Chapter Three
THREE YEARS LATER
When Kate entered the club on St. James’s Street, it had the predictable effect. Footmen stood to attention, the majordomo came scurrying, and members nodded or hid, according to the common ledger of debt and favour. Kate acknowledged none of it and strode into the front sitting room.
“The duke’s seat, the duke’s seat, the duke’s seat,” a young woman whispered urgently as Kate approached her usual place by the fire, at which the seat’s unlucky occupant leapt to his feet and out of the way, straight into a bookcase.
Kate gave no sign she even noticed as she swept past them and on into the reading room.
Richard stayed back for a moment to say with some exasperation, “Sit down, Donald. Catch your breath. You, Lord Josephine, fetch him a brandy.” He jogged to catch up and bumped Kate’s shoulder with his. “You might spare the children. They don’t know any better.”
“What?” She had been thinking about the mines and had no idea what he was talking about.
He stared at her, then muttered a never mind and clapped her on the back, continuing on through the reading room at her side.
Richard was, as always, perfectly put together: his collars tall and starched, his cravat knotted with elaborate exactitude, every cuff turned in a crisp line.
His dark hair was tousled in the fashionable manner and his pretty, dark-lashed eyes gave him a romantic air.
She’d never met anyone as particular about his appearance as Richard Howard, who was a distant cousin and her closest friend.
He wasn’t with her today as either cousin or friend, however. He was here in his capacity as a member of Parliament.
Over the past year, he had been painstakingly writing a report for her, which, when complete, he would present to the Commons. It detailed the appalling, inhumane, and frequently fatal working conditions in the Earl of Wroth’s mines.
Or it would have, had Mr. Buttle not begun lying to her.
“Are you ready?” Richard said with that quiet steadiness she prized.
She raised her brows slightly. In all the time they’d known each other, had he ever seen her overcome? He gave a small, abashed shrug, and she gestured him into the private room at the back of the club.
The room was small, wood-panelled, and richly appointed. The table, which could seat six, was occupied by a single man, his hands skittering over the polished surface.
As soon as he saw her, Mr. Buttle tucked his hands out of sight. He was unshaven, his workman’s clothes rumpled. He looked frightened but defiant. That wouldn’t last long. Soon there would be only fear.
He should have listened when he was told not to cross her.
She took the seat opposite and sat back at her ease. She said nothing, long past the point where politeness dictated somebody speak. His lips began to purse and run along his teeth.
Richard, who had been the one to deal personally with Mr. Buttle through the past year, receiving secret documents and letters from him and directing him towards what they still needed—who had, moreover, put Mr. Buttle’s name forward to Kate as a reliable informant—was too agitated to sit.
After pacing the room for some minutes, he came to stand with his hands pressed into the back of the chair next to Kate. “Buttle,” he said with a haggard, resigned edge to his voice, “what the fuck are you doing?”
“What you hired me to do,” Mr. Buttle shot back, his voice overloud. “The mine workers are—”
“Handsomely compensated,” Richard cut in, taking a letter from his pocket and unfolding it.
It was, as all present were aware, from Mr. Buttle himself.
Richard began to read. “The children play and thrive in the sunshine, when they are not helping their mothers in the new cottages Lord Wroth had built last year. The mines are under constant improvement, installing the latest safety measures and technologies. The older boys and men are cheerful on their way to and from shifts in the mines, which last a maximum of eight hours.”
Richard threw the letter onto the table, his hand shaking a little with the force of his suppressed emotion.
The only quality that could rival his steadiness was his passionate rejection of any injustice.
It was this quality that had made him a rising political star.
“Tell me, do they sing hallelujahs as well?”
“It’s the truth,” Mr. Buttle said mulishly. “Lord Wroth’s workers are happy. The children go to school on Sundays.”
“Bullshit,” Richard said, jabbing his finger into the letter.
“Every word in here is a fabrication, bought and paid for by Lord Wroth.” The fire went out of him suddenly, and he sounded very weary when he said, “Don’t do this, Buttle.
The only way we can change the hell these people are living in is by working together. ”
“I told you,” Buttle said, “I’m not lying.”
Richard leaned all his weight on the chair and hung his head, no doubt gathering himself to try again. To appeal to whatever goodness Mr. Buttle might still possess.
