Cecily often said things like this. The daughter of a penniless man of letters, she had literary aspirations herself. She’d told her father she was in the country, staying with a dying cousin on her mother’s side. The proceeds of the auction would be passed off as an inheritance.
‘He believes you?’ Pamela had asked.
Cecily had given a hard little laugh. ‘Maybe he’s convinced himself he does, but he knows exactly where I am. If we say it out loud, then he’d have to stop me. So we say this.’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘It will be over soon enough.’
Now she nudged Pamela in the ribs. ‘Look, there.’
Opposite the tableaux house was a gambling club called the Golden Pear Tree. A party had just emerged from the doors, and were walking through the snow towards a carriage. Two gentlemen and two ladies. The men had fine clothes, but not much else to commend them. Receding hair and receding chins – Pamela was getting used to gentlemen like that.
The women were a different prospect. The taller had glossy brown ringlets, pinned so that they framed her laughing face. She wore a bright canary-yellow gown, and a broad-brimmed hat sewn with yellow roses. The other had piled red hair, and wore a white silk dress, ruffled in delicate layers, like a billowing cloud. She was trying to catch a snowflake in her mouth, but kept laughing too hard.
‘That’s Kitty Carefree, the most beautiful woman in the Whores’ Club,’ Cecily told her. ‘A baronet and a Member of Parliament once fought a duel over her favour. The other’s Lucy Loveless. They say one of her lovers tried to kill himself because she wouldn’t be kept by him. She finds love tiresome, which only makes them love her more.’
The women were hanging on to one another now, laughing uncontrollably. One of the gentlemen called out to them from the carriage to hurry up. Kitty spun around, making a pattern in the snow. Then she ran to the carriage, and was pulled into it by the men. Lucy followed, a little slower, and happened to glance up at the window. Seeing the girls’ faces pressed against it, she raised a gloved hand. Then she too was pulled into the carriage, and the door slammed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHE WOULDN’T LET them put Lucy in a pauper’s grave. Caro had decided it last night, after she’d returned from Jonathan Stone’s. That morning she’d gone to see Sir Amos and had proposed to pay for a funeral. She’d spent the rest of the day making the necessary arrangements, and afterwards had taken Gabriel to the park.
These tasks gave her respite from her fears. Even in the park, as she’d watched Gabriel run up and down with his hoop, she’d thought about Lucy Loveless and Jonathan Stone, rather than the child growing inside her like a canker. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that she had been lied to by Stone, and that Simon Dodd-Bellingham and Stone’s man of business, Erasmus Knox, had somehow been party to that lie.
Yet when she returned to the house, to the absence of a letter from Harry, her troubles crowded in. She thought of the disgrace awaiting her, and the little bottle in her escritoire.
A knock at the front door dragged her out of these dismal thoughts. Thinking it might be the penny-post boy, she hurried to the drawing-room door and was surprised to see her brother Mordechai in the hall together with Harry’s patron in the ministry, Nicholas Cavill-Lawrence.
She received them in the drawing room. Tea was poured, but not drunk, it quickly becoming apparent that this was not a social call.
‘I don’t believe in sparing feelings,’ Cavill-Lawrence began. ‘We’ve known one another long enough to be able to all speak candidly. Yesterday you paid a call on Jonathan Stone. I’d like to know the purpose of that visit.’
Caro bridled at his tone – and the feeling of being spied upon. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Never mind how I know. Just answer the question.’
Cavill-Lawrence’s voice held an uncharacteristic note of strain. Caro studied him curiously. His coat, breeches and waistcoat were a match in ‘true’ Tory blue, signifying staunchness to King George, Church and country. Yet in matters of policy he was a pragmatist, hence his survival during the latest round of bloodletting in the government, from which he’d emerged strengthened at the newly created Home Office. Hands upon his substantial paunch, his startling white eyebrows drew together, two albino spiders conferring over their prey. One eye was misted with cataract, the other a watery blue, but sharp. Mordechai said Cavill-Lawrence now oversaw the kingdom’s Secret Office. His motives were often opaque, his methods unsparing.
