The Taste of Temptation

by Julia Kelly

  The drive to be the fastest and the first to report both news and gossip had fueled his rise to the top of the crowded Edinburgh newspaper market, but still it wasn’t enough. The constant churn of news meant there was always more. Another story to write. Another reader to reach.

  A knock sounded on the office door. Through the glass panel he could just see the knob of a tweed flat cap sitting atop a shock of bright orange hair.

  “Come in, Robbie,” he called.

  The door swung open. Robbie was just eight, and all of four and a half feet tall, but he was one of the Tattler’s best scouts when it came to reporting the comings and goings of Waverley Station. The boy remembered faces like no one else he’d ever met, and Moray had learned a year ago that he could show the boy a photograph or even a sketch of a person and send him off to watch the platforms. Robbie would race back to report on the arrival and departure of politicians, actresses, writers, ballerinas, and the aristocracy, and for his pains he’d receive a few extra shillings’ commission to go along with his usual salary.

  “Afternoon, Mr. Moray,” said Robbie before stooping into a low bow before Eva. “Mrs. Wilis, you’re looking lovely today.”

  Eva rolled her eyes heavenward. The boy had recently taken to flirting with her in an approximation of the young lads and their lasses he saw boarding trains for jaunts in the country. That he was eight and Eva was thirty-four didn’t seem to bother him one bit, yet he didn’t know that it wasn’t just his age that was a barrier. Eva was happily living with another “widow,” Catriona Thorburn, with whom she’d been very much in love for the better part of a decade.

  “What do you have for me, Robbie?” Moray asked.

  The boy stood a little straighter. “The woman you wanted me to keep an eye on.”

  “Which one?” he asked. “There are several.”

  “The lady from the trial.”

  Moray sat up so abruptly the springs on his chair creaked in protest. “Blond and small?”

  The boy nodded. “That’s the one. Burkett was her name.”

  “Burkett?” asked Eva.

  “Caroline Burkett, the Lovelorn Lass,” Moray said.

  Caroline Burkett had been an excellent seller of newspapers for nearly a year when it had come out that she was suing her erstwhile fiancé, a future peer of the realm, for breach of promise. It had been a spell since she’d appeared on front pages of broadsheets and society papers alike, but a little massaging could change that. Perhaps their fortunes were changing after all.

  Moray fished a coin out of his pocket to hand to Robbie. “That’s good work.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Robbie, his eyes drifting back to Eva.

  “Did you see where the lady went?” Moray asked.

  The boy looked down at the coin he still held in the flat of his palm and looked back up at Moray, who placed another shilling in Robbie’s tiny hand. The boy was smart and sharp, even if his taste in women might need some recalibration. If he kept at his letters, Robbie could make for an excellent reporter one day.

  “I didn’t see where the lady went, but she was with a man. Also blond. Shorter than you,” said Robbie, his face scrunched up in thought.

  Moray shot Eva a look. “My guess is that would be Miss Burkett’s brother, Michael.”

  “Wasn’t her brother a banker here?” Eva asked.

  He nodded. “Thank you, Robbie.”

  The boy tipped his hat to Eva and then scampered out the door, shutting it so firmly that the glass rattled in its wood frame.

  “That’s it,” Moray said, unable to suppress the eagerness in his voice. “We’ll have that third press within the year.”

  “On the back of Caroline Burkett? She hasn’t been in the papers since the jury found for her. Her arrival in Edinburgh might make a headline or two, but it’ll all be forgotten in a fortnight.”

  “Not after we’re done with her,” he said.

  “You’re going to manufacture a story?” asked Eva.

  “No manufacturing needed. A woman with a scandalous past has come to Scotland.”

  “The idea that suing one’s fiancé for going back on his word is scandalous and absurd,” said Eva.

  “It’s fortunate, then, that the reading public doesn’t agree with you. There must be a reason she left London, and the Tattler will report on her every move. That is, unless she chooses to speak to the Lothian in an exclusive interview, revealing never-before-told details about her failed engagement that we can run on the front page above the fold.”

