These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel

by Zekas, Kelly

  Outside, the greasy London afternoon activity was even more overwhelming. A tall man bumped my shoulder as he rushed by, talking to himself like a madman without diverting his gaze from his gilded pocket watch. A young flower girl wove through the heavy traffic on the sidewalk, singing about the violets for sale in her basket. A fruit seller, looking like a shipwrecked sailor, growled at passing pedestrians. With three and a half million people in London, I could never just happen upon an acquaintance as I did in Bramhurst. That would help me avoid detection, to be sure, but what did it do for my chances of finding Rose?

  Ignoring the crowds, Mr. Kent led the way down the sidewalk to fetch a cab. The driver loaded up our trunks, and Mr. Kent provided him the address of his parents’ home, while squeezing next to me into the cramped two-seater. It wasn’t the most appealing prospect for lodgings, as his stepmother had disliked me from the moment we met and his more amiable merchant father had set sail on one of his vessels, but it was a much simpler solution than my aunt and uncle’s. All it took was one message to Mr. Kent’s adoring little stepsister, Laura, telling her to pretend that my visit had been long planned, and everything was arranged without arousing suspicion.

  Our cab set off down the crowded Victoria Street toward the heart of the city, trundling past drab buildings and gray street corners at an agonizingly slow speed rivaling that of a dying cow. To make the trip even more enjoyable, pungent city scents seeped through the hansom doors—strangely enough also reminding me of a dying cow. Nothing could be done but to put all bovine thoughts out of my mind, ignore the immodestly close proximity of my travel companion, and pray the house was not far.

  Fortunately, Mr. Kent, as always, set about distracting me. “So, as the world’s greatest detective, I prefer to give my solution last and put all the other proposed ideas to shame. Did you have a plan before I got myself tangled up in this?”

  “I did—I mean, I do. You know, you don’t have to continue this detective act for my sake. I appreciate your help all the same.”

  Mr. Kent cocked an eyebrow. “It’s not an act. The only reason I’ve never called myself one before is I didn’t want to put the other detectives to shame by association.”

  “Oh, I see. It all makes sense now,” I said, dropping the matter. “I’ll keep my inferior idea short, then. Mr. Cheval wants Rose’s nursing expertise to help his sick sister. If her illness was tricky enough to make him search for Rose, I’m sure many other London doctors and medical societies were consulted for the case. One of them may know where to find Rose.”

  He made a noncommittal hmm.

  “And failing that, I suppose we might inquire at some chemist and druggist shops. Rose will need to replace the medical supplies she left behind, and we’ve always had a little joke about how linseed oil seems to cure most of our patients. We can start there and compare the contents of her bag with recent purchases at these stores.”

  Mr. Kent nodded and clicked his tongue, thinking hard before he finally spoke. “You show promise, but allow me to demonstrate what my very real and true detective expertise can achieve.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I had this wild idea that we might ask some doctors about recent tricky illnesses, or alternatively, we might check the sales records at chemist and druggist shops.”

  “Two brilliant ideas. Wherever would I be without you?” I said, trying my best to restrain my smile. Laughing should have been a relief, but it felt wrong, unearned. The warmth shared between us was both confusing and consoling.

  After we sailed down another smooth thoroughfare and bumped over a few cobblestone streets, Mr. Kent rapped the roof, and the cab jolted to a stop by a corner.

  “I will take a short jaunt around the block. Wouldn’t want to give them the idea we traveled together.” He paid the driver with a few coins, gave me a parting wink, and hopped out.

  A little ways down the road, the cab found an open curb outside the Kents’ small but pleasing redbrick townhouse. The horse halted and let out a huff, as if he could barely withstand the city smells himself. The driver handed me out and waited by the cab while I climbed the stairs to the entrance.

  The front door opened to reveal the Kents’ steward, Tuffins, who greeted me with a pleasant, formal air. “Miss Wyndham, welcome. Shall I send for your luggage?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you, Tuffins. How have you been? I hope I haven’t come at a bad time.”

  “There is never a bad time for your visits,” he replied.

