The Virgin Who Bewitched Lord Lymington
Book 4:
Swooning Virgins Society
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Synopsis
In the heart of Mayfair lies the Clifford Charity School for Wayward Girls, where a secret society of extraordinary young women conspire to bring England's wickedest aristocrats to justice . . .
In London's brothels and bawdy houses, sin and scandal run rampant. Yet as Emma Downing knows, worse perils lurk within the lavish homes of high society. Emma has been tasked with uncovering secrets at the Lymington family's country estate—the scene of a rash of mysterious disappearances. Samuel Fitzroy, Marquess of Lymington, is no easy mark, and Emma fears he may see through both her disguise and her feigned indifference to his seductive charm . . .
Recently returned to England after a long absence, Samuel finds his family in chaos amid disquieting rumors floating about town. His young cousin has become a worthless rake, several housemaids have gone missing, and then there is Emma, who is clearly not the naïve debutante she pretends to be. Yet irresistibly attracted despite his mistrust, he joins her in a daring game of cat and mouse. For Emma will unearth the truth even if it brings ruin to Samuel's family—but the threat is as inescapable as their mutual desire . . .
Contains mature themes.
Release date: November 2, 2021
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Print pages: 320
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The Virgin Who Bewitched Lord Lymington
Anna Bradley
Prologue
King’s Place, St. James, London
November 1790
Emma Downing was the fourth.
She was fifteen years old at the time. It was too old to be of much use, in Lady Amanda Clifford’s opinion, but then it was the exception that made the rule, and anomalies had always fascinated Lady Amanda.
Emma came on a wave of blood. Not all of it her own, but enough that it dropped like thick, red tears from her fingertips. The slashes on her hands would scar, of course, but Lady Amanda looked upon scars as a blessing, of a sort.
A healing, if an imperfect one.
It wasn’t the scars that would haunt Emma Downing. It was the invisible wounds, the secret skin that never knit itself together again, the deep, jagged gashes on her heart that would forever alter that fragile organ’s rhythm.
Even so, pity alone would not have moved Lady Amanda in the girl’s favor. London was teeming with pitiable creatures, all of them victims of private misfortunes. There was nothing so extraordinary about Emma Downing’s tragedy.
Aside, that is, from one small detail, the tiniest wrinkle in the page.
Against all the odds, Emma Downing had survived.
That made her extraordinary. No, more than that. It made her a miracle.
Fifteen years old. Too old to be of much use, but too young be a miracle.
How she’d managed to wrench the knife away from her paramour was a mystery destined to remain forever unsolved. Emma herself claimed no memory of the incident.
As for him, well…divine justice was an ethereal thing, and never quite worked the way one wished it would. If Lady Amanda had been given a say in the matter, he would have died at once. It was neater that way, dead men being, on the whole, unlikely to tell tales.
As it was, he mysteriously disappeared from London that night, and was never seen again. Curious, but then human justice did tend to be swift, if not quite as divine as the spiritual sort.
His blood might have proved a problem, stabbings being a gory business. Some of it had soaked into Madame Marchand’s Aubusson carpet by the time Lady Amanda arrived, but great gouts of it stained the silk gown on Emma Downing’s back, and the rusty smell of it permeated the bedchamber.
Lady Amanda was obliged to pay for Madame’s damaged goods—the carpet, the fine silk gown, and Emma Downing herself. She handed over the notes without a murmur, well satisfied with her end of the bargain.
As for Emma Downing…
She remained mute during this transaction, her face blank, her eyes glassy. Like all of Madame Marchand’s courtesans, Emma Downing was a beauty, but Lady Amanda had never put much faith in pretty faces.
The girl’s eyes, though.
Such a deep blue, and so very like another pair of blue eyes, forever closed.
That another girl with eyes that shade of blue should have crossed her path…well, how could Lady Amanda interpret such an extraordinary coincidence as anything other than a command from fate?
So Emma Downing came to the Clifford School, her ghosts trailing behind her, her scars still fresh, the tender, bruised places inside her still swollen, still bleeding, the only one of Lady Amanda’s girls who could recall with perfect clarity the day, the hour, the moment they’d been inflicted.
Fifteen years old, already with a world of ugliness in her head.
Memories were, alas, as often a curse as they were a blessing.
Sometimes, it was easier—so much easier—if one couldn’t remember.
Chapter One
King’s Place, St. James, London
April 1795
“No skirmishes this evening, if you please, Lymington.”
“Skirmishes, in a brothel?” Samuel Fitzroy, the Marquess of Lymington turned a baffled look on his cousin, Lord Lovell. “Do you suppose I intend to brawl with a courtesan, Lovell?”
Lovell was far more apt to fall into a whorehouse fracas than he was, but Samuel clenched his teeth, lest he be tempted to share that opinion. He and Lovell could hardly manage to exchange a civil word these days as it was, without dragging the demireps into it.
“No flank maneuvers, no tactical formations, and no…what do you call them? Frontal assaults. I’m warning you now, Lymington, I won’t abide any mention of frontal assaults tonight.”
Ah. No objection to actual assaults, then, just the mention of them. “Strategically, there’s a great deal to be said for a direct, full-force attack to an enemy’s—”
“For God’s sake, Lymington, I just said no frontal assaults! You’re not aboard a brig in the English Channel.”
“If you’re referring to the HMS Nymphe, she’s a frigate, not a—”
“The point, my dear cousin,” Lovell interrupted with a long-suffering sigh, “Is that this is a drawing room, not a naval battle.”
No, it wasn’t a naval battle, but it was a battle nonetheless, just as everything was, in one way or another. The only difference between a drawing room and a battleship was that the ship wasn’t pretending to be something else.
“And do stop glaring as if you’re plotting an ambush.” Lord Lovell nodded at the elegant company assembled before them. “The ravishing creatures you see before you are ladies, Lymington, not marauding pirates, and that forbidding frown of yours is frightening them away.”
It was on the tip of Samuel’s tongue to wish the ladies to the devil, but he’d rather not goad Lovell into a passionate defense of the fair sex. They didn’t have all night, and Lovell’s passionate defenses tended to be rambling things.
So Samuel kept his mouth closed, unclasped his hands from behind his back, and twisted his face about until he’d arranged his features into a more inviting attitude.
At least, he thought he had, until Lovell snorted. “It’s not quite your usual churlish scowl, but still grim enough. Why so solemn, Lymington? You’re in a bawdy house, not at a church sermon.”
Samuel’s gaze wandered over the drawing room, where a sea of courtesans awaited them. “Yet there do seem to be quite a lot of nuns about.”
