Chapter Sixteen
L ady Melforth’s dining room was brilliant with light, and overwarm from a blazing fire in the hearth. Lark couldn’t say that the evening was already a disaster, but it was headed that way. The only thing he had not had to worry about was a meeting with the duke and duchess, who were away from London.
Candlelight from a dozen tall white tapers gleamed and sparkled on silver and porcelain. And pearls. Those pearls shook the certainty in which he had dressed for the evening, the certainty that as Viv Bradish’s fiancé he had become a true gentleman. Tonight, she seemed impossibly distant from him, not the partner of the past fortnight. Listening to empty talk in the drawing room, the pearls had caught his eye, and the old professional habit of assessing weights and clasps had taken hold.
Lady Melforth’s long triple strand hung nearly to her waist, its clasp concealed by a lace collar. Viv’s aunt Lady Louisa wore a glittering pearl and diamond bib with a box clasp, and Mrs. Stryde’s heavy double strand, weighted with a bloodred garnet cross, was tied with a matching velvet ribbon like the stripes in her gown. Viv’s single pearl in a gold filigree setting hung on a delicate chain that closed with a toggle clasp, easy for a man to undo as he brushed his lady’s hair aside.
Now Lady Melforth stood at the head of the table in an emerald gown with tall black plumes in her fiery hair. She waved away Dr. Newberry’s assistance as her guests found their seats. Lark distrusted her ladyship’s forced gaiety. For half an hour, she had stood in the midst of her guests, calling the evening a grand celebration. There had been champagne for all and a pointed salute to Viv, which, to Lark’s ears, had sounded bitter and dismissive. “To Viv, who has taught me the value of having an assistant for the tedious aspects of the business so I could concentrate on the main work.”
They were a small party, and the dining table further shrank the boundaries of the conversation. Lark was on one side between Lady Louisa and Mrs. Stryde, while Viv was opposite him between Mr. Stryde and her uncle Sir Oswald Atwood, Baronet. Newberry was at the foot of the table opposite Lady Melforth. Almost any topic could trip Viv and Lark up. Between them, mid-table under the chandelier, was a sort of silver tree, over a foot tall, its branches holding scallop-edged glass bowls filled with fragrant pink blooms. He tried not to regard the seating arrangement as a further sign of impending catastrophe. Begging Lady Louisa’s pardon, he leaned to his left and mouthed their signal to Viv. Waterloo. She gave him a faint smile in return. He straightened and caught a hostile stare from Newberry.
At Lady Melforth’s nod to Haxton, the servants sprang into quiet action, and over a vivid green pea soup, Lady Louisa turned to Lark. She was a tall woman in lavender silk and black lace with a long plain face, lively hazel eyes, and an amiable, no-nonsense manner. Her genuine interest in others seemed to Lark as much a danger as Mrs. Stryde’s malice and Newberry’s suspicion.
“Viv tells me that your only relation is an aunt in Somerton.”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s quite good to me, though I rarely see her.”
“And, is it in Somerton that you made Wenlocke’s acquaintance?”
“It’s where I did my schooling, ma’am, with his help.”
“Oh. Privately then.” Lady Louisa looked across the table to Viv. “What did you tell me, Viv dear? The old duke or the current duke?”
Viv’s voice came from behind the silver centerpiece. Lark could see the blue of her sleeves, but not her face. “Well, I suspect I’ve got my dukes mixed up, Aunt. It was after…Waterloo, so it must have been the…”
“The current duke, ma’am.” Lark supplied the answer.
“After his return to his family then. You must be near in age, Mr. Larkin. And your friends call you Lark , do they? From childhood? It puts me in mind of something I wanted to ask you about the duke, but it’s gone out of my head.” She smiled at him and dipped her spoon in the soup.
“No doubt it will come back to you, ma’am,” he said, keeping his expression blank.
For the rest of the soup and fish course, Lady Louisa talked with Lady Melforth about mutual friends, but when the bowls were removed, she turned to Lark again.
