Chapter Thirteen
It had been a day already, but William was still reeling from Claudia’s revelations. He crumpled up yet another drawing of the artefacts he was preparing for Caiani and threw it on the floor. Bill meowed and leapt at it gleefully.
At least someone’s happy.
He should be pleased with himself too. He had prepared several drawings of the artefacts for Caiani, and he had established exactly how much he could ask of him. He had even drafted a letter to Johnson & Muybridge to let them know that he intended to travel to London and pick their brains on a new commercial venture. In short, it had been a wonderfully productive day. His dream was inching closer and closer.
And yet it all tasted like dust.
Because he was worried sick for Claudia, to the point that he had already almost left home to go see her a couple of times. And he was devastated too, because her revelations about her lovers had shaken him to the core.
I had taken lovers when I fancied it…Men who did not move in my circles…Nobody falling in love…nobody getting hurt…
They had been men like him , hadn’t they? Men below her station. Men who did not matter a great deal. And he was well on the way to becoming one of them.
Once, while running an errand on behalf of Thomas Muybridge, the smuggler he and his brothers worked for, he had been caught in a scuffle with a rival gang. His thigh had been sliced open by a knife.
It had hurt less than those words.
Oh, she was bad for him! Maybe if he repeated it to himself long enough, he would forget how every time they spoke, every time they revealed a little more about each other, it felt intimate and caring. He would forget the way her body had shaken in the agony of pleasure as they reached their release. And the gratitude that had washed over him in waves when she had told him of her ordeal, and she had survived .
And it was from the elation and the pain, and the black, inky hopelessness that spiralled through him, that he knew that he was no longer in control of himself. He would end up falling for her. His resolve to keep on stealing from her and carry out his plan would dwindle. It already had, because he felt nothing, not even a shimmer of excitement at the prospect of the riches that awaited him.
He had to look after himself. No one else would, and he owed him to himself, to the dream he had worked so hard for all his life.
I can no longer keep on seeing her.
The realisation opened a crater in his chest, wide and dark. It left him shuddering and nauseous.
He would go meet Caiani tomorrow. Sell whatever he had stolen so far. Hike up to the villa on the Pincio to talk to the Earl. Resign with some excuse and never see her again.
And yet it had been sweet, deluding himself that there was something about him that was worth cherishing.
When drops fell on his drawings, it took him a long, long moment to understand what was happening.
He wiped his tears away furiously.
Under the table, Bill clawed at his slippers.
‘Stop it, will you?’ He grumbled. ‘They were expensive.’
‘For some reason, he never listens. Just like you, brother.’ Edmund walked in, bare-chested, and yawned lazily. William groaned inwardly.
‘You could wear a shirt, you know? At least some of the time.’
‘It’s summer. I’m in my own house.’
‘What if someone comes round?’
There. Despite everything he still hoped she would show up.
Ed lay down on the settee and stretched.
‘Are you expecting anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Well then.’ Ed looked at him. ‘So. Umm. Will?’
Please don’t say it.
‘It would seem that you are crying.’
‘Ah—no.’
He would rather die than tell anything to Ed. His brother didn’t miss an occasion to call him a girl. He liked fine things, so he behaved preciously like a girl. He looked at himself in the mirror every now and then, so he was vain like a girl. And since he enjoyed dancing, he was girly like a girl. Well, not everyone could be a boxer like Ed! Besides, he couldn’t really see what was wrong with being compared to a girl. Women were superior to men in every possible way.
Ed seemed to think for a long moment. William could almost see the cogs turning in his head. Then his brother ambled to him in that unhurried way of his and looked at him as though examining an exotic animal.
‘Ah, damn it, Will.’ For a moment, it very much looked like Ed was going to embrace him. But he did not. He just cleared his throat and looked around. Something seemed to occur to him.
‘Here.’ Ed picked up scrawny little Bill and dumped him unceremoniously on the desk. Bill looked thoroughly perplexed.
‘Well? How’s that supposed to help?’
Ed pointed at the cat as though it was self-evident. William replicated his gesture, interrogatively.
‘We got this for you for a reason, Will.’
‘Would you mind elaborating? Two or three sentences would do.’
‘We got you this cat because you’re our spoilt little brother and we want you to be happy. The cat makes you happy. So here’s the cat.’