Lovell choked out a surprised laugh. “Did you just make a joke, Lymington? Bravo. The Sunday sermon would be much pleasanter if the congregants looked more like courtesans, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t mock the pious, Lovell, or God will strike you down where you stand.” God would do no such thing, of course. He seemed to have an endless amount of patience for Lovell, as well as a wicked sense of humor.
“Blast the pious. Why, just look around you, Lymington.” Lovell waved a flawlessly gloved hand at the assembled company. “There’s not a single plain face to be seen.”
Samuel shrugged as he took in the bevy of ladies fluttering around them like a swarm of gaudy butterflies. “Choose one of them, then, and get on with it.”
“Don’t rush me, Lymington. Choosing a companion for the evening is a delicate business, and not one to be undertaken lightly.”
If Lovell was so careful with all his decisions, Samuel would have nothing more to wish for, but as that was, again, a sentiment better left unexpressed, he said only, “Very well, then. Which lady do you fancy?”
Lovell nodded at a dark-haired creature standing beside the staircase. “That one. She has lovely dark eyes. I fancy dark eyes, as you know, Lymington.”
Samuel didn’t know. Lovell might prefer dark eyes to blue, morning chocolate to tea, John Bulls to Hessians, and Sheridan to Goldsmith, and he wouldn’t know a thing about it.
Not anymore.
“Well then, why don’t you go and fetch her?”
“She’s an angel, isn’t she?”
“A perfect seraph,” Samuel replied, without enthusiasm. “Go on.” He gave Lovell a nudge toward the dark-haired courtesan. “I’ll wait for you here.”
“Wait here?” Lovell gaped at him. “You mean to say you won’t choose one of these delightful birds of paradise for yourself?”
Samuel let his gaze roam over the drawing room. He was a man, after all, and he couldn’t deny Madame Marchand’s ladies were tempting, but the few females he’d encountered since he’d returned to England had seemed faintly horrified by him.
He wasn’t sleek or fashionable like Lovell. He was big and rough, his face tanned by years of exposure to sun and sea. If that weren’t offensive enough to the fair sex, he also had no talent for charming pleasantries. Polite, mindless chatter bored him, and soon enough he’d start talking about skirmishes and frontal assaults, and well…there was no recovering from frontal assaults where the ladies were concerned. “No, not tonight.”
“You’re mad, Lymington, but I suppose there’s no point in arguing with you. I can’t help but observe, however, that you might not be so cross if you occasionally indulged your carnal appetites.” Lovell frowned. “You do have carnal appetites, don’t you?”
Samuel did, and rather pressing ones at that, but if he acknowledged his desires to his cousin, Lovell would set a horde of courtesans upon him, and the next thing he knew, he’d have a skirmish on his hands.
Or worse, a frontal assault.
“We’re not here to indulge my appetites, but yours.” Indulge them, and pray a tumble with a courtesan tonight would keep Lovell out of mischief for the rest of the season.
It was dangerous, bringing Lovell back to London when the fashionable crowd of debauched noblemen he’d been running with were still lurking about the city, drinking and wagering and generally making arses of themselves.
Samuel glanced across the drawing room at Lord Peabody, one of Lovell’s former companions. Peabody had put away an astonishing quantity of port in the short time since Samuel had arrived, all while assessing the ladies as if they were prime horseflesh at Tattersall’s. He’d just chosen a tiny girl with chestnut hair, who looked more terrified than flattered by his attentions, and was tugging her toward the stairway.
Courtesan or not, Samuel despised seeing a lady manhandled. It made him ill to think of Lovell in company with such a blackguard.
When Samuel left England eight years earlier, Lovell had been a sweet-tempered lad of fifteen. The worst that could be said of him then was that he was given to misty-eyed dreaminess. He’d fancied himself in love a half-dozen times before the age of twelve, drifting from one harmless adolescent infatuation to the next like a bee sampling every blooming flower in its path.
Samuel blamed his Aunt Adelaide for Lovell’s romantic notions. She’d named the boy Lancelot, for God’s sake.
Lancelot.
If ever there was a name to tempt the fates, that was it, and fate had caught up to Lovell with a vengeance. Looking at him now, Samuel couldn’t find a hint of the good-natured boy Lovell had once been.
He’d been ruined, in nearly every way a man could be ruined.
Lovell had been seduced by the glamourous coterie of aristocratic wastrels. He’d become a London beau, flitting from one dangerous escapade to the next like a deranged insect. He brawled and wagered, trifled with demireps, engaged in endless scandalous affairs, and traded one mistress for another as often as he changed his cravat.
Predictably, Lovell’s messy antics had led to an even messier duel that had landed him in bed with a dangerous fever from a pistol ball lodged in his leg.
When Samuel returned to England to bury his Uncle Lovell, he’d found his family in chaos. His uncle dead, his mother and aunt in a mutual hysterical frenzy, and his cousin bedridden from a festering wound, more dead than alive. Months had passed in terrifying limbo while Lovell fought off the fever that threatened his life—months in which Samuel had plenty of time to reflect on all the ways he’d failed his cousin.
On some level, he must have known Lord and Lady Lovell’s petting would spoil Lovell beyond recovery, but even his deep affection for his cousin hadn’t been enough to persuade Samuel to spend another day under the same roof as his Uncle Lovell. That it was Samuel’s own roof, his own estate he’d left behind hadn’t made the least bit of difference. It hadn’t been his home since his father’s death many years earlier.
It would have been a just punishment for Samuel’s selfishness if Lovell had succumbed to his fever, but by some miracle, he’d survived, and now Samuel was determined to see Lovell restored to himself, and back in possession of all he’d lost. His health, his family, and the future that had nearly been ripped away from him with one pistol shot.
Starting with…well, with a courtesan, ironically enough.
But she was simply a precaution, a final wild oat to settle Lovell, who’d been cooped up inside their London townhouse in a sick bed for weeks.
“Go on, then.” Samuel elbowed Lovell, and nodded at the brunette courtesan. “Your seraph is waiting for you.”
“She is, isn’t she? Very well, but do find something to do with yourself until I return, Lymington. I won’t have you stand about glaring like a gargoyle all evening.”
Lovell approached his choice, offered her a courtly bow and a charming smile, then took her hand and led her toward the staircase. Samuel watched them go, his chest pulling tight as his cousin struggled to negotiate the stairs. The surgeon insisted Lovell’s limp would hardly be noticeable once it was fully healed, but there would never come a time when Samuel wouldn’t notice it, no matter how indiscernible it became to everyone else.
Guilt lodged under his breastbone, sharp and heavy.
Lovell had never berated him for leaving, had never uttered a single word of blame, but the coldness between them now was as palpable as icy fingers squeezing Samuel’s heart.
