Ways to Be Wicked (10 page)

Tom turned and kicked the door closed behind the man. Breathed in and out, letting air sift through the rage that made it difficult to breathe. He was aware of how quiet the little room was, the way the chatter of birds ceases when a cat is spotted.

Tom turned to Molly. “There now,” he said softly. “Come, show it to me.”

Molly raised her head up tentatively, keeping one hand shaded over her eye, ashamed, still trembling. Tom gently lifted her hand, and beneath it, her eye was red. It could very well turn a panoply of colors over the next few days. He’d seen enough—too many—blackened eyes on both men and women over the years.

“I...I need the work, Mr. Shaughnessy.”

Molly’s voice shook, and for good reason. She knew Tom couldn’t put a bruised girl onstage—bad for business. She also knew dozens of pretty girls clamored for a job like hers, a job that paid enough for a decent room and clothes and opportunities to meet dozens of wealthy admirers, and required little more of her than following instructions and a willingness to dress in what amounted to little more than her shift.

She was as replaceable as the lamps that lit the room.

Tom looked down at Molly. He still felt the spiky heat of rage on his skin. Diplomacy with Belstow would no doubt have been wiser—he was wealthy, Belstow, in his own right, and connected through that fine webbing of connections the wealthy and privileged enjoyed, and Tom knew both the value and danger of connections.

But he despised cowards who hit women. He’d seen much of that sort of misery when he’d lived in the rookeries, fury and violence brewed by gin and hopelessness. And in the rookeries, one could almost comprehend the source.

But again—Belstow was privileged and wealthy.

Tom felt one of his hands curl into a fist.

“How did he get back here?” he asked everyone in the room curtly. “Where’s Jack? Why wasn’t he watching the door?”

Silence.

And Tom knew defeat. Knew Jack had probably found the lure of gin more appealing than the lure of a few more bob from Tom Shaughnessy and had left his post for that reason.

Tom didn’t look at The General. His own guilt was strong enough without seeing it reflected in The General’s face.

Tom dropped his hand from Molly’s face, took a deep breath. He supposed there was something to be said for learning sense and caution and judgment the hard way; it was the way he’d learned the most valuable lessons in his own life. Still, the beauty of the White Lily was that Tom had been able to protect any number of people from learning things the hard way, or from learning any more lessons than necessary.

And then suddenly, looking down at Molly, inspiration struck, which was the capricious way of inspiration in general.

“Well, the news is not all bad, Molly. We’ve decided to introduce a...piratical theme into the show next week. The General will build a ship and we’ll have a pirate dance, a song or two. We’ll have you in an eye patch if your eye shows a bruise. I wager you’ll make a pretty pirate, eh?”

Tom didn’t dare look at The General, who would now be required to build some sort of pirate ship and create a dance involving scantily clad female pirates inside a week.

Molly sniffed and gave a tentative little laugh, comforted by the note of flirtation. All around him, he could see shoulders dropping in relief, as the other girls could feel Tom restoring things to order.

But...well, now that Tom thought about it...cutlasses and female pirates. . .

It was still more genius, frankly. And precisely what they needed to keep the audiences satisfied while the grand work of Venus was under way.

At this conclusion, Tom risked a sideways glance at The General.

The General was glaring incredulous daggers at him.

“Th-thank you, Mr. Shaughnessy.” Molly was calmer now.

He looked back at Sylvie. She still held a pointed shard of a wand; he saw the star that belonged on top of it, fallen, severed from its stem, shining on the floor at her feet. She was just as pale as the other girls, but with a difference: Two spots of hectic color sat high on her cheeks, and her eyes were glittery as jewels.

She was furious.

“Every time I see you there’s something pointed in your hand,” he said to her softly. A jest to ease her temper. She was such a fierce little thing.

And she did smile a little at that. She took her own deep breath.

“Did you hit him?” Tom asked her, gently.

“Not hard enough,” she told him fervently.

