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  By virtue of his former ownership of the manor the Bingleys had purchased, decorum dictated that they invite Sir Henry Howgrave and his wife. It was an honour Elizabeth would have thought nothing of except

  for one small bother.

  Darcy and Howgrave’s wife had once been lovers.

  Chapter 8

  For Better or for Worse

  It is said that time is a creeping thief.

  Juliette delicately patted her plump, honey-coloured locks. Turning her head first one way then the other, she appraised herself in her looking-glass. She was inordinately happy with what she saw. Her nightly ablutions (potions, pomades, rouges, tinctures, rose powder, eye lotion, lemon ointment, and gillyflower water) had kept her in the bloom of youth. Most women her age would need to augment their coiffure with hair pieces. Her hair was still luxuriant—a sure sign of youth. She had a check-book with a formidable balance and a fine footman to follow her.

  Her once dwindling finances now replenished through marriage, her life was once again one of opulence and admiration.

  ———

  For all of her years in England, Juliette Clisson had only lately been in want of status. She was, after all, a daughter of a French Viscount. She would have been there yet had not politics of a dégoûtant nature interfered with their exquisite existence, usurping their land and chattels. Her mother died of shame and her father turned to drink. When they died of their weaknesses, they were mourned as victims of the revolution as surely as if they had been beheaded with Louis himself.

  Juliette had been left to fend for herself as best she could. Convent raised, she was chaste, but not naïve. Cast out into lesser society, she landed on her feet with all the facility of a brindled cat. As her golden hair and creamy skin were highly desirable, in no time she found a well-fed Marquis to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. Indeed, he put her in an elegant house around the corner from his wife. Unfortunately, the political winds soon shifted against all nobility and her temporary inamorato was arrested. A trial was only a formality and it came to pass that she stood next to him in the tumbrel as they were carted off for a hasty execution. She escaped by a hairsbreadth, but it was a nasty business all-round. The episode influenced her to betake her charms to a less volatile climate.

  When she first observed the pasty-faced Englishmen traipsing up to St. James Palace, she deduced that her fellow Parisians had been quite correct. London was a backwater hamlet full of self-satisfied shopkeepers. Her opinion of London and its tiresome citizens was much improved by reason of one spectacular point. In London it was very unlikely that she would hear the singularly disturbing words, “Off with her head!”

  Indeed, the good people of England looked evermore lively as they came to honour her noble status and admire her voluptuous figure. Her patrician beauty brought her the proper patronage a fortnight of her arrival. Ere long she was the toast of the ton, universally admired as London’s most accomplished courtesan.

  It pleased her no end to have the ladies of the court looking upon her with a confusion of loathing and envy. Their husbands (oblivious or uncaring of their wives particular dislike) crowded about her, begging for her attention. Pressing their cards into her hand, they gazed upon her lasciviously whilst whispering indecent suggestions in her ear. It was uproarious fun!

  She despised them all of course. Had she not, she still would have never allowed an emotional entanglement. They were superfluous and untidy.

  She wanted for nothing. She kept a tres elegante house in Mayfair, had gowns beyond counting, and bijouterie to rival that of any mere duchess. Her celebrity was limitless. She travelled in the first circles and often dined at Carlton House. True respectability, however, escaped her. That was part of her cachet. When she was young and vaunted, that hardly mattered. Of all the many things she owned, her most prized possession had been her independence. Self-determination, however, was expensive. In time, she lost her most lucrative clients through the attrition of old age and bad health. Rarely was she remembered in their wills—an indelicacy which left her finances in shambles. The new young bucks were déclassé. They desired nothing but young, fresh flesh.

  Much could be hidden behind a fan, but the lack of elasticity in one’s gluteal furrow was uncompromising.

  Indeed, time was not only a thief, it was outright cruel. Her living was her face, her figure, and her charm. With more than a nodding acquaintance with the second half of her fourth decade, only her charm defied earth’s gravitational pull. When she took uncompromising appraisal, she admitted that her jaw line had begun to soften and a few crow’s feet worried the corners of her eyes. Her waist was still waspish as a seventeen-year-olds’. Her bosom had begun its inevitable droop, but she could counter that through proper stays. As for her complexion, it had not yet failed her.

  She did not take to the street in the daylight, but if she did, she held her chin just a little higher. In bed, she made certain she lay on her back. Granted, morning callers would find her drapes lowered. Eventually, she would see no one until half past four. Time was at hand for her to engage in an enduring association—one that assured her financial security. She did not delude herself in this regard. It was probable that she would have to settle for a man wanting in one capacity or another. Good manners, handsome bearing, and ready capital were rarely united. Of the three, wealth was the one necessity.

  When she cast out her trawling net, her spirits were not particularly high.

  As expected, proposals were offered from an assortment of gentlemen (some of them were even sober). As it was necessary to narrow the field to a manageable number, she pondered three of the most lucrative proposals. Each had their own merit.

  One was from an elderly widower who owned an estate in Somerset, a house in town and had no relatives.

  The second struck a fine figure, but he had a fondness for buggering his footmen. She did not object on moral grounds, but was loath to weather the tittering.

