Katherine hurried down the stairs. She wore her auburn hair in a towering bun with one of the red flowers from the pots outside attached to the top. She was a pudgy woman with a generous extra chin, fat arms, and tiny feet. She wore a ruffled lavender dress that was better suited for a young girl and not a lady in her late thirties. Despite her size, she moved with surprising grace, bouncing like an excited child down the stairs.
When she saw Vivienne, she stopped and clasped her hands atop her expansive bosom. “You!” she cried.
Vivienne raised a nervous brow at Dashiell.
“Good afternoon, Cousin Katherine,” he said and bowed. “May I present Miss Vivienne Taylor. She is Mrs. Bertis’s niece. Remember your old neighbor, Gertrude Collins?”
“Ah!” She clapped her hands. “That is why she looked so familiar. We attended a lecture together at the London Ladies’ Flower and Garden Society. I’ve been thinking about you since that moment.”
“Have you?” Vivienne asked and started to edge back to the door. Dashiell held her arm tight and flashed her a don’t say I didn’t warn you look.
“Why, yes,” her cousin said. “It’s quite vexing when you can’t place a face. Yet…” She squeezed her eyes and peered at Vivienne. Some thought formed on her lips, but vanished as her gaze drifted to Garth cradled in Vivienne’s arms. “What a lovely little baby! I just love babies. May I hold him?”
Vivienne’s eyes widened with alarm. Dashiell tried not to laugh. Slowly, she offered up the poor hound, who whimpered and wiggled in her arms, petrified.
Katherine crushed the poor shivering pug to her chest and rubbed the wrinkled skin between his ears. “You’re a cuddly thing, yes you are,” she cooed. “Why don’t you play with the girls? They just love company.” She set Garth on the floor and immediately the other hounds leaped at him. The pug, frightened out of his little dog wits, shot like a bullet down the hall with the other dogs bounding in pursuit.
“Now remember, girls, he’s your guest,” Katherine called after them.
The housekeeper scrambled after the pack. “Stay out of the garden, and don’t be upsetting my mint.”
Cousin Katherine studied Dashiell with bright eyes. “So what happened to your face? No doubt you became embroiled in a brutish fight with some other savage man.” She shifted her attention back to Vivienne. “Men are so tribal. Not as civilized as women.” She linked her arm around Vivienne’s elbow. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I… I guess that would depend upon your definition of civilized,” Vivienne stammered. “Do you mean merely refined manners or the general context of building and sustaining a culture and society?”
“Why, you’re just as clever as Amelia,” Katherine responded and then nodded her head toward Dashiell. “You don’t like him, do you?”
Vivienne’s cheeks flushed with color. “We are just… acquaintances.”
“Good. Dashiell’s horrible. Just horrible. I only tolerate him because he is sometimes mildly amusing. You’re not one of those silly ladies who is attracted to rakes, are you?”
“I hope not.”
“My friend Amelia Stone is visiting. A brilliant, brilliant writer and fellow member of the Society for Educated Ladies in the Fields of Literature, Science, and History. We meet here every Thursday. You should come.”
“I would love to,” Dashiell answered.
“Don’t you dare attend that meeting, Dashiell,” Katherine barked. “I invited Miss Taylor, who I can tell is excessively intelligent despite her association with you.” She patted Vivienne’s arm and began to lead her up the stairs. “Anyway, Amelia is writing an article about women who are attracted to terrible men, such as Dashiell. She believes women possess wild, dark natures that male-dominated society has sought to stifle. She says some women express these stunted desires upon rakish men.” She glanced over her shoulder at her cousin. “Well, don’t just loiter about down there, Dashiell.”
“Yes, do hurry up. We’re waiting on you,” Vivienne admonished in her sweet voice, pursing her lips to repress her laughter. Saucy minx.
“Are you going to express your stunted desires on me?” he asked.
“Miss Taylor is not amused by your sad attempts at flirtation,” his cousin retorted.
Vivienne wrinkled her nose at him.
They entered a parlor that was painted a dark magenta. The walls were filled with paintings of dogs. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of Katherine’s mother. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five at the time of the sitting, but already her beautiful face looked harsh and tired.
