Keeping Faith

by Beverley Oakley

  Charity fidgeted with her necklace. “Lord Harkom doesn’t like to be turned down; it’s true. So maybe what you say is right. But nor would it have been right for me to say nothing if there really was something to those letters.”

  “But why wait so long? Why did you not write immediately, if that was your fear?”

  “I’m not stupid, sir, but the letters do have a way of mixing themselves up before my eyes. And no, Faith was careful that no one knew where she was so as not to put me, or her friends, in danger. Besides, I was hoping I’d see you myself so I could tell you about Faith. Like I’m doing now.”

  “How unlucky I missed her if she was here earlier tonight!” He strode to the door. ““Thank you, Charity. I shall go there now. I just hope to God I’m not too late.”

  Faith looked at the prone form of Lord Harkom with satisfaction. Sprawled on the sofa, arms outstretched, legs splayed, he did not look the kind of specimen she’d consider worthy of her, for all he was handsome in a cruel, effete kind of way. And rich.

  He would have set her up, nicely.

  If she were that kind of girl.

  Carefully, she assessed her opportunities. She could only trust that Charity had been right.

  She hurried to the large bed and went down on her knees to scrabble underneath. The light was too dim to see, so she rose and quickly carried the lamp to aid her search, going down on her belly to feel about in the dark.

  Perhaps Charity had mistaken the chest from something else?

  Perhaps Lord Harkom had moved it?

  Lord Harkom made a loud snoring noise and his body convulsed, making Faith jump, too.

  But as her arm swung wide, it found a handle of an object which, drawing it towards her and into the light, turned out to be a small, neat chest.

  With no lock.

  Her hands were trembling so much, and her heart beating so fiercely she felt sick, but time was not on her side, so she set to her search with as clear a head as she could.

  The letters were arranged in bundles, and the top few seemed to be correspondence from various women to Lord Harkom. Tied up in ribbon, they all seemed similar she decided as she slipped each from its envelope and read the first couple of sentences. Mistresses and spurned lovers. There seemed a lot of those.

  As she neared the bottom, her spirits fell. Perhaps she was looking in the wrong chest for there was no sign of anything that suggested an interest in Mr Westaway.

  Until she reached the very bottom and found the only envelope not addressed to Lord Harkom or from Lord Harkom.

  Faith rolled back on her haunches and closed her eyes a moment. Could this be the letter she was after? Her fingers seemed not to work as they should, and it was difficult not to tear the cheap, single sheet of paper she pulled from its envelope before quickly scanning its contents.

  Lord Harkom groaned in his sleep, and Faith’s fingers went slack. She stared at the letter, its words a jumble in front of her face. This must be how Charity had felt every time Faith had tried to teach her the alphabet.

  But it wasn’t that Faith couldn’t understand the contents. There was nothing ambiguous about the information, or about the demands for satisfaction or else public disclosure would follow.

  Putting a hand to her bosom to try and still the rapid rise and fall, she closed her eyes. She felt sick. This wasn’t what she’d expected to find. Not at all.

  But it clearly was what Lord Harkom had alluded to when he’d told Charity he had correspondence that would damn Mr Westaway in the eyes of the public.

  She was just tucking the envelope into her corset and about to close the lid of the chest and rise, when the last three letters of a very familiar name caught her eye.

  “Christ, but my head hurts!”

  Faith jerked her head up, snatching blindly at the letters and stuffing three, indiscriminately, down the front of her bodice before pushing the chest back into its hiding place and snatching the lamp as she rose to her feet.

  “Faith, is that you? What are you doing?”

  Faith waved the lamp. “Oh, Lord Harkom! I was so worried and about to fetch help. I…I thought perhaps you might have had a seizure.”

  When she saw the top of a letter poking out from her corset, she put her hand down her front to push it out of sight and gave her décolletage a little tug, as if righting her clothes.

  She leaned over him and put her hand to his cheek. “Goodness, but you are dangerously hot to the touch. You need some water. Instantly!”