He couldn’t help but smile. “Will he have a bruise in the shape of a star?”

“I hope so.”

And then a thought occurred to him. “Did he touch you?” He said it curtly.

“ ’T’was just a push.”

He looked down at her, small and slight; she would come to Belstow’s shoulder, and felt a cold kernel of horror in the pit of his gut when he thought of what might have happened to her or to Molly had he not entered the room. She would not retreat, this one, whether or not it was sensible. Her response had been to leap into the fray rather than cower, sensibly, away from it.

Emotion always lit her eyes, he’d noticed during their short acquaintance. She might remain circumspect about the details of her life, but her eyes gave away the woman inside her, what she felt, and they were still hot with a righteous anger. Her hair was unbound, and a few strands of it clung to her flushed face, the rest spilling over her slim shoulders, and she was pinned into her fairy dress. The pale blush color of it suited the high color in her cheeks.

All rose and fire, softness and heat.
His fingers gave a little twitch at his side. Having once touched her skin, it seemed they wanted to know if her hair could compete for fineness.

And yet here he stood in a room surrounded by visions of softness.

“He just. . . hit her.” Sylvie said it with a sort of helpless, wondering fury. Quietly. As though the words were only for him.

“I know,” Tom said gently. “I won’t allow it to ever happen again.”

He realized then he’d been looking into her eyes, and she’d been looking back for quite some time, and he jerked his head up. The rest of the girls were watching him, their own faces pale, pinched with worry, waiting to hear what he wanted them to do next, trusting him to take care of them as he always had.

Odd for an instant, a dizzying instant, he’d all but forgotten anyone else was in the room.

“E would ’ave ’it Molly again, Mr. Shaughnessy, but Sylvie came at ’im wi’ ’er wand,” Rose informed him proudly. Doing her part to build Sylvie’s legend. “And

then ye came into the room.”

Tom released Sylvie’s arm.

“Cool water and a rag for the eye, a little brandy for the nerves, Molly. Poe and Stark or someone else will watch the door at all hours from now on. Sylvie, you can take her to our room in the back; get her settled, then come back and finish dressing. Do you think you can dance tonight?”

“Yes,” Molly told him quickly.

He glanced at Sylvie, whose face had darkened somewhat. She was watching him strangely. Almost in reproach.

“As for the rest of you. . . come now, we’ve a show to do.” He made it a cheery command. “Don’t sit about staring. Where are your wings, girls? Get them on!”

The best way to return everything to normal was to make everything appear as though it had never been anything but normal, he knew.

Happy to be told what to do, everyone scrambled into their wings, plucked up their wands, and prepared to file to the back of the stage.

Chapter Eight

M
INUTES LATER
, Sylvie was standing backstage in a darkened theater pinned into a gossamer dress, holding a hastily-mended wooden fairy wand in preparation for patting the fannies of similarly dressed girls. All while a great crowd of enthusiastic men looked on. All in the name of a temporary roof over her head.

She teetered between a moment of panic and ironic humor. Her entire life she’d worked to ensure her life was nothing like Claude’s, and yet here she was all the same. As though having been raised by an opera dancer, vulgar performance was a drain toward which she must inevitably flow.

She knew another brief moment of dizzying unreality: Everything in her life to date had been planned so carefully. And once Monsieur Favre had discovered a spark of talent in plain Claude Lamoreux’s beautiful little girl, Sylvie had given herself to the dance entirely, knowing, perhaps, it was her only chance to be anything other than ordinary. And as she danced, she told herself that every
grand jeté,
every pirouette, every precise and stinging criticism from Monsieur Favre took her further away from sharing the same ultimate fate as Claude Lamoreux: poor, lonely, struggling, with scarcely the energy to be properly bitter. Dance had given Sylvie purpose, and then fame. . . and then Etienne. And every bit of this had been planned.

This—this cheerful audience at the White Lily, the patting of derrieres—was clearly her reward for a moment of rashness.

