Wicked by Design

by Katy Moran

  Everyone else was watching Kitto, expectant, all except Crow, who just looked momentarily even more exhausted and said, ‘For God’s sake, boy, sit.’ He turned to Castlereagh, who was now leaning back in his chair, looking at Nadezhda with a complete lack of expression. ‘What’s wrong, my lord, isn’t this exactly what you wanted?’ Crow went on, gently. ‘Nadezhda Kurakina is here, as you requested.’

  ‘This speaks only of your brother’s loyalty and sense of duty, not your own,’ Castlereagh said smoothly. ‘That, or the ambition of Miss Kurakina.’

  ‘I have no desire to be your queen, or even your political pawn, but I have even less desire for another man’s life to sit on my conscience,’ Nadezhda said. ‘I am here, and so Captain Helford’s brother should go free.’ She spoke in French but she might just as well have spoken in Russian, for the men only glanced at her as if she were some sort of mechanical curiosity like one of the clockwork monkeys from Astley’s Amphitheatre.

  Kitto caught the warning in Crow’s expression and said nothing.

  ‘It can hardly be suggested that the girl came of her own free choice,’ Lieven said quickly. ‘I’m sure you’ll all appreciate that this is going to be difficult enough to smooth over with the tsar as it is – but in the interests of keeping our friend Napoleon in check, I’m naturally willing to make the effort should the Cabinet be agreeable to it. Miss Kurakina’s disappearance is already causing great consternation in Petersburg. Even more so than the death of Lord Cathcart’s son, in such suspicious circumstances. Nevertheless, we must also appreciate the fact that it was Lord Lamorna’s quick action that enabled the safe evacuation of Petersburg, even as Napoleon retreated.’

  ‘Not just that!’ Kitto could no longer contain himself. ‘He told Napoleon that Alexander had sworn himself to Britain finally and irrevocably even though he hadn’t yet even done that – Napoleon only retreated because he thought he’d be outnumbered.’

  ‘And if you can get them to believe that,’ Crow said lazily, ‘you’ll have my eternal respect.’

  Kitto knew then that Crow walked towards his own death with open arms.

  ‘Oh, pull yourself together,’ Crow said to him in Cornish, but he was smiling, and Kitto found that he couldn’t breathe. Vansittart passed him a cup of wine, but he got up and fled to the window and stood facing it in a vain attempt to collect himself.

  ‘Quite,’ Castlereagh said. ‘Regardless of all this messy business about the French, given the disturbance Lord Lamorna elicits everywhere he goes, does it not seem wisest to make an example of him, whether or not we have an heir who might be made acceptable to the populace? Captain Helford, come and sit down.’

  Kitto put his hands to his face, then clasped the cold stone windowsill, and went to take his seat once more, his distress so clearly visible to everyone in the room that he was sure he would never forget the shame. Beneath the table, Nadezhda took his hand in her own.

  ‘Well, it’s gratifying at least to have the measure of one’s own brother,’ Crow said, incomprehensibly. ‘Make sure you don’t give in to Thomas Simmens about the lower farm. The man’s entirely a chancer – the Trewarthens have held it well enough since the 1650s. And don’t listen to Greaves about the copper seam at Wheal Barn, either. Or marry before you feel you must.’

  ‘No—’ Kitto said, quite winded with grief, but Lord Sidmouth interrupted, holding up one liver-spotted hand for silence.

  ‘What did you mean, Lamorna, when you said that you were glad you had the measure of the boy?’

  ‘Only that he did exactly what I hoped, and what I expected of him, knowing him as I do.’ Crow looked at Kitto then, but his expression gave nothing away. ‘It’s true – you behaved just as I knew you would when I harangued you in the unsporting way that I did, south of Chudovo. You left, taking Miss Kurakina as far from me as you thought you could get. I would’ve been disappointed had you acted in any other way, you hot-tempered, entirely unmanageable young malcontent.’

  Kitto stared at him with everything to say but no power to speak, as did every other person in the room.

  ‘Jack,’ Lord Vansittart said wearily, ‘what do you mean by this? You actually intended Miss Kurakina to come to London under Captain Helford’s escort instead of your own?’