  Before he could grip her dress with his grasping hand, Faith nimbly eluded him and glided to the door. “I’ll be back with a servant and something to drink as soon as I can!” she lied.

  When she’d finally escaped into the corridor, she picked up her skirts and ran for her life.

  Chapter 27

  “Lord Harkom, my apologies for intruding at this late hour!” Breathing heavily after his sprint from Soho to the more salubrious environs of Mayfair, Crispin stood in the doorway of his lordship’s bedchamber and eyed the clearly dissipated lord, who was lying in a very abandoned position, with dispassion.

  The two empty champagne glasses did not augur well. Not with the dishevelled state the other man was in, his evening clothes rumpled, though fortunately, the counterpane didn’t look too disturbed.

  Still, the chaise longue was a comfortable affair, and it was clear Harkom had been entertaining female guests. Crispin could tell by the lingering fragrance of peonies. Faith liked the scent of peonies, though he didn’t care to think too much along those lines.

  Had she really come here? Had she ventured into the lion’s den in order to safeguard Crispin’s reputation? How would he know if these were just more lies? Charity seemed sincere enough, but, like Faith, she’d been trained to act a part.

  Harkom blinked and rose, stiffly, from the chaise, running his hands through his rumpled hair and gazing blearily about him before focusing on Crispin.

  “Gad, but that was some sport, and I don’t wonder you’ve elbowed your way in looking for your piece of the girl. I knew you’d come sniffing her out, but she’s gone now.” Harkom laughed and lurched to the cabinet where he kept his brandy.

  Crispin eyed him beadily. He seemed addleheaded yet not drunk. Surely, he should have been more aggressive and demanding as to how and why Crispin had found his way to his room. A servant certainly wouldn’t have led him there.

  Indeed, Crispin had been very creative in gaining admittance to Lord Harkom’s townhouse with none of the servants the wiser.

  With an unsteady hand, Lord Harkom poured them both a measure and handed one to Crispin, who put it down on the nearest surface. He was not about to drink companionably with the possible violator of the woman he loved.

  “What did you do to her? She didn’t come here willingly.” The anger started in his spine and was like a slow burn to his brain. He didn’t know if he’d have the self-control to behave as he ought, for physical violence would get him nowhere. Finding Faith to ensure she was safe was his primary concern.

  Harkom blinked, with difficulty it seemed, as he turned back to Crispin. “Oh yes, she hooked her little hand into the crook of my arm and all but begged me to look after her. I found her at Mistress Kate’s.” He smiled, nastily. “Terribly sad. Her previous protector had died, and she had no other offers of a roof over her head. Of course, it was music to my senses. It’s rather well known in some circles that she’s become my little obsession.”

  “But she’s not here now.” Crispin tried to hide his nervous distraction as Lord Harkom leaned against the sideboard. The man was holding his hand to the side of his head and swaying.

  He seemed to be having trouble concentrating on the matter at hand. “No, I can’t imagine what I was thinking, letting her go like that. Still, she’ll come back. And if she doesn’t soon enough, I know how to make her.”

  “I’ll get to her first.” Crispin’s voice was a dangerous growl.

  Harkom blinked. For a moment he looked surpri
sed, then his face took on its habitual sneer. “Oh, the fact you had her first was a great pity to me, but I intend to keep her. With your name about to be so sullied, you’ll wonder how you never knew before now that you had no friends.”

  Crispin bit into his bottom lip. “I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.”

  Lord Harkom chuckled and began to count on his fingers. “No past dalliances with married women; no secret babies foisted on well-bred young ladies.” His voice was becoming increasingly slurred, and he seemed to have difficulty standing straight. “It’s true enough, what you say. Sadly, you had no say in this little matter, though if you ask your father if your mother was an innkeeper’s daughter, you might be a little disappointed by his lack of conviction when he tries to deny it.”

  Crispin blinked stupidly at the other man. “What are you saying?”

  Lord Harkom sent him a long look, though he blinked rapidly throughout, as if trying to keep Crispin in focus.

