The Lord I Left Page 6

  “Alice,” he pronounced clearly, gravely, the way one might say it if one were training a dog. He moved away, detaching his body from her grip.

  She slunk to her side of the carriage, pouting. She supposed she should take care not to further traumatize him with her corruption before he’d delivered her to Fleetwend, since he was doing her a kindness, and since it would not serve her to earn his ill will. She could be well-mannered for a few hours, even if she was an awful changeling child who had a dying mother and no feeling in her limbs.

  Perhaps.

  “Another hour and we’ll be at the next coaching inn,” Henry said gruffly. “You can warm up by the fire.”

  “I’m fine,” she sighed. “I wasn’t complaining to you, just to the world in general. Ignore my rotted whinging. We haven’t time to spare. I need to get home to my sisters.”

  He clicked his tongue, urging the horses into a slightly faster clip, though they were already at a trot.

  “When is the last time you saw them?” he asked her. “Your sisters, I mean.”

  Her heart gave a little gulp. Too long.

  “It’s been over a year. I rarely return home.”

  The time in London had flown by—feeling at once like an era, rich and memorable, and at the same time like a minute, over before she’d realized it had passed.

  “That must be difficult,” Henry said.

  Since he already found her thoroughly wicked, she would not tell him that the most difficult thing was that it had not been difficult at all.

  It had been glorious.

  The pinnacle of her life.

  “When did you last visit home?” she asked, preferring to deflect the question than to further indict her character.

  He hesitated. “Five years.”

  She sucked in her breath. This was genuinely shocking.

  “I’ve seen my mother at my cousin’s house. But my father has not wished me home.”

  She could not help but shake her head. “Half a decade!”

  “Yes, and not a day has passed that I did not wish it could be different. ’Tis a sad thing, to be away from one’s family.”

  She sighed, not entirely agreeing but knowing that to object would further convince him of her wickedness. “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you return more often?” he asked. “Does Mistress Brearley not grant you leave?”

  She tensed at the implication her employer was anything but generous. “She grants me a week’s leave twice a year. As she does all her servants and artisans. But my family relies on my wages, so I prefer to work rather than to take it.”

  “Artisans?” he asked, looking confused.

  “The governesses and masters and others who see to members’ needs.”

  He nodded quickly. “Ah, of course. Prostitutes.”

  Perhaps she could remember he was a threat.

  “Call them what you like—they don’t mind. But what they do requires more skill than rutting. It takes talent to read a person’s desires, even more to fulfill them, especially when it comes to ropes and whips and other things that can cause harm if not practiced with great care. Catrine, the rope mistress, was an acrobat who performed at the Theatre Royal. Eloise trained fine horses before she trained fine men to serve her—”

  “And what of you?” he interrupted. “How is it that you came to work for Mistress Brearley?”

  As he asked the question, a drop of something cold and wet landed on her nose.

  Snow?

  No, surely not. It rarely snowed this far south, even in the winter. She glanced up at the sky. It was flat and gray, cloudless and low.

  “Mistress Brearley is a relation of my father’s family. I wrote to her seeking a position when my father died. It was my mother’s hope that I would go to London for some polishing. Learn to keep a gracious home for my future husband.” Stop being so damned odd and dreamy and wanton-skirted, or at least exhaust the impulse away from home, where she would not destroy the family’s prospects.

  The expression this provoked from him could only be described as “ill.” “Your mother wished for you to prepare for matrimony by working for a whipping governess?”

  Alice chuckled at his tone. “I assure you she was not aware of the nature of the establishment when I took the position.”

  A tendon in his jaw spasmed. “Mistress Brearley lied about the position? I would have thought her above such tricks. Despicable, entrapping innocent girls.”

  “No she certainly did not. Elena told me the truth when I wrote to her inquiring for a job, and I kept it from my mother. Mama would have forbidden me to go and I had no other connections in London.”

  “Alice, why? Why would you wish to work in such a place, knowing what it was?” He sounded like this idea physically pained him.

  She could not believe she had imagined she was growing to like him. She must have forgotten his talent for making her very, very angry.

  “First of all, Henry Evesham, for the first year I did little other than order meals and mind the maids, no different than I would keeping any house. I scarcely think it’s a crime. But even if I did sell more than that, it would be because I chose to—because the sale would earn me at least three times what I can get in service—and I would be grateful for the chance. We cannot all become rich men of ease and leisure through the noble art of casting others’ private lives into the papers for public mockery and titillation.”

  If a man’s jaw could become detached from his face, Henry Evesham’s was trying. He was no doubt shocked by her opinions, but she flattered herself he was also shocked by her fluency in expressing them, when she wanted to. She had picked up many things at Elena Brearley’s house and one of them was a taste for vigorous debate of others’ dubious notions of morality.

  Those stories Henry Evesham had made his name writing—those about her mistress’s establishment and those about the gin-swillers, the gamblers, the adulterers—were devoured because they gave the public the thrill of the illicit. Which meant, if they were pointing fingers, the man of God was selling something sinful too.

  “I will grant you that the tone of Saints & Satyrs was designed to elicit a strong response,” Henry finally said. “But the purpose was not to titillate.”

