Wasp (43 page)

She peers out of the window. It’s going to work. It
has
to work. She’ll find where Moth is being kept and a way to get her out. They’ll go to Portsmouth with Richard and never have to come back here. He was right; she is using him, but perhaps he’s the sort who likes that. A touch on the cheek is scant price to pay.

Mind made up, Wasp slips out of her room and hurries down the passage. On the stairs she bumps into a maid carrying a bundle of linen and sends the whole lot tumbling over the banisters. Shouting an apology, Wasp pushes through the hall curtain and down the long passage, skirts billowing in a cloud of taffeta. She shoves the mirror door open with both hands. It swings round on its hinges and bangs against the wall. Shattered glass spills across the floor.

The Fixer is standing beside a dome lantern. With him is Lapwing, one of the younger girls. A couple of weeks ago a carriage ran over her foot, breaking three of her toes. The Fixer is teaching her to walk properly again. He holds her arms while she faces him, her injured limb swathed in bandages.

The Fixer turns and regards the broken mirror. ‘That will prove expensive to replace.’

Heat rushes into Wasp’s cheeks. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Really?’ His gaze flicks over her gown. ‘Are you off somewhere, or just returned?’

Wasp’s flush deepens. Her anger has fallen away. She feels like a child about to get slapped by her papa for smearing mud on her petticoat.

The Fixer steers Lapwing towards a stool and helps her sit. He rubs his hands, ambles over to his leather box and takes out a vial. ‘You’re certainly distressed about something,’ he continues. ‘This draught will calm you. It’s my last one, so it’s fortunate I’m seeing the apothecary later today. At any rate it should soothe your disposition.’

‘I don’t need remedies.’

‘And I don’t have time for conversation. I’m busy with someone as you can see. Go and calm yourself, as I said, then we can see what is so important that you feel obliged to blunder into my chambers.’

An amused look tickles Lapwing’s pale face. Wasp seizes the only notion that enters her head. ‘I can sweep up the mess.’

The Fixer holds out the vial. ‘I think you’ve done enough.’

How could I have been so clumsy?
Wasp bemoans as she skulks back along the passage, the Fixer’s vial gripped in her fist. So much for playing the rescuer, the conquering heroine straight from the pages of a penny story sheet. Her demand to know Moth’s whereabouts had turned to ashes on her tongue. How can she hope to help anyone this way?

Still, there remains a chance. The Fixer can’t haunt the Mirror Room forever. Wasp could check each door, perhaps call Moth’s name until she hears a response. Moth won’t be gagged, will she? The door is likely locked but perhaps Richard’s burly coachman can break it. He might even be able to handle the Fixer should there be an ugly scene. Once they have Moth inside Richard’s carriage the battle will be won.

Wasp crosses the lobby. Two Masques pass her, put their heads together and whisper. She ignores them and hurries back upstairs. ‘Can anything else go wrong today?’ she mutters. Outside, in the grey folds of the city, someone is screaming. The voice ululates as if struggling to reach a too-high note. It penetrates her nerves before tailing off.

What if I forget about the whole thing? I could keep my own counsel and carry on with my life. After all, Moth’s not my friend. She’s a lost soul who needs someone to cling to. I’m not her mother or sister. I hardly know her. I’ve already been branded once. What good did helping people ever do me? Why should I care any more?

A scroll is lying on her bed. Last-minute Assignments aren’t uncommon. As a Kitten, Wasp had watched more than one Masque dash, flustered, for the dressing room. Perhaps it’s what she needs. A break, a chance to gather her thoughts. She picks up the scroll, tugs on the ribbon and reads the instructions. A simple enough job. A ‘gentleman merchant’ wants to promenade around the park then take supper. No special clothes or affectations. Perhaps they’ll finish early and she can come home in time for this evening’s Parade. She might have a better perspective on things by then.

But another note is scrawled along the bottom, same handwriting as before.

Ask Hummingbird about the baby.

Pain flares in Wasp’s chest. She realises she’s holding her breath and lets it out in a long whoosh. In the novels she had borrowed from the Russells’ library, or the stories she read to the children, everything was clear. The good. The evil. In each there was a conflict, an adventure, a resolution with perhaps some love and betrayal thrown in for spice. Real life is confusing. Events seem to drift around in no particular order until something sticks. Heroic acts don’t necessarily result in happy endings. By liberating Moth from the Cellar, has Wasp damned her further?
We don’t carry baggage in the House.
Did Hummingbird tell her that? Or was it the Abbess?

Wasp folds the parchment. Who is the mystery confidant? Is it some sort of trick designed to trap her, to test her loyalty? Wasp has never taken note of her Sisters’ handwriting so can’t identify the script, but Hummingbird is the nearest thing she has to a friend.

She tosses the scroll on top of the dresser and collapses onto the bed. Outside, the screaming has started up again. It sounds like the end of the world.

A sharp wind churns around Crown Square. It flaps Wasp’s skirts around her ankles and she grabs her bonnet to stop it being wrenched off. Apart from a few pedestrians blustering along, the square is empty. In the lee of the steps a pair of sedan bearers stand blowing into their hands beside a mud-splattered chair. Above, clouds boil across the rooftops.

Wasp squeezes her voluminous skirts into the sedan. It’s an hour’s trip across town and the bearers are in no mood to be gentle. Draughts whistle through chinks in the woodwork. Wasp hangs on, distracted by thoughts of Moth. One rescue had already ended in disaster; what would the result of another be? It would be easy to let it all go, to accept that everyone’s lives belonged to the Abbess. No more brandings, no more guilt, no more trouble.

