The Orphan Pearl

by Erin Satie

He leaned into the compartment. “I need to give the driver a destination. Where are we going?”

  “I haven’t a clue.” Lily laughed. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Then come home with me,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Why not? If it’s your father you’re scared of—”

  “You are the last person I’d trust to stand up to my father,” Lily interrupted.

  “I abandoned you when you needed me most. I left you alone so I could save my own worthless, good-for-nothing hide. Lily, I’ve regretted it every day since. Every day, and there have been a great many days since then. I learned my lesson. I’m not a coward anymore.”

  “Is it true that you’ve become a rake?” Lily asked. “That you seduce women—innocents, even, and leave them to ruin?”

  Still hovering, Alfie ducked his head and shrugged.

  “Answer me, Alfie, or we part ways right now.”

  “I don’t hate myself when I’m in bed with a woman,” he said flatly. “I don’t want to die.”

  “So it’s true?”

  His lips twisted, but he didn’t reply. No matter. Silence was answer enough.

  Lily rubbed her forehead. She’d had foresight enough to tie a linen pocket around her waist, underneath her dress, and stow a small purse inside. It held twenty guineas or so—enough to live on for a few months, if she practiced extreme economy. She could extend that time by pawning her dress in exchange for something plain. Her rings and ear bobs ought to be worth a few shillings.

  She might even manage passage to America. Cheap, dangerous, and foul—not something she wanted to risk on her own, without a companion or protector. But she’d survived it once, on her way to England. She might be able to do it again.

  Damn John Tacitus Ware. Damn him. A few more hours, and she’d have ended the day a wealthy woman. Free and independent and safe. Instead, she’d been thrown back to a state of utter desperation.

  With a shudder, she remembered her last hours in Acara. Starting awake to the crack of gunfire. Smoke scraping her throat with every breath. Knotting a headscarf around an armload of clothes, creeping under cover of darkness through an orange grove heavy with fragrant blossoms. Arriving at the maidan, where Rustem gasped his last on the packed earth, firelight flickering wetly on blood and bone.

  She had thought, then, that she would never live to see another sunrise. Then that she would never make it to Constantinople, or to England, and so on. But she had woken up every morning wanting to live, and so she had traveled a vast distance as everyone must do, one mile at a time.

  But she had learned something important in the process. Every time she uprooted herself—by choice or by force—was harder than the last. Leaving everything behind, starting afresh, left her diminished. Her strength, her equilibrium, her willpower all suffered.

  “I’ve disappointed you,” Alfie said quietly.

  Lily snorted. “Just me?”

  “Viper,” said Alfie, without heat. “Whatever my sins, I’m offering to help you—and I’m one of the few people in the city who can.”

  Lily huffed and clutched the pearl tighter. “Tell the driver your address and get in.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  John took his pistol out of storage. Cleared the long table in his library, laid out some towels, and disassembled the gun. He cleaned it carefully, checked the parts for wear, lubricated where necessary. When he’d finished, he wiped the oil from his hands with a rag and ate alone while the sun burned orange in the western sky, and slipped out after dark.

  He couldn’t leave until he’d fulfilled Wilsey’s request. So. Time to get this task behind him, at last.

  Kingston lived in a squat little townhouse on Charles Street. John circled around to the mews that backed up to the houses opposite Kingston’s. The long row of stables lay quiet. Most evening events had started, few had ended. The grooms rested in between.

  John tugged off his shoes and stockings. He tied the laces of the shoes together and slung them around his neck. The stockings he stuffed in his coat pocket. He shook a handful of powdered chalk from a small pouch he’d tied to his belt, rubbing it into his feet and toes and then shaking loose another handful to coat his hands.

  The mews weren’t particularly tall. Two stories. Not a tremendous challenge—except that he had to move quickly. He plotted out his route, the protruding bricks that he’d use as footholds, the distance he’d leave between his body and the window in case one of the grooms happened to be looking out. He followed it over and over again, until he could close his eyes and play out the steps.

