Wicked Little Secrets

by Ives, Susanna

  “No, they won’t. No one is going to get near Fontaine. I bet that hall is filled with politicians, magistrates, and peers, and not a one of them is going to say a word against her.”

  “I don’t care, you’re leaving.”

  “Those stolen paintings were of me. I’ve been stolen!”

  “And now I’m stealing you too.” He started to pull her to the door. She yanked free.

  “No! I’m going to—” She stopped. Her tight, angry expression suddenly eased. “You’re right,” she said slowly, coolly. “But I really can’t leave in these wings and halo.” Her voice was bell-like and sweet. Then she did that adorable little wrinkle of her nose. “They would get in the way. Let me take them off?”

  She untied her sash, and her robe and wings fell to the floor with a thud, revealing her lacy, feather-adorned corset that pushed up her breasts to beautiful, delicious mounds. The outline of her shapely legs and thighs were visible beneath the long, gossamer chemise as if she had nothing on at all. Dashiell’s higher reasoning faculties went silent, like a noisy fly suddenly swatted flat. The only thought lighting his brain was “I want.”

  Vivienne ran her fingertip over her bodice, a coy, taunting, teasing smile on her lips as she gazed at him from under her beautiful lashes. “I’ll change in the closet. Give me a moment.”

  She tiptoed into the closet, flipping her hair to glance over her shoulder at him, casting him another seductive look, before closing the door behind her.

  He stood dazed for a moment. I want. I want.

  A dim ray of rationality broke through his desire. “Wait a minute, you’re trying to seduce me again. What are you doing in there?”

  She didn’t answer, but there was a great deal of bumping and thudding in the closet and then he heard her utter “Stupid halo.” A few seconds later, the door opened. She stood on the threshold sporting a red wig and a lavender dress with embroidered green vines connecting roses made of bright red beads. The bodice gaped and sagged as if she had missed more than a couple of buttons, and the feathers from her corset poked out the top. Poised in her hand was another whip, ready to lash out at him.

  “Vivienne, whatever you’re thinking—that is, if you are thinking—my answer is no. We’re leaving.”

  “Fontaine is coming for me in the Jungle Room,” she said, edging toward the door. “I just have to get Teakesbury and Jenkinson there.”

  “You’re insane.” He lunged at her.

  She snapped the whip, popping his arm.

  “Ow! Vivienne!”

  “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I love you more than anyone in the world. Truly. But I have to find myself.” She turned and fled the room.

  He dashed after her. “You stop right now.”

  Her hand flashed by Frederick’s cage. And then he was blinded by white and pink feathers flying in his face. He crossed his arms, shielding himself. The bird kept swooping at him.

  “Damnation!” He captured the bird by its feet. Frederick flapped his great wings and hissed at him.

  “Now, just calm down.” Dashiell became very still and stared at the bird the way he had seen snake charmers do with cobras in India. “Good bird.” He slowly reached out and rubbed the side of the bird’s head with his finger. Frederick opened his beak and shot out his blunt tongue. “Good bird,” he said soothingly. The bird quieted, swiveled his head, and studied Dashiell with one eye.

  Dashiell looked about; the room was empty except for the bird and him. What the hell was he going to do now? If he stalked into the hall, he would be spotted in a matter of seconds. He did some quick arithmetic as he scratched the bird. There was him, his grandfather, and the boys. Seven or so men against about seventy-five. Historically, those were never favorable odds without rifles, arrows, cannons, or trebuchets.

  The only thing he knew was that Fontaine was coming to get Vivienne in the Jungle Room. He slowly turned. The edge of Vivienne’s discarded wings and robe peeked through the doorway. A scary idea germinated in his head, one that only a desperate man, who had lost all reservation about humiliating himself, would ponder.

  “I must be mad,” he whispered.

  “I love you,” Frederick cooed.

  Twenty-one

  A few minutes later, Dashiell peered out of Fontaine’s door into the corridor. The sound of ladies singing drifted down the hall. “She is a gem beyond compare, a beauty so rare, a face so fair.”

  He wrapped the white feathered robe tighter about his body and then pulled a strand of long black hair from Frederick’s mouth. “I told you to stop eating my wig,” he scolded the bird, perched on his shoulder.

