He pointed to a painting. ‘Do you know the story of Philomena? She was raped by her brother-in-law, who cut out her tongue so she couldn’t tell anyone what he had done. The gods transformed her into a nightingale so that she could sing.’ He smiled. ‘So it was with Theresa in our sittings. I watched her grow in confidence, learned how to make her smile. She would laugh, then stop, surprised at herself. Over a few short weeks, we fell in love. I think her parents had almost given up hope that she would ever marry, and when I asked for her hand, they were almost as happy as I was myself.’
He turned away, his face lost in shadow, the candlelight giving his wine a ruby glow.
‘But Theresa was never truly happy. She hid it well, and yet I could tell. The good moments we had – and there were many – could never entirely banish the demons that plagued her. And as we struggled to conceive a child, her troubles only grew. She began drinking more, and became a subject of gossip in Neapolitan society. I hoped that when we moved to England, among her own people, her situation would improve, but she did not adapt to London society either. The ladies, in particular, were not always kind.’
Caro prickled at the condemnation. ‘Theresa wasn’t always the easiest of companions.’
‘No,’ Agnetti conceded. ‘She had an anger within her too, one that I never truly understood. Sometimes I was myself the recipient of it. But often her rage was directed inwards, at herself. The only people in whose company she ever appeared content were Lucy and Kitty – perhaps because she never felt judged by them. I encouraged the association, because I wanted more than anything for Theresa to be happy. Between she and I, relations only worsened.’
He took another gulp of wine, staring at his paintings. ‘We’d argue over her moods, or she’d become upset and break things. Sometimes I grew angry too – this wasn’t the way I wanted to live. I tried to give her the love she needed, but I couldn’t reach her. In the end, distressed, ashamed, I retreated into my work, and we could go for days without speaking. I consulted physicians, even a mad-doctor, but she was furious at me for even talking to them. I tell you this because it is important that you understand Theresa’s character. She loved me, I believe, but she was frightened that she’d lose my love, as she had lost the interest of the man she had loved in India. So she pushed me away before it could happen.’
He leaned forward. ‘You asked me before about Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham. At first, I thought it was merely one of her flirtations. Theresa was often coquettish in public – I am sure you observed it yourself. I think she did it to provoke a reaction, evidence that I still cared. I did care, very much. But I did not wish to encourage such behaviour by responding. I am also one of those men who sometimes struggles to find the right words. I thought if I gave her time and air to breathe, she could find the serenity she sought. Instead, I forced her into the arms of Dodd-Bellingham.’
His voice hardened. ‘I thought him a coarse, boorish fellow from the first. He paid many calls to this house on business for Mr Stone, and Theresa dealt with much of my administration, as Miss Willoughby does now. That too was a mistake upon my part. The lieutenant is, I think, the kind of man who looks for vulnerability in a woman.’
‘When did you start to suspect about him and Theresa?’
‘Over the final few weeks that she resided in this house. But I told myself that she loved me, that she would never hurt me like that. Then came the night of the Amberley Ball. Theresa had just lost the baby, and I was so very worried about her. She was jaundiced – shivering and sweating, but she demanded to go out, and in the end I didn’t have any will left to fight her. At the ball, I lost her in the crowd. I went looking for her, and came out onto the terrace. That was when I saw them – down below, in the privy garden. The lieutenant had my wife bent over a wall, debasing her in the vilest fashion.’ He shuddered. ‘When he looked up and saw me watching them, he smiled.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said, recognizing how much it must be costing him to tell her this.
His voice cracked. ‘I was so angry. At him, at her, at myself. But mostly at how two people who had once loved one another – who still loved one another – could have come to this. For a week I had mourned our dead child, and suddenly I did not even know whether it was mine. Yet I did not shout or beat her. I took no steps towards divorce. I did not call the lieutenant out, or file a suit of criminal conversation. I did nothing. And I think she took that as the greatest betrayal of all. Proof that I didn’t love her, that I was indifferent. It all came back to that single fear in her mind.’
Mr Agnetti’s distress was written in his hunched posture, his twisted mouth. Caro wondered whether he really believed it, this fiction he had written to console himself. She debated telling Agnetti about his wife’s painting – those miniatures were surely a sign of Theresa’s deeper feelings for the lieutenant. Maybe it would ease his burden, help him to forget his wife and his pain? But it might simply hurt him further.
‘You suppose that Pamela and Theresa were rivals for the lieutenant’s affection,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you are right, and their antipathy was greater than I guessed. But I cannot think you right that she was involved in any murder. My wife was a gentle, kind woman. Not a killer. I think in losing the baby, she simply lost some part of herself. I hope when she finds it again, she will return.’
For all his illusions about his marriage, Caro wondered if this part might be true. The loss of her child, her husband’s perceived indifference, her lover’s rejection, her turbulent mind – all might have conspired to make Theresa Agnetti believe that there was little worth staying for. Yet Caro wished she could be certain.
‘You would take her back?’ she asked, thinking of Harry and judgement day. ‘Even after everything she’s done?’
