Lady Vice (10 page)

No gentleman would do such a thing. For God’s sake, Lavinia could have been the mother of Vaile’s heir. Such offense went against everything a gentleman valued. Bloodlines were sacrosanct. Innocence and purity were protected.

Rage at a dead man burned up his arms, down his spine, and straight into his chest, petrifying his muscles, rooting him to the earth. What had she said when she told him Vaile did not beat her?
There are more ways than one to ruin a woman’s spirit.

Now he understood why she found trust so difficult.

He cursed in silence. He had not truly listened to her words. His mouth dried as if full of cotton. Yet the sour taste lingered, thick like spoiled gravy in the back of his throat.

Her cloak rustled against the cypress as she straightened her hair. The dark of night obscured her form as she hurried back to the path. He followed her in silence, making sure she reached the hackney unharmed.

He’d told her he would not go to her again, and she’d replied she did not care.

He hoped to God she had lied.

Vaile had not only dishonored his wife, he had held in contempt the foundations of primogeniture. A man so thoroughly without morals could create a lethal quagmire of enemies. His murder was first, but was it the last?

Lavinia had not murdered her husband, but someone had. Lavinia could be next. Max could not protect her without her trust. How could he convince her he could be trusted before it was too late?

Chapter Eleven

Lavinia held still until Iphigenia passed beneath the lamplight. If horror manifested as insects, her body would be crawling with vermin. A tingling sensation rushed down the outsides of her legs and the tender skin of her neck pinched.

Iphigenia’s words rang louder than the bells of St. Paul’s.
You are no better than I am. I whore for money, you whored for what? Love?
Her stomach pitched.

Perhaps she could forgive herself if she had lost her way because of love. But, in caustic irony, she had lost everything she had held dear, first to preserve her reputation, and then to preserve her sham of a marriage.

Vaile’s demands had made her shudder with revulsion…and her revulsion was what he had craved. Was there anything she could have done?

She wiped her sweating palms against her cloak and tried her best not to ask the persistent, answerless question:
what if
?

What if my father had allowed me to marry Max before Max had left for India? What if I had refused a London debut? What if I had been stronger? What if I had left Vaile earlier and lived as a spinster?

Monte had controlled her husband. Could she have influenced Vaile as well?

Lavinia checked her hair with shaking hands—the disarray was worse than she feared. Clumps of hair poked out in every direction. She rewound the strands, attempting to pin them into some semblance of order.

Iphigenia’s accusation had been a slap, jolting her from stunned stillness.

She had tried to convince Vaile to fulfill his marriage vows in private. He had mocked her notions of fidelity. He had mocked her outrage. He had warned her that, if she refused, he would make her into the next Grace Drample.

Grace had been a leader of the fashionable world, until Parliament had granted her husband a divorce. Grace’s husband had included a clause in his petition that had left Grace in a netherworld, unable to marry and unable to demand support. She had been forced by circumstance to sleep with men for money.

Already estranged from her family, though not by her choice, the prospect had terrified Lavinia. Vaile had sewn that terror to her wrists in order to make her dance to a marionette’s reel.

Vaile had offered her a Hobson’s choice—
do as I wish or be a whore in truth
—no choice at all. But there had been other choices, hadn’t there? Why hadn’t she been able to see them? She could have found another way.

Her knees weakened under guilt’s unbearable weight. She had carved a place with Sophia and Thea where she thought she could not be touched by guilt.

She had been wrong. Guilt lived just beneath the surface. Guilt castigated her for her past. And, when she turned toward the future, guilt demanded: how dare you want something pure and strong and good? How dare you think you deserve Max?

Love, peace, and refuge.

She pressed her flattened palms against smoldering cheeks.

Those things were real. They had to be real. Wasn’t the memory of their promise the reason she had survived?

She had nurtured her love for Max in secret. She had tended her memories in a walled, guarded part of her heart like a faded letter she could take out and reread when the prospect of a bleak and loveless future would threaten to steal the last of her courage.

Seeing him now was more than she could bear. Having him close, taunted. The beauty and perfection of being wrapped in his arms scratched against the guilt in her heart, screeching like nails on slate.

When he had kissed her in the lane, she had very nearly believed the promise in his embrace. In spite of the dark threats she faced and in spite of her own resistance, she had yielded.

And what had he done? He had pulled away.

But had she not been the one who continued to insist he leave her be? She winced.

Faithfully, she had followed Max’s Parliamentary exploits in the weeklies. She had been so very proud of all he had accomplished. She was happy, then, that he would never know the desperate decisions she had made under the worst of circumstances.

She believed herself to be scarred, used, and unworthy, forever tainted by the sordid world of Vaile’s creation—a world she had never known existed before they had wed.

