‘It means, we got the bastards – didn’t we?’
She smiled, wincing a little at the pain it caused her. ‘So we did.’
*
Three days later, Caro sat in her drawing room, reading. She had just put Gabriel to bed, dusk drawing in. Miles pulled the curtains and lit the lamps. Her bruises looked worse today, turning purple and yellow, but she felt better in herself and thought she might eat. As she contemplated what dish might sit most easily in her stomach, she heard the clatter of a carriage outside. Someone rapped at the front door, and she heard voices in the hall. A moment later, the drawing room door opened, and she stared at the man in the redcoat who filled the frame.
‘Oh,’ she said faintly. ‘Harry.’
Her husband had lost a little weight – sea travel often had that effect upon a man. His soft brown eyes studied her face. ‘I heard about what happened. Thank God it wasn’t worse.’
But there was no tenderness in his eyes, and from his face she knew he’d heard the rest of the story too.
‘Cavill-Lawrence said you were in America,’ she said. ‘That you would be there for several months more.’
‘My reception in Philadelphia was warmer than we anticipated,’ he said. ‘Things were concluded rather sooner than we thought.’
‘Then we will have peace?’
‘I hope so.’
But not in this house, his expression said.
Walking to the console, he poured himself a glass of Madeira. He stayed there, drinking it, looking at her steadily – as if he’d preferred it when there had been an ocean between them.
‘Is it true?’ he said, at last. ‘Are you with child?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Who is the father?’ he asked. ‘Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham? Jacobus Agnetti?’
‘Neither of them,’ she said.
‘Who then, Lord March?’
She hesitated, uncertain whether the truth or a lie would serve her best. His question was one she’d wrestled with herself, counting days and dates. It had been so hot back in July. Lord March there and not there – as she knew now, courting Clemency Howard. Night after night, she’d taken herself off to Carlisle House, seeking diversion. And one night she’d met a man who’d made her laugh, a Polish composer with a pointed beard and a wicked smile.
Now, here on judgement day, she opted for the truth – not because she thought it could save her, but because she felt too weary to lie any more.
‘I don’t know.’
The disgust on his face hurt her – as only he had ever had the power to do. He drained his glass and set it down. ‘Let us discuss it in the morning. I am tired.’
She listened to him mounting the stairs, and then sat there for a long time. Eventually, she rose and went to the mirror over the console. Her bruises would fade, but the lines would only multiply – and no journalist ever made a list about those. She thought of Lucy’s plan for her retirement: a plot of land in Hampstead on which to build houses. Lucy, who’d made her own way in an unkind world since she was twelve years old.
There will be a plan, she told herself. I just haven’t thought of it yet. Let tomorrow bring what it will bring. I am Caro.
Historical Note
Those who read my first novel, Blood and Sugar, will already have been familiar with Caroline Corsham. I loved Caro as a character, and wanted to give her more scenes than the plot in that first book justified. Instead, I decided to give her a book of her own.
I took enormous pleasure in researching Caro’s London. Jerry White’s London in the Eighteenth Century (2012), Amanda Vickery’s The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (2003), and Hannah Grieg’s The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London (2013) are all excellent books for those wishing to learn more. The Beau Monde includes a chapter on those ladies who transgressed the boundaries of polite society by having adulterous relationships or illegitimate children. Some, like Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, were aided by their husbands to conceal their pregnancies, travelling abroad to give birth in secret. Others, like Lady Sarah Bunbury, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, and the original ‘Caro’, Lady Caroline Lamb, were ostracized from polite society, forced to live lonely lives in the countryside or abroad. Others still, like the former Duchess of Grafton, managed to survive divorce by marrying a gentleman of sufficient social standing – in her case, the Earl of Upper Ossory – to overcome society’s disapproval.
The stories about Caro in The London Hermes are based on those in contemporary scandal sheets, such as The British Apollo, The Tatler and The Female Tatler. David Coke’s Vauxhall Gardens: A History (2011) is a picturesque guide to the famous pleasure garden. Avril Hart and Susan North’s Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries (1998) and Susan North’s 18th-Century Fashion in Detail (2018) include beautiful photographs of the fashions of the beau monde.
