Wicked by Design

by Katy Moran

  ‘Child, what have they done?’ he asked, in Cornish, but all this was wrong, and he still saw what was no longer there – this Kitto was only a boy: younger, more slight, with no shadow of beard at his jaw, and one of his eyes swollen shut with plum-dark bruising even as he shook like a leaf in the wind. When at last Kitto turned his head to face Crow, the eye he could actually open was stretched wide, his pupils dilated with liquid terror, his teeth set hard together, and Crow knew that he himself was the one who had reduced the boy to this state, striking him again and again: the past now leaked into his present with all the white, foaming ferocity of the ocean breaching a ship’s hull stove in against rock, and to make this stop he must watch himself bleed. Crow unsheathed the knife concealed in his boot and by the time he had done so, Kitto was no longer there, and there was only the faded Turkey rug, and God only knew where the child might be, really, in all this vast and unforgiving country, hunted with every step by the French. Sitting down, Crow tried again to breathe, but the air felt hot in his lungs, bringing no relief, and the room spun around him in a whirl of oak panelling, pressed white linen and candle-flames leaving trails of light upon the darkness. He closed his eyes and saw a succession of faces, those he’d killed: the Belgian child at Waterloo, French soldier after French soldier from the Peninsula and afterwards – names he’d never know. Kitto, too, nearly dead at his own hands. Crow peeled off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the pale skin of his inner forearm. If he did not open himself up to let this out, it would consume him before his job was done. Light caught the blade as Crow made his incision. Dark blood welled.

  ‘Jack—’

  He looked up to find Joséphine standing over him in her gown of white muslin, holding two glasses of brandy as his blood dripped on to the carpet, where just moments ago he’d seen his brother lying, as real as Joséphine herself now was. Try as he might, he could not speak.

  ‘I know, my dear,’ Joséphine said, regardless. Handing him one of the glasses, she crossed the room to the copper bath pushed into a corner near the fireplace, taking up one of the folded wraps lying on the stool beside it. Sitting down beside him as he drank, she held the cloth beneath his bleeding arm, and they both watched in silence as dark red stains spread across white linen.

  40

  Hester stood on the aft-deck leading directly off Captain Wythenshawe’s cabin, watching heaving grey seas. Ahead, Kotlin Island rose up from the Baltic, forested and fortified, a string of smaller islands on either side, guarding the as-yet-invisible St Petersburg like a row of teeth. Gulls keened and swept through the air as green-clad hills reared on either side of the vast grey outer estuary of the Neva, and without looking around she knew that Captain Wythenshawe had come to stand beside her. It was odd how Crow’s tobacco smoke always seemed to mingle with the other, more indefinable scents of the heat of his body and fresh laundry soap in a manner so intoxicating that she felt a sudden spreading warmth just to think of it – and yet the smell of Captain Wythenshawe’s pipe turned her stomach. He was standing very close, almost touching her. She looked down at the yellowed linen cuff of his shirtsleeve emerging from the well-tailored but equally well-worn blue jacket. He had returned her pistol, at least, with some leering remark about how she would have to guard her own virtue when he was engaged with nautical affairs.

  ‘St Petersburg is extraordinarily well guarded,’ she said, for the want of anything else. He had come to tell her that the covers were laid for dinner and she didn’t want to sit alone in that cabin with Captain Wythenshawe again, watching him slice pickled veal and chew so slowly with those flecks of pastry on his lips, never looking away from her for a moment, so that she did not know where to look herself. Her eyes were drawn to the cold, forested shore on the far side of the estuary: Crow might be anywhere in all that hinterland which spread to China. How was she ever to find him? The light was fading, and it would soon be dark.

  ‘Well, Petersburg is Russia’s most important seaport,’ Captain Wythenshawe said, ‘her only notable port at all, in fact – otherwise there’s only Archangelsk in the north, but that’s entirely frozen for months at a time.’

  ‘And so here is the Russian gateway to Europe.’ Hester watched a sprinkling of lights appear on Kotlin Island, ahead. She imagined unknown servants lighting lamps in the fortress, in merchants’ houses. ‘For trade as well as warfare? If the French were to attack from the sea, St Petersburg will be lost, surely.’

