Chapter Six
L ark held his breath as Lady Melforth’s carriage rocked to a stop. Somewhere between the old church with its crowded graveyard, and Henrietta Street’s row of fine town houses for the living, Viv had fallen asleep, gently collapsing against Lark’s side. He made no move to wake her. Yet another elusive memory teased at him. He’d fallen asleep in such a coach once.
Outside their coach on Henrietta Street, vehicles rattled by with harness jingling, voices cried out wares for sale, footsteps echoed from the flagstones. Viv’s chin rested above his heart, a tiny point of contact in contrast to the dull ache of his wound. He breathed in the faint flowery scent of her. The rise and fall of her breast made him acutely aware of its softness, covered in layers of silk and linen, whalebone and twill, yet soft and yielding.
He had lain with women, brief couplings with accomplished professionals. The book stalls of Babylon Street offered guides to dozens of London establishments, their services, and their prices. Lark had been twenty, perhaps, when he and Rook, flush from a run of rich takings, had tried one of the most celebrated houses. The experience had been a cheat. The rooms, tricked out to seem exotic and luxurious, were an invitation to a man to lose himself in fantasy. But Lark knew a fraud when he met one. After all, he was one, a gentleman thief. Rook simply shrugged off any trappings of the act. He preferred a girl he knew in the neighborhood. Liza was quick, silent, and glad of an extra coin for her children. She offered Lark the same bargain. Lark declined out of loyalty to Rook, but he suspected himself of fastidiousness, of liking clean linen and fine wool, and wanting something more.
He had not considered a carriage as a likely place for carnal embrace, but now the thought intruded with a kind of insistence. And not any carriage, this one, with its elegant padded interior and its blue velvet curtains that could be drawn over the windows separating those inside from the ordinary life of London on the pavement. Within two days, Vivian Bradish had slipped into that blank space in his mind occupied by the ideal lover he could vaguely imagine. She annoyed him, and stirred him in equal parts. He was getting into a predicament from which he did not know how to extract himself. He was certain that, for all her boldness, she knew nothing of the things that a girl like Liza knew. He glanced at her moleskin notebook full of jottings lying on the seat, peeking out from under her billowing skirts. He wanted to see inside the little notebook. Did she understand anything of the city?
Against his side, she stirred and drew in a deeper breath.
“We’re here,” he said. He slid his arm up the cushions, breaking contact with her shoulders.
She lifted her head and straightened. “Oh, you let me fall asleep.”
“It’s warm, and soft as a baby’s pram in here. Put you right out.”
She cast him a doubtful glance. Her dark eyes still had the faraway look of sleep. “You agreed to tell me your life story.”
“I did. You yawned prodigiously.”
“What is the hour?” Her cheek, rosy with heat, bore the slanting imprint of his coat lapel. Lark guessed that Haxton or the young footman would open the door, but he knew she should not be seen by her employer with that mark on her cheek.
“Near four.”
With an abrupt start she came back fully to her senses. “Oh dear. Have we been sitting here long?”
“Just arrived.”
“I must go in.” She twisted, reaching for her bonnet and bag.
“Wait, you’re still waking up.” He didn’t move. “Make sure you…look…presentable.”
“Presentable?” Her gaze flew to his.
“You look…a little…”
“What?”
“Warm.” He hoped she did not detect the note of carnal interest in his voice.
“Do I?” She touched her cheek. “This is your fault. You deliberately set out to…to lull me, like some nursemaid putting a child to bed. And I don’t know your story.”
“Ask me for it again tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” She frowned. “You can’t accompany me everywhere.”
“Can’t I? ”
“Don’t be difficult. I have a job to do, as you must.” Her skirts rustled with a sudden burst of movement. She scooted forward, and looked pointedly at his legs stretched across the space between the benches. He dropped his hand to the seat behind her and gave the little notebook a push toward the back of the bench.
“I really must go to Lady Melforth.”
He pulled his legs out of her way and turned the door handle. “Go.”
She lurched past him, bent awkwardly, her skirts a froth of silk in the narrow space. Her hand came down to grasp his knee.
