A Lady’s Code of Misconduct

by Meredith Duran

  “That’s not necessary!”

  He lifted a brow as he faced her. “Do you want to be caught with me? Imagine how that might play out.” He held up the key, a silent offer: he would unlock the door, if she liked.

  She could not imagine what her uncle would do if he caught them closeted together. He would probably invent a dungeon for her. “Fine,” she said shortly. “Leave it locked.”

  He surprised her by handing her the key, then strode across the carpet, yanking shut the curtains and enclosing them in darkness.

  She crossed her arms, the key icy against her elbow. “Is that necessary?”

  “One never knows who might be watching.”

  Did he often discover people spying through windows on him? What a terrifying world he lived in!

  “Now,” came his voice, low and silken, “tell me more of your news. What did the letter say, precisely?”

  “I didn’t read it.”

  The gas lamps hissed; light rose as Burke turned the valve. He stopped too soon. A dull, hellish glow suffused the room, barely sufficient to see by. But it illuminated the irritation on his face. “You didn’t read it.” His tone was withering.

  “I could hardly read over his shoulder! I only know that it concerned Elland.”

  “You will need to get your hands on it, then.”

  She squinted at him. “I cannot do that.”

  “You can.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  He considered her a moment, then issued a sigh, somehow disappointed, scolding—a schoolmaster with a lackluster pupil. “Miss Mason. I thought you a girl of some wit. What leads you to imagine you have any right to refuse?”

  “Some wit! Why, you do know how to turn a girl’s head. But you should really think before you speak, sir.” Suddenly, in some perverse way, she was enjoying herself. It had been a very long time since she had spoken without fear of giving offense. “I have every right to refuse you, and more to the point, you have every cause to coddle me. If I told my uncle you had asked me to spy on him, your friendship might undergo a decline.”

  A brief pause opened, in which he considered her narrowly. Then he prowled close, moving so quickly that she had no chance to avoid his touch: he hooked her chin with one finger and yanked up her face.

  For all the unpleasantries of her recent life, she was not accustomed to being handled like livestock. She jerked free. He caught her again, ungently now, gripping her jaw to hold her in place.

  “Careful,” he said. “I don’t like to argue.”

  Alarm shot through her. She had known him for an unprincipled wretch. But she had never imagined he would pose a danger to her person. “You assault women, do you?”

  His lips twitched, an attempt at a smile that did not take. He released her and retreated a pace, shoving his hands into his pockets in a silent concession.

  Now she was angry again, livid at his temerity. “How good to know you have some standards. Corrupt, amoral, with no cause save your own advancement—but you won’t abuse a woman. Yes, what a fine recipe for a politician!”

  “You know what it requires to be a politician, do you?”

  “I knew the finest politician who ever lived,” she said. “A man of true ideals, who thought foremost of the needs of the poorest—who put his fortune into helping those who needed it most, rather than enriching his friends—”

  “Ah yes, the saintly magnate,” he said in a cutting voice. “It’s easy to be noble with a million pounds at one’s disposal.”

  “My father would have been noble in the gutter,” she retorted. “He believed in his efforts. He lived his ideals. He educated me as he would have a son—he funded schools, he gave food to the poor, he treated everyone with respect—”

  “How lovely,” he said in a flat tone. “I’m certain his workers quite cherished that respect while scraping together the pennies he paid them.”

  She flinched. That was not fair. “His factory men were well paid—”

  “Oh? Would you thrive on their salaries?”

  “You know nothing about him!”

  “His bank accounts spoke for themselves,” he said. “And I’ve no objection to feeding the poor, Miss Mason, provided I am well stocked myself. But we second sons, we workaday men—lacking a fortune, we must rely on our wits. Ideals, you see, do not fund our grand plans.”

  “Grand plans?” Her scoff burned. “Plans to make sure that the miserable suffer further? Your penal bill—”

  “That bill,” he said, “will save lives. It will keep dangerous criminals off the streets and away from neighborhoods that you will never live in. You are sheltered, Miss Mason, so I will forgive you for failing to see how that bill might benefit the same deserving poor whom you weep for in your silk-covered bed.”

  “I don’t weep for them, sir.” She planned. Her father had drawn up a dozen proposals for how to best use his fortune for the improvement of the needy. Once she came into possession of that money, she would see his plans through, and invent more besides. “I do nothing so useless. The penal bill is a travesty. You would acknowledge that in an instant if it didn’t serve your purposes.”

  “Yes, so I would. Just as I have fought against a dozen proposals that you also would have condemned, precisely because they did not serve my purposes. You had no complaints in those instances, I’m certain.” His smile looked cold. “But I do believe in removing criminals from the street. Which is convenient.”

  She scowled. “You may launch any defense you like—”

  “I need that letter copied.”

  Oh, why bother arguing with him? He was rotted through. “Hire someone. I don’t answer to your bidding.”

  “You have free access to Mason’s study. It would take months for a hireling to manage that.”

  “You’re still young, Mr. Burke. Or . . . close to it.” He could not be much above thirty. “I’m quite sure you have the time to wait.”

  “But do you have the time?”