“I’m surprised that some enterprising playwright hasn’t turned the duke’s story into a drama. The Lost Heir Restored sounds rather suitable for the Adelphi Theatre. I don’t suppose, Viv, that you want to try your hand at that sort of thing?”
“Not my style, Aunt.”
“Are you thinking of another guide, then?” Lady Louisa smiled in Viv’s direction, but Lady Melforth stiffened, wineglass in hand.
“Under Lady Melforth’s tutelage, I may,” Viv replied. “I’ve learned so much from her. I think you’ll like the chapter on shopping, Aunt.”
“Ah, you know me well, my dear.”
Lady Melforth set aside her wine. “I’ll see to it that you have a copy, Louisa, but it’s far too soon to speak of another guide. Who knows what Viv will do when she and Mr. Larkin wed.”
“I quite agree, Aurora,” said Mrs. Stryde on Lark’s right, “I fear that you’ve allowed Miss Bradish to expose herself to the worst sorts of persons in pursuit of her duties at no small risk to her writing ambitions.”
“Whatever do you mean, Eustacia?” Lady Louisa asked, looking past Lark at Mrs. Stryde. “If our intrepid Viv has had adventures in the great city, I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, Lady Louisa, but Miss Bradish went the length of Oxford Street unaccompanied and had…encounters with men on the street.”
“Viv,” said her aunt laughing, “I hope you know how to wield an umbrella or a hatpin when gentlemen get out of line.”
“It’s no laughing matter, Lady Louisa,” said Mrs. Stryde. “A woman who wishes to have public support for her writing, must safeguard her reputation. What lady can allow herself to be guided by an authoress with a reputation for vice?”
There was a most awkward silence. Lark had a clear recollection of the fellow with the lavender gloves following Viv in the Pantheon, and realized the man had likely been a tool of the Strydes. He waited for Lady Melforth to defend Viv, but the lady appeared absorbed in moving bits of a lobster cake about on her plate.
“I think I may vouch for Viv, ma’am,” he said, ending the silence. “If she put herself in situations that ladies of London too often face, she did it to show how a sensible woman handles such nuisances.”
“Bravo, Mr. Larkin.” Lady Louisa gave him a warm smile.
“I beg you, Lady Louisa, not to be deceived.” Mrs. Stryde clutched her red garnet cross. “It is not guidebooks, but the work of the Anti-Vice Society that preserves female safety and decency. It is the society that strives to make headway against the godlessness and decadence of this city.”
“Godlessness and decadence,” said Sir Oswald. “Is that what you call it? I suppose this Anti-Vice Society of yours goes after sport on Sunday and that sort of thing, and a man won’t find a decent mill or a horse race anywhere.”
Mr. Stryde cleared his throat. “Our main aim, Sir Oswald, is to stop licentious publications.”
“You mean salty books?” asked Sir Oswald.
“Exactly. There are hundreds of them. We have recently shut down a Babylon Street publisher.”
“The raid was a success then?” Viv asked.
“The police bungled it of course, but everything has been put to rights.” Mrs. Stryde glared at Viv.
“Do you think London is growing worse, then?” Lady Louisa asked.
It was an opening Mrs. Stryde could not resist. “You can hardly understand the depths of depravity in London until you see it for yourself. Filthy pollution circulating in the post, doxies boldly parading our streets, pickpockets on every bridge.”
Sir Oswald turned to Dr. Newberry. “Won’t it be boring for you, Doctor, if the Strydes succeed in purging London of its vices? What will happen to the doctoring business, if no one falls ill, or gets shot?”
“Oh, there’s no danger yet that disease will go away, Sir Oswald. And we’re not so dull as you imagine. I treated a gunshot wound in this very neighborhood, not a fortnight ago.” The doctor stabbed a bit of venison pie with his fork.
“Really? Now that improves my opinion of London. Is there a story to tell?”
Newberry looked up from his plate, glanced at Lark and coolly shifted his gaze to Viv. For her the doctor would keep silent. “Another time, Sir Oswald, have you tried this pie?”