He gave a sad smile. ‘My friends tell me to forget her – that in time I will marry again. But she is still my wife. Whatever she has done, I share a part of that blame, and I refuse to betray her again by losing faith.’ He gestured to his bureau, a cascade of correspondence littering the desktop. ‘I have written to every hospital and asylum in the kingdom. My agents search for her at home and abroad. To date they have found no trace, but one day they will. She is out there somewhere. I know she is.’ His dark eyes bored into her. ‘I have been honest with you, Mrs Corsham, and I have one question to ask you in return. Have you come across any indication of Theresa’s whereabouts in the course of your inquiry? If so, then I beg you to tell me. I cannot rest until I know that she is safe. I would place no legal restraint upon her to return. I wish only to try to persuade her that things will be different.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said. ‘We have found nothing.’
Seeing his disappointment, she chose her next words carefully. ‘Kitty believes that Theresa chose to put an end to her own suffering.’
‘She is still alive,’ he said fiercely, placing his hand upon his heart. ‘I would feel it here, if she was not.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
BACK IN THE private room at the supper house, Jonathan Stone was seated at the table, eating a platter of oysters, Child sitting opposite. Erasmus Knox was standing by the fire.
Child had just given Stone a tale of his movements over the past three days – censored in parts, embroidered in others. Fruitless conversations with whores and taverners. His meeting with Hector – given that the boy was dead, it couldn’t do much harm. His beating at the hands of the Home Office. He described Mrs Corsham as distraught, following the episode at the park with her boy. ‘Give it a few days, and I think she’ll tire of this.’
Stone smiled. ‘You wouldn’t be lying to me, Mr Child? I explained to you that I had a keen ear for the truth.’
‘You know what,’ Child said, attempting to bluff it out. ‘I don’t really care if you don’t believe me. Do your worst in Deptford. I’ll take my chances in court.’ Perhaps Mrs Corsham could buy the judge, after everything they’d been through together. Or her husband could intervene. Stone wasn’t the only one with pow
er and connections.
The moneylender regarded him placidly. ‘I regret that in those circumstances, Mr Knox here will be forced to pay a visit to Samuel Hardcastle. You are acquainted with his wife, Sophie, I believe? I have no wish to destroy his happiness. Nor that of his wife and children. That I am willing to do so should speak volumes about my intent.’
Child’s defiance collapsed like a house of cards in a draught. On one side, Mrs Corsham, who had placed her trust in him. On the other, Sophie, with her happy smile and her lonely heart. Out on the street. Her children disowned and homeless. Because of him.
Stone glanced at Knox. ‘Where is Sophie at this time?’
‘At the Drury Lane playhouse with her husband,’ Knox said. ‘A neighbour’s watching the children.’
‘Sophie has nothing to do with any of this. Please. I’ve told you everything.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Knox addressed Child: ‘We have several testimonies from neighbours and tavern-keepers. People who saw you and Sophie together. Kisses. Tender embraces. Her slipping out of your rooms at all hours. I prefer letters in such cases, but sometimes a human account can be just as eloquent.’
Stone studied Child’s anguished face. ‘Humility is truth. It’s time for you to be humble, Mr Child.’
Child only gazed at him mutely.
‘Your stubbornness in this matter surprises me,’ Stone continued. ‘Especially given your circumstances: your late wife, your dead son.’
Child glared, his eyes moistening, everything spinning. ‘Don’t bring them into it. Just don’t.’
He sensed a flicker of movement from Knox, over by the fire, an acknowledgement of the room’s shift in tension.
‘Your little boy was born simple, isn’t that right?’ Stone sighed. ‘Your wife struggled with it, people say. And you did too. Drinking. Arguing. Staying out all night. And then one day, your wife wandered down to the river, filled her pockets with stones, and tied a larger one around the neck of your little boy. It was three days before they found them.’
‘Stop!’ Child said. ‘I mean it.’
‘And where were you all this while? In the whorehouse. I wonder if that’s why she decided to do it.’
Child sprang at him, hands clawing. Moments later, when he opened his eyes, he was lying on the floor, and Erasmus Knox’s boot was on his throat. Knox pulled him up, righted his chair, and sat him down in it firmly. Stone smiled.
‘Given all that, I am surprised you would be quite so cavalier with Sophie’s future. Your women don’t have much luck, do they, Mr Child?’
Child thought of Sophie performing tricks for soldiers in return for bread money, like those desperate women he’d seen in the soldiers’ taverns earlier that night. Then he heard someone talking, in a voice that sounded like his, telling Stone all about Simon and Julia Ward, about the Whores’ Club and the puzzle purses, about Miss Willoughby and Somerset. About everything.
Much of it Stone already seemed to know, but occasionally he frowned. When it came to Kitty Carefree, now living in Clapham as Katherine Sillerton, he smiled. ‘Very good, Mr Child. Finally, we come to Mrs Corsham. Have you established what she was doing in that bower?’
Child swallowed. ‘She was meeting her,’ he said helplessly. ‘Lucy Loveless.’
Stone blinked in surprise. ‘You are sure?’
‘Mrs Corsham admitted it. She thought Lucy was an Italian contessa, if you recall.’
‘That doesn’t explain why they would have met in the bowers.’