A yapping mongrel runs out in front of the lead bearer. He stumbles and the chair lurches forward. Wasp grabs the door handle for support. Moth can’t survive the House. She can’t survive life. Fate has plucked then crushed her. Abandoning her might be for the best.

Mightn’t it?

And what about George Russell? What have you tried to convince yourself every night since the moment you accused him? That it was for the best? And what of his father? You could never be equals, so in the end who used whom?

She had known every crease and tuck of Lord Russell’s body. Just to touch it made her shiver. Lord Russell understood the dark, passionate core that lurked inside her. He knew that in the Comfort Home she could make accusations until her throat was raw and they would be dismissed as the demented ravings of a lunatic.

What about the children, Bethany?

‘I would have cared for them,’ she whispers into clenched fists. ‘Don’t you see that? It was an act of compassion.’

Why? Because Lord Russell was your master? Because you were taught from birth to lower your eyes and curtsey to his kind, no matter what? You couldn’t leave him alone, no matter how many times you both slaked your lust on one another. His appetites were as strong as yours, and you thought his bastard was the key to open the gate of his world. Only that didn’t work, did it, Bethany? So you wanted to take Julia and Sebastian away. Forever. A mother will resort to desperate measures when faced with enough of a threat. And that’s how you regarded yourself. A mother.

‘No—’

You were bound for the turnpike. An hour’s journey at most. But George caught you at the gate. He wore no cravat that day. His shirt was open, his throat soft and white. How perfect he looked.

‘Where are you taking the children, Miss Harris?
’

He stood in the lane, still in his riding boots. You had been caught on the fly, Julia and Sebastian wrapped tight in their travelling cloaks, small bundles tucked under their arms. The hired carriage was late. Its tardiness had damned you, so you muttered something about Pendleton market and fairings for the children, and even as you blurted out that lie his gaze fell on the bundles, then on your face. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘as I recollect Pendleton market is not held until Thursday. ’Tis remiss of you to be confused over such a trifling matter. You who are normally so precise in everything you do.
’

He walked towards you. The children squeezed behind your skirts, bundles dropping to the ground.

‘You are frightening the little ones.
’

‘Am I?’ His voice was leaden. ‘Who is really afraid of whom?
’

He turned to the children. ‘Go back to the house. Miss Harris and I have something to discuss.
’

When he thought them far away he turned back to you and said, ‘Must you steal someone else’s children? Doing as you have done it’s a miracle you didn’t get one of your own.
’

A summer of lies. Stays laced so tightly she could hardly breathe. Then pain. Too soon. Too soon by a season. A red-splattered blanket wrapped around a lifeless boy thing. Bundled out and taken into the night.

Julia and Sebastian. The children. My children.

‘I did.
’

‘What?
’

‘I lost it. I miscarried and was torn up inside. I was told I could never have another. I’m not sure whether your father was sad or relieved.
’

‘You hoped to snare him? That he would set you and your bastard up in a nice house with a generous stipend? Or did you want more, Bethany Harris? Did you think he’d take you as a bride and you’d become mistress of Russell Hall, that everyone would fall under your thrall?
’

‘Oh George, no thought about how I felt, no lament for the lost child? I did want that child. I wanted it for myself.
’

They stood there talking a while longer, voices even but their words carrying ever sharpening blades, until finally George said, ‘You could go to the gallows for this,’ and you realised you had to protect yourself, and what you had to do to protect yourself.

Rape? That’s just what you told everyone. Anger and fear addled your thinking.

A bump as the bearers set the chair down. ‘We’ve arrived, Miss.’

Twigs and early fallen leaves swirl into the chair. Wasp climbs out. She has to shout to be heard. ‘What time will you return for me?’

The bearer cups his hands around his mouth. ‘Weren’t told aught about picking you up.’

Before she can say anything else the two men lift the sedan and set off at a fast trot. Wasp casts about. She’s never been to this park before. Under the churning sky it’s a brooding, foreign place of dark hedges and whiplashed trees. Petals, blown from their flower stems, flurry across the clipped grass.

A man is walking towards her, a bundle of yellow roses in his arms. He stops and describes a low bow.

‘Allow me to present myself, Miss. I am Steven Cole, gentleman merchant and your company for the evening.’ He thrusts the roses into her arms. Wasp, forgetting etiquette entirely, stares at him. His fine clothes are as fake as his plummy voice. The cravat is cotton, not silk, as is his shirt. Not a scrap of velvet has gone into the making of that embroidered jacket, and the rings he flourishes so extravagantly are nothing more than tin baubles.

His face is no better. All the powder in the world can’t hide the old, puckered scars sweeping across both cheeks. His nose is bent at a horrible angle and half his teeth are black. Has a fairground bear attacked him?

Am I being punished?
Wasp wonders.

Cole waits expectantly. Wasp dips a shallow curtsey that seems to satisfy him. ‘We had best start walking,’ he says, ‘or I fear we shall soon have the park to ourselves. No point in hiring such a pretty object if no one’s abroad to admire it.’

‘Is this wise, sir? The weather looks evil.’

‘A stiff breeze, no more. The hedges will shelter us.’

He starts off, stretching Wasp’s pace, his awful, chewed-up visage grinning as he talks. He chats about London, the sea and the ships he claims to own. The bundle of roses is heavy in Wasp’s arms. Enough flowers for three girls. She supposes she ought to feel flattered.