by Annis Bell
She knew that she had to act as she was, but if anything happened, it should be her risk alone. It was crucial that Hettie not be put in serious danger. She would take steps to make sure that didn’t happen.
Ten minutes later, she entered the dining room, where Wescott was already waiting. He wore a dinner jacket that fit perfectly and raised her hand to his lips.
“You look particularly lovely this evening, Jane.” He looked at her intently. “Has something happened? Some news? You have a certain radiance.”
“What? Oh, no. I’m just happy that Hettie is feeling better and that Ally’s children are over the hump. Isn’t it wonderful to have everyone well?”
“Hmm” was Wescott’s only reply. He seemed unconvinced by her merry chatter.
In silence, Levi served smoked fish, but it seemed far too heavy for Jane’s appetite. She ate only a little and sipped at her wine. “You’re going out, I assume?” she said with a glance at his jacket.
“Yes, and it will be a late night. I’ll probably sleep at the club,” Wescott murmured between bites.
His hair was cut somewhat shorter, Jane noted. She had grown used to his wild mane, which matched the unpredictable, mysterious character she found more attractive than she wanted to admit. Since her visit to Ally, she had thought a great deal about her friend’s words. Perhaps there was a spark of truth in them. But she was not like Ally and would never be happy in the role her friend accepted so easily. She had always known a traditional marriage would not make her happy. Her uncle had also seen that side of her and had allowed her all the freedom she wanted. Yet her eyes lingered on the delicious curve of Wescott’s lips.
She caught herself, too often, imagining those lips touching hers and . . . she had some idea of what could come after that. But she also knew that it would bring unavoidable consequences. She slid her knife and fork onto her plate and reached for her water glass. And then there was another problem that Ally had pointed out. She could never fall in love with a man who was not true to her. Never!
“A penny for your thoughts, Jane,” said Wescott, jerking her out of her inappropriate musings.
He had been watching her, she felt it, and she replied pertly, “They would only bore you. Men prefer to spend their time in clubs where they can have interesting conversations and amuse themselves together.”
“I think you have the wrong impression of us, Jane.” A faint smile played on his lips.
“What I’ve learned about men so far has taught me no different. How else can one explain the existence of so many clubs that allow only men to be members? It certainly points to a lack in domestic diversions.”
Wescott laughed. “I would say it varies from case to case. And it depends upon what one expects from the other, wouldn’t you say?”
“Very true. And because we expect nothing from each other, there is nothing more to be said on the matter. I’m not feeling well. Please excuse me. I’m going to go and lie down.” She stood, and Wescott was instantly beside her to pull her chair back.
She felt his hand on her back. “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Just a passing upset, I hope?”
“A little rest, and I’ll be back on my feet in the morning.”
He took her arm. “Should I escort you upstairs?”
“Thank you, but don’t trouble yourself. There are people waiting for you, I’m sure. I’ll see you . . . well, whenever you get back. What’s next on our list? Sion Hall, then Ascot?”
“Jane, what’s the matter with you?” There was a tinge of sympathy in his eyes that made Jane feel ashamed.
She was being unfair and brusque, but just then was not the right time for a deep discussion of the state of their marriage. “It’s just a small indisposition, that’s all. Good night.”
She freed herself from his hands and left the room. In the hallway, she met Levi, a tray piled high with crockery in his hands. He stopped and stood uncertainly. But Jane kept walking. She knew that if she stopped and spoke to him then, her voice would betray how close to tears she was.
When she reached the door to her room, she heard Wescott say, “Take the food back. I’ve lost my appetite.”
He was angry. It wasn’t long before she heard the clack of the front door closing.
Go then, thought Jane as she removed her jewelry. “Hettie!”
Her maid came from the adjoining room and immediately set to work unbuttoning the dress. “Was the captain upset? I heard the front door.”
“Maybe. But the main thing is that he’s gone and won’t be back tonight, which means we can get ourselves ready without interruption, and the coach can wait for us closer to the house.”
Half an hour before midnight, two odd-looking figures were standing at the corner of Seymour Street. From a distance, they looked like two young men, but their trousers had an unusual cut, and the jackets they wore could not entirely conceal the female figures beneath.
“Hettie, stop fidgeting and pull your tail in!” Jane whispered earnestly and waved to the coachman, who was about to drive right past them.
“Hey, you the gents who ordered a coach?” he called down from his seat, looking at them doubtfully. “Show me the cash up front!”
Jane beamed inwardly. If the coachman treated them with such disdain, then they certainly looked neither respectable nor particularly feminine. She produced a few coins from her trouser pocket and pressed them into the coachman’s hand. “Park Lane, the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street,” she said, speaking in as deep a voice as she could muster.
“That’s a fine address for a couple of rowdies like you. If you’ve got something dishonest in mind . . .”
“We’re helping with the horses at a party.”
Hettie had already climbed into the coach, and Jane followed her.
The wagon rolled sedately through the quiet, nighttime city. There were few pubs in this part of London, and correspondingly few drunks. Despite this, shady characters could still be found here at night, and burglaries and violent crime were not uncommon.
