Viscountess of Vice

by Jenny Holiday

  “How kind of you to notice, Mr. Hennessey.” She summoned a wistful sigh. “I must admit I have been somewhat fatigued of late, and have been playing the part of a hermit rather convincingly! But it is wonderful to be back.” She laid her hand on his sleeve and spoke very low, “Among friends, I mean.”

  The orchestra began a waltz as Mr. Hennessey studied her dance card. “I have reserved a dance later this evening, my lady, but since you are not otherwise engaged at the moment, perhaps you would do me the honor of dancing with me twice?”

  She lifted her brows and affected an air of surprise, slipping into the old role with ease. “Isn’t that bordering on scandal, Mr. Hennessey? Especially since this is a waltz. What will everyone think if we dance a waltz and then partner again later?”

  He looked slightly unsure of himself, his otherwise smooth brow showing a hint of a furrow. Laying her hand on his sleeve, she leaned to whisper in his ear, “How fortunate that I am impervious to scandal, because nothing would give me more pleasure than to dance with you twice this evening.” He smiled. “You should know, though, that I tend to live up—or down—to people’s expectations of my behavior.”

  Before she could gauge what effect her provocative remarks had on her young admirer, she felt the decided presence of someone behind them.

  “Lady Cranbrook.” Blackstone inserted himself in their path. Blast the man!

  She nodded as he bowed. “My lord, may I present Mr. Hennessey to you? Mr. Hennessey, Lord Blackstone.”

  Blackstone nodded absently at the younger man. “It seems you’ve forgotten that you promised the first waltz to me, my lady.”

  Damn him! But she might as well get it over with. She could dispense with Blackstone’s business and then really begin to enjoy herself. “My apologies, my lord. It seems I was swept up in Mr. Hennessey’s charms and quite forgot myself. But of course you are correct.”

  “Naturally,” Blackstone said, leveling a neutral, almost-bored gaze at them, “I will quite understand if you prefer to honor your more recent engagement with Mr. Hennessey.”

  “Mr. Hennessey will appreciate that you had the prior claim, won’t you, sir?” She smiled, and the young man nodded. Lowering her voice and adopting her most seductive tone, she purred, “I shall count the moments until we meet again, Mr. Hennessey.”

  Blackstone raised a disapproving brow as he led her onto the dance floor. The earl was terribly serious and utterly dedicated to king and country. Despite their détente in his carriage the other night, she didn’t hold any illusions that they would become friends. Although Blackstone was cordial with Robert Watson and Trevor Bailey, thanks to their shared military service, she wouldn’t say that he was actually friends with anyone.

  “Are you prepared to turn your attentions to business for a moment?” he asked as the music swelled.

  If he only knew how much sleep she’d been losing over the whole endeavor. “Yes. I’m ready to hear your instructions.”

  “I detest dancing,” said Blackstone, and with a start Catharine realized why she had never seen him do it. He placed his right forearm on the small of her back, the pressure approximating that of a hand. She could not tell that his hand was missing, but no doubt he felt its absence most keenly in this situation. “Ironically,” he continued, “a waltz is the only place to respectably attain any privacy at these blasted functions.”

  He swept her into his arms and began to guide her in the familiar step. “I’ve had a report from our men in Birmingham. Biedermeier comes to town so frequently because there’s talk that when Parliament resumes, it will consider a bill that would require gunmakers to mark each arm they produce with their names and addresses. The Birmingham gunmakers oppose it mightily and are pushing their cause among members in advance of the session. It seems that some of them have been dispatched to the country seats of members of Lords, and some of them—Biedermeier included—have been pressing their case in town.”

  “None of that seems particularly remarkable. It’s probably rational for an industrialist to take action he believes is in the best interest of his business. You don’t know that he’s doing anything illegal yet, correct?”

  “Correct. But, again, doesn’t it seem rather a coincidence that the Home Office has had a series of letters about treasonous activity inside a Birmingham gun works, and here is Biedermeier visiting the same whorehouse we know another French sympathizer frequented?” Blackstone glanced over her shoulder and steered her around an oncoming couple. “It could be a coincidence, I grant you, but it’s worth investigating.”

