A Murderous Relation

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “I am rather surprised you employ him in that case,” I told her with a candor she mightn’t have appreciated.

  But to her credit, she smiled. “He was recommended by another member of my staff. Besides, I believe in giving everyone a first chance, mademoiselle. Won’t you come and sit with me awhile? I should so like to speak with you, if your compagnon de la nuit can spare you?” she asked with a coaxing tilt of the head.

  As Stoker was nowhere in evidence, I could not use him for an excuse. I inclined my head, smiling beneath my mask, and she opened the door to her sanctum. I followed her in, not surprised to find more of the elegant grey-and-pink color scheme used elsewhere in the house. She clicked her fingers and a giant hound rose from an enormous cushion and trotted over, rubbing its head against her hip.

  “Good evening, my love,” she crooned to the dog. She turned to me. “Sit,” she urged. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  I did as she bade, wondering how to work the subject of her diamond stars into conversation. As I wrestled with the question, she seized the conversational reins, speaking in her low and musical voice about a variety of things—the décor, the excellence of the champagne that she poured. She opened a barrel of biscuits and fed a few to the dog, breaking them into bits and dropping the crumbs to the carpet, where the hound retrieved them happily.

  “This is Vespertine.”

  “Named for the sweetest hour of the evening,” I observed. “A lovely parallel to your own chosen name.”

  She gave me a long look. “He is my stalwart companion, are you not, my darling?” she said, scratching him behind the ears. He rolled his eyes ecstatically. “He has a Latinate name, but he is a very British dog,” she told me.

  “A Scottish deerhound?” I asked.

  “Just so. He was given to me by an admirer who noticed a dog that looks just like this in one of my paintings of the dawn goddess. Every goddess should have a proper companion, he said.” She scratched Vespertine again and he sighed. He was almost as enormous as Lord Rosemorran’s Betony, but his form was much leaner, his legs long and elegant, as was his nose. Wide, expressive eyes stared at me from under a thicket of long, shaggy hair at his brow.

  After a very few minutes, a scratch on the door heralded a page with a plate of confectionery from the kitchens. There were assorted pastries, each more delicate and elaborate than the next. Some were filled with cream, others robed in a sheen of chocolate.

  “This is my favorite,” Madame Aurore told me, gesturing towards a tiny puff wearing a candied violet at a rakish angle. I took one and bit into it, savoring the crisp pastry, the cream flavored with vanilla and honey.

  “I order so many things with vanilla to be served that my chef imports more than any other household in London,” she confided. “But it is an aphrodisiac.”

  “Is it indeed?” I darted out my tongue to catch the last crumb of pastry.

  “Madame de Pompadour, the great mistress of Louis XV, used to dose herself with it in an effort to rouse her ardor.”

  “Was he so exacting?” I inquired. I surveyed the little plate and helped myself to a small bun decorated with a swirl of chocolate marbled to look like Florentine paper. Vespertine, sniffing deeply, rose from his mistress’s side and came to sit beside me.

  She gave a Gallic shrug. “No more than most men, I suspect. But La Pompadour suffered from the malady of coldness. Her passions could not be awakened sufficiently to satisfy her king. So she resorted to aphrodisiacs.”

  “Were they successful?” Vespertine dropped his head to my lap, the weight of his head crushing against my thigh.

  She smiled, revealing tiny, pearly teeth. “Not entirely. But she was clever. She made herself a friend to her king, and whatever needs she could not satisfy personally, she satisfied by proxy.”

  I was intrigued in spite of myself. “How?” I dropped a hand to Vespertine’s head, stroking his fur. It was coarser than I imagined, springy under my fingers. He gave another sigh and settled more comfortably.

  “By establishing a house like this one. She kept it stocked with exactly the sort of maiden the king liked best, plump and rosy and eager for the pleasures of the flesh.”

  “She was a procuress.”

  “She was a businesswoman,” she corrected swiftly.

