What an Earl Wants (26 page)

Jessica fought a sudden urge to preen. “And you’ve a woman on
your mind?”

“And plans for that woman and myself for later tonight, yes,
which probably proves Max’s point. Now why don’t you go admire the pretty
ribbons on that table to your left, please, while I seek out this Fontine
person, all right? Discreetly, of course, and I assign that description to us
both.”

Jessica looked at the displayed ribbons without really seeing
them while Gideon spoke to a young blond clerk behind the counter. Her heart was
pounding in a most disconcerting way as she wondered if they had just walked
into some sort of trap. Villains laid traps, didn’t they? It was basically their
stock in trade.

She kept her back turned, said back feeling quite vulnerable,
while the blond-haired clerk came out from behind the counter and crossed to the
door, lowering the shade and then turning a key in the lock.

Which, Jessica realized with a start, effectively put Richard
and Gideon’s brother Max firmly on the other side of that door.

“This way,
madame,
” the woman said
as she walked back to where Gideon was now holding wide a beaded curtain that
led to the rear of the shop.

Jessica slid her hand into Gideon’s, and they followed the
clerk up a narrow flight of stairs that opened into a small sitting room, the
shades of both front windows pulled down, the only light coming through the
dirty panes of a window to the rear.

Felicity Urban was seated on a shabby couch, a bandbox at her
feet. She was so nervous her knees were visibly shaking. Gone was the hard woman
from last night. In her place, a clearly terrified creature. She did not rise to
greet her invited guests.

“Mrs. Urban,” Gideon said, bowing.

“My Lord Saltwood,” she replied tightly. “You have the money?
And the transport? I say nothing until I’ve seen both.”

Gideon turned to Jessica. “So much for any offer of
refreshments, hmm?” He directed her to a straight-backed chair and then walked
over to the couch and pulled a thick envelope from a pocket inside his coat. He
slid the packet back inside his coat. “Five thousand pounds. You may count it
later, as to insist on doing it now would quite injure my sensibilities,” he
said affably. “If you would care to look out that window behind us, you would
see a plain black traveling coach and a coachman awaiting orders. Fair
enough?”

“Fair enough,” the woman said as she extracted a small dark
brown bottle from her reticule, uncorked it with trembling fingers and lifted it
to her lips. She then recorked the bottle but did not replace it in her
reticule. “Opiates, the true refuge of cowards. Yet all that keeps me sane, you
understand. Ah, yes, that’s better. It was Archie’s idea. He keeps me generously
supplied, but that won’t be for much longer. I’m very careful, you see. I drink
half, and hide the rest away, watering what is left. He wants me insensible, but
I’ve fooled him there. I don’t
need
this,” she said,
holding up the bottle. “But I know I’m needing it more. I heard him speak of
Ringmer last week, with his valet. You know of the place?”

Jessica looked to Gideon.

“A discreet asylum for those of weak minds, yes.”

“You’re too kind, my lord. A discreet dumping ground for those
with enough money to rid themselves of their problems,” Felicity countered,
seeming to gain courage. “Problems such as wives who no longer suit their needs.
I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t follow his good friend Lord Charles’s
lead. But, then, there are no soggy cliffs on our property to break away whilst
I’m out for a solitary stroll.”

Again, Jessica snapped her head round to look to Gideon, who
merely shook his slightly, as if warning her to remain silent.

Felicity shrugged and slipped the bottle back into her
reticule. “You were wearing the rose. Was I wrong to believe it was because you
wanted to make contact with the Society?”

“No, you were correct.”

She nodded. “I thought as much. I wasn’t the only one who
noticed. You’ve been discussed, my lord, and let that be a warning to you.
They’re watching. And then you sent your wife to us last night. You really
should be more careful, my lord. You and your bride both, her being who she is.
What did you think to gain? You wanted, perhaps, to learn more about your
father? I can tell you all you need to know, for I’ve heard the stories. Your
father was a terrible man, a monster. Your mother was right to shoot him, put
him down for the animal he was.” She shook her head. “But he wasn’t a patch on
what’s happening now. Oh, no. Not a patch. None of them were.”