A round table stood in the center of the room. On its surface were two stacks of books, a figurine of a frog on a lily pad, and a magnifying glass. A sofa and three chairs were scattered about; all bore the telltale marks of canine paws and teeth. The forest green upholstery was tattered, and the horsehair stuffing poked out in spots.
In the corner, behind a fire screen, a thin young lady with an ashen complexion rose from where she sat at a tiny writing desk. Her dark eyebrows looked like slashes rising up from the rims of her spectacles. Intense brown eyes burned behind the lenses.
“Look, Amelia,” Katherine said to the woman. “My cousin has come to visit.”
Dashiell bowed. The serious woman acknowledged him with a slight nod. He suspected a full curtsy might demonstrate some kind of symbolic surrender to male-dominated society.
“He has brought a lovely acquaintance named Miss Taylor,” Katherine said, bringing Vivienne forward.
The writer’s neck flushed a bright crimson. “H-hello,” she stammered and began to fiddle with the frame of her spectacles.
Good God, is there anyone in the world who isn’t attracted to Vivienne?
Katherine chattered on. “As I said, Dashiell, Amelia is writing an article on the perverse attraction of rakes. I’ve run out of horrible things to say about you,” she said pleasantly, seeing no insult in her words. “Perhaps you can answer her questions.”
“Just make it up,” he said. “The ladies will only desire me more.” He winked at Vivienne.
She rolled her eyes heavenward and then smiled kindly at Amelia, innocent of her effect on the besotted lady. “I would love to read your article when you are finished.”
Amelia opened her mouth but couldn’t even speak. Just a high humming sound came out.
“Oh, we must have tea!” Katherine exclaimed. She scrambled to the servants’ bell by the door and yanked on the string. The clanking of the bell bellowed through the entire house. When the poor housekeeper didn’t bend the rules of nature and appear in two seconds, Katherine poked her head out into the corridor and hollered, “We need tea and tea cakes. My special cakes.”
She turned, reached up, and adjusted the flower in her hair which had started to slope to the left. “Miss Taylor, you may sit beside me on the sofa.”
Left to fend for himself, Dashiell pulled up the shredded, cushioned chair next to Amelia’s desk, but she gave him a scorching unwelcoming glare, so he chose the equally shredded chair closer to the door.
“So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Katherine asked Vivienne.
Vivienne took a breath and ran her tongue over her upper lip. He could tell she was about to dive into one of her intricate lies. “Well, you see, I’m doing a survey on the history of Wickerly Square—”
“Did Cousin Nigel and your family have any connection with Lawrence James?” Dashiell said bluntly.
“Oh,” Katherine said. She became very still. “You want to know about Lawrence James?”
“Yes,” Vivienne answered.
His cousin turned crimson and began to tremble like an overheated steam engine.
“Is there something the matter?” Vivienne asked, giving Dashiell a worried look.
“Lawrence James,” Katherine repeated, then let out a high, agonizing cry. “I can’t,” she wailed, then burst into tears and fled the room.
Vivienne, Amelia, and Dashiell exchanged shocked glances. After seve
ral seconds, Amelia rose to go after her, but Katherine had returned and stood in the doorway. She blotted her wet face with a handkerchief embroidered with violets.
“I can carry this shameful secret no longer!” she cried, holding her head high, as if addressing an audience at Drury Lane. “I must tell the truth. Come, support me, sisters.” She held out her arms and Vivienne and Amelia rushed forward, each taking a hand. “That man, that destroyer of feminine goodness, the exploiter and violator of women is… is… my brother.”
Vivienne’s gaze flew to Dashiell’s. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He should have known he shared blood with that roguish degenerate. Solving the little mystery had just escalated from protecting Vivienne to a family matter. And his family had more matters than anyone else’s in Britain except perhaps Henry VIII’s. They tainted anyone who came in contact with them.
“Come, sisters,” Katherine said. “Take me to the sofa and let me purge my soul of this horrid story.”
