The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

by Mackenzi Lee

  “But you don’t—”

  “You’re right, sometimes I don’t, because I’m not the light-skinned son of an earl so I haven’t the luxury of talking back to everyone who speaks ill of me. But I don’t need you to rescue me.”

  “I’m sorry.” It comes out soft and meek, like the bleat of a lamb.

  Percy looks over at me, his face veiled by the twilight and impossible to read. Then he folds his hand into a fist and presses it against my knee, like a slowed-down punch. “Come here.”

  “I’m here,” I say, so quiet I almost don’t hear myself.

  “Lie down with me.”

  My heart hurtles, beating like frantic wings against the base of my throat. I stub out my rolled tobacco and toss it off the roof, then stretch out beside him. My knees crack rather spectacularly as I go. The tiles are still sun-warmed, and I can feel the heat through my coat, all the way to my skin.

  My head’s higher than his, but we’re close enough that I can see the freckles beneath his eyes. If I had to pick a favorite part of Percy’s face—which would be impossible, really, but if held at gunpoint and forced to make a selection—it would be that small star-map across his skin. A part of him it feels as though no one else but me is ever close enough to see.

  Percy shifts his weight on the tiles, sliding toward me in a way that I will myself not to be fooled into thinking is intentional. “Maybe someday you will be able to look at me and the first thing you think of won’t be watching me have a convulsive fit.”

  “I don’t think of that,” I say, though that’s a lie.

  He must know it too, because he says, “It’s all right. I suspect it’s a hard thing to forget.”

  I press my head backward against the shingles, arching my neck. “At least you’ll never have to run an estate.” I realize what I’ve said as soon as it’s left my mouth, and I fumble. “Wait. No, I’m sorry, that was . . . Damnation. Sorry. That was a horrible thing to say.”

  “Is managing your father’s estate truly the worst thing that could happen to you?”

  “Aside from the obvious things like famine and pestilence and losing my looks? Yes.”

  “So maybe it doesn’t seem like the best thing right now, fine. But someday you’re going to want to settle down, and when you do, you’ll have a home. And income and a title. You won’t want for much.”

  “That’s not really what troubles me about it.”

  “So, what is it?”

  I feel suddenly like an even greater ass than before for all the while I’ve spent moaning to him about my champagne problems while he’s being shipped off to a sanatorium, and yet here he is, lying beside me and pretending our futures are comparable. “Nothing. You’re right, I’m very lucky.”

  “I didn’t say lucky. I said you won’t want.”

  When I look over at him, he’s still got his eyes on the sky. We’re the inverse of each other, I realize, Percy desperately wanting to go home and not feeling he can, me wanting to be anywhere else but with nowhere to go. Perhaps he can’t understand it, the way that house will always be haunted for me, even if my father were gone from it. I can’t imagine living in it for the rest of my life, throwing parties in its parlors and filling the cabinets with my papers, all the while ignoring the dark spot on the dining room floor that’s never washed away, where I tore my chin open when my father knocked me to the ground with a single well-swung fist; or the hearth that chipped my tooth when I was thrown into it. There are bodies buried beneath the flagstones of my parents’ estate, and some graves never green.

  I flick a scale of tobacco off my breeches. “Lucky me. Someday I will have everything my father does. Perhaps I’ll even have a son of my own I can beat the shit out of.”

  “If I ever see your father again, I swear to God, I’m going to knock him out.”

  “Aw, Perce, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Hypothetically defending my honor. I’m touched.” I close my eyes and press the heels of my hands against them until my vision spots. “I shouldn’t complain.”

  “You aren’t complaining.” He lets his head tip sideways so it brushes my shoulder. Not quite resting there. But not quite not, either. “You aren’t like your father. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Course I am. A more imbecilic and disappointing version.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “All boys are their fathers. Looking at your parents is akin to seeing the future, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” He smiles. “Perhaps that’s how I’ll know mine someday, then.”

  “Better than a fiddle.”