  “Like you.” In spite of my determination to remain objective, I was beginning to like Madame Aurore. She harbored no illusions about who she was or what she did, and she would never apologize for either.

  Again she shrugged. “I have been compared to many a worse woman, believe me. But I think you do not mean it as an insult?” She paused to smile at me before going on. “I am indeed a businesswoman, as you say. I see a need and I provide the remedy.”

  “And what is the need?” I asked, biting into the chocolate bun. It was less sweet than the vanilla confection, edged with something dark and almost bitter. Vespertine looked up at me with adoring eyes and Madame Aurore passed me one of his biscuits. He took it from me as gently as a lamb, lapping up the treat with his broad tongue.

  Madame went on. “Pleasure, escape, satiety. Some people come here to remember, some to forget. My task is to provide the fantasy, to give them a place to play the game.”

  “The game?” I asked. I took up another bun, this one shaped like a horn filled with cream, and with madame’s encouragement, I offered it to Vespertine. He ate the entire thing in one bite, licking his lips when he finished.

  “The game,” Aurore repeated. “Have you not considered what this place is? It is a nursery for grown-ups! This is what everyone wants—a return to the nursery.”

  “Do they?” I put in. Vespertine gave me another beseeching look but I shook my head at him. He settled at my feet and lay his head on his great paws.

  “You look skeptical,” she told me, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled. “But consider life, my dear. It is dangerous and demanding, particularly in a city such as this. Every year more people crush into the capital. There are more trams and carts and carriages. The underground railway rumbles beneath us. Smoke belches out over the town, turning everything sooty and black. And in the streets, such noise! Such chaos! We must be warriors simply to cross the street.” She painted a vivid picture, but she was not wrong. I had grown to love London, but there was much to be said for the occasional escape into the countryside. Green meadows and blue skies were infinitely preferable at times to the choking grey fogs and teeming pavements.

  She went on. “Even in the privacy of one’s home, there is always some responsibility, some new trouble. The maid has given notice or the drains are bad or the neighbors are unquiet. Where may a person refresh themselves? Give themselves up to the sheer joy of being cared for?”

  “That is what you think this place is about?” I inquired. “Caring for the clients?”

  “Guests,” she corrected gently. “But of course it is! Here they are treated with all the love and tenderness of a favorite nursemaid. When they are hungry, they are fed, exquisite foods that are beautifully cooked. When they are tired, they repose themselves in the softest beds. There is music for the ear and the finest wines for the palate. Everything is done to gratify the senses.”

  “And when a guest wants more than a nice nap and a blancmange?” I asked.

  “They are given what they desire. It is like being a child again and visiting your grandmama’s house, where you are indulged in every whim. Only here, the whims are not so childish,” she said with a meaningful gleam in her eye. It was the first real glimpse she had given me of a sense of humor, a lightness I found relatable.

  “I had not considered it in that light,” I told her. “But it makes a sort of sense.”

  She smiled. “I wish only to bring joy, mademoiselle. To help bring light and glamour and pleasure to people’s lives. Such as you and your paramour.”

  I stuffed the last of the chocolate bun in
to my mouth and said nothing. At my feet, Vespertine had begun to snore, a gentle, rhythmic sound that was oddly soothing.

  She gave me a reproachful look. “You think I have overstepped myself, but why should women have secrets among friends?”

  “And we are friends?” I asked. “You do not even know my name.” I paused deliberately, wondering if she would betray knowing my identity.

  But if she did, she was more careful than her page. She merely smiled again. “I know your heart, mademoiselle. That is sufficient.”

  I sipped at my champagne before making a reply. “What do you know of my heart?”

  “I know that you wish to give yourself fully to your companion but you are afraid.”

  There was challenge in her voice, but I could not deny what she said.

  “Perhaps,” I said slowly.

  She made a dismissive gesture. “Let us be frank! You and this man are all but lovers. You move towards each other and back again, never quite succumbing to your passions.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Seduction has been my life’s work, mademoiselle. I know how a man looks at a woman when he has had her. And I know how a man looks when he is suffering for want of her.”

