This needed to be a relationship she could nurture. He was a gentleman with money and connections, clearly. Could she persuade him to return tomorrow?
“A gentleman was after you.” Mr McTavish sent her another of his long, considered looks. “Tall and dark-haired.”
Lily nodded. “Yes. He was going to take me away, but instead he made an arrangement with Madame. He intends to return for me.”
He appeared to weigh this up for a moment. Then, to her disappointment, he merely said, rising, “I’ll come back in a few days, and perhaps you’ll have some more information for me.”
“Come back tomorrow.” Lily struggled to hide her anxiety. She’d made some headway with this man, but she couldn’t afford for him to delay beyond tomorrow. She dropped her voice as she moved closer to him. “Midday. I’ll have more to tell you, though…it would help to know why you want this information so I can better question Celeste.”
She followed him to the door where he arranged his hat and cane, ready for departure. Already his demeanour was distant. “With no disrespect, I would prefer to speak to Celeste.”
Lily felt her desperation rise, but she could do nothing but hide her feelings as she waited while he reached into his pocket, perhaps to withdraw a handkerchief though his card case fell to the floor and spilled open in the process.
Lily was quick to reach down first. He’d not wanted to introduce himself beyond his name, but an understanding of how he might help her would be to her benefit if his card named his business.
“McTavish and Sons publishers?” Lily jerked her head up from reading his calling card. “You are the publisher of Manners & Morals?”
“The editor, madam.”
She pressed her lips together. “Your magazine is widely read, sir.”
“Indispensable literature for the servants’ halls, the parlours of the middle classes, and the salons of the aristocracy, I have been reliably informed.” His tone was dry.
“Are you Mr McTavish? Or the son?”
“My father began it as a newspaper that printed religious texts. Fifteen years ago, he expanded it into the magazine it is today.”
“To feed the appetite for self-improvement and chaste entertainment for all levels of society. A weighty moral burden.” She smiled at his clear surprise at her pronouncement, her thoughts running over why he should be interested in Celeste and Lord Carruthers. “You have a nose for scandal, then,” she said. “And a mandate for stamping it out, given the position you hold?”
He sent her a level look. “Vice and immorality are the hallmarks of weakness, and it is up to every individual to harness such dangerous impulses. I publish a mix of improving instruction, and entertainment.” He checked himself. “I am not a prude, madam. But what I provide is wholesome and morally uplifting.”
“And Celeste’s activities could be dangerous to public morality?” she asked.
“That, and more,” he said. He drew in a breath and appeared to consider his words. “I need not reiterate that my seeking information is in the public interest. If it should be revealed that I’ve even come to this house, I promise you that I can cause a great deal more trouble than such a revelation is worth.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “I hope that was not a threat, Mr McTavish. Besides, what you have said suggests that you’d not mind, one way or another, what would put Madame Chambon and her girls out of business. But pray tell, what do you propose the women who work here should do in order to strive for self-improvement? Other than read your magazine, of course. What other possibilities are there that might entice them to leave their lives of vice and sin?”
“They should find respectable employment, of course.” His tone was full of scorn. “But of course, respectable employment does not pay as well as this.”
“It does not pay sufficiently to keep a roof over a woman’s head or food on the table,” Lily said. “I have learned this only now, for, like you, I grew up in comfortable ignorance of the fact that a milliner working from dawn til dusk earns a pittance insufficient to pay for the barest necessities of life. As for respectable employment, without a glowing reference from some upstanding citizen, these girls can’t even choose to step back into the kind of life you propose—moral rectitude.” She raked her gaze over the fine cut of his coat and his well-made shoes. “It is all very well to proselytise when you have a comfortable buffer against starvation. But I suggest this is not a place where you will find friends spouting your moralising beliefs.”
“There is no excuse for sin other than a deficiency of one’s own moral character,” he said grimly.
“And you have never sinned?”