Into this tense, hopeless silence, Kate said mildly, “What was it I paid you to spy for me? Twenty pounds?” They were the first words she’d spoken since entering the room.
Mr. Buttle went still, as though he was only now paying full attention. Richard might dream of a fairer world, but here was the truth: All of Richard’s passionate pleas could not carry the weight that one word from Kate carried.
“You paid me for the truth,” he said, “and I’ve given it. I won’t change my testimony for any price, so don’t bother offering.” His voice was stronger now. Perhaps he’d begun to trust in the lie that had so far stood up to Richard’s badgering. Perhaps he’d even had to convince himself it was true.
She said, “I haven’t the slightest intention of paying you. Instead, I have spent my money elsewhere. I have bought your father’s debt, which he, though a fine solicitor, has too few years remaining to recoup. Most likely, he’ll die in debtors’ prison.”
Mr. Buttle’s eyes widened in shock.
“I have paid the carpenter from Shoreditch, to whom your sister has been engaged these two years, to cry off. Do oblige me by not playing the hypocrite.” The disgusted expression on Mr. Buttle’s face slackened as, perhaps for the first time, he perceived his own actions in a truly damning light.
The carpenter from Shoreditch was certainly no worse than he.
“Lastly, I have bought the building in Butchers Lane where your family resides. It’s quite a nice little investment.
As your new landlord, I will be evicting the lot of you forthwith. ”
Mr. Buttle rocked back, then shot to his feet with force. “What—” The colour left his face completely. “What have you done?”
“I have robbed your father, your sister, and yourself of all hope of future happiness,” she said equably. “Why, weren’t you listening?”
“This has nothing to do with them,” he said, changing colour again. “They aren’t at fault.”
“You amaze me. The children in Lord Wroth’s mines aren’t at fault, either. I thought we had agreed innocent lives were beside the point?”
“No, but I— But they—” He came around the table, driven to action.
He searched her face for a frantic moment, then dropped to his knees.
“Please. I’ll give my testimony in Parliament.
I saw it, all of it, the girls as young as five who work naked alongside boys and men for twelve hours in the dark, the malnutrition, the poor, sodding amputees who go begging at the vestry and come back with the branded V …
I’ll testify to Lord Wroth’s knowledge of it.
Indeed”—he looked eagerly up, grabbing on to this perceived lifeline—“not only his knowledge but his explicit orders! Take as much coal out as possible, as quickly as possible, the human cost is unimportant. I’ll stand in Parliament and tell them so, just please, please don’t hurt my family! ”
“But it’s too late for that, Mr. Buttle. The moment you exposed yourself to Lord Wroth you became useless to me as an informant. He will have ensured he has the means to discredit you, should you ever remember your conscience.”
He gave an anguished cry, his hands gripping his knees, and hung his head low.
“Kate,” Richard said, sounding shaken. “You don’t have to do this.”
She’d known he would be queasy about punishing Buttle, which was why she hadn’t involved him.
He didn’t understand that she did have to do it. Her power was absolute because no challenge to it was allowed to succeed, and no betrayal was forgiven. Just look at Mr. Buttle: He was less powerful than she, and so she’d been able to hurt him.
She would never stand in Mr. Buttle’s shoes again.
“You may leave us,” she said, suddenly hating the sight of the man’s bowed head. “If you didn’t spend all your ill-gotten money at once, you may yet be able to do something for your family.”
He looked up, hating her because he hadn’t the stomach to hate himself. She could guess the sum Lord Wroth had paid him, for which he’d sold his conscience and his word as a gentleman, and put his family at risk of retribution. She wouldn’t put it above fifty pounds.
“Go to the devil,” he said venomously.
She laughed. “Oh, I went.” She leaned forward and indulged in a little theatricality, baring her teeth at him. “The devil spat me back out.”
Mr. Buttle stumbled to his feet, scrambling away from her, then turned and made for the door like the hounds of hell were after him.
She had two other informants in the mine, so all was not lost, though Mr. Buttle had been far and away the most credible of them, as well as having the best access to the letters and documents she needed to prove Lord Wroth’s full knowledge of what went on there.
Richard’s silence became oppressive.
She turned her chair to face him, giving him her full attention. “Well?”
He said bitterly, “Listening to you, one would almost think you cared about the children in those mines.”