by KJ Charles
He had identified Cressida, though, not that such had been part of his commission. She was Miss Jennifer Conroy, daughter of an immensely wealthy plantation owner whose new house on Cavendish Square had been designed by the great Nash. Her identity was probably not something St. Vincent would want him to know.
It hadn’t been difficult to discover. St. Vincent had been discreet in everything except his own name, but a black man surnamed for a Caribbean island? Theo had started by looking at the wealthiest plantation owners whose money came from the West Indies, found four with a single daughter, and then simply asked a few people in their households: Did you once have a Martin St. Vincent here?
He’d been a slave. Theo wasn’t surprised by that, but he was disturbed on a deep, rather sick level to think of it, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He knew plenty of men who were or had been enslaved. That was how things were, and while Theo didn’t buy slave sugar on the few occasions he could afford sugar at all, and would have spoken for abolition if anyone had asked his opinion, he was not one to fight against the world. It wasn’t, in the end, his problem. He could shrug and move on. He always did.
He had a feeling that St. Vincent was not the sort of man who shrugged. There was a simmering deep-down anger there that Theo recognised, the kind that made you not want to cross a man in case it erupted. The kind that said, I do not forgive lightly.
That being the case, why was he working for his former masters? Theo had drifted up to his old drinking haunt in Marylebone, the Yorkshire Stingo, which functioned not only as a public house but also as a sort of poor relief for men and women of colour in distress. That was where you’d go to ask about a black Londoner, and he’d found out enough about Martin St. Vincent to chew on. It seemed he was doing well enough for himself. He was a dealer in coal, invested in a number of small businesses and coffeehouses owned by men and women of his own race, and from what Theo could gather, he was a successful and respected, if rather solitary, man. He attended abolitionist meetings, though he never spoke, and contributed generously to the Stingo’s much-needed relief fund for the hungry, the homeless, the men abandoned to the streets after they’d been beaten or worked half to death.
Meanwhile, the Conroys lived in luxury on the proceeds of plantations tilled by slave labour, yet St. Vincent called himself the family’s friend. Theo couldn’t understand that.
Couldn’t, and was wasting his time trying to. The fact was, Martin St. Vincent was none of Theo’s affair. His task was not to puzzle over St. Vincent’s motivations, no matter how curious he might be, or how memorable he found those orange-flecked eyes. His job was to extricate Miss Adelina Fanshawe from the clutches of her dastardly guardian’s last desperate effort to force a marriage, and reunite her with the strong, clean-limbed, ineffably dull Thomas Mountjoy before the end of the week, when their romance was due at his publisher.
Theo sincerely hoped his readers would find Mountjoy less boring than he did. He could barely stand the fellow himself, and Adelina was almost as bad. They deserved each other, the ghastly, virtuous, pallid pair. He was tempted to kill them off—a sudden earthquake would be satisfying—and leave Adelina’s guardian Jasper de Vere triumphant, with his faithful hunchbacked henchman by his side. Theo had some fairly clear ideas about Jasper and his henchman, and indeed he had mentally played them out alone in bed with his hand’s assistance, but it was scarcely a story he could write for money, and that was why he wrote, as it was why he did everything.
Adelina: or, Virtue Imperill’d would soon go out to add to the body of work that he offered a mildly interested world under the barely disguised persona of Dorothea Swann. Mrs. Swann was making a modest name for herself as an authoress of Gothic romances, in the spirit of Mrs. Radcliffe although without her sales quite yet. If Theo could just get Adelina and her damned virtue off his desk early, he could make a start on his new story before the next issue of the Advertiser had to be prepared. All he had to do was invent something clever for Thomas Mountjoy to do—hah—and stop thinking about Martin St. Vincent, and his eyes, and what he might look like if he really smiled.
Although Theo could have sworn, in the Three Ducks, just for a moment . . .
“Oh, stop it,” he said aloud, and dipped his pen with such determination that tiny droplets of ink flew.
He’d managed a full paragraph of veiled threats to Adelina’s well-being before the newsboy’s cry echoed up from Little Wild Street. Theo couldn’t miss it, since his window was open even at this hour because of the summer heat. The Times was out.