How can I love you, when you care so little for yourself
, Max had asked.

She had accused him of deceiving himself, of seeing her only as she had been. But, truthfully, it was she who wanted to believe that girl she had been still existed. She wanted to believe that, simply by choice, she could reenter a life of light and love. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.

Hope, like a fingernail cracked to the base by hard toil, caused unbearable pain.

Why could she not cry? Her tears were permanently lodged at the base of her throat. Regret and anger and fear rested heavily in her chest.

Lavinia steeled her spine as she snorted at her whining resistance. If there was one truth in life, it was that those who pity themselves never find their way. Yes, hope caused pain, but less pain than despair. Hope only cost more in the currency of courage.

She had failed to see all her possible choices when she’d been with Vaile. Was she blinded to choice now?

She wanted to be dipped in the love that ran like a river current through Max’s voice. She wanted to be washed and made new by the power of his trust.

Guilt whispered, “Who do you think you are?”

She pressed her lips together in a firm, unyielding line.

I am Lavinia—a woman who has loved and who will love again
. She inhaled the scent of the cypress trees. It fortified.

She would, despite her fear of betrayal, try to give Max a chance to prove she could trust him yet again.

The chess pieces were all on the board, but her plays, until now, had been defensive. She needed to fight. She adjusted her cloak and replaced her veil. She pulled up her skirts and carefully picked her way back to the lane.

She’d bloody well suffered enough.

Chapter Twelve

Lavinia led her friends to the dining hall in Vaile House. It had never been home, but knowing Vaile had been shot upstairs in his sleeping chamber imbued the air with sinister undertones.

Ghosts be damned
. She sat down in the opulent dining chair that had once been reserved for Vaile.

Sophia touched the back of another intricately carved chair with reverence.

“These are quite dear, aren’t they?” she asked. “The work of Thomas Chippendale, I think.”

“Only the best for Vaile,” Lavinia replied, “so long as he could pay with my funds.”

Sophia sat down as well. “The workmen did a nice job with the hatchment. Even the earl would have been impressed.”

“How are you, Lavinia?” Thea asked, sliding into a chair opposite Sophia.

“My mind has been fogged but is beginning to clear.”

“I am glad to hear it.” Sophia smiled. “But explain. Is your mind fogged because of Vaile’s death or fogged because of your feelings toward your would-be knight errant?”

“Both.” Lavinia drew together her brows. “Are my sentiments so obvious? Does my…” she searched for the appropriate word, “…attachment to Mr. Harrison show?”

“Your feelings are obvious to me.” Sophia patted Lavinia’s hand. “But that is not a reason to worry. Remember, I know you well.”

Thea snorted. “Sophia is dripping honey on the truth. Your feelings show, Lavinia. You are more obvious than opera singers’ rouge.”

“I feared as much,” Lavinia said.

“Let us see if we can clear away the rest of the fog.” Sophia nudged her chair closer to the table. “As I see it, we are concerned with two questions: first, how to discover Vaile’s true murderer and, second, how to handle Mr. Harrison. Or, more to the point, your response to Mr. Harrison.”

Lavinia laughed, bitter as barley ale. “Is that all?”

“Let us start with the first,” Sophia continued, ignoring her. “Randolph has placed you at Vauxhall, which means we’ve bought time. But I’m concerned something could still go wrong unless we find the real killer. Now, who would kill Vaile by shooting him through the cock? Any thoughts, ladies?” Her cheery voice oddly contrasted her words.

“An irate mistress, perhaps?” Thea suggested.

Lavinia pushed back her chair and rose, restlessly seeking the window. “He had no mistress.”

“Are you certain?”

“To my knowledge, he associated with only one woman
—
Iphigenia.
”
She wrapped her arms about her waist, resisting the cold trickling down her spine. She glanced over her shoulder. “I doubt her involvement.”

“She was not his mistress?” Thea asked.

“No.” Lavinia opened the side shutter.

Outside, a vendor pushed an apple cart through the street sludge. His calves, barely covered by his muddied, mended hose, bulged as he struggled.

Here, in a warm house and comfortable gown, had she truly cause to complain? She withered under a burden of her own making. Her secrets could hold the key to this murder, and revealing them was the only way to find out.

She returned to the table and grasped the high-back chair. If she could not tell Sophia and Thea the truth, how did she have any hope of confiding in Max, should he somehow prove trustworthy?

“I believe Vaile held Iphigenia in affection. She, er, eased his way.”

Sophia put her hands on the table. “I do not understand, dearest.”

How could she explain? “Have you noted the many classical marbles in this house?”

“Of course,” Thea said. “The collection dominates.”

