Chapter Fifteen
A s the sky began to clear, Viv hooked her umbrella over her arm. Puddles glinted everywhere in shafts of sunlight, reflecting back the fleeing clouds. The breeze tossed bare tree limbs and scattered bright drops. Viv made three circuits of the neighborhood, noting possible bachelor’s quarters, before the tall woman with the flowers appeared.
This time she carried yellow flowers, and wore a green gown. Like Viv, she had an umbrella over her arm, but also a sturdy traveler’s case. Viv waited for the woman to put down her burdens and replace the spray of flowers on the railing. When the new flowers were in place, and the woman had said her prayer, Viv approached.
“You again. I suppose you want that story now. Miss Bradish, is it?” With smiling eyes in her heart-shaped face the woman bent to retrieve her bag and umbrella.
“I do, ma’am. If I may have it.”
“Your friend, Mr. Larkin, tells me I may trust you.”
Viv kept her smile in place. There was the proof, if she needed it, that Lark lived in the neighborhood. “He’s a good neighbor then?”
“He is.” The woman’s eyebrows went up. She pointed. “He’s just there with the bachelors.”
Viv made a mental note of the number .
“Walk with me, Miss Bradish. And I’ll tell you my story.”
“May I know your name?”
“I was born Adele St. Clair in Cap Francois, like the queen.” It was a simple beginning, but at once Viv had a thousand questions.
“Did you know her in Haiti?”
“No. I came to London as a girl before Marie Christophe became queen. My father sent me when I was twelve because there was great violence against our people then, and everyone said the land was a powder keg.” Adele had a faraway look in her eyes.
Viv fell into step beside the older woman. “How did you come to know the queen in London?”
“My husband is a customs clerk. He heard of her arrival as I was beginning my business, and he encouraged me to seek her favor.” Something in the memory made Adele smile.
“You smile, ma’am. Tell me more.”
“I was not sure I should put myself forward, she, a queen, and I, a seamstress, but my husband said, ‘Who else should sew for her but her own countrywoman?’ And he had an idea of how I could win her favor.”
They came to the park’s York Gate and turned west along the road, passing a row of new terraced houses. Through the park’s iron fence, the little lake sparkled and the trees made a lacy open canopy of branches about to blossom. Viv admired the storyteller’s craft with which Adele had stopped the narrative short leaving her listener with an unanswered question.
Beyond the row of terraced houses was an island in the road with shrubs around a bench. To Viv’s surprise Adele produced a small rug from her bag to lay over the damp surface. “Sit, girl,” she said.
When Viv complied and Adele joined her on the bench, she asked, “Are you particular about your coffee, Miss Bradish?”
Viv nodded, momentarily confused by the aside from the main story. “I prefer a cup prepared the Turkish way.”
Adele nodded. “In Haiti, the coffee cherries are as red as your English holly berries, and the roasted beans, as black as my hands. You use a pilon , a large mortar to turn the roasted beans to powder.” Adele made a gesture with her hands. “So, at my husband’s suggestion, I brought the queen beans from home and a pilon and offered to sew for her and for her daughters, Améthyste and Athénais.”
Viv could see the cleverness of the appeal to a shared experience, and the intimacy of such a connection. A woman’s seamstress knew her tastes, her figure, her very attitude toward her appearance. Viv itched to pull out the notebook from her reticule, but there would be a time for that. First, she must simply listen.
“That’s how we came to be friends. Over coffee. When I came to bring cloth or designs or to measure and fit, we always had our coffee and our talk. So much talk. I cannot begin to tell it all.”
“Please, can you tell me about her? The queen?”
For a time, it seemed to Viv that Adele St. Clair was lost in memories, then she smiled again. “She was Marie-Louise, as she grew up in her father’s hotel. Cap Francois was like another Paris then. She told me of all the people she met there as she came up. It was her father who first thought she would make a queen. In some ways her father was like mine, believing his daughter could learn anything, be anything. But they did not always see eye-to-eye. Especially about her husband who worked in the hotel’s stables, until Marie taught him, and helped him buy his freedom and become a soldier.”
Adele paused looking out over the park. “The great struggle with the French came and afterward with the factions. The queen lived underground for nearly three years with her children. Her time as queen was brief, but she had dignity and grace.”