Child stared down at the table. ‘I don’t think Lucy wanted to be seen. Neither did Mrs Corsham. Lucy had offered to help her with some personal trouble.’
Stone leaned forward. ‘What kind of personal trouble?’
Child hardly heard him over the roaring in his ears. ‘I think she’s with child.’
Stone’s smile grew very wide indeed. ‘And just like that, the truth has set you free.’
PAMELA
1 March 1782
Pamela had never ridden in a carriage before. Nor had she ever been in the countryside. Not that she could see much in the darkness. Black fields on either side, high hedgerows, the silver curve of a river.
The carriage held five girls, as well as the lieutenant and his frog-like brother. Pamela was wedged against the door next to Kitty, whose feathers kept tickling her nose. The lieutenant seemed lost in thought, not smiling much tonight. She imagined the pair of them riding alone in a carriage like this. Her dressed as a lady with jewels and furs, the lieutenant all brushed and handsome in his redcoat.
These thoughts provided welcome distraction from everything she was going to have to do with Mr Stone. Cecily and the girls at the tableaux house had given her all manner of advice. Tricks to keep him happy, to distract him during the act. Mrs Havilland had sat her down in her parlour, and given her a long lecture about what to do and when to do it. Pamela had rolled her eyes, earning her a sharp rebuke. ‘This is my livelihood, girl. I’ll not have a little scrubber like you ruin my reputation.’
Now her nerves were creeping in. Don’t think about it until you’re doing it, Cecily had said. Or you’re likely to panic.
She smiled at Kitty, who seemed to sense her apprehension and patted her hand. ‘You should take rooms in Marylebone or Soho tomorrow, once you have your money. I’ll come with you, if you like. When you have a few clients, we’ll get you into Harris’s List. We know all the right people.’
One of the girls smiled at her, though the others were less friendly. Pamela tried to remember their names: Becky, Sally . . . Not that they mattered.
‘Then once you’re in Harris’s List,’ Kitty went on, ‘I can propose you for the Whores’ Club.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be doing this for very long after tonight.’
The one with dark curly hair, Rosy, arched an eyebrow. ‘You won’t survive long on the town on a hundred and twenty-five guineas.’
Rosy was jealous of the sum. Pamela could tell. But she didn’t know the half of it.
Pamela glanced at the lieutenant, but he was staring out of the window. ‘I mean to marry a gentleman,’ she said.
‘Just like that?’ Kitty smiled.
Sally jangled her bracelets. ‘You think the men are going to be so cunny-struck, they’ll fall over themselves with proposals? Gentlemen don’t marry whores. It’s all a myth.’
‘Sometimes they do,’ Kitty said. ‘Remember Lavinia Fenton. But it takes time, Pamela. First they have to keep you. Then they need to fall in love. But it’s not just a normal falling-in-love, it has to be one so strong it overcomes every other objection: family, friends, public shame.’
Pamela only smiled. Perhaps one day they’d mention her name in the same breath as Lavinia Fenton. It happens. Remember Pamela Dodd-Bellingham? Except she wouldn’t be Pamela after tonight. And her old name wouldn’t do either. She’d choose another, one fit for a gentleman’s wife. In London, a girl could always invent herself anew.
She wasn’t sure how things worked at the masquerades – whether she’d get the chance to be alone with him tonight. If she did, she intended to put her plan into motion right away. If not, then tomorrow, when she was free of her watcher. She would call on him at his house, and lay out her proposition. And he would agree to everything – because he’d have no choice.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
A PACKAGE WAS delivered the following morning. Caro opened it, half expecting to find another puzzle purse. Instead, she found that it contained Agnetti’s drawings of Pamela and Lucy, Pamela’s necklace and the invitation with the satyr.
Her concern mounting, she read the accompanying letter from Mr Child. He had been taken ill, he said, unable to work any longer on her inquiry. He would return her deposit as soon as he could. A few short lines described his discovery that Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham had once served with a non-commissioned officer named Jack Somerset – information he hoped she could pass on to his successor. Finally, he’d scra
wled a few cursory apologies. Nothing more.
Furious, she read the letter again. She didn’t believe a word about his mysterious illness and she wondered if he’d been scared off – by Hector’s murder and the beating he’d sustained. He’d seemed well enough yesterday, though – a little distracted perhaps, but fired up by the progress they had made. Had he been bought off by Stone? Or one of the others?
She called for her carriage.
*
At Mr Child’s lodgings, she banged upon the door. Then got Miles to bang harder, in case he was asleep. No answer. For a moment, she stood there, uncertain what to do next. She didn’t want to hire another thief-taker. Not when they’d come so far together. She wanted Mr Child. I’ll come back tonight, she thought. Talk some sense into him then.
*
Returning to her carriage, she instructed Sam to take her to the Rag Fair – the last known address, according to Mr Child’s letter, of this soldier, Jack Somerset. Her coachman stared at her, appalled, but he knew better than to argue. They rode south-east, through the City, wending their way down to the Tower, eventually coming to a halt in the shade of its walls on Little Tower Hill. Given the nature of the neighbourhood, Caro opted to wait in the carriage, dispatching a reluctant Miles to make inquiries after Jack Somerset.
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