“Yes, well, Vaile was a collector in more ways than one.” Lavinia measured her friends’ reactions, but no light of understanding dawned in their eyes. “He wanted others to be impressed with the things he owned and was not satisfied until other people viewed his possessions.”

“What do his antiquities have to do with his murder?” Sophia asked, perplexed. “Do you think someone wanted to steal his collection?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “I am attempting to illustrate his nature. Don’t you see? I was part of his collection. I was just another acquisition for him to flaunt.
Every
aspect of our marriage was on display, including intimacies.”

“Oh.” Sophia turned dark red. “Oh,
no
.”

“I still do not understand,” Thea insisted.

“Vaile was only aroused when someone coveted what he possessed—antiquities or me.” She swallowed. “My husband was unable to be a husband unless someone else watched him perform and, by his demand, the performance always included my fierce resistance. Not at all, as it were, faked.”

Thea’s jaw dropped.

Lavinia pulled out the chair and collapsed onto the supporting cushion. “The woman I was referring to earlier, Iphigenia, provided men who were happy to accommodate my husband’s needs.”

“You and he…” Thea bit her lip. “You let others see you?”

Lavinia nodded.

“Here?” Sophia asked.

“No. We visited her establishment.” Lavinia put her elbows on the table and placed her fingers over her eyes. “He rented rooms in her brothel. My face was concealed. But…” Lavinia’s skin shrank over aching bone and muscle. “I had to go. A wife’s primary duty is to provide an heir.”

“He used your sense of duty to compel you?” Thea asked.

Lavinia nodded.

“What an unholy bastard,” Thea said.

If these, her closest friends, reacted with such shock and embarrassment, how would a man like Max react? And how much worse would her debasement appear to a jury?

With gentle hands, Sophia removed Lavinia’s fingers from her eyes. “There now, dearest, we…we were just surprised. We just—”

“Your reaction is perfectly proper. These things should not be discussed. But everything is sure to come out should there be a trial. Like that pitiful Lady Worsley, all of my husband’s proclivities and my tacit acceptance will soon excite tipple-drenched snickers in every London tavern.” She held Sophia’s gaze. “And where will the illustrious Mr. Harrison be then? Surely not by the side of a woman everyone will be calling a whore.”

“The Worsley case,” Thea reasoned, “was a criminal conversation suit. Lady Worsley ran off with her lover after enduring her husband’s oddities. Lord Worsley sued the lover. The Worsley’s personal affairs had to become public for her husband to prove she committed adultery. And Lord Worsley’s proclivities were the lover’s only defense. This is a murder.”

“Yes,” Lavinia replied. “A murder of a peer. Someone will be brought to justice, even if innocent.” Her worst fear danced on the edge of her tongue. “Someone must know Vaile’s secrets, Thea, can’t you see? They are casting suspicion in my direction, knowing I will not want these details made public. They believe I will not fight and there is no one to fight for me.”

“They’ve already been proven wrong,” Sophia said.

“Can you think of anyone in that category?” Thea asked. “How about one of the men who watched?”

“The only person who knew for certain I was the lady beneath the mask was Iphigenia.” She froze.
And Monte.

But Monte and Vaile had been inseparable, and Monte was pressing the investigation with an almost touching need for vengeance.

Why would Monte have killed Vaile?

And if Monte
had
killed Vaile, how would they prove that the man responsible for funding the investigation was also the man who committed the crime? Monte was heir to a marquess. Utterly untouchable.

Once again, she remembered the words Monte had spoken as she’d backed out of Vaile House, flintlock pointed with hammer stretched.

You can leave Vaile, but your sins will haunt you until death. I will haunt you until death.

A combination of fear and a bitter sense of irony fused, bubbling forth in an acerbic laugh.

“Lavinia, what is
wrong
with you?” Sophia asked.

Thea rang the servant’s bell. “We need hot tea,” she said to Sophia.

“Back to Iphigenia,” Sophia said in a governess-like tone. “I believe we should place this woman on our list of possibilities.”

“As she asked me herself,” Lavinia said, “why would she kill a reliable source of income?”

“You have spoken with this woman since the murder, then?” Sophia asked.

“Yes. We met at Vauxhall last night.”

“You went again?” Thea asked in exasperation.

“I pay for her silence. The experience was horrid enough without you scolding. I was mistaken for a lightskirt.” Lavinia clamped a hand over her mouth, but another mad bit of laughter escaped. “Problem number two arrived, rescued me, and then accused me of having left him broken.”

“Quite a night,” Sophia said dryly.

“Yes, it was,” Lavinia snorted.

Mrs. Clarke opened the door.

“You will bring her ladyship a hot tea, please,” Thea said.

“I am gratified to see your ladyship so merry,” Vaile’s housekeeper said. “I trust the morning’s news will contribute to your enjoyment.” She placed a tray containing the
Chronicle
on the table. “I will return with tea.”