The duel, Lovell’s injury—they should never have happened. If Samuel had been here, if he’d remained in England as his mother had begged him to do, it wouldn’t have.
There’d been more than one painful scene with Lady Lymington, more than one bitter maternal tear shed in the weeks between Samuel purchasing his commission in the Royal Navy and his hasty departure, but not even Samuel’s mother had been as devastated as Lovell when Samuel announced his intention to leave England.
Lord and Lady Lovell certainly hadn’t shed any tears for him. His aunt and uncle had been delighted to see him go. No doubt they’d prayed he would never return. Lovell stood to inherit the Lymington title and fortune if only Samuel would have the good grace to drown, or get himself blown to bits by cannon shot.
In the end, it was his Uncle Lovell who’d had the good grace to die, and Lovell who’d nearly been blown to bits—
“Such a fierce frown, my lord. You look as if you’ve just shot your favorite horse.”
A soft touch on the sleeve of his coat made Samuel glance down. A small hand rested there, with dainty fingers curled around his forearm. A trio of ladies—one fair, one dark, and the third red-haired—had sidled up to him, suggestive smiles on their painted lips.
“He looks bereft, doesn’t he, Nellie?” The brunette gave Samuel a flirtatious wink. “Pity, but perhaps we can cheer you. Come upstairs, you poor man, and tell us all about your dead horse.”
“We may even be able to coax it back to life again,” the redhead put in with a smirk. “Your horse, that is.”
Samuel disentangled his arm from the brunette’s grasp. “There’s no dead horse.”
“Your favorite hunting dog, then? It must be something. We don’t often see gentlemen wallowing in misery here at the Pink Pearl, do we, Clarissa?” The brunette turned to address the red-haired lady beside her.
“The married ones often look miserable when they arrive, but they’re cheerful enough when they leave.” The redhead fluttered a pair of pale lashes at Samuel. “I daresay you’re very handsome without that scowl. Shall we go upstairs and see?”
“No, thank you. I’m not looking for female companionship this evening.” Samuel had another matter to attend to, one he hadn’t shared with Lovell.
“You do realize you’re in a brothel, do you not?” The blonde’s red lips curled in a mocking smile.
Samuel frowned. “I’m aware, madam. I’m looking for a lady—”
“Ah.” The brunette clapped her hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What sort of ladies do you prefer, my lord?”
“Not ladies. Just one lady, by the name of Caroline Francis. Do you know of her?”
“Must it be Caroline, or will any dark-haired lady do?” The brunette trailed her finger down his arm.
Samuel blinked down at the teasing finger. “No, it must be her.”
The brunette’s lips turned down. “Pity.”
Rather a pity for Caroline Francis, yes. Samuel doubted she’d be pleased to see him, once she found out who he was, and the reason he’d come here. Ladies weren’t usually eager to discuss the story of their ruination, particularly when it ended with the heroine on her back at an infamous London brothel.
Still, better to turn up at a brothel than not to turn up at all. Did Caroline Francis have any notion how fortunate she was not to have met a much grimmer fate? If not, Samuel intended to make her aware of it, and of what she owed to the two other girls who hadn’t been as lucky.
“It seems Caroline’s in luck tonight.” The redhead touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip as her gaze wandered over him. “You’re a big, strong one, aren’t you? Such a shame, but I suppose our loss will be Caroline’s gain.”
“Indeed, but perhaps all hope isn’t quite lost. I haven’t seen Caroline at all this evening. Now I think on it, I believe she mentioned she had a private engagement, and would be gone all night.”
All night? Damn it, what cursed luck.
The brunette gave Samuel a smoldering look from under her lashes. “If you have a penchant for dark-haired ladies, my lord, I’d be pleased to accompany—”
“That won’t be necessary, madam.”
Her lips turned down in a sullen pout, and she turned away from him with an offended flounce of her skirts. “As you wish.”
Not having any place else to go, Samuel wandered down the nearest hallway, pausing when he reached the music room. A trill of notes spilled through the open door, and he peered inside and found one of Madame Marchand’s young ladies performing on the pianoforte, accompanied by a soprano in a yellow silk gown so tight he couldn’t imagine how she had the breath to sing.
At another time he might have stayed to listen, but he didn’t care to fend off any more eager courtesans. He didn’t fancy returning to the drawing room either, so he moved toward a door at the end of the corridor. He half-expected someone to follow him and demand to know where he was going, but it seemed Madame Marchand’s guests were permitted to wander where they pleased.
The door latch gave under his hand, and he entered the dim space. It was deserted, the fire burned down to embers, but despite the chill Samuel wandered over to a large, overstuffed chair in the corner and dropped into it.
Ah, yes. This would do nicely. He might bide his time here without anyone disturbing him until Lovell was—
Click.
Samuel peered through the gloom, his eyes widening when a figure appeared on the other side of a pair of glass doors leading from a garden terrace. She was small—certainly a lady—but her face and hair were hidden by a dark, shapeless cloak with a deep hood.
He remained still, watching as the slender figure slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and glided further into the room, her movements so fluid not even the faintest shuffle of footsteps marked her progress. It was as if she were a wraith, floating inches above the ground, or some sylphlike creature too ethereal to bother with anything so mundane as footsteps.
Sylphlike, ethereal, footless wraiths?
Samuel grimaced at his fanciful thoughts. He was just about to rise from his chair and make his presence known when the wraith stopped him with a whispered word.
“Letty?”
Samuel stilled. The velvety timbre of her voice slid over his skin like the stroke of a palm, leaving shivers in its wake.
“Drat it, Letty, I haven’t time for this tonight.”
Good Lord, that voice. It was soft, huskier than was usual for a young lady, and so smoky at the edges it made his mouth water for whiskey. If she’d approached him in the drawing room, he’d have followed her anywhere.
“Letty? Are you in here?”
He froze, breath held as she peered into the gloom, but he was tucked into a corner, hidden by shadows, and her gaze skimmed right over him.
She let out a faint huff when silence was the only reply, then lowered her hood with an impatient tug. He caught a glint of moonlight on a lock of pale hair and leaned forward, eager to see if her face matched that decadent voice.
He squinted into the gloom, but most of her face was still lost in shadows.
Curious that a throaty wraith should be creeping about a darkened library in a notorious brothel, but whatever secrets this lady was hiding, they had nothing to do with him. If he could have left without attracting her attention, he would have done so, but as it was…
One by one, the muscles that had pulled taut when she emerged from the darkness loosened. Samuel let his limbs relax against the chair, and prepared to wait.
* * * *
The Pink Pearl was an explosion of light and sound, but the noise faded until there was only the faint crunch of her boots on the grass as Emma drifted through the shadows to the deserted library at the back of the townhouse.