The sex trade was a huge part of the Georgian economy, and according to one estimate, one in five female Londoners had participated in prostitution at some point in their lives. Hallie Rubenhold’s The Covent Garden Ladies (2005) and Dan Cruickshank’s The Secret History of Georgian London (2010) are both fascinating books, and provided me with much inspiration for both character and plot. The Whores’ Club really existed, as did virgin auctions, tableaux performances and Harris’s List. The fictional entries in Harris’s List for Lucy Loveless and Kitty Carefree include some phrases and a poem that I have culled from original listings of long-dead prostitutes.
The Priapus Club drew much inspiration from both the Society of Dilettanti and the Medmenham Friars, or Hell-Fire Club. Both clubs professed an interest in ancient Greece and Rome, using their studies to justify and intellectualise sex with prostitutes. The Secret History of Georgian London has two interesting chapters on these clubs, which include sections on the Georgian passion for classically inspired architecture, landscape gardens and art. Other useful books were Evelyn Lord’s The Hell-Fire Clubs (2008) and Geoffrey Ashe’s The Hell-Fire Clubs (1974).
Once I had pinned down this part of the plot, the theme of ancient Greece and the classical world (a subject of fascination both to the Georgians and to myself since childhood) took on a life of its own. The collecting of antiquities was a passion for many Georgian gentlemen, and to see such a collection in situ I recommend the quite wonderful Sir John Soane Museum in London. Both amateur enthusiasts and professional antiquarians often carried out ‘restorations’ on their antiquities that make the modern reader wince, and created an environment that was ripe for exploitation by fraudsters. Mark Jones’s Fake? The Art of Deception (1990) provides a compelling history of archaeological fraud, dating back to the Middle Ages. The lottery tickets in the ancient oil lamp and the use of a barrel of nails to age counterfeit coins are real examples of eighteenth-century frauds taken from Jones’s book.
Joshua Reynolds painted two portraits of the Dilettanti Club, on which Agnetti’s painting of the Priapus Club is based. Reynolds also painted many of the leading prostitutes of his day, causing much speculation as to the precise nature of his relationships with his ‘muses’. Again, Cruickshank’s The Secret History of Georgian London has an excellent chapter on Reynolds, which explores his love of painting his clients and his muses in classically inspired scenes.
A second theme of the book, that of artifice and concealment, also arose quite naturally from the plot, and led me to many entertaining aspects of Georgian life: con-tricks like Lucy’s Ring Game; masks and masquerades; the Puss and Mew; illegal boxing matches; false eyebrows of mouse fur; and fake pineapples. I even spent a very enjoyable afternoon making puzzle purses with my nieces.
Other plot lines grew out of this theme: a virgin auction, where the virgin wasn’t really a virgin; a desperate man trying to conceal his syphilis; a staged burglary; a staged murder. Jacobus Agnetti is perhaps the ultimate example of concealment in the book: a man capable of great charm and also grotesque cruelty. Abusive relationships are
as old as time, and it is not hard to find eighteenth-century examples of such marriages. A friend who works with the victims of domestic violence also recommended Sandra Horley’s Coercive Control: Why Charming Men Make Dangerous Lovers (2002), which was an informative and sobering read.
Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham is loosely based on the wonderfully named Banastre Tarleton, a former rake turned hero of the American war. An evocative painting by Reynolds of Tarleton in action hangs in the National Gallery. At the Battle of Waxhaws, Tarleton’s forces slaughtered a large number of American soldiers trying to surrender under a white flag. To the Americans, his name thereafter became a byword for war crimes and butchery. Tarleton’s long-time amour, the actress Mary Robinson (or ‘Perdita’, as she was more widely known) had previously been the lover of the seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales, who had offered her twenty thousand pounds to become his mistress. Perdita was painted by many of the leading artists of the day, including Reynolds, Gainsborough and Romney.