  “As Mr. Bailey told you, he seems to be a regular client of a woman named Amelia—she goes by the name Amélie and is the only girl at the house I don’t feel comfortable approaching with a bribe. She holds herself apart from the rest of us. She clearly doesn’t like me, but beyond that, it’s difficult to get a true sense of her.”

  “Which is extremely unfortunate.” Blackstone frowned. “Mr. Bailey has been ingratiating himself with Biedermeier, exploiting this connection to a cousin—entirely fictional—who grows beech trees for stocks. Do you know what a stock is?”

  “It’s the handle of a pistol, isn’t it?” They passed a set of French windows that opened onto a terrace. Catharine gazed longingly outside. It was so warm in the ballroom. How she wished they could conduct their conversation out of doors. But, of course, that wasn’t done, and the earl did not share her disregard for convention.

  “Yes,” he said. “Or a rifle or a musket. And since the resumption of hostilities with Napoleon, the government has been making massive orders for small arms among the manufacturers in Birmingham. Wood for first-class military grade stocks is hard to come by. They must be made of walnut or beech. And it’s vastly preferable that the wood come from the heart of the tree. Only one of every five or six stocks is what’s known as ‘all-heart.’ So beech is very much in demand. A man with access to beech stock is going to endear himself to Biedermeier.”

  “So Mr. Bailey is to get inside his business, become a supplier?”

  “Yes, exactly. We can follow him everywhere. We are following him everywhere. But we aren’t going to get any meaningful information unless we get inside the works, which Mr. Bailey is working on, or really get him talking uncensored, which you’re working on.”

  “He talked to Amelia while Mr. Bailey and I listened in.”

  “Yes. And, frankly, I think Madame Cherie’s is the more promising avenue. It will take time for Mr. Bailey to build trust, whereas Biedermeier told Amelia rather a lot in a short span of time. None of it was immediately germane to our interests, but I was pleased to hear how open he was with her.”

  “She’s a lightskirt. I’m sure he thinks she’s of no consequence and no great intelligence.”

  “Precisely,” he said. “And we can use that to our advantage. Gentlemen in these circumstances often seem compelled to puff up their own accomplishments. They want to impress, wouldn’t you say?”

  Catharine thought back to her experience at Madame’s. She could recall more than one client who had spent their time together detailing his own accomplishments, be they in a gaming hell, hunting blind, or even, in one case, Parliament. “Yes, I believe you’re right, but he seems rather set on Amelia. How will we get him away from her?”

  “We won’t. We’ll get her away from him. Or, I should say, I will. I’m going to visit and…avail myself of her services in advance of Biedermeier’s next visit.” Blackstone looked grim, and she felt his shoulder stiffen under her hand. Though he had occasionally appeared at Madame’s in order to keep up firsthand with the happenings there, he always purchased time with Catharine, or else wandered the gaming and other common rooms. “I’ll become a regular patron, and I’ll endeavor to make myself…more attractive than Biedermeier. Do the gentlemen present the ladies with gratuities? Or favors of any sort?”

  Catharine worked to cover her shock. The dark earl really was single-mindedly dedicated to the cause. “Favors? Yes, sometimes. It�
�s a good idea. You’ll want to start small, so it isn’t too obvious, but I’m certain she will respond to a trinket of your appreciation. And if I may suggest…”

  “By all means. You know the situation better than anyone.”

  “From what I heard the other night, Amelia isn’t… Well, it sounded like he was trying to get her to do something she didn’t want to. I’m not convinced that the activities in question were…enjoyable for her.”

  It didn’t seem possible, but her partner’s countenance darkened even more. His eyes became the narrowest of slits. “Are they ever? For a woman in such a setting?”

  “I don’t know. But I see no reason why they couldn’t be. If a gentleman cared enough to…well, I’m sure you’re quite, ahem, skilled in that regard, my lord.” Feeling herself color, Catharine wished more than anything that she had kept her mouth closed.