They both looked at Bill.
Bill balled up, stretched a leg in the air like a ballerina, and began cleaning his private parts.
‘Eww,’ William protested.
‘A rather funny creature, uh?’ Ed pondered, deeply absorbed.
‘I suppose it is.’
They watched on as Bill proceeded to nibble the thick, pillowy leather of his paws.
‘Maybe I should get Rabenstein a cat,’ William mused aloud. ‘It may cheer him up too.’
Probably a terrible idea. He could picture the cat trying to cuddle up to Rabey, and his friend stumbling back, horrified, like whenever someone or something got close to him. Rabey would rather die than let anyone touch him.
‘Don’t joke about it.’ Edmund scolded him. ‘The poor creature wouldn’t survive a night in that madhouse. You know what they say about them...’
‘It’s all rumours.’ He rolled his eyes.
‘No, no they are not, and you know it. They are all mad in there. From the first to the last. The two brothers. The sister too. Cursed, they say. Cursed to lust for blood.’
‘A bit rich coming from a man who beats people up for money.’
‘It’s a sport , idiot.’ Ed cleared his throat again. ‘So…you’re always in his pockets…is it true that they drink blood?’
‘Er…well—'
There came a knock at the door.
His heart almost escaped from his chest.
Claudia.
Claudia was there.
***
It was a trap, no doubt about it.
She had planned to fight, to get rid of him once and for all.
And yet she was sitting in her armchair, quiet and passive.
Numb .
As though, somewhere deep down, she had grown tired of fighting. Looking within herself, she could only see the strange, barren wasteland she had inhabited for the past year.
How interesting, her detached, calculating brain seemed to say. Looks like I have lost hope.
Because if her father could get over Edward almost killing her—in fact, if Father still felt that she was the one at fault, what could she do to avoid the unavoidable? They’d force a reconciliation tonight. Marry her off to the generous, considerate man who had just lost his temper over a mistake she had made. Sacrifice her to repair the injury of the failed engagement.
Sure, if they forced an engagement, she could do something drastic. She could run away from her family and her life. Begin anew somewhere else. She would have thought nothing of it a year ago. Now her strength had been sapped away. Truly, a fitting end to a catastrophic year in which she had failed, firmly and unequivocally, to turn her life around.
And yet her existence had seemed so much richer, lately…Even before William—
Betty shrieked.
Here it comes.
‘They are here, my lady. I can see them coming from Piazza Navona!’
Her stomach twisted, a reminder of the violence she was about to do to herself.
‘My lady,’ Betty clutched her hands frantically. ‘We need to leave. Now.’
‘I am not running away,’ she said, but her voice was shaking.
‘This is madness, my lady! If they force an engagement, you may not survive to see your wedding!’ Betty grabbed her hand, shaking, frenzied. ‘You need to run, my lady, please .’
‘Not anymore.’
‘This is not just about you! What will happen to the shelter if you’re not there? What will happen to all your guests?’
‘Sophie will carry on my work—’
‘That place is nothing without you!’ Betty’s eyes filled with tears. ‘For God’s sake, think about all of us who love you! Think about Captain Rabenstein, think about his siblings! Why, even Mr Campbell was sick with worry for you, yesterday! We are here for you, we have always been here for you! We do not care if it takes you a year, two years, or ten years to recover, we will stand by you! But you need to give us a chance to help you. Just one single chance, I beg you. And the chance is right now .’
There was a glimmer of light. A matchstick sizzling into a cavernous darkness.
And the darkness caught fire.
It lit up a barren wasteland of twisted trees and charred ruins.
But beyond the blaze, in the distance, a timid dawn was rising. It was rising over hills and fields of a world where there was still hope…and love. All the love she had to give. All the love she was receiving. Every single day.
And William’s words echoed in that pale dawn.
…you will find a way to be rid of him…but on your own terms. Not on his…You will be happy and whole again…I swear.
She turned to Betty.
‘Come with me. Through the Rabensteins’ garden.’