  Dashiell stepped into the hall. His wings and halo got caught in the doorframe, sending tiny white feathers flying. “Dammit,” he muttered.

  He turned, edged out of the room, and tiptoed on his bare feet down the passage as he mentally counted off his more manly deeds: drank with a legion of elite French Zouaves in Algeria, got in a sword fight with a band of Barbary pirates, and entertained a sultan’s harem in Bursa.

  A gent with a vacant, inebriated expression weaved toward him. “Hallo there, beautiful lady. Haven’t seen you before.”

  Dashiell grabbed a strand of long hair from Frederick’s beak and spread it across his mouth, letting out a girlish giggle. “I’m new,” he said in a cracking falsetto. “Can you tell me where the Jungle Room is?”

  “It’s the one in the middle of the balcony.” The man staggered backward and flung his hand toward a door. Dangling just below the balcony railing was a strange contraption: a swing hanging by ropes twined with ribbon and supporting a huge crescent moon.

  The drunk’s eyes glittered. “Want a wild night in the jungle, pretty thing?” He curled his fingers and swiped the air. “Reorw,” he hissed and broke into a dirty chuckle. Dashiell giggled again and then swung his fist, slamming the man’s jaw, sending him sailing into the wall. The bird began bobbing up and down and hissing on Dashiell’s shoulder.

  The inebriate slid onto the floor, rubbing his chin, a stupid grin on his face. “Oh, you’re that type. There’s another chamber for that.”

  Dashiell straightened his halo and stepped over the man. He proceeded down the corridor, glancing quickly over the balcony, before slipping into the Jungle Room. He stepped beside the door to conceal himself. There he waited, listening, his hand on his Paterson and Frederick eating his wig. The head of a tiger gazed at him from where its skin had been made into a rug. On the mirrors, other felines peered at him with green and yellow painted eyes.

  Outside, the singing stopped. He could make out a female voice raised as if in greeting. The doorknob shook and then turned. “It’s unlocked,” he heard a female voice say. Two white-winged figures entered. He slammed the door shut behind them and pointed his gun.

  “Where are Vivienne and Fontaine?” he demanded.

  The two young women screamed and grabbed onto each other.

  “M-Mrs. Fontaine g-gave us the key and said we were s-supposed to escort her to the swing.”

  Dashiell groaned. “Oh, bloody hell.”

  He stalked out onto the balcony. Below, the madam stood on the stage, addressing the audience. And there, on the front row with a cigar sticking out from the edge of his smiling mouth, was Dashiell’s second least favorite person behind the madam: Robert Teakesbury. But Vivienne was nowhere in sight.

  “She is a masterpiece of love.” Fontaine’s voice resounded as if she were performing at Covent Garden. “A Lawrence James portrait in real life. A prize for the discriminating connoisseur of the erot—”

  “I love you!” Frederick squawked and swooped from Dashiell’s shoulder, flying in a large spiral down to the picture frame where he perched himself.

  Fontaine’s head jerked up, her gaze latching onto Dashiell.

  Without thinking, he jammed his gun through his robe and into his trousers and leaped over the railing onto the moon swing. He heard a grunt from the men hoisting the ropes above, and one side of the swing fell. He h
eld on, sliding down the rope and landing on the stage with a graceful thud. “Hallo, lads, here I am: your masterpiece of love.”

  Dashiell righted his halo and began drawing little circles around his would-be breasts with his index fingers.

  The audience went silent, faces paralyzed. Fontaine’s mouth flapped open. A lone voice rang out. “Damn, son. I thought we weren’t supposed to make a scene.”

  “Dashiell!” Fontaine screamed and leaped at him, her fingernails out like claws. He sashayed aside, letting the madam careen past him. He shot his grandfather a hot “come here now” look and jerked his head toward the side of the stage.

  “I am the Aphrodite of Mayfair, Venus rising from the Thames.” Dashiell swayed his hips like an Arabian dancer as he edged across the platform toward his grandfather. “A goddess above all goddesses.”

  Laughter rippled across the crowd and the men began clapping in time to the gyration of his pelvis.