  The third suitor was an unctuous little man of questionable ancestry. His wealth was recently acquired, but substantial. His valour during the protracted hostilities with Napoleon earned him a knighthood. In a bid not singular to him, he hoped to parlay his heroics into a seat in Parliament. A handsome wife would be an asset to him. When introduced, she found nothing notable about him save one small thing.

  When he explained his particular situation, her eyes did not flutter, her throat did not flush. She betrayed absolutely no indication that his neighbours were of the smallest interest to her. Under most circumstances, she would not even think of staying anywhere but London despite the grandness of a country house. His proposal was offered with all the finesse of a plough horse. That was of no importance to her.

  Their marriage was already foreordained the moment he spoke of his estate in Derbyshire and his good neighbour, Mr. Darcy, not five miles away.

  Chapter 9

  In Wickham’s Wake

  As they lived in a festering warren of poverty, the friendship between Daisy Mulroney and Sally Frances Arbuthnot had grown stronger with each season. It had reached its apex when they, united by desire for revenge and a determination to escape the muck-crusted streets of the Dials, exacted vengeance on a certain Major George Wickham.

  Yet not long after that purification rite, they parted ways. This separation was not due to any disagreement between them. If anything, satisfaction of a wrong made right gave them further commonality. They trotted off, each carrying more money than they had ever imagined. Both had their scruples, but only Sally’s path was clear.

  ———

  Whereas their attack on Wickham was just in everyone’s eyes but the law, Sally took a hasty leave from Mrs. Younge’s boarding house—and Daisy did too. His howling could be heard clear to Newton Street. It was certain to bring attention. Mr. Darcy would not want his name brought into such a conflagration whether Wickham deserved his fate four times over or not.

  Wickham was the devil incarnate. That rogue had
done more evil than any murderer in Newgate—Sally was sure of that.

  No doubt that was why Mr. Darcy paid the man the better part of a King’s ransom just to leave his family be. She and Daisy were only happy to have the chance of relieving Wickham of those funds (it was a monstrous amount of money). In truth, she did not need encouragement to shoot that bastard in the vitals. With any luck, he didn’t die of blood loss. If there was a God, which she sorely doubted, Wickham would die a slow and painful death like her brother had. One thing was certain, whether dead or dying, George Wickham would never sire another offspring to abandon.

  Sally never doubted that Daisy had made good her escape. She was faster than a mouse and twice as wily. With the money they took, there was no reason to return to her bawdy house. Indeed, Daisy could live in any manner she chose—and there was little chance she would remain a harlot.

  Daisy was more clever by half than any other wench, but Sally Frances was not stupid. Whatever the temptation a poor girl might have to crow over her windfall, years on the street and innate good sense told them both to keep it quiet. Dyot Street was known for citizens on the game. St. Giles Breed they called them. There was no law in that parish. She had to make haste.

  Once Sally Frances passed the last urchin and blood-scabbed beggar, she knew she had escaped. She kept her head down and poke stowed until she reached the edge of Chelsea. There she would be taken for a simple maid-of-all-works, or the like, on her way to her place in one the fine houses.

  Only then did she allow her breath to overtake her mind. She vowed not to ponder what Daisy meant to do. Keeping ones own council on matters such as that kept a body from harm on the streets. In her heart she envisioned Daisy buying a house in West End and keeping an opera box. The thought of her friend sitting in finery enjoying Italian singers made her laugh. As for her share, Sally knew from the beginning that she would not keep it. She had taken it just to nettle Wickham. There had been no time for a plan. For all her artifice and intrigue chasing the man down, the entire event came to pass due to the perverseness of life as anything else.

  No, such a bounty was not hers to keep.

  It was not right to take someone else’s money, especially to do that which she would have happily done for free. Such dishonesty would plague her conscience forever. Her scruples did not always agree with her wishes. Now that she had settled her brother’s affairs, the thought of her poor grannum, Nell, was all-consuming. Sally did not know if the old woman was alive or dead. She concluded that she would keep a few sovereigns to take care of the old woman. No harm in that. One could say it was for services rendered.

  Given her druthers, she would not have returned to Chelsea and Mrs. Kneebone’s house at all. She went there only to locate Mr. Darcy. It was in the early hours and therefore little challenge to slip into the house unseen. She knew the most efficient way to collect any intelligence of the doings of the quality folk was to ask the help. In doing so she learnt quite expeditiously that Mrs. Darcy had taken leave the evening before and not returned. Undoubtedly the Darcys had not tarried in town but rather had made haste for Derbyshire.

  As if a sign fell from above, she saw that her first obligation was to take care of that which was closest at hand. Nell was but a half-day’s walk. If luck favoured her, she could catch a ride there on the back of a waggon.

  She took just a minute to look in on baby Susanna. She was a sweet child—favoured her father no doubt. Being nursemaid to her had been a joy. Had it not been for a rancorous employer like Mrs. Kneebone, she might have been tempted to stay. Mouthing a silent goodbye to the child, she attempted a covert leave. Sheer accident also saw her meet Mrs. Kneebone on the staircase. Lydia’s bowels had been nagging her else she would never have arisen at such an early hour. (Given that the servicing of chamber pots was a good part of a maid’s duties, the intricacies of their employer’s innards were quite obvious.)