Jonathan Stone is loosely based on John King, a famous eighteenth-century moneylender, who brokered loans for those wishing to lend above the legal interest rate of 5 per cent. To do so, he had to work his way into the circles of the beau monde, entertaining regularly, and thoroughly researching the backgrounds of potential aristocratic debtors. King was said to be another of Perdita’s lovers, and is also alleged to have tried to blackmail her, threatening to reveal compromising letters between her and the Prince of Wales.
The libidinous appetites of ‘Prinny’ – heir to the throne, later the Prince Regent and King George IV – have been depicted in countless books, films and TV programmes. Just as famous as his love of women was his love of profligate living and consequent debts. By 1787, these had reached such astronomical levels that Parliament was forced to act, voting to provide the extraordinary sum of £161,000 to settle with the Prince’s creditors – on condition that he never got into debt again. To nobody’s surprise at all, by 1795, Prinny’s debts amounted to £630,000. Saul David’s Prince of Pleasure (1998) has several chapters on Prinny’s early life.
King George III’s depression at the loss of the American colonies is equally well documented. In March 1782, immediately prior to the Paris peace talks, he went so far as to draw up letters of abdication addressed to Parliament and his son. No decisive evidence has ever emerged to explain why he changed his mind.
Acknowledgements
For a writer, so much depends upon the team around them, and I am fortunate to be supported by the very best in the business. Thank you firstly to Antony Topping, who is by turns shrewd, calm, insightful, imaginative and funny – everything a writer needs in an agent. Thanks too to everyone at Greene & Heaton, especially Kate Rizzo.
My editor, Maria Rejt, is warm and wise, and I could not wish for a better champion of my books and my writing. Indeed, the whole team at Mantle and Pan Macmillan are a marvel, both in their love of books and knowing what to do with them. Thanks in particular to Josie Humber, Alice Gray, Rosie Wilson, Kate Tolley, Ami Smithson (who makes my books look so beautiful) and to Stuart Dwyer and his team, who magic them into the shops.
Many brilliant experts in their field answered my annoying questions as I was writing this book . . . Hallie Rubenhold, who knows everything there is to know about sex in the eighteenth century; Dr Kate Adams, who answered countless medical questions about syphilis and pennyroyal; Dan Fox and Alexander Goldberg, who fielded all my obscure questions about eighteenth-century Judaica; Robbie MacNiven and Stephen Brumwell, who helped me commit a war crime; Jessica Asato, who recommended some terrifying books on coercive control; and the Facebook mothers’ collective, who told this childless author more about the symptoms of pregnancy than I ever wanted to know. Needless to say, any mistakes in the book are mine, not theirs.
Thanks also to Glenn Parry for the pineapples, Julia Bye for the German, Dad for the Puss and Mew, Adrian for Henry’s wives, Rebecca F. John for Rag and Ribbon, and Imogen Robertson and Fay Young for novel clinic.
The love and support of the writing community has been a revelation to me, and I am so fortunate to have made so many new friends. Thanks especially to David Headley and everyone at Goldsboro Books; to the all-conquering Ladykillers, who murder – martinis in hand – so very effortlessly; and to Colin Scott, who is always there to say YAY and FTS. It would be a lie to say this book couldn’t have been written without them, but I would have had a lot less fun along the way.
The excitement and support of my old friends and family as I embarked on this new career means more than I can ever put into words. In particular, a loving thank you to my brother, Luke, mainly because he will be annoyed if I leave him out. The day I spent making puzzle purses with my sister-in-law, Gemma, and my nieces, Holly and Lyla, was a particular highlight amidst the wrestles of writing this book.
Daughters of Night is dedicated to my dad, teller of stories, slayer of monsters. In 1982, when I was six years old, Dad went away to Greece for months, to appear in Peter Hall’s production of the Oresteia. I didn’t want him to go, and to cheer me up we made a scrapbook about the play – a wholesome tale of sex, revenge and murder – and I think of this book as the flowering of that seed of interest. Nearly forty years on, Dad is still always there for me, even when he’s on the other side of the world. I love him so very much.