  ‘Our own navy is extremely unlikely to allow that to happen,’ Wythenshawe said. He moved his smallest finger infinitesimally, so that it just touched Hester’s, and she swallowed a surge of bile. ‘When an attack takes place, it will certainly be on land. It’s simply not in our interest to allow France to gain control of Russian territories again, and Lord knows what will happen with French troops manoeuvring all over the Russian countryside, but at sea we still have dominion – unless Napoleon takes Petersburg, of course, but that is surely impossible.’ On speaking the word dominion, Wythenshawe drew away his hand, and Hester forced herself to suppress a visible sigh of relief, of release. ‘Now then, Lady Lamorna,’ he went on, and she detected the sour scent of bad port on his breath. Port before dining to lend himself courage? ‘Our repast grows cold inside my cabin. Come and eat with me, my lady. It’s late, and you must be hungry.’

  His quarters were empty. Two lamps glowed on the bare oaken table laid with covered pewter dishes, and lamplight glanced from a cut-glass decanter filled with dark red wine. Had he instructed Milton to ensure they were left alone? There was something appallingly intimate about a man spooning sliced veal on to her plate with no servant present: it was so improper that he might just as well have touched her, and she crushed a sickening surge of panic.

  Captain Wythenshawe smiled at her across the table. ‘Have you no appetite, Lady Lamorna?’

  ‘It would seem not.’

  He got up, walking around the table, moving naturally with the rolling of the ship. He was in his element and she was not, and vulnerable. Standing behind her, he leaned over, reaching for a dish of spiced peas, so close that his lower belly pressed against her back. He let a spoonful of the dark, gelatinous mixture slide on to her plate, and then ran one finger down the back of her neck.

  ‘Your hair,’ he breathed. ‘Your hair is so beautiful, Lady Lamorna. Excuse me, but I can’t help myself. I want to touch you.’

  Hester froze, cold terror flooding through her. If she moved to get up out of her seat, she would only force her body closer to his. If she turned around, he would kiss her. He leaned closer, speaking into her ear in a gentle tone that throbbed with thick intensity. ‘I have such a weakness for dark girls. Exotic, dark girls like you are just so much more willing than your milksop European sisters.’

  Hester scanned the table. The only knife within reach wasn’t sharp enough to do him any harm. She turned to face him; standing now. She had always known that, sooner or later, he would demand recompense for his protection of her, that those nights of careful, polite conversation over the pewter serving dishes would not be enough. He moved to kiss her, but she leaned away. ‘Wait.’ She forced herself to rest a hand on his shoulder. His sun-lined, freckled face loomed before her, reddish bristles quivering on his damp upper lip. ‘Captain,’ she said, ‘let me make myself ready for you. It’s been a long voyage, and it will be a long night. I should like to be fresh, to make the night more pleasurable for you.’

  ‘Are you teasing me?’ Wythenshawe was so close that the tip of his nose now brushed hers, and she crushed a shudder of revulsion.

  ‘Surely not, sir.’ Hester looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes. ‘I promise you the wait will be worth it. Don’t you find that a little anticipation lends savour to a dish?’ She dropped into a curtsey, praying that such a well-worn mark of respect, the habit ingrained in them both, would force a little distance between them.

  ‘Very well.’ Captain Wythenshawe watched her as though she were a plate of meat la
id out for his delectation. ‘But don’t make me wait too long, Lady Lamorna. There is, after all, nowhere else for you to go.’ He smiled again as he spoke her title with barely veiled mockery. Hester dropped into a deeper curtsey, giving a coquettish sideways smile as she bowed her head and left, allowing her hips to sway in a manner she hoped would whet his appetite for a dish that, God willing, he would never sample.

  41

  Head down, Hester walked around the side of the poop deck, praying that no one would see her. The wind was steady and light, and she passed a crewman gazing idly up at the flock of moonlit sails above. She heard the creaking of lines pulled tight, sails thrumming, and the hum of men’s voices from the deck below. The davit ropes were creaking, too, as the little tender swung between them. Hester’s mouth was dry, and tears of blind fear snaked hot down her cheeks. There was so little chance of success, but she had to try. Moving with swift, sure steps now, she reached the nearest davit. Her fingers weak with terror, she uncleated the rope at the tender’s stern and let it off until the little boat hung at a drunken angle. Glancing up, she glimpsed the lights of Kotlin Island between rising masts and taut sails. This was her only chance of escape. She would have to lower the tender into the water in excruciating stages, tilting it first at the stern and then at the bow. In silence, she ran to the second set of tackle and, suspended over the guardrail, the tender now plunged bow-first towards the surging ocean below: if she did not take care, she’d risk sinking the boat. She flew to the other davit and let it off once more. The tender’s stern plunged into the water, and the little boat was instantly twitched hard away, its forward line pulled taut. Immediately Hester heard a male voice. ‘What’s that? Something’s dragging.’

