“Celia? I thought perhaps my eyes were deceiving me.” The woman came out and embraced her with warm, motherly arms.
“It is good to see you, Marian. It has been some months, I know.”
Marian pushed away those months with a flip of her hand. “If you have brought me some of your flowers, I am afraid it is too late for today. You can see that I’ve a good number to sell as it is and time is passing.”
“I did not bring flowers, Marian. I brought a proposition.”
Marian’s green eyes reflected surprise, then humor. “You are a good girl to think of me, dear, but I’m too old and coarse if you have decided to take up the life after all, and are seeking other doves for your covey. My sympathies about your mum. I’d a been there, for old times’ sake, but—”
“I thank you for your good thoughts, Marian. However, I am not recruiting the way you think. You did me a very good turn five years ago, when you told me about Mrs. Joyes and her kind heart. I now would like to do you a good turn as well.”
Marian gestured to the flower stall. “Already have, haven’t you? That bit of money you gave me let me start this, and the leftover flowers you bring sometimes help more than you know. I’ve been able to get off my back, but stay in the lanes that I’ve known since I was born.”
Celia worried that Marian’s ties to this neighborhood would now interfere with the proposal. Nor did she believe that Marian had completely given up being a whore. Not forever, at least. Should the day’s flower sales not pay for fuel and food, it would be too easy to sell something else instead that was always in demand. Even in middle age Marian was a handsome woman who could catch the eye of a man looking for easy pleasure.
“My proposal would require you to leave this neighborhood, but not go too far away, Marian. You would be able to visit often. I am in need of someone I can trust, and who better than the woman who befriended me when I was alone and lost?”
“Not lost, dear. But for the tears in your eyes, you’d a seen clear enough where you were, and that it was no place for such as you.”
Those tears had blinded her not only to the danger of these streets, but also to the impossibility of what she had just done. Running away had been necessary, but also foolish, considering she had no idea where to go or what to do once she left her mother.
Nothing but hell on these lanes for you, dear. There’s procurers waiting on every corner to spy for such as you, and that face and hair of yours will fetch one of them a good prize from the abbess who buys you. I’ve a bit of money, and we’ll hire a carriage and you’ll go home now.
That was what the red-haired whore had said, after shouting away one such persistent procurer. When Celia had refused to return home, Marian had told her about the beautiful widow who sometimes visited the flower sellers in Covent Garden, to give away the excess of her blooms to the poorest among them.
“I have inherited a house, Marian. I am going to become a partner to Daphne. I need someone to live there with me, and I thought of you at once. It will be a secure life, I hope, and I know that you will suit the situation perfectly.”
Lights of interest sparked in Marian’s eyes while Celia further described her plans. Toward the end they dimmed, however, as Marian gazed out over the crowds in the square.
“There is a young woman who would suit you better,” Marian said. “I am doing fine now. This woman—Bella, I call her—is half-starving. It is only a matter of time before she finds a way to eat.”
Celia’s heart filled. She embraced Marian again. “I will not have her instead of you, but I will accept her along with you. If you care so much about her fate that you offer her as a replacement, then I hope that you will care enough to sacrifice the familiarity of these lanes to move a mere mile away.”
Marian’s eyes misted. Her fear of this change became visible, but also sad; desperate hope showed in the way she looked at Celia. “It won’t be proper, you having a woman like me in your service.”
“No one will know your history, Marian. You will only be the sensible woman who cooks for Alessandra Northrope’s daughter. Whatever scorn descends on our house, I think it will be due to me.”
Marian drew herself tall and straight, and appeared as formidable as she had the night she faced down that whoremonger. “Is that how it has been, then? I’ll put an end to that, if such talk reaches my ears. I’ll be making a right understanding with them that speak against you.”
“You must be with me in order to do that, so it sounds as if you accept my offer.” Celia laughed, took Marian’s hands, and pulled her into a little jig full of joy until Marian was laughing too. They bumped against flower buckets and danced until, out of breath, they fell into each other’s arms.
“Let us go and collect your belongings, and get Bella too,” Celia said. “I have a carriage here, and a driver who will help us.” She pointed toward the cabriolet, and Jonathan.
Marian squinted in that direction. “Is he as handsome in the daylight as he is in the dusk?”
“More so.”
“A gentleman, from the looks of him. What does he want with you?”
Celia urged Marian forward. “Nothing. I will explain it all later, but he did not want me to come here alone, unprotected; that is all.”
Marian cast a sideways glance her way. “Trust me, dear, from the way he was looking at you a minute ago, he definitely wants
something
.”
J
onathan arrived at the door near the western end of Piccadilly Street at quarter past nine o’clock. The house’s stone façade loomed high above him, punctuated by rows of long windows aglow with lights that pierced the night.
The servants, decked out in wigs, hose, pumps, and the rest of Castleford’s livery, expected him. One of them opened the door immediately upon his arrival and another right inside took his hat and gloves. A third, whose frock coat sported some gold embroidery that marked him as an important officer in this army, led him up the stairs.
Ceilings soared above, covered with gilt moldings and inset paintings of Greek gods at play. More paintings decked the walls. As if to emphasize that the Duke of Castleford was one of the richest men in England, a Titian oil showing Zeus and Ariadne—a painting that would be the prize of most family collections—hung on an obscure wall in the stairwell. The message was that the gallery and drawing rooms sported better works by the Renaissance master.
The servant escorted him through one of those drawing rooms, decorated, like the servants themselves, in the style popular during the earlier years of the king’s reign. The current duke had not redecorated much upon inheriting the title and the house. Not because he was indifferent, although his habits might lead some to assume that. Rather Castleford liked the excess of this precious chamber, and the allusions to royalty and privilege it communicated.