But there was still something about the sound of a theater before a performance, regardless of the
nature
of the performance that thrilled her blood. The excited murmur of voices, the squeak of chairs as people shifted their bodies into them, the dimming of lamps, all fed her anticipation, and she couldn’t find it within herself to dread it totally. Odd to think it had been nearly two weeks now since she’d danced for an audience. She knew a whimsical urge to
grand jeté
out onto the stage, which no doubt this particular audience would find more shocking than any song about baubles.

And then she simply longed, wistfully, to do anything at all that resembled ballet. She wondered how long it would be before she could dance—truly dance—again.

She peeped out from behind the curtain. A group of other musicians, a violinist, a cellist and, startlingly, some-one who appeared to be holding a trumpet that winked a regal gold in the theater lights, had joined Josephine, who sat at the pianoforte, dressed for the occasion in scarlet velvet exposing a grand expanse of chest. Sylvie glanced up, toward those exclusive boxes; she saw the curtains enclosing one of them sway a bit, and knew an extremely wealthy man had come for an evening’s entertainment, too. Perhaps Molly’s new admirer.

At the top of the aisle near the theater entrance, so close to where she stood on stage she could almost touch them, stood Tom and The General, for all the world like a pair of vivid dukes receiving ball guests. They were dressed in brilliantly striped waistcoats and billowing cravats, and the silver buttons on Tom’s coat glinted, bright as a row of eyes inspecting the arriving patrons. Together they were a tableau: Sylvie might have called them
Elegantly Tall and Elegantly Small.

The audience entered through the wide doors near the stage, then proceeded to their seats. Sylvie took up a nook behind the curtain and watched, listened as Tom warmly greeted nearly every man by name as if he hadn’t just threatened to gut someone in a dressing room.

“Good evening, Mr. Pettigrew.” Pettigrew: medium build, large comfortable stomach preceding him into the room, conservative evening clothes.
No doubt his wife chooses them,
Sylvie thought.
Wonder if she knows where he is this evening?

“Shaughnessy, my good man! Sorry I’ve been away for a few days. My wife insisted upon being entertained as well, and so I’ve endured a few sopranos for her sake. What do you have for us this evening?”

“If I told you what I had in store for you, Pettigrew, it wouldn’t be a surprise then, would it? Don’t you care for surprises?” Tom feigned shock.

“I like surprises of the sort
you
provide, Shaughnessy, of course! Those are my very favorite. Very well, I shall prepare to be surprised, then.”

“. . . and the flowers are for?” Pettigrew was holding a paper-wrapped bouquet of vibrant blooms, fresh from a hothouse, from the looks of things. Tom took them.

The man looked a little bashful. “Rose. You’ll put in a good word for me, Shaughnessy?” he asked anxiously.

“Of course I’ll put in a good word for you,” Tom assured Mr. Pettigrew, who, his face now relaxed and lit with hope, went on to find his seat. Tom handed the roses to The General, who handed them to a boy whose job it was to scurry away with the bouquets and bring them to the dressing room to vie for attention with all the other flowers.

Tom waited until Pettigrew was several feet away. “...for him, and for Johnstone, and Mortimer, and Carrick, and Bond, and...” he said to The General.

“Lassiter, too, I think,” The General added. “I think you promised to put in a good word for Lassiter.”

“I believe Lassiter has transferred his affections to Molly,” Tom mused.

“Ah,” The General said, as if making a note of it. “I believe Molly is now firmly in the lead in terms of ‘good words,’ then. Perhaps even beyond Daisy now.”

Sylvie turned and whispered to Rose. “You’ve an admirer. A Mr. Pettigrew. He brought flowers.”

“Oh, I’ve lots of admirers,” Rose replied in her own whisper, without a trace of conceit. “But nothing like what Molly ’as.”

Molly’s eyes caught Sylvie’s. She tossed her head and turned away.