She didn’t want to think about how many people would be furious with her if they knew she’d come to the Pink Pearl tonight.
She didn’t want to, but her brain rushed merrily along, counting them off, one by one.
Lady Clifford, Lady Crosby, Daniel Brixton, Madame Marchand…
She paused on that last name, a shudder jolting up her spine. One did one’s best not to toy with Madame Marchand, in much the same way one would hesitate before threatening a venomous snake with a sharp stick.
If one couldn’t finish it off with a single blow, it was best not to strike at all.
Emma slipped through the glass doors, rubbing her gloved hands together to warm them. It was spring in London, but colder than usual. The wind felt like shards of icy needles prickling her skin.
Where in the world were Helena and Caroline? She’d told Helena half-ten, and she was a few minutes late. She’d hoped they’d be waiting for her. If Emma didn’t turn up at Lady Crosby’s soon, Lady Crosby would alert Lady Clifford, Lady Clifford would send Daniel after her, and then there’d be the devil to pay.
But she was here now, and there was no sense in leaving until she’d gotten what she wanted. It had taken several weeks of patient prodding, but Helena had at last coaxed Caroline Francis into divulging the details of her liaison with Lord Lovell, and Emma was determined to hear the tale directly from Caroline’s lips.
Except “liaison” wasn’t really the right word, was it? Seduction, ruination, and abandonment made it sound ugly indeed, but Caroline’s, er…association with Lord Lovell hadn’t been the stuff of romantic fairy tales.
Far from it.
Emma appreciated accuracy, especially when one hoped to fit an aristocratic rake with a noose for his crimes. Not that seduction and ruination were crimes, of course. Seducing the innocent was a base, detestable thing to do, but it wasn’t, alas, illegal. If it had been, nearly every aristocrat in London would have found his way to the end of a rope by now.
But Caroline Francis wasn’t Lord Lovell’s first, worst, or only sin.
Kidnapping and murder might prove a trifle more problematic for him, despite his noble blood, but one didn’t march a man off to the gibbet without evidence. The Crown was particular that way, especially when the man in question happened to be a viscount.
As of yet, there was no proof either Amy Townshend or Kitty Yardley had met a tragic end, or even that a crime had been committed at all. Girls went missing all the time, led astray by some rogue or other, then ruined and abandoned.
But two missing servant girls, and now the third, Caroline Francis, pointing her accusing finger at Lord Lovell? That was the sort of thing that caught Lady Clifford’s attention. Someone had to hold such men to account, and for better or worse, that task had fallen to Emma this time.
She wouldn’t rest until Lovell’s every foul transgression was laid bare.
Both Amy and Kitty had vanished from Lymington House without a trace. How Caroline Francis had escaped their same fates and instead turned up at a London brothel was a mystery. A proper villain didn’t leave a witness—not without a compelling reason for doing so.
The library door squeaked open, admitting a narrow shaft of light and the faintest whiff of a scent that still made Emma’s stomach tighten, even five years after she’d escaped the Pink Pearl. It was a precise balance of candle wax, snuff, rose water tempered with a sharp edge of perspiration, and underlying it all a distinctly musky smell.
No other place in London smelled like the Pink Pearl.
The door closed again, plunging the library into darkness, then there was a hurried tap of ballroom slippers rushing across the carpet.
“I’m here, Letty,” Emma whispered into the darkness, trying not to flinch at the sound of Helena’s disembodied footsteps. She wasn’t timid, and she was accustomed to sneaking about darkened rooms, but everything about the Pink Pearl set Emma’s nerves on edge.
A small, warm hand encased in a fine kid glove landed on Emma’s sleeve. “I can’t understand how Madame Marchand hasn’t caught you and Charles out yet, given how suspicious she is.”
Charles was one of Madame Marchand’s kitchen boys. He had an adolescent tendre for Emma, and was willing to see to it the terrace door was left unlocked for her when she required it. “I imagine Madame is rather taken up with emptying the pockets of London’s noblemen.”
Madame Marchand was a creature of habit, and never ventured from the drawing room during the evening’s festivities.
“Yes, well, there’s no shortage of pockets to empty tonight.”
Helena’s tone was light, but Emma heard the edge in her voice, and her shoulders tensed. “Is Lord Peabody here?”
Helena threw herself into a window seat, heedless of her fine silk gown. “Here, deep in his cups, and growing more aggressive with every glass of port Madame Marchand pours into him.”
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him, Letty.” The man had a streak of cruelty in him a mile wide.
But cruel or not, someone would have to have him. Madame Marchand wouldn’t dream of turning away any gentleman. Certainly not one with pockets as deep as Lord Peabody’s, not even if it meant one of her girls would end the evening with a broken finger, or bruises shaped like bootheels on her legs or back. Nothing too obvious, of course—nothing too visible. Lord Peabody knew better than to damage Madame Marchand’s goods, and in return Madame pretended not to notice his violent tendencies.
Rather a tidy arrangement for all concerned, aside from the women who found themselves on the receiving end of Lord Peabody’s ill temper.
There was a reason his lordship preferred the smaller, daintier ladies at the Pink Pearl.
Helena was both, but she was a temperamental handful, for all her apparent fragility. Lord Peabody generally kept away from her, unless he was in a particularly ugly mood, and fancied a fight.
“He’s taken poor Lizzie upstairs already,” Helena said, a hard, bleak look in her eyes. “Last time she had him he tore a clump of her hair out.”
Emma’s stomach lurched. “Stay away from him, Letty. Lavish your attentions on another gentleman instead. Is Lord Dimmock here tonight?”
Lord Dimmock was neither young nor handsome, but he was a courtly old gentleman, and he was safe. The choice between Lord Dimmock and Lord Peabody was like a choice between a plate of sweetmeats and a platter of rotted fish.
Helena sighed. “Yes, but you didn’t come here tonight to discuss Lord Dimmock.”
“No.” Emma glanced over Helena’s shoulder, her hopeful gaze on the library door. She willed it to open, and for Caroline Francis to stroll through it, but it remained firmly closed. “Since you’re here alone, I take it our plans have gone awry.”
Of course they had. Nothing was ever as simple as it should be.
“My dear Emma, a nobleman’s lust always takes precedence over everything else. Caroline was suddenly called away to attend a private engagement this evening,” Helena added, when Emma raised an eyebrow.
“An engagement?” Dash it, what blasted ill luck.
Helena hopped down from the window seat and grabbed Emma’s hand. “Now, don’t look like that. I’ll bring her to see you tomorrow night. She can tell you her lurid tale then. It’s as shocking as you could ever hope for.”
“No, tomorrow won’t do.” By this time tomorrow evening, Emma would be at Almack’s, posing as an innocent debutante on the hunt for an aristocratic husband.