  His grandfather reached the stage first. “Dash, you’re scaring me.”

  Dashiell flourished his arms in cascading waves as he leaned down. “Vivienne’s here,” he said to the earl. “Find her and get her out.”

  Fontaine caught up with him, grabbing his arm. “Get off my stage.” Her lips were pursed in a rock-hard smile, trying to appear calm and in control, but her eyes were like daggers.

  Dashiell seized her and spun her like a top, as he watched the earl disappear through the throng.

  Fontaine ripped her hand free. “What do you think you are doing?”

  Dashiell didn’t answer, but dragged his fanned fingers before his eyes while undulating his groin. “Between my limbs await the erotic mysteries of India,” he told the men. “The secret perfumed garden of Arabia.”

  Whooping cheers rang out.

  “What have you done with Vivienne?” Fontaine spat in his ear.

  Dashiell quivered his arse at the audience while slowly raising his arms until the back of his hands met between his wings. He tried to bend his back and toss his long wig hair like the dancers he had seen in the Ottoman palaces, but he lost his balance, falling backward onto his wings and sending his halo rolling across the floor. The audience howled.

  Dashiell curled onto his side. His wig had spun on his head and now covered his eyes with long black locks. He blew them aside. “So, fellows, who wants a night of sublime, exotic delight? Start your bidding.”

  ***

  In the back of Vivienne’s mind, a tiny unformed thought nagged her like an itch on her back that she couldn’t reach. She had missed something. What? She tried to ignore the niggle as she searched through the sculleries again.

  Where is Jenkinson? The madam must not have come for her money. But that made no sense. Jenkinson could have been run over by a train, leaving vultures to peck out her innards, and she would claw her way out of hell to get her money.

  Vivienne checked the clock hanging above a cupboard of white plates. Fontaine would arrive in her room in three minutes.

  The servants cast her curious looks. They stood about a massive table, their knives slamming the wood as they cut up geese and lamb legs.

  “I think we have another insane one on our hands,” said a weary old woman, carrying a pan laden with raw turbot. She opened the door of a great oven set back in an alcove and shoved the fish inside.

  An explosion went off in Vivienne head. “Bloody hell,” she whispered and spun around, flying down the servants’ corridor and up the back stairs to Fontaine’s room.

  Men’s loud laughter and hands clapping in rhythm echoed through the passage. Were they getting ready for her grand entrance? Well, they could keep waiting because she wasn’t going to be any man’s mistress, paramour, concubine, or whatever—except Dashiell’s, provided she could get them out of the brothel alive.

  Fontaine’s parlor was open. Vivienne crept inside and closed the door behind her. “Dashiell,” she whispered, but got no reply.

  The room was empty, pink and white feathers strewn about the rug. She passed into Fontaine’s bedroom. Dashiell’s coat, cravat, and shoes had been tossed on the bed. The closet door was wide open. Her halo, wings, and robe were missing.

  “What in the world?” she whispered, but then snapped herself back to attention. She had a mission and less than a minute to complete it.

  She began ripping the dresses from their hangers, exposing the paned mirrored wall at the back of the closet. She quickly scanned the surface, seeing no lock anywhere. She snatched the lamp from the commode and held it to the mirror. On the second mirrored pane from the left, she found was she was looking for: tiny fingerprints.

  She paused a moment to think. How would her father—well, the man she knew as her father—engineer a secret door? She pushed on the frame beside the prints. The wood gave and then she drew it back until she heard a soft click. “May you enjoy Newgate, Fontaine,” she whispered and carefully slid two columns of panels back, revealing a small black safe. On the top, James’s sketches were stacked. Unless the masterpieces were miniatures, she doubted they could fit in the safe.

  “No, no, no!” She banged the heel of her palm against her forehead. “They have to be in here.”

  She kicked aside the shoes, wigs, and whips on the floor, until she could squeeze herself against the corner of the closet. She peered into the small room. A large trunk stood on its side against the inner wall.

  ***

  “I am well-versed in oriental languages of pleasure,” Dashiell said, moving his arms like cascading waves as he slid his neck from side to side. Frederick had his claws dug into his wig, pulling out long strands while ignoring his owner’s terse commands to get away from that molly lobcock.