She seemed a bit subdued. She hadn’t thanked Sylvie for coming to her defense, but perhaps she felt ashamed; no doubt her pride was a bit singed. Sylvie contemplated asking her whether she felt equal to dancing, whether her eye was aching, and then decided Molly wouldn’t welcome the question.

Sylvie jerked her head back toward Tom when she heard a bit of a commotion. She peered out, riveted.

A handsome young man, wild-eyed and blond and young enough to have a red spot on his chin, had planted himself in front of Tom and was shouting up at him.

“Name your seconds, Shaughnessy!”

“Now, Tammany—”

“It’s my
wife,
damn you, Shaughnessy! My wife! She called your name out in a...in a...”Tammany faltered and lowered his voice almost to a mumble. “. . . certain moment.”

The faltering and mumbling unfortunately rather diminished the injured gravity of his outburst.

“She called out ...‘Tom Shaughnessy’ . . . in a certain moment?” Tom sounded genuinely puzzled. “It seems rather a lot to get out in that
particular
moment. And there are quite a few Toms in the world, are there not?” He turned to The General for confirmation.

“At least a dozen,” The General confirmed solemnly.

“She cried out ‘
Tom!
’ ” young Tammany clarified indignantly. “‘
Tom,
’ I tell you! More specifically, ‘
Oh,
Tom!’ I knew it was you she meant. She cannot stop
talking
about you. Thinks you’re the most charming bugger this side of...of. . .
Byron.
What have you
done
to her? I demand satisfaction!”

There was a pause.

“Have I met his wife?” Tom lowered his voice and said this to The General.

“
Yes,
you damned scoundrel!” Tammany bellowed. Tom winced. “At the shop that sells wooden toys on Bond Street just last week. You met the two of us, and bowed, and said something—”

“Very well.” Tom became quickly, resignedly matter-of-fact. “If it means that much to you, The General here will act as one of my seconds as usual and shall we meet—well, why don’t we meet at dawn, two days hence? I’ll shoot you, and then I suppose I’ll console your wife as a favor to you, as she’ll no doubt miss you when you’re dead. As will I, as you’re one of my best patrons, Tammany. One of my very favorites, and truly, I do not exaggerate. Meanwhile, why I would be honored if you took a seat and enjoyed our show one last time. In remembrance of the former warmth of our friendship.”

Tom smiled, managing to make it look both warm and gently regretful.

Sylvie, from where she watched through the curtains, put a hand over her mouth in awe. It was frankly an astonishing performance.

Tammany suddenly looked a little less certain about his grievance. “You can just
apologize,
Shaughnessy, and be done with it,” he said huffily.

“I would apologize, Mr. Tammany,” Tom said gently, “if I thought I’d done anything requiring an apology.”

It struck Sylvie that Tom might be genuinely amused by all of this. There wasn’t a shred of fear in his expression, or bearing. He didn’t even appear to feel threatened.

Such light talk about shooting one another. She gave an involuntary little shudder. She remembered Rose’s words,
Best shot in London.

Tammany simply glared at Tom, beyond words. And practical considerations—Tom’s reputedly extraordinary aim among them—were clearly warring with his pride.

Bateson, the man Tom had deliberately missed just a night earlier, chose that moment to come strolling up the aisle, refreshments in hand, oblivious to the drama taking place.

“Tammany, my good man. You really must ask Mr. Shaughnessy for some pointers at Manton’s. He can shoot the heart right out of a target every time!” he volunteered cheerfully. “He’s giving me lessons!” He playfully pointed his thumb and forefinger at Tom and strolled on by, and Tom did likewise.

“Boom!” Tom said cheerfully.

“Bateson pulls left,” Tom explained solemnly to Tammany. “I nearly shot him last night.” Tammany had gone several shades paler. The red spot on his chin now glowed indignantly.

“It’s a good show tonight, truly, and we’ve a new girl. You might wish to cheer her on,” Tom coaxed. “She’s very pretty, but a bit meek.”

Sylvie could have sworn this was for her benefit. She thought she saw Tom Shaughnessy’s mouth twitch a little, subtly, as if he knew very well she was listening.