“Is that why they’re dead? The members who date from my
father’s time, or soon after? In order to make room for members more in
agreement with whatever in hell they’re doing now?”

The woman looked up at Gideon, her mouth gone hard. “That’s not
why they’re dead, and you somehow know it, or else your wife here wouldn’t have
come to us last night, asking such obvious questions, and we wouldn’t be here
now, talking. But, yes, that is what happened. I’m afraid we began something
without considering the possibility we were aiding the Society, giving them a
chance to finish building a thirteen more suited to their purpose. We thought we
were so clever, just as your mother was so smart, so wise to see there was only
the one answer for her, and damn anything else.”

Only the one answer for her.
Jessica felt a shiver climbing her spine. How often had she sat at night,
watching James Linden sleep, and thought
there’s only one
way I can be truly free of him.
What was this woman saying, really
saying? Could it be...?

Gideon sat down on the edge of the low table in front of the
couch. “I’m sorry. I’m don’t understand. What does my mother have to do with any
of this?”

“You understand. You just want me to keep talking, don’t you?
But I’ve seen the packet, I believe the coach, so you might as well hear it all,
the both of you.”

Felicity sat back against the thin cushions. “They use only
prostitutes now for the most part. None of the newer members include their
wives, save for Lord Charles, who finds it amusing. For their games, you
understand. Wives were more convenient over the years, less prone to carry
tales. But wives grow long in the tooth, or they cry, or they kill themselves.
The thirteen never cared. They have their games, just as I have my little brown
bottle. But they can’t give them up, they don’t want to give them up. Devil
worship. Ha! It’s all a hum, you know, an excuse.”

“Go on,” Gideon urged, when the woman seemed to get lost inside
her own mind.

“They’re filthy, dirty bastards, every one of them, and they
like
it. They feel
powerful,
and
important,
and show off in
front of each other like little boys. Look at me, look at what I can do, listen
to her beg for more. No, not that one. I had her last time, and it’s like
falling cock first into a hole. By Beelzebub, pass me one who’s still tight. One
by one, we were pushed to the side, barred from the ceremonies. We were only
whisked to the ceremonies and then banished back to our homes, never to see
anyone not wearing a mask. After that, one by one, we were gone. Oh, yes, I
know. It’s Ringmer for me, and very soon.”

The brown bottle appeared once more.

Jessica realized she had laced her hands together, squeezing so
hard her knuckles had gone white.

“Ha! Look at your bride, Saltwood. I’ve put her to the blush.
Now that’s a talent I lost long ago. Should I tell you about their toys? The
spanking horse, the stocks? Oh, and the whips, the paddles. Sometimes for us,
sometimes for them, or else they couldn’t—”

Gideon repositioned himself slightly, blocking Jessica from the
woman’s sight. “I believe we understand, Mrs. Urban, and you have our complete
sympathy. But your husband, all of the members, also used these so-called
ceremonies of devil worship as a way to lure guests who could be used to further
their true purpose.”

The bottle was recorked once more. “Their true purpose, my
lord? They had no true purpose beyond their filthy desires. Not since your
father was killed, him and his supposed plan for England to rise in its own
revolution the way the Froggies did. I heard it said he’d already ordered a
guillotine built, but that may be only rumor. No, there was just the opiates,
the costumes and chanting, the
rutting.
Not until
he
showed up. Oh, he’s sly, he is. Playing one
against the other, bringing up all this nonsense about the rights of the most
gifted and the freedom of man. How the French had it right as far as it went,
but Napoleon has it better, and will reward those who help him gain the greatest
prize, wretched England itself. He has promises from the French, he has a plan,
and we’ll all share in the glory. The thirteen, the
deserving.
Who needs an invading army if England can be rotted from
the inside?”

Jessica listened carefully as the woman explained in more
detail.

The few surviving members since Barry Redgrave’s time and
several of those who had been “invested” soon after had objected, saying treason
was a dangerous game to play and would lead to exposure and disaster. But they’d
been overruled by Orford and the others. The Society began to change. Proofs of
loyalty were demanded.