Innocent. The thought brought a derisive snort to Emma’s lips.
“Why not tomorrow?” Helena asked, studying Emma’s face in the dim light.
“I won’t be able to return to the Pink Pearl for some time, Letty.” Emma tapped her lip, thinking. “Do you suppose you could get Caroline to write down an account of it?”
“I don’t see why not. I can ask her, at any rate.”
“Good. Give it to Charles, and I’ll send Daniel to fetch it from him.” Emma reached into the pocket of her cloak and pulled out a small pouch of coins, which she dropped into Helena’s hand. “Here, take this, just
King’s Place, St. James, London
November 1790
Emma Downing was the fourth.
She was fifteen years old at the time. It was too old to be of much use, in Lady Amanda Clifford’s opinion, but then it was the exception that made the rule, and anomalies had always fascinated Lady Amanda.
Emma came on a wave of blood. Not all of it her own, but enough that it dropped like thick, red tears from her fingertips. The slashes on her hands would scar, of course, but Lady Amanda looked upon scars as a blessing, of a sort.
A healing, if an imperfect one.
It wasn’t the scars that would haunt Emma Downing. It was the invisible wounds, the secret skin that never knit itself together again, the deep, jagged gashes on her heart that would forever alter that fragile organ’s rhythm.
Even so, pity alone would not have moved Lady Amanda in the girl’s favor. London was teeming with pitiable creatures, all of them victims of private misfortunes. There was nothing so extraordinary about Emma Downing’s tragedy.
Aside, that is, from one small detail, the tiniest wrinkle in the page.
Against all the odds, Emma Downing had survived.
That made her extraordinary. No, more than that. It made her a miracle.
Fifteen years old. Too old to be of much use, but too young be a miracle.
How she’d managed to wrench the knife away from her paramour was a mystery destined to remain forever unsolved. Emma herself claimed no memory of the incident.
As for him, well…divine justice was an ethereal thing, and never quite worked the way one wished it would. If Lady Amanda had been given a say in the matter, he would have died at once. It was neater that way, dead men being, on the whole, unlikely to tell tales.
As it was, he mysteriously disappeared from London that night, and was never seen again. Curious, but then human justice did tend to be swift, if not quite as divine as the spiritual sort.
His blood might have proved a problem, stabbings being a gory business. Some of it had soaked into Madame Marchand’s Aubusson carpet by the time Lady Amanda arrived, but great gouts of it stained the silk gown on Emma Downing’s back, and the rusty smell of it permeated the bedchamber.
Lady Amanda was obliged to pay for Madame’s damaged goods—the carpet, the fine silk gown, and Emma Downing herself. She handed over the notes without a murmur, well satisfied with her end of the bargain.
As for Emma Downing…
She remained mute during this transaction, her face blank, her eyes glassy. Like all of Madame Marchand’s courtesans, Emma Downing was a beauty, but Lady Amanda had never put much faith in pretty faces.
The girl’s eyes, though.
Such a deep blue, and so very like another pair of blue eyes, forever closed.
That another girl with eyes that shade of blue should have crossed her path…well, how could Lady Amanda interpret such an extraordinary coincidence as anything other than a command from fate?
So Emma Downing came to the Clifford School, her ghosts trailing behind her, her scars still fresh, the tender, bruised places inside her still swollen, still bleeding, the only one of Lady Amanda’s girls who could recall with perfect clarity the day, the hour, the moment they’d been inflicted.
Fifteen years old, already with a world of ugliness in her head.
Memories were, alas, as often a curse as they were a blessing.
Sometimes, it was easier—so much easier—if one couldn’t remember.
Chapter One
King’s Place, St. James, London
April 1795
“No skirmishes this evening, if you please, Lymington.”
“Skirmishes, in a brothel?” Samuel Fitzroy, the Marquess of Lymington turned a baffled look on his cousin, Lord Lovell. “Do you suppose I intend to brawl with a courtesan, Lovell?”
Lovell was far more apt to fall into a whorehouse fracas than he was, but Samuel clenched his teeth, lest he be tempted to share that opinion. He and Lovell could hardly manage to exchange a civil word these days as it was, without dragging the demireps into it.
“No flank maneuvers, no tactical formations, and no…what do you call them? Frontal assaults. I’m warning you now, Lymington, I won’t abide any mention of frontal assaults tonight.”
Ah. No objection to actual assaults, then, just the mention of them. “Strategically, there’s a great deal to be said for a direct, full-force attack to an enemy’s—”
“For God’s sake, Lymington, I just said no frontal assaults! You’re not aboard a brig in the English Channel.”
“If you’re referring to the HMS Nymphe, she’s a frigate, not a—”
“The point, my dear cousin,” Lovell interrupted with a long-suffering sigh, “Is that this is a drawing room, not a naval battle.”
No, it wasn’t a naval battle, but it was a battle nonetheless, just as everything was, in one way or another. The only difference between a drawing room and a battleship was that the ship wasn’t pretending to be something else.
“And do stop glaring as if you’re plotting an ambush.” Lord Lovell nodded at the elegant company assembled before them. “The ravishing creatures you see before you are ladies, Lymington, not marauding pirates, and that forbidding frown of yours is frightening them away.”
It was on the tip of Samuel’s tongue to wish the ladies to the devil, but he’d rather not goad Lovell into a passionate defense of the fair sex. They didn’t have all night, and Lovell’s passionate defenses tended to be rambling things.
So Samuel kept his mouth closed, unclasped his hands from behind his back, and twisted his face about until he’d arranged his features into a more inviting attitude.
At least, he thought he had, until Lovell snorted. “It’s not quite your usual churlish scowl, but still grim enough. Why so solemn, Lymington? You’re in a bawdy house, not at a church sermon.”
Samuel’s gaze wandered over the drawing room, where a sea of courtesans awaited them. “Yet there do seem to be quite a lot of nuns about.”
Lovell choked out a surprised laugh. “Did you just make a joke, Lymington? Bravo. The Sunday sermon would be much pleasanter if the congregants looked more like courtesans, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t mock the pious, Lovell, or God will strike you down where you stand.” God would do no such thing, of course. He seemed to have an endless amount of patience for Lovell, as well as a wicked sense of humor.
“Blast the pious. Why, just look around you, Lymington.” Lovell waved a flawlessly gloved hand at the assembled company. “There’s not a single plain face to be seen.”
Samuel shrugged as he took in the bevy of ladies fluttering around them like a swarm of gaudy butterflies. “Choose one of them, then, and get on with it.”
“Don’t rush me, Lymington. Choosing a companion for the evening is a delicate business, and not one to be undertaken lightly.”
