Lord of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  “Which leaves only Anne in ignorance, I suppose. I want you to tell them I offered marriage. I do not like their thinking I am misusing you.”

  “I cannot tell them of your offer. If Mary knew that I refused, she would do me grave harm.”

  The sister in question could be heard coming down the stairs, calling for Bride to decide who got which room.

  Lyndale pressed a small paper into her hand. “Your trunks will arrive this afternoon. I expect you will want some time to settle in. Here is the address of the other house. Promise that you will meet me there soon.”

  She tucked the paper away, and saw him out. She would need at least a day or two to settle in. She also needed the time to address a few other matters that had been neglected during her week of pleasure.

  He paused in the portico. “Perhaps now that you can thoroughly unpack, you will let me take another look at those Caraglios.”

  Her heart twisted at this reminder of the deceptions between them. For a week she had pretended those lies did not exist, but she could no longer.

  “I will be sure to dig them out of their trunk as soon as possible.”

  “It is here,” Mary called up the stairs. Her voice cracked with excitement. “The press is here.”

  Bride listened to the confusion pouring in from the street. Although she was glad their press had finally arrived, she cursed under her breath.

  She had intended to go out today, and now that would be delayed.

  She set down the burin, rolled her stiff shoulders, and stretched her sore hand. If it took long to set up the press, she would have to finish this plate for Mr. Murray tonight. She had begged off meeting Lyndale today so that she could visit Mr. Twickenham, the papermaker whose name might have been given to Walter.

  She rose, and looked down with distaste at her work. She hated engraving on steel plates. It was much harder material than copper. She did not care for the brittle lines and tonalities it produced when printed, either. Book publishers favored them, however, because many more impressions could be printed off steel than off copper.

  She went to Joan’s chamber across the landing. “I suspect that you also will be glad for the excuse to forgo this work for a while.”

  Joan kneaded her hands together. “It is fairly tedious. Mr. Murray has very precise ideas of how he wants these drawings reproduced, doesn’t he? He does not favor creative burin work. He wants clear, bland illustrations in his books.”

  “At least that means we have not had to pull proofs to check our work.” The presses at Albermarle Street had been available to them. These images were the sort they could do when half asleep, however.

  Release from the burin did not appear to lift Joan’s spirits.

  “You are melancholy. What is amiss?” Bride asked as they walked down the stairs.

  Joan shrugged. “I wrote to Michael and invited him to visit for dinner. His return letter arrived this morning.”

  “When will he come?”

  “Never, I think. He explained that the addresses his lord is paying to you means he cannot. It appears it is not permitted for a valet to have a friendship with a family if his lord has a friendship with them as well.”

  “I am sorry, Joan. I did not intend for my friendship to interfere with yours.”

  “It is not important. My friendship was only that, and nothing more. It was pleasant to have at least one familiar face in this city, however. I also find it comical that suddenly I am above him.”

  Bride and Joan arrived in the reception hall to find Mary in the midst of a long, endless description of all the fine ensembles they had bought and all the interesting things they had seen.

  The two men who listened appeared skeptical and suspicious. Their lidded gazes shifted from Mary to Bride.

  “Took some time finding ye,” Roger MacKay said. “Sought out Lyndale as ye said tae. His man told us ye wus here.” His jaw twitched. “Said you’d just taken this big house and wus living with the earl ’fore that.”

  “Sounds like ye had a fine time since coming to London.” Jamie’s gaze raked Mary’s pretty yellow dress.

  “Fine enough,” Bride said. “We are badly in need of the press, however. I am grateful you have brought it.”

  “No need fur gratitude. Ye paid the way. Took a bit longer than it should, but the dreich got us stuck a few times.” Roger set his hat back on his head. “Ye be telling us whaur ye want it now, and we’ll be on our way.”

  It took an hour to move the wagon to the back of the house and hoist the press onto the sturdy table waiting for it in the carriage house’s extra room. The MacKays had also transported books from the library, and everyone helped move those boxes into the chamber, too, to be dealt with later. Finally, Roger and Jamie wiped their hands and necks.

  “Are you returning at once to Scotland?” Anne asked. She petted the press’s rollers like the machine was an animal.

  “Nae.” Jamie’s grin reflected the rogue in his heart. “Since we cam all this way, we intend to see the toun.”

  “I can show you the city,” Mary said. “I know where everything is now, and all the best diversions and entertainments.”

  Jamie laughed. “We’ll be seeking diversions ye canna help wi’, and going places a fine lady like ye canna gae.”

  “You’d best watch your pockets,” Bride warned. “Those diversions could leave you fleeced. This is no little town in a glen.”

  That made Roger frown. He reached into his coat and turned to Anne. “Maybe ye will hold this money for us. It is what we’ve set aside to get us home. We dinna want tae be spending or losing this part of it.”

  Anne accepted the charge. “Where will you be staying?”

  “We’ve a place. We’ll come for that ’fore we gae.”