He drew a sharp breath at the contact. “Steady,” he said.
“I’m sorry.” She moved her hand to the door. “I forgot your wound.”
“Go,” he said again through gritted teeth, unreasonably stirred by that hand on his knee.
Lady Melforth’s door opened and the footman hurried down the steps to help Viv. She accepted his hand and descended. “How is Lady M?” she asked him.
“She needs you, miss,” he said.
Lark stuck his head out of the carriage door. “Tomorrow,” he said.
She gave him one last exasperated glance. “You’re impossible,” she said, and turned away.
He watched the door close behind her and stepped down to the pavement. He thanked the coachman, waved the man off, and headed for his own neighborhood, the little moleskin book, tucked inside his waistcoat.
*
In the upper drawing room, Viv found Lady Melforth drowning in a sea of silk cushions on the Aubusson sofa. The drapes were drawn. The air was close and heavy with the medicinal scents of vinegar and tisane, signs of one of her ladyship’s headaches.
“Oh dear.” Viv crossed to the windows to let in light and air. “You’ve had a dreadful day, I take it.”
“Why did you stay away so long? I expected you hours ago. I could have died, you know, alone here, unable to reach the bell.”
“I’m sorry. I thought the Strydes were with you.”
“Well, I suppose there are some things worse even than being seized and fitted for one’s coffin.”
“No one is fitting you for a coffin yet. Let me fix those cushions and you won’t feel so low. Can you lean forward?” For a few minutes, Viv arranged and fluffed pillows to give Lady Melforth’s back more support. She righted her ladyship’s sagging coiffure and rang the bell for Jenny to take away the old teacup and the vinegar-soaked cloth and bring one of her ladyship’s cordials.
When all had been done to make her ladyship more comfortable, Viv drew a chair near her employer and settled. “What would you like to hear first?” she asked. It was their usual practice for Viv to tell some story of the day and to read her notes, letting Lady Melforth pass judgment on how to shape the material, where to start and what to emphasize. Viv marveled at her ladyship’s way of spotting the details that gave a scene vivid life. Later Viv would make revisions. She reached for her notebook and realized she didn’t have it.
The thought left her momentarily confused. She always had her notebook with her, but she couldn’t remember bringing it into the house. She had simply needed to get out of that carriage, away from Mr. Larkin. In a flash she saw her awkward stumbling over his knees and hurried rush to the door. With effort, she could picture her bonnet and bag on the hall table, and her flushed face in the mirror, but not the notebook. She must have left it on the bench of the carriage. She drew in a calming breath. Tim Coachman would no doubt find it and return it to the house.
Lady Melforth sipped the cordial.
“The Strydes suspect your young man of being a swell , you know.”
“You don’t think him one, do you?”
“In my day we called them dandies . The thing is…what could I tell the Strydes? I really should know who his people are and where he got his education. You know how Eustacia can go on with her Anti-Vice blather about the decadence of London’s youth. You mustn’t leave me at such a disadvantage.” Lady Melforth’s right hand began to tremble.
“I hardly think he’s either a swell or a dandy . He seems to care more about clean linen and good cloth, than fashion excess.” Viv didn’t know why she was defending him, but she hadn’t seen any personal vanity in him.
“Apparently he reads novels.” One of Lady Melforth’s red brows quirked upward. “ The Spanish Brothers? ”
Viv recalled the book she’d left in the hall. “You won’t fault him for that, will you?”
“The point is, Viv, I thought you’d got over the folly of being in love, in Bath, before I hired you. Yet, here you are again. I suppose he made sheep’s eyes at you and flowery speeches.” Her ladyship put down the cordial and subdued her shaking right hand.
“Not at all.” Viv thought Mr. Larkin would be much easier to manage if he were the sort to make speeches. As it was, he was quick and he distracted her, as he had from the first when he stepped between her and the fleeing pickpocket. Until today, she’d never forgot her notebook.
“But if you marry him, can you be sure he will let you write? For you must write, Viv. I’ve not spent my time on you to have you throw away my good instruction so you can pin nappies around babies’ bottoms and haggle with servants over your husband’s comforts.”