If Lovell was so careful with all his decisions, Samuel would have nothing more to wish for, but as that was, again, a sentiment better left unexpressed, he said only, “Very well, then. Which lady do you fancy?”
Lovell nodded at a dark-haired creature standing beside the staircase. “That one. She has lovely dark eyes. I fancy dark eyes, as you know, Lymington.”
Samuel didn’t know. Lovell might prefer dark eyes to blue, morning chocolate to tea, John Bulls to Hessians, and Sheridan to Goldsmith, and he wouldn’t know a thing about it.
Not anymore.
“Well then, why don’t you go and fetch her?”
“She’s an angel, isn’t she?”
“A perfect seraph,” Samuel replied, without enthusiasm. “Go on.” He gave Lovell a nudge toward the dark-haired courtesan. “I’ll wait for you here.”
“Wait here?” Lovell gaped at him. “You mean to say you won’t choose one of these delightful birds of paradise for yourself?”
Samuel let his gaze roam over the drawing room. He was a man, after all, and he couldn’t deny Madame Marchand’s ladies were tempting, but the few females he’d encountered since he’d returned to England had seemed faintly horrified by him.
He wasn’t sleek or fashionable like Lovell. He was big and rough, his face tanned by years of exposure to sun and sea. If that weren’t offensive enough to the fair sex, he also had no talent for charming pleasantries. Polite, mindless chatter bored him, and soon enough he’d start talking about skirmishes and frontal assaults, and well…there was no recovering from frontal assaults where the ladies were concerned. “No, not tonight.”
“You’re mad, Lymington, but I suppose there’s no point in arguing with you. I can’t help but observe, however, that you might not be so cross if you occasionally indulged your carnal appetites.” Lovell frowned. “You do have carnal appetites, don’t you?”
Samuel did, and rather pressing ones at that, but if he acknowledged his desires to his cousin, Lovell would set a horde of courtesans upon him, and the next thing he knew, he’d have a skirmish on his hands.
Or worse, a frontal assault.
“We’re not here to indulge my appetites, but yours.” Indulge them, and pray a tumble with a courtesan tonight would keep Lovell out of mischief for the rest of the season.
It was dangerous, bringing Lovell back to London when the fashionable crowd of debauched noblemen he’d been running with were still lurking about the city, drinking and wagering and generally making arses of themselves.
Samuel glanced across the drawing room at Lord Peabody, one of Lovell’s former companions. Peabody had put away an astonishing quantity of port in the short time since Samuel had arrived, all while assessing the ladies as if they were prime horseflesh at Tattersall’s. He’d just chosen a tiny girl with chestnut hair, who looked more terrified than flattered by his attentions, and was tugging her toward the stairway.
Courtesan or not, Samuel despised seeing a lady manhandled. It made him ill to think of Lovell in company with such a blackguard.
When Samuel left England eight years earlier, Lovell had been a sweet-tempered lad of fifteen. The worst that could be said of him then was that he was given to misty-eyed dreaminess. He’d fancied himself in love a half-dozen times before the age of twelve, drifting from one harmless adolescent infatuation to the next like a bee sampling every blooming flower in its path.
Samuel blamed his Aunt Adelaide for Lovell’s romantic notions. She’d named the boy Lancelot, for God’s sake.
Lancelot.
If ever there was a name to tempt the fates, that was it, and fate had caught up to Lovell with a vengeance. Looking at him now, Samuel couldn’t find a hint of the good-natured boy Lovell had once been.
He’d been ruined, in nearly every way a man could be ruined.
Lovell had been seduced by the glamourous coterie of aristocratic wastrels. He’d become a London beau, flitting from one dangerous escapade to the next like a deranged insect. He brawled and wagered, trifled with demireps, engaged in endless scandalous affairs, and traded one mistress for another as often as he changed his cravat.
Predictably, Lovell’s messy antics had led to an even messier duel that had landed him in bed with a dangerous fever from a pistol ball lodged in his leg.
When Samuel returned to England to bury his Uncle Lovell, he’d found his family in chaos. His uncle dead, his mother and aunt in a mutual hysterical frenzy, and his cousin bedridden from a festering wound, more dead than alive. Months had passed in terrifying limbo while Lovell fought off the fever that threatened his life—months in which Samuel had plenty of time to reflect on all the ways he’d failed his cousin.
On some level, he must have known Lord and Lady Lovell’s petting would spoil Lovell beyond recovery, but even his deep affection for his cousin hadn’t been enough to persuade Samuel to spend another day under the same roof as his Uncle Lovell. That it was Samuel’s own roof, his own estate he’d left behind hadn’t made the least bit of difference. It hadn’t been his home since his father’s death many years earlier.
It would have been a just punishment for Samuel’s selfishness if Lovell had succumbed to his fever, but by some miracle, he’d survived, and now Samuel was determined to see Lovell restored to himself, and back in possession of all he’d lost. His health, his family, and the future that had nearly been ripped away from him with one pistol shot.
Starting with…well, with a courtesan, ironically enough.
But she was simply a precaution, a final wild oat to settle Lovell, who’d been cooped up inside their London townhouse in a sick bed for weeks.
“Go on, then.” Samuel elbowed Lovell, and nodded at the brunette courtesan. “Your seraph is waiting for you.”
“She is, isn’t she? Very well, but do find something to do with yourself until I return, Lymington. I won’t have you stand about glaring like a gargoyle all evening.”
Lovell approached his choice, offered her a courtly bow and a charming smile, then took her hand and led her toward the staircase. Samuel watched them go, his chest pulling tight as his cousin struggled to negotiate the stairs. The surgeon insisted Lovell’s limp would hardly be noticeable once it was fully healed, but there would never come a time when Samuel wouldn’t notice it, no matter how indiscernible it became to everyone else.
Guilt lodged under his breastbone, sharp and heavy.
Lovell had never berated him for leaving, had never uttered a single word of blame, but the coldness between them now was as palpable as icy fingers squeezing Samuel’s heart.
The duel, Lovell’s injury—they should never have happened. If Samuel had been here, if he’d remained in England as his mother had begged him to do, it wouldn’t have.
There’d been more than one painful scene with Lady Lymington, more than one bitter maternal tear shed in the weeks between Samuel purchasing his commission in the Royal Navy and his hasty departure, but not even Samuel’s mother had been as devastated as Lovell when Samuel announced his intention to leave England.
Lord and Lady Lovell certainly hadn’t shed any tears for him. His aunt and uncle had been delighted to see him go. No doubt they’d prayed he would never return. Lovell stood to inherit the Lymington title and fortune if only Samuel would have the good grace to drown, or get himself blown to bits by cannon shot.