‘If Stone has compromised you in any way, Caro, we must be told,’ Mordechai said.
‘Compromised me? How? What do you mean?’
‘Stone was at Vauxhall for Agnetti’s exhibition. We all know his reputation when it comes to the weaker sex. You must have been meeting someone in that bower.’
‘You think I –?’ Caro started to laugh. ‘Jonathan Stone!’
‘This isn’t a laughing matter.’ Cavill-Lawrence frowned. ‘If you have struck up a friendship with Jonathan Stone, then I want to know why. Caroline Corsham does nothing except by design.’
‘There is no friendship,’ Caro said. ‘I found a lost signet ring. I took it to my jeweller. He identified the jeweller who made it by the assaying mark. That jeweller in turn told me he’d made it for Jonathan Stone. I simply returned it.’
‘A lot of trouble to go to over a lost ring,’ Cavill-Lawrence said dryly.
The men’s faces were sceptical. She needed them to believe her. The last thing she wanted was them prying more closely into her personal affairs.
‘It was in the bower, the same one where the woman was killed. I went back the other day to look for the document I thought I’d seen there. I didn’t find it, but I did find that ring.’
Mordechai breathed deeply. ‘Why would you do that?’
She glared at him. ‘A woman died. It seemed the right thing to do.’
‘Why didn’t you take the ring to the magistrate?’ Cavill-Lawrence asked. ‘Why call on Stone yourself?’
‘Because Sir Amos doesn’t give a damn. To him she’s just a prostitute.’
Cavill-Lawrence exchanged a glance with Mordechai. ‘Stone didn’t ask you any questions? About Harry’s work? Nothing political? Or about the bank?’
‘No, why would he?’
‘You will have nothing more to do with Stone,’ Mordechai said. ‘Attend to your household duties. Attend to your son.’
Caro was tempted to speak her mind, but this was an opportunity to press Cavill-Lawrence for information. Instead, she adopted a pose and tone of contrition. ‘It is hard for a woman when she lacks her husband’s counsel. So many weeks have passed now since I last had word from Harry. Please tell me when is he likely to return.’
Cavill-Lawrence’s expression was devoid of sympathy. ‘I regret to say you must be patient a while longer.’ He dabbed a silk handkerchief to his bad eye, regarding her intently with the other. ‘What I am about to tell you is highly confidential. I do so in the hope that you understand the precarious nature of our position. The slightest thing could upset that balance.’
‘Any hint of scandal,’ Mordechai clarified sourly.
‘Harry isn’t in France,’ Cavill-Lawrence said. ‘He is in Philadelphia – and may be for some months more.’
Caro stared at him. America! Six, seven weeks’ voyage away at best. Hope was stripped from her like a layer of skin.
‘Everyone is tired of the war,’ Cavill-Lawrence said. ‘The French have little money left, the Americans have won their independence in everything but name, and the less said about our own position the better. But these Paris talks have been a French performance from the first. Everything decided upon their terms, Vergennes holding court – only now they find they’ve overplayed their hand. Even the Americans, their partners in war, are unhappy with their demands. And the more forward-thinking members of our delegation spied an opportunity.’
Caro’s head was spinning with the shock of it all, but she was still capable o
f following his train of thought. ‘You mean to offer the Americans better terms than the French?’
‘You should put her on the board of the bank,’ Cavill-Lawrence said to Mordechai, who didn’t smile. ‘Cut out France and Spain. Give America all the land south of Canada they want. We get the return of loyalist property, and we get all those eager American customers for our manufactured goods. Embrace a peaceful future as trading partners. It makes perfect sense, when you think about it.’
To those who’d set such great store by English patriotism; to those who’d lost friends, brothers, sons, fighting the rebels for the last seven years; to those who saw every stride by the fledgling American nation upon the world stage as a humiliation – Caro imagined it would make very little sense at all.
‘What of the King?’ she said. ‘He’ll never stand for it.’
‘His Majesty has shown enormous wisdom in coming to terms with our position. Not everyone will – certainly not in the Commons, certainly not in the country. All that patriotism stirred up in the war – wish it was easy to put it back in the bottle, but it ain’t. We’ll have our work cut out to bring them round and we like Harry for the task. A war hero who sees the peace. You follow the logic, I’m sure.’