  “Then what was it? To make a name for yourself and your fine rhyming verses?”

  “No. To open the public’s eyes. To provoke a clarity about the nature of the ills that plague our city so that something can be done. And to expose the complicity of those in power who turn a blind eye to it—or indulge in it themselves.”

  “You circled around Charlotte Street for months, though we hurt no one. There’s no shortage of actual violent, dangerous, murdering criminals marauding around London and abusing whores, if exposing crime was your true purpose.”

  He said nothing, but his jaw was working like he was grinding his teeth.

  Well that was fine, for she had plenty to say. “I know all the details, Henry. I know how you made a bargain with Lord Apthorp to print the confessions of his sordid past to spare our other members. Is that so noble? Extorting a man’s privacy in exchange for mercy?”

  He closed his eyes. “I had an obligation to my publishers to grow our circulation. Their demands got out of hand.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her, and she sensed from the urgency in them he was, for some reason, desperate to be believed. “When I could afford to, I left.”

  “Ah,” she said triumphantly. “You took what work you could to make your living? So do those of us who work on Charlotte Street. And other places that are far less fine and pleasant.”

  If this priggish man could not understand that the sex trade was just that—a trade—and one of the few open to unschooled women, he had no business casting judgment upon it.

  Several more drops of snow fell on her nose, and she pushed them off, furious at this man and at the weather and at the disagreeable quality of life in general.

  Henry cleared his throat.

  Oh, wonde
rful, she had won herself another sermon.

  “I stand by my mission,” he said primly. “My paper did much good. But there were several instances in which I acted beneath my own conscience and allowed my vanity to get the better of me. I do regret that, and I have asked for God’s forgiveness. I’m sorry if I hurt anyone you care about.”

  She had not expected him to concede.

  She liked it.

  “You should be sorry,” she said, pleasantly smug.

  “But,” he added forcefully, “I will not pretend I approve of the fornication and whipping and … I fear to speculate whatever else … that goes on in your Mistress’s establishment. Nor will I pretend to believe you can work there without a moral reckoning.”

  “Again with the rutting and whipping,” she laughed, just to be difficult.

  He looked from left to right, as if hoping one of the frozen trees was hearing this and could assure him he had not lost his mind. “You cannot deny that is the purpose of the place. You gave me the tour yourself.”

  She turned to him with the devil’s own smile on her face. “Oh I remember the tour, Henry. You needn’t remind me.”

  His face went so red she could scarcely make out his eyebrows from his forehead.

  Good.

  “What Mistress Brearley offers her members, Henry,” she said sweetly, “is the freedom to indulge their deepest desires, with no harm, no shame and as little risk as possible.”

  “Yes,” he countered, looking at her dead in the eyes. “Any sin imaginable.”

  She felt the hairs along the back of her neck prickle. Her mother always said she was like a cur when she was angry, and she felt like one. She wanted to bite him.

  “We observe our own morality,” she shot back. “Which is to do no harm and take our pleasure without guilt or shame or risk of exposure in the papers.”

  He blinked. “You do not truly think one can invent one’s own morality?”

  Oh, he was exasperating.

  “Is that not what laws are? Morals invented by men with grand houses and fine robes?”

  “Laws are a code of justice, based on Christian principles and upheld by the King,” he said pedantically.

  “Laws are made up by men. Plenty that is moral is not legal, and plenty that is legal is not right.”

  She smiled, pleased at her own philosophizing. He looked up at the sky. Probably commiserating with the Lord about her blasphemy and rotten soul. But when he looked back at her, his face was contorted into a smile, if a pained one.

  “You’re rather a quick wit for a woman who insists she is nothing but a lowly housekeeper.”

  She did not like to admit it, but she was pleased by this assessment from a lofty type like him. This debate reminded her of the meandering conversations she enjoyed with Elena as they read the papers and discussed the business of the house. It had been a worthy education.

  “I merely have a decent head for logic and a fine mouth,” she said.

  He laughed softly, but the smile quickly left his face. “Alice, I do understand what you are saying. You believe people should have the freedom to practice what they wish safely and in peace, separating notions of decency from notions of harm. Many people I’ve interviewed agree with you.”

  “What I’m saying, Henry, is that ’tis in your gift to make the streets safer for those who do not have the luxury of working for Elena Brearley.” She paused, thinking of the stories she’d heard passed around. Girls and mollies beaten. Culls who didn’t pay. Brats, pox, pimps. Not to mention the Henry Eveshams of the world, who judged you as a pestilence for doing no more than trying to make bread.

  Henry sighed. “I take my responsibility seriously, Alice. But there is also the question of morality, and I take that seriously as well. I’m curious: how do you personally account for God’s morality, working in such a place?”

  He posed this question with such earnest sincerity she could not help but bark out an irritated laugh. “God’s morality? Well, Henry, I suppose I don’t account for it at all.”

  He looked at her in disbelief.

  “Henry, I have two sisters, a dying mother, and no money to speak of. We’ll lose our cottage without my mother’s widow’s portion. Liza could work in service, perhaps, but Sally isn’t yet nine years old. What do you think happens to girls like us, if no man rushes in to marry them? Where’s God’s morality in that?”