  For reasons I would never understand, I blurted out the truth just then to this woman I hardly knew. “I wonder if we have missed our opportunity.”

  She nodded, her eyes warm with sympathy. “I know what you mean. It is not good to wait. When you know what you want, you must move towards the culmination, but carefully,” she warned. “These things must be done with delicacy, with grace. But there cannot be delay. A man will lose his nerve, and if his nerve is gone . . .” Her voice trailed off and she turned down the corners of her mouth.

  “Yes, well. One would hate to see him lose his . . . nerve . . . as it were,” I agreed.

  She leant forward, her expression serious. “The time is ripe, my dear. You must not permit further delays to wreak the havoc upon your amoureux.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I suggest that you choose one of my private rooms, now, quickly. Before you succumb to doubts. A lovely woman has no need to perform, to seduce. She has only to offer herself,” she counseled.

  “And if he puts me off?”

  “Then you must play the bull! You must seize him and be the dominant one.”

  I considered this. My attraction to Stoker was a complicated thing, not least because of the complexity of the man himself. His muscular masculinity concealed a gentle heart that throbbed to a poet’s rhythm. He was sentimental, tender even, where I was pragmatic and logical. In spite of his prodigious scientist’s brain, he was the most delightfully romantic soul I had ever known. Music could rouse him to passion or pity, and a few lines of Keats were as necessary as bread to him.

  In contrast, my own emotions had so often to be buttoned and corseted and strapped into place, I hardly knew how to let them off the leading rein at times, preferring the tidy taxonomies of my work and robustly unsentimental couplings to unfettered feelings. It was not surprising that I was won over by a soul so different to my own in its expression and depth of affection.

  But it was not his soul that kept me awake at nights, not his tenderness that drove me to chilly cold-water baths and vigorous exercise. No matter what I tried, there was a clamor in the blood that would not be quieted. Too often I had glimpsed that gorgeously developed physique, sculpted by the hand of Nature to perfectly suit my taste, I had no doubt. Every inch of him was firmly muscled and sleek, his thighs and shoulders beautifully molded, his flanks . . .

  I dragged my thoughts away from Stoker’s flanks with a great deal of effort and even more regret. There was no help for it. I desired him in every sense of the word, and it was his masculinity, so pronounced and defined, so opposite my own form, that enchanted me. And the power of that masculinity was no small part of its attraction. Stoker offered the delicious paradox of a man who could easily force submission but would never attempt it. With him, I could surrender every bit of the control I had fought so hard to achieve. I could unbuckle the clasps, unbind the ties; I could simply be. And that notion was the most seductive of all. So Madame Aurore’s idea that the best way to resolve the situation was to play the aggressor was unsettling. I had my doubts it would work with Stoker—he could be maddeningly stubborn when he chose. And if it did work, did I even want him on those terms?

  “You have given me much to think on,” I told her. “Thank you.”

  She shrugged. “Of course.”

  I dragged my thoughts back to the reason for our visit to the club. My gaze fell to the diamonds scattered over her gown. “Your stars are very beautiful,” I told her in a casual tone. “I have been admiring them.”

  She dimpled at me. “Gifts. From my generous admirers.”

  “They are all so similar, I wonder how you can tell them apart,” I ventured, hoping she would invite me to look more closely at them.

  But she merely smiled her inscrutable cat’s smile. “Believe me, mademoiselle, I know them, each and every one. Of course,” she went on, “I cannot wear them all at one time. There are too many of them. I wear only a few tonight, and all of these are from an American gentleman I knew long ago.” I remembered what Tiberius had told us about her American millionaire and felt a rush of satisfaction. The prince’s Garrard star was not on display.

  Madame Aurore gestured vaguely towards a closed door on the opposite wall. “My dressing room. The rest are all tucked away in a safe. One cannot be too careful with so many strangers about,” she said sagely. Her expression was touched with sadness. “One cannot be too careful in any case as a woman in London these days.”

