Acquisition. The reality of what Ginny was about to do struck Charlotte all at once. Ginny was going to become the comte’s mistress. She was going to share his bed. He had purchased that privilege.
Charlotte struggled to maintain a neutral expression, unable to quell a rush of revulsion and hating herself for the unworthy feeling. Always before when they had discussed this plan, Ginny had seemed so matter-of-fact about the intimate aspects of it, so completely at ease with the proposal, that Charlotte had unwittingly adopted her attitude—easy to do, she now discovered, when the thing had been theoretical.
But seeing the comte’s avid expression and Ginny’s cool sufferance, Charlotte found it far harder to support. Forcefully, she reminded herself of the many people, young soldiers and shop workers, mothers and grandfathers and children, who may well depend for their futures, perhaps even their lives, on Ginny’s willingness to barter her body for an invitation to St. Lyon’s castle.
Ginny was looking past Charlotte, a trace of anxiety discernible in the stiffness of her posture. The comte had turned to trade a few words with Lord Welton, a small melon of a man notable primarily for being even more in the dark than his wife, and Charlotte took the opportunity to edge closer to the courtesan.
“You look nervous. Has something gone wrong?” she asked in a low voice. “Do you find that you cannot do this, after all? Such a sacrifice—”
“Sacrifice?” Ginny cut her off with a soft whisper. “You are glorifying me, Lottie, and I will not have it. This is what I do. This is who I am. And I have no apologies to make for either.”
“But—”
“Nothing is wrong except that I wish the comte had not brought me here,” she continued in a low voice. “But a gentleman must crow, I suppose. I just wish he had found another fence post to do it from.” Her dark eyes flickered anxiously about the opera house as though she was searching for someone. “I have had the unnerving sensation of late that I am being—” She broke off, her expression tense and a little angry.
“Being what?”
“Never mind. I am being fanciful is all,” Ginny whispered impatiently, visibly wanting to be done with the conversation. “Now, go and speak to some of those young men slathering behind you before one of them slips in a pool of his own drool.”
The sharp tone, clearly meant to bite, was out of character. “There is something else. Something you are—”
“Come along, Charlotte.”
Surprised by the abrupt bellow, Charlotte spun around.
“ ’Tis past time we left,” the baroness, Lady Welton, announced from her seat near the balcony, her soft, pleasant face pinched with unhappiness, her large, wide-set eyes darting from Charlotte to Ginny. The reason for her misery was clear. She was forcing herself to protect Charlotte from an unseemly influence—that influence being Ginny Mulgrew—and the role was alien to her.
Lady Welton hated what she termed “vulgar scenes” with their attendant recriminations, accusations, and hurt feelings. Which went a long way to explaining the benign neglect with which she had raised her children, as well as the myriad overlooked pranks and larks her offspring had got up to, and away with, with such regularity.
Unfortunately, though Lady Welton was excellent at winking at those things she did not want to know about, not even her amazing negligence could overlook a known courtesan whispering into the ear of the girl the baroness took every opportunity to tell Society was like a daughter to her. Not that, in Lady Welton’s own mind, a casual friendship—and its attendant interesting conversations—with a courtesan was anything but sensible.
She only wished she’d had the foresight to have made such a practical acquaintance before she’d married Lord Welton. A few “interesting conversations” would have saved everybody a great deal of embarrassment. And time. But Charlotte should be having that conversation in the hallway, or an anteroom, or some other place out of sight of her, so that when people pointed accusing fingers—and people always pointed accusing fingers—Lady Welton could say with perfect honesty that she had no knowledge of anything untoward, and thus not be held accountable.
But Charlotte was in plain sight of her and they were whispering, quite possibly about those “fascinating things,” and thus Something Had To Be Done. Worse, she would have to do it.
“There’s too much of a crush in here what with all these young men crowding in. A body can’t breathe proper.” Lady Welton glared accusingly at the coterie of Charlotte’s admirers who’d swarmed into the box as soon as the curtain had been drawn.