*
Viv hardly knew what she ate. Somehow, she had offended Lady Melforth. The effort to put on a gaiety she did not feel was wearing. She told herself she should be glad that a book, largely of her words, was nearly complete, and relieved that her counterfeit betrothal with its awkward intimacies was nearly at an end, but the evening felt dismal rather than celebratory. She hardly recognized Lady Melforth as the friend who had laughed at her stories and encouraged her efforts. Tonight, her ladyship had reduced Viv to the role of obscure assistant, rather than partner. It made no sense. Even with the new pieces Viv had written, she could not think how she had offended her benefactor.
The dinner passed through two courses in a blur of talk and the clinking of flatware. For a brief moment, while the footmen shifted the great silver epergne to remove the cloth and lay out the dessert, she exchanged a glance with Lark. He gave her a cheeky grin, as if he were enjoying their peril, but he was not the one who could lose his situation and all that he had worked for.
She pulled herself together. So far, she and Lark had avoided catastrophe. The worst moment had come with Sir Oswald’s asking about the gunshot wound, but Dr. Newberry, whatever his suspicions, had not given them away. Abruptly, Newberry pushed back his chair, his eyes fixed on the head of the table. Viv followed his gaze.
Lady Melforth rose to signal the ladies to withdraw so that the gentlemen might linger over their claret or port. As she stood, the feathers in her headdress tilted over her left ear. Her mouth froze in a downward turn. Then her ladyship’s eyes closed. She went limp and sat down hard. Viv was on her feet at once. “Haxton, her ladyship.”
The butler lunged forward with undignified haste to catch his mistress and stop her sliding from the chair. Viv knelt at her side and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”
Her ladyship’s eyelids fluttered. Newberry appeared next to Viv and took her ladyship’s other wrist, feeling the pulse. “We must get her upstairs,” he said.
“What’s happening?” cried Mrs. Stryde. “Arthur, see to your cousin.”
Mr. Stryde, who sat mopping his brow, struggled awkwardly to push his chair back from the table. Lady Louisa stepped up to Viv, holding out a glass of wine. “Won’t it be easier if Aurora revives a bit first?”
Viv gave her ladyship’s hand another gentle squeeze. “Ma’am, do you wish to say good night to your guests?”
Lady Melforth’s eyelids fluttered again, and she stirred, clutching the arm of her chair. Her eyes opened fully and her gaze took in the three people hovering over her. “Oh dear,” she said, “I’m afraid my leg gave out on me. Too much standing before dinner.”
Newberry took the glass from Lady Louisa and offered it to Lady Melforth. “A quick swallow will do you some good, ma’am. Then we’ll get you upstairs to rest that leg.”
A look between doctor and patient told Viv the collapse had been expected. Lady Melforth drank some wine, but her grip went slack, and the doctor caught the glass. He spoke to Haxton, who summoned two footmen to lift her ladyship’s chair back from the table.
She waved to her guests. They were all on their feet now except the Strydes. “Carry on, dear friends. Don’t let my pesky foot keep you from Mrs. Brandle’s sponge cake.”
Between the doctor and Haxton, Lady Melforth regained her feet. The two men assisted her out of the room, Doctor Newberry speaking quietly in her ear and keeping a steady hand under her arm .
Viv cast Lark one quick imploring look before she and Lady Louisa followed the doctor.
*
Lark understood that look. Viv wanted the Strydes gone. Easier said than done. Rank dictated that Sir Oswald take charge. Lark waited for the older man to break the silence. Sir Oswald stared regretfully at the sponge cake on its glass stand. The remaining footman stood stiffly by the door. Mr. Stryde still mopped his brow.
“Arthur, don’t just sit there, do something,” cried Mrs. Stryde.
Her husband levered himself out of his chair. “My dear, I hardly…”
With a sigh Sir Oswald glanced up from the cake and came round the end of the table. He took hold of Mrs. Stryde’s chair to assist her. “It seems our dinner party is at an end, ma’am.” He turned to Stryde. “Perhaps, Stryde, you’d best take your wife home to wait for news of how the patient does.”
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Stryde, twisting in the chair to confront Sir Oswald. “I refuse to let you send Arthur away.”
“My dear,” her husband protested.
“Be quiet, Arthur,” she snapped.
