Viscountess of Vice Read online

  She stood straighter. There would be time to answer those questions later. If she dwelled on them now, she would start to weep. And right now she was still working.

  Drunk, Biedermeier lurched toward her, and she fingered the mask he was aiming for. “Not now, love. Next time,” she said, stepping out of his path and making for the window. One thing she could do right now was take herself out of his reach. There was no need for them to touch anymore, at least not today.

  She’d cracked the window because the dozens of candles had heated the air in the room. Sighing in relief when the bracing hit her skin, she greedily inhaled.

  She turned back to her prey. “When do you return to Birmingham, Mr. Biedermeier?”

  “Tomorrow, but I will be back next week for the soirée. It is perhaps foolish to waste so much time traveling, but Madame Cherie makes it sound like quite the event.”

  “Indeed. Madame’s parties are legendary.”

  “Will you attend?”

  She paused before forcing herself to answer, “Of course! I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Suddenly, without warning, he lunged at her, breeches tented. She sidestepped again, and he clumsily crashed into the window, his forehead thumping the glass and his hat tumbling to the ground.

  “We agreed to a striptease only,” she said, bending over for the hat and handing it to him in the hopes of putting this awful evening to an end. “You must be patient. Good things come to those who wait.”

  “What about at the party?” She handed him his coat. Thankfully, he had not disrobed any further. “Is it just a party, or can we…” He trailed off, smiling sheepishly.

  “I’m sorry to inform you that the party is entirely respectable!” Though she was attempting to force a note of gaiety into her tone, the words came out clipped, slightly bitter. Making her way to the armoire for a wrapper, she tried again, manufacturing a little pout. “But you must come anyway! I shall be positively heartbroken if you do not.” Dear God, she was going to have to wash her mouth out with soap when he left.

  Her coy tone must have worked because he stood and started toward her again, undaunted by her previous evasions. Suddenly she was exhausted. Feeling as if her bones might turn to jelly, she tried to rally. The peal of a bell sounded from the hallway. Thank God. She tied the wrapper closed over skin burning with shame.

  “How quickly our time has passed,” he said, moving to the glass and patting his hair. Thick and wiry, it had become wild. He turned to her, gesturing to the cravat draped loosely around his neck. “Will you help me with this?”

  She took a step back. “Oh my goodness, no! I’m hopeless with cravats!” Another step back. It was as if her body was moving itself away from him of its own accord. Trying to make up for it, she smiled and shrugged in what she hoped was a flirtatious manner.

  He strode over to the glass on the wall and arranged his own neckwear, his skills perfectly adequate. Of course he hadn’t needed her help. She found his feigned helplessness supremely irritating. Catching her eye in the glass, he said, “I’ll see you in a week’s time, then.”

  “Mmm.” She averted her eyes.

  “I understand you are in residence here at Madame Cherie’s only on Saturdays?”

  “That’s right.” Suddenly consumed with smoothing the somewhat rumpled silk of her wrapper, she still did not raise her gaze to meet his, though she sensed he had turned from his reflection and was looking directly at her.

  “So may I ask…?” What? What? Anything to get him out of here. “Will you remain faithful to me until then?”

  Her jaw set, and she inhaled sharply. The nerve of the man! The arrogance! Of all the things he had said, of all the things she knew he had done, for some reason, at this moment, this was by far the most offensive. Her irritation at his request for help with his cravat ignited into a searing fury, hot coils unfurling in her chest. She wanted to throw herself on him, to tear at his hair, to rake her fingernails across his face. Closing her eyes against the urgency of her reaction, she felt for a moment as if she might cast up her accounts.

  “Why would you think I would do that?” She opened her eyes to a slightly furrowed brow. He was confused. Not the answer he expected. “Given that I’m a whore.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly a whore, are you?”

  “I am. Exactly. That’s exactly what I am.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  Narrowing her eyes, she could not conceal her disgust any longer. “That is a no.”

  Numbness. It was the only way to get through the rest of the evening. Intentional numbness. It was one thing Catharine was good at, having developed the ability early in life and perfected it in those horrible days after it became clear that Thomas had never really intended to marry her. She’d relied on it again after Charles’s death.

  As she carried herself downstairs, she saw the bright drawing room through a haze, heard the chatter and laughter through a muffling barrier. She was apart from everything, and everything was apart from her. Yes. This was familiar.

  She was hardly inside the door when Madame appeared at her side. One of the disadvantages of numbness was that people could take you by surprise.

  “Brava, my dear.” The proprietress made a show of pretending to applaud. “Your little gamble worked like a charm.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The earl has already engaged you for the final gathering. You seem to have finally dislodged him from Amelia. Well done.”

  Yes. Blackstone. She needed to talk to Blackstone. That was the next step. “How wonderful,” she said dully, looking around the room for him. He stood alone in a corner, watching her.

  Catharine turned to Madame. “Did you say anything to the earl about me offering Mr. Biedermeier…flexibility?”