“Not yet, ma’am,” one of the young bucks protested. “No sense going out now. You’ll just end up standing in another crush waiting for a hack.”
“That’s right,” another added. “Best to sit in a crush than stand in one.”
Such sound reasoning found a sympathetic ear in Lady Welton. She hated to stand in crushes. “All right then. We wait.”
“Milord.” The comte, attending this little byplay, turned to Lord Welton. “My carriage is waiting across the street. Can I offer you its use?”
“Eh? Oh!” The baron’s pink face alit with relief. “That would be—”
“Impossible,” Lady Welton blurted out.
The baron turned, blinking at his wife who had risen to her feet, clucking like a hen whose chick was about to run after a fox. “Impossible?” he echoed bewilderedly.
“Yes.” She gave a decidedly unsubtle jerk of her head in Ginny’s direction. Charlotte felt a blush rise in her cheeks for her friend. Not that Ginny looked humiliated. She looked bored.
“Yes,” repeated Lady Welton firmly. “I want a negus punch before we go and we don’t want to keep the comte waiting. In fact, I insist he not wait.”
“Oh.” The baron turned with a sigh, long experience having taught him the futility of arguing with his spouse. “Someone get me wife a punch.”
The comte accepted his defeat graciously, inclining his head before offering his arm to Ginny. “We will bid you good evening then. Lady Welton. Welton.” His dark eyes slid to Charlotte. “Miss Nash?”
As soon as they left, Lady Welton snapped her fan shut and rearranged her shawl about her dimpled arms. “Well then. Let’s go. No sense being the last in line.”
“But, my dear, I just sent young Farley for a negus,” the baron said.
“Then young Farley can drink it,” Lady Welton answered, securing Charlotte’s arm firmly in her own and wading into the group of young men still milling about in the box.
“I don’t understand,” the baron said plaintively, trailing after them.
“Oh, Alfred,” Lady Welton said with the air of a great instructor bestowing a kernel of wisdom on a pupil of suspect capabilities. “ ’Tis one thing to allow a woman like Mrs. Mulgrew into one’s box when a great many other scapegraces and rattle-pates are already littering it,” here the scapegraces glared accusingly at the rattle-pates and vice versa, “and quite another to voluntarily accept her company in a closed carriage.”
And, having educated her husband on this fine point of etiquette, she elbowed young Farley, on his way through the door with the requested negus, out of her way and sailed into the crowds in the hall beyond, her husband struggling to follow.
They emerged onto Catherine Street and into a crowd of other patrons of the arts, the gentlemen trying frantically—and with limited success—to wave down a hack while their wives and daughters milled disgruntledly beneath the brightly lit portico. London’s omnipresent fog had begun rolling inland from the Thames, blanketing those on the curb and obliterating everything more than a few yards away.
Across the street, a cacophony of voices and noise issued from the indistinct outlines of the private broughams and hacks, the phantom shapes of horses and other figures. From within the blanketed depths rose the sound of spectral vendors hawking roasted nuts; little ghostly street sweepers bleating the cost of their services, ladies chattering and gentlemen shouting while the jangle and squeak of harnesses, the clatter of sh
ifting hooves, and the rumble of carriages on cobblestone underscored it all. A driver yelled for someone to mind their step, the snap of a whip preceded a horse whinnying in reproach, and a man swore viciously as he stumbled in the murk.
At the corner of the opera house the bilious globe of a streetlight hung above a little clutch of Fashionable Impures putting on display wares currently being offered. They simpered and smiled, dimpled and cast flirtatious glances at the young beaus and dandies, bucks, and swells that swaggered slowly amongst them with the air of diners selecting their next course.
Charlotte caught a glimpse of Ginny a little farther up the boulevard, her head bent in conversation with the comte. She nodded briefly and he disappeared between the two carriages jockeying for position in front of them, emerging on the far side to be swallowed by the fog.
“We will be here for hours,” Lady Welton stated petulantly. Behind them Charlotte’s little mill of admirers had dispersed, seeking their own means of travel to the next party, the next gaming hell, the next entertainment.
