Viscountess of Vice Read online

  He found nothing. Not in the cabinet, not in the filing drawers. Nothing that suggested Biedermeier’s youngest laborers were being paid for their troubles. No evidence of the alleged trust funds. No bank drafts. No receipts. And it appeared Biedermeier was a thorough record keeper. He’d saved every piece of correspondence, no matter how trivial, going back a decade. James even found the letters he’d exchanged with the warden in Coventry, where he’d offered the man a few choice rifles in exchange for twenty children.

  He replaced the final stack of papers and locked the cabinet. No, there was nothing here, which he supposed was itself a kind of incrimination. Could lack of evidence be evidence?

  He sighed. The children aside, he couldn’t shake the sense that something more was going on. Why was Biedermeier paying his barrel men so much? What was the man hiding? He needed to find something definitive, something more than an absence of information.

  He rifled idly through an account book he’d pulled from the back of the cabinet. It was current. Strange, wasn’t it, to keep an account book currently in use under lock and key? His eye was caught by several large identical entries. Flipping a few more pages, his mind raced with possibility.

  He needed to find something exactly like this.

  The local magistrate was the logical next step, James thought as he carefully replaced everything and returned the key to the box and the box to the desk. But what’s to say the magistrate wasn’t in on it, too?

  London then. It was safer. It seemed Biedermeier would not be the only one making his way to town. It was time to see Catharine. She would know what to do.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Before he departed for London the next day, James called Alfie and Davey White to the schoolroom. Though he was almost certain his suspicions would prove true, he wanted confirmation. And he wanted to know why.

  “I’ve told you I don’t want to go to school,” said Alfie, trailing his father’s friend into the room. “My father was a barrel setter, and I’ll be one, too.”

  “Dr. Burnham will talk some sense into you, my boy, won’t you, sir?” Mr. White smiled expectantly at James.

  “I haven’t called you here to talk about Alfie.” The boy looked relieved, the man nervous. James motioned for them to sit, but remained standing himself. “I’ll get right to the point, shall I?” Looking directly at Mr. White, for the boy was not mature enough to truly be culpable in what he was about to suggest, he asked, “Are you sabotaging the barrels somehow?”

  Silence. Just a few moments, but enough for James to register the lack of surprise on Mr. White’s face and to notice how Alfie immediately looked at the older man.

  “Of course not,” Mr. White said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the sabotage of military muskets. I’m talking about treason.”

  “I wouldn’t even know how to sabotage a musket barrel if I tried,” Mr. White protested.

  “Wouldn’t you? I am led to understand that barrel boring is a highly skilled trade.” James tapped his desk idly, hoping to project a casual sort of authority. “And, equally, that it only takes the smallest flaw to render a barrel unstable—unstable enough to explode when fired.” Worrying the fingers of one hand, Mr. White eyed the door with obvious longing.

  Allowing a hint of anger to come through in his voice, James stepped toward the man. “It is interesting that the barrel men here are paid three times the usual rate. One can only assume that you lot must be three times as skilled.”

  Mr. White shifted back in his chair. “We would never—”

  “Perhaps,”—James cut him off with a finger to the sternum—“such a highly skilled tradesman such as yourself could explain to me why there are weekly payments from the Biedermeier gun works to the Ketland proof house in the amount of seven pounds.”

  “Proving is still voluntary!” Mr. White’s voice had risen. “The manufacturers have self-organized. I’m sure there are costs associated with—”

  “It’s true,” Alfie said softly, his eyes on the floor.

  “Alfie!” hissed Mr. White.

  “My father couldn’t bear it any longer. That’s why they killed him.”

  James swallowed a gasp. Though he’d hypothesized exactly that, it was still shocking to hear confirmation that Biedermeier, on top of his other crimes, was a cold-blooded murderer. “Who killed him?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Alfie began slowly. “He wrote a letter of some sort, to someone in London. He waited, but nothing ever happened. So he wrote more. Then he decided the letters weren’t enough, and he was going to go to the magistrate and tell about what was going on here.” He raised stricken eyes to meet James’s. “He knew how to swim.”