They ran out. The sky was ripped apart by thunder and lightning as they sneaked through the door connecting the two gardens. They ran across Moritz’s garden, fast, breathlessly, like she had run in the countryside in Moritz’s estate, when she had regained her strength, her body had stopped aching and she had discovered herself alive. She tripped and collapsed on the ground, in the mud, under the downpour. And for the first time in an eternity, there, in the mud, pelted by hot rain, she was free. She burst into laughter. And she laughed so hard it hurt. Maybe it was pain, the pain of rebirth. And with every gasp, though the air was hot and dense with humidity, she breathed the fresh air of a wholly new life.
I will never, ever, let him or anyone else have power over me. I will pay the price for it if I need to. I will lose everything if I need to. I will no longer live like this—I will—I will—
She had no idea what the hell she would . But that ‘I will—’ was enough on its own. Being able to conceive of a future, no matter how unspecific, was already a victory after a year spent running in circles.
She raised her gaze to the sky, which was vast and stormy over Rome, and all she could think about was that she wanted to be with him. So she left Betty at the Rabensteins’ and she ran across a maze of alleys and grand streets, in the violet shades of the evening. It was dark already when she knocked at William’s door.
When the door opened, her eyes met something she hadn’t quite expected.
A hard slab of muscles.
Framed by the door was an imposing man, strikingly similar to William but much taller and with harder, more pronounced features. He stood there proudly, bare-chested, strong like a bull. It was Edmund Campbell.
Former soldier.
Prizefighter.
All-round scoundrel.
‘Brilliant.’ His voice had a deep gravel to it. ‘Lady Claudia at my door. This day had been going a little too well.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Viscount Malombra sent you here, didn’t he? The bastard said he bloody would. As though he wasn’t sleeping around himself.’
‘Mr Campbell—’
‘All right, sweetheart.’ He roughly tilted her chin up. ‘I don’t know what the Visconte told you, but that thing with the whip was his wife’s idea.’ Claudia flushed. ‘For once, I had really just gone to the stables to see their new racehorse. How the hell was I to know that she had something else in mind?’
‘M-Mr Campbell—’
‘What exactly do you want me to do now, love? I can’t un-fuck Malombra’s wife, can I?’
Her jaw dropped.
‘Mr Campbell, there must be a misunderstanding. I am here for your brother.’
He was taken aback for a second, then his eyes flashed with amusement.
‘Ah, in that case,’ he cleared his throat, as though to repeat a little poem learned by heart for the millionth time, ‘“I know nothing about those artefacts, no idea why they disappeared, you must have misplaced them.” Goodbye.’
‘What!? Which artefacts?’
‘I told you all I know. Forget about my brother.’ Then he eyed her up from head to toe. ‘Or come upstairs with me, love. I can show you exactly what I did with the Visconte ’s wife. I don’t sleep with virgins, but I’d make an exception for you. What’s with your voice? Has anyone ever told you that you could get a man in trouble with that?’
‘Your brother, as it happens. Does he write your lines? Now let me in, young man , or you’ll regret it.’
Never mind that he was older than her, and a huge deal taller. The young man never failed to produce the desired effect.
‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘Come in.’
He led her through exquisite rooms full of antiques, until they reached the study. William was sitting at a desk in front of an enormous window, wearing a loose shirt opened at the neck. He was distractedly trailing a quill that a scrawny black cat tried to catch. It was the first time she saw him in the privacy and comfort of his own home, when nobody else watched him. He was so beautiful that it made her gasp.
He lifted his gaze, visibly concerned. Then his eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched.
He was not happy to see her.
It sent a shock right through her.
‘I tried not to let her in, brother,’ Edmund Campbell said. ‘She seems intent on holding a sermon about something you did.’
‘Lady Claudia,’ William’s face was an unreadable mask, but his voice trembled a little. ‘You can leave us, Ed. I’ll deal with it.’
‘I am going out anyway. To pay a visit to Malombra’s wife, as it happens. Bye, love. Think about what I said.’ He let his hand glide on her buttocks. By the time she had turned furiously, he had disappeared.
‘I’m so sorry.’ William muttered, but his eyes burned with rage. ‘He’s completely deranged. I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.’
Only now did she notice that his eyes were shiny and a little red.
‘William, you’ve been crying! What happened?’
She walked to him to embrace him, but he stepped back as though bitten by a snake. After that day, it almost broke her.