Viv did not know the story of the distant island and the struggles of its people. “And then?” she asked.
Adele sighed, but her voice took on a powerful quality. “Her husband died, and their home was to be destroyed. She saved his body from harm. Her sons were killed, and she fled with her daughters. All they had known was lost.”
It sounded like the end of the story, but Viv knew there was more. “And so she came to London?”
Adele smiled again. “Yes. Marie has a saying. Je renais de mes cendres. I am reborn from my ashes. Like our country.”
“But she did not stay. Why did she leave?”
“The London air. The soot and smoke made her daughter Améthyste very ill.”
It was plain to Viv that Adele’s visits were a tribute to a female friendship, like the one between Lady Melforth and Viv. From the corner of her eye, she saw a gentleman approaching with a rapid stride. He headed straight for them .
“Now, you know why I must come to her house. In Haiti we do not eat the food of forgetfulness. It helps me in London to remember the one who was good to me, who brought me many ladies as clients. Not all great ladies are as kind as she.”
“And your business?”
“It thrives thanks to her.”
The gentleman reached their bench and tipped his hat. He had a head of red curls, blue eyes in a freckled face, prominent ears, and a blade-sharp nose. “My love,” he said, addressing Adele. “I see you’ve made an acquaintance.”
“My husband, Bob Kirby, Miss Bradish.”
Bob offered Viv a little bow while she tried to collect her thoughts, at the overthrow of her own expectations.
“Has my girl been telling you about her queen?” he asked with merry eyes.
Viv nodded.
Bob offered a hand to Adele, who rose gracefully. “But has she told you we disagree a good deal about queens?”
“No.” Viv glanced at Adele to see how she was taking her husband’s humor and caught the flash of her eyes.
“We do,” said Bob. “She thinks a queen likely to bring stability to a nation, to reign a long time.”
“You must admit, my dear husband.” Adele took her husband’s arm. “That you men change governments as often as you change your neckcloths.”
Viv thanked Adele again and watched the husband-and-wife pair stroll away, their laughter blown back on the breeze in little bursts. When Viv had first seen Adele St. Clair, she had never imagined a Bob Kirby in her life, but Adele apparently felt no contradiction between her independence and her marriage. Her eyes lighted at her husband’s appearance, though he was far from handsome, and the two of them played teasing verbal games that they had obviously played before. Adele took her husband’s offered arm, and together they made a picture of marriage as Viv had not seen it. Adele’s rug had left a dry patch on the bench, and Viv pulled out her notebook and began to write.
She was sure she could convince Lady Melforth that the story of the heroic Queen Marie Christophe, a story of courage and resolve, hidden in a quiet corner of London, belonged in their guide. They could include Marie’s house in Walk Number Nine. But as Viv wrote of Adele St. Clair’s queen and benefactor, it was Adele’s story she found herself telling, the story of the protégé who had made her own way in the world. Adele was the model of the independent woman of London who deserved to be celebrated. Adele’s story would inspire the readers of their guide. Viv filled three pages of the little notebook with details, before she stopped to read over her notes.
Her portrait of Adele St. Clair had been written not for the Lady Melforth or the women of London. It had been written for Lark. He had led her to Adele St. Clair. She would not have written the story of Adele’s independence if she hadn’t met Lark. She closed her notebook. Lark was not her writing partner. She could not add Adele’s story to the guide without consulting Lady Melforth. Her partner was Lady Melforth. As Dodsley had said, Lady Melforth’s name would sell their book, not Viv’s.
She hugged the little notebook to her chest. She had become chilled sitting on the bench in the breeze. And she had yet to leave a message for Lark at what she believed to be his lodging. There would be a porter or a maid with whom she could leave her note. She scribbled a few lines on a page torn from her notebook, tucked away the notebook, and took up her umbrella.
When she turned to cross the road, she froze. Lark was standing on the opposite flag way, the wide busy thoroughfare between them. One of the great square omnibuses, a new invention from Paris, rumbled past. It must be the heavy vehicle that made the pavement under her feet tremble. Lark’s appearance was merely convenient. That was all. Now she need not find his lodging. She could simply explain their dinner party dilemma.