With Vivienne and Amelia sitting on either side of her, Katherine sniffled, straightened her shoulders, and began. “One wintry morn, when I was five, I was playing at my mother’s feet in the parlor. The housekeeper came to tell Mother that a common woman and a young boy waited at our door and refused to be turned away. My mother being the most charitable of souls—a living saint, I tell you—asked that they be brought inside by the fire.” Katherine’s eyes became unfocused as she gazed inward at her memories. “The woman was a sad, haggard prostitute. She was dying of the disease, but I didn’t understand such things then. Holding her frail hand was a boy. Eleven years old, she told us. He was short for his age, quiet, and possessed large solemn eyes—like my father’s.” She clutched Vivienne’s arm. “The woman said she had heard that my mother was kind and compassionate.”
Dashiell looked down at his hands, still swollen from pounding John. Katherine was right, her mother was a saint. He just had snatches of memories of her, for he was very young at the time she had come to visit. He remembered the warm, cozy feel of her bosom when she embraced him. No one had hugged him before and he clung to her, refusing to let go. She laughed, a gentle musical sound, and said he was a special boy.
“The dying woman got on her knees before Mother and pleaded for her to provide for her child.” Katherine blotted her eyes with her handkerchief. “Mother couldn’t have any more children and she always wanted a son, so she took Lawrence in. Father was furious when he learned what she had done and called her such terrible names, for he never acknowledged Lawrence. So to shield the boy from my father’s wrath, she took the meager funds she had inherited from an aunt and sent Lawrence off to school. Mother wrote him every day, so proud of her ‘son,’ as she now called him. He sent her beautiful pictures and wrote how he had amazed the art masters with his talent.” Katherine’s face hardened. “But he was a deceitful demon in disguise, I tell you.”
“All men are lowly swine,” Amelia said, the ugly sneer on her lips coloring her words.
“That’s not true.” Dashiell had to stand up for the few decent members of his sex.
“Be quiet, Dashiell!” Katherine cried. “You know that deep down, beyond your deceptively charming façade, you’re no better than my father or your own.”
He felt Vivienne staring at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. He couldn’t deny his cousin’s words. Perhaps it was best that Vivienne came after all. Maybe now she could better understand why he kept himself from getting too close to her.
Katherine stood, crossed to the mantel, and studied the portrait of her mother. “When Lawrence was but sixteen, he was sent down from school. It seems he’d had intimate relations with the local curate’s daughter. Lawrence denied it. Of course my mother, enamored of her handsome, brilliant son, believed him. She begged my father not to put the boy on the street. Father contracted a chill and his will was weakening, so Mother got her way, but not until after Father ranted cruelly against her.”
Dashiell could hear the barks and yelps of dogs from outside the door. The housekeeper entered, holding a tray high above her head, safe from the hounds jumping at her feet.
She lowered the tray onto the table and picked up the tail feathers of a teapot shaped like a hen. She poured steaming tea into yellow chick cups. There were two silver platters, one with plain hard biscuits, which she set on the floor for the hounds and muttered, “Here you go, you beggars.”
On the other platter were little mound-shaped tea cakes topped with one plump dot of pink icing. Vivienne’s face colored and her gaze latched onto Dashiell’s face. Do these look like what I think they look like? Dashiell’s chest shook with silent laugher as he reached for one of the obscene confections.
“My special cakes,” Katherine said proudly, returning to the sofa. “The Society just adores them.”
“So do I,” Dashiell said with a straight face. He licked off the frosted top and smiled, enjoying seeing Vivienne squirm in her tight dress.
Poor Garth peered around the doorframe. His round eyes were tense and frightened, his smashed face trembling, his ribbon torn off. He looked at Vivienne, who was sitting next to Katherine and all the other dogs, and decided he was safer under Dashiell’s feet. “Are the bitches bothering you, old boy?” Dashiell asked as he scratched the dog’s neck.
Vivienne took a dainty sip of tea and then cleared her throat, pretending not to hear him. “So you said Lawrence moved into your home. Do you remember what year that was?”