It was easy to see when a party was going on in one of the wealthy estates by the presence of waiting coaches. Usually, the coachmen mingled and whiled away the time playing cards and drinking beer they brought with them. If there happened to be a pub close by, they would use the opportunity to pay it a visit and, often enough, the visiting lords and ladies had to wait for a drunken coachman to reappear before they could return home.
The coachman stopped his carriage at the agreed corner, which was just as quiet as the streets they’d ridden through, and the women climbed out.
“There’s no party hereabouts!” the coachman yelled after them, but they waved him on and walked across to the wall opposite. The coachman shrugged and clucked his tongue, setting the coach rolling again in the hope of picking up another late-night fare. Jane straightened her jacket and oriented herself. Everything looked different in the dark, but she had memorized Jenny’s description precisely.
“This way, Hettie,” she whispered, and moved in the shadows of overhanging branches toward a narrow gate.
She said a silent prayer and pushed against the iron gate. It swung inward, and Jane sighed with relief.
36.
Her uncle had always compared Jane’s eyes to a cat’s. Even as a child, Jane had not been afraid of the dark and could easily find her way around at night. She had inherited the unusual skill from her mother, and just then Jane was infinitely grateful to her mother for passing it on.
“Give me your hand,” she said, reaching behind her for Hettie. Her maid’s soft hand instantly clasped hers.
“I can’t see a blessed thing,” Hettie complained, stumbling after her mistress, who weaved an unerring path through the bushes and trees.
Now and then, Jane stopped and listened, but heard no barking dogs, nor footsteps or voices. Light shone from a high floor in the home, and mu
sic drifted on the air. Jane looked up angrily. Up there, high society’s most heartless were enjoying themselves at the expense of the rights and dignity of a young girl, simply because it was in their power to do so. She stepped on a twig that cracked beneath her boot, and stopped in shocked surprise. The sharp sound seemed to cut through the still of the night like a glass smashing on a rock, but nothing happened.
“Jenny seems to have kept her word,” Hettie whispered.
“Yes, she has. Come on. The kitchen courtyard is just past that round box tree.” Jane made her way between the geometrical forms of the hedge and stopped at a gravel path that gleamed whitely in the light from a lantern.
In one corner of the yard washing hung on lines, and behind them rose the hulking forms of huge trees in the darkness. The door to the kitchen was clear to see, flanked as it was by benches and stacked crates. A church clock not far away struck twelve. They were on time, and Jane could already see a pale outline behind one of the windows. That had to be Jenny. Good girl!
She turned and placed her hands on Hettie’s shoulders. “You will wait out here for us, understood? That is vital. If you hear any unusual noise or you start to get scared, run back to the gate. From there, it’s just five hundred yards to Grosvenor Square and Lady Alison’s house. She will help you.”
“No, ma’am. I’ll stay here. I’m not about to run off,” said Hettie.
“If you hear me yell, or you hear a shot, run to Lady Alison and fetch help. Promise me!” Jane squeezed the brave girl’s shoulders.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right.” Jane did not have a clear conscience about roping Hettie into this plan with her, but she trusted her sense that the night stood under an auspicious star. Even if she were discovered, she did not think Devereaux would be able to harm her, because he had a soft spot for her. Whatever dark sides the man might have, his feelings for her were genuine. He’d made that extremely clear to her at their last meeting.
Jane stepped out of the protection of the hedge, jumped across the gravel path to the grass on the other side, which swallowed the sounds of her footfalls, and then moved silently across the cobblestoned courtyard to the kitchen door. Cautiously, she scratched as agreed on the kitchen door and waited breathless minutes until someone inside turned a key very slowly and then gingerly pulled open the door.
“Is that you, ma’am?” Jenny asked in a quaking voice.
“Yes. Were you expecting someone else?” Jane pushed inside past the girl, who closed the door.
They were standing in an enormous kitchen with a vaulted ceiling. “My God, you could cook for an army in here,” said Jane in amazement.
“Psst! We have to be very quiet. The butler’s room is at the end of the corridor. Sometimes he can’t sleep at night and comes to get himself a glass of milk.” Jenny looked pale and tense. She had twisted her hair into a long braid that fell all the way down her back.
“I’ll follow you. Have you found out if Mary is here?”
Jenny went ahead without a lamp. “Stay close behind me and hold on to my shawl.”
“I’ll manage. Just go.”
Jenny said nothing until they had made it inside a narrow stairwell and closed the door behind them. Only then did she say, “Mary has to be up there with them. One of the servants saw Mrs. Avery cleaning a chamber pot.”
Jane clenched her teeth. “Then come on. We can’t be too late.”
They crept up the stairs to the first floor. When Jenny went to open the door into the master’s quarters, Jane stopped her. “Here? Are you sure?”
“I work here, don’t I? Come on. We have to go through here to get to the other side. We can only get into the other building from there. Look, if you don’t trust me, we can drop the whole thing.” Jenny looked at her in annoyance.
And if someone’s offered you more and you’re leading me into a trap? Jane wondered. No one knew where she was. It was true that Alison had some idea of what she was planning, but not in great detail. Alison thought that Jane would talk to the police and Wescott before doing anything. But Jane knew that they didn’t have enough proof to move against Devereaux legally. And a single day lost could cost Mary her life.