  “Mmm. I’ll have a handful of opportunities before Biedermeier is next in town. I’ll engage Amelia, and Bailey will steer Biedermeier toward another woman when he returns. I will rely on your advice on that front. Think about it. You needn’t name a woman now. We can discuss the matter before Biedermeier’s next visit. But if Amelia is otherwise engaged and he can be guided toward a woman we can trust, we shall really be making progress. Once we see who he chooses, we’ll set up the bribe.”

  “It would be easier, would it not, if I were to entertain Biedermeier myself?” Unable to meet his eyes, Catharine felt the intensity of his gaze nonetheless.

  “Yes, of course it would, but that was not part of our agreement. And I do not intend to dishonor it.”

  After a final crescendo, the musicians completed the waltz. Blackstone dropped her outstretched hand, transferred her other to his sleeve, and led her off the dance floor. They passed a group of young men standing in a circle. Mr. Hennessey was among them, and he turned his head and smiled at Catharine as the pair passed.

  The smile did not escape Blackstone’s notice. Nothing escaped Blackstone’s notice. Arriving at the refreshment table, he turned and bowed to Catharine. “After all,” he whispered, “I know how preciously you guard your honor, my lady.”

  She gasped as he disappeared in a dark flourish. Tears pressed behind her eyes. Trapped, she glanced around the room, which had become a crush. Mr. Hennessey and his friends were approaching en masse, wearing smiles that suddenly seemed wolfish, leering.

  Blackstone’s assessment had been cruel but entirely correct. She would give herself to a man like Mr. Hennessey without a second thought, yet she wouldn’t do the same thing when the welfare of so many were at stake? What had happened to her? She’d made a conscious decision when she came back from the war a widow—and a viscountess—to remake herself. She wanted to be someone other than the girl who’d been sent abroad, hurt, rejected, and very, very afraid. But clearly she’d overcorrected. What would Charles think if he could see her now? What did James, set to wed his innocent Miss Andrews, think? Her cheeks flamed.

  “Lady Cranbrook!” Mr. Hennessey trotted up. “Allow me to make you acquainted with some of my friends.”

  She fluttered her fan weakly, hiding behind it. Time to plead the sudden onset of a megrim. It would not be a lie.

  Chapter Nine

  Sitting in a small office inside Biedermeier’s Birmingham gun works, James was suffused with a sense of confidence. He felt unaccountably calm, given that he was about to embark on a risky plan to manipulate the industrialist, and to do it without the knowledge or approval of the Society.

  He had tried to take in as much as possible as he’d been ushered in. Gun making was a decentralized business. Most setters-up worked out of converted homes that had been given over to a series of workshops. They sent boys on elaborate errands to deliver and pick up parts and guns in various stages of their manufacture. Biedermeier was one of the few who’d built a new, efficient factory. And because he also made his own barrels, the works echoed with the sound of machinery used to shape, grind, and polish them.

  The noise and the heat were typical of the premises of other industries he’d visited in London. The arguments against child labor rarely centered around the inherent immorality of forcing children to work, instead focusing on the dangers of exposing them to high temperatures, oppressive racket, and the many other perils of industrial life. Indeed, children had always worked, but the entrenchment of industry had changed circumstances of that labor. Whereas a child even a few decades ago might have helped his parents do work at home—piecework, maybe, or farm labor—the consolidation and regimentation of labor in the modern system had led to legions of so-called factory children. Separated from their families because everyone performed specific tasks on specific shifts that did not necessarily coincide, these children were subjected to all sorts of hazards.

  But as far as James was concerned, the nature of the work itself only began to scratch the surface of the problem. Factory children were physically stunted, deprived of sunlight and fresh air, prone to disease due to poor hygiene, and subject to harsh physical punishment. The situation was worse for the pauper children, who had no families to mitigate the effects of factory life, and usually slept in barracks, sharing beds with children on alternate shifts.

  But even pauper children were supposed to be paid, if only a pittance. If what Lady Cranbrook said was true, these children were slaves.