  Eva laughed. “After all the months she’s spent involved with the trial and under the public eye, what’s going to make a lady like her give up her story? An embarrassing story, I’ll remind you. If she was going to tell it, she would’ve done so by now.”

  “That was before,” he said.

  “Before what?”

  “Before she met me.”

  “Lord, save me from arrogant men,” Eva muttered.

  He chose to ignore his editor’s lack of faith, and instead pushed away from his desk. “Have one of the reporters write up a story for the Tattler. Pull Duffy off whatever he’s working on. He’s got the right touch for it. And tell McLeod I want ‘Lovelorn Lass Something Something’ for the headline.”

  “ ‘Something Something.’ How eloquently alliterative,” said Eva, scribbling a note.

  “I don’t care what you headline it, so long as it screams intrigue when it hits doorsteps on Friday,” he said.

  “Why not just call her the Abandoned Angel or the Besmirched Bride?” asked Eva.

  “Those are good. Have Duffy work those into the copy,” he said, stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his coat.

  “And where will you be while I’m ripping apart the Tattler and resetting the entire edition?” Eva asked.

  “Finding out where Miss Burkett will be spending her first nights in Edinburgh. I’m not a complete brute. I’ll give her a chance to strike a deal with the Lothian to keep the Tattler at bay, but I expect the article to be ready for the Friday edition the moment she says no.”

  “An exclusive interview with a newspaper or unrelenting coverage in a gossip rag. What a choice,” said Eva.

  He plucked up his hat from the stand and set it on his head with a flourish. “You’d do the same thing.”

  His editor sighed. “So I would.”

  Chapter Two

  Daring to defy convention, the unflappable Miss B—was spotted at the theater on the same day that she gave evidence in open court against Mr. W—. The lady is at the center of a breach-of-promise lawsuit she filed against her former fiancé after he jilted her, becoming engaged to an American heiress. But the lady might think again about being so bold as to show her face in public. She was given the cut direct by Lady M—.

  —THE LONDON LORD & LADY, MAY 1875

  On Thursday evening, less than twelve hours before the Friday edition of the Tattler would be printed, loaded up onto carts, and distributed throughout the city, Moray tugged at the cuff of his evening jacket to straighten its line. He’d learned from his father long ago how important clothing could be to the measure of a man, and on this particular evening the first impression he made would be vital.

  He could still remember his gruff father taking the heavy iron off the hearth, where it was heating, to press his shirt crisp every day, even though he’d long ago given up his position as a valet. As a child, Moray would watch with fascination as Brian Moray sprinkled water on the thin fabric and steam rose from the red-hot iron. The young boy had been proud that his father had been the best-dressed shopkeeper in Aviemore. But that had been before.

  Moray shrugged off the ghosts of his past with a roll of his shoulders. There was no time for reminiscing. He had a plan that evening, and he was intent on seeing it through.

  Satisfied that he was every inch impeccable, he stepped down from his hired carriage and peered up at the grand limestone facade of the Scottish National Theater. The building, completed only the year befo
re, was still being marveled over, and his friend Gavin, in his role as the Lothian’s culture editor, had written glowingly about the architecture.

  A short set of steps took Moray through the columned entrance and into the lobby. The room, with its soaring three-story ceilings, had plush carpet underfoot, gilded plasterwork, and chandeliers dripping in gold and crystal. On the arms of pomade-haired gentlemen in long tailcoats and white ties, elegantly appointed ladies in shimmering silk gowns climbed the stairs, their trains sweeping behind them. Moray knew that one level up, waiters would be circulating with champagne for those who wished to be seen before retreating to their boxes.

  As tempting as the idea of a cool, dry glass of wine was, Moray turned left to the large box office with its clerks sitting behind narrow wood bars. He walked to the farthest window, pulled out one of his simple, engraved calling cards, and slid it across the counter.

  “Mr. Campbell, please,” he said.