“Thank you,” Thea responded for Lavinia. “That will be all.”

The housekeeper’s gaze oozed malice, but she curtseyed again and left the room. When Thea assumed duchess demeanor, few dared argue.

“Oh dear.” Lavinia hiccupped. “My housekeeper hates me.”

“Employ a new one,” Sophia suggested.

Lavinia examined Sophia though watery eyes. With the exception of Maggie, she had never had a say in the hiring of staff. But now…

“I could, couldn’t I? The solicitor confirmed the house is part of my trust. Then again, I’d just as soon burn the place to ash.”

“Did you find out about appointing a new trustee?” Sophia said.

“I am considering options,” Lavinia said. “What man can I ask? I have no brothers or male cousins. I can hardly expect Elmbrooke or Montechurch to safely steward my affairs.”

“Your mother’s family—?”

“Her grandfather was the earl of Eweing, but on his death, his title reverted to the crown. A distant male cousin already serves as the second trustee. But if she had any other living male relatives, I do not know them.”

An uneasy awareness dawned—her mother was now, as she, a widow. Who helped her steward her affairs?

“Have you considered appointing Mr. Harrison?” Sophia questioned.

Thea rolled her eyes.

“I would stay wary of Mr. Harrison,” Thea said. “Wynchester values work over all else. Mr. Harrison will not choose you over his ambition.”

If she gave Max the choice, would he choose ambition over her? She was not certain.

“I think you are wrong, Thea,” she said.

Sophia smiled. Thea scowled.

“Wonderful,” Sophia said. “You deserve someone who’ll love you. We will find the true killer, and then, after the customary mourning period, you and Mr. Harrison will wed.”

“Very efficient,” Thea said in farcical drawl.

“Wait a moment, Sophia. We were talking about appointing Max as my trustee, not of planning nuptials,” Lavinia said. “Even if we can resolve this murder, I cannot marry Max.”

“Why ever not?” Sophia asked

“Marrying me will ruin him. I may not believe he’d choose ambition over me, but I do not wish to give him that choice at the expense of all he holds dear.”

“She has a point.” Thea nodded. “Wynchester’s father, the old duke, lost influence when he married Emma, the current dowager duchess who was once a courtesan—and he already had a legitimate heir from a respectable wife. Harrison has just started to rise.”

“Lavinia is hardly a courtesan,” Sophia argued. “Notorious, yes. Irredeemable? No. Closer ties to family, for instance, would improve Lavinia’s standing. Harrison said Lavinia’s mother hired him…a reconciliation may follow.”

Lavinia decided not to reveal that Max had lied.

Sophia continued, “And, for argument’s sake, if I were to marry a peer with strong social connections, our soirees would, over time, come to be viewed as eccentric rather than notorious. The same would apply if you, Thea, were to someday reunite with the du—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Sophia,” Thea interrupted.

Lavinia imagined the outrageous suggestion that she could somehow regain a measure of, well, if not respectability, then accepted eccentricity. How would it feel to stroll in Hyde Park on Max’s arm? Even in fantasy, proper ladies turned their backs and swept aside their skirts.

“If I decide I want to be with him, it can only be as his mistress.”

“Pardon?” Thea gasped.

Sophia leaned forward. “You mean in secret, right?”

Infrequent meetings would leave her in a constant state of bewildered want. “
If
I decide to be with him—with extra emphasis on
if
—I would consider openly being his mistress.”

“Oh no, you can’t,” Sophia said. “Parties and gambling are one thing, but openly declaring yourself fallen? Oh, Lavinia. Think clearly.”

“Of course I want marriage, but I am damaged, Sophia. I will not be the cause of his ruin. I cannot be to him what Vaile was to me.”

Thea grasped the table’s edge with whitened fingers. “Between pristine ladies and the demimonde, we’ve carved our own place. You do not want to ruin Max, but have you considered what your choice would do to Sophia and me?”

Thea stood quickly and something wedged between the pages of the paper wafted to the floor. She swept it up. She glanced at the page, frowned, and crumpled the parchment.

“What was that?” Lavinia demanded.

“Something that should not have been there,” Thea said.

“Let me see.” Lavinia reached for the paper.

“No.” In her haste to conceal the print, Thea knocked Sophia with her elbow.

Sophia scowled, holding out her hand. Thea glanced to Lavinia and then handed over the crumpled sheet. Sophia placed the paper on the table and smoothed the edges. She groaned.

The print was the kind that hung in print shops along Grub Street and people gathered around, hoping to be roused by the antics of the rich to laughter or rage. The Furies—as Decadence, Scandal and Vice—occasionally appeared in the prints, usually when one of their guests was being pilloried.