  “A-ha!” Lydia cried. “Where have you been?”

  Sally looked at her with the blankness singular to a servant hiding compleat contempt. Receiving only silence, Lydia snorted and announced that Sally’s absence that night would be deducted from her wages.

  “I get no wages, ma’am,” Sally dully reminded her.

  Sally had accepted the position for its propinquity to the Darcy family, certainly not for remuneration. Lydia was not only ill-tempered to those she saw as beneath her, she was notoriously tight-fisted. She lay out no more than room and board to a nursemaid. Major Kneebone objected to such parsimony. His protestations were ineffectual. Lydia scoffed at his presumed benevolence.

  “Throw them a few old dresses every year and they shall be quite happy to have them.”

  It was a sign of the shuddering economic times in London that a line formed to hire on for such meagre compensation.

  Sally was relieved to see that Lydia was more concerned that Sally was gone rather than wither she went. Sally was undecided whether to tell the part she played in saving Lydia from Major Wickham’s clutches. She decided to keep Mr. Darcy’s confidences. Lydia was indiscrete. Moreover, Lydia was not the sort who cared to be saddled with gratitude. Although Lydia had been troubled, Sally believed it was unlikely that the affair had altered her character appreciably—certainly not enough to include gratitude.

  As she had her employer’s attention, Sally gave her notice.

  “I’ll not be back,” she said, clomping down the stairs.

  Lydia was dumb-founded (an unusual state of affairs for her, for certain).

  “Well, why not?” Lydia finally asked.

  Leaving her gaping, Sally was off. She had to find her grandmother before the scythe of poverty saw her carted off to Potter’s Field.

  Chapter 10

  Old News

  Elizabeth Darcy had observed Miss Clisson on three separate occasions. Each of these encounters, while singular, were similarly disconcerting and Elizabeth had not yet taken a full and uncompromised measure of her countenance.

  It was the first year of their marriage and she and Darcy had walked arm in arm along Regent Street when they chanced upon Miss Clisson. Elizabeth had caught no more than a glimpse of her patrician profile; however it remained quite clear in her recollection. The subtleties of that small exchange held dual offices. Firstly, that her husband had once known the lady. (Somewhere within her heart she realised that acquaintance had been of an intimate nature.) The second was that in exposing the long-passed connection, her husband told her that the woman in question was no threat to her.

  As she stood for her seamstress, Elizabeth observed Cressida, Darcy’s aged wolfhound sneaking into the room. Generally the dog was consigned to the downstairs now that she was too arthritic to take the stairs. Cressida turned in several circles until she found just the position to lie down. Elizabeth looked upon the dog with fondness, for she had been her constant companion and great comfort whilst Darcy was away on the Continent. That reminded her of when she actually met Miss Clisson.

  It was the height of the hostilities with Napoleon. She was great with child and desperate for word from her husband. Although Elizabeth would have come to town regardless, she had not known that she would meet Miss Clisson that day. She had been taken aback, uncertain whether or not she was victim of a rather cruel joke. Being seen in her condition in public was an offence meriting a verbal stoning by the dutiful decorous. Sitting in that manner, in the company of a woman of ill-repute, insulted all that was holy. As she had always taken great care to conduct herself in a manner befitting her position, the lengths she went to learn of her husband’s fate was testament to her alarm.

  Seated on a public bench in a small park, they spoke for ten minutes full. She had but one cause—to learn if Darcy was alive or laying in some blood-soaked battlefield injured or dead. Indeed, Elizabeth had been sick with worry, desperate for intelligence, and so compleatly flustered that the particulars of Miss Clisson’s complexion was not of the smallest interest.

  It was only on the long journey home
that her mind was sufficiently settled to contemplate Miss Clisson’s connection to her husband. Only then did she truly wish that she had paid closer attention.

  Although Juliette offered her a plausible explanation of it at the time, all Elizabeth’s womanly instincts told her she was not to be trusted. (No lady of innocent motives would have dared allude to a past connection to one’s husband, much less imply that it was not consigned to the past.) At the time, Elizabeth had not given a fiddler’s fart whether they were lovers or not. She had been happy enough just to learn that he was alive.

  Once he was safely home, she was no longer magnanimous in regards to that acquaintanceship.

  Admittedly, her interrogation of her husband on that particular matter had been a bit disputatious. His defence, however, was exceedingly thorough. Thereby any connection he had with Miss Clisson was long over—and of no importance. It had remained forgotten (well, perhaps not forgotten, but certainly of no concern) until she happened to see Juliette on the steps of Howgrave’s house on Regent Street the following year. Elizabeth might not have recognised her then had she not been standing on the broad steps in the middle of the day conversing with Darcy. As often bechanced such events, their meeting had been as fortuitous as it was innocent. The information Miss Clisson had extended had been a very present help in settling certain affairs wholly unconnected to her.