  The man picked up his card, glanced at it, and then clambered down from the high stool upon which he was perched. A few moments later, the clerk returned, trailed by the theater’s box office manager.

  “Mr. Moray, a pleasure to see you this evening,” Campbell said, shooing the clerk away.

  “I’m sure it is,” Moray said, knowing that the five-pound note in his jacket pocket would soon be tucked away safely in Campbell’s waistcoat. “You were able to make the arrangements I requested?”

  Although he’d stridden out of his office on a wave of excitement, Moray hadn’t gone straight to the Burkett home to demand the newly arrived Miss Burkett grant him an interview. Instead, he’d set the Tattler’s network of dressmakers, milliners, and theater managers to work digging up what information they could about her. That morning, Campbell had sent him word that Mr. and Mrs. Michael Burkett had arranged for the purchase of a season-long subscription for the seat to Mr. Burkett’s left. The first performance they would attend with this additional seat would be that very evening.

  Moray had quickly written to Campbell to make special arrangements, determined that this was the night he and Miss Burkett would meet.

  The rail-thin theater manager pulled a white envelope out of his inner jacket pocket and put it down on the counter. But then he stopped.

  “I could lose my position if anyone were to find out,” Campbell said in a low whisper.

  Moray leaned in and pulled the bank note from his own pocket, more than happy to go through the necessary pantomime that went with reassuring a money-hungry source. “It’s a simple mistake any busy box office could make. No one will ever know. And you are being compensated rather handsomely for it, I might add.”

  Campbell’s eyes locked on the money. He slid the envelope out between the bars and snatched up the five-pound note.

  Moray chuckled. “A pleasure doing business with you, as always.”

  The little man shook out a handkerchief and passed it once over his balding head, on which sweat beaded. Rather loudly he said, “Enjoy the performance, sir.”

  Moray worked his pocket watch free from his waistcoat and checked the time. It would be twenty minutes before anyone with an eye to fashion even dreamed of sitting down for the play. He just might have time for that glass of champagne after all.

  He climbed the sweeping stairs up to the balcony overlooking the ground floor. Deftly, he plucked a glass off the tray of a passing waiter.

  “Be careful or that will go to your head.”

  A grin split his features at the sound of his best friend’s wife’s voice. He turned and found himself standing before Lady Ina Barrett, with her husband, Sir Gavin Barrett, by her side.

  “If we’d realized you were coming tonight, we would’ve given you supper,” said Ina with her hand outstretched. Her long gloves covered wickedly talented hands that had sculpted one of the most talked-about works exhibited at the previous summer’s Royal Sculpture Society exhibition. Her Hero and Leander had been striking, but it was the revelation that a woman had sculpted the naked Leander that had titillated Edinburgh’s elite—and set London talking too. The press set off by the Lothian’s article revealing her identity had swamped the suddenly fashionable lady with commissions.

  “I put off purchasing my ticket until the last minute,” he said, resisting the urge to press a hand to the envelope secreted just under his lapel to check that it was still there. “Although I believe my seat is close to yours.”

  “Then you’ll have to join us at intermission. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Molière,” said Ina.

  All through this exchange, Gavin had been watching him with the suspicious expression of a best friend who knows that something is afoot. It wasn’t a surprise then when the man said, “What are you up to?”

  Moray took a sip of champagne and tried to look innocent. “I’m not up to anything.”

  “You are,” Gavin said. “You’re scheming.”

  “That’s slander,” Moray said.

  “Who is it?” Gavin asked.

  Ina cocked a brow. “You might as well tell him, otherwise you’ll never hear the end of it. You know better than most that my husband is as stubborn as they come.”

  “It’s a good thing too,” Gavin said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have spent all those years waiting for you to decide you wanted to marry me.”

  Ina tilted her head back and laughed while Gavin gazed at her with the rapt attention of a man who still couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  “What’s the story?” Gavin asked, finally tearing his gaze from his wife.

  Moray shot Ina a look. “Can’t you do something to draw his attention elsewhere?”