“No need to trouble your husband, ma’am,” said Sir Oswald. “Dr. Newberry knows his business.”
“Does he? Why does Aurora’s foot not heal?” Mrs. Stryde turned her glare on Lark. “This collapse is Miss Bradish’s fault. She’s been gadding about London in a most improper way, neglecting our dear cousin’s health until it’s come to this. Arthur is Aurora’s cousin. He is family. He should be at her side, not that shameless girl.”
She started to rise from her chair, but her skirts apparently held her back. She reached out a hand for balance and Lark caught it. “Steady, ma’am,” he said.
She shook off his hold, but her pinned skirts held her in place.
Sir Oswald rolled his eyes. Lark gritted his teeth. From the first time he overheard the Strydes speaking to each other in the entry hall, he knew they wanted Viv sacked. Now, Mrs. Stryde seemed to have found a way to do it, to blame Viv for Lady Melforth’s collapse. Mrs. Stryde bent over to free her skirts, tugging violently. The burgundy velvet bow around her neck grew taut with her efforts. In a flash Lark saw a way to divert her attack on Viv. The act was done in an instant.
“Ma’am,” he said, kneeling beside her chair. “It may be that the chair is holding your skirts down. If you will allow Sir Oswald to tip it back, I will free your hem.”
“Young man,” cried Mr. Stryde. “That would be most improper.”
“Don’t be absurd, Stryde,” said Sir Oswald. “Do you want your wife stuck in this seat forever?”
Mrs. Stryde straightened and nodded. “Oh, very well,” she said.
Sir Oswald gripped the frame of the chair, and tipped. Lark dropped to one knee, pulled the yards of silk forward, and finished the job he’d started. “You can let her down now, Sir Oswald,” he said .
Sir Oswald let the chair down, and offered a hand to Mrs. Stryde. She took it briefly, rose, and strode toward her husband in an angry swish of skirts. “Come Arthur, we must go to your cousin.”
Her husband simply stared at her, pointing at her chest. “My dear, what’s become of your cross?”
Mrs. Stryde looked down, pressing a hand to her bosom. “My pearls,” she cried. “I’ve been robbed.”
“Have some sense, woman,” snapped Sir Oswald. “You’ve not been robbed in Lady Melforth’s dining room.”
“Where are my pearls then?”
“Ma’am,” said Lark. “Shall we have the footman look under the table? It’s likely that your necklace came loose as you tried to free your skirts.”
Mrs. Stryde turned slowly, her hand still pressed to her unadorned bosom, and stared at Lark. He knew that baffled look, when, in spite of plain fact, a mark could not understand how her possession had simply vanished.
Lark met her gaze with an innocent one of his own that said he wanted only to help.
“Good thought, lad.” Sir Oswald clapped Lark on the shoulder and summoned the footman to their side of the table. “Let’s shift these chairs, Mr. Larkin, and let the fellow look.”
As the footman went down on all fours to peer under the table, the door opened and Newberry entered, escorting Viv and Lady Louisa. Newberry leaned close to whisper something in Viv’s ear and gave her shoulder a squeeze. She smiled, and he slipped out of the room. At the familiarity of the exchange, Lark, who had seen Viv enter rooms many times in their brief betrothal, caught his breath. Only now did he see her clearly in her proper setting among the people to whom she belonged.
An accident of time and place had connected Viv and Lark on Babylon Street. The small, round ball with which she had wounded him had set them on a path neither intended. Now they must return to their separate spheres. The idea that he could propose to her a second time in all sincerity died. He was a man who, to protect her, used the first means that came to mind, a click, a pinch. He was not, and he never would be, a gentleman.
“Oswald, dear,” said Lady Louisa, “what’s going on?”
“Nothing really. Mrs. Stryde’s got herself in a state over a missing necklace. How’s the patient?” asked Sir Oswald.
“She’s much restored,” said Viv, her gaze meeting Lark’s. “Dr. Newberry has elevated the foot, and she’s resting comfortably. She begs your forgiveness for her indisposition and hopes you’ll call on her in a few days.”
“Good, good,” said Sir Oswald.