  She hesitated. There was a trap here. “I have three months, in fact.”

  Burke sat down. His clear retreat eased the pressure in her chest, made her feel she could draw a free and full breath. When he gestured to the seat opposite him, she warily took it.

  “You told me,” he said, “that comfort could be a prison. Do you recall?”

  She nodded.

  “That isn’t comfort,” he said. “What you have at Marylebigh. It is a . . . smothering. They imagine you brainless. Your words make no sound to them.”

  He was too perceptive. It made her feel peculiarly exposed, almost humiliated. “So?”

  “It’s a strange kind of torture,” he said quietly. “To be caged by the lowest expectations. A humiliation of the soul.”

  She took a sharp breath. He could not read her mind. It was only a coincidence. But the look on his face . . . it was pity. As though he had suddenly decided to be human.

  “Do we have time for this?” She did not want him to pretend to be humane. His heart was as black as her uncle’s, and she wouldn’t forget it. He would not cozen her into doing his work for him.

  “No,” he said calmly. “You don’t. Three months? A trifle. You made a mistake by allowing the Masons to announce your engagement. No gentleman will look twice at you now that you’ve been publicly claimed. You won’t find a husband in a ballroom, Jane. And you say they won’t let you wander elsewhere.”

  Her nails were cutting into her palms. “And how was I meant to prevent the announcement?”

  “That is what friends are for,” he said. “I might have helped. But you failed to ask.”

  The last thing she wished was to cast herself deeper into his web! “It makes no difference. I’ll find a way. I don’t want a man bred to this world anyway.” She knew how Burke’s circle of friends looked upon her uncle—and her, too. Her fortune was dirty, the product of honest labor. “I want a husband who’s grateful to wed me, not one who condescends to it.”

  “Good sense,” Burke murmure
d. “But then, commoners pose a different problem. MPs, peers of the realm—such men can procure a special license to wed. Ordinary folk must register their intentions publicly, and wait to be granted permission. That leaves a window of opportunity for your uncle to discover your plans. A very large window, in fact.”

  She had thought of all this. “We’ll run away first.”

  “And risk being caught? Besides, you cannot be married in a parish to which you don’t belong. It will take three weeks of waiting, wherever you go.”

  “Or a—on a ship,” she said. “A British captain can marry subjects at sea.”

  “You won’t have any money,” he said gently. “And you don’t mean to marry a gentleman. So who will buy your passage? Three months to find a man, woo him, persuade him to take an expensive gamble, with an uncle whose name is well known and feared besides?”

  “Enough.” She could not listen to this. “I will do what I must.” Somehow she would make it work.

  “Better,” he said, “to find a way to marry instantly—by special license, or something even quicker.”

  “Perhaps you can marry me,” she bit out. “MP that you are.”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “You joke. But I could do a great deal with your money. Why, I might even afford to have ideals.”

  Horror iced through her. He was the last man on earth she would marry. “Not in a thousand years, Mr. Burke.”

  He offered her a dark smile. “How flattering. And yet you made free with my mouth two months ago.”

  How shameless he was to speak of it. “I was only returning the favor,” she said. “To teach you a lesson.”

  “Oh?” He leaned forward, his voice turning silken. “And what lesson was that? For it seems I didn’t learn it.” Very slowly, he reached across the space between them and cupped her face. His thumb traced her cheekbone.

  Awareness prickled over her skin. He had not risen from his seat. He posed no immediate threat. That was the only reason she did not leap away.

  But the rhythm of his caress . . . the intent look in his eyes . . . it was hypnotic, oddly riveting.

  “Perhaps you should teach me that lesson again,” he whispered. “I promise to prove a better student.”

  The notion punctured his spell. She leaned away, out of reach. “Go learn from Lady Farnsworth.”

  He sat back, his face darkening. “I need that letter.”

  “I’m sorry for it.”

  He blew out a breath, raked his hand through his hair. “Six years,” he said. “That is how long you’ve been at Marylebigh. I expect I am the first person, in all that time, to see you for what you are. To recognize that you are capable. Is that so?”

  The remark struck her like a fist. What a pathetic ruin her life had become. “Am I meant to be grateful to you?”

  “No,” he said. “But by God, I hope I am right about you. I know a man,” he said curtly. “Ordained, to my amazement. But of very flexible morals. He has been known to produce marriage lines when required.”

  Astonishment prickled through her. He could not be suggesting . . . “Go on.”

  “Some of these marriages did take place, but too late. Others never happened at all. But this man’s records document them, regardless. Pick a name, pick a date: it often proves very useful in matters of inheritance.”

  “A . . . forger of marriage records?”

  “Indeed. Although he prefers to be addressed as his grace the archbishop.”

  An archbishop? “Does he also provide the groom?”

  His laugh was husky. “That falls to you, I’m afraid. But with this gentleman’s aid, you can be sure that no court in the land will dispute the validity of your union. A prince, a pauper, the czar of Russia—take your pick, so long as you feel sure the groom will not object. All the archbishop requires is a name. You’ll be able to present the marriage to your uncle as a fait accompli.”

  Her heart was drumming now. “And in exchange, all I must do is copy you the letter?”