  Crow sighed. ‘It’s not as complicated as you all seem to think.’ He turned to address Sidmouth, Camden and the others, ignoring Lord Castlereagh. ‘I was meant to fail in my mission. Why else was my account at Coutts embargoed by Castlereagh himself? Why else was I followed and shot by a damned fool of a young man filled with delusions of grandeur by people far more intelligent than he was? God knows I pity his poor father, who will never get over it. But in those circumstances, how far do you think I’d have got with Miss Kurakina? I could offer her scant protection. I should have led her only into danger, and perhaps to her own death as well as my own.’ Crow turned to Kitto. ‘By the time I found my brother, I was a wanted man. It’s only fortunate for you that Captain Helford’s loyalties are so bound to England that having encountered me in Napoleon’s camp, he didn’t trust me to bring Miss Kurakina to London, and did it himself. The use of my visit to Napoleon you must decide for yourselves.’

  Kitto opened his mouth to speak, but fell silent at the look on Crow’s face.

  ‘Well, that seems incontrovertible, at least,’ Lord Vansittart said, to a low-voiced rumble of agreement from up and down the table.

  Castlereagh smiled, sitting still as a spider, and Crow watched from the far side of the table, with just the same wholly deceptive nonchalance as if he were about to destroy him at hazard or faro. ‘You can argue about what I said to Napoleon for as long as you like, and in whose interests, but the facts remain that he ordered Davout into retreat, and Petersburg was saved, and the entire North Sea isn’t at this moment full of French warships. Doesn’t anyone else care why Lord Castlereagh is so reluctant to find an heir that might be acceptable to Britain that he should send me to Russia to die in pursuit of the one still-living royal offshoot not tainted at some stage by association with Napoleon?’

  Kitto could only watch him, along with the entire Council Chamber, so winded by outrage and relief that he couldn’t speak. Crow just sat back in his chair as though he were waiting for someone to suggest they join the women in the drawing-room after dinner.

  ‘Well, this at least leaves us in no doubt as to Captain Helford’s loyalty,’ Lord Vansittart said, at last. He turned to Castlereagh. ‘Robert, I’m afraid I wholly reject the notion that the boy is complicit in anything Lamorna might have done. He brought the girl to England.’

  Kitto only looked at Crow. ‘You did it on purpose?’ he demanded in Cornish, because this was between he and his brother alone. ‘You deliberately made me so angry that I ran away with Nadezhda?’

  ‘It was really quite easy,’ Crow said. ‘Actually, it was indefensible, and I’m sorry. Do try and be less foolish, won’t you?’ He turned to Lord Vansittart. ‘Might I beg the favour of a moment alone with my brother before returning to my cell?’

  ‘A young officer allowed to meet alone with a traitor – is that really wise?’ Castlereagh said smoothly, and Kitto wondered what on earth they had all done to make this man loathe them so much.

  ‘It’s surely better that you don’t, for the boy’s sake, Jack,’ Lord Vansittart said, and Crow only shrugged.

  ‘Let me, damn it,’ Kitto said.

  ‘Now then, you must do as I say, even if you won’t listen to anyone else,’ Crow said. ‘Va-t-en, Christophe. Go.’

  Lieven and his father’s friend Lord Vansittart walked beside Kitto to the door, with Nadezhda behind them, and he remembered very little after that until they reached the carriage. With Count Lieven watching them both, Nadezhda couldn’t touch him, or he her, and Kitto realised that Lieven had been talking to him for some time, and he hadn’t heard a word.

  ‘Well,’ Lieven went on, ‘whatever one thinks of your brother, Helford, he comprehensively exonerated you there. I’m
sure there’ll be no difficulty about rejoining your regiment when the time comes.’

  Kitto found that he could not reply, and was only glad that the slight pressure of Nadezhda’s little finger against his as they sat side by side allowed him to rein in every shattered emotion. Soon she would be gone, drawn into a world of palaces and court intrigue, where he could never follow, and they would never again ride with the wind in their hair, or at least not together.