  James moved to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I know.”

  Mr. White slumped in his chair.

  “Well?” James demanded, crouching so they were eye-to-eye.

  When the older man looked up, his eyes filled with tears. “It started about a month before Alfie’s father died. It’s not every weapon, merely a small proportion of them. But it’s enough. The French are paying him to do it, even as the English pay for the faulty guns. We were going to tell. It wasn’t right, even with all the money. Alfie’s father wrote anonymously to the Home Office, but he didn’t name Biedermeier—we were too frightened to do that. So he talked about an unnamed gunmaker, hoping they would investigate. When the weeks passed and nothing happened, he wanted to do more. He sent several additional letters—he was concerned that his limited writing ability had somehow caused the message to be confusing. We had a meeting, and he volunteered to go to the magistrate.” He glanced at Alfie. “He was always the best of us.” The boy offered a watery smile at the words of praise for his father. “But then…”

  James finished the sentence. “Biedermeier made it clear that he had ways beyond bribery to ensure your silence.”

  Mr. White nodded miserably. “We don’t know how he found out, and we didn’t know what to do.”

  James produced a piece of foolscap, a quill, and a pot of ink. He handed the quill to Mr. White. “Can you write?”

  “Not much.”

  “Can you sign your name?”

  The man nodded.

  “You speak, I’ll write. I’m leaving for London immediately, so I’ll deliver it myself. Can you round up the others after we’re done? Will they sign?”

  “Yes, if I ask them to.”

  James sat. “Tradesmen sabotaging military muskets are traitors. Tradesmen who notify the Home Office about sabotage they’re being forced to commit under threat of murder? Heroes.”

  Catharine entered the drawing room at Madame Cherie’s Saturday evening with a great deal of unease.

  But tonight was the last time.

  The last time, she reassured herself, pushing away the guilt that had been dogging her.

  All they needed was a repeat of the events of two weeks ago. Everything was in place. Mr. Bailey had made his excuses to his German friend for the evening, pleading family obligations, but in actuality was hidden behind a false panel in Jessica’s room. With coaching from Catharine, who had in turn been instructed by Blackstone, Jessica had emerged confident she could lead the conversation in the direction it needed to go—and she looked forward to using her money to open a millinery shop with her sister when the mission was done.

  And, more importantly, Blackstone had agreed that if things went well with Jessica, Catharine could go home—forever. In fact, she was beginning to feel slightly redundant as she stood in the corner surveying the room. She would tell James everything, once this was over, her oath of secrecy be damned. It was important to her that he know what she’d been doing here all these weeks. And once the mission was complete, what would be the harm?

  The thought came to her fully formed as she began the descent from her room to attend the midnight gathering, the one Biedermeier habitually attended: you promised him you wouldn’t come back here. With each step, the voice inside her
mind grew more insistent. Each footfall echoed as if she were marching off to meet her executioner.

  She shoved the thought aside, telling herself, as she had been since her last meeting with James, that she just needed to get through this, and then she would have the space in which to think. To really think about what was important to her, about what she was willing to give up.

  Entering the drawing room, she searched for Blackstone. Just seeing him would remind her why she was here. The earl brought to mind duty, patriotism, sacrifice, ruthlessness. The very things she’d signed up for. She located him standing near a refreshment table, laughing as Amelia fed him a morsel of ham. He didn’t meet her eyes, but a slight tilt of his head suggested he had noted her arrival.

  Taking a deep, resigned breath, she shifted her gaze casually to Jessica. The girl was remarkably calm under pressure, sitting alone on a settee, her placid demeanor giving no hint that she was soon to be involved in entrapping a potential traitor.

