a child formed of smoke or light, liable to be snuffed out by a strong breath of wind.

  Nevertheless, his grip was firm as he fumbled for and found Paris’s hand. “Help me,” he whispered through dry, cracked lips.

 
With the woman’s assistance, Paris lifted the boy to a sitting position, then slipped a flask from the deep pocket of his greatcoat. “Water,” he explained.

  The woman lifted one shoulder. “Pity.”

  Tommy drank greedily, the flask fastened to his lips so that not a drop escaped. When he’d drained its contents, his eyelids at last fluttered, then lifted, revealing surprisingly ordinary brown eyes, dull with fever. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re Thomas Fagan?”

  “Aye.”

  “And you came to Dublin from Kilready Castle?”

  The eyelids drifted closed again. “Aye.”

  “What made you leave?”

  “I couldn’t go on—” He drew a rattling breath, eyes still closed. “Couldn’t go on doin’ his biddin’. ’Tis wrong, what he’s doin’. Same as stealin’.”

  “I’ve heard there’s smuggling going on near Kilready, Tommy. Is that it? Is that what you’ve been involved in?” The boy nodded. “Will you tell me who’s behind it?”

  He did not answer. The woman, still supporting one of the boy’s shoulders, gave him a gentle shake. “Go on, then, Tommy. Why should you hang for another’s crime?”

  “Th’ agent. Mr. Quin.”

  Paris was careful to keep his voice calm, matter-of-fact, though a great deal rode on the answer to his next question. “And from whom does Mr. Quin take his orders?”

  Tommy’s chest rose and fell with a labored breath. “’is lordship. Who else?”

  “The Earl of Dashfort.”

  “Aye.”

  The exchange had cost the boy a great deal of effort, and Paris thanked him. “It’s my hope that if Dashfort’s involvement can be proved, the law will deal more lightly with you, Tommy.”

  “An’ more harshly with ’im?”

  “A peer has certain protections under the law. But I’ll do my best to see justice served.”

  “Tain’t right, is it?” he cried.

  “The inequalities in our system? No, indeed. But—”

  Tommy went on speaking, apparently without hearing Paris’s reply. “Tain’t right for a boy to wish ’is da ill. But ’e don’t…” His narrow shoulders shook with a sob.

  A quiver started low in Paris’s gut, part excitement, part trepidation, and part reaction to the horrors that pressed in on him from all sides. Tommy Fagan was Dashfort’s byblow? Had Graves suspected anything of the sort? Did Dashfort himself know?

  “Och, me poor mam,” Tommy cried. “She’s naught but a washerwoman. Quin’ll see to it she starves if he finds out I turned traitor.”

  The woman ran a grimy hand down the boy’s cheek. “Hush, now,” she soothed. “Don’t you worry about your mam. She’s a strong woman. She’d not want to see you take on so.”

  “I’ll do everything I can, Tommy. You have my word.” He squeezed the boy’s hand, though Fagan’s grasp had grown weaker. When he rose, the woman did too. “Tell me his mother’s name.”

  She shook her head. “An’ how should I know it, sirrah?”

  “But you said she was a strong woman. I assumed—”

  “Ain’t met a washerwoman yet who weren’t, Mr. Burke.”

  He swallowed the epithet on his tongue. “Of course.” In prison, people either knew everything or nothing. One glance around the cell told him that Fagan’s fellow inmates, who had no doubt overheard enough of the conversation, were content to pretend the latter. They cleared a wider path this time as he made his way back to the cell door and called for the guard, who took far longer than necessary to find his keys and release him. “I’m going to send a physician to look after the boy,” Paris told the man, who showed even less interest than the prisoners. “If he’s not treated, the sickness may well spread.”

  “Save us the cost o’ the rope, that will,” he replied with a chortle.

  Paris let his hand curl into a fist at his side, but he did not raise it. A brawl might mean he’d be forbidden to return. “Fever is no respecter of persons, my good fellow. Why, it might even spread to the guards.”

  That caught the man’s attention. His shuffle increased to a trot as he escorted Paris to the mouth of the cavernous building. “You won’t delay, Mr. Burke?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Outside the rain still came down. Despite its chill, he stood for a moment in the courtyard and let it sluice over him, washing away what it could of New Gaol. Some stains, of course, could not be touched with mere water.

  Eventually he made his way east through the city, past houses that gleamed with the glow of lamplight, though it was only just past midday. The people who lived in them would never know the horrors inside the prison that hunched in their shadows. Soon enough he found himself near Trinity. The coffeehouse beckoned, warm and dry. He might yet have refused its lure, if Graves had not been sitting in his favorite window.

