The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

by Mackenzi Lee

“About the box.” I tip my chin toward Percy’s fiddle case. Percy and Felicity are wearing twin expressions of dread as he flips it open.

  “What were you thinking?” Felicity cries as Percy lifts the lid on the rosin drawer to reveal the Lazarus Key. “We’re trying to get rid of it! That’s why we brought it to them.”

  “I couldn’t leave it—Mateu Robles told me how to open the box.” I fish the key from the drawer—my hands are still so shaky it takes three tries to get a grip—then hold it flat on my palm. We all three bend our heads together to examine it. It’s well small, I realize now that I have it in the light. The teeth look like nothing more than the feathered ends left after a bone is snapped. On one side of the bow is inscribed the Lion of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice.

  When I look up from the key, Felicity is glaring at me. “So. What precisely are you planning to do with this now that you’ve stolen it again?”

  “I think we should go to Venice and collect the heart,” I say.

  “What for?”

  “For Percy.”

  I look over at him. He lifts the key from my palm and holds it upon his own. “Did you find a boat?” he asks Felicity.

  “Several,” she replies. “There’s a fleet of xebecs that go between Genoa, Barcelona, and Marseilles—the next one leaves in an hour or so. They’re not meant to carry passengers, but they’ll take us on.” She pauses, then adds, “If we can pay.”

  “Unless you two had a windfall while I was mostly dead, we’re short in that department,” I say.

  “Well, yes, that’s where my plan collapses. I think first we need to decide where it is that we’re going.”

  “We can’t go back to Marseilles,” I say. “Not yet. We should sail to Genoa and from there find a way to Venice.”

  “But that heart is not ours to use,” Felicity protests. “A woman died for it.”

  “But we need it,” I say. “And if she’s already dead, then what’s the difference if it’s used or not?”

  Felicity’s eyebrow hitches. “We need it, do we?”

  “Percy needs it,” I amend. It seems a trifle not worth addressing. It’s not as though any of us don’t know what I’m speaking of.

  “What say you, Percy?” Felicity asks.

  Percy closes his fist softly around the key. “I don’t want to take her life.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  He looks up at me, a bit surprised, like he didn’t think he was going to have to argue this point. “God, Monty, I couldn’t live with that. Knowing I stole this woman’s life from her so I could be well.”

  “But she’s already dead. Someone should use it and it shouldn’t be the duke and you need to be well.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “What about Holland? If you were well, you could come home. You wouldn’t have to leave. And you and I, we could . . .” I’ve no notion how I was meaning to finish that sentence, so I trail off and let him fill it in however he wants. I’m certain Felicity’s filling it in as well, which is mortifying considering she seems to know more than Percy about my feelings toward him, but I don’t look at her.

  “Or, what if we . . . ?” Percy trails off, staring down at the key again. He turns it over with his thumb, his other hand working on the back of his neck. A small crease appears between his eyebrows.

  “Whatever we do, we’re the only ones who can get to her now,” I say. “We’ve got to do something with that.”

  “You don’t have to—” Felicity says to Percy, but he abruptly returns the key to its resting place in his violin case.

  “Fine,” he says, eyes still downcast. “Let’s go to Venice.”

  Relief funnels through me, though it’s followed by a bitter aftertaste I can’t account for. Percy looks more stricken than I feel he ought to, and Felicity’s still watching him, like she’s seeing something that I’m not.

  “Do we have time to catch the next ship?” I ask. I start to climb to my feet, but a wave of nausea lurches through me, everything left inside of me demanding to be outside of me, and I collapse backward before I’ve gotten far.

  Percy’s hand grazes my back. “Steady on.”

  “I’m fine.” I try to stand again, and stagger into Percy. He grabs me under the arms and eases me back down onto the stones. “We have to go,” I protest, though it’s pitifully feeble this time.

  “We can wait a few days,” Felicity says. She’s looking rather concerned as well.

  “But the island is sinking and the Robleses are looking for us,” I murmur.