“Like you,” Felicity Urban said, leaning to her side so that
she could look past Gideon to Jessica. “That was certainly a debacle, wasn’t it?
Your father barely escaped with his life over that one. But he’d made the
gesture, hadn’t he? He’d agreed to turn you over to the new Leader the night the
man was to be formally invested in his role. Of course, your father couldn’t
have known the man’s true plan.”

“Him,” Gideon said, snapping his fingers twice to draw the
woman’s attention back to himself and to the moment. “I’m assuming you mean the
current leader of the devil’s thirteen?”

Felicity sighed. “Yes, yes, who else would I mean? And now
you’re going to ask me his name, and I have no answer for you. The Society is
the Society, and the Leader is the Leader. Orford introduced him, first brought
him as a guest, and none of us women ever saw him in anything but a full-face
mask and a hooded cloak. I can tell you his eyes are dark, like the depths of
hell, but that’s all I can tell you, except to say he never did more than sit on
his throne and watch. He never participated...except the once, when he
sacrificed the vestal virgin. Nobody dared cross him after that. Nobody.”

Jessica got to her feet, trying not to notice that her knees
had gone rather wobbly. “Are you saying...?”

The bottle appeared yet again, and this time Felicity took much
more than a sip of the watered laudanum. “Now we were held together by murder,
yes, even if we didn’t hold the knife. He knew us, but we didn’t know him. Only
Orford knew him. We probably should have thought of that before we...” She
frowned at the bottle. It was empty. She reached into her reticule and pulled
out another, but Gideon snatched it from her hand.

“Before you what, Mrs. Urban? Before you all agreed to become
traitors to our country?”

“We’re not traitors.” She eyed the bottle. “Give it back.”

Gideon pulled out the cork and tipped the bottle slightly, so
that a few drops hit the floor. “Before you did what, Mrs. Urban?”

“Don’t spill that! For the love of God, be careful!” she
shouted, making a wild grab for the bottle. “Stop! You already know! Before we
killed them!”

And then she put her head in her hands and sobbed.

Jessica sat down again with a thump, the realization of what
the woman had just admitted hitting her like a physical blow. They’d done it.
Dear God, they’d actually done it! And she understood. She understood....

Gideon was still pressing the woman. “Here, take it back. But
don’t drink any more, not until we’re finished here. You said, before we killed
them. I need you to be more clear. Who is
we,
Mrs.
Urban, and whom did you kill?”

“The ones who were left, of course.” She grabbed the bottle,
replacing the cork with shaking fingers. “I told you. One by one, they put us
out to pasture. Barring some of us from participating in the ceremonies, that
was the start. Keeping the rest of us from speaking to each other, whisking us
away after the ceremonies. We knew what could come next, once we’d outlived our
usefulness.”

“And perhaps because you knew the identities of the other
members, those you’d seen without their masks,” Gideon suggested quietly.

“Yes, we knew that was also true. Lady Dunmore was the first,
poor old thing. They said her horse threw her. But we knew better. She’d told us
she didn’t ride anymore, so what was she doing on a horse, hmm? Baron Harden’s
wife? He shipped her off to Ringmer, just as Archie is planning to do with
me.”

“So you killed them. Their own wives killed them.” Gideon
seemed to be trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice, but Jessica could
hear his shock. But no man could fully understand the sort of helplessness and
desperation those women must have endured for so long.

Felicity nodded her head. “Lady Orford wrote to us, since we
were now barred from the
parties.
She suggested the
answer for us had been there all along. We would take a page from your mother’s
book, that’s what she said, and we agreed. We should have done it years earlier,
but that only would have meant the eldest son replaced the father. Once that
rule was put aside with the advent of the new Leader, we were free to act. Our
letters to each other are carried by trusted servants, but we live daily with
the threat of discovery. It took us some time to consider plans before we
settled on
accidents.
Of course, then we had to find
the money to engage individuals who would actually do the deeds.”