  She smiled up at her husband. “Not without creating the scandal of the decade.”

  He laughed as Gavin’s cheeks flushed, but just when he thought Ina was firmly on his side, she went turncoat on him.

  “Perhaps Jonathan’s meeting a lady.”

  “You’re the only person in the world who calls me Jonathan,” he reminded her.

  “Stop changing the subject and tell me who the lady is and how honorable your intentions are.”

  All of the sudden the air seemed very close.

  “I believe he once swore to me that he’d eat his hat if a woman ever dragged him to the altar,” said Gavin.

  He couldn’t deny the truth of the statement, so for once, he kept his mouth shut.

  “You must’ve flustered him if he used such a tired cliché as ‘eat my hat,’ ” Ina needled. “Isn’t he always complaining about his reporters leaning too heavily on them?”

  The chimes sounded, and Moray gulped down the last of his champagne, the fizz of the bubbles nearly choking him. “We should find our seats.”

  Sufficiently distracted, Ina and Gavin led the way to the doors of the orchestra section. From his jacket pocket, Moray pulled out the envelope Campbell had given him. He knew exactly which seat the ticket was for, but it’d be best to keep up the illusion that he was just another theatergoer.

  The hum of hundreds of voices filled the vast auditorium. All around, ladies batted the air before them with their fans while gentlemen flicked out their tailcoats before settling down in their seats. When Moray arrived at row J, he was pleased to see that the Burketts’ three seats were still unoccupied.

  He said his good-byes to Gavin and Ina, who were sitting in row F, slid into the farthest empty seat—the third from the aisle—and settled down to wait.

  Caroline tried her hardest not to gaze around her like a green provincial, but even to someone coming from London’s grand opera houses, the splendor of the Scottish National Theater was overwhelming. A great emerald velvet curtain hung in graceful folds, obscuring the stage. The boxes were painted with gilt, and above them soared a ceiling painted with Melpomene in the center, her tragic mask in hand, and her eight sisters dancing around her.

  Caroline loved theater, music, and opera. Just two months before his death, her father had taken her to the Royal Albert Hall to hear Mr. Saint-Saëns play the conce
rt hall’s great, booming organ. It had been a treat, and one she’d cherished, because it had been a rare night alone with her father and a welcome break from her mother’s constant disapproval.

  However, it had been Julian who’d truly elevated her taste and shown her a world where the finer things were almost commonplace. He was the second son to the Viscount Weatherly, but even without the promise of an inheritance, all doors had been open to Julian. He had escorted her to the theater and the opera, to exhibitions, dinner parties, and balls. So long as she was on his arm as his fiancée, she was welcome everywhere.

  Julian’s ancient title and impeccable bloodline meant that some had tittered about the fact that Caroline Burkett, daughter of a respectable but thoroughly middle-class solicitor, had captured the attention of so eligible a bachelor. Again and again, Julian had told her to ignore them. He’d loved her since he’d first seen her at seventeen, introduced by her father, who was the Weatherly family solicitor. To Julian she was beautiful and, as a gentleman’s daughter, the equal to any of the vipers of the ton. Until everything changed.

  Her heart squeezed at the memory, for, innocent girl that she was, she’d let herself believe that love was enough. They’d become engaged when she was eighteen, but hadn’t announced it to his family until she was twenty-two for fear of Lord and Lady Weatherly’s disapproval. Then Julian had told her that he wished for a long engagement because he wanted to be able to provide for a wife. She should’ve known that other forces were at work. Two years later, when his brother and the viscount’s heir had died, everything had changed. The rumblings of disapproval from Lady Weatherly became all-out protests and public declarations that Caroline wasn’t entirely suitable to become a viscountess. Caroline could’ve endured such censure because she loved Julian, and he loved her. But then, at the socially ancient age of twenty-five, she’d learned the harsh lesson that Julian Weatherly, the man she’d agreed to marry, and Julian Weatherly, heir to Viscount Weatherly, were not one and the same.