  Then he took a deep breath, counted to three, and set his fingertips into the groove between two shoulder-level bricks. He raised himself up and sought out cracks where his toes would fit. He didn’t cling, he balanced. Hand over hand, counting the seconds as he climbed, never pausing. Twenty seconds to the top, another ten to pull himself onto the roof without raising a racket.

  He crawled to the other side of the building on his belly, slow and careful. A short breezeway connected the mews to the townhouse. When he was sure the house lay quiet, John slithered across on his belly. The high-quality stonework on the residence didn’t provide nearly so many nooks and crannies as the brick-built mews. The final stage of his ascent would be shorter but much more difficult.

  He dipped into his store of chalk again. Applied a fresh coat. Planned his route, every move, but couldn’t take this wall with the same speed. He levered himself up by wedging his fingers and toes into the thin strips of mortar between the large smooth stones of the facade. A weak hold, and every shift of his weight threatened the balance that kept him vertical.

  A long, stupid, dangerous climb. John cursed Wilsey the whole way up, but he made it.

  Finally he stood on the roof. Flat and cramped, but directly across from Kingston’s townhouse. He took off his coat so he could reach the coil of thick rope he’d slung over his shoulder. Scratchy stuff, prickling through his linen shirt the whole way here.

  He dropped his coat to mark his spot and carried the rope to the end of the block. A chimney flue looked sturdy enough to hold him, so he knotted the rope around it. That would be his exit route.

  He loaded the gun and settled down to wait. Twilight faded to dark, but nobody came or went from Kingston’s townhouse. The ground floor windows were dark. Windows on the upper stories glowed with golden light. Kingston seemed to be home but not entertaining.

  A woman’s skirt swished into view on the second floor. Very dark, either navy or black. Kingston’s paramour? Widows would be his natural prey.

  Her stockinged foot tapped restlessly, tracing lines and circles on the floor. Then it flattened and she paced toward the window with a quick, light step. Angled above the window as he was, she revealed herself to him inch by inch: full hips, slim arms, the deep indent of her waist.

  His heartbeat slowed.

  She bent to peer down at the street and he got his first look at the smooth, untroubled oval of her face. Her strong, straight nose and clever, fine-cut lips. He knew them. He’d studied Lady Lily until he could see past her frothy, frivolous facade. Until he wondered how he’d misjudged her so thoroughly, when the scales ought to have fallen from his eyes after a single look into her honey-bright eyes, always sharp as a dagger in the dark.

  He stood, in the grip of a rage so hot it felt like an ice bath, every muscle tight and hard with the sudden appalling shock. Hustled to the rope and shimmied down, dropping the last few feet. He fell into a low crouch, then lunged forward while his knees still twanged from the impact.

  He raised the knocker, let it fall. Waited, teeth grinding, until the latch turned. Then he kicked the door open and forced his way inside. He found himself inside a narrow foyer. Marble floors, furniture of a practical nature—an umbrella stand, a coat rack. A wooden stairwell, squared rather than curved, skirted the opposite wall.

  “Lily!” he shouted.

  But Kingston appeared instead, descendi
ng the stairwell and pausing on the landing. He wore nothing but his shirtsleeves, neckcloth loose, so informal John couldn’t doubt what he’d first suspected: Lily had returned to Kingston’s bed.

  “Lily!” he shouted again.

  “Get him out,” Kingston snarled.

  Before any of Kingston’s servants could reach him, John bounded up the stairs. He slammed into Kingston, pinning him against the opposite wall.

  “Where is she?”

  And then Lily appeared at the top of the stairwell. She wore a simple day dress, hair loose and unstyled, tendrils curling around her cheeks. Silk stockings, no shoes. No jewelry, either. A mistress at ease in her lover’s home.

  The breath whistled in and out of John’s lungs, harsh and discordant.

  “Let go,” she commanded. She pattered down the stairs, snarled her hand in his hair and yanked, winding her fingers tighter and tighter. “Stand down and let go.”