  Sweeping her skirts and petticoats out of the way, Hester climbed over the guardrail, frozen as she watched a figure approaching, backlit by the moon. Knowing there was no choice, she caught handfuls of her skirts, looped her arm around the bundle of ropes leading down into the tender and slid into the boat as the sea rushed up to meet her. She crashed with bruising force into the bottom of the tender, which bucked and swayed beneath her. Indistinct shouting drifted down from the deck of the Wellington, and she reached into the bodice of her gown for the little knife sheathed between her corset and her shift and sawed with savage desperation until the last rope parted, whipping up away into the spray-filled night even as the small boat plunged bow-first into the waves. The vast, rising hull of the Wellington filled her world, the coppered wood rimed with barnacles, and the ship surged on. She thought she heard a shot from above, but couldn’t be certain, and there was no time to concern herself with dying.

  With a lurch, she stepped the mast as Papa had taught her, long ago, and unrolled the sail, hauling it up until it was tight to the mast. Hester scrambled to the stern of the boat, sail flapping, and picked frantically at the knot on the rudder-board until the rudder plunged down into the sea. Her face wet with spray, she took hold of the tiller, hauled in the mainsheet, and instantly felt a soaring rush of joy as the sail filled and the little boat came to life. Then, gasping for breath, she steered away from the wind, cutting across the Gulf of Finland towards Kotlin Island and, beyond it, to the city of St Petersburg itself. She knew better than anyone that, on board ship, time was money, and all she could do was hope that Captain Wythenshawe was too much in thrall to the owners of his cargo of wool and pig-iron to risk chasing her up and down the Baltic, even if she had stolen his tender. But even as she felt rising joy at the sensation of cold air soaring past her left cheekbone, watching wind fill the little sail, Hester realised that in her dank cabin aboard the Wellington she had left behind her much diminished roll of banknotes, and that for her own survival she was entirely reliant on finding Crow still alive in a country that stretched from the northern reaches of Europe to the very furthest east.

  42

  The guard at the gates of Chudovo subjected Nadezhda and Kitto to a moment of heart-stopping scrutiny, then yawned again, shook his head, and scratched himself. ‘Leave your mounts with me. General Krakowski’s orders – he’s in charge here. Our Cossacks will see none of the horseflesh falls into French hands. Krakowski’s requisitioned the mayor’s house. Third street on your left – you can’t miss it.’ His gaze flickered with complete disinterest over both of them, and Nadezhda knew he hadn’t seen past her cropped hair, her jacket and breeches. Lounging at her side, Kitto thought he knew everything about her, but he was wrong. She pushed the thought away: she had her duty. She had been as honest with him as was wise, perhaps more so.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Kitto said in French. ‘I haven’t a clue what he just told you, but I don’t like it all the same. There’s something not right in this place.’

  Forcing herself to concentrate on the present moment and not on her imminent betrayal of him, Nadezhda eyed the quiet, dusty streets – a jumble of wooden buildings and straw-strewn alleyways snaking off into sunlit quiet. The guard just watched them both with the impassive boredom of a man with his orders. Kitto couldn’t have looked less receptive to explanation, his fine black brows drawn into a frown.

  ‘There should be at least a hundred head of horses around here,’ Nadezhda said, playing her part, saying what Kitto would expect her to. ‘If we get to Petersburg without them, and I’ve disobeyed my orders—’

  ‘Ilya’s orders, not yours. Anyway, your promotion won’t be valid in hell,’ he interrupted with laconic arrogance. He looked down at her now with his eyebrows raised, and she walked off down the street. He might have the hunting instincts of a young Amur leopard, but he was also the cosseted second son of some English noble house, and it was quite clear that as a result he possessed no concept of failure’s true cost – isolation, shame and poverty. And yet Nadezhda didn’t have to look to know that he’d followed her, catching up with a handful of loping strides.

  ‘You must see that it’s too quiet in this town,’ he said conversationally. ‘Why are the houses here all shuttered in the middle of the day? The French have been here.’