‘What he’s trying to say,’ Mordechai continued, ‘is that there must be no more visits to the Vauxhall bowers. No more question marks over your reputation. Much more than your husband’s honour is at stake.’
Mordechai knew, Caro thought. He knew about America and he didn’t tell me. She supposed he and Cavill-Lawrence must have an arrangement, much like the one Cavill-Lawrence had had with their father: you look after my interests, I’ll look after yours. A deal on good terms with America would certainly offer its share of opportunities for the Craven Bank.
Cavill-Lawrence eyed her darkly. ‘And no more concerning yourself with matters that lie far outside your province. Like this murdered prostitute.’
Caro heard him only distantly, still coming to terms with the news. Harry wasn’t coming home in time. That left only one course.
Cavill-Lawrence rose from the sofa and bowed. Mordechai and he shook hands. Jonathan Stone is a problem to them, Caro thought absently. I wonder why.
She waited until the front door had closed. ‘Jonathan Stone said something odd. He said, “Everyone has secrets. Just ask your brother Ambrose.” Were they friends?’
Mordechai gave her a weary look. ‘I never kept account of Ambrose’s friends. Stone and he are men of shared tastes. It wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘Do you think it possible that Stone knows – about Ambrose, I mean?’
‘They may have discussed it – how can we know?’
‘The way he said it,’ Caro said thoughtfully, ‘it sounded like a threat. Because I’d asked him about Lucy Loveless and the ring. Yet if there was nothing to it, then why did he feel the need to threaten me?’
‘Isn’t it just another reason to leave all of this alone? I’m at a loss to know what’s got into you, Caro.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
WINCHESTER PALACE LAY off the Borough high street, next to the river. Long abandoned by the Bishops of Winchester, much ravaged by time and weather and vandals, most of its buildings had been converted into dilapidated lodgings. As Child walked through the crumbling gatehouse, the bell of St George the Martyr was tolling nine o’clock. Earlier that evening, he’d met Jenny Wren again at the Red Lion. As promised, she’d spent the day making inquiries after Nelly Diver, the pox-scarred prostitute, and had discovered that Nelly presently plied her trade at the Tabard, a tavern on Borough High Street. Child had just come from there. He hadn’t seen any woman matching Nelly’s description in the crowded taproom, but he’d played dice with some of the regulars, and learned that she lodged here at the old palace.
The medieval hall with its rose window loomed over the palace grounds, surrounded by decaying kitchens, stables, and workshops. A tangled wilderness of a garden encroached upon the buildings. The paths between them were blacker than a Benedictine’s cowl, and Child kept his hand on his pistol, watching the shadows. Somewhere a couple were squabbling, their baby crying, another woman keening with what sounded like drunken despair. A dog barked incessantly off in the distance.
A thin-faced girl with tangled hair poked her head out of a window, inviting Child to come inside, murmuring filthy endearments. Winchester Geese, they called the whores down here. In the old days, the bishops had licensed prostitution, reasoning that if you couldn’t beat vice, you might as well profit from it. Child had applied much the same logic during his stint as magistrate of Deptford. He asked the girl for Nelly Diver, and she scowled until he mollified her with twopence. She told him to look out for a brick building with a green door next to the bear pit.
Child walked in the direction she pointed, through an overgrown walled garden, into a courtyard full of low buildings that looked like workshops. A heavy stench of yeast suggested that someone had turned their use to brewing. A doorway in the courtyard wall led on to a cobblestone yard, with a sunken bear pit at its centre. Next to it was a brick building, the size of a small barn, with double doors facing the bear pit, and a smaller door dappled with flaking green paint on the other side.
As Child drew closer, he saw that the door stood open a few inches, the wood around the lock splintered, as if someone had put a boot to it. His pulse quickening, he drew his pistol, softly calling Nelly’s name. When she didn’t answer, he gave the door a gentle kick, and peered inside. A low fire smouldered in a hearth, casting a dim light upon a single, high-ceilinged room. Against the wall with the double doors was a large rusting cage. The barn must once have housed the bear-keeper and his animals. Child didn’t like to guess why Nelly had kept the cage.