  Jamie nudged his brother. “Let’s be moving. There’s diversions tae be found.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “I think what you seek can be found at a place called Covent Garden.” Anne spoke as if they sought directions to the opera house. “You should be careful about disease, of course.”

  Roger turned red. Jamie looked at Anne as if she were mad to speak so frankly.

  Anne smiled placidly, pleased that she had been able to offer practical help.

  The MacKay sons left, excited about the trouble they would find.

  Bride regarded the press. It seemed strange to see it here. It felt like a year since she had used it in Scotland. It had been a world away. A lifetime ago.

  Her world and her life, however. This press, and all it had seen, dictated her past and her future. She was living a wonderful dream with Lyndale, exploring small eternities when they met in that cottage west of the city. This press was a nudge, urging her to wake.

  Sadness ached in her heart. She was not sure what she mourned.

  “You should have asked them to dinner,” Mary said. Her pique at Jamie MacKay’s impatience to be gone was showing.

  “They’ve no interest in dining with us,” Bride said. “Jamie plans to be tasting things we can’t offer.”

  “I think they are just jealous that we have done so well. I think they feel we are above them now.”

  Mary seemed to take comfort in that notion. Bride did not disabuse her of it. Mary had clearly misunderstood the hooded looks the MacKays had given their new dresses and big house.

  Those Scottish eyes had been full of speculation on just which sister had sold herself to the Earl of Lyndale.

  She did not care what they thought. Right now her worry was with this press, and the way Anne kept stroking it.

  She could see her sister’s mind working. They had a press, and the plates, and the paper, and the skill.

  Anne was going to be trouble.

  Sooner than Bride expected.

  “We could pass the notes here in London, then Roger could bring the money back to Scotland, Bride. He would do it for us, I’m sure.”

  “I am not going to put our lives or that money in the hands of a MacKay, Anne. We will be
printing no notes, so turn your mind away from that idea.”

  It took Bride a good while to find Mr. Twickenham’s place of business. The hackney cab brought her to the City, and she had to make her way through the narrow streets on foot, asking for directions.

  Finally a bookseller sent her to a lane off Fleet Street. She spied the sign announcing Twickenham’s papermaking business.

  As soon as she entered, her hope died. This was not the kind of papermaker she sought. It was a factory.

  Right now it was a deserted factory.

  The machine with its big roller and long ribbon of screen stood silently inside the cavernous chamber. A huge screw press in one corner showed a thick stack of paper being squeezed dry, however. Perhaps the day’s work was finished.

  She strolled around, noting the big vats where pulp would be readied for the process. They were empty.

  As she examined the works, a shadow intruded in the corner of her sight.

  The room was not deserted, as she had thought. A well-dressed man loitered near the wall that had been blocked from view by the machinery when she entered. At the sound of her step, he turned.

  “Bride, what are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Lyndale walked over to her. “Awaiting the return of the proprietor.” His expression invited her explanation in turn.

  “Our press arrived today. I had heard Mr. Twickenham makes the kind of handmade paper we like to use.”

  Lyndale gestured to the machine. “He has joined industry, it appears. However, his days of laying down pulp on screens by hand are not over. I was told he might accept commissions for private stock.”

  Her eyes took in the deep shelves on this wall, stacked with reams of paper.

  Lyndale gestured to the door where he had been standing when she entered. “I think there is another chamber behind that door. Maybe he makes the hand-laid paper in there. Should we peek?”

  She wanted badly to peek. Desperately. She just did not want Lyndale peeking with her.

  To her consternation, he strolled back to the door. “I am sure he won’t mind, and it will spare us both another visit, should he not return soon. I was convincing myself to poke my nose in, when you arrived.”

  She hurried to catch up to him. “We really shouldn’t . . .”

  “Since we each may offer a commission, I am sure he would want us to.”

  He turned the latch and pushed the door ajar. She looked around him to see the room’s interior.

  It was indeed a room used to make paper. A stack of framed screens on the floor stood as high as her head. In a far corner she spied a table holding newly laid paper drying between felt layers.

  A man stood with his back to them, framed by the light of a window. He was intent on lifting a screen from a vat. He was dressed in shirt, waistcoat and trousers, and his steely hair hung to his thick shoulders. As the screen rose, the window’s light showed the top lines of the screen, ghostly in the sodden pulp.

  Bride glimpsed the wire pattern of the screen in the brief instant before Mr. Twickenham leveled it and began the motions to even the pulp into a consistent layer. Her breath caught.

  Mr. Twickenham heard her. He dropped the screen back into the pulp and turned with alarm.

  “Our apologies,” Lyndale said. “We did not intend to startle you. I fear we have ruined that sheet, and perhaps the whole vat.”

  Mr. Twickenham composed himself. He gestured dismissively at the vat. “No matter.”

  “If you would like to finish with it—”

  “I said no matter.” He wiped his pulpy hands on his waistcoat. “There’s a bell on the table in the outer room. If you had rung I’d have heard.”

  “Is there? We did not see it.” Lyndale stepped into the room. “You work alone?”