Trust Lady Melforth to reduce marriage to its spirit-killing demands. Viv was quite sure that her ladyship had never pinned a nappy on a bottom. Viv wanted to say that she would not be marrying Mr. Larkin, so there was no need to worry, but for the moment the charade must be preserved. “Shall I have the lawyers put it in the settlement papers—Mr. Larkin’s wife must have a desk and a private corner and be permitted to write no fewer than a thousand words a day?”
“Yes. But, Viv, it’s not just his income you must be sure of. Or his willingness to have a scribbling wife. As a writer, you must be seen to be a lady, the granddaughter of an earl. I dare say, half of the secret of my writing success is not in the word traveling , but in the word viscountess . If you must marry, you must marry well. What are this man’s origins?”
“I haven’t checked the peerage for his family, but… ”
“Invite him for tea tomorrow evening. I must question him.”
“Tomorrow? Surely there’s no rush for you to…know him better. We promised not to marry before the guidebook is done.”
Again, Viv experienced a bit of confusion. Lady Melforth seemed to think that Viv was going to need a husband after all, on whose income and rank in society Viv would depend and not on her work as a writer. But the point of their guide was for Viv to make her way in the world by her own abilities, by fearlessness and skill with words. With the publication of the guide, Viv was to have her own money and not depend on Mr. Larkin or any man.
She did not want Lady Melforth questioning her betrothed too closely. Mr. Larkin had the careless air of a man who did not need to grub for money . That was the phrase. Viv knew she would always need to grub for it with ink stains on her fingers and precious notebooks filled with her observations. But if he had an employer, even a generous one like the Duke of Wenlocke, he could not have a large income. His income was something about him she had not yet considered, like his direction, which she did not know. She had the impression that he no longer lived with the duke, so she had no sure way to send him an invitation for tea. He did say he would see her on the morrow, but could she count on his coming? What if the duke required him for some reason? “Oh Waterloo,” she said. She was going to need the signal he’d invented.
“Waterloo? My girl, are you woolgathering?”
“Not at all, ma’am. I’m sure Mr. Larkin will be delighted to join us for tea. Now, let me tell you about Mary Godwin’s grave.”
“I see you don’t have your notebook. You’ve not lost it, have you? It’s not like you to be careless with our work. No rivals must ever get hold of our material.”
“I’m sorry. We were so late returning, I rushed in. I left it in the carriage. Tim Coachman will bring it in, I’m sure.”
“Ah, well, Godwin’s grave can wait until you have your notes. I’m tired. Help me up to bed, will you?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
An hour later Viv sent Thomas, her favorite footman, to ask Tim Coachman if her notebook had turned up. The two men returned to the house together to assure her that they’d both searched the carriage thoroughly and the notebook was not there.
“But it must be,” Viv insisted to the two sober-faced men, “I put it…” Realization stopped her. She knew where it was, well, she didn’t know where it was, but she knew who had it. “Thank you both for looking.”
*
Rook was out when Lark turned up at the old place. He put a meat pie and a pint pot of ale on the ancient vanity in his old room, lit a lamp, and withdrew the little notebook from his inner pocket. Taking the notebook had been an impulse. Walking to Rook’s with the little moleskin pad pressed to his good side while each step pulled at his stitches, he had rapidly passed from being curious about her writing to needing to see it for himself. Now he saw the notebook as a dilemma. He tossed it onto the vanity into the circle of lamp light.
He turned to the makeshift wardrobe he had long ago created out of a pair of old doors and some green damask bed hangings from a bankruptcy sale. He shed coat and waistcoat, discarded his silk tie, and gingerly pulled his shirt away from the wound in his side. A bit of blood now marked the shirt. He pulled it off and draped it over the cabinet that formerly held his shaving things. For a moment he regarded the blood-marked plaster on his ribs. It would have to be changed, and he had no valet to do the changing. He hoped he could persuade Rook to do it, but what he wanted was for Viv to change it. She seemed to have no hesitation about examining the wound or even about touching him. He would just need a story to explain his dependence on her help rather than a valet’s.