  As welcoming as I remember. I suspected his fondness for me stemmed from the fact that I was one of the few people who never made a request for “muffins” and snickered at the horrendous rhyme.

  A footman dragged my trunk from the cab while Tuffins led me into the main entrance hall. The Kents’ home was richly decorated with fine, full carpets, silk drapery, and the typical furnishings, but my attention was seized by the countless family portraits lining the wall as if they were the wallpaper. Images of magnanimous men looking into the distance and stately women folding their hands in their laps repeated endlessly, only with slight changes for fashion over the years. If I ever had any burning questions of whether the Kent family had reputable ancestors, this hallway would hit me over the head with answers. No wonder Mr. Kent had established bachelor’s quarters elsewhere in London as soon as he could.

  Tuffins ascended the main stairs. “Miss Kent has asked me to bring you upst—”

  “Ev-e-lyn!” a voice chirped from the floor above.

  I braced myself for the attack as Laura bounded down the stairs. Less fifteen-year-old girl and more pure energy that somehow took a human shape, she had the perpetual look of being about to fly apart at the seams: hair clinging for dear life, loose ribbons ready to untie, stockings half unfurled.

  “I got tired of waiting!” she announced, embracing me tightly, her head tucked below my shoulders. She was almost my height, but the way she hugged me suggested she still hadn’t quite adjusted to that. “Ooh, I hope you’ll stay for a while. It’s been so dreadfully boring without you or Nick here! I tried to get Tuffins to hire a French spy or a man with a mysterious sort of scar, but our new footman is neither!”

  “Sorry to disappoint, my lady,” Tuffins put in, leading us back up the stairs.

  “You’re quite lucky Miss Wyndham’s arrival saved you!” she told him, then turned to gaze at me in her alarming, wide-eyed way. “Nick’s message sounded ever so distressing and urgent! What’s happ—wait! First, you must surprise everyone!”

  “Surprise everyone? Laura—wait, did you even tell your mother I was comi—”

  Before I could get in another word, Tuffins gently knocked and opened the drawing room door. “Miss Kent and Miss Wyndham,” he announced as Laura pulled me inside to see two unwelcoming faces.

  “How unexpected,” an acerbic voice spoke first. It belonged to Lady Kent, the grave, small woman sitting on a Chesterfield by the fire. Though she could not have been more than five and forty, her bad back and knees gave her the weary look of a woman thirty years older, and she spoke with the same uncaring bluntness of one. “I did not know you were in town, Miss Wyndham.”

  “Mama, I meant to surprise you,” Laura said, her pert nose scrunching up.

  “You know I find surprises vulgar,” Lady Kent said, waving her hand dismissively and shifting her gaze to me. “You are acquainted with Miss Madeline Verinder, I presume?”

  “Good evening, Miss Verinder,” I said, exchanging curtsies with the sweetest, gentlest, most accomplished, and most amiable girl in all of London. At least that is what I had continually repeated to myself the past season, so I wouldn’t slap her by sheer reflex whenever she entered my conversations with Mr. Kent and turned them into competitions for his attention.

  “A pleasure to see you, Miss Wyndham,” Miss Verinder said, with the slightest dip in her sugary twitter of a voice. She must have been eagerly anticipating Mr. Kent’s arrival, only to get me instead. “What brings you back to Lon
don?”

  Fortunately, the train ride had given me ample time to create a sound story. I settled into the chair beside her. “My sister came to visit our dear aunt and uncle, so I thought it a fine opportunity to visit Laura as I had promised her.”

  “You’re staying here, then?” Lady Kent snapped out.

  “I—I had hoped to,” I replied as humbly as I could, nervous that our flimsy plan would fall through before it was even implemented.

  Lady Kent let out a strange, gruff harrumph, which, judging by Laura’s giddiness, somehow translated into acquiescence.

  But Miss Verinder’s rosebud lips curved into a perfect smile and let the thorns loose. “Why, I thought you were in town to nurse one of your patients.”

  What a lovely and thoughtful girl.

  My hands balled up into fists, and I stuffed them into my lap. Refusing to meet Lady Kent’s disapproving eyes, I peered at Miss Verinder’s and searched for signs of malice. “No, that is only for close acquaintances in Bramhurst,” I insisted.