  The older woman looked a little uncomfortable. “Of course. How else would he have known what the stakes were?” She glanced at Blackstone and then back at Catharine. “I did it for you.”

  “Thank you,” Catharine said, still watching Blackstone watch her.

  “I do have a heart in here somewhere.” Madame placed one hand on her breast and patted Catharine’s sleeve with the other. “Sometimes.” With a whish of skirts, Catharine was alone again.

  Blackstone pounced. He was at her side in a heartbeat. How curious that she could stand here and things kept happening. The world kept coming at her. People kept talking. As if everything was the same.

  “Catharine.” As she looked away, he moved his head, forcing himself into her line of sight. She did not blink. “Did you have to—?”

  She cut him off. “No. I performed a striptease.”

  “How fortunate that you didn’t have to—” He must have seen how upset she was, even through her frozen exterior, for he stopped talking and looked at her intensely for a moment before lowering his voice. “I’m sorry.”

  And he was, it seemed. There was something soft in his usually unyielding eyes, something human. What was it? She sucked in a breath.

  Pity.

  Pity was the worst possible thing. Pity would seep into the numbness and traverse the distance that kept her apart—and safe—from everything and everyone. All the breath hissed out of her body as his eyes continued to search hers. She felt exactly as she had that night when Thomas had persuaded her to lie with him. No, she felt worse, because she’d promised herself when she returned from the war that she would never again let a man control her. Her mind snagged on the image of Biedermeier ordering her to remove her clothing, item by item.

  Her deflated lungs screamed as the seconds ticked past, until her mind could no longer cling to control of the situation. Everything that had happened that evening had happened to her body, and now it seemed her body was going to force an accounting. It recognized the hint of sympathy in Blackstone’s steady gaze, and it rose up and fought for dominance. It demanded recognition. There would be a reckoning.

  “Wait!” The earl grabbed her arm, kicked open the door and shoved her toward the sta
ircase. “Wait!” he whispered, his breath against her nape, hands pushing the small of her back, propelling her up, up, up. They were halfway up the first flight of stairs when her traitorous body forced her to heave a gasping inhale.

  As they mounted the final flight of stairs that led to her room, he whispered, “You’re safe now.”

  And the sobs came. Desperate, gulping sobs that felt like they would turn her inside out.

  Bursting through the door, Blackstone led her across the room to the bed, where she sat and continued to weep. She watched him return to the door and lock it. Closing her eyes, she lay on her side, facing away from him as she tried to deepen her breaths and slow the flow of tears. Now she would have to tell him everything, but it didn’t seem possible that she would ever be able to stop crying and form words.

  She jumped a little when she felt the mattress sink. He didn’t touch her, but she could sense the stony wall of his body mere inches from her, an anchor. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t stop.”

  “There’s no need to apologize.”

  He stayed there with her for a long time, unmoving, silent, as her tears gradually ran dry, and, little by little, her breath steadied. Eventually she was able to apply some reason to the situation. She was lying in a bed on which Eric Woodley, the twelfth Earl of Blackstone, sat. A small laugh escaped.

  “Now you’re laughing?” he said. “I suppose that is an improvement.”

  She turned over. The candles flickered, exaggerating the already sharp planes of his chin and cheekbones. Suffused with a deep regard for him, she smiled. “You’re human after all.”

  One corner of his usually stern mouth quirked up. “If you tell anyone I shall deny it.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” She pulled herself up and leaned back against the headboard, sighing. “I don’t think I got anything out of him. He did confirm that someone he called a ‘colleague’ was the one who introduced him to this place. I assume that was the mole from your last mission. But that’s of no use to us when what we really need to learn is if he poses any threat.”

  “It’s all right,” said Blackstone, mimicking her earlier movement and leaning back against the headboard, too. “That’s the way it happens sometimes. It’s slow work. Don’t forget we also have Mr. Bailey working on the stocks. If there’s something to find, we’ll find it, eventually.”

  “He said he doesn’t trust Mr. Bailey yet.”

  “He will, in time.”

  Catharine wanted nothing more than to go home, but there was more to say before this day could end. “I have something else to tell you.”

  As they sat side-by-side in the candlelit bed, she unburdened herself, telling him about her past, about baby Edward, about her concern for the children at the gun works. She stopped short of telling him about James and the school, though.

  “I promise that when this is done,” said the earl, “we’ll make some arrangements for the children.”

  “Blackstone?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”

  He was silent a long time. “I told you it was an awful business. And it is. But I think perhaps this was a particularly awful one.”

  “You must wonder why I’m so upset. You were right, at the ball, you know.”

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “I have regretted my words that evening. How you choose to conduct yourself is no business whatsoever of mine.”

  “It’s all right. I can see why tonight looks…out of character.”

  “I have to admit, I have wondered what was so different about this. Obviously, he was not someone on whom you would have chosen to bestow your affections, but I can’t help asking, has something happened to make this evening so difficult for you?”

  She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headboard, allowing a few moments of silence to elapse. “I fell in love. For the first time in my life.”