  “Never wondered why you look nothing like your father?”

  “I take after my maternal line.”

  “So that’s what you’ve been told? By your fond pater? Or your anxious aunts?” The older man laughed. “Of course, it’s what you’d want to believe, but what about if your mother was barren? Or believed she was barren after ten years being married to your father yielded no heir for poor desperate Lord Maxwell?”

  “This is an outrageous claim. No one will believe it! On what basis can you even suggest such a thing.”

  Lord Harkom’s lips stretched wide, and his nostrils flared. “Only from the woman who delivered you, asking me for money in return for a letter she’d kept between your father and the poor unmarried woman whom he paid to relieve her of her baby.” He examined the half-moons of his right hand.

  “Anyone could have made such a spurious claim, but where would it get them? It’s a forgery, of course! What possible reason would she have to contact you?”

  “Because she also found the love letters your mother and I exchanged before your mother was forced to marry your father, a much older man she could not bear, by the way.”

  “You lie! My mother would never”

  “How would you know? You were only an infant when she died. You don’t even remember your mother.”

  It was true, but it did not bear up Harkom’s claims. Crispin shook his head as if to clear it. Lies! And yet, an uncomfortable kernel of possibility had taken root. Not only did Crispin look nothing like his father, or indeed, the portrait of his mother that hung in the dining room, Crispin’s temperament was as different from his father’s as it was possible to be.

  Harkom shrugged. “Your father married the woman I loved and blamed her for being barren when clearly the problem lay with him. But he needed a son, didn’t he?” He chuckled. “You only have to read the letter to find out how he managed it. Why, your father bought you, believing you were his, when in fact the girl was already pregnant when she allowed Lord Maxwell to lie with her. Pregnant by a farm labourer!” He burst out laughing. “I can’t imagine where you got your delicate hands from and your fine, painterly sensitivities. Anomalies arise where one least expects them to, don’t they? But yet, it’s all in the letter.”

  Crispin shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it. Show me the letter. Or don’t you have it? Perhaps Faith succeeded in retrieving it, after all. It’s the reason she came here after she learned from her friend, Charity, whom you visited at Madame Chambon’s, that you had information that was damaging to me?”

  Lord Harkom jerked as if he’d been stung, and his eyes glanced to a location somewhere near the base of the bed. Regaining some composure, he said, “Your Faith proved most faithless when she aligned her star with mine. I promise you; she was not thinking of you, or retrieving letters, when we made love this afternoon. I’ve never been with a woman so eager!”

  “How dare you!” Crispin clenched his fists and strode over to Lord Harkom, gripping the man’s collar and forcing his head up. “You lie! Faith has a pure heart and pure motives. She would never have come to you and put herself in danger unless it was to help…me.”

  It was a sobering thought. Whether or not it would prove true, was another matter. But yet, it’s what he wanted to believe.

  To his surprise, Lord Harkom’s head lolled, and he slumped even further down the wall. Crispin was not met with the aggression he’d expected.

  As for the story he’d just told Crispin, it was so far-fetched Crispin couldn’t begin to assimilate how there could be a grain of truth in it.

  And yet, he’d never felt he belonged in the home he’d grown up in. His father had always seemed distant and alien, though wasn’t that normal?

  “Show me the letter,” he demanded once more in a low voice. It couldn’t be true. A father who was a country peasant, and a mother who was an innkeeper’s daughter? Common yeoman stock?

  Perhaps Lord Harkom acceded because he was concerned at Faith’s reasons for coming to his room. He certainly would not have done it on Crispin’s account. He took a couple of staggering steps towards the bed and dropped to his knees, pulling out a small wooden chest.

  Two narrow furrows between his eyes grew deeper as he shuffled the papers and his breathing increased. He appeared not to see Crispin when he turned his head in his direction, his eyes glassy as he muttered, “By God, the wench has taken it.” He thumped his hand on the lid. “The wench has stolen the letter. Why did I not think that might be a possibility?”