Finally, the biggest thank you goes, as ever, to my husband, Adrian. His love and pride mean the world to me, his support is given every day. I can’t write it all down here, as it would fill volumes, but truly I married the best of men.
Reading Group Questions
1. How well did the book portray the nightlife of eighteenth-century London? Could you picture the entertainments of the beau monde? And the world of the sex trade? Where and how did those two worlds meet? How did the latter imitate the former?
2. In Caro and Agnetti’s first meeting, they debate the rights and wrongs of the Georgian sex trade. Did you have sympathy with either point of view? How similar was their argument to today’s debates about prostitution?
3. In what ways did the book portray the eighteenth-century’s obsession with the classical world of Greece and Rome? Why do you think the author chose the four quotes from the Oresteia to begin each part of the novel?
4. Artifice and concealment are a second theme of the book. Can you think of examples from the plot? Or from characters? Or in the background details? Can you think of similar examples from contemporary society? Do you think we are we more or less concerned with appearance today?
5. Did you like Caro as a character? Did you sympathize with her predicament? How did the book make you feel about the double standards that existed for women and men in the eighteenth century when it came to sex and adultery? What do you think Harry’s decision will be about Caro and his marriage?
6. What did you think about the power of money, commerce and debt in eighteenth-century society? How did you feel about the choices that Peregrine Child made in the book? Did he retain your sympathy as a character?
7. Did Pamela’s story help you understand why women were drawn to prostitution? Did her choices change the way you felt about her as a victim? How reliable was she as a narrator?
8. How well did the three narrative strands in the story mesh together? Did Pamela’s story in the past help you better understand the murder inquiry in the present? Did you enjoy the contrast between Caro and Child’s distinct spheres of investigation?
9. How did you feel about the way the book portrayed relations between women and men in the eighteenth century? Were there differences and similarities to today’s society?
10. How did you feel about the character of Jacobus Agnetti? Did your opinion of him change throughout the book? How big a surprise was the revelation about the Agnetti marriage at the end of the book?
Loved Daughters of Night?
Discover Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s first novel, Blood & Sugar . . .
Waterstones Thriller of the Month
Winner of The Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown
June, 1781. An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock – horribly tortured and branded with a slaver’s mark.
Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham – a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career – is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable damage to the British slaving industry. He’d said people were trying to kill him, and now he is missing . . .
To discover what happened to Tad, Harry is forced to pick up the threads of his friend’s investigation, delving into the heart of the conspiracy Tad had unearthed. His investigation will threaten his political prospects, his family’s happiness, and force a reckoning with his past, risking the revelation of secrets that have the power to destroy him.
And that is only if he can survive the mortal dangers awaiting him in Deptford . . .
An extract follows here . . .
PROLOGUE
Deptford Dock, June 1781
The fog hung thick and low over the Thames. It rolled in off the water and along the quays, filling the squalid courts and dockside alleys of lower Deptford. The local name for a fog like this was the Devil’s Breath. It stank of the river’s foul miasma.
Now and then the fog lifted, and Nathaniel Grimshaw caught a glimpse of the Guineamen anchored out on Deptford Reach: spectral lines of mast and rigging against the dawn sky. His greatcoat was heavy with damp and his horsehair wig smelled of wet animal. He had been pacing in that spot for nearly half an hour. Each time he pivoted, Jago growled. The dog’s black fur stood up in spikes and his eyes shone like tiny yellow fog-lamps in the gloom.
Nathaniel could hear the fishermen talking, and he could taste their tobacco on the wind. He wanted a pipe himself, but he wasn’t sure he could hold it down. He didn’t know how they could stand there, in such close proximity. A figure loomed out of the mist, and Jago growled again, though he quietened when he recognized the stocky, square frame of the Deptford magistrate, Peregrine Child. A pair of bleary eyes peered at Nathaniel between the wet folds of the magistrate’s long wig of office. ‘Where is it, lad?’
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