Suddenly, they heard music and men’s laughter. Keep going, Jane decided.
Although they were only passing through corridors, Devereaux’s love of exotic opulence was evident all around, and Jane could only guess at how rich the man really was. She noted the gilded statues, fine carpets, and valuable weapons, while hoping they would not bump into the Indian servant. At every clatter of a chamber pot or squeak of a bed frame, the two women pressed breathlessly into a corner or hid behind drapes and waited until the corridor fell quiet again.
They moved across a gallery from which one could look down into a ballroom. A crystal chandelier was suspended from the center of a plaster rosette. At the end of the gallery, Jenny led her through a long passage with a vaulted ceiling along its length and then into a paneled salon. A narrow door was tucked away beside a bookshelf. The music had grown louder, and the men’s voices were much closer now. Jenny pressed the door handle down carefully, but the door was locked.
“Blast it! We’ll have to wait until they come out,” Jenny whispered. She pointed to a bay window embrasure, where a bench was concealed behind a curtain.
The women had only just hidden themselves when they heard footsteps trotting down stairs behind the bookshelf, and the door flew open.
“I’ve got another bottle down here, Robert,” Charles Devereaux called behind him as he crossed to a vitrine.
Jane excitedly took hold of Jenny’s arm and felt the young woman’s quaking. They heard the glass door of the vitrine close, then Devereaux’s steps departing. But Jane did not hear the door beside the bookshelf close. Jane peeped from behind the curtains and saw that the door to the secret wing stood open. She was about to go to it when Jenny stopped her.
“I’m not going any further, ma’am. Give me my money!”
“As soon as I come back. Make sure the door stays open.” Jane pushed free of her and dashed across the salon, silently thanking heaven for the culottes, which allowed her to take longer steps. She climbed the steps of the stone spiral staircase two at a time and prayed that no one would come down just then.
The music and voices grew louder. An icy shudder ran down her spine when she recognized Hargrave’s laugh, and Devereaux said, “Sidney, you old rake, who would have thought? But wait, the night’s just begun!”
“Charles, you’re the best,” Sidney Rutland bawled, and another man, whose voice Jane didn’t recognize, laughed loudly.
Sweat pearled on Jane’s forehead and ran down her neck. The passage ahead of her was lit by a single gas lamp. The ceilings were lower than on the floor below her, but she was not yet in the attic. On both sides of the passage, which was perhaps a hundred feet long, were doors. The party seemed to be going on in the rooms on the right. Jane estimated the distance between herself and a table that held a candelabra, and started moving again. The next chance to hide herself was at the end of the corridor behind a high glass cabinet.
But where should she look? If she opened the wrong door, all was lost. Jane looked around frantically, listening intently for any telltale sounds.
“Mrs. Avery!” The shout came from the room in the center of the corridor, the only one with a double door.
Jane dashed down the corridor and pressed against the wall behind the cabinet. Through a collection of Murano glass vases, she watched a woman emerge from the second door on the other side of the corridor and disappear immediately through the double doors. Now or never, thought Jane, and hurried back to the door through which the woman had appeared. There was no time now for caution, and she barged into the room without another thought. When she saw the girl standing by the wall inside, she let out a muffled cry, and the girl did the same. She stared back at Jane, wide
-eyed.
“I don’t want . . . ,” the girl said, then faltered, tears springing to her eyes.
She had long blond hair that fell around her body from beneath a white veil suspended from a golden headband. Her skinny, girlish body was scantily clad in a white tunic. Her arms and legs were wrapped in gold ribbons, and a floral wreath hung at her chest. The girl, little more than a child, looked like a Roman sacrifice.
“Mary?” Jane managed to say as she reached out her arms to the poor girl.
Mary nodded, but did not move. She stood at the wall beneath the narrow window as if paralyzed. Jane took a step toward her, but the girl shrank away and threw her hands over her face.
“No! I don’t want to!”
“Mary, I’m here to get you out. But we have to hurry before that woman comes back.”
Something in her tone made the girl listen, and she lowered her hands. Then, trustingly, she held out her hand to Jane. It broke Jane’s heart to see the gesture. She pulled the girl toward her, hugged her, and stroked her hair. The veil and headband fell to the floor, revealing ugly bald patches on her scalp. “My God!” said Jane. “Can you walk, Mary?”
The girl nodded bravely.
“Good. Then let’s go!” Jane held Mary’s hand in hers tightly, but the door swung open just then and Mrs. Avery entered.
“Well, this is a surprise. A visitor. May I ask with whom I have the pleasure—” She said no more, for Jane drew her pistol and aimed it at the astounded woman.
“Let us past!” she hissed fiercely, taking a step forward.
But Mrs. Avery grinned contemptuously, ducked before Jane could fire, and dashed back through the door. Jane’s shot rang through the house. She hoped it would wake everyone in the building, and they would come to see what was going on. She pulled Mary behind her out into the corridor, but they did not get far. The double doors on the other side were jerked open, and Charles Devereaux stormed out in a fury.