Cressida—Miss Jennifer Conroy, rather—had not managed to reply to the last advertisement in any way that he had seen in the last few days. Perhaps she was being more closely watched, or had had some sense knocked into her. Still, Theo was, he hoped, being paid, and for that he could be vigilant. He leaned out of the window, careful not to disturb the ever-present, ever-sleeping cat, shouted for a copy of the paper, and ran down to collect it.
As always The Times was full of advertisements in close-printed type: personal, legal, commercial, matrimonial. He skimmed his way through and came to a dead stop.
CRESSIDA—Why have I to endure her obstinate refusal? Sentiment eternal can earn love. Let affection rule today—TROILUS
“What the tits?” he said aloud.
He couldn’t make out what Troilus was bleating about. Had he been rejected? Was he talking about some response from Cressida that Theo had missed? And was she really retreating from the field? She had hardly seemed obstinate before in her advertisements, but maybe the girl had more sense than St. Vincent or her father credited.
That must be it. Troilus had been turned down and was making a last stab at a rich bride with this promise of eternal love. Theo could have written a better plea with his left hand and blindfold, but the point was, this was not the message of a successful suitor. Theo would not be required further, he would be lucky to get the promised ten shillings for the little he’d achieved, and he wouldn’t see Martin St. Vincent again.
The man hadn’t even liked him. That much had been obvious. St. Vincent evidently had a strong moral streak—he was a regular churchgoer according to the gossips in the Stingo—and though Theo would swear he’d been tempted in the Three Ducks (that look of shock when Theo had offered to earn his wage, the way his orange-flecked eyes had widened . . .) he’d had no trouble resisting. He’d given Theo his card, with an address, but the greatest optimist could not have interpreted the way he’d done it as an invitation.
No: it had been a strange but fruitless interlude, and all Theo was likely to get from it was, if he was lucky, some fodder for a future plot.
Perhaps even the solution to Adelina’s problem, now he thought of it. Perhaps she might bribe a servant to place an advertisement in the newspaper and alert Thomas What-the-devil-was-his-name to her plight that way? Rather than sending him a letter directly, of course, because . . . he scrabbled for a reason . . . because something, he’d work it out later. Maybe the servant insisted on reading her letters, that might be it, and it had to be disguised as an innocuous advertisement. Which Adelina would need to be ingenious enough to write, and Thomas to decipher, so it would have to be a damned simple code for that pair of imbeciles.
He bent back to his task, doggedly pushing out the whirling, fast-paced adventure word by tedious word.
Theo wrote until the clocks were chiming five in the afternoon. His hand was sore and his cuffs blackened, but Adelina’s deliverance was well underway at last, and he had come up with a peculiarly ingenious demise for Jasper that almost resigned him to killing the fellow.
He stood, stretched, feeling the day’s writing in the stiffness of his back and shoulders, and took the newspaper to the chophouse around the corner, where he dined substantially, if not particularly well, on steak-and-kidney pudding, and then indulged himself with a second glass of ale. It was that or the more dangerous indulgence of going to the Three Ducks, or somewhere like it, and scratching the itch that he’d had
ever since Martin St. Blasted Vincent walked in to disturb his work.
He’d left The Times folded to the page of Troilus’s advertisement, and now read it again, with justifiable annoyance. If the fellow had only said something sensible, such as, Run away with me tonight, my love, he would have had an excuse to seek St. Vincent out. In order to do something useful and earn the ten shillings, obviously.
CRESSIDA—Why have I to endure her obstinate refusal? Sentiment eternal can earn love. Let affection rule today—TROILUS
Theo felt a prickle of irritation, made worse by a twinge of sympathy. If he had learned anything in the last seven years, it was that pleading or whining at scorn was the most pointless, self-defeating thing a man could do. Grit your teeth and accept it, he wanted to tell Troilus. If you beg, they will only despise you more, and hate you too for the embarrassment you cause them. Believe me. I’ve tried.