  Teakesbury had pushed through the horde, stationing himself by the side of the huge picture frame, not three feet from Dashiell. “Stop this ridiculous act.” His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth. “You are disgracing yourself. I’m trying to help you.”

  Like hell you are.

  “Three farthings for the evening!” a man shouted.

  The flashman, using his enormous shoulders, shoved through the men crushing the stage. “Get him out of here!” Fontaine commanded him. The hulk of a man hunched down, flexed the muscle of the hand that wasn’t bandaged, and rushed at Dashiell like a charging bull.

  “Oh, damn.” Dashiell leaped for the rope swing and cast himself into the air, swooping around the man. “Come fly with me to the heights of grand passion,” he told his audience and then slammed into the stairwell. Fontaine’s clients applauded.

  Dashiell grabbed the rail and jammed his foot between two balustrades. “Hello, lovely,” he said, winking to one of the angel girls holding a candle. She shrieked and rushed into the arms of the woman a few steps above. “I make them all scream,” he assured the men.

  Along the back wall, he saw his grandfather was wandering, turning his head about as if he were lost.

  What the hell is he doing in here! Vivienne wouldn’t come into the hall. He wanted to throttle his grandfather—and, for that matter, Vivienne—once he saved her hide, provided he wasn’t being carted away to Newgate for murder, or Bedlam for this bit of madness.

  “A half-groat,” a man called out.

  “Stop encouraging him!” Fontaine said.

  “Just a half-groat!” Dashiell cried in outrage. “For this luscious body?” He trailed his hand down his chest to his balls. “Come now, you don’t grasp the sheer enormity of my love. Sixpence, at least.”

  “A shilling!”

  “One pound for you to get down, immediately,” Teakesbury spat.

  The flashman was now pushing clients aside as he made for the stairs. Dashiell took to the air again.

  “Let go of that rope!” Fontaine screamed at the workmen on the top balcony. Suddenly, Dashiell was falling. He seized the top of the picture frame and, for a second, hung suspended.

  A terrible crack resounded and then the ripping of fabric. “Oh, hell.” The flimsy structure fell apart where it had been poo
rly nailed together at the edges. Dashiell landed feet-first on the sofa. He waved his arms frantically to keep his balance, but tumbled over the back, toppling the sofa.

  He opened his eyes, but all he saw was black, or perhaps the wig was blocking his vision. The audience’s howling laughter sounded like an oncoming train in his ear.

  Save Vivienne!

  He struggled to his feet. His left wing dropped to the floor. “I’m a fallen angel, boys,” he stammered and staggered backward, hitting the velvet background. Little crystal stars twinkled and jingled around him.

  “Two pounds,” a guest said.

  “Three pounds,” upped another.

  “I love you.”

  “Frederick, come here immediately!” Fontaine ordered. The bird circled onto the madam’s shoulder. “Your little show is over, Lord Dashiell. It’s all been very amusing, but it’s time for your closing act, and I assure you that you will never be able to cross my threshold again.”

  “Four pounds!” a man bellowed.

  Fontaine and the flashman were closing in on Dashiell; he was trapped against the midnight sky façade. He’d always hoped that once in his life he would do something truly heroic: pistols in both hands, a powerful steed between his legs, reins in his teeth as he flew across an Indian plain, firing at a gang of Thugs, or quietly slitting the throat of a notorious Turkish assassin with a yatagan in some dark alley. He never imagined that his most noble deed would happen while wearing a dress and dancing seductively before drunken men. But he would sacrifice his pride and life to set Vivienne free. He reached into his robe for his revolver.

  “A thousand pounds to take her as my mistress,” a female voice called out.

  A shiver ran down his spine. Vivienne!

  Silence thundered through the hall. Everyone spun around to the direction of the woman’s voice. The crowd edged back, and there standing among them in a tawdry red wig and an ill-fitting lavender gown with gaudy bead roses was Vivienne. In her hands, she gripped a painting of herself.

  “Son, I found her!” his grandfather called out. “She was wearing a wig.”