Two servants swung two doors wide at the far end of the drawing room, giving ceremonial egress to another chamber of more intimate proportions and considerably less gilt. The large windows on three walls suggested this would be an airy retreat on warm summer nights, and have pleasant prospects of the town and river during the day.
The servants left him alone in the chamber. Jonathan regretted being only fifteen minutes late, instead of at least thirty. His attempts to ensure he would not suffer Castleford’s company individually might have been in vain.
The letter had been more a summons than invitation, and as presumptuous as the man who sent it. Its mere arrival had been the surprise, not its imperious tone. There was unfinished business between him and Castleford, none of it good, and he had never expected the duke to address him again.
He busied himself by examining the paintings in this chamber. Crisply classical, and of newer creation, they presumably had not been inherited. For all the duke’s personal flamboyance, he seemed to prefer very organized compositions in the art he bought himself.
“You are late, Albrighton.”
Jonathan pivoted. Tristan St. Ives, Duke of Castleford, stood near the fireplace. One of the panels on the wall must hide a doorway.
Castleford always seemed to mock his own station and wealth, even while he thoroughly enjoyed both. Now his very stance subtly spoke of boredom as well as privilege, and expectations of the deference that he professed to find irritating.
Dressed in coats that probably cost hundreds of pounds, he managed, with his fashionably unruly mane of brown hair and his devilish, almost golden eyes, to remind one that among the rights enjoyed by a duke was the right to do whatever he damned well wanted, and anyone who did not like it could go to hell.
From what Jonathan had heard, mostly the duke still damned well wanted to whore and drink. He appeared sober enough tonight, however.
“It appears I am early, Your Grace. Not late. Whist, the letter said. The other two are not here yet, unless you intend to recruit your steward and groom to join us.”
“The others are coming at half past nine. You received a special time.”
“I am honored.”
“It was not my intention to honor you.”
“That goes without saying.”
“If so, why did you say it?”
“To be polite.”
“We are beyond such boring rituals, I would think.”
“Then I said it to avoid an argument, if possible, while I pray that your other guests arrive very soon.”
Castleford threw himself into a well-stuffed chair. His body and manner remained languid, but his eyes pierced Jonathan.
Better if he had been drunk, Jonathan decided.
“Hawkeswell will be late. He always is. He plans it, to emphasize that his title predates mine by two hundred years and he is not impressed by me. Summerhays is your best bet for a timely arrival, unless, of course, they are coming together.”
“How good of you to bring us all under your very magnificent roof at the same time.”
“Well, we all had our moments together years ago. Now, we were all a party to that business up north. We need to celebrate our success.”
Jonathan hoped that was not really the goal of this evening’s party. They all assumed he had been investigating when Hawkeswell stumbled upon him in Staffordshire a few months ago. He had been, but he could not talk about it. “I have heard rumors that the Home Office owes all of you a debt,” he said. “The talk is that the matter was resolved much more quickly due to your help.”
“Due to our interference, you mean. I suspect it would have ended differently but for us too. I don’t think you were sent there to ferret out the truth, but to hide it, and perhaps even to aid it. What say you to that?”
“You may think what you please, and no doubt will, no matter what I say.”
“Which won’t be anything useful, I can see. Typical of you. By the way, one of our esteemed peers from that region saw fit to blow his brains out last week. It will be called something else, of course. An accident or whatnot. One last detail to clean up in that mess before coming to London, Albrighton?”
“Whatever you may think of me, I am not a murderer.”
“Neither are soldiers. However, in the end, people end up dead by their actions. Do not misunderstand—I do not hold that last detail against you. Someone had to remind him of the only honorable way out. I was going to journey north myself to do so, if necessary.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Castleford stifled a yawn. “I did not think he would have the courage to do the right thing. Then what? It had to happen, for the good of England, but I did not fancy being one of those soldiers, if he required aid. It is a relief that he managed it on his own.”
Except he had not managed any such thing, and Castleford had guessed as much.
The man in question had been unable to fall on his sword, and had expected that Jonathan would take care of it, just as he had taken care of so much else in that sorry business. Evidently Castleford and many others assumed the same thing. There were limits, however, to what any man could justify, no matter how good the cause. Even a murky soul had a few moments of moral clarity.
Jonathan’s refusal had been a shock to a coward wanting to die in an “accident” with his good name intact. Jonathan did not know who finally pulled that trigger after he left the man, the pistol, and the library smelling of despair and terror—He guessed it had been a sympathetic servant, or even a wife.
“So you are saying that all is well that ends well, no matter how the end comes about.” He did not like the world-weary bitterness he heard in his own voice. “I am delighted that you had me here early, so you could reassure me of your approval.”
Those eyes fixed on him. The smile hardened. Castleford had not missed the sarcasm. “Actually, I had you here early so I could tell you that I do not blame you for what happened in France two years ago. There has been little chance to say so since then.”
“You mean that you
no longer
blame me.”
“Hell, I never blamed you.”
“I hope that you do not blame yourself instead. There was no choice.”
“There is always a choice,” he snarled. Then he relaxed, and shrugged. “But duty called, and all that.”
“Yes. All that.”
Summerhays mercifully arrived then, not late at all. Castleford’s spirits lightened immediately on seeing him. “I hope you brought plenty of money, Summerhays. I plan to pair with Albrighton here, and as I remember it, he never drinks at cards, so that mind of his will remain razor sharp.”
“Regrettably, he can’t play alone, but will be forced to contend with your own erratic play as his partner,” Summerhays goaded. He greeted Jonathan warmly. They had not seen each other in years. Another old friend from Jonathan’s university days, Lord Sebastian Summerhays, as the brother of a marquess and an important member of the House of Commons, had in the past known enough about Jonathan’s activities to avoid asking about them.