  “The murders in Whitechapel,” I murmured.

  “Horrifying. One thinks of those poor wretches . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “And one thinks how easily it mightn’t be them,” I finished. Her eyes locked with mine and I knew we understood one another. How easily it might be us.

  “I am told you endured the siege of Paris,” I said softly. “That must have held its own terrors.”

  She gave me a measured look. “I suspect you are acquainted with terror yourself, my dear.”

  I thought of the perils I had endured, the near tragedies I had survived, and for all my brushes with disaster, I could not number amongst them a fate as awful as what had befallen the women in Whitechapel.

  “I have been lucky,” I said simply.

  “Yes,” she said in a slow voice, “I think luck has a great deal to do with our fates. Our destiny lies in our stars.” She traced one of her diamond stars with a fingertip. “But enough of this grim talk for the evening! You have come to enjoy yourself. We will not think of the sad ones just now.”

  She rose then, shaking the folds of her chiffon gown and passing a hand over her unbound hair. “I hope you have refreshed yourself, mademoiselle?”

  She nodded towards the plate of tiny pastries. We had scarcely made an impression upon them, but I was conscious of the heavy sweetness left on my tongue. I rose, nudging Vespertine gently out of the way. He yawned, his jaws opening wide, and I gave him a pat of farewell.

  “He likes you,” she told me. “He does not take to everyone.”

  “I suspect not everyone gives him cream buns,” I replied. “I have entirely enjoyed myself, madame. Thank you for your time.”

  She inclined her head and shook my hand before walking me to the door. “I am sorry to bring an end to our little tête-à-tête, but I have an appointment with a gentleman in half an hour’s time and I must prepare to receive him,” she told me with a meaningful look.

  “Of course,” I murmured. I was conscious then of a hope that had taken root during our conversation—a hope that Madame Aurore would not prove too great a villainess. That she had deliberately set out to seduce the prince, I had little doubt. One only had to glim
pse her astoundingly expensive surroundings to know that guineas must run through her fingers like water. In an empire full of wealthy and illustrious prospects, a future king was the highest place to aim and she had been successful. I was not entirely happy at the idea of retrieving the star, by foul means or fair. It had been a gift, freely given and happily accepted, and I was conscious of a mulish determination rising within me to leave it with her. But I could not justify such a course of action unless I knew for certain she could be trusted not to use it against my half-brother.

  Deep in such thoughts, I took my leave, noticing that the chair outside was once more occupied by the odiferous Robert.

  “Learnt anything useful?” he asked with a waggle of his brows.

  “What a nasty old devil you are,” I told him, conscious once more of the strong odor of licorice, which clung to him with something else, a chemical note I could not place.

  “I ain’t nothing of the kind,” he said, obviously affronted. His feet were plunged into a basin of hot soapy water and he flapped a hand at me. “Go on, then. Unless you want to watch an old man soak his feet, and if that’s the sort of thing that lifts your skirts, I’ll ask a shilling because nothing in this house is free.”

  I pulled a face at him and fled down the stairs, cape in hand.

  CHAPTER

  10

  I made my way down the staircase to the floor below. I wandered through the rooms in search of Stoker, eager to relate to him my minor triumph in discovering the general whereabouts of the star. I turned a corner and found myself in a long corridor, thickly carpeted in deep, plush grey, the walls hung with figured silk. It was quieter there, the music from the ballroom not even audible at this distance. A series of doors opened onto the corridor, all of them firmly closed and some sporting the silver ribbons Madame Aurore had spoken of—the sign that the couples within would welcome additions to their party.

  I paused, thinking hard. Knowing Stoker as I did, I had little doubt he would have found himself either the kitchens or a library, and neither of those were likely on this floor. Before I could decide which way to proceed, a door a little distance down the corridor opened and a gentleman emerged. His dark auburn hair put me in mind of a fox’s pelt. He paused when he saw me and gave me a long look as he came near.