  He raises his head. “You’re nothing like your father, Monty. For a start, you’re far more decent than he is.”

  I’m not sure how, after all the terrible things I’ve done, he can possibly mean that. “You might be the only person left on earth who thinks me decent.”

  Between us, I feel his knuckles brush mine. Perhaps it’s by chance, but it feels more like a question, and when I spread my fingers in answer, his hand slides into mine. “Then everyone else doesn’t know you.”

  Barcelona

  14

  Barcelona is a walled city, lean streets and tall houses interspersed with the skeletons of Roman ruins. A massive citadel sits along the marina, more ominous than the guardian presence of Notre-Dame in Marseilles.

  There isn’t the traffic of Paris, but it’s certainly a loud place, and a bright one. The sun on the water is dazzling and the streets seem reflective, cobblestones flecked with muscovite that shines like glass. The shop fronts and awnings and even the ladies’ dresses seem a brighter hue than we’ve seen elsewhere. It’s not gilt like the finery in Paris, but it’s vibrant, fresh-cut flowers rather than wax ones.

  We arrive on a sweltering day, the sun livid and the sky the hazy yellow of melted butter. The heat seems to pack tight between the walls and cradle the stones. Most of the people we come across speak French, mixed in with Catalan, which I recognize from the fair. Felicity does most of the talking. Pascal’s grandmothers weren’t wrong in their assessment that the Robleses are a known family—we only have to inquire after them twice before we’re directed to their house in the Barri Gòtic, the old quarter of the city with medieval structures masquerading behind classical facades.

  The house itself is less than I expected. For the manor of an old court family, the front is unimpressive—gray with no adornment, and so narrow it seems to have been squashed between the buildings on either side, with the excess oozing out the top. The portico is a mosaic of stone and brick, stunted balconies sprouting beneath the windows and the railings chewed with rust. All the curtains are drawn.

  When I pull the bell cord, the waxed door smothers the echo of the chimes. Felicity looks up at the house, fine strands of hair stuck to the sweat glistening upon her neck. “We’re rather off the edge of the map now, aren’t we?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” I look over at Percy. He’s staring up too, though his gaze isn’t as high as Felicity’s. I follow his eyes and notice a death’s-head carved above the door frame, thin, choppy lines intertwining into a bare skull flanked with feathery wings.

  Bolting suddenly presents itself as a very promising option. But I run my fingers along the edges of the box in my pocket and root myself on that stoop.

  “I don’t think anyone’s—” Percy starts, but the door swings suddenly open and I am face-to-face with a woman probably a decade older than us. Long, glossy black hair hangs loose around her shoulders, framing her face, and her olive skin is stretched taut over a pointed chin and high cheekbones. Also a tight dress and fantastic figure—it’s rather hard not to notice. I ruffle my hair on reflex. It must be a sight.

  “Bona dia,” she says, stiff as starched sheets. She’s hardly got the door open wide enough for us to see her. “Us puc ajudar?”

  I was expecting French, and I fumble. “Um . . . English?”

  She shakes her head an
d suddenly she’s speaking aggressive Catalan at me. I haven’t a clue what she’s saying, but I take it it’s not friendly.

  “Wait,” Felicity says behind me in French. “Please, we only need a moment.”

  The woman starts to shut the door, but I thrust my foot out and catch it. She gives that no heed and keeps trying to slam it, which about folds my foot in half, but I manage to whip the puzzle box out of my pocket and thrust it into the narrow space between us.

  She freezes, her eyes widening. “Where did you get that?” she says, this time in English.

  It’s hard not to be petulant to a woman who nearly amputated my toes with her entryway, so I say, a bit bolder than is likely wise, “Oh, that’s odd, I didn’t think you spoke English.”

  I feel someone poke me in the back—whether Percy or Felicity, it’s difficult to say.

  “Where?” the woman demands.

  “Unwedge my foot from beneath your door and we shall tell you.”

  “We were told to give it to Professor Mateu Robles,” Percy says from behind me. “Could we see him?”