He collided with something in the dark and swore. Squinting, he made out an overturned table. Casting around for further obstacles, his eyes getting used to the dark, he picked out a horsehair mattress, ripped open, and a splintered chest, the contents strewn across the floor. And a woman, lying on the ground next to the chest.
Child hastened to her side. She was still breathing, but badly beaten; her face covered in blood. Beneath the blood, he could see her skin was heavily pox-scarred. He shook her gently, and her eyes flickered open.
‘My name is Child,’ he said. ‘Please don’t be afraid, Nelly. I’m here to help you.’
Her eyes widened in panic. Child sought more words of reassurance, before it dawned on him too late that she was looking beyond him. He rose, starting to turn, just as a cord was whipped across his throat from behind. His head was wrenched back against the body of his unseen assailant, and the breath went out of him. He clawed helplessly at the cord with his free hand, but it dug deep into his neck. His pistol was in the other hand, but he couldn’t see his assailant to get off a shot.
His eyes bulged and his vision blurred. Nelly’s eyes had closed again. ‘Come on,’ his assailant said, a gruff voice with an Ulster edge. ‘Give it up.’
He was trying to force Child onto his knees, but Child was heavier and wouldn’t go down. For a moment, they staggered together, until Child stopped pulling away from the cord, and propelled himself backwards, into his assailant. The man’s weight had been braced the other way, and it took him by surprise. They moved fast, coming up hard against the bars of the cage. Child drove his assailant into it, using his weight to heave himself forward and back. The man grunted with pain, but Child’s strength was ebbing fast. Summoning the last of it, he slammed his assailant into the cage again. One of the rusting bars gave way, and they fell through the gap.
They landed heavily, Child on top of his assailant. The cord around his throat slackened, and Child rolled off him, drawing a lungful of air. The man’s hand went to his belt, a flash of steel in the darkness. Child brought his pistol up and fired.
A white flash and a crack that echoed around the barn. The ball struck his assailant square in the face, taking half his head with it. Child closed his eyes.
He lay the
re a long time, letting the fear and the emotion wash out of him. Christ, but it hurt to breathe; his throat felt like a gravel pit. When he opened his eyes again, Nelly was standing over him. She held a candlestick in her hand, and Child could see that she was trembling. She spat on the man’s corpse. ‘Bastardly gullion.’
His body aching from the struggle, Child sat up. Nelly held the candle up to his face, peering at him through bruised eyes. ‘What quarter of heaven did you spring from, then?’
Child knew from the Bridewell record that Nelly was thirty-three, but she looked much older. Her back was bent, her cheeks scarred, her dark hair wild and untamed, crawling with lice. Her dress might once have been yellow, but was much stained with blood and the seed of her customers.
‘My name’s Peregrine Child. I’m a thief-taker looking into the murder of Lucy Loveless. I wanted to ask you some questions about your dealings with her.’
She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Are you going to start beating me and all?’
Child turned to the corpse, the enormity of what had just happened only now hitting him. It wasn’t the first time he’d killed a man, but it was the first time he’d done so without the protection of the law. ‘This man was asking you questions about Lucy Loveless?’
Nelly’s face was sullen. ‘Wanted to know everything she’d told me. What she’d given me to look after. Didn’t believe anything I said. Just kept hitting me.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
In the candlelight, Child could see that he’d been a heavyset man of about his own age. The clothes of a gentleman, good cloth, sober in cut.
‘Never seen him before in my life,’ Nelly said. ‘I didn’t like the look of him, so I tried to close the door, but he forced his way in.’
She crouched down by the corpse and started going through the dead man’s pockets, pulling out a purse, a tobacco pouch, a bundle of papers. She seemed to be looking for something, muttering to herself. Child picked up one of the papers she discarded. A letter of commission, stating that the bearer, one Richmond Baird, was an agent of the Home Office. Child closed his eyes again. ‘Fuck.’
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