His nostrils flared. “I was born a sinner, like everyone. But I have never exhibited a weakness of the flesh that brings men here.”
“Men like Lord Carruthers, an upstanding man with a wife and family.” She hesitated. “And women like Celeste who do his bidding.” The knowledge she was trying to dredge up, when for two years she’d been absent from any discussion of world matters, was slowly coming back. “Lord Carruthers holds an important position, and you are looking to shame him in your newspapers and magazines? Reveal, perhaps, the fact that Lord Carruthers has a mistress?” She shook her head, discounting this. “No, printing such sensationalist material would not be well received by your readers. The secrets of what a man does in the privacy of his bedroom are sacrosanct. You can’t print that. But…” She looked up. “The fact that a man holding such an important position has a mistress who is simultaneously sleeping with…with the enemy, could.”
His voice was tight as he responded, “I am not a grubby sensationalist. I uphold stringent standards, which is why I am gravely concerned by the implications of what you have just outlined.” He breathed heavily. “I came here purely so I could prevent any publication possibly publishing anything that might jeopardise our government and our safety and standing in the world.”
“The clarion call for noble, middle-class values. Your motives are virtuous indeed, Mr McTavish.”
“You mock me, madam. You mock virtue.”
“It was a miscalculation to come to such a house if you came in the guise of the upholder of virtue, Mr McTavish.” Lily forced herself to keep her calm. She had miscalculated when, in the beginning, she’d been trying to build the rapport between them. Experience had taught her that showing admiration generally loosened a man’s tongue. And when a man let his guard down, a woman could learn much valuable information.
Lily needed all the valuable information she could get. She needed him to be her ally.
To her disappointment, Madame’s voice floated down the passage as she made her way towards them. “You’re not leaving already, sir? Surely we can entice you to stay? If our lovely Lily is unavailable, I’m sure one of the other girls—”
“No. Thank you.” Tight-lipped, he stared at Lily a long second before inclining his head at the two women. “I merely came to pay my respects. Nothing more.”
Nothing more, Lily thought wryly. There’d been plenty more, and Lily could have helped him—and have been rewarded for it.
But now Mr McTavish was gone, thinking even less of her—and certainly not in the mood for playing the heroic saviour Lily had hoped he might be.
A reflection that cast Lily into even greater despair when Madame announced that Mr Montpelier would in fact be arriving within the hour to take Lily to her new accommodation, so she’d best prepare herself.
Chapter 7
“So yer met the blonde beauty, eh, guvnor? ’Ope yer ’ad a nice evenin’. Me Gracie says she’s a real picky one.” Archie, who had arrived at Madame Chambon’s the previous night with Hamish, had not been seen since, though he obviously knew where to waylay Hamish.
Hamish stopped and turned as he was about to mount the stairs to his club. Somewhere refreshment could be had in peace and quiet, which was what Hamish needed following his unexpectedly charged and turbulent exchange with the ‘beauty’ to whom Archie referred.
&nbs
p; “No.” Hamish hoped his clipped tones were sufficiently quelling. He wanted a drink. Just the one, of course, while he read The Times. And then he’d return home so he could be in bed by eleven, ready for a long day in the office the following day as The Family’s Guide to Manners & Morals would be going to press late in the evening.
“Are yer printin’ ’er photograph? No shame in changin’ yer mind. ’Sides, yer jest printin’ wot’s in the public interest, an’ a picture o’ Lor’ Carruthers is ‘allus in the public interest.”
Hamish tapped his fingers upon the top of his cane, impatient as he stepped back from the gate that led to the four-square building to let another gentleman pass. “I cannot print such a photograph in my magazine. No editor would.”
“I ’fought yer wanted ter expose the rottin’ moral undabelly o’ a sanctimonious —”
“Come, Archie, I do not have a death wish. My magazine would be closed down five minutes after such a photograph was published. The public would be baying for my blood; rocks would be thrown through the windows. What a government minister does behind closed doors is his affair, and there is not the appetite to turn that on its head. Surely even you understand that?”
