Wicked Little Secrets (25 page)

Vivienne’s gaze flew to Dashiell’s. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He should have known he shared blood with that roguish degenerate. Solving the little mystery had just escalated from protecting Vivienne to a family matter. And his family had more matters than anyone else’s in Britain except perhaps Henry VIII’s. They tainted anyone who came in contact with them.

“Come, sisters,” Katherine said. “Take me to the sofa and let me purge my soul of this horrid story.”

With Vivienne and Amelia sitting on either side of her, Katherine sniffled, straightened her shoulders, and began. “One wintry morn, when I was five, I was playing at my mother’s feet in the parlor. The housekeeper came to tell Mother that a common woman and a young boy waited at our door and refused to be turned away. My mother being the most charitable of souls—a living saint, I tell you—asked that they be brought inside by the fire.” Katherine’s eyes became unfocused as she gazed inward at her memories. “The woman was a sad, haggard prostitute. She was dying of the
disease,
but I didn’t understand such things then. Holding her frail hand was a boy. Eleven years old, she told us. He was short for his age, quiet, and possessed large solemn eyes—like my father’s.” She clutched Vivienne’s arm. “The woman said she had heard that my mother was kind and compassionate.”

Dashiell looked down at his hands, still swollen from pounding John. Katherine was right, her mother was a saint. He just had snatches of memories of her, for he was very young at the time she had come to visit. He remembered the warm, cozy feel of her bosom when she embraced him. No one had hugged him before and he clung to her, refusing to let go. She laughed, a gentle musical sound, and said he was a special boy.

“The dying woman got on her knees before Mother and pleaded for her to provide for her child.” Katherine blotted her eyes with her handkerchief. “Mother couldn’t have any more children and she always wanted a son, so she took Lawrence in. Father was furious when he learned what she had done and called her such terrible names, for he never acknowledged Lawrence. So to shield the boy from my father’s wrath, she took the meager funds she had inherited from an aunt and sent Lawrence off to school. Mother wrote him every day, so proud of her ‘son,’ as she now called him. He sent her beautiful pictures and wrote how he had amazed the art masters with his talent.” Katherine’s face hardened. “But he was a deceitful demon in disguise, I tell you.”

“All men are lowly swine,” Amelia said, the ugly sneer on her lips coloring her words.

“That’s not true.” Dashiell had to stand up for the few decent members of his sex.

“Be quiet, Dashiell!” Katherine cried. “You know that deep down, beyond your deceptively charming façade, you’re no better than my father or your own.”

He felt Vivienne staring at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. He couldn’t deny his cousin’s words. Perhaps it was best that Vivienne came after all. Maybe now she could better understand why he kept himself from getting too close to her.

Katherine stood, crossed to the mantel, and studied the portrait of her mother. “When Lawrence was but sixteen, he was sent down from school. It seems he’d had intimate relations with the local curate’s daughter. Lawrence denied it. Of course my mother, enamored of her handsome, brilliant son, believed him. She begged my father not to put the boy on the street. Father contracted a chill and his will was weakening, so Mother got her way, but not until after Father ranted cruelly against her.”

Dashiell could hear the barks and yelps of dogs from outside the door. The housekeeper entered, holding a tray high above her head, safe from the hounds jumping at her feet.

She lowered the tray onto the table and picked up the tail feathers of a teapot shaped like a hen. She poured steaming tea into yellow chick cups. There were two silver platters, one with plain hard biscuits, which she set on the floor for the hounds and muttered, “Here you go, you beggars.”

On the other platter were little mound-shaped tea cakes topped with one plump dot of pink icing. Vivienne’s face colored and her gaze latched onto Dashiell’s face.
Do
these
look
like
what
I
think
they
look
like?
Dashiell’s chest shook with silent laugher as he reached for one of the obscene confections.

“My special cakes,” Katherine said proudly, returning to the sofa. “The Society just adores them.”

“So do I,” Dashiell said with a straight face. He licked off the frosted top and smiled, enjoying seeing Vivienne squirm in her tight dress.