  Paris went directly to the man’s table. “You’ve been to Kilmainham,” Graves observed. “I can tell by the smell.” His quill continued to scratch along his paper. “And?”

  With a flourish, Paris tossed his wet hat onto the table, spraying water onto the work spread across its top. Graves gave an exclamation of annoyance. But he also looked up at last.

  “Send a doctor to the boy,” Paris said flatly. “Without delay. Otherwise there’ll be no case at all.”

  Graves set his mouth in a grim line and nodded. Quickly he wrote out a few words on a clean and mostly dry sheet of paper, folded it, and then signaled for a waiter. With the exchange of a few low words and a coin, the note was soon dispatched. Paris prayed the physician himself would soon follow.

  “What did you learn?” Graves asked when they were alone again.

  “More than I hoped. More than I liked, to be perfectly honest. The boy claims Dashfort is a…relation, we’ll say. A close relation.”

  Graves lifted his brows, though not exactly in shock. “I wonder the man doesn’t take a more personal interest in the case.”

  “I mean to see that he does. I’m going up to Kilready to investigate.”

  Graves’s mild expression transformed into a grimace. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Burke.”

  “Ah, but you are not I—a fact for which you no doubt give daily thanks.” Certainly such a trip would not be the most pleasant thing Paris had ever done. But staying home had its own difficulties and dangers. “Good day, Graves.” Retrieving his hat, Paris turned on one heel and left before the man could utter more feeble words of caution.

  The rain had lightened, and Grafton Street was now crowded with shoppers who had been delayed in setting out. He was almost past the milliner’s shop when a display of spring bonnets in the window caught his eye. He had hoped this morning’s excursion would put last night’s exchange with Rosamund out of his mind, at least for a little while. Yet even in the darkness of prison, she had lingered at the edge of his thoughts, the way the fragrance of her namesake perfumed a room even after the window onto the garden had been closed.

  Good God. What had he done? The woman had fled the improper advances of her last employer. He had no right to be thinking of her as anything other than his sisters’ governess. And had he not hired a governess to relieve himself of the burden of having to think of certain things at all?

  He laid a hand on the shop door. Perhaps one more act of penance was in order…

  When the door swung inward abruptly without any assistance from him, he nearly lost his balance. A bell jangled harshly, masking his exclamation of surprise as a woman charged from the shop and almost collided with him.

  He collected himself enough to step backward into the street and bow. “Why, Mrs. Fitzhugh, fancy meeting you here.”

  With a glare of stern disapproval she looked him up and down, her frown deepening as she took in his dripping clothes and the grime he’d accumulated over the course of the morning. “I beg your pardon.
Have we been introduced?”

  “Paris Burke, ma’am,” he said, touching two fingers to the brim of his hat. “At your service.”

  Her demeanor changed instantly, although not for the better. She jerked her head in a single nod that made the bedraggled feathers atop her hat sag lower.

  “My sisters and I are most pleased—”

  She spoke over him in a clipped voice. “I am most severely displeased, Mr. Burke.”

  Though he knew she had cause, the strength of her reaction took him aback. “I apologize for missing our meeting, ma’am, but I—”

  “Without even the courtesy of a note informing me you’d filled the post. And with whom, sir! Why, when I first saw her, I took her for a scullery maid, and even then, I could scarce believe my eyes. To entrust your dear sisters to someone so slatternly and neglectful of her duties?”

  “You cannot mean Miss—”

  “Then, to hear your sisters address her as Miss—”

  “Gorse.” They spoke the name together, her voice sharp with disgust, his uplifted on a questioning note.

  Her lips, her entire face, pursed. “Wherever did you find such a person, Mr. Burke?”

  It behooved a barrister to be skilled at disguising his surprise. He managed to keep his reply between his teeth until he could speak it with the necessary detachment. “I regret most sincerely that I was not in touch sooner about the matter. Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Fitzhugh.”

  His unwillingness to explain only increased her affront. She stiffened, setting the feathers in motion once more. “Well!”

  But Paris remained unmoved, though his thoughts were spinning. “Good day, ma’am.” This time, he lifted his hat, and the rain that had collected on the brim spilled between them, spattering her skirts. She fixed him with a glare that conveyed without question her opinion of him. Then again, who could approve of the sort of man capable of hiring a perfect stranger off the streets of Dublin to serve as governess to his sisters?