‘You invited me here yesterday,’ she said to convince herself that it was true. ‘You told me to come here. But you do not want me here now.’
‘You did well to come.’ He said coolly. ‘And I am glad that you are safe. But we need to talk, Claudia. But first,’ there was just a flicker of lust as he glanced at her rain-soaked clothes, ‘we need to get you out of that muddy dress before you get a chill. I’ll go fetch Mrs Russell. She’ll prepare you a bath if you want. You can borrow something of Iris.’
He evaded her gaze. It alarmed her even more.
‘William? What happened?’
‘First we take care of you. We’ll talk after.’
And for that day, she had enough.
‘Is this a joke? Do you really think I’m going to sit in a bathtub singing, while you’re here all furious at me for a reason I cannot even begin to fathom?’
‘I’ll call Mrs Russell for you.’
He strode away, disappearing from her sight.
***
William went to fetch Mrs Russel, but in truth he just wanted Claudia out of his sight, because the mere sight of her all rain-soaked and visibly concerned for him was burning through his resolve like a wildfire. He avoided her gaze when he walked back in.
‘Bath’s upstairs.’
She sneered imperiously. There was a wholly new force to her tonight. For the first time since he had met her, she looked fully unguarded. Fully alive.
‘You aren’t going to tell me what is wrong?’
‘See you in a bit,’ he said tautly.
‘Very well. In that case, I’ll just sit here and look at you in silence until you tell me what I did to cause such an outrage.’
She sat on the settee, muddy and rain-drenched. She may have been waiting for an audience with royalty, so composed she was. But she was starting to tremble. Rain dropped from her chin. Her eyes were full of concern. She was truly worried for him.
He couldn’t watch that for a second longer.
‘You’ll be the death of me, woman,’ he muttered.
He fetched a blanket and wrapped it tight around her, ignoring the scent of woman and rain, and how it evoked the moment he had worshipped her breasts in the alley the other day.
‘Thanks.’
It had not been an entirely selfless act. Her forms concealed, he could breathe a bit more now. Only marginally, though.
She wrapped herself in the blanket as if bracing herself for something ominous. Her grey and yellow eyes were flashing with suspicion.
‘Well then, what have I done?’
‘First of all, Claudia.’ He inhaled, unsure of what to say. Well, he had to start somewhere. ‘I am so very glad you are safe. How are you?’
‘I was well until the moment I walked in, thank you.’
‘That’s not what I meant. You didn’t meet St Cross, tonight, did you?’
‘No. I ran away. They were trying to force an engagement, I believe.’
A sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
‘Claudia…’
‘And you know what, I may well have gone along with it. Because I was so tired. So tired of escaping from him. But then I ran.’ She rubbed her eyes wearily. ‘I didn’t even need to come here. I was safe at a neighbour’s. But I wanted to see you.’ She lifted her gaze, and her eyes were like pearls on her mud-streaked face. ‘I wanted to thank you. Because you don’t know what it meant to me, what you did for me yesterday.’
Her eyes welled up with tears. She might as well have been saying ‘ What a fool I was. ’
He clasped his hands together and started pacing around so as not to pull her to him and kiss her senseless.
‘We need to talk, Claudia. What you and I have been doing for the past few days—’
‘—is dangerous.’ She was serious. Pragmatic. Calm. ‘I am aware.’
‘Yes. And I—’ She will break your heart. She is breaking your heart already. You need to put an end to it. ‘I am no longer sure whether it is worth it.’
Her nostrils quivered. Her lips tensed. She exhaled slowly, slowly. She remained silent.
‘Just look at us, Claudia! We’ve been acting like two irresponsible fools! Do you have any idea what would happen if they found out what we’ve been up to, or that you are here tonight?’
‘You invited me—’
‘Now listen up. You will be made to marry St Cross. As for me, your father will make very sure that my brother and I can never do any business in this town anymore. It will ruin us. You and I are risking everything for a silly little flirt that will end as soon as you travel back, if not before that.’
Hopelessness sank deep into his bones.
For a few, long moments he felt completely empty. He no longer knew where he was. It was all doomed. Doomed either way.
‘A silly little flirt?’ Her eyes searched his anxiously. ‘Is this what this is to you?’
No. Not in a million years.
