Wicked by Design

by Katy Moran

  ‘Here, love, come and sit with us – Hardacre likes a black beauty, don’t you, mate?’

  Hester ignored them all and walked straight up to the bar, her way blocked by an unshaven, louse-bitten and dissolute gathering who looked as if they spent most of their time draining local supplies of blue ruin. Although Papa had also been black, and in fact much darker than Hester with her white mother, his fortune and reputation had largely shielded her childhood from this sort of blatant contempt whenever they left the safety of Bryher, her childhood island home. No sailor would have dared speak so to the daughter of Captain John Harewood. Never before had she travelled without the protection of Papa or later Crow, sheltered then not only by a fortune but also an ancient name which was a blessing on the road and a curse in the salons of London where since her marriage she’d had little choice but to frequent and endure the staring and impertinent questions of the beau monde.

  Oh, how beautifully exotic you are, Lady Lamorna: Hester recalled standing in a blue-painted morning room as Lady Jersey reached out to touch her hair, quite uninvited, even as she fought back tears of anger, and then the heat of Crow’s presence at her side. My wife is not a circus exhibit, Sally, Crow had said with smiling fury. When they got home, she had burst into his dressing-room, dismissing his alarmed valet, and drummed her fists against his naked chest. How dare you make it worse? How dare you? He’d looked down at her with astonished anger and chagrin, just letting her strike him. Het, it’s my duty to protect you, and the woman was behaving like an insufferable idiot. Who does she think she is?

  It had taken her and Crow a long time to begin to forge an understanding of each other that would underpin their love, and now he was gone. She longed for his presence with the desperation of a priest questioning his faith in God, but she had to learn to be without him again, for now at least, here in this filthy inn that stank of old tallow and fried rancid bacon.

  ‘Are you deaf, or what?’

  Hester looked up; she still hadn’t got over being addressed in such a shocking fashion on this interminable journey north. The tavern-keeper’s wife leaned on the bar, a thin-faced woman with a greasy bonnet crammed on to a coiffure tinted a brassy shade of gold that could never have been natural.

  ‘Two pints of small-ale, if you please,’ Hester said, rummaging in her sackcloth bag for the flattened leather drinking flasks. She’d quickly learned to modify the way in which she spoke to such people – in their eyes, she was no lady and never could be, which was just as well considering that the Countess of Lamorna had shot and killed three men of the 11th Northumbrian regiment.

  The tavern-keeper’s wife sneered. ‘Daft as well as deaf, then? I said, we don’t serve your sort in here. No blacks, all right?’

  Hester froze, enduring a rush of silent fury and humiliation. ‘I have no desire to stay. Please fill my flasks, and then I will go.’

  The brassy-haired woman raised both sparse eyebrows in insolent astonishment.

  ‘Hoity-toity, aren’t you, bluey?’ one of the sailors called out from the table at the back. ‘Don’t spoil the fun, Margery. Let’s have her over here and we’ll take it in turns to teach her some manners.’

  ‘You heard,’ the woman said. ‘Get out.’

  Hester turned and walked out of the tavern, tears springing to her eyes the moment she reached the courtyard. In the taproom behind her, she heard the screech of wooden chair legs on sawdust-covered tiles. One of the sailors getting to his feet, making ready to follow her. Picking up her pace, she crossed the courtyard, loading the pistol as she went with swift, thoughtless skill. She couldn’t just keep killing men who wanted to harm her, tempting though it was. Sooner or later she’d be caught and hanged for it. Once out on the muddy, tree-lined lane, Hester scrambled over a mossy drystone wall. The field was sown with green wheat not yet tall enough to hide her, and so she crouched in the mass of cow parsley lining the hedgerow, and there among the tall green stalks tears started to her eyes again because the creamy abundance of nodding flower heads reminded her so much of ocean spray, and she was alone without child or friend, and so very far from home. All she could do was clutch Crow’s pistol with shaking fingers as she prayed to God that no one would find her.

  30

  Tatyana closed her eyes, leaning back against the cushions on the chaise in the morning-parlour that looked out over Nevsky Prospekt. Hot-house peonies in silver vases on the sideboard dropped silken, pale-yellow petals on to the wax-polished wood. The rustle of silk shift against her skin made her think of Lord Lamorna running his hand with excruciating slowness up her inner thigh in that quiet anteroom at the Anichkov Palace, with the violin-tuning, chattering clamour of the ball just yards away. Would he take the bait she had offered? It was treason, after all, promising to tell an English lord where to find the tsar’s own daughter, worse even than attending those naïve little Green Lamp salons with Alexei Pushkin. It was just so painful to wait like this, day after endless day, going to soirées to find Lord Lamorna still missing. It had been a week since that night, and still she had not seen him. No one had – or not in respectable society, at least. He had simply exploded across the Petersburg social scene like a grenade in one extraordinarily volatile and beautiful mess – a disastrous combination of all-too-visible grief, scandalous whispers about the reputation of Jane Cathcart, and rumours of high treason – and then had simply disappeared. Jane’s unsatisfactory brother was going to be a poor substitute. She sighed, gazing out of the window and watching George Cathcart arrive on foot, the well-cut jacket not quite managing to conceal the weakness of his shoulders, that thick fair hair brushed with too much precision. But needs must. Tatyana summoned up an expression of eager feminine concern as he was announced, flushing already at the prospect of being alone with her, even as her butler retreated, leaving a tray of glasses by the steaming samovar, and closing the double doors behind him.