  “One might not have thought it necessary to lock a cupboard or a chest containing incriminating documents if peddling lies is such a commonplace event.” Crispin moved towards the door, then, on second thoughts, changed direction and took a few steps towards Lord Harkom. “I was going to leave like a gentleman, but in view of the fact that apparently I am a man of no breeding, let me give you this for your treatment of Faith and all those other poor women you treat like playthings.”

  Striking out with a sharp uppercut, he watched with satisfaction as Lord Harkom crumpled to the floor.

  With the letters burning a hole in her bodice, Faith made her way to Madame Chambon’s as quickly as she could, entering through the back door and arriving in Charity’s bedchamber to find it mercifully empty but for Charity.

  “Oh, my dear friend, I was so worried for you,” Charity wept as she threw her arms about Faith. “Did Lord Harkom hurt you? Did Mr Westaway find you?”

  “Mr Westaway?” A thrill of longing travelled through Faith at the sound of his name, but disappointment followed for the fact she’d not seen him. “He really went after me? I mean, he took the trouble…not through vengeance?”

  “Lord, Faith, must you be so suspicious? I’m not and look at the life I lead.” Charity indicated her room with a sweep of her arm. “So, you found what you wanted from Lord Harkom and he didn’t hurt you?” The fact she was so anxious about Faith’s well-being made Faith want to weep on the spot.

  Also, what she’d learned upon reading them.

  “He didn’t hurt me, no. And I have the letters.

  “So, now you know the truth? Or was Lord Harkom nothing but hot air?”

  A tear forced its way out of Faith’s eye as she put her hand to her bodice. “It wasn’t what I wanted to be the truth, but I do have the incriminating letters—and Lord Harkom doesn’t. That’s the main thing.” A spasm of fear made her reassess as she turned towards the door. “Please don’t ask me about it now, Charity. Look, I really should go. I can’t subject you to danger. Where is Miss Eaves tonight? She said she was going somewhere. Perhaps she can help me.”

  “Miss Eaves!” Charity scoffed, calling after her friend as Faith ran to the door, “Come back, Faith. I’m perfectly safe. You know Madame Chambon guards us like a wolfhound, and the only reason Anastasia got hurt was because Madame thought she needed teaching a lesson. Please tell me why you want to seek out Miss Eaves? She’s no friend of yours. Unless you want her to print the letter you found!”

  “Dear God,
only one of them.” Faith swung around, her jaw set. “I’ll never breathe a word about the other letter, and so I’m not even going to tell you what was in it. But Charity, when Anastasia got hurt, didn’t she leave shortly afterwards?”

  Charity nodded.

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “No, I don’t, Faith. She moved on to another life. That’s how it is with girls like us. No need to look so concerned.”

  “She left with Lady Vernon, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t remember exactly—”

  “Please try.” Faith gripped Charity by both forearms and looked into her friend’s eyes. “Try and remember who took Anastasia away.”

  Charity looked puzzled, and then a look of understanding crept over her face.

  “Yes, I don’t have time to tell you more, Charity, but this is the reason I need to find Miss Eaves. She might not be the one who can reveal this to the world, and although she’s been no friend of mine, she does have connections, both in the newspaper world and in society. And it’s because of her belief that she really was telling a truth the world needed to know, that she printed what she did about me, that I think she’s the person most likely to help me now.”

  “But Faith, you don’t even know where she lives!”

  “No, but I do know where she’ll be tonight.” Faith turned and hurried back, a thought occurring to her. “Charity, I need your masque. The one on a stick. Indeed, it’s fortuitous that Miss Eaves will be attending Lady Ridgeway’s Masquerade. I’m sure she’d not want to talk to me unless we were in disguise.”

  Chapter 28

  Crispin didn’t care that he was damp with evening mist by the time he’d walked to Madame Chambon’s. He needed a bracing walk to clear his head, and he wasn’t going anywhere afterwards. Not after he’d located Faith. What he’d say to her, he wasn’t sure.