Archie stuck his chin out. “I ’fought yer was changin’ direction. I ’eard yer ain’t on such good terms wiv yer ol’ man an’ that yer relished the opportunity fer usin’ the magazine fer the public good. Not jest prosin’ good works, but exposin’ double standards an’ the like.”
Hamish stilled. There was no point in trying to argue Archie down from his moral high ground, but it was concerning that the private matters of the McTavish family appeared to be in the public domain. “Where did you hear that?”
Archie looked evasive. “I jest ’appened ter be standin’ near a door that weren’t quite as closed as mayhap yer ’fought it was when yer went ter it, ’eart ter ’eart, wiv a trusted friend o’ yers.”
“You were eavesdropping? Is that why you sold me that photograph? Because you really thought I would publish it?” Hamish was angry. He’d been angry when he’d left Madame Chambon’s, but he was mostly angry at himself, and ashamed, for being careless. And for caring. Yes, caring too much about what others thought of him.
Archie, to some extent, for believing he had the stomach to follow through on his beliefs. But namely Mrs Eustace, if that’s what she now chose to call herself. She thought him a buttoned-up moral prig, and so did Archie, yet neither knew how deeply he wished he could forge his own path. He was feeling his way, and he would not be rushed. Could not be. Too much was at stake, not least the daily possibility that his father would snatch the editorship from his hands.
But that did not mean he was impervious to opinion.
Or doing what he believed was right.
“Sure, an’ don’t print me photograph. Yer paid me well ’nuff fer it, an’ that’s all as counts in me book.” Archie looked mulish. “But wot say yer ter more o’ that? Not ter publish, necessarily—though it may come ter that if ’tis deemed in the public interest…at some stage. Wot say I keep me eyes an’ ears open ter any whispers that,” he dropped his voice, “our country’s safety is bein’ put at risk ’frough the peccadilloes o’ ’em wot’s bein’ paid ter keep us safe an’ wot pretends ter be so full o’ virtue.”
Hamish realised Archie had deduced what he had. He’d not for a moment thought the photographer knew anything about either Lord Carruthers or the Russian.
When Archie looked about to give up the conversation and move off at Hamish’s silence, Hamish said suddenly, “Your friend who works as a servant at Madame Chambon’s…” he hesitated, “she’s a girl who keeps her ear to the ground and likes to tell you things?”
“More like ‘ter the wall’,” Archie said with a snigger. “Yeah, Gracie likes me well enough so I can pry ’er fer wot yer’d like ter know…if yer make it worth me while.”
“Furthermore, you like to frequent places of interest in the hopes of a photograph that’ll earn you more than a pot of porter, aren’t I right, Archie?”
“Dead right, guvnor.”
“Well, the truth is, I am interested in this woman, Celeste.”
Archie looked eager. “A bit o’ a retainer wouldn’t go astray.”
“No, I’ll stop short of offering that. But…” Hamish hesitated, “the other woman. The blonde—”
“An’ yer partial ter blondes, ain’t that right, guvnor?”
Hamish refrained from comment. “She tells me she doesn’t intend staying at Madame Chambon’s, which may or may not be the case. But if your friend can update you on the exploits of this woman, a so-called widow called Mrs Eustace, with blonde curls and a face like an angel, then I’d appreciate learning the details.”
“Got a bit o’ a reputation, ’as she? Likely ter get ’erself a ’igh stepper, eh?”
“No, not yet. And I may perhaps be doing her an injustice. She claims to be respectable but to have fallen on hard times.”
“Don’t they all?” Archie blew out a gust of sceptical air.
“Anyway,” Hamish hesitated, “I just have a feeling that we may be hearing of her in the not-too-distant future.”
* * *
Lily sat on the narrow iron bed and ran her hands over the cheap cotton counterpane as she listened to a heated discussion through the thin walls.