  Nadezhda stopped where she stood. ‘Well, what can we do about it? The town gate is guarded, and if they don’t want us to leave it’s a safe bet we’d both of us take a bullet before we were even halfway over the wall. Whatever’s amiss here, I don’t see what else we can do but play along for now.’ He was right: the entire town seemed almost to pulsate before her eyes with concealed danger. She suppressed a moment’s wild panic, knowing just how much they would have to trust each other, and how much she was keeping from him about her true intentions. Still oblivious to the extent of her deception, Kitto shrugged, but as they fell into step beside one another, she knew he’d slipped into that almost otherworldly state of awareness, silently assessing every clot of shadow, every shuttered window.

  ‘This must be the turning.’ She forced herself to sound unconcerned for the benefit of anyone else who might be listening. A narrow, shaded alleyway led away from the dirt-rutted main street, shaded by cherry trees blossoming with incongruous cheer. Here, at last, were signs of life. They passed three shaven-headed Cossack horsemen sitting outside one shuttered house, stirring a pot of wheatgerm kasha on a fire belching gobbets of smoke that raked the back of Nadezhda’s throat. Children burst from one of the houses and ran across their path. Little girls in white embroidered blouses and long bright skirts now splashed with mud stopped to stare at their stained and dusty uniforms before disappearing into a shadowy back door, herded inside by a watchful Kalmyk woman wearing a long white apron that almost glowed in the dark doorway where she stood. The alleyway opened out into a neat square with a fountain playing in the middle, and Nadezhda saw the mayor’s house immediately – a gabled wooden mansion with carvings of wolves and pine trees above the wide front door.

  Krakowski’s manservant led them into a light, elegant drawing-room; the wooden walls had been painted a pale shade of grey, and lace curtains danced at the windows. Nadezhda suppressed another wave of hideous unease and turned to the Uhlan general ad
vancing upon her, one meaty hand held out to shake.

  ‘You must be Lieutenant Rumyantsev.’ Heavily built, General Krakowski was still clad in a padded dressing gown over his drab grey uniform, and Nadezhda held her breath through the usual heart-stopping moment of uncertainty, but his gaze swept over her with disinterest. He turned to Kitto, so tall, silent and ever watchful in his scarlet jacket, dusty black hair disrespectfully untidy. ‘And this, I take it, is Captain Helford of the Coldstream Regiment, no less? Won’t you join us to break your fast? I believe we’ve a certain matter to discuss. The need of the cavalry commissariat in Petersburg is quite understandable, I assure you, with Marshal Davout’s intentions as well as Alexander’s still so confoundedly unclear, not to mention Napoleon’s. My wife and daughters will be quite delighted with your company at breakfast – we have none of that by-your-lady lounging about drinking chocolate in bed here, you’ll see.’

  Kitto nodded, the barest minimum demanded by courtesy, and Nadezhda pulled the roll of orders out of her bag, thrusting the sheaves of paper at Krakowski. ‘I’ve orders to requisition all horses in Chudovo, General,’ she said firmly. ‘Any in the town not for the immediate use of your men are to come with us. I’m grateful for the assistance of your Cossacks, but I’m entirely responsible for the herd, as you’ll see from my orders, and can leave the horses no longer.’

  ‘Can you not, sir?’ General Krakowski was clearly not used to being so addressed by subordinate officers, even if they were commissioned into the Semenovsky Guards. He took the orders from her, glancing through them. ‘What’s this? Meet with troops stationed along the Chudovo road for assistance if this is felt to be expedient. I see you dispensed with that piece of advice. How unwise.’ The hollow expression in Krakowski’s pale brown eyes was completely at odds with the mundanity of his tone, and Nadezhda felt another cold slick of fear down her back. Beside her, Kitto stood in tense silence, one hand resting on the hilt of the Mameluk cutlass sheathed at his belt. Krakowski glanced over to the double doors which at that moment flew open, admitting a bright, fluttering explosion of feminine voices and laughter, and a woman of high colour and fading fair hair drawn into a low knot at the nape of her neck advanced on them both in a flurry of greetings, without appearing to notice the Siberian atmosphere. Madam Krakowski was flanked by daughters, one who looked just out of the schoolroom and the other younger still; they both stared at Kitto, who contrived to be so infuriatingly breathtaking in his filthy scarlet jacket.