Poor Garth peered around the doorframe. His round eyes were tense and frightened, his smashed face trembling, his ribbon torn off. He looked at Vivienne, who was sitting next to Katherine and all the other dogs, and decided he was safer under Dashiell’s feet. “Are the bitches bothering you, old boy?” Dashiell asked as he scratched the dog’s neck.

Vivienne took a dainty sip of tea and then cleared her throat, pretending not to hear him. “So you said Lawrence moved into your home. Do you remember what year that was?”

“Oh, I’m terrible with dates,” Katherine said, flicking her hand back. “Maybe 1821 or ’22. Alfred Willet, the artist, was terribly popular around that time. He painted scenes of horses and hunts and other such boring things. My mother met him through her friends, and she showed him some of Lawrence’s work. He was most impressed and agreed to become Lawrence’s mentor.”

Katherine took a big bite of a cake and washed it down with tea. She dabbed the edges of her mouth with a linen and continued. “Then one afternoon, she and I had gone shopping at the drapers when we ran into Mr. Willet crossing Bond Street. When Mother inquired as to how Lawrence was coming along under his tutorage, he replied that she should speak to her husband. Then Mr. Willet ever so rudely walked away without uttering another word.”

“What had happened?” Amelia asked.

“Oh, sister, when we came home, my father was sitting in the living room in his nightshirt, for the physician insisted he had to keep to his bed. In Father’s hand was a small stack of pages. ‘Mr. Willet sent me the most interesting illustrations,’ he said, and then threw them at her. When they settled on the floor, my mother screamed and begged me to turn away. But it was too late. I saw
them
.” She clutched her bosom. “My heart aches as I recall the sadness in Mother’s eyes. Even now, decades later, I can scarcely speak of it.” Katherine pressed the pad of her thumb against her lips.

Vivienne reacted quickly. “Had he drawn pictures of an impolite nature?”

Well
done, old girl,
thought Dashiell.

“Terrible, horrid,
disgusting
caricatures,” Katherine cried. “Degrading to the beautiful feminine form. ‘Aren’t you proud of your
son
?’ Father asked in a nasty mocking way. ‘But this is just the beginning.’ He went on to say that Lawrence had done something far worse. Mother made me go to my room, so I didn’t learn any more details. But several hours later, I heard someone banging on the door. I looked out my window and saw Lawrence waiting on the step below. The butler and a footman set a trunk on the steps and said Lawrence wasn’t welcome in our home any longer.”

“Did you see him after that?” Vivienne asked.

Katherine shook her head. “We left for Spain two weeks later. Mother never mentioned him again. But I think he truly and finally broke her heart. She became like a quiet shadow and nothing I could do would cheer her.” She unpinned the flower from her hair and held it in her palm. “My mother’s favorite flowers were geraniums. I suppose with all my work with the Society, I’m just trying to rectify the travesties wreaked upon my mother’s soul by Father and Lawrence James.”

***

Outside his cousin’s home, Dashiell examined the sky. Over the rooftops on the left side of the square, heavy clouds had rolled in for the evening. The air was colder and heavy with moisture. Vivienne clutched the traumatized Garth close to her body, her lips drawn in an anxious frown. She looked different from the cheery lady who had appeared at his door several days ago. Her eyes had lost their jovial light.

Dashiell straightened the bow on her bonnet and gave her chin a tiny caress with his thumb. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Her eyes searched his face. “You tell me you are a cad and a scoundrel,” she said quietly. “There is much about your life that I don’t know about or understand, but surely you are not as vile as Lawrence James.”

He wanted to say no, but he also wanted to keep Vivienne safe from more hurt. And that’s all that Dashiell was to women: hurt.

“Yes, I am,” he said, and the words came out like a hard, desperate growl. He felt her body shiver, and she cast her gaze down.

“What am I going to say to my aunt? I thought this blackmail was about my uncle, but now it seems my aunt’s life wasn’t as simple as I thought. Yet in my heart, I feel no contempt, just compassion.” Vivienne raised her eyes to his. “I understand how she felt. How easy it is to go astray.”