“Found it, sir,” came a muffled voice from under the table. The footman backed out from under the table and stood, holding the double string of pearls, the red velvet ties dangling from his gloved hand. Viv’s puzzled glance rested briefly on those velvet strings.
“Take it to Mrs. Stryde, boy,” said Sir Oswald. “You see, ma’am, nothing to get worked up about.”
Mrs. Stryde snatched eagerly at the necklace. “Come, Arthur. We’re leaving, but we know our duty to Aurora, and we will return.” She swept her husband through the dining room door .
“Damned difficult female that,” said Sir Oswald. “Did our best to get her out the door, and then such a fuss when she couldn’t manage her skirts and lost her necklace.”
“Ready to go home, my love?” asked Lady Louisa, holding out her hand to her husband.
“Yes!” said Sir Oswald. He turned to Lark. “May we drop you somewhere, Mr. Larkin?”
“Thank you, no. I’ll walk.”
*
As Lark left the house, he met Lady Louisa coming back for something she’d forgotten. He joined Sir Oswald on the pavement to wait for her return.
“Are you sure we can’t take you up, lad?” Sir Oswald asked.
“Thank you, no. A walk will clear my head.”
“Right you are, boy. After that woman made such a fuss, a man’s head needs clearing.”
The door behind them opened, and Sir Oswald turned to his wife. “Never even had my cake. You don’t suppose, Louisa, that they’d send a bit of cake round to us, do you?”
“My dear,” she held up a small basket. “The heroes of the hour deserve some reward.”
“That we do, eh lad?” As Sir Oswald took the basket, a substantial black town coach came to a stop at the curb. A servant leapt down to open the door, and Sir Oswald extended a hand to his wife. “In you go, my dear.”
Lady Louisa took her husband’s hand and offered Lark a parting smile. “We are glad Viv found you, young man. We thought she’d never think of marriage.” She shook her head. “Fond as I am of Aurora, her illness makes quite a tyrant of her.”
Lady Louisa and Sir Oswald climbed into their coach, and when it vanished round a corner into the London night, Lark’s old memories stirred to life. Somewhere in the great city was the spot where he had been a sleepy passenger in another coach as it rumbled away from the building that had swallowed up his mother. In the months since the fire, he had been certain that he would know the place when he found it, and that finding it would change him, give him knowledge of his true self. Lately, he had imagined that other self, the person Edward Larkin was meant to be, proposing to Vivian Bradish a second time with no pretense. Now he knew he would not, could not. A thief could not propose to a lady.
But he could not stop thinking of her. He tried. He stood, firmly rooted to the pavement in front of her door. He counted the windows of neighboring houses, bright rectangles of yellow light. He counted the gas lamps, ranged at intervals down the street, each a smaller glowing globe. He tried to name a familiar tune that came from an upper room across the way, where someone played the pianoforte with heavy, determined fingering. He worked to put words to the posh accents that came and went in snatches of indistinct conversation. He counted the bells that tolled the quarter hour not quite in unison, marking another bit of time that could not be got back again.
A long-forgotten conversation returned to him, an exchange he’d had with the duchess, when she was merely the grinder that Dav had hired to teach their boy gang. Robin, the youngest of them, had found a toad in the hall that spring day and claimed it was a baby dragon. She wanted to preserve the boy’s illusion, his delight , she’d called it, in the squat little creature. Lark had known then that illusions were dangerous and that the world held no lasting delight for boys like them. The argument came back to haunt him now, and he clenched his fists against a rising sense of loss.
Behind him, inside the house, Viv would not think of Lark. Her thoughts would be of Lady Melforth. The woman was clearly more ill than she was willing to admit, and it would be Newberry at Viv’s side with the right to calm her fears.
The door behind him opened again, and he glanced over his shoulder. “You.”
Viv came down the two steps toward him. He turned and took her hands in his. He knew why he’d lingered on her doorstep, and he tried to crush an absurd hope that she felt the same. “What is it?”
“Thank you.”
Her gratitude was not what he wanted. “For what?”