  “Ah.” She felt a warm hand grasp her own. “That changes everything, or so I am told.”

  They stayed like that, silent, in the flickering candlelight, until they heard the soft ringing of a bell in the hall.

  It was nearly dawn by the time Catharine returned home. She always instructed the servants not to wait up on the nights she masqueraded as Lady V, so she locked the front door and made her way up the dark, silent stairs to her bedchamber.

  Blackstone’s whispered words of thanks rang in her ears as she shoved her wig and mask into a hidden compartment in her armoire. “Spying is a dirty business,” he’d said as his coach pulled up in front of her house. “And a thankless one. You deserve the thanks of the nation, but you won’t receive it.”

  “I don’t expect any thanks.”

  He’d looked at her for a long time before opening the door and helping her down. “For what it’s worth, you have mine.” Left unsettled was what ongoing role, if any, Catharine would play in the mission. She’d stopped short of telling him she wouldn’t see Biedermeier anymore. Playing her role through to the mission’s conclusion was the right thing to do. She knew that. And she’d already ruined things with James, so what did it matter?

  It was just that she couldn’t shake the sensation of Biedermeier’s clammy finger sliding along her collarbone, his barked orders as she’d stripped for him. The humiliation reminded her of how she’d felt that night with Thomas, giving in to his orders, which he smoothly disguised as requests. She had never wanted to feel that way again.

  Shrugging out of her dress, she unlaced her stays, longing for a hot bath. Of course she could ring, awaken the staff, and make the request. It would be fulfilled without comment. But it was three o’clock, and it seemed…not cruel, exactly, more like careless. And Catharine didn’t think she’d ever be careless again. She had a feeling that everything she did from now on would be done with careful attention and thoughtful exactitude. Like James. He thought about the consequences of everything he did and said.

  She lit a candle with the dying embers in the fireplace and made her way over to a basin and pitcher on her dressing table. She would make do with a cold sponge bath. She studied her reflection in the glass. The flickering flames threw strange patterns on her face, making her look unfamiliar, even to her own eyes. More than anything, she wished for a new start. She’d remade herself once before, after Charles’s death. She’d been alone then, and what happened next had been up to her. So she’d made herself into the Viscountess of Vice.

  But that was done now. The Viscountess of Vice was dead. The past few weeks had changed her; she could feel it. Carelessness was part of it. After all she had experienced—what she had seen with her own eyes at Madame Cherie’s, and all she had heard from James about how the poor lived and how the children at Biedermeier’s gun works were treated—she could no longer move through the world as if certain things didn’t matter. Because everything mattered. Everything a person did had consequences, and she didn’t understand how she could ever again do anything so frivolous as dance or sing or sip a cup of tea.

  But there was something more. James had said it when they were skipping rocks in the park. Love. There had never been love before. And now that she’d had love, even such a brief taste of it, there was no going back. Things could not be the same. Care had to be taken. There’s always enough love to go around, James said. He was a generous man, a man who saw what was possible. He imagined a better world.

  She pulled a brush through her hair. The hard truth was that even if James thought that love could conquer all, it couldn’t stand up to what she had done. Even if her reasons had been, in some sense, sound, if she had acted in service of a greater cause. None of that changed the essential facts. She would have to tell him. He had asked her to stay away from Madame Cherie’s, and this was when he thought all she was doing was offering conversation to her guests. He had no idea. Now she had to crush him with the truth.

  Naked but for the ruby pendant, she stood before the mirror.

  Reaching behind her
neck, she unfastened the gold chain that held the ruby, the chain that had lain around her neck for so long it felt like an extension of her body. The gem had been her anchor, her touchstone, the only solid thing she had to hold on to as she reinvented herself, utterly alone in the world.

  Gathering the ruby and the chain in her fist, she held the stone to her lips and kissed it. Then she set it down on her dressing table, blew out the candles, and crawled into bed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  James didn’t go to the Home Office right away that night, though he knew he should have. He’d imagined unburdening himself to Catharine and them deciding together how to proceed, what to do with the children. Instead, she’d answered his trust with betrayal.

  His next step should have been to go to the Home Office, deliver the letter from the barrel men, and then cut his losses and get on with his life. It should have been simple. Biedermeier was sabotaging muskets that were exploding and killing English soldiers. He needed to be stopped. But the situation was complicated. He felt stranded in a moral gray area. The world, which had always seemed so black and white to him, suddenly presented itself as a jumble of confusing and contradictory realities. There were the children to consider. They were no longer just “the children,” in the sense of an abstract concept, a collection of statistics about height and weight and reading ability. There was Grace, with her quiet devotion; Jude, with his irrepressible streak of mischief; Alfie, with the weight of the world on his young shoulders.

  If the gun works closed, where would they go? And so he found himself back in Birmingham, transported there almost as if by an unseen force, paralyzed when he thought of his obligations to the Home Office. Back to his children who had literally been traded for a handful of guns. They had no money, nothing save the clothes on their backs and the small toys that Catharine had included in their school supply packages.