‘Yes.’
Claudia flinched. She went quiet.
‘Well, what’s so odd about it?’ he taunted her, and his rage mounted. ‘You said it yourself yesterday, that you have taken lovers all your life, whenever you fancied it.’
Her jaw clenched. She did not reply.
‘That’s what you want from me, Claudia, isn’t it? The same as half of this town wants. A pretty thing to adorn your bed. A thing to discard when you’ve had enough.’
It was his pain speaking. Avoiding a heartbreak? Who was he kidding? He was heartbroken already.
‘Ah, so is this what this scene is really about? About the fact that since I have taken lovers in the past, then I must be quite incapable of being truly fond of you, mustn’t I?’ There was rage in her eyes, but her voice was steady, almost eerily warm . Odd. One would have said she was used to battling, or to sitting calmly in the eye of the storm. ‘Why don’t you ask me whether that is how I see you, instead of presuming you know?’
‘Because I don’t trust you, Claudia!’ he shouted, and his fury was directed at himself, for diving head-first into a heartbreak despite he had always known that he could never have a future with her. ‘Do you have any idea how often we’ve seen that in our lives? My brothers and I could fill a book with stories of women like you ! Aristocrats who propositioned me, women who slipped into my brothers’ beds at night, only to treat us like dirt when we met in public. We belong nowhere near people like you! And why the hell would I trust you, after you openly admitted to deliberately sleeping with men below your station? Men nobody would believe if they revealed their relations with you?’
‘What!?’ Her jaw dropped. ‘I didn’t say that at all , William! I just meant that the lovers I took were often not well-known aristocrats, of the sort that are in my family’s circle. Why, it would have ended up in the scandal sheets the next day!'
He refused to listen.
‘Do you have any idea how cold and calculating that makes you sound?’
‘Cold?’
As though a wick had been lit, Claudia’s eyes filled with such fury that he regretted speaking.
‘Cold?’ she repeated.
She slowly, slowly, removed the blanket from her shoulders like something vile. She stood. ‘Oh, William, you are so na?ve. I am a woman. I have no choice but to be cold and calculating about my vices .’ She spoke quietly, but a measured, controlled fury quivered in every word. ‘But I take it you would have liked it better if I had bedded a Duke? Of course, the whole of England would have found out about it the next day, my column would have been shut down, I’d have never found patrons and philanthropists willing to donate to my shelter anymore, but that would have been less cold , less calculating , wouldn’t it?’
Something creaked in her composure.
The anger he had always sensed seething just below her skin was about to come out. He knew it.
She started pacing around like a lioness in a cage, her face painted orange and red by the candlelight, each step adding to her animation.
‘Do you think I don’t know what they say about me, William? They call me saintly on good days and frigid on bad days, as though that was something to be ashamed about. But of course, if my sins were known to the world, then they’d call me a whore. You men know no half measures.’ She twisted her mouth contemptuously. ‘It’s enough for us to do once what you men do every day to lose the only thing that makes us valuable in the eyes of society. Then we are chased out of our homes lest our reputation endangers that of our sisters. Friends and family begin to avert their gaze in the street. And what happens to those who are not as wealthy and powerful as I am? Half of the times they’ll end up in a street, selling their bodies to survive. Or bound to their abusers, because they have no one else left to turn to. No one. No one in this vile, violent world.’
She stood still for a moment by his desk, her eyes turned to torches, and he knew she was about to tip over, he was about to watch her unfettered, like an earthquake or a tornado. And for the life of him he couldn’t say why, but he wanted to see it.
‘ And do you know what happens then, William Campbell? ’ She growled out the question so slowly that his hair stood on end. ‘I see it for myself every day! In the letters I receive, and in my shelter! Do you think I spend my life dispensing wise advice to spoiled aristocrats? That stupid column is a cover! It is a hand outstretched towards those who need it most, hidden in plain sight. Help they can ask for without arousing suspicion. Every day the Lord gives me, at least before a man almost dispatched me to the other world, I am there in my shelter, no, in my fortress . And with these two bare hands, and let’s be honest with the help of clever girls that would outwit smarter men than you, we hold the devil back!’
She hit her fist so forcefully on his desk that he was astonished it did not disintegrate.
Here it comes.