And if a man had to grovel, he should do it better than this incoherent rubbish. Particularly that irritating cod-poetic switch of persons, speaking of the woman and then directly addressing her in the next line. What was that meant to achieve? Why had Troilus needed her instead of your there?
Theo looked at the advertisement. He looked again. He sat with the pint mug halfway to his lips, unable to move for a few seconds because the inspiration was too blinding white behind his eyes to allow for anything else. Then he threw a few pennies onto the table, scooped up the paper, and ran.
St. Vincent’s card gave an address in Marylebone, on the outer edge of the city sprawl, not far from where Theo had used to live. He wondered if they’d crossed each other’s paths, unnoticing, though he did think he might have remembered St. Vincent.
It was perhaps a mile and a half from his current home on Little Wild Street. Theo ran much of the way in the still-hot late-afternoon air, and was gasping and more dishevelled than usual when he finally seized St. Vincent’s door knocker, hanging on to it as much as rapping.
The door was opened by a woman dressed as a housekeeper. A rather attractive woman in her early twenties, come to that, somewhat lighter-skinned than St. Vincent, with a pair of lively eyes that examined Theo searchingly as he urgently requested the master of the house, and reached a less-than-favourable conclusion. He couldn’t blame her, sweaty as he was.
She showed him into the parlour with a forbidding look that suggested she’d count the spoons after his departure, and a few moments later St. Vincent himself arrived. He was wearing loose breeches and a thin white linen shirt shaded by the darker skin it covered. His shirtsleeves were rolled up against the heat, baring forearms that Theo wanted, suddenly and urgently, to squeeze between his thighs, and the open neck of the shirt revealed the hollow at the base of his throat. There was a little dark mark there, a black pinprick, a beauty spot that drew Theo’s eyes as he tried to gather himself.
“Mr. Swann?” St. Vincent sounded not quite unfriendly, but certainly wary and a little startled. “What on earth—”
“The Times.” Theo brandished the paper. “Advertisement.”
“I saw it. It is nonsense.”
“It’s not. It’s a message.”
“What message?” St. Vincent’s voice was sharp and concerned. He was listening, not arguing or dismissing, and it gave Theo an absurd jolt of satisfaction.
“The initial letters. The words don’t matter, it’s the initials.”
St. Vincent seized the newspaper. “W-h-i-t-e . . . white horse cellar-t?” he asked aloud, and then corrected himself. “No. ‘White Horse Cellar. Today. Troilus.’ Hell’s teeth. A rendezvous?”
Theo nodded frantically. “The White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly. It’s a coaching inn, the stages go from there.”
“So they could pass unnoticed in the bustle? Oh, devil take it.”
“Well, that, but . . .” Theo took a breath, as much from nerves as need. “With the greatest respect to the lady, it’s quarter day in a fortnight.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
“That it’s the day for settling debts.”
St. Vincent, the merchant, gave him a look. “Yes, I am aware of that. The lady has no debts.”
“I meant Troilus,” Theo said. “He didn’t approach the lady’s parents in the proper manner, yet a footman collected his letters. Suppose he’s a gentleman with pockets to let, urgent obligations to meet before settling day. Suppose he needs a rich wife quickly.”
St. Vincent’s eyes widened. “You think he intends Gretna Green?”
“There can be no marriage in England without her father’s consent. I daresay an unscrupulous man might compromise her, to force her parents to agree to a wedding. But a dash to Gretna and a legal marriage, to give him a wealthy father-in-law, like it or not—”
St. Vincent grabbed his wrist. His fingers were warm and tight on Theo’s skin. “Come on.”
“Where to? The Cellar, or her home? Has she even gone, do you know?”
“No, I don’t.” St. Vincent hesitated. “Curse it. There’s no time to lose if she has. Very well. I’ll go to the house, find if she’s still there. And in case she’s not—”
“I’ll go to the White Horse Cellar now,” Theo completed. Aside from wanting to earn his money, he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see a genuine elopement for the world. “What description? I daresay she won’t use her name.”
“I sincerely hope not. She’s seventeen, not tall for a woman. Perhaps about your height.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Brown hair with a deal of curl to it, blue eyes, and a very . . .” He seemed to search for a word. “A notably up-tilted nose.”