  “If you need help, Alice—”

  “I’m not asking for your bloody charity,” she spat. “I’m just asking you to remember there are lives at stake. Mine. Elena’s. All those girls you interview when you make your sober rounds and scribble down your notes, looking like you might be ill.”

  He glanced sadly at her eyes. “I am concerned about them, Alice. Gravely concerned. I take my work seriously. I promise you.”

  She relaxed slightly, for he did look earnest.

  “But have you no concern for your mortal soul?” he asked softly.

  She wanted to lift her arms and scream in frustration.

  Charlotte Street was more sacred to her than any church, and for reasons Henry Evesham would never understand. And unlike the church, Charlotte Street had never betrayed her.

  “My soul is not your concern,” she muttered. “I told you that yesterday, and I meant it.”

  He nodded. For a minute, he was blessedly silent.

  “It’s just that I,” he murmured, his voice faraway, as if lost in private thought, “I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Bear what?” she snapped, not at all delighted he had resumed this conversation.

  “Living in estrangement from the Lord. Surrounded by so much sin.”

  He looked at her raggedly, as though the very idea upset him. He seemed sincere.

  As if he feared for her.

  As if he could not imagine what it was to live imperfectly.

  As though he had never felt desire.

  But she had worked on Charlotte Street long enough to know that everyone desired something.

  Including, she was certain, Lord Lieutenant Henry Evesham. She had seen the look in his eyes as she’d shown him the chapel room in Elena Brearley’s cellar and if she was not mistaken, they had flashed with something she recognized before he’d run off in his fit of horror: yearning.

  Read them, Elena always counseled artisans in training. Look into their soul and see what they long for. Answer their hunger.

  She decided to put her training to work. “You said you’re looking to marry.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Soon, I hope.”

  “I see,” she drawled. “Then I expect, as a bachelor, you’re a virgin? Pure as the dawn?” She smirked, waiting for him to admit his hypocrisy.

  His mouth fell open. He flushed a deeper red.

  “I don’t see what relevance—” he finally sputtered.

  Oh.

  She had not expected that. Most of the clergy that came to Charlotte Street kept their belief in the purity of the flesh strictly theoretical. But she could tell by his stammering he wasn’t lying. He was a virgin.

  What would that feel like? To be a man his age, to walk daily among bagnios and bawdy houses, and shudder in revulsion at the idea of making love?

  “Me,” she said softly, looking in his eyes, “I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Bear what?” he asked.

  “Oh, Henry,” she murmured. “Don’t you ever want touch? Pleasure?”

  Something dark flashed in his eyes. He tore them away from her face, looking pained, though whether it was anger at her prying or the pull of unmet need, she couldn’t say.

  “No,” he said crisply. “I’m perfectly content. There is ample pleasure to be found in living virtuously. And if you please, Miss Hull, I beg you not to discuss this any further. I beg you.”

  His voice shook. She glanced at him and realized he was shaky and upset. She instantly regretted she’d let herself get carried away. Her emotions were everywhere—bouncing between despair and anger and provocation. She felt like a w
itch, like a demon, like a spirit untethered form the world. She could not feel her fingers, much less her sense of decency.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “You’re right. I’m not myself. I did not mean to upset you.”

  A drop of snow fell into her eye, like Henry Evesham’s God was rebuking her for lying.

  “No,” she corrected herself. “I did mean to upset you. Because I am upset and I wanted you to understand why.”

  His shoulders fell. He nodded. “It’s only natural to feel aggrieved. I appreciate your honesty. I won’t forget it when I’m writing my report.”

  They drove on in uneasy silence, an unpleasant tension sitting between them. It only grew as the snow began to fall in earnest. By noon, snow had accumulated on the roads, causing the wheels to skitter.

  It was rather beautiful, the way it shrouded the trees in pretty veils of white and danced lazily about the air. But she could not pretend she did not know what bad weather meant. She glanced at the horses, worried for the ice packing in their hooves.

  She was certain, from his silence, from the tension in the way he held the reins, that Henry worried too. But they both stared ahead, as if by not acknowledging what was becoming more obvious by the quarter hour, they might prevent it from becoming true.

  She began to hum about her pin-box, to keep herself from spinning out the possibilities into dreadful visions. She hummed low, improvising on the tune to keep her mind occupied.

  Beside her, she heard a rumble. Henry was humming too.

  She glanced at him, and he gave her a weary, close-lipped smile. His voice—a tenor, by the sound of it—met hers, and formed a harmony. When she went up an octave, and improvised a measure, he found the counterpoint as easily as if they’d sung the song a hundred times.

  She began to laugh, both in joy at the companionable pleasure of the harmony, and at the outrageous notion that the pious Lord Lieutenant was unwittingly crooning the melody to a song about the cunny of an unrepentant whore.

  He smiled. “Is my voice so amusing?”

  “No, Henry,” she answered honestly. “Your voice is lovely.”

  Below them, the carriage creaked, the wheels straining.

  Henry’s face tightened, then collapsed into something like despondency.