In the end, it was his Uncle Lovell who’d had the good grace to die, and Lovell who’d nearly been blown to bits—
“Such a fierce frown, my lord. You look as if you’ve just shot your favorite horse.”
A soft touch on the sleeve of his coat made Samuel glance down. A small hand rested there, with dainty fingers curled around his forearm. A trio of ladies—one fair, one dark, and the third red-haired—had sidled up to him, suggestive smiles on their painted lips.
“He looks bereft, doesn’t he, Nellie?” The brunette gave Samuel a flirtatious wink. “Pity, but perhaps we can cheer you. Come upstairs, you poor man, and tell us all about your dead horse.”
“We may even be able to coax it back to life again,” the redhead put in with a smirk. “Your horse, that is.”
Samuel disentangled his arm from the brunette’s grasp. “There’s no dead horse.”
“Your favorite hunting dog, then? It must be something. We don’t often see gentlemen wallowing in misery here at the Pink Pearl, do we, Clarissa?” The brunette turned to address the red-haired lady beside her.
“The married ones often look miserable when they arrive, but they’re cheerful enough when they leave.” The redhead fluttered a pair of pale lashes at Samuel. “I daresay you’re very handsome without that scowl. Shall we go upstairs and see?”
“No, thank you. I’m not looking for female companionship this evening.” Samuel had another matter to attend to, one he hadn’t shared with Lovell.
“You do realize you’re in a brothel, do you not?” The blonde’s red lips curled in a mocking smile.
Samuel frowned. “I’m aware, madam. I’m looking for a lady—”
“Ah.” The brunette clapped her hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What sort of ladies do you prefer, my lord?”
“Not ladies. Just one lady, by the name of Caroline Francis. Do you know of her?”
“Must it be Caroline, or will any dark-haired lady do?” The brunette trailed her finger down his arm.
Samuel blinked down at the teasing finger. “No, it must be her.”
The brunette’s lips turned down. “Pity.”
Rather a pity for Caroline Francis, yes. Samuel doubted she’d be pleased to see him, once she found out who he was, and the reason he’d come here. Ladies weren’t usually eager to discuss the story of their ruination, particularly when it ended with the heroine on her back at an infamous London brothel.
Still, better to turn up at a brothel than not to turn up at all. Did Caroline Francis have any notion how fortunate she was not to have met a much grimmer fate? If not, Samuel intended to make her aware of it, and of what she owed to the two other girls who hadn’t been as lucky.
“It seems Caroline’s in luck tonight.” The redhead touched the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip as her gaze wandered over him. “You’re a big, strong one, aren’t you? Such a shame, but I suppose our loss will be Caroline’s gain.”
“Indeed, but perhaps all hope isn’t quite lost. I haven’t seen Caroline at all this evening. Now I think on it, I believe she mentioned she had a private engagement, and would be gone all night.”
All night? Damn it, what cursed luck.
The brunette gave Samuel a smoldering look from under her lashes. “If you have a penchant for dark-haired ladies, my lord, I’d be pleased to accompany—”
“That won’t be necessary, madam.”
Her lips turned down in a sullen pout, and she turned away from him with an offended flounce of her skirts. “As you wish.”
Not having any place else to go, Samuel wandered down the nearest hallway, pausing when he reached the music room. A trill of notes spilled through the open door, and he peered inside and found one of Madame Marchand’s young ladies performing on the pianoforte, accompanied by a soprano in a yellow silk gown so tight he couldn’t imagine how she had the breath to sing.
At another time he might have stayed to listen, but he didn’t care to fend off any more eager courtesans. He didn’t fancy returning to the drawing room either, so he moved toward a door at the end of the corridor. He half-expected someone to follow him and demand to know where he was going, but it seemed Madame Marchand’s guests were permitted to wander where they pleased.
The door latch gave under his hand, and he entered the dim space. It was deserted, the fire burned down to embers, but despite the chill Samuel wandered over to a large, overstuffed chair in the corner and dropped into it.
Ah, yes. This would do nicely. He might bide his time here without anyone disturbing him until Lovell was—
Click.
Samuel peered through the gloom, his eyes widening when a figure appeared on the other side of a pair of glass doors leading from a garden terrace. She was small—certainly a lady—but her face and hair were hidden by a dark, shapeless cloak with a deep hood.
He remained still, watching as the slender figure slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and glided further into the room, her movements so fluid not even the faintest shuffle of footsteps marked her progress. It was as if she were a wraith, floating inches above the ground, or some sylphlike creature too ethereal to bother with anything so mundane as footsteps.
Sylphlike, ethereal, footless wraiths?
Samuel grimaced at his fanciful thoughts. He was just about to rise from his chair and make his presence known when the wraith stopped him with a whispered word.
“Letty?”
Samuel stilled. The velvety timbre of her voice slid over his skin like the stroke of a palm, leaving shivers in its wake.
“Drat it, Letty, I haven’t time for this tonight.”
Good Lord, that voice. It was soft, huskier than was usual for a young lady, and so smoky at the edges it made his mouth water for whiskey. If she’d approached him in the drawing room, he’d have followed her anywhere.
“Letty? Are you in here?”
He froze, breath held as she peered into the gloom, but he was tucked into a corner, hidden by shadows, and her gaze skimmed right over him.
She let out a faint huff when silence was the only reply, then lowered her hood with an impatient tug. He caught a glint of moonlight on a lock of pale hair and leaned forward, eager to see if her face matched that decadent voice.
He squinted into the gloom, but most of her face was still lost in shadows.
Curious that a throaty wraith should be creeping about a darkened library in a notorious brothel, but whatever secrets this lady was hiding, they had nothing to do with him. If he could have left without attracting her attention, he would have done so, but as it was…
One by one, the muscles that had pulled taut when she emerged from the darkness loosened. Samuel let his limbs relax against the chair, and prepared to wait.
* * * *
The Pink Pearl was an explosion of light and sound, but the noise faded until there was only the faint crunch of her boots on the grass as Emma drifted through the shadows to the deserted library at the back of the townhouse.
She didn’t want to think about how many people would be furious with her if they knew she’d come to the Pink Pearl tonight.
She didn’t want to, but her brain rushed merrily along, counting them off, one by one.
Lady Clifford, Lady Crosby, Daniel Brixton, Madame Marchand…
She paused on that last name, a shudder jolting up her spine. One did one’s best not to toy with Madame Marchand, in much the same way one would hesitate before threatening a venomous snake with a sharp stick.
If one couldn’t finish it off with a single blow, it was best not to strike at all.
Emma slipped through the glass doors, rubbing her gloved hands together to warm them. It was spring in London, but colder than usual. The wind felt like shards of icy needles prickling her skin.