  Catharine heard the click of the drawing room door, and her eyes followed Jessica’s expectant ones. It was only Madame. Atypically, she entered without a gentleman on her arm and was not followed by servants bearing a bell or champagne. It was still early, so perhaps she had another reason for making an appearance. The proprietress made a beeline for Catharine.

  “All alone, Lady V, dear?” Madame didn’t try to hide the insincerity of her smile as she glanced over to where Amelia was giggling at something Blackstone whispered in her ear.

  “For now,” Catharine murmured vaguely.

  “It seems your champion has found another interest.”

  “Indeed.” Why didn’t the woman just go away? Catharine and Blackstone’s supposed arrangement had always irritated Madame, even though she profited from it. Probably because she didn’t understand it. To the extent that she did, she believed Blackstone and Catharine were having an affair and that the earl was titillated by the appearance of his lady entertaining other gentlemen. But now that Blackstone had spent the past several weeks whispering in Amelia’s ear, bringing her flowers, and escorting her upstairs, Madame had no doubt noticed the shift.

  The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’d better tell me what’s going on.” Though she projected a blithe appearance, Madame Cherie was a shrewd businesswoman, ever alert to any threat to her empire. Perhaps this was the one hole in their plan: they’d neglected to account for the eagle eyes of Madame. “And he’d better keep paying me.”

  “He will,” Catharine said. She heaved a sigh: nothing too dramatic, but enough to get the woman’s attention. She met Madame’s eyes and then looked away. “If you must know, he thinks I’ve been enjoying this all too much.” Another sigh. “He thinks he’s reflecting my own behavior back at me. What’s sauce for the goose…”

  The explanation seemed to please Madame. Her smile turned genuine. “Ah, I see. A lovers’ spat.”

  “Something like that.”

  “But you are only pretending to cuckold him. At his behest, I’m given to understand. Yet he’s been here nearly every night, attending to Amelia. Is he actually…”

  “Yes, I believe he is.” Catharine didn’t have to feign her distaste at the prospect, for she knew that it cost Blackstone. Not that he clung to a code of moral purity, just that he so hated to lower himself in a place like this. And she suspected that he disliked using people, despite the fact that he was so frequently required to do so. Whatever else the outcome, Amelia would emerge from all this with a broken heart.

  “It’s always more difficult being the woman,” Madame said quietly. Catharine thought she saw a flicker of sadness on the older woman’s face.

  “Yes,” she agreed, feeling a moment of solidarity. “Even in a place like this, where one would imagine such conventions might be relaxed.”

  “Especially in a place like this, my dear. Especially here.”

  Catharine stole another glance. She’d never thought of Madame Cherie as anything other than an obstacle—a grasping, conniving woman out to extract as much as she could from the world. But of course Madame had her own story. She thought of James’s list of questions from their first night together. To what extent had Madame chosen this life?

  Before Catharine could reply, the proprietress glided away, meeting up with a footman who’d entered holding a tray of champagne and another bearing the silver bell. If there had been a hint of the real woman beneath the cool, gilded exterior, it was gone.

  As Madame rang the bell, the door opened to admit a group of gentlemen that included Biedermeier. Anticipation flooded Catharine as Madame made her welcoming remarks. She watched Biedermeier take stock of the room, his eyes pausing on Blackstone and Amelia whispering and laughing behind Amelia’s fan. Catharine registered the hitch of irritation on his face and then followed his gaze to Jessica, who smiled coyly at the gunmaker. As quickly as his eyes alit on Jessica, they moved on.

  And landed on her.

  For the second time in as many weeks, James found himself standing outside Catharine’s Hanover Square town house, having been turned away by the butler. This time, though, it wasn’t that the lady wasn’t receiving. She wasn’t at home. On a Saturday evening.

  As before, he stepped back and craned his neck to get a look at the windows of the upper floors.

  They were dark.