This was a comedown from Madame Chambon’s, but the boarding house, while populated with the working class, was respectable. And it was the last place Robert would think to look for her, if he even knew she was missing.
“So, what am I required to do to keep a roof over my head?” she now asked, looking up to see Mr Montpelier’s black-eyed gaze fixed upon her. He was seated on a chair in the window embrasure. A man in a respectable woman’s bedroom should have been unthinkable.
But she was no longer respectable. And she shuddered to think what this might cost her.
“Yes, this entire charming little bower is yours.”
“At what price?” The only thought that gave her any peace was his initial inference that he would not be her pimp. And if using her for her body was his intention, he surely could have made a handsome bargain with Madame Chambon.
“So, you have brought me here to this rented room,” she began, “and given me clothes that were, perhaps, fashionable two seasons ago.” She studied the polonaise with its tight skirt, natural form bustle, and the style of its trimmings. It had been de riguer when she’d been taken to the maison. Two seasons on, it would show that its wearer had not the funds to keep up with fashion or had bought it secondhand. She sighed. “What is it that you wish of me, Mr Montpelier? You snatched me from the maison for a reason, and for the last four weeks, I’ve plotted my escape as I regained my health.”
“And your looks, Mrs…” Frowning, he said, “I had not thought of a name, madam. That is something that will need to be remedied. Something not too unusual, but not too common, either.”
“I read Lady Eustace’s Diamonds at Madame Chambon’s,” Lily said sullenly. “Eustace has a nice ring to it.”
“What was your name before you married?”
“Taverner.”
“Taverner, ah yes, how could I have forgotten? No, we don’t want any connection with your past, do we. In that case, Eustace will serve well enough. Lily Eustace.” He paused, obviously thinking. “A wardrobe of clothing two years old is just the thing. Not too expensive but just what the woman you need to be would have worn.”
“You speak in riddles, Mr Montpelier. That is, when you speak at all. What is it that you want of me? And why me? There are plenty of vulnerable women with no family to protect them who would have been far less a risk to you, even grateful, perhaps. But you are keeping me against my will. I ask you again. Do you think I should be happy to exchange one prison for another? That I will be grateful?” Agitated, she rose and began to pace before turning, tilting her chin mutinously as she went on, “You think you can bend me to your will, but you are wrong, Mr Montpelier. I will not be used
like some…some servant or slave or…” As she said the words, the terror of what he really did have in mind for her grew. “You cannot force me to act against my will just as Madame Chambon could not force me to become one of her girls. I would never demean myself like that. I have morals and integrity. I’m not like one of…those women.” Her breathing grew more laboured, and she wrung her hands.
“Are you any better than those women?” He raised an eyebrow. “You cuckolded your husband.”
Lily’s hand went to her throat. “I fell in love—” But even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true, though at the time Teddy offered her salvation from a loveless eternity with Robert. And besides, how did he know this? Mr Montpelier was not of her class, nor from her locality. Though he tried to speak like a gentleman, he was more likely from the slums of London.
She thought of the letter now making its way to Teddy. Was he looking for her? Would he go to Madame Chambon’s when he received her entreaty?
“You might do well to remember, madam, that I have not so much to lose as you do if you do choose to bow out of your…contract, shall we call it. I was already in Belgium when your sad story was communicated to me. When you learn what you are to do I think you will see the benefits to yourself.”
Lily spun on her heel. She felt like crying but would not. “You’ve told me nothing! Not even what I’m to do! How can I stay here when for all I know, my life might be in danger!”
“I’d imagine your life would be in far greater danger on the streets.” He looked out through the window, where the noise of the rumbling carts and carriages and the shriek of a fishwife competing with a newspaper vendor seemed to fill the room. “Or back in Brussels. Are those not your choices? Unless you’d like me to return you to your husband.”
Loving Lily: Fair Cyprians of London: a Steamy Victorian Romantic Mystery Page 5