“My aunt told me how you and my uncle kept the Strydes at bay. They make things so much worse for her ladyship.”
“She’s quite ill, isn’t she?” He could see the worry in her eyes.
“She’s not herself. One minute she blames Newberry for not curing her foot, and the next she insists that we finish the book tonight. But I fear…” Viv drew in a long, slow breath and squared her shoulders. “Newberry will consult another ph ysician tomorrow. He thinks she has developed a palsy.”
Lark gave her hands a squeeze. The demands on her would be greater now. A woman as proud and independent as her ladyship would not be easy to care for. He knew there was another fear. “You worry that the writing will come to an end.”
“I do,” she admitted. “For her, as much as for me. She’s always been a writer. I’ve just begun. But you give me courage.”
“Courage?” He wanted to laugh. He doubted that the woman who shot him needed courage. His wound was nearly healed. He no longer wore the plaster, and soon the spent ball and the slight scar on his side would be the only reminders of their brief betrothal. He wanted more to remember, much more. He released her hands and slid his palms up her arms. Her eyes widened, and she shivered under his touch. He watched her mouth, knowing from the way she drew in her lower lip that she was concentrating, trying to hold onto some idea. He took hold of her shoulders, making his own intentions plain.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me finish what I meant to say. The courage I get from you is the courage to keep writing, and to write what I truly see.”
It was sweetly sincere, but it was far from what he hoped for. “Finished?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He kissed her, and his senses narrowed to her. He lost himself in illusion. It didn’t matter that he was a thief and she, a lady. For the moment she was his Viv, not soft and yielding like some imagined lover, but fiercely alive and meeting him kiss for kiss. She clutched his coat, bunching the wool over his ribs in little pulses of movement that echoed the pounding of his own pulse. He moved to cup her face and slide his fingers into her hair and hold her where he could taste the sweetness and boldness of her spirit.
For the moment there was only Viv, and he could believe she knew him, the man under the layers of disguise. Her kiss lifted him up. The old London, which had rated him as nothing without knowing him, faded away, its stones dissolving under his feet. He inhabited a new London, in which he was no longer a pickpocket, only the man who loved Viv Bradish.
The tune from across the way ceased, and an unseen audience clapped mightily. The spell broke.
Viv slipped from his grasp. She lowered her head. “I must go in. I’ll leave word with Haxton when we can meet again. To…to finish things.”
He nodded, unable to speak.
*
Almost as soon as he began to walk, Lark knew he was being followed. His pursuer hung back when traffic was light and moved closer as Lark approached Cavendish Square. Lark passed his usual turning, and headed away from his lodging. As the view opened up across the square, Lark slowed his pace, listening for the man’s footfall. There was no mistaking Rook’s heavy tread. Rook had been waiting in the shadows, watching.
Lark headed down Regent Street toward Piccadilly. In his evening finery, he could stroll unremarked. He would put people and carriages between himself and his pursuer. He would lead Rook into the very heart of temptation among London’s jewel-studded West End pleasure-seekers with their diamond stickpins and fat gold watches. Once Rook was distracted, Lark would give him the slip.
Eluding Rook took the length of Regent Street and a good bit of Piccadilly, but at last Lark stood in the darkness of the park, free for the moment, but knowing Rook would return to the house where Viv lived. The Rook who had assaulted him and followed him was not the friend and partner of the old days. Lark did not think Rook would do Viv harm, but he could not be sure what this new Rook’s intentions were.
There were servants to prevent him from entering the house either through the front door or through the basement, and Haxton would not hesitate to summon the constables if needed. But Viv, who had no idea of Rook’s existence, could leave the house alone, and be followed and accosted. In her own neighborhood, consumed with worry about Lady Melforth, Viv would not think to carry her pistol.
Lark should warn her, but he could think of no word of warning that would not reveal the truth about their first meeting. That was the rub. I know you think I’m the kind gentleman who came to your aid when another man pinched your purse, but I was that man’s accomplice for years. If they had to part, if their sham betrothal had to end, he wanted her to go on thinking of him as Edward Larkin, a gentleman. He would have to be sharp and alert to prevent Rook from getting to her.