  “Lady Wyndham still permits this?” Lady Kent sneered.

  “Only as a charitable hobby of ours,” I said.

  Lady Kent rubbed her aching knees and shook her head. “A hobby is an activity done at one’s leisure—an occupation is done at another’s. Since nurses are called upon at all times of day, it is by nature an occupation, and a highly inappropriate one at that for two respectable girls.”

  I bit my tongue, resisting the thousand retorts in my head. I needed to stay in Lady Kent’s good graces. With a herculean effort, I managed to even (Rose forgive me) agree with her. “That is true. We’ve tried to keep it a hobby, but it’s rather difficult.”

  “Impossible, I’d say,” she concluded.

  An awkward silence settled over the room until Laura attempted to rescue me. “Oh, Mama, can we get Evelyn an invitation to tomorrow’s dinner? Don’t they need another for the table? It will be such fun! And there’s the Lyceum Theatre on Thursday and our dinner party on Friday! She can meet Mr. Edwards. Evelyn, you will absolutely die when you meet him. But remember, please, that I saw him first and you have other—”

  “Laura, enough,” Lady Kent interrupted, pinching the bridge of her nose, pained by her daughter’s enthusiasm.

  Miss Verinder tucked a blond curl behind her ear. “Yes, my parents have a box for Much Ado About Nothing. Will you join us?”

  I wished Laura had let me explain matters before rushing me in here. There was no time to be wasted on dinner parties and plays. “I don’t wish to intrude on any plans,” I said. “I don’t mind missing the play.”

  “Why, you must come at least this time,” Miss Verinder insisted. “I did not see you at the theater much during the season.”

  Lady Kent scoffed, and the fire seemed to snap in agreement. “In my experience, those who avoid the theater suffer from an excess of drama and scandal in their own lives.”

  Heavens, was Miss Verinder doing this on purpose? Or was there just no pleasing Lady Kent? I had not been here five minutes, and she was already trying to glare me out of the city.

  “We’re often most selective when it comes to our favorite things,” I returned. “I would so love to come. Much Ado is a favorite of mine.”

  Lady Kent pursed her lips and assessed me as if she were searching a dress for imperfections in the stitching, while Miss Verinder’s eyes lit up with delight or deviousness or both. I was bracing myself for the next potential disaster when a miraculous knock on the door interrupted, and in walked my rescuer.

  “Nick!” Laura exclaimed, darting across the room to tackle him with a hug. Miss Verinder began smoothing her dress excessively.

  “Hello, Kit!” Mr. Kent said with a laugh. He returned the hug and glanced about the room. “Good afternoon, everyone. Ah! Miss Wyndham, you seem to have beaten me here. What is your secret?”

  “Taking the earlier train, sir.”

  “A radical choice,” he said, nodding profoundly, “yet elegant in its simplicity.”

  “That sounds like a code to live by.”

  “Yes, though I find the best codes are the ones you die by.”

  “Seeing as I am the only one unaware of Miss Wyndham’s visit,” Lady Kent interrupted, “we’ve unfortunately had our tea already. Miss Wyndham, you are hungry, no doubt. Laura, take her to the kitchen and see what they can prepare. Nicholas, please sit.”

  She rang a bell, and Tuffins promptly appeared at the door to escort us. As Laura and I left the room, Miss Verinder beamed brightly, as if she’d won some pivotal battle. She turned to her spoils. “Welcome back, Mr. Kent. Did you miss London already? I understand Bramhurst can be a bit . . . slow.”

  “Yes, but that makes it the perfect place to settle down,” I heard him say. “Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve eaten since leaving, myself . . .”

  Moments later, he was catching up to us in the dining room.

  “Thank you for getting us out,” I whispered to him. “I feared that would never end.”

  “The old bat detests being left out of a conversation. Sometimes when she’s summoned me, I’ve resorted to talking to myself so I might be dismissed.”

  “Well, if she didn’t dislike me already, she absolutely detests me now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he replied. “I could not conceive of a better recommendation of your character.”