  His mind began assessing, sifting through possible explanations. There were any number of places she could be. She could be at Mrs. Watson’s home, or…

  He was stuck there. After all, he didn’t know anything about her life, not really. He didn’t know who her friends were, whether she enjoyed the theater. The night was unseasonably mild. Perhaps she’d gone to one of London’s pleasure gardens, to Vauxhall Gardens, say, to take in the lights. Isn’t that what aristocratic ladies did?

  She could be anywhere. In other words, he had no idea where the woman he loved would be this Saturday evening. Except, a small part of him dared to think, there is one place it would be logical to look. He didn’t want to believe it. The thought alone flooded his gut with acid, and a coiled rage gathered in his limbs. But the scientist in him had to admit that it was possible. Occam’s razor: when faced with competing hypotheses, choose the one that answers your question in the simplest, most obvious way.

  He looked back up at the dark house, and then he began to run.

  “Good evening, Lady V. Do you find yourself any more flexible this evening than when we last met?”

  Tamping down panic, Catharine couldn’t stop her eyes from darting around the room, as if they were assessing escape routes quite independent of her mind, which understood that she was trapped. Blackstone met her eyes briefly, but she could not read his expression. It hardly mattered anyway. She was on her own.

  Summoning her best Lady V smile, she ignored his question. “Why Mr. Biedermeier, what a pleasure to see you again.”

  He took a step closer, and his eyes slid down her bosom. It was important to remain calm. This is what men did here. She’d endured countless leers in her brief career at Madame Cherie’s. “You’re looking”—he paused while his eyes continued their appraisal, slithering all the way down to her toes and then back up to her eyes—“lovely.”

  The ironic thing was she had thought so, too. She’d worn one of her normal gowns, not a dress she typically would have donned as Lady V. A lemon silk, it was daring, as befitted her reputation as Lady Cranbrook. But it wasn’t lurid or shocking like Lady V’s usual attire. Its neckline, while low, was positively modest compared to the bodices she typically wore here. As she’d checked her reflection in the glass before coming down from her room, she’d been pleased with what she saw. There was an appealing pinkness in her cheeks, and the dark circles that had taken up residence beneath her eyes since she’d begun her nocturnal career had started to fade. She looked rested. She looked pretty.

  Or she had, anyway. Biedermeier had made that feeling disappear with a single sweep of his sinister gray eyes. Swallowing the lump forming in her throat, she
nodded to acknowledge his “compliment.” She glanced at Jessica, who was staring openly at them. “How was your trip from Birmingham?” Despite her efforts to affect a casual tone, her voice sounded strained.

  But Biedermeier didn’t register her unease. He took a step closer. Inching a little toward the wall to compensate, she pretended to brush a speck of dust from her skirts to cover the maneuver.

  “Tedious, as always, but I’ve grown accustomed to it.” He reached out and touched the chain around her neck, just as James so often had.

  She willed herself to be still, not to brush his hand away, praying that he would not touch her skin, and that he would not tug the ruby out of her bodice.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” A moist finger slid off the chain and made contact with her neck. Though the rational part of her mind knew his touch was light, it felt as if he were crushing her windpipe. A trickle of perspiration started down her back.

  “Oh?” she managed. “What question was that?”

  “I asked you,” he said, enunciating each word slowly and clearly, “if you were feeling flexible this evening. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for dialogue alone, though I understand you’re quite a scintillating conversationalist.” He leaned in, placing his mouth next to her ear, his fingers still on her neck. She shrank from his warm, whiskey-laden breath as he whispered, his voice thick with desire. “Though I have to say I’m not overly impressed with your conversational skills so far this evening.”

  Blessedly, he lifted his head away from hers and removed his hand from her neck. She heaved a great breath, lungs greedily sucking in air.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he chuckled. “I quite understand. Attraction can do that, leave you mute, breathless.”

  The prodigiously egotistical statement had the effect of snapping her out of the frightened lethargy in which she’d been trapped. It was time to take command of the situation. No, the cat didn’t have her tongue, she was quite in control of it herself, thank you very much.