“We could walk a bit down the street where the traffic eases up,” Charlotte said.
Lady Welton looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “Why?”
“So we won’t have to wait so long?” Charlotte suggested.
“Nothing better to do. Can’t say I look forward to the Neebler fête. Do you? Course, you don’t. Tightfisted and uncongenial, the lot of them. They’ll pawn off a few bits of mutton and a smattering of prawns for refreshments and for our trouble we shall be obliged to listen to the old windsack’s daughter screech while the wife pounds on the pianoforte. No. Better to wait.” She lifted her hand, waving her kerchief at her husband, who was puffing and huffing his way down the line of carriages looking for an unclaimed hire.
“Welton, a chair, please!”
“But m’dear,” he called back, “where am I to find a chair?”
“Well, really, Welton,” Lady Welton replied with fond irritation, “if I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you to find me one, would I?”
“Quite right,” Welton muttered and quit the search for a cab, going instead to look for a chair for his wife.
“Welton is a dear,” Lady Welton said comfortably, patting Charlotte’s arm.
“Mrs. Mulgrew.” From somewhere across the street a male voice rose above the din. “If you would?”
Charlotte glanced toward Ginny. The courtesan frowned, a look of impatience on her pretty face at being asked to cross the crowded avenue, before daintily lifting her skirts and stepping off the curb onto the slick cobblestones. She disappeared between the carriages.
“Ah!” At Lady Welton’s expression of pleasure, Charlotte turned back in time to see Lord Welton leading two stalwart-looking workmen lugging between them a marble bench pilfered from heaven knew where. “One can always count on Wel—”
“Look out!”
The warning rang out over the crowds. In the sudden pocket of silence Charlotte heard the mad scrabble of runaway horses’ hooves ringing against the cobblestones, the rumble of wheels over the road, and the thunder of a vehicle passing by and—a cry, a horrible thud!
Then the sound of the racing vehicle retreating as swiftly as it had appeared. The silence was broken by the sound of rushing feet and anxious voices raised in alarm.
“She’s hurt! She’s hurt! Someone get a quack! Hurry!”
“Oh!” cried Lady Welton softly, her hand covering her lips. “Some poor woman must have been struck. I hope I do not know her…”
A terrible premonition seized Charlotte.
“Charlotte, my dear! Where are you going? You cannot—”
Whatever else Lady Welton said was lost as Charlotte dashed into the street, searching for the woman who’d fallen beneath the runaway horses’ hooves. A little crowd had gathered a short way down the avenue. Charlotte pushed her way through them, praying that she would not find—
“No!”
Ginny Mulgrew lay on her side, her leg bent beneath her at an impossible angle. Already the stagnant pools of water collecting between the cobbles had soaked into her beautiful gown. A hoof print was ground deeply into the material a few inches from her hip. Her face was white, her eyes closed.
Charlotte dropped down beside her, insensible to the hard stone beneath her knees. Gingerly, she wiped a heavy strand of hair from Ginny’s brow. A thin line of blood seeped from a cut beneath it.
Charlotte looked up into the ring of concerned faces. “We have to get her out of the street! And find a doctor. Now!” she commanded.
An anxious-looking gentleman in a green waistcoat snapped his fingers at two liveried servants craning their necks to see. “Find some means of conveying the woman,” he demanded. “Quickly!” At once they went to do his bidding.
Comte St. Lyon appeared at Charlotte’s side, his expression startled. “What happened?”
“Some damn coxscomb lost control of his cattle,” the gentleman said. “Ran the poor woman down. Bloody green-headed fool!”
“My God,” St. Lyon whispered. “Will she be all right?”
“We won’t know until she’s been seen,” Charlotte replied tightly. “And she can’t be seen here, in the street.”
The two servants emerged from the crowd, carrying a broad bench between them. “Carefully now.”
Gingerly they lifted Ginny to the bench. Their efforts, careful though they were, brought her to instant, painful consciousness. A cry of anguish broke from her throat.
“It’s all right,” Charlotte said soothingly. “We’re taking you out of here.”