Show me who you are.
Show me who you are when you are not trying to please everyone around you.
‘Do you have any idea what a day in there is like?’ Her husky voice had a growl to it. ‘First thing in the morning come the lawyers of rich, aggrieved men. Good men like St Cross who want their mistresses back and can’t wait to have my head on a silver platter. Then we do our daily round at the local asylum, to see whether anyone we were trying to protect has been brought there overnight. We mostly find them drugged up and restrained, or so numb with fear that they can barely move. Then back to the shelter. There are classes to be prepared. Food to be made. A leaking roof to be repaired. Doctors to be called. And just when you think the day has started just tolerably well, punctually, there’s the daily emergency. I’ll spare you the details of the sorts of things we see in there. And you know why no day passes without an emergency? Because when they turn to us, they are on-their-last-fucking-legs-William-Campbell! ’ And with each word she slammed her palm on his desk, her rings hitting the surface sounded like the crack of a whip. ‘They have tried staying, they have tried living with the violence, because they have nowhere else to go, no family to turn back to. And who knows, maybe if you please him, if you only do exactly as he says, if you erase yourself sufficiently, he will eventually start loving you, and maybe even make an honest woman of you . I’ve seen women half-dead crawling up the gravel path to our shelter on their knees!’ Her throat quivered and her eyes filled with furious tears. ‘It’s a bloody butchery out there! It’s a battlefield! And the battle plays out on the bodies of women every single day. ’ Tears were glistening in her eyes, but she did not bother wiping them away. ‘Do you know how many enemies I’ve made trying to protect these women? How many powerful men would like to see us destroyed? How many Lord this and Lord that are trying to have us shut down, just so nobody will ever know that they’ve been beating their mistresses within inches of their lives? But we carry on. I carry on. There is nothing I don’t do in there, nothing I wouldn’t do for my guests! I have delivered babies with these hands, William Campbell! They all need something of me, and they’d have to restrain me and skin me alive before I deny them anything! But I am not made of steel! Do you hear me? I am not made of steel, William! I’m not a saint, not by any stretch, not in a million years! I am weak! I need a man’s touch! And if I want to lose myself in the arms of a man who won’t ruin my reputation and with it my life’s work, I bloody well will! ’
And with that she hit her fist on his desk so hard that it creaked horribly and collapsed, carrying all his notes to the floor. She stood glorious before a carnage of fluttering papers, and he did not give a damn about them because he could barely breathe. There it was, bared to him, the mystery of her secret wrath. The mystery of her physical strength. He could see her striding across the corridors of her shelter, her dress stained with grime and dirt, like a warrior goddess, like Athena guiding her army into battle, day after day, sandals covered in sand and blood. Self-sufficient. Strong. Fierce. Protective. Indomitable.
Formidable.
And he no longer was in control of himself.
He crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.
‘I am so sorry, Claudia.’ He ravenously kissed her cheekbones, her lips, her forehead. ‘I am so, so sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean—I was just afraid—’
‘I don’t want your kisses, you hypocrite.’ She pushed him away. ‘Calling me cold for taking lovers. Yes, I have slept with men. Yes, maybe they were not famous and titled. But I have never lied to a man. I never promised what I couldn’t give. I am not like you .’ And he knew what was coming, because he realised only now what a terrible hypocrite he had been. ‘Why are you always hovering around women well above your station? Why are you in the Gazette Internationale every single day for making this or that Duchess swoon? What do you want from them? Fame? Prestige? You don’t even know what it feels like to be buried inside a woman, why do you go around licking people’s spoons and pretending to be someone you’re not?’ She grabbed her rain-soaked shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘You know what, I don’t even want to know. Our silly little flirt ends here. Farewell, Mr Campbell!’
‘Claudia, no!’ He ran after her. ‘Claudia, please don’t go, listen to me first.’
‘No, thank you! I am not interested in another lecture on what I feel about you.’ She strode to the entrance.
‘Claudia, please .’ He halted. ‘I wouldn’t give a damn if you’d been with half of London. It’s just…it’s just that this is not just a flirt for me!’ She stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly. He swallowed. ‘You matter an awful lot to me. And I’m pretty damn scared that someone is going to get hurt. That I am going to get hurt.’