  “He isn’t here,” the woman replies.

  “Will he be back soon?” Felicity asks. “And could you let Monty’s foot go?”

  “I’ll take the box for him.”

  Felicity gives me a nod, like that’s my cue to hand it over, but I don’t let go. I’m a bit nervous the woman will slam the door in our faces as soon as it’s in her grip and we’ll have no chance to speak to Robles. “We were told to give it to the professor. And we were hoping to speak to him. About some of his work with alchemy—”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she says.

  “Well, yes, so if we could speak to him—”

  “He’s dead.”

  Which is just the rancid icing on a crumbling cake. I resist doing a rather dramatic flail of despair onto the doorstep. “Well. I am certainly glad we came all this way to find that out.” I try to yank my foot out from under the door but the little bastard is really under there. I swear the woman is pressing harder to keep me pinned.

  “But if you’d like to speak to my brother,” she says, “he’s here. Mateu was our father—I’m Helena Robles. The box belongs to my brother Dante now.”

  “Yes,” Felicity pipes up. “That would be good, thank you.”

  Helena opens the door fully, then turns on her heel and starts through the house, beckoning us after.

  I prop myself up on the frame so I can get a grip on my foot and try to rub the pain out. “I think she broke my toes.”

  “She didn’t break your toes,” Felicity says.

  I stamp my foot hard against the ground a few times, then start to follow Helena, but Felicity makes a snatch at my arm. “Monty, wait—”

  Her expression alone says This is not a good idea. Percy’s says it too. He must have been backing up the whole time we were arguing because he’s nearly to the street, his fiddle case held before him like a shield.

  “We found him, didn’t we?” I say. “The professor. Or, we found out he’s kicked it. We’re supposed to give it to him, and he’s not here, so we should talk to the son. It makes sense.”

  Percy looks over my shoulder into the house. “Yes, but—”

  Helena appears again suddenly, like an apparition. We all three jump. “Are you coming?”

  I look back at the pair of them. They’re both still staring at me like I’ve finally lost my mind. “Well, are you?” I ask.

  Felicity follows me. Then, with slightly more hesitation, Percy does too.

  The house is dark and narrow, thick drapes blotting out all the windows and giving the room an angled, smoky light. I was hoping for some relief from the heat, but the house is stifling. It’s like stepping from the smithy into the forge.

  Helena leads us down the hallway, past a pair of armless classical statues, bodies wound into the twist of a swan’s neck, then stops before a door at the end, another death’s-head etched into the baseboard. She reaches for the latch, then stops and turns back to us. She’s eyeing the box in my hand rather intently, fingers coiling at her side like she’d like to get hold of it. “My brother does not do well with strangers.”

  I’m not sure what we’re supposed to say in reply. It’s not as though we’re an imposition—we’ve brought the damn box back to them, after all, and at great personal risk, I’d like to add. They should be throwing gratitude and kindness and cream puffs at us, though I’d settle for just the cream puffs.

  “Is there something you’d like us to do about that?” I ask flatly. Felicity kicks the back of my foot.

  Helena puts a hand to her brow, then shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You simply . . . You’ve startled me.”

  “We’re sorry to intrude,” Felicity offers.

  “No, you’ve done us a favor. We didn’t think we’d see it again, once it was . . . stolen. But don’t be put off by Dante.”

  She cracks the handle, and we file through the door after her. My foot catches on a loose floorcloth near the threshold and I nearly pitch forward into her backside, which would make for a rather ungentlemanly impression upon our gracious hosts. Percy clearly doesn’t learn from my error, for three seconds after I right myself, I hear him stumble.

  Beyond the door, we are enveloped by a thick incense smell that makes me want to bat at the air. The maroon-papered walls are almost entirely blotted out by things—there’s no other word for it. Three walls are shelves stuffed with books, interrupted by bell jars sheltering funguses, canopic urns and gold-leafed death masks, and a stone trefoil knot that looks like it was recently dug up from some ancient ruins, red clay still clinging to its crevices. On one wall is a papyrus scroll bearing an etching of a dragon coiled in a circle, swallowing its own tail. Someone’s scribbled Eastern-looking characters in paint along a panel of the wainscoting, and an actual tombstone is resting against the desk. A heart-shaped locket hanging from its curlicues at first glance appears carved from obsidian but upon closer inspection proves to be transparent glass filled with blood.