Where in the world were Helena and Caroline? She’d told Helena half-ten, and she was a few minutes late. She’d hoped they’d be waiting for her. If Emma didn’t turn up at Lady Crosby’s soon, Lady Crosby would alert Lady Clifford, Lady Clifford would send Daniel after her, and then there’d be the devil to pay.
But she was here now, and there was no sense in leaving until she’d gotten what she wanted. It had taken several weeks of patient prodding, but Helena had at last coaxed Caroline Francis into divulging the details of her liaison with Lord Lovell, and Emma was determined to hear the tale directly from Caroline’s lips.
Except “liaison” wasn’t really the right word, was it? Seduction, ruination, and abandonment made it sound ugly indeed, but Caroline’s, er…association with Lord Lovell hadn’t been the stuff of romantic fairy tales.
Far from it.
Emma appreciated accuracy, especially when one hoped to fit an aristocratic rake with a noose for his crimes. Not that seduction and ruination were crimes, of course. Seducing the innocent was a base, detestable thing to do, but it wasn’t, alas, illegal. If it had been, nearly every aristocrat in London would have found his way to the end of a rope by now.
But Caroline Francis wasn’t Lord Lovell’s first, worst, or only sin.
Kidnapping and murder might prove a trifle more problematic for him, despite his noble blood, but one didn’t march a man off to the gibbet without evidence. The Crown was particular that way, especially when the man in question happened to be a viscount.
As of yet, there was no proof either Amy Townshend or Kitty Yardley had met a tragic end, or even that a crime had been committed at all. Girls went missing all the time, led astray by some rogue or other, then ruined and abandoned.
But two missing servant girls, and now the third, Caroline Francis, pointing her accusing finger at Lord Lovell? That was the sort of thing that caught Lady Clifford’s attention. Someone had to hold such men to account, and for better or worse, that task had fallen to Emma this time.
She wouldn’t rest until Lovell’s every foul transgression was laid bare.
Both Amy and Kitty had vanished from Lymington House without a trace. How Caroline Francis had escaped their same fates and instead turned up at a London brothel was a mystery. A proper villain didn’t leave a witness—not without a compelling reason for doing so.
The library door squeaked open, admitting a narrow shaft of light and the faintest whiff of a scent that still made Emma’s stomach tighten, even five years after she’d escaped the Pink Pearl. It was a precise balance of candle wax, snuff, rose water tempered with a sharp edge of perspiration, and underlying it all a distinctly musky smell.
No other place in London smelled like the Pink Pearl.
The door closed again, plunging the library into darkness, then there was a hurried tap of ballroom slippers rushing across the carpet.
“I’m here, Letty,” Emma whispered into the darkness, trying not to flinch at the sound of Helena’s disembodied footsteps. She wasn’t timid, and she was accustomed to sneaking about darkened rooms, but everything about the Pink Pearl set Emma’s nerves on edge.
A small, warm hand encased in a fine kid glove landed on Emma’s sleeve. “I can’t understand how Madame Marchand hasn’t caught you and Charles out yet, given how suspicious she is.”
Charles was one of Madame Marchand’s kitchen boys. He had an adolescent tendre for Emma, and was willing to see to it the terrace door was left unlocked for her when she required it. “I imagine Madame is rather taken up with emptying the pockets of London’s noblemen.”
Madame Marchand was a creature of habit, and never ventured from the drawing room during the evening’s festivities.
“Yes, well, there’s no shortage of pockets to empty tonight.”
Helena’s tone was light, but Emma heard the edge in her voice, and her shoulders tensed. “Is Lord Peabody here?”
Helena threw herself into a window seat, heedless of her fine silk gown. “Here, deep in his cups, and growing more aggressive with every glass of port Madame Marchand pours into him.”
“Promise me you’ll stay away from him, Letty.” The man had a streak of cruelty in him a mile wide.
But cruel or not, someone would have to have him. Madame Marchand wouldn’t dream of turning away any gentleman. Certainly not one with pockets as deep as Lord Peabody’s, not even if it meant one of her girls would end the evening with a broken finger, or bruises shaped like bootheels on her legs or back. Nothing too obvious, of course—nothing too visible. Lord Peabody knew better than to damage Madame Marchand’s goods, and in return Madame pretended not to notice his violent tendencies.
Rather a tidy arrangement for all concerned, aside from the women who found themselves on the receiving end of Lord Peabody’s ill temper.
There was a reason his lordship preferred the smaller, daintier ladies at the Pink Pearl.
Helena was both, but she was a temperamental handful, for all her apparent fragility. Lord Peabody generally kept away from her, unless he was in a particularly ugly mood, and fancied a fight.
“He’s taken poor Lizzie upstairs already,” Helena said, a hard, bleak look in her eyes. “Last time she had him he tore a clump of her hair out.”
Emma’s stomach lurched. “Stay away from him, Letty. Lavish your attentions on another gentleman instead. Is Lord Dimmock here tonight?”
Lord Dimmock was neither young nor handsome, but he was a courtly old gentleman, and he was safe. The choice between Lord Dimmock and Lord Peabody was like a choice between a plate of sweetmeats and a platter of rotted fish.
Helena sighed. “Yes, but you didn’t come here tonight to discuss Lord Dimmock.”
“No.” Emma glanced over Helena’s shoulder, her hopeful gaze on the library door. She willed it to open, and for Caroline Francis to stroll through it, but it remained firmly closed. “Since you’re here alone, I take it our plans have gone awry.”
Of course they had. Nothing was ever as simple as it should be.
“My dear Emma, a nobleman’s lust always takes precedence over everything else. Caroline was suddenly called away to attend a private engagement this evening,” Helena added, when Emma raised an eyebrow.
“An engagement?” Dash it, what blasted ill luck.
Helena hopped down from the window seat and grabbed Emma’s hand. “Now, don’t look like that. I’ll bring her to see you tomorrow night. She can tell you her lurid tale then. It’s as shocking as you could ever hope for.”
“No, tomorrow won’t do.” By this time tomorrow evening, Emma would be at Almack’s, posing as an innocent debutante on the hunt for an aristocratic husband.
Innocent. The thought brought a derisive snort to Emma’s lips.
“Why not tomorrow?” Helena asked, studying Emma’s face in the dim light.
“I won’t be able to return to the Pink Pearl for some time, Letty.” Emma tapped her lip, thinking. “Do you suppose you could get Caroline to write down an account of it?”
“I don’t see why not. I can ask her, at any rate.”
“Good. Give it to Charles, and I’ll send Daniel to fetch it from him.” Emma reached into the pocket of her cloak and pulled out a small pouch of coins, which she dropped into Helena’s hand. “Here, take this, just
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The Virgin Who Bewitched Lord Lymington
Anna Bradley
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