Guilt pricked his heart. He should have told her to leave that night of the Vinho da Roda when she gazed up from those caricatures with hot, repressed desire in her eyes. Instead he’d kissed her, playing little lovemaking games of which she was too innocent to know the rules. He suspected the same games had been played on her aunt’s young trusting heart. “Don’t tell her anything.”

“But I have to ask her about James and the blackmail. I don’t see another way. I’ve run out of time. She is making me go home on Tuesday afternoon.”

“What?” A panic seized his body at the thought that she wouldn’t be there anymore. He knew he would have to let her go, that it was best that they were separated. He just thought he would have more time to prepare himself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just didn’t think it mattered to you.”

“You were supposed to tell me everything.”

She gave him a tiny remorseful smile. “I’ve broken our sacred Bazulo vow. I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” he said, meaning to tease her, but instead he sounded angry and frustrated. “Is John going with you?”

She shook her head.

He turned away from her, needing a moment to rein in his emotions. He tugged at his cravat as he stretched his neck from side to side and then he kicked a loose paver. As much as it pained him to know he wouldn’t see her, touch her, or talk to her, he knew she would be safe in Birmingham, away from John, while he took care of the dirty business here in London.

“What’s the matter, Dashiell?” she asked softly.

He spun around. She had set Garth down and now had her arms crossed about herself. A breeze blowing through the square reddened her nose and cheeks and lifted the edge of her bonnet. He cupped her chin in his palm. “I’m going to take care of everything. I just need you to trust me.”

“You just admitted to being a scoundrel, and yet you ask me to trust you?”

He didn’t like the way she looked at him with those fragile, anxious eyes. They cut straight through his clothes, skin, a couple of ribs, clear to his heart. Despite the daylight and the impropriety, he drew her to him.

“I promise I’m going to protect you and your aunt,” he whispered. “You needn’t worry about a thing.”

Of course, he had no idea how he was going to quiet Jenkinson, but he suspected it would cost him a great deal of money. “I just have one request.” He released Vivienne, and then bent slightly until they were eye to eye. “I just want you to stay away from John. I’m not going into detail, but I assure you he is just as vile as James.”

“Or you?’

He winced.

“I know,” she said gently, then averted her gaze. “But I don’t have the luxury of a choice anymore.”

“Yes, you do. Let me lend you money.”

“I could never repay you and I would be beholden to you for the rest of my life. How would I explain it to my father? No, I must marry John.” She sighed and stepped around him and started walking back to Wickerly Square.

He watched her. Her head hung low, her shoulders fallen, but she kept her spine straight. The posture of a lady struggling to be strong. At that moment, he was determined to be her hero. He was going to find a way to get money to her father if he had to build his own damn railroad. He was going to deliver her safe and sound to an upstanding, kind husband worthy of her devotion. Then he could slink back to his old, dissolute life with a clean conscience.

A carriage rattled beside him. Dashiell felt a prickly heat on his skin, as if someone were watching him. He turned to see a man inside a passing black brougham staring at him. Their eyes locked for a split second, and then the carriage turned down the opposite street and disappeared into the traffic.

***

Vivienne and Garth entered the alley running behind Wickerly Square. She peered up at her aunt’s house rising above the back mews walls. All the curtains were shut tight on the windows, and no smoke billowed from the chimney pots. She didn’t want to go back inside. She wanted to run away, but she couldn’t think where. She couldn’t go home, and she couldn’t go to John. All she could see in her mind was the comforting darkness of being held in Dashiell’s arms, and the memory of floating on the heady sensation caused by the contours of his hard body against hers. She turned to check if he was still behind her, but she didn’t see him. She waited a moment, hoping he would appear. When he didn’t, she felt a deep sadness in her heart that she might not see him again.

Tears brimmed in her eyes. Finding out about her aunt’s liaison on top of Vivienne’s usual worries had left her emotionally distraught. She didn’t think she could handle any more. And now she was forced to go inside her aunt’s home and pretend she knew nothing. She waited a second more for Dashiell, then gave Garth’s leash a small tug. “Come,” she said and turned to go home.

Dashiell was leaning on the wall before her, his arms crossed, studying her from below the rim of his hat.

“How did you get ahead of me?” Her voice was breathy with relief.