Tammany did some more glaring, but it became less focused as the crowd milled around them, mindless of the little drama, or used to it. Men greeted each other with cheerful familiarity.

“Ho, Tammany!” someone called, and gave a cheery little wave. “Ho, Shaughnessy!”

Tammany managed to curl his lip in response to the greeting.

“Oh,
come
now, Tammany. We’ve got the girls as fairies tonight,” Tom added by way of persuasion. “I know you like the fairies. And you’ll
never
believe what we’ll have in a week or so.”

Tammany glared at him for another few moments, but Tom refused to be anything other than cheerful. So the glare had no place to lock, and thus deprived Tammany of fuel for his ire.

Tammany spun on his heel and stalked up the aisle toward the seats.

Then stopped abruptly, spun about, and stalked back to Tom. “
What
are you having next week?”

Tom dropped an arm over Tammany’s shoulder and said it low, making it seem a confidence meant just for Tammany.
“Pirates.”

Tammany’s eyes went wide, then slowly glazed with anticipated pleasures. “And Daisy?” Tammany asked, sounding as though he hardly dared hope.

“Captain of the ship,” Tom confirmed with a grin.

Tammany’s face finally softened and brightened into a blazing grin. “How do you
think
of these things, Shaughnessy?”

Tom shrugged modestly.

And Tammany, whose stride was now considerably less belligerent—it in fact, had a bit of a spring to it— made his way to a seat.

“Don’t worry, Gen. He’ll want to be alive for the pirates. See? Now aren’t you glad I thought of them?”

The General ignored this. “What did you do to his wife, Tom?”

“Hmmm. I honestly don’t know. I believe I merely smiled, and she...”

“There’s no ‘merely’ about how you smile at women, Tom. There never is.”

Tom smiled at this, remembering. “She
was
pretty, now that I recall. And I rarely do more than smile at actual wives. That’s why God invented the Velvet Glove.”

“I’m not certain it was
God
who invented the Velvet Glove, Tom.”

“Mmmm. If not, his name is certainly
invoked
often enough there.”

“What is the Velvet Glove?” Sylvie turned to ask Rose in a whisper.

“Brothel,” was Rose’s laconic reply.

Sylvie nearly sucked in a breath, torn between horror and hilarity.

“You’re going to get yourself killed one day, Tom, if you keep toying with these hotheaded lads.”

“Can I help it if I’m obliged to defend my honor?” Tom feigned injury.

“If I’m not mistaken, you believe honor is a notion for the rich and bored.

“Oh, it is. I’ve no use for it. Survival seldom has anything to do with honor. But I consider it my mission in life to entertain the rich and bored.”

The General sighed. “Here’s another question, Tom: What were you doing in a shop that sells wooden toys?”

“Tammany was mistaken about that bit,” Tom said absently. “I must have been introduced to her elsewhere.”

The General was silent, but his skepticism was nearly deafening.

“Like church?” he finally said.

“I didn’t touch her, Gen, I swear it.” Tom sounded defensive.

“Some men settle down with
just one
woman,” The General said meaningfully. “They settle down, and they don’t continually smile at other people’s wives, or get into duels.”

“How selfish of you, Gen. I know you think only of your own peace of mind when you say that, and not my happiness.” Tom flipped open his watch. “It’s time for the show.”

A few minutes later, in front of a crowd of enthusiastic men, Sylvie Lamoreux linked arms with a half dozen pretty girls, bent over, thrust her bottom into the air and shouted “whee!”

It was over quickly enough, thankfully. Though no doubt she’d relive it again and again, the way one was haunted by bad meals.

And the response to the show—which, Rose and the other girls had assured her they had already performed dozens of times before—was so warm, appreciative, and boisterous that Sylvie began to wonder why she worked so hard to perfect her own art when it was clearly much easier to please an audience—an audience of men, at least—than she’d ever dreamed.