  “My apprentices are sick. They are needed for the machine, so I do a bit of screening in here on such days. Is there a reason you have visited, sir?” A skeptical scan of their garments accompanied the question. Neither one of them looked like a publisher or stationer.

  Lyndale strolled toward Twickenham, exuding the affable confidence that only privilege can breed. “I was told that you still make hand-laid paper, and might accept a commission.”

  Bride strolled, too, but inconspicuously along the wall. She aimed for the stack of felts, itching to see what kind of paper they dried. She silently urged Lyndale to keep Twickenham’s attention occupied.

  “I do not take direct commissions. You will have to speak with a stationer. They don’t care for us cutting them out, you see.”

  “Of course.” Lyndale gazed around with admiration. “I have always found this fascinating. Rags one day, paper the next.” He peered into the vat. “Is that one of your commissions?”

  “It is. One that is past due, so if you will excuse me . . .”

  “We do not want to interfere with your industry. However, just so I do not waste yours or a stationer’s time, do you make thin white wove paper?”

  Startled by the question, Bride almost bumped into a case.

  Twickenham began fussing with the stack of screens. “I have been known to. Now, good day to you both.”

  Dismissed without ceremony, Lyndale headed for the door. Bride almost stomped her foot. She was within arm’s length of the felts, but she would not be able to sneak a look at Mr. Twickenham’s new paper.

  “You could have distracted him longer,” she said once they emerged from the building.

  “Why would I?”

  “I wanted to see the quality of his paper. You had your question answered, but I did not have mine satisfied.” Her pique caused her to walk with some speed toward Fleet Street.

  “You only need to visit a shop and choose the paper you want, Bride. If you require something special, it will be arranged for you.”

  “And for you, sir. Your private stationery can also be so arranged.”

  “I confess I pursue more than private stationery. I took the free day to see about the forged ‘I Modi.’ I doubt their paper was bought through the normal channels, so I have begun checking the sources.”

  “You mean the possibly forged ‘I Modi,’ don’t you?”

  “As time passes, the more possible the possibility strikes me.”

  His coach waited on Fleet Street. He handed her in and it rolled toward Portman Square.

  “So, your press has arrived. Now you can accept more ambitious commissions besides Mr. Murray’s illustrations. Perhaps you should compose your own images. There are collectors who still prefer the work of peintre-graveurs over reproductive prints.”

  She knew that. She had seen the landscapes and city views in the print shops. She had never considered herself an artist, but she thought she could do as well as many who called themselves such. Some of those prints had been hand-colored, and Mary and Anne would be good at such enhancements.

  “It is less secure,” she said. “A reproductive plate can be sold outright to a publisher. An original work is only worth the prints that actually sell.”

  “Soon your family will not need to earn its keep. If you want to try something different with that press, you will be able to.” He closed the coach curtains and lifted her onto his lap. “If you do, I promise to purchase an impression of every plate you make.”

  “So that you can patronize me?”

  “Because I do not doubt they will be beautiful.”

  She expected him to kiss her and grab the opportunity for intimacy, as he normally did. Instead he only held her as the coach worked its way through the town.

  The dark interior of the carriage seemed full of words unspoken. He appeared as deep in thought as she found herself.

  Only her mind did not dwell on forged plates and paper. She contemplated how right it felt to be held by him, even now in this silence so heavy with deceptions. She knew true joy when they were together. It went beyond the pleasure they shared, although it was tied to that. Her spirit soared whether they made love or merely t
alked. Even the silences enlivened her.

  She had worried his attention would be intrusive and dangerous. Instead, he made her feel free and safe. And happy.

  That would end soon, one way or the other. She could not erase a foreboding that it was starting to end right now, in this carriage.

  When the coach stopped at her house, he kissed her cheek. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “I will be there by midafternoon.”

  “Since you are finally settled, I would like you to bring the Caraglio prints. I am impatient to examine them.”

  Her heart had been heavy since their meeting with Mr. Twickenham, and now it sank like lead. It was one thing to anticipate the end of the dream, and another to know the exact hour of its demise.

  “I will be sure to remember to bring them this time.”

  She looked at his shadowy profile, unable to fathom his expression. Did he know? Had he guessed? And if so, how much?

  The footman opened the coach door and handed her down. From her doorstep, she looked down the street as the Lyndale insignia moved away and turned a corner.

  The outing had unsettled her badly. The weight in her heart burst, showering her with sorrow.

  They had both been lying at Twickenham’s, and she suspected that they both knew it. She had not been there to find paper for her press, and he had not been there to see if Twickenham had made the paper for the forged “I Modi.”

  For one thing, Lyndale’s “I Modi” were not printed on thin white wove paper, but heavy laid cream.

  Thin white wove paper was what Twickenham had been making when they intruded, however. Lyndale must have noticed that, just as she did.

  It was also the kind of paper used in banknotes.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Bride entered the house, eager to seek the privacy of her bedroom so she could rebuild her composure after the unsettling visit to Mr. Twickenham’s factory.

  It was not to be.

  As soon as she opened the door, she knew something was amiss. The house was too quiet, as if no one moved in it.