  ‘Darling George, won’t you sit down? I’m so grateful to you for coming. It’s a matter of such delicacy that I’m afraid to trouble your mother with it.’

  ‘I’m afraid Lady Cathcart is already sorely troubled.’ George sat in one of the armchairs, crossing one leg over the other. He frowned like a thwarted child, and really, how could the foolish boy not see why despite being elevated to the Duke of Wellington’s staff at Waterloo because of his father’s connections, and despite being the son of a diplomat, he’d never been trusted with a position of real responsibility, much less given a part to play on the grand stage of world affairs? Every sulky emotion lit up his face like a beacon. Tatyana could read him like a volume of fairy tales: his jealousy of Lord Lamorna was both profound and completely obvious.

  Standing by the samovar, and allowing his anticipation at being so close to her to build, Tatyana poured two steaming glasses of tea. She added shavings of sugar from the silver bowl before passing one to him, standing so near that she sensed his unpleasant dog-like eagerness. It was time for her opening gambit. ‘Well, one does feel so sorry for Lord Lamorna, but after the way he behaved at the Anichkov affair last week, parading your sister around the empress’s own ballroom, one’s sympathy is certainly challenged.’

  George set down his tea. ‘My sister is merely naive, Countess, and has no real interest in Lamorna – as I hope you’ll say to whoever asks. I have too little faith in the impertinence of most people in society to hope that no one will be crass enough to pry into my family’s affairs. You hold in your own hands the power to rescue Jane’s reputation – everyone listens to you. It’s a damnably awkward situation.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Tatyana sipped her tea. ‘Except one can’t help but feel almost sorry for the poor boy – it’s just so tragic about his wife and child.’

  ‘It was a terrible mésalliance in the first place,’ George said. ‘Who else would even think they could get away with doing such a thing? I don’t care who Lady Lamorna’s mother’s people were. She was black, for God’s sake. You must know that Wellington was furious. Lamorna threw
himself away on her, he said.’ He broke off, setting down his teacup. ‘Well, she’s gone now and so is the child. I dare say it’s just as well.’

  Tatyana smiled. ‘Really? I’ve always felt you’ve been unfairly sidelined in Lord Lamorna’s favour, George. It just seems wrong. It’s a shame Wellington didn’t recognise that there isn’t much use in real talent unless it comes with a sense of responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, well, Lamorna will soon no longer be of much consideration to anyone, I dare say.’

  ‘Oh?’ Tatyana asked carelessly, almost unable to believe how easy it had been to tease out this critical piece of information about just what the scheming British intended for their own favourite aristocratic delinquent.

  George flushed. It was embarrassing. Cathcart ought to just send the boy home to manage an estate. He was less cut out for playing the great game than his sister was for entrancing a ballroom. ‘Well, after the scandal Lamorna’s kicked up here I dare say he’ll not be welcome in any respectable part of Petersburg. I should think my father will advise him to go home to Cornwall and have done with it. My mother said the sooner he marries again, the better.’

  ‘I’m so relieved,’ Tatyana said, as the truth of the situation dawned upon her. Honestly, the English deserved to fail in all their dealings. ‘And so where is his lordship now? I heard that after disgracing himself at the Anichkov in such a way, no one saw him for days.’

  George shifted in his seat. ‘Unfortunately, no one has a very precise notion where he is. He’s rioting all over the worst parts of town, from what we heard.’

  ‘Which will only make gossip about him and dear Jane spread with far greater ferocity – to a mean-spirited observer, it might even look as if your father had turned Lord Lamorna out of the embassy, lending even more substance to all those rumours, even though you and I know not a word of any of it is true, of course. All he really did is walk darling Jane across a ballroom, and poor old Thérèse de la Saint-Maure too – people can be so uncharitable.’

  George sipped his tea, obviously warming to his subject. ‘The fact is, Lamorna’s a loose cannon and always has been. The sooner that marriage between Jane and Prince Volkonsky takes place, the better. It’s the only real way to stop this scandal spreading.’

  ‘Oh, I quite agree,’ Tatyana said, even though she had no intention of allowing Sasha to marry this foolish boy’s sister. He was clearly overjoyed at being entrusted with the task in hand – to ensure that Lord Lamorna never returned to England – but Tatyana couldn’t allow that to happen until Lamorna had played his part in her own game. It was quite simple: she must just ensure that her players now moved with speed and precision.

  31

  ‘Wait here, Jacques, do you understand?’

  Tatyana’s coachman stared at her, gripping the reins in cold-reddened fingers. For a May evening with cherry trees blossoming up and down the Fontanka, the streets of Petersburg were unexpectedly cold. ‘My lady,’ Jacques said, ‘I know it’s not my place to say, but this isn’t the sort of establishment your ladyship ought to visit alone. I’m sure I ought to come in with you, or perhaps we should go home and fetch one of the footmen.’