  “Both excellent reasons, but I don’t think you’d get far in this state.” Felicity stands up, brushing off her hands on her skirt. “I’m going to go see if I can find something for us to eat.”

  I raise my head. “I don’t want—”

  “I was thinking for Percy and me—not all sacrifices being made are on your behalf, you know.” She revels in that telling-off for a moment, then adds, “Though you should try to eat something. It might help.”

  “Do you want me to go?” Percy asks, but Felicity shakes her head.

  “I’m much more waifish-looking than you—and Monty still looks like he’s recently risen from the dead. Stay here, I’ll be back soon.”

  As soon as she’s gone, I slump against the wall, pressing my cheek against it. My hair snags on the stone.

  “What if we can’t find it?” Percy asks suddenly.

  “Find what?”

  “The tomb. The heart. Or what if we get there and it’s already sunk?”

  “It won’t be.”

  “But what if it is? Or if it isn’t real, or it doesn’t make any difference? If I’m still ill at the end of all this, what do we do then?”

  “It’s going to work.”

  “But if it doesn’t.” A ragged note of frustration punctures his tone. “What if there was another way?”

  “Another way to what? Make you well?”

  “No, to keep me from being put away.”

  “Stop worrying, darling. It’s going to work.” A chill goes through me and I shudder hard. “It’s cold.”

  “It’s not. You’ve just got belladonna in you.” Percy shucks off his coat and wraps it around me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. He smiles at me, and I slump forward into him, head against his chest. He laughs. “Want to sleep?”

  “Desperately.” I think he means to let me lie down on the cobblestones, but instead he pulls me in to him, folded into his arms like we together are a single thing. It is not, strictly speaking, the most comfortable position I’ve ever been in. The bruise on my jaw is throbbing where it’s pressed against his shoulder, and my knees are curled up at an awkward angle that starts them aching straightaway. A strand of his hair keeps fluttering against my nose, threatening to bring on a sneeze, but I don’t move.

  “What can I do for you?” he asks, and I think suddenly of Mateu and Helena, a string tying them together so she knew they’d never be apart. Two hearts, knotted.

  “Don’t go anywhere, all right?”

  “I won’t.” I can feel him breathing, low and even, and I focus on that rise and fall until my own falls into time with it, a stumbling vibrato like the notes from his violin.

  At Sea

  21

  There is a single merchant xebec departing the following day that will dock first in Marseilles, then in Genoa, before moving to the open waters of the Mediterranean. The boatswain, a stocky cove with wiry hair and pox scars spat across his cheeks like holes in a cribbage board, lets himself be sweet-talked by Felicity and agrees to take us on so long as we pay in France. We don’t elaborate on the particulars of how that payment will occur—I hardly think we can pop in on Lockwood, collect some coinage, then dash out the door again, nor do I expect he’s been twiddling his thumbs in Marseilles all this while waiting for us to turn up.

  Or rather, the boatswain’s willing until he realizes it’s Percy and me who will be traveling with her.

  “Who’s this?” he demands, p
ointing a finger at Percy that halts us as we start up the gangplank.

  “Your passengers,” Felicity replies. “I did say there were three of us.”

  “Is he yours?”

  “He’s his own.”

  “No.” The boatswain is shaking his head. “I’ll not have Negroes on our ship.”

  “You have colored men on your crew!” Felicity replies, flinging a hand up toward the deck where two dark-skinned men are hauling cargo.

  “Don’t like Negroes we don’t own,” he replies. “Can’t control them. Free Africans get big ideas about their own grandeur. I don’t want him on my ship.”

  Percy looks horrified. Felicity looks as though she’d like to skin the boatswain alive, but she puts on at least a pretense of politeness and attempts to elicit some sympathy. “He’s not African, he’s English, same as we are. We’re from highborn families, all. Our father”—and here she scribbles a hand between herself and me—“is a peer of the realm. He’s an earl. We can pay you whatever you ask. We’re stranded here without means, sirrah, please, have a bit of compassion.”

  The boatswain is maddeningly unmoved. “No free colored men on board.”

