Chapter Ten #2
“It makes sense,” Cornelius insisted. “You said yourself that my marriage means the marquess cannot force me into a match that suits him. If it applies to me, it applies to Baldwin, Donald, Ernest, Frank and Hudson. Gerard is well on the way to finding a bride, and you should, too.”
“I’m marrying Clara,” Baldwin said. “You have no say in it, Allan.”
Allan couldn’t believe his ears. “Marriage is a lifetime commitment, and you’re talking about using it just to stop our father? With some lady who frequents a place like the Golden Adonis? Who has been using you for a cheap thrill?”
“Watch your tongue or I’ll shut your mouth for you,” Baldwin snapped. “Clara and I love each other. Yes, and the same goes for the rest of us.”
“Our ladies might be unconventional,” said Frank, “but that is the very reason they suit us. Allan, we might be rushing things to take away one of the threats against us, but we have all been courting our ladies. This is where we were heading anyway, but we believed it to be hopeless, since we were leaving.”
“That’s right,” Donald agreed. “Then yesterday, Mrs. Blackmore started talking about marriage protecting Cornelius, and about staying in London. Verity and I have been seeing one another for nearly a year, and she has stood by me even though I told her about the marquess, and about having to leave. Then, tonight, when she heard we might stay, she said she would marry me right away. Today, if possible. I am going to the Bishop of London to ask for a license whether the others do or not.”
“It is the same for me and Rosina,” said Ernest. Rosina was Thalia, but apparently, she was also the daughter of a country gentleman who had been working to look after her sick mother. There was no mismatch between her and Ernest. Allan couldn’t use that as an excuse.
“And for me and Parthena,” Hudson insisted. “Be happy for us, Allan. We have grown to know our ladies over the last few months. We have chosen them, and they have chosen us.”
Allan clenched his fist, and Mrs. Blackmore slid a hand into his elbow and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I imagine your brothers have spent more time with their chosen brides than I did with my louse of a husband,” she said to him, thoughtfully.
Whether it was her touch or her words, the black edges of his temper receded and he began to think clearly again. And she wasn’t wrong. He had danced with Alberta three times and sat beside her at dinner once—the sum total of their interactions until they met in front of the altar.
In recent months, his brothers had been spending hours seven nights of most weeks with the women they wanted to wed. “You are determined on this?” he asked, addressing the question to the five of them.
They chorused various versions of “yes” and “I am”, and Allan nodded.
“Then go and see the bishop. I wish you all well. Please let me know the times of the weddings, so I can come to witness.”
They lined up to shake his hand, and Ernest even gave him a hug.
The ladies his brothers wanted to wed were all waiting on the other side of the room. Three of them had carriages here, which between them would convey the party to the residence of the Bishop of London to purchase a common license per couple.
As they filed out of the club, Madam Hera emerged from the parlor. “Apollo, a word, please.” She had removed her mask, but her expression was another concealment—an implacable facade that gave nothing away.
It suddenly crossed Allan’s mind that he’d been concerned about the wrong thing.
His brothers were old enough to make their own choices, but they’d just removed five escorts, two female staff members and three clients from the Golden Adonis in one swoop.
Six escorts and four clients, in fact, with Cornelius.
And the other four brothers would be leaving soon anyway.
Madam Hera had every right to be annoyed.
Mrs. Blackmore had not released his arm, and now she spoke up. “Madam Hera, I visited this evening with my friend Mrs. Christopher Satterthwaite. Her husband asked me to give you his regards. He said you are a woman who values honesty and integrity, and that I and my friends can trust you.”
The woman’s implacable face softened. “How are the dear children?” she asked.
“Clemmie says they are well. They were asleep when I saw them. She says the next one is due in the Spring.”
With a wistful smile, Madam Hera said, “Dear little ones. I helped to raise Chris. I suppose he told you that? Foolish boy. Do you think less of him, Lady Mnema?”
“I’m Melody Blackmore, since we are here unmasked,” said Mrs. Blackmore. “Allan, trust her. If she knows what you and your brothers are up against, she might be able to help. She has sources of information of which you and I can only dream.”
“Melody Blackmore, the lady snoop,” said Madam Hera, with narrowed eyes.
“I prefer the term investigator,” Mrs. Blackmore replied calmly, her own eyes amused.
“Hmm.” Madam Hera looked from one of them to the other then gave a decisive nod. “Come through to my office.”
With an inclination of his head, Allan gestured for the four brothers who remained to come along, and he and Mrs. Blackmore followed Madam Hera.
He would trust Mrs. Blackmore again. Indeed, Madam Hera had been more than fair to him and his brothers since they first came to her back door, looking for work.
It was time to let her know who her employees were, and what risks she might be taking if she continued to support them.
Madam Hera’s refined accent did not survive the brothers’ revelations.
“You mean to tell me the Marquess of Bleeding Teign is your Pa!” she demanded.
“That bastard. Crippled one of my girls, ’e did.
I banned ’im, and ’e came back the next day wiv a band of bullies and broke up my place. Billy taught ’im what for, though.”
Her reminiscent smile gave Allan a shiver down his spine. Just so, he imagined, the knitting women who witnessed the deaths of French aristocrats smiled as they remembered the guillotine.
“He has been no kind of father to us,” Allan told her. “We have been his victims, as have our mothers, our nannies, and our wives. He crippled two of my brothers, too.”
“Lord Kemble and his brothers want to stop him, once and for all,” said Mrs. Blackmore. “Not just for their own sakes, so they can live in freedom, but for all of his past victims, and especially for those who will be hurt by him in the future if we do not clip his wings and shackle his ankles.”
“I see,” said Madam Hera, her aristocratic tones firmly back in place. “I agree. He’s a vile man. But why should I help you? You are about to decimate my business, removing my best workers and at least half a dozen of my clients.”
“Because you hate men who bully others,” said Mrs. Blackmore, “and because those of your employees and clients who marry into the Sheppard family will praise the Golden Adonis to their friends.”
Allan put his hand up to his mouth to hide his smile.
Once again, Mrs. Blackmore proved she had a nimble mind and a clever tongue.
It worked, too, even though Madam Hera grumbled, “You think you are smart, Mrs. Blackmore. Away with your cozening. Very well, Lord Kemble. I shall trade a favor for a favor.”