“To where?” the gentleman in the green waistcoat asked anxiously.
“My home,” St. Lyon answered.
“No,” Ginny whispered, her eyes, great pools of agony, fixed on Charlotte. “Please.”
“My house,” Charlotte said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’ll stay with her. I can better look after her than you, comte.”
St. Lyon did not argue. He stood up. “I’ll get my barouche,” he said and hurried back across the street.
“Lottie.” The thin voice was barely audible, the syllables pressed out with great effort from between Ginny’s lips. “Promise.”
“Quiet, dear—”
“Lottie!” she gasped, her gaze wild. “You must promise me.”
“Yes, yes,” Charlotte cooed, trying to calm her. “Of course. Anything.”
Ginny shook her head, her face stricken. “You have to understand, Lottie. You must let no one dissuade you. You must go to St. Lyon’s castle in my place!”
5
Culholland Square, Mayfair
July 18, 1806
“YOU MUST SOMEHOW CONVINCE both men to fall in with our plans,” Ginny whispered hoarsely to Charlotte. Her color was still ashen and pain had etched tiny lines at the corner of her lips. But though her eyes were dilated with the drugs the physician had left her, she seemed lucid.
“Yes,” Charlotte assured her, settling the light coverlet more comfortably around Ginny’s slender figure, careful not to jar the leg cocooned in cotton batting and strapped between two wooden staves.
“Drink this,” Charlotte urged, placing a cup of beef tea in Ginny’s hands. “You must keep up your strength.”
Ginny jerked her head impatiently. “Can Ross be trusted?”
“Yes.” Charlotte set down the cup. “I tell you again, his trustworthiness is without question. And his dedication is equal to either yours or mine.”
“I do not doubt his dedication. I only doubt where it lies,” Ginny muttered. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting off a stab of pain as well as the mind-numbing influence of the drugs she had taken just before Charlotte’s arrival. “You said earlier you’d had a message from your…other associate.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said, frowning at the memory of the short note that had arrived a few hours ago. “He wishes to speak with me this afternoon.”
“Oh?”
“We have only met twice before,” Charlotte
explained, her expression shaded with puzzlement. “He is in a uniquely powerful position and it is imperative that his identity remains a secret. Until a few months ago I had never seen him properly. We always rendezvoused late at night and he kept to the shadows of whatever place we arranged to meet and even then had me leave the messages beneath a stone or in an urn as he watched from afar, then later he would retrieve them.”
“A most cautious man,” Ginny said. “Why change now?”
“I don’t know. I suspect he has heard of your accident and wishes to know how it affects our plan.”
“Then you’d best go,” Ginny said and her eyelids fluttered shut.
Charlotte wrapped the rough cloak more closely about her, glad that, despite its malodorous scent, she had borrowed it from her astonished scullery maid. Even the plainest gown in her wardrobe would have stood out like a beacon in this dingy sidestreet of Drury Lane. The driver of the hired hack, fearing not only for his cattle but himself, had refused to go any farther into the rookery, depositing her at the end of the alley with a grudging promise to wait a half hour before leaving.
She could not blame him. Though the day was bright and the air mild, the stench rising from the open gutters running on either side of the deeply rutted road nearly overpowered her. Tipping with drunken disregard for symmetry, the rookery buildings loomed over her, sprouting larger overhead like dark seeping mushrooms, the windows boarded over to avoid the taxes on them, rackety stairs leading to the mean little apartments above. Far below bands of silent, bellicose youths slouched in the doors of subterranean taverns and exhausted-looking men trudged past vacant-eyed women cradling earthenware jugs and listless, raggedy children.
Charlotte looked about for some signpost. There was none. No indication that she was in the London she knew at all. She spied a woman sitting on the top step leading down to yet another public house, a half-naked toddler perched on her knee sucking his thumb.
“I’m looking for Sparrow Lane. Number Twelve,” she said. “Can you tell me where it is?”
The woman’s gaze fell on the tan calfskin half boots Charlotte’s cloak could not hide. “Fer tuppence.”
My Surrender Page 6