“Right. If I find anything out, if it seems she did go there, where shall I meet you?” St. Vincent hesitated, evidently uncertain as to his answer. Theo sighed. “Should I come to the Conroys’ house on Cavendish Square?”
“What?”
“It really wasn’t hard to find out,” Theo said. “I was trying to make myself useful.”
“Unless it is absolutely urgent, meet me back here,” St. Vincent said. “If the Conroys discover you’re the publisher of that accursed gazette, they’ll probably have you horsewhipped.”
Theo sniffed. “Charming.”
St. Vincent’s warm grip tightened on his wrist. “I am grateful for this.” His voice really was deliciously deep. “That you saw it, understood it, and brought it to me. Thank you.”
“I should hope so,” Theo mumbled, for lack of a better response.
“Now get on.” St. Vincent released him with a little push. “We may not have much time.”
Any hope that Martin had cherished of Swann being wrong, or Miss Jennifer either being thwarted in her romantic plans or simply exhibiting whatever sense she’d been born with, were dashed as he stepped out of the hackney onto Cavendish Square. Conroy House was frantic with action. Servants hurried in and out in a display of pointless activity that Martin suspected sprang from Mr. Conroy’s habitual cry of, “Well, do something!”
He exchanged a nod with the footman at the open door. His relationship with the Conroys’ staff was an uneasy one. He had been at once above and below the servants during his childhood, treated with the fond indulgence one might give a household pet, yet still and always less than the humblest of the kitchen maids. The maids had been free to leave. Free to starve if they left, true, while Martin had been well-fed and clothed at the master’s expense. He’d had an education none of them could have hoped for. But still, they had been free.
Martin was now an independent man and counted by the family as a friend, if not an equal one. He had his own business, his own home. But he had once had less than nothing and that was not forgotten.
“I must see Mr. Conroy at once,” he said. “It’s regarding Miss Jennifer.”
“You’re a bit late for that,” the footman said under his breath.
“She’s not here?” The man tipped his head. Martin clenched his fist, cursing that he had not accompanied Swann to the public house in Piccad
illy. “Tell them I’ve called. Now, man. I know where she’s gone.”
He waited in the perfectly proportioned, lavishly decorated hall, still gleaming new. It had been a relief when the Conroys had moved here, away from the house in which he had grown up. He could walk in here without feeling the old, tight weight closing around his neck.
He was admitted to the opulent drawing room within minutes. Mrs. Conroy rocked on the couch, face blotchy with tears and distorted with grief. Mr. Conroy was pacing, his whole body tense. They both looked round as he came in.
“Mr. Conroy, Mrs. Conroy. Has Miss Jennifer gone?”
“Martin.” Mr. Conroy strode towards him. “Have you heard something? What do you know?”
Martin. Always the Christian name. Even the unadorned St. Vincent would be better than his Christian name, used as one would speak to a child or a servant.
And it was hardly the time to stew over an unintended slight, while their daughter was heaven knew where with heaven knew who. “Is it true? Do you know where she is?”
“No. We don’t.” Mrs. Conroy’s fingers knotted together in a way that looked painful. “She hasn’t been seen since two o’clock. She retired to her room with the headache. And she isn’t there. Nobody knows where she went, nobody has had word—”
Martin checked that he had shut the door. “I am sorry to say this, but I think she may have gone to meet her correspondent. Troilus.”
“How dare you!” said Mr. Conroy, explosively and angrily, as Mrs. Conroy said, “No. She has not. You cannot say so. She has not.”
Martin was not surprised at their reaction. Lively, pretty, indulged Miss Jennifer was the joy of her parents’ souls. Mrs. Conroy had dreamed of her daughter’s first Season and grand marriage for years. Mr. Conroy kept at his business, even though his heart was troublesome and his dyspepsia an agony, so that Miss Jennifer’s dowry would be second to none. Everything they did was for Miss Jennifer’s good. Every slave condemned to the sugarcane fields, every back marked by whips, was a sacrifice to Miss Jennifer for the glittering future it now seemed she was throwing away.