  In between bites of the blissful chicken and potatoes, we took the risk of explaining the crisis to Laura: the shocking events of Rose’s disappearance, the precursor of the past day, and my plans for the search with Mr. Kent. She behaved as theatrically as I expected, gasping at each revelation, no matter how minor.

  When I finished, she gripped my hand and nearly fell to her knees pledging her help to me. “Evelyn, I promise you, I will stand by you both through this. Tomorrow we will all search together, and then there is the Pickfords’ dinner party in the evening! This is far too exciting! I’ve missed having a confidante to whisper to behind fans.”

  “Kit, Miss Wyndham is having a difficult time of it, with her sister missing,” Mr. Kent said. “She is not here to have fun.”

  “And I cannot afford the time to attend,” I added. “I have to refuse.”

  “Nonsense! You mustn’t! Please, Evelyn? Say you will! I beg of you. And besides, you must at least make an appearance. If not, people will start wondering where you and your sister are, and then someone might question your stories. Oooh! This is ever so tricky and secretive!”

  Mr. Kent gave me a sympathetic look. “She does have a point.”

  I couldn’t help but sigh in defeat. Somewhere in her gaspings, Laura had hit upon the hard truth. I had to keep up the pretense as long as possible. Prove to Lady Kent, to society, that the Wyndham family was still intact and its girls still irreproachable.

  Miss Verinder’s nettling comments made it a struggle to be polite, but Mother’s unwelcome voice resounded louder in my head. Our good name was all we had left. Not only did I have to protect Rose but her pristine reputation, as well.

  She would need a life to return to when we found her.

  “WHAT EXACTLY MIGHT you mean by no?” I asked.

  “I mean, miss, that my customers value their privacy and wouldn’t appreciate me sharing it willy-nilly with anyone who comes in off the street.”

  “Then you don’t have to share the whole list with me. I’d just like to know if you’ve had any customers since yesterday purchase crushed linseed or linseed oil.”

  The druggist shook his head. “No.”

  “No? You have not?” I asked.

  “No, I can’t tell you,” he replied.

  “Please, sir, believe me when I tell you it’s a matter of grave importance.”

  “I’m sorry, can’t oblige you, miss.” He crossed his arms to make the decision final.

  I stared at the druggist. He stared back. This was his shop. He had nowhere to go. I couldn’t waste the rest of the day trying to wear him down. I looked to the druggist’s tw
o apron-clad assistants. They immediately spun around and pretended to busy themselves with rearranging some shelves.

  Hang it all, this wasn’t supposed to be the difficult part! First the doctors from the Medical Society and the Harveian Society barely answered our questions. They all told us that there were too many hopeless cases in London, and they did not have the time to help narrow our search. And now these druggists were guarding valuable Crown secrets? Could no one in this damn city provide a simple piece of information?

  With a sigh, I turned to the exit when the bell jangled, and in walked Mr. Kent with Laura behind him.

  “Nothing from mine,” he said. “Any exciting information here?”

  “Only that he thinks their sales log is none of our business.”

  He frowned. “Oh. Well, that won’t do at all, will it?” He took off his hat and floated down the narrow aisle of glass cases to the druggist at the back counter. “Hello, Mr. . . . Mortimer, is it?”

  “Yes, sir, but as I told the young lady—”

  “Do you have a daughter, Mr. Mortimer?”

  “Yes, I do, but I don’t see—”

  “Imagine if, God forbid, little Miss Mortimer went missing today. Would you scour the city, searching day and night, imploring any gracious citizen who might possess the slightest bit of information to help you find her?”

  “Why, yes—”

  “Then please take this opportunity to be that gracious citizen and answer this question for us: Have you had any customers since yesterday purchase linseed?”

  “No, sir. No one,” the druggist answered soberly, as if he, too, was disappointed by the answer.

  Mr. Kent put his hat back on. “Ah, well, that was all we wished to know. Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Mortimer. I shall send all my sick and dying acquaintances here, should they ask for a recommendation. Good day.”

  “Good day!” Laura added kindly, unnecessarily.