He made his easy, unhurried way through the traffic. “What brings you here?” he asked.
“Adele St. Clair,” she said.
“Ah. Did she tell you her story?”
“She’s remarkable.”
“More than her queen?”
She glanced at him, wondering at the ease with which he understood her. “To be sent to London alone by her family as a young girl and to keep her head, find her way, and make a successful business…”
“And a marriage,” he said.
“That, too.” Viv wasn’t going to admit to him how struck she had been by the way Adele and Bob teased one another.
He offered his arm. She hesitated, then took it as they crossed the road. “Is something troubling you?” he asked .
“Did the duke mention an invitation to dinner at Lady Melforth’s?”
“No.” He didn’t meet her gaze. “What dinner party?”
She made herself keep walking in spite of the evasion. It was a reminder that he was not perfectly open with her. “Lady Melforth has invited a few friends to celebrate the book’s near release and our betrothal.” She expected him to groan, but his thoughts seemed elsewhere.
They reached the high street and began to stroll south toward Mayfair before he spoke again. “A large or small party?”
“Small, but nevertheless, we must keep up our…pretense.” What bothered her about the party was that it felt like an end rather than a celebration.
“Are you worried you might slip up?” he asked.
She stopped and turned on him. “Me? Why would I slip up?”
He was looking at her lips. She clamped her mouth shut.
“You might not know about the duke’s once notorious mother or his famous brothers. Or what happened to him as a boy.”
“What did happen to him as a boy? You never mentioned that before.”
He shrugged. “Ancient history. Who is on the guest list?”
“Besides the duke and duchess? My aunt Louisa and my uncle Sir Oswald Atwood, the Strydes, and Dr. Newberry.”
He whistled. “We will be in dangerous waters!”
“Especially with the Strydes. There’s something I must tell you about them. They are quite likely furious with me.” She knew he would appreciate the story .
“More than usual? Why?”
“They were arrested.”
His brows went up. “Whatever for?”
“They went to Babylon Street.”
“To have their pockets picked?”
“To aid the police in a raid on a publisher.” Viv grinned at him. “Mr. Stryde had a guide to the Bowers of Venus in his pocket, and Mrs. Stryde whacked a constable with her umbrella to save her husband.”
He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter, his eyes alight with unholy merriment. “And you have been enjoying the sweet satisfaction of their embarrassment. But now, you fear their revenge. Have they been released?”
“Yes, Dr. Newberry told me the Anti-Vice Society protects its own.”
“Ah,” he said, sobering at once.
“What’s ah supposed to mean?”
“Newberry looks out for you, does he?”
“I suppose he does. Anyway, Newberry doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need a plan for this dinner.”
“You mean our Waterloo strategy. It’s worked before.”
Viv thought he was entirely too confident. She did not know how they might be exposed, she just felt the danger. She could imagine the conversation coming to a halt and all eyes turning on them, seeing through their pretense, Lady Melforth’s trust in Viv drying up like puddles on the paving stones. “You like risk. You think we can just sprinkle Waterloo into the conversation like salt at every uncomfortable turn.”
He straightened his tie and cleared his throat. “As easy as a waterman navigating the Thames under the Waterloo Bridge.”
“Not if Mrs. Stryde masses her forces against us.”
“Like Napoleon’s Imperial Guard at… Waterloo ? She’s doomed I’d say.”
“And if my kind, but curious aunt Louisa simply wants to know how you changed my mind about marriage?”
“I’ll say it was a near-run thing, but like Wellington at Waterloo I had reserve forces ready to throw at any stubborn, last-minute resistance you might throw at me.”
“Where does all this Waterloo knowledge come from?”
“The United Service Museum, one shilling admittance, and a great model of the field and battle.” He stopped and turned her toward him, tilting her face up, his gloved fingertips soft under her chin. He was inviting her to play a game with him, as he had from the first when he’d gone down on his knee before her in Lady Melforth’s drawing room. It was a heady prospect. Together, they could defy those who would keep them down. If only she could read him as well as she thought he could read her.
“I know you’re worried, but no one knows the true state of our feelings but us. Now, if someone wants to know how you feel about your fiancé’s desire to kiss you again…”
“I’ll say, there are some things we will never know about… Waterloo .”