  So Felicity abandons compassion and whips out the law. “Slavery is illegal in this kingdom, sir.”

  “And we make berth in the Virginia colony, madam,” he replies, then mutters under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear, “Bitch.”

  For a moment, it seems a real possibility that Felicity is about to shove him off the gangplank and into the sea. Good luck for the boatswain that he chooses that moment to spit into the brown water, then stalk past her and down the dock. Felicity gives his back a murderous look.

  “I’m sorry,” Percy says, his voice hoarse.

  “It’s fine,” Felicity says, though she’s clearly mourning the collapse of her plan.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says again.

  “Nothing to be done about it.” Felicity’s attention has been commandeered by two men shuffling up the gangplank past her, dressed so gentlemanly that they must be passengers. She watches them go, her fingers drumming against her folded arms, then starts to follow.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss at her, making a snatch for her sleeve and missing so spectacularly I almost pitch into the water.

  She halts midway up the gangplank and turns back. “We have to get there somehow. And he did agree to take us.”

  “So we’re going to, what—stow away?”

  “The next ship to Genoa doesn’t leave for a fortnight. So unless you have an alternative, this is our only choice.”

  Neither Percy nor I follow her, but, undeterred, she continues upward. “Felicity,” I hiss after her, casting around to see where the boatswain’s gone. “What if they catch us?” I’m keen on getting to Venice, but the risk affixed to this stratagem seems far too high. If we’re caught, that would put a knot in our itinerary that could take a long while to untangle. Our beloved island would likely be a sunken thing by the time we reached it.

  She turns back yet again, looking rather vexed, which is unfair since she’s the one being unreasonable here. “What will they do? Throw us into the ocean? Maroon us in a dinghy for African pirates to scoop up?”

  “What if he catches me?” Percy asks.

  She considers that for a moment, then says, “We won’t get caught. Now step lively.”

  As she stalks up the gangplank, walking with such confidence that I half believe she belongs there, I take Percy by the arm. “We don’t have to,” I tell him. “We can wait for the next boat.”

  “It’s fine,” he says, casting another glance over his shoulder for the boatswain. “Let’s just go quick before he comes back.”

  Felicity doesn’t bother to try blending in with the few passengers skirting about—we’re far too vagabond-looking to shuffle unnoticed among the half-dozen gentlemen in their wool traveling suits, and she seems to be the only lady on board. Instead she goes straight below—a few of the sailors deal her curious looks, but no one stops us—all the way down to the nether regions of the ship where the cargo is stored, haphazard shelves of wooden crates protected from the pitching sea by the grip of rope netting. Most of it has already been loaded. The air is thick and stifling, hazy with the smell of packed goods and rotted wood. The only light comes from the sunbeams filtering down from the deck two levels above us, and a lonely tin lantern wavering on its hook. From somewhere in the rigging, the ship’s bell is tolling in warning of departure.

  Felicity squeezes herself into a hollow space between rows of barrels stamped with the tangled “VOC” of the Dutch East India Company, her back against the wall. Percy and I follow, Percy with a bit more discomfort due in part to his beastly long legs. He drags his fiddle case after us.

  “Not quite the view I was hoping for,” I say once we’re all wedged tight.

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” she replies, with an eye roll that’s far more dramatic than I was being. “It’ll be a quick jaunt to France—seven days, depending upon the weather—then another week to Genoa, after a few days docked.”

  “That’s near two weeks,” I say, “and then there’s the time overland to get to Venice, which will be another five days at least. The duke is going to be waiting there if he decides to give chase.”

  “Do you think they’ll follow us?” Percy asks.

  “They must know where we’re going,” I reply. “Now that we’ve got the key, there’s only one conceivable place. I can’t imagine Helena is the sort to sit back and let—”

  “Hush,” Percy hisses, and I fall silent. There are heavy footfalls on the stairs, then the thwack of a load being dropped. The floor trembles. None of us makes a sound, and a moment later the footsteps retreat up the stairs again, the lantern going with them, and we fall into a darkness filigreed by the dust motes and faraway snatches of sunlight.