  John dropped Kingston, who slid down the wall, gasping for breath.

  “Why?” Why him, he meant. Why not me. “And since when?”

  “You have no right to ask me that question,” she answered, crisp and cool. “Nor any other.”

  “Has this all been about you?” Kingston rasped, from his place on the floor. “How did he know? Did you tell him?”

  Lily frowned down at him. “What do you mean?”

  “He tried to kill me a few weeks back,” said Kingston. “Very nearly succeeded, too. Ambushed me in the museum.”

  Lily’s gaze swung slowly round. “Is that so?”

  “Not for your sake,” said John, stiffly, pinned by their glares.

  “I’ve been trying to reason it out,” said Kingston. “Sat down with a copy of Debrett’s, but he’s not in it. Hard to make a list of sisters and nieces I might have slept with when I can hardly figure out who his people are.”

  “Her name is irrelevant,” said John. “What matters is that you seduced a young woman. Lured her with false promises and abandoned her once you’d stolen her innocence.”

  Kingston snorted. “Sounds familiar.”

  “Familiar?” Lady Lily repeated. “Because you do it so often?”

  “It’s what I did to you, isn’t it?”

  Lady Lily frowned.

  “You’ve said as much,” Kingston continued. “And more. I’m a heartless monster. Not worth your time; not worth your pity, even.”

  John’s lip curled. “You know what kind of man he is, and you’re still here?”

  “Obviously I’ve tricked her somehow,” said Kingston, still a disjointed sprawl of limbs on the floor. “Lured her with false promises.”

  Lily turned on him. “Don’t you dare—”

  “Go on,” Kingston taunted. “Tell me what not to do.”

  Lily cut herself short and turned away from the earl, folding her arms tight across her chest.

  “I believe I’ve cleared the way for you, Ware,” said Kingston, baring his throat. “Might as well finish the job.”

  John took a step back. He had stumbled into something unnerving. Complicated, private, disturbing—repellent.

  “No?” Kingston’s lips twisted into a foul little smile. “Do you need some help?”

  “Enough,” snapped Lily. She rested one hand on Kingston’s shoulder and turned to Ware. “What exactly did this girl say to you?”

  “She didn’t—she’s a respectable young woman. It would have been inappropriate. Her father asked me to act in his stead.”

  Lily’s expression sharpened. “Her father?”

  John looked down at Kingston, who was still wearing that nasty grin. “He must answer for what he has done.”

  “I agree,” said Lily. Kingston tried to knock her hand away from his shoulder, but she held on. “And that’s why you must speak to the girl.”

  “Absolutely not.” John shook his head. “She has suffered enough.”

  “Ask her what happened—”

  “I know what happened!” John shouted.

  “It doesn’t matter what happened,” said Kingston. “It’s a rigged game. The story always ends the same way. You know that better than anyone, Lily. Don’t you?”

  “Ask the girl what happened,” said Lily. “If she tells the same story as her father, I will load the gun for you myself.”

  John hadn’t understood half the conversation. All he knew was that he ought to have pulled the trigger while he was on the roof. It had been a mistake to look Kingston in the eye, and a mistake to give Lily a chance to speak for him.

  Wilsey had been right to doubt John. Talking to Amelia would strengthen his resolve.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he said to Lily, and left.

  §

  Lily stared sightlessly at the door.

  “Why defend me?” Alfie asked.

  Lily sank onto the floor next to Alfie. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them close, feet flat on the landing. “You never did a thing to me that I didn’t want. That I didn’t ask for.”

  “I made your life impossible. You left the country because of me.”

  “I left because I didn’t want to marry the Duke of Leeds.”

  That had been her father’s solution to the problem, when he’d discovered them. Marry her to a sixty-year-old man, a widower with a pack of heirs. Someone her dubious virtue wouldn’t harm.

  A tear dripped down the side of Alfie’s nose.

  “Oh, Alfie.” She blinked back tears of her own. “You had good reason to be frightened. You’d just lost your father. You had a mother and a sister to think of. It’s no small thing to defy my father. They might have paid for our defiance.”