  Wedged into one corner of the room behind a crystallophone so large it nearly obstructs him is a man—a young man, I realize when he looks up, probably younger than Percy and me. He’s thin, with a library pallor and a bookish stoop; spectacles are jammed onto his forehead and his arms are full of what appear to be scrolls covered in pictorial glyphs. He nearly drops them all when he sees us.

  “I’m so—I didn’t—so sorry.” He speaks French as well, with a bad stammer that bottlenecks his words.

  “Dante, greet our guests,” Helena says. She’s behind us, one hand still on the doorknob, and the sensation of being trapped creeps up on me.

  “You should have—I could have—Why’d you bring them here?” He thrusts the papyrus into an open desk drawer, like he’s trying to tidy up before we can get a good view of the mess. Which seems a bit futile.

  “They’ve brought Father’s Baseggio Box,” Helena says.

  “What?” Dante knocks his spectacles down onto his nose—only partly on purpose, I suspect—and clambers around the desk, tripping over the headstone in his haste. “You—you got it back? I mean, you—you found it? You have it?”

  I extend it to him, and he accepts, careful not to brush his fingers against mine, then holds it very close to his face.

  “Dante,” Helena says, sounding like a stern governess. He looks meekly to her. “I told them it’s yours, as our father is dead.”

  His eyes go wide at her, then back at the box. Then he looks up again and seems to see us for the first time. “My—my God.” He doesn’t look entirely happy about his reunion with the box any longer—a bit more shocked, with a shade of panic I can’t fathom, though that might be more due to our presence than to the delivery itself. “Thank you, I didn’t think we’d—we’d see it . . . Thank you. Would you . . . ? Thank you! Can you sit down? Would you like to?” He kicks at a chair before the desk, and a stack of books topples off. They land with their spines cracked upward and pages s
pread, like birds shot from the sky.

  There are two chairs, and I take one, Percy the other. Felicity has become distracted by a cabinet near the door; it contains seven ampoules in varying shades from basalt black to a pearled pink like the inside of an oyster shell.

  “Don’t touch those,” Helena snaps, and Felicity drags her hand back.

  “Sorry. I was interested in the compounds. Are they medicinal?”

  “They’re cure-alls,” Dante says, then goes fantastically red. He can’t seem to keep his eyes on Felicity, even when she looks at him. “Panaceas being the most—the scientific term, though they’re not—not entirely—”

  My heart leaps—it couldn’t possibly be this easy, could it, to be shown into the exact room and seated beside the substances we’re looking for?—but then Helena adds, “They’re antidotes that work for most poisons. Activated charcoal, magnesium oxide, tannic acid, elephant tree sap, ginseng, tar water, and Atropa belladonna.”

  Dante clambers over a stack of crates and swings himself into the chair behind the desk. It’s so low and the desk so large it looks as though he could rather comfortably rest his chin upon the tabletop. He pushes his glasses up his forehead and they immediately slip back down and knock him on the nose. “They’re our father’s. He is—he was. He was an alchemist.”

  “Was he the author Mateu Robles?” Felicity asks. “I went to a lecture on one of his books.”

  “The same. He has—quite a following.” Dante keeps his eyes on the floor and the box between his hands as we talk, all the while twisting the dials in an absent way that suggests it’s a familiar habit. “Very sorry about the . . .” He waves his hand vaguely at the room. “It’s all his.”

  Helena has edged around to stand behind her brother. Her eyes keep flitting down to the dials of the box as he turns them. “Did you come from far to bring this?”

  “From England,” Percy says. “By way of France. We were on our Tour, but we diverted to return the box to you.”