  Felicity shifts her weight and her foot slams hard into one of the barrels. It might be my imagination, but I’m almost certain I hear her curse under her breath. “Comfortable?” I ask.

  She scowls at me. “Once we’re out to sea, we’ll be able to move around a bit more.”

  “You mean walk all the far distance to the other side of this hold?”

  “We can still disembark, if you’re inclined to be moaning all the way.”

  I look from her to Percy. He’s got his elbows on his fiddle case and his chin resting upon his hands. “No,” I say. “We’ve got to get to Venice somehow.”

  We spend what I imagine is close to five days in the cargo hold of the xebec, and though we aren’t wedged quite so tight all the while as we were those first few hours, we can’t risk much movement. We’ve barely left Barcelona before my knees begin to feel as though they’re going to snap like brittle sticks. My stomach still isn’t quite back to its good-natured, gin-swilling self yet and I spend a not-insignificant portion of the time feverish and nauseous, trying not to be sick as the ship rolls, since there’s nowhere to do so conveniently. It’s uncomfortable enough already, the three of us in such close quarters with nowhere to go for privacy. The farthest we can venture is the other side of the hold, which is hardly any distance at all.

  I have little interest in food, but Felicity and Percy are both maddeningly unmoved by the pitching, so we crack into a few of the crates in search of provisions. They’re mostly raw Dutch wares—Holland linens, blocks of nutmeg and black tea leaves and tobacco, crumbly sugarcane in amber cones, and cacao nibs that are so bitter and sharp they make us all gag when we chew them. The barrels yield little-better spoils—the first two we open are syrupy molasses, another flax oil, which sloshes over the rim when the ship rolls and soaks through all our shoes, leaving us skating the planking. The final barrel we try is a cask of dark wine, and we drink it from cupped hands like the philistines we have become.

  We rest in staggered shifts, with one of us always on watch in case crewmen decide to make a spontaneous visit to the hold. The lingering effects of the belladonna have me s
leeping more than is my fair share, but Felicity and Percy are kind enough not to chastise me for it. Felicity still looks at me like she’s petrified I might start sobbing again with no warning, and Percy’s sharp attention to my every movement is making me feel like an invalid.

  It’s several days before I take my first proper watch, nestled into a nook where I can see the stairs, but just out of sight and wishing there was something stronger than wine in the barrels sheltering me. The last drink I had was at the opera house, and I’m feeling the want of it like an itch in my lungs. Gray light creeps down the stairs from the upper decks, fogged by the dust that hovers in the air. On the deck above me, the sailors are shouting to each other. A bell begins to toll.

  There’s a shuffle on the other side of the hold, and when I raise my head, Percy is picking his way through the crates toward me, his hair wound into a knot with a scrap of sailing rope and his bare shirtsleeves drooping around his elbows.

  “Hallo, darling,” I say as he slides down against the wall beside me. The lacquer pulls at his shirt and drags it up so that I catch a flash of his bare stomach. I look away quickly, though I’d prefer to openly ogle. There’s not a thing on God’s green earth that has the power to disarm me quite like two inches of Percy’s skin. “You’re meant to be sleeping, you know. Don’t waste my time.”

  “Can’t sleep. Got tired of lying in the dark. Do you want to? I’ll stay up.”

  “No, I think I need to start pulling my weight as a watchman.”

  “Mind if I sit up with you, then?” He leans down to rest his head upon my shoulder, but sits up again before I can get excited that we’re cuddling up. “You smell terrible.”

  I laugh, and Percy shushes me with a meaningful look in Felicity’s direction. “Thank you, darling.” It is, by conservative estimate, several thousand degrees, stuffed up here in the hold. We’ve both shed our duds nearly down to our stockings and I’m still soaked through.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks.

  “Better. Didn’t throw up my supper, so I suppose that’s progress.”

  “How’s your chin?” He takes my face in his hand and tips it into the dawn light tumbling down the stairway.