  “Mr. Biedermeier will be right with you, sir.” The boy who’d shown him in—James guessed he was about fourteen—stepped back into the room. “May I bring you a cup of tea?”

  “Thank you, no. What’s your name, lad?”

  “Alfred Johnson, sir. Most folks call me Alfie.”

  “What do you do here, Alfie?”

  “I’m learning to be a barrel borer.”

  “Ah! A skilled trade.” Clearly this was not one of the pauper children, not only because he was learning a skilled trade but because he was tall, bright-eyed and robust. “Is your father one?”

  “He was a setter, sir, but he died.” Alfie looked as his feet and kicked the doorframe. “Now it’s just me and Mum, but the others took me on when my father died, said they’d teach me the trade.”

  “I’m sorry. How did he die?” James asked because he wondered if Alfie’s father had been in an accident. The machinery being introduced to automate the barrel-making process was still relatively new.

  The boy’s eyes filled with tears as he shook his head. “He drowned.”

  Unsure how, or whether, to offer comfort, James was diverted by the arrival of Biedermeier. The man looked different than he’d remembered, wiry, blond, gray-eyed, with a carefully waxed blond moustache. What had he expected? The devil incarnate?

  “Dr. Burnham, my apologies for keeping you waiting.” The accented voice sent James right back to the steps at Madame Cherie’s. He wanted to lunge at the man, as if hurting him would somehow protect Catharine. His upper lip began to curl into a snarl. He had to temper his reaction. It wouldn’t do to sneer at the man. And, besides, Catharine obviously wasn’t in need of his protection. She was too busy playing her games.

  Biedermeier’s smile seemed genuine as he dismissed Alfie and took a seat behind a large oak desk and opened one of its drawers. “May I offer you a cheroot?”

  “Thank you.” Best to take any opportunity to be agreeable. He was surprised at how receptive Biedermeier had been to his introductory letter. Struggling not to cough as the smoke filled his lungs, he glanced around the room. The mammoth desk occupied the bulk of the space. The back wall was lined with heavy oak cabinets.

  James had a flash of Catharine’s white, comfortable, airy room beneath the eaves at Madame Cherie’s. It was enough to break his concentration as he smoked, and he coughed a little.

  “You reformers aren’t overly accustomed to smoking, I wager.” Biedermeier pushed a teacup filled with ashes toward James.

  “You’d be surprised.” He smiled at the older man, playing his role. “Some of my colleagues are veritable chimneys, in fact.”

 
“Dr. Burnham, let’s get right to the matter at hand, shall we?” Without waiting for a response, Biedermeier stubbed out his cheroot. “I found your letter intriguing. But I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize my profits. I’m a man of business, and for that I make no apologies.”

  “That’s exactly why I’ve come to you, Mr. Biedermeier. When I show you the evidence to date, you’ll see that implementing the reforms I’m talking about will actually improve your profits. Relatively small changes in your labor practices can lead to a better-rested, happier, more productive workforce.” He leaned in. “What the world has been waiting for is a visionary man of business to lead the way on this front.”

  Biedermeier tapped his fingers on the desk, looking thoughtful.

  “As I indicated in my letter, the cotton mills draw so much attention—and indeed they’re vitally important to our nation’s economy and well-being. But what could be more important than the manufacture of small arms to support the war effort?” James gestured around. “If this could be combined with reforms similar to those being advocated in the mills, well, history would certainly remember that.”

  Biedermeier leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “And you say this is all possible without a loss of productivity?”

  “I guarantee it. An initial, small dip in production when the experiment starts will more than be compensated for later in the form of increased productivity.” James produced a sheath of papers—carefully forged “results” of studies never actually conducted. “These are the results I mentioned in my letter. These were all small, experimental studies funded by the Society. But I am confident that the basic principle holds up.” He held out the papers, willing his hand not to shake. “The techniques are proven. What’s needed is a man of influence to make a leap of faith and provide us with a larger sample size upon which to conduct a proper study.”

  He held Biedermeier’s gaze as the gunmaker stared back at him, brow furrowed. For the first time, James began to feel a glimmer of doubt.