“Oh, I’m terrible with dates,” Katherine said, flicking her hand back. “Maybe 1821 or ’22. Alfred Willet, the artist, was terribly popular around that time. He painted scenes of horses and hunts and other such boring things. My mother met him through her friends, and she showed him some of Lawrence’s work. He was most impressed and agreed to become Lawrence’s mentor.”
Katherine took a big bite of a cake and washed it down with tea. She dabbed the edges of her mouth with a linen and continued. “Then one afternoon, she and I had gone shopping at the drapers when we ran into Mr. Willet crossing Bond Street. When Mother inquired as to how Lawrence was coming along under his tutorage, he replied that she should speak to her husband. Then Mr. Willet ever so rudely walked away without uttering another word.”
“What had happened?” Amelia asked.
“Oh, sister, when we came home, my father was sitting in the living room in his nightshirt, for the physician insisted he had to keep to his bed. In Father’s hand was a small stack of pages. ‘Mr. Willet sent me the most interesting illustrations,’ he said, and then threw them at her. When they settled on the floor, my mother screamed and begged me to turn away. But it was too late. I saw them.” She clutched her bosom. “My heart aches as I recall the sadness in Mother’s eyes. Even now, decades later, I can scarcely speak of it.” Katherine pressed the pad of her thumb against her lips.
Vivienne reacted quickly. “Had he drawn pictures of an impolite nature?”
Well done, old girl, thought Dashiell.
“Terrible, horrid, disgusting caricatures,” Katherine cried. “Degrading to the beautiful feminine form. ‘Aren’t you proud of your son?’ Father asked in a nasty mocking way. ‘But this is just the beginning.’ He went on to say that Lawrence had done something far worse. Mother made me go to my room, so I didn’t learn any more details. But several hours later, I heard someone banging on the door. I looked out my window and saw Lawrence waiting on the step below. The butler and a footman set a trunk on the steps and said Lawrence wasn’t welcome in our home any longer.”
“Did you see him after that?” Vivienne asked.
Katherine shook her head. “We left for Spain two weeks later. Mother never mentioned him again. But I think he truly and finally broke her heart. She became like a quiet shadow and nothing I could do would cheer her.” She unpinned the flower from her hair and held it in her palm. “My mother’s favorite flowers were geraniums. I suppose with all my work with the Society, I’m just trying to rectify the travesties wreaked upon my mother’s soul b
y Father and Lawrence James.”
***
Outside his cousin’s home, Dashiell examined the sky. Over the rooftops on the left side of the square, heavy clouds had rolled in for the evening. The air was colder and heavy with moisture. Vivienne clutched the traumatized Garth close to her body, her lips drawn in an anxious frown. She looked different from the cheery lady who had appeared at his door several days ago. Her eyes had lost their jovial light.
Dashiell straightened the bow on her bonnet and gave her chin a tiny caress with his thumb. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Her eyes searched his face. “You tell me you are a cad and a scoundrel,” she said quietly. “There is much about your life that I don’t know about or understand, but surely you are not as vile as Lawrence James.”
He wanted to say no, but he also wanted to keep Vivienne safe from more hurt. And that’s all that Dashiell was to women: hurt.
“Yes, I am,” he said, and the words came out like a hard, desperate growl. He felt her body shiver, and she cast her gaze down.
“What am I going to say to my aunt? I thought this blackmail was about my uncle, but now it seems my aunt’s life wasn’t as simple as I thought. Yet in my heart, I feel no contempt, just compassion.” Vivienne raised her eyes to his. “I understand how she felt. How easy it is to go astray.”
Guilt pricked his heart. He should have told her to leave that night of the Vinho da Roda when she gazed up from those caricatures with hot, repressed desire in her eyes. Instead he’d kissed her, playing little lovemaking games of which she was too innocent to know the rules. He suspected the same games had been played on her aunt’s young trusting heart. “Don’t tell her anything.”
“But I have to ask her about James and the blackmail. I don’t see another way. I’ve run out of time. She is making me go home on Tuesday afternoon.”
“What?” A panic seized his body at the thought that she wouldn’t be there anymore. He knew he would have to let her go, that it was best that they were separated. He just thought he would have more time to prepare himself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
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