A sudden chill shook him, and he reached into the wardrobe. His hand brushed the black velvet coat Dav had worn as their leader, the coat he had discarded when he returned to his family and true name. That day, the day Lark and Rook had set out for London, Lark had picked up the fallen coat and donned it. He slipped it on now. Though the hem was in tatters, the silky lining warmed him.
He settled in the chair at the vanity and took a pull from the ale pot, ready to consider the problem of the little notebook. There was no question that he would return it to her. Nor was there a question of when. He would return it first thing in the morning.
She would be angry that he had taken it. The little notebook mattered to her, unlike the purse of pebbles she’d lost in their first encounter. He wondered whether she would confess the trick to him. She apparently had no need of ready money in Lady Melforth’s household, but she wanted money, he was sure of that. The story she told, revealed half-sisters and a mother who did not manage well on a low income.
He put aside the ale and took up the notebook. It fit neatly in his hands. In taking it, he had planned to read it, at least those parts where she might have written about him. He wanted to know whether the doctor was right, that Lark was a mere anecdote in her tales of London, a bit of passing street life. He wanted to know if the book was dangerous and whether reading it would put ladies on their guard against pickpockets. He wanted to know whether she knew anything of the city as he knew it. He wanted to know if she wrote in a fine lady’s delicate hand, or in quick jottings that matched her rapidity of thought. He held the book to his nose and thumbed the edge, letting the leaves fan his face as if they would release her secrets. Oh, he wanted to read it.
The problem was that if he read it, he would satisfy his curiosity, but violate her trust. Taking the notebook was one thing, but reading it, he knew, would be a worse offense. As it was, he had no idea whether he could distract her from her anger when he returned it. But he must. He might be daft to keep their charade going, but he meant to try. She declared herself at odds with the ideal of female respectability, a woman who fired a pistol at a fleeing assailant. She was the opposite of a mark, curious and confident, and bold. He’d grant her that, but she was no Liza. Whatever desires he’d had while Viv nestled against him in the carriage, she fell into that lofty category of respectable women known as ladies.
Not that he wanted her to be Liza, but he wanted her to be susceptible to him, and not in the way that the usual female mark was. He never had carnal thoughts about a mark. Most of them didn’t see him at all. They saw his clothes, heard his posh accent, and accepted that he was a gentleman, a man to lean on in a moment of distress when the city proved to be too much for them. Later when such a woman spoke to a copper, she would describe the kind gentleman who helped her. She wouldn’t remember his appearance or the name he gave her.
The city did not seem to overwhelm Viv, but to thrill her, and she would not forget his name, still his heart was in no danger. He was having a lark, playing a game in her company. With her he could stroll those regions of London he had not yet searched. And what he needed was for her to change the bandage without suspecting his real circumstances. That meant he had to come up with a story for her. He could cover the bit about his education, but he needed to invent some sort of family. How lofty a family, that was the question. He broke the still-warm pie in half. He thought he’d allow himself a maiden aunt, of modest means, but generous in nature. She’d live a retired life in a country village, perhaps Somerton, and from time to time she’d send her nephew a gift.
The door opened behind him. Rook was not one for knocking. “You going to eat that pie?”
“I am.”
“I did a click today. ”
Lark spun around, immediately regretting the action, as a sharp pain jabbed at him. “Where?”
“There was some ceremony, ribbon-cutting thing, at a digging. I bagged a gold turnip watch. Sold it, too.” He jingled some coins in the pocket of his ragged jacket.
“In Hoxton?” They never fenced anything in their own neighborhood.
“I can do clicks without you, you know. Most dippers do.”
“What if you’d been twigged? How would I get you out?”
Rook shrugged. “Sure yer going to eat that pie?”
“I’m sure.”
Rook shrugged again and turned away.
Lark bit into the pie and caught the crumbs before they landed on Viv’s notebook.
He knew what he wanted, what everything around him could deny him. He wanted Viv to read the notebook to him.