  64

  Hester knew quite well that walking alone through London at night from the Lievens’ to St James’s Square was by far the most dangerous thing she’d ever done, more likely to kill her even than shooting people, which, she thought grimly, had become almost a habit since her marriage. She gripped the pistol even now, primed and ready to load, held at her side and concealed in the folds of the walking habit of ombre serge as she made her way down the wide pavement. The moon had risen and was nearly full, and on reaching the wide square she kept to the shadows cast by the houses. The Castlereaghs’ windows were dark and shuttered, just as he had promised. She had only a scant few hours between the time the servants finally went to bed and rose again; the Lievens’ had been wreathed in thick black silence as the house slept, Kitto so silently inconsolable that evening that he could neither eat nor see anyone. Hester was sure that had it been remotely possible for him to be alone with Nadezhda, she would have known how to comfort him. Supper had been taken on a tray in her room, a soup of fresh peas and cream, honeyed strawberries in a dish; Nadezhda had dined alone with the Lievens, and Hester had heard the occasional burst of rapid-fire Russian rising up the stairs from the dining-room. Nadezhda seemed to be on far more intimate terms with their hosts than one would suppose for a girl who had only just met them, and dressed as a soldier.

  Crossing the silent square, Hester at last reached the house, and swiftly went down the ill-swept steps at the front, treading on last autumn’s dead leaves. The scullery door had been left open, as Castlereagh had promised in his note, and Hester turned the cast-iron handle, stepping into a corridor black as the bottom of a coal scuttle. This unlocked door was her only way in, but she was sure it could easily also condemn her; Castlereagh had surely not gone into his own servants’ quarters to turn the key himself: there was already at least one witness to her visit. But she couldn’t think about that now, about what the consequences of all this might be. Now, all she could do was to hope that Castlereagh’s Emily really had gone to their Kentish retreat at North Cray, and that he was alone. The entire London house would be in darkness, every lamp and every candle extinguished, all except one, as he waited for her.

  Hester closed the door, one hand on the wall, flakes of damp whitewash loosening beneath her fingertips, seized by a sudden childish terror of wolf spiders and rats, and in the back of her mind she heard Catlin’s voice: Don’t be daft. Catlin wouldn’t have been afraid, and even if she had, she would have continued regardless; one could always count on Catlin to do what needed to be done. Hester forced herself to place one jean-booted foot before the other, to carry on walking – more than once, her fingertips brushed doorframes and cold brass doorknobs, but after striking her head hard on a shelf of jars in what turned out to be a larder, she sensed her way towards the heart of the house – first towards the warmth of the kitchen, still lit with the warm yellow glow of the banked-down fire, then on up the stairs. There would likely be a mastiff dozing somewhere in the family quarters of the house, and she dared not leave this dark warren of servants’ passageways.

  One step at a time, unable to see even her own foot, she counted the narrow, winding flights of stairs until she came to the third floor. The servants’ entrance to Castlereagh’s bedchamber was likely through his dressing-room, which would be in darkness by now, and indistinguishable. Now there was no choice: feeling her way along the wall until she touched a baize-covered door, Hester turned the handle and stepped out into a wide hallway, moonlight spilling across Indian rugs from a tall window. She caught the faint scent of potted tuberose and crossed the hallway in silence; one door was outlined with the faintest glow of candlelight, as though it had been drawn with witchcraft or marsh-light. Hester shivered: she felt oddly weightless, as though blown along on a rising wind like a puff of white dandelion seed, all quite beyond her own control, because surely she could not be about to offer herself to Lord Castlereagh. When she pushed open the door, she found him in an armchair near the fire with a quilted vermilion smoking jacket over his clothes, legs crossed, in idle contemplation of the flames. With mocking courtesy, he stood up as she closed the door behind her.

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘how happy I am that you came. Such a privilege.’

  There had been no choice, as they both well knew. He gestured to the chair before the fire and Hester sat, numb, breathing in the lingering scent of his presence: stale tobacco and port. He had been drinking, he with his head like a marble Greek statue, and well-moulded, wine-stained lips, and she wondered how so fair and handsome a face could belong to a man with so wicked a heart.