  “Lily, it’s my fault your father found us. I arranged for it to happen.”

  Lily froze. “No.”

  “I asked him for your hand,” he said. “Over and over, but he always refused.”

  “You did no such thing. I would have known.”

  “How? I didn’t tell you. I thought things were quite tense enough without my adding to it. He didn’t tell you because… well, why would he consult you on the subject? I thought I could force him to accept my suit.”

  A strange sound, half laugh and half sob, bubbled up her throat. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold it in. “What fools we were.”

  “I’m sorry, Lily.”

  “Don’t be. Listen to you. Whatever you’ve done these last ten years, that boy I loved has nothing to apologize for. You didn’t wrong me, Alfie.”

  His let his head fall back against the wall, chin tipped up and throat exposed. “Oh, God.”

  Lily laced her hand through his and laid her head on his shoulder. “Should I fetch the smelling salts?”

  He laughed hoarsely.

  “Warm milk,” Lily suggested.

  “I forgot what a pest you were.”

  “Because you have cheese for brains.”

  “Lily?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Whoever it is, she might hate me…” Alfie sighed and squeezed her hand. “If someone has to kill me, I guess I’d like it to be you.”

  “If the accusation turns out to be true…” She really would stand back and let him die. He’d deserve it. “Have you thought about steering clear of young unmarried ladies?”

  Alfie shrugged. “I think about it.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I stop thinking.” Alfie rubbed his throat. “I need tea. Or whiskey. That man is hard on the vocal chords.”

  Lily shoved herself to her feet and held out her hand. “Here. I’ve got you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amelia did not want to see him. Ordinarily, that would have been the end of it. But her parents weren’t inclined to indulge her moods, which they’d reclassified as tantrums, and so she was dragged forth.

  She was a lovely girl, even in a snit. A lively brunette whose pale skin blushed rose-pink at the slightest provocation—though her usually
ready smile was noticeably absent and her eyes shot daggers at him rather than sparks.

  “Take a turn with me,” he coaxed. “The fresh air will do you good.”

  She folded her arms. “It’s too hot.”

  “Then you’ll carry a parasol,” said Lady Wilsey. “I’ve already had it brought down.”

  “We won’t be gone long,” John assured her.

  Amelia sighed her irritation and went to put on her bonnet and gloves. Lady Wilsey apologized for her husband’s absence. John didn’t explain that he’d arranged his meeting around it. He didn’t want to see his friend until he’d settled the matter with Kingston.

  When Amelia returned, instead of joining them in the drawing room she paused in the vestibule and tapped her foot on the tiles until John bid Lady Wilsey farewell.

  Amelia stood as far away from him as could be considered polite as he escorted her down the street, toward Green Park, twirling her parasol—with its pointed ribs—so close to his eye that he knew she half hoped to blind him.

  “I hate you,” said Amelia.

  At least she hadn’t made him guess. “Since when?”

  “You and my papa. All you want is to get rid of me as fast as possible.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  She pointed her nose in the opposite direction and sniffed.

  John let her sulk. They crossed Piccadilly and gained the lawn. To the left, a path curved toward a copse of leafy trees. All the visitors to the park had flocked to the shade, seeking refuge from the midafternoon sun. John urged Amelia in the opposite direction, toward an isolated bench facing the street.

  “Will you sit?”

  “If you insist.” She made a show of smoothing her skirt out of the way so that it didn’t touch him as she lowered herself onto the seat.

  He sat next to her. Stared down at his knit hands, marshaling his thoughts. Every rule of gentlemanly conduct forbade this conversation. He had no idea how to begin, no way to ease into it. So. Straight to the point, then.

  “Did Lord Kingston force you?”

  “What?” Amelia squeaked.

  “I’m sorry. I need to know.”

  The parasol stopped spinning and slumped to the side, leaving her face half in sun and half in shade, one eye squinted almost closed. “I’m a good girl.”