  “A small favor,” he said. “Nothing much, between friends.”

  One week later

  Night was falling rapidly, a sallow fog choking out the last trace of sunset. Crispin stepped out of the church into the narrow street. The air was salted, thick with the odors of rotting fish and brackish mudflats. The cottages here sank into their foundations, pockmarked and crumbling, with broken shutters that swung in the wind.

  It was not too late to turn back from this idiocy.

  Behind him, the door slammed. The reverend had not enjoyed their discussion.

  Crispin stared into the darkness down the road. He should not be here. Someone else, someone who could afford it, who would want the praise, who would revel in it—some pampered, celebrated idiot should be here right now.

  Yet Crispin started down the pavement.

  There was no name for this street. Evidently parts of London existed that even the mapmakers shunned. Something else to fix, once the power was his. But he was in the right place. The letter copied by Jane Mason, the record at the General Register, the reverend’s remarks—they all fit together. The puzzle was finally resolving, and it made him livid.

  He was livid, too, at himself: this was not his problem. His temper had probably spilled out on the reverend. So be it. This was not his bloody concern.

  Yet he was walking.

  A movement flickered from a window ahead. When he squinted, he saw nobody. The flutter of a torn curtain, perhaps.

  Curious, this sensation in his stomach. He had not felt his own nerves for some time. Bribery, intimidation, threats, betrayals—he dealt them expertly, then slept peacefully through the night. He made men weep by reciting the secrets that they’d imagined well hidden; he watched from a cold remove as they begged him to think of their livelihoods, their families. I will lose my seat. I made promises to constituents! My good name will be ruined. I’ll lose contracts; I’ll be bankrupted. Think of my daughters. My own borough will turn against me!

  But that was politics. Men entered the game willingly. It was not Crispin’s fault if they failed to play well. He never felt a moment’s anxiety over breaking an opponent, whatever it took. There were no rules. Not at the top. His conscience, his nerves, did not bother him.

  But now, walking down this darkened road, he felt . . . uneasy, and deeply, implacably angry. If he was correct—and in minutes, he would know for certain—then at last, for the first time, he might get to experience that most Christian of virtues: righteous indignation.

  Perhaps he would even act on it. Perhaps, for once, he would play the hero rather than the villain.

  He snorted at the thought. Once he was prime minister, then he would entertain the notion of heroism. But he had mapped a clear plan for himself, a climb both direct and brutal. Without money—without a fortune like Jane Mason’s sainted father’s—it took brutality to scale the peak. Once atop it, he might once again pause to consider how others saw him. They would be looking up at him then, rather than down on him. Perhaps, at last, they might take a different view and see him clearly.

  Until then, what point? Climb, climb. This business tonight was a distraction. It would not lead him upward. It was useless.

  Still, he kept walking.

  How satisfied it would make that naïve, self-righteous girl, her great luminous eyes alight with such easy-won certainty, to know that there were atrocities even he could not abide.

  Tonight, then—tonight alone, he would make an exception. Tomorrow, he would hand the proof off to the authorities and set to climbing again, with no further distractions.

  At last, he came to the door he’d been told to look for, the red paint peeling. His brief, hard rap did not merit an immediate response. He knocked again and then turned to survey the street.

  The silence felt unnatural, thick and somehow staged. In any other neighborhood, one would catch the spill of conversations, of cooking pots knocking together, of children’s quarrels and cries. He took a long, steadying breath.
r />   He knocked again, harder yet.

  Was this a prank, then? Lure the nob into the seedy underbelly of the city and watch him piss himself for a laugh?

  If so, he would not give onlookers the satisfaction of watching him wait. One more minute, and then he would walk back to the Great Northern Railway station, where civilization yet resided.

  But as he turned to go, the door creaked open. He could see nothing of the interior, but a gruff voice said, “Come inside and pull shut the door.”

  Enough with the games. “Your name,” he demanded—but received no reply, only the sound of footsteps retreating into darkness.

  He laid a hand to the doorknob. No one in the entirety of the world knew where he was at this moment—no one but whoever waited within.

  Another man would have come with company. But while Crispin was counted a man with many friends, he had no friend whom he would have asked for help in this matter. No one he could trust.

  A noise sounded behind him. He nearly jumped, but it was only an alley kitten, mewling.

  Need no one, trust no one. At the tender age of twelve, Crispin had coined this motto. During the rare holidays in which no school friend had offered to host him, his silent chant had carried him through his strained interviews with his father, often as he squeezed the tender web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger so the pain would anchor his focus. The same chant had drowned out the sound of his mother’s weeping in the night, and left him unmoved by his brother’s contempt.

  His family’s grief could not affect him, their disappointment and blame could not touch him, because he did not need them. Nor could their lack of faith wound him, for he trusted no one to look on him kindly.

  He had forgotten this code for a time. Now he lived by it. Yet if his instincts and suspicions were right—and in a moment, if he stepped inside, he might finally know—then he had never anticipated this kind of evil. He had been caught off guard. He could have no part in this.

  His chest tightened. Doing the right thing. What a thought!

  But if he left now, the truth might never be uncovered.