  ‘I’ve looked forward to this for a long time.’ He smiled, standing before her. ‘If only we could have done this sooner, Hester, so much sorrow might have been avoided. Claire was just the same. She refused me, too. Such a sad waste. She would have been better with me than Lamorna, instead of bleeding to death in that terrible fashion, bearing a child to a man who sired them upon his servants.’

  Claire. Hester understood with a cold jolt that he was talking about Crow and Kitto’s mother and father, just as he had done before. He was really very drunk, she realised. He held out one hand, as though he had asked her to dance at an assembly. She took it, recoiling at the light pressure of his touch; never again would she take Crow by the hand as he had surely taken Countess Tatyana Orlova’s, and as Castlereagh himself had perhaps once led the previous Lady Lamorna down some long-ago dance, when the men had worn white powdered wigs and the women hooped dresses of satin and brocade, and French soil was red with the blood of revolution. Standing in the firelight, Castlereagh pulled her close to him.

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to cry.’ He bowed slightly, leaning closer, and very gently kissed her neck. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’ve always had a yearning to taste such exotic fruit,’ he went on, and Hester had to remind herself to breathe as he placed one hand on her shoulder, running it down her arm, then spreading his fingers across her corseted breast, brushing naked skin. ‘You’re not the Lady Lamorna I thought was mine, but perhaps it’s better this way. I wanted her so very badly, you see,’ he whispered. ‘My Claire. She was mine.’

  Hester forced herself to speak. ‘My lord, I think we’d be more comfortable upon the bed, no?’

  ‘Of course, you’re right,’ he said, and Hester’s fingers shook as she unlaced the silken cord of his smoking jacket, easing the heavy embroidered silk from his well-made shoulders so that it fell to the polished floorboards at his feet, leaving him standing before her in breeches, waistcoat and shirt. She was quicker with his cravat, although the heat of his breath against her face churned her stomach: he was closer to her height than Crow’s, and they were face to face. Smiling, she unbuttoned his shirt, just a little.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘so you like to take control, you well-taught little slut?’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Hester said, and allowed him to kiss her on the lips although his hot, wet, pressing tongue sickened her. Stepping closer, she pushed him lightly on to the bed, so that he lay on his back. He had really left her with no choice but to do this. Hester leaned forwards, kissing him again, and even as Lord Castlereagh held her in his arms, she allowed the small knife to slip from the long sleeve of her gown until it lay beside him on the counterpane, quite unnoticed even as she placed all her weight on the other arm in order to free the little pearl-handled blade from the leather inlaid sheath. Reaching low, between his legs, with her other hand, Hester said, ‘Are you ready, my lord?’ And when he said yes, oh yes, she pushed the blade with extreme precis
ion into the side of his neck, severing the artery even as his hot blood splashed into her face.

  65

  Crow no longer slept for any length of time; after all, he was soon to rest in perpetuity. He lay on his back upon the narrow bed, contemplating the slow dance of dust motes caught in afternoon light streaking in through the tall lancet window. He thought of the family chapel at Nansmornow, and Reverend Tregarthen alternately boring and terrorising his congregation in the village church, and the Methodists singing in Newlyn before Captain Wentworth had given the command to fire at will into their chapel. He was not at all sure he believed in the concept of heaven but wished that he did, and in any case he’d scarcely earned a place there: Morwenna had died so cold, and so afraid, and he would be as far from her in death as he now was in life. He had always been painfully surprised at how the very young might be comforted by nothing more than one’s presence and one’s embrace: first Kitto, then Morwenna. It was so exactly like Castlereagh to make him suffer by waiting to hear the date and time of his execution that Crow didn’t move when he at last heard footfalls in the stone passageway outside his cell, and that metallic scrape of a key in the lock, and bolts drawn back, one after another, until the door swung open. He couldn’t bear the thought of Castlereagh’s satisfied smile were the man to hear that he’d been even slightly disconcerted, but it wasn’t one of the prison guards who now came in. Instead, Lord Vansittart walked in alone and looked down at Crow in ill-disguised exasperation.