  Tatyana sighed. There was no time for this sort of impudent halting-at-fences from one’s servants. ‘I know very well that we’re outside a bordello, Jacques, let’s not beat about the bush. Your orders are to wait precisely here, ready to leave quickly, do you understand?’

  By the time Tatyana had been admitted into the black-and-white-tiled vestibule of a smart townhouse by a footman who openly leered at her with the most disgusting impertinence, she was starting to regret leaving Jacques outside. There was a difference between sharing a couple of the season’s prettiest young officers with one’s adventurous cousin, and walking into a room of partially clothed strangers. And why had she not thought of the fact that she would in all likelihood recognise some of the men? She was a stranger in this world, but they were not. Sitting at a marble-topped table by the window, Pushkin and young Sergei Gagarin were playing cards with two fleshy young trollops clad only in diaphanous silk shifts. Tatyana tugged her ermine-trimmed hood forward, aware that heads were turning.

  One of the girls sitting with Pushkin looked up, laughing. ‘Don’t be shy, sweetheart.’

  Tatyana surged on through the crowd. It was a good thing darling Petya couldn’t see her here – whatever would he have thought of his mama in such a place? She suppressed a frightening rush of emotion, taking a glass of champagne from a tray held by a pox-scarred footman. Now wasn’t the time to think about her son, her only child – the single constant light in the long, miserable years of her marriage. Her footman had been following Lord Lamorna for days. For the love of Mother Mary, surely he had to be here now? Tatyana edged past a group of young lancers surrounding two entirely naked young women, glimpsing a flash of downy underarm hair as one of the girls raised her arm to embrace a soldier as he grasped her pale backside, allowing his fingers to linger between her legs before he touched them to his lips and then hers, laughing. There was absolutely nothing, Tatyana realised, to stop any of the men in this establishment from treating her with exactly the same level of disregard. The champagne rushed to her head, and then, at last, she saw Lord Lamorna lying on a chaise at the back of the room, his long legs crossed one over the other, his boots all over the scarlet brocade. He was stripped to the waist, and a brassy-haired creature in a silk toga sat astride him, trying and failing to wake him up.

  ‘Off,’ Tatyana said in such a commanding tone that the girl fled, disappearing into the insufficiently dressed crowd. Lord Lamorna lay with his head turned to one side, his black hair in a dishevelled mess, and she saw that his naked torso was covered in an extraordinary pattern of swirling blue-black tattoos. Tatyana sighed and with one hand on the arm of the chaise she leaned over him and tipped the remains of her glass of champagne into his face. His eyes opened immediately, grey and shockingly devoid of emotion, his pupils the size of pinheads. She felt the pressure of cold metal at her wrist and looked down to see that he was holding a knife to the delicate skin, precisely where he’d kissed her with such gentle savagery at their last encounter.

  ‘What do you want?’ He didn’t question her presence; she realised he could not have cared less about what happened to her in this place, and that it was simply usual practice for him to draw a knife immediately upon waking.

  She forced herself to sound calm, as if she were dealing cards to a debutante, not risking her life countermanding the efforts of a man with nothing to lose. ‘Where can we be more private?’

  He got to his feet and walked away without waiting for her to follow. The tattoos went all over his pale, muscled back, too. He held open the door to a gloomy side-room with mocking chivalry, closing it behind her. Stained crimson velvet curtains shut out most of the light. Wrinkled sheets lay heaped on an empty bed, and the air was thick with cheap scent and the stale perspiration of strangers. He leaned back against the bedpost, waiting for her to speak. It was light enough to see that his pupils were still constricted – he had been taking opium, then, in one form or another.

  ‘How deep does the addiction run?’ Tatyana asked conversationally. ‘I’m surprised you don’t place more value on your brother’s life and reputation. Surely you realise both will be at risk if you fail in the task set for you by Lord Castlereagh? Have you even started looking for the girl yet? But how can you, when you don’t know where she is?’

  Lord Lamorna’s only reply was to reach into the pocket of a waistcoat hanging over the end of the bed for a cigarillo, lighting it, as was his habit, from a candle guttering on a dressing table littered with an array of silk scarves, the recent use of which she preferred not to contemplate.

  Tatyana sighed. ‘The marriage of Jane Cathcart and Prince Volkonsky is to take place in less than three weeks, I’m given to understand. Do you wish to learn the whereabouts of Nadezhda Kurakina or not? It’s quite simple, Lord Lamorna. Ensure that Jane is so thoroughly compromi
sed that no man would marry her, much less a man of Sasha’s standing, or I won’t tell you where to find your malleable little heir to the English throne, and your handsome brother’s life will be as good as finished. We are running so short of time.’

  Lord Lamorna exhaled a bloom of smoke. ‘Do you think I really care, Tatyana?’

  She stepped closer, shrugging back the ermine-trimmed hood of her velvet cloak. ‘I wonder if your young brother knows yet that you’re in Russia? I’m quite sure that even now you won’t allow Captain Helford to suffer for your own failings, however lost you might be. Think of his life, his reputation, if you continue to drink yourself into an early grave instead of carrying out the mission you were entrusted with.’