by Y. S. Lee
“Party?” Thorold looked perplexed for a minute. Then he slapped one hand to his forehead. “But of course! The party!”
Angelica made a face. “About that party, Papa . . . Don’t you think it’s rather poor weather for a garden party? This — this —” Her voice trailed off as she searched for a polite word for stink.
“Miasma?” suggested Michael.
She ignored him. “This unseasonable heat is too much. Our guests will be most uncomfortable.”
Mary looked at Angelica curiously. Why would a rich, bored young lady want to cancel a party?
“It is impossible to cancel now, Mr. Thorold,” said Mrs. Thorold firmly. “The invitations went out three weeks ago.”
“Our guests will understand our reasons for postponing,” insisted Angelica. “They can hardly be eager to crowd into a drawing room twenty feet from the Thames.”
“Then there are the preparations to think of,” continued Mrs. Thorold as though Angelica had not spoken. “All that food ordered and the band booked and all those extra footmen and maids engaged. Not to mention the tent for the garden.”
Thorold was looking from wife to daughter, as though at a tennis match. “You have a point,” he said, vaguely addressing both.
“We cannot possibly cancel now; it’s far too late,” said Mrs. Thorold firmly.
“What about your health, Mama? It’s so delicate,” said Angelica simultaneously.
Both women turned to Thorold, awaiting a judgment. The silence stretched out for several long seconds. It was so quiet in the room that Mary heard him gulp. After what seemed like an age, he delicately cleared his throat. “Er . . . well, the thing is . . . we did — er — hum. There’s the matter of . . .”
“Mr. Easton,” said Mrs. Thorold crisply. All heads swung to look at her, and she slumped a little in her chair. “He’s an excellent prospect for Angelica,” she continued in a weaker voice, “and very much taken with her.”
Thorold frowned. “It would be a shame to disappoint Easton. I saw him just today, and he told me how much he looked forward to the party.”
“A suitor with money,” pronounced Mrs. Thorold, “will make a pleasant change from the packs of fortune hunters swarming the house.”
Thorold looked agreeable. “Told me he was after a contract in India! Clever chap . . . land of opportunity at the moment.”
Mary leaned forward slightly, but that was all he said.
Angelica sighed heavily.
Michael looked at the ceiling.
Thorold nodded once. “Very well, then. The party must go on!”
By midnight, all the Thorolds’ guests had arrived with their ladies’ maids in tow. Due to the weather, they avoided the tent in the beautifully lit but foul-smelling gardens, and the house was consequently a crush. Despite the extra footmen posted with large fans in the corners of every room, the air was thick and stale. The bouquets of hothouse flowers massed around the room already looked wilted, as did the footmen.
The heat aside, however, it was a beautiful gathering. Dozens of tall wax candles combined with the gaslights to make the room midday-bright. The young ladies wore frothy white dresses, lavishly trimmed with ribbons and flowers. Married and older women wore more colors, but for all ladies it was a season for dramatic décolletage, and showy gemstones glittered from a few dozen bare breastbones. In their black dinner jackets and white ties, the gentlemen provided a dramatic contrast.
Gazing about the laughing, chattering, flirting, tipsy throng, Mary found it difficult to believe this polished luxury was built on creaking wooden ships and the backs of merchant sailors. International trade and dangerous labor had no place here, except as an unacknowledged, invisible source of wealth.
A fierce impatience knotted her gut. She’d spent four days living with the Thorolds. Four days keeping Angelica company. Four days absorbing hostile remarks and pretending not to notice sulks. Four days trapped in this dark, airless house while Mrs. Thorold went out in the carriage each afternoon. And all for what? The only bits of information she’d heard were sadly commonplace. For example, Thorold had no obvious heir. His only son, Henry Jr. — the sickly boy in the portrait — had died several years ago, transforming the ambitious company of Thorold & Son into the more subdued Thorold & Company. And last month, the parlor maid had been sacked for “immorality.” She’d been six months’ pregnant at the time, and word in the kitchen was that Thorold was the father.
It was becoming clearer and clearer that Thorold and Gray never discussed business at home — at least not before the women. And there was so little time remaining: Anne and Felicity expected the assignment to end in just over one week. They’d sent her no additional instructions or information, which meant that they had no news — at least nothing that concerned her. She’d had no contact from the primary agent, which meant that her assistance was not required there. She was not to communicate with either the primary agent or the Agency unless she learned something concrete. And — completing the circle — the only way she’d discover anything would be actively to look for evidence of smuggling and such. And — oh dear — it would be so much more interesting than wearing itchy dresses and fetching fruit ices for rude matrons.
She wouldn’t. She should carry out her instructions to the letter.
And yet . . . what was the harm? There were, after all, only nine days left on the case.
She didn’t know where to begin.
Oh, yes, she did.
The party was at its peak. No one would miss her for a mere quarter of an hour. She slipped past a knot of men near the entrance of the drawing room. Dressed as she was in a modest gray gown, most of the guests looked straight through her. Except —
A white shirtfront, rather wilted from the heat, suddenly loomed in front of her. “Where’s the fire?”
She looked straight up into Michael’s eyes. Green eyes. “I beg your pardon?” She sounded startled, breathless.
“You’ve been dashing about all evening. Avoiding someone?”
She laughed at that. “I don’t know anybody to avoid.”
“You know me.”
“I suppose I do, slightly,” she said, sounding a little surprised.
He made a comical face. “‘Slightly.’ How very humbling, when I’ve been lying in wait for you all evening.”
Was he flirting with her? Surely not. And how did one go about flirting back? Assuming one wanted to flirt back . . .
He seemed to enjoy the confusion written on her face. “Speechless?”
“I suspect you of trying to make me speechless.”
He was really very handsome when he smiled like that. “Perhaps. But I’d like to try conversing with you as well. Will you grant me the next waltz?”
“Oh, I couldn’t. . . .”
“Don’t tell me your card is full.”
“Of course not.” She didn’t even have a dance card. “But I shouldn’t dance.”
He looked amused. “Is it forbidden?”
“Of course not. It’s only that — I’m not . . .” Mary gestured helplessly.
Michael’s gaze traveled over her lightly, admiringly. “You look well equipped for dancing: female, two arms, two feet . . . that I can see, at any rate.”
She had to laugh at that. “You are being difficult on purpose. I mean that I am not one of the young ladies. You ought to dance with someone else.”
“I’m not an eligible bachelor. It’s practically your responsibility to dance with me, you know.”
“On the contrary . . . there seems to be a shortage of male partners. If you’re so intent on dancing, you’d better ask one of the younger girls. That should be perfectly safe.”
“I say, Gray!” commanded one of the men in the doorway.
“Coming!” Michael called. “This conversation is not finished,” he warned her smilingly. “I’ll be waiting for that dance.”
She flashed him a cheeky look as she stepped around him. “You may wait all you like.” Rounding the cor
ner, she slipped down the corridor with a smile lingering on her lips. Perhaps flirting wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought.
Both the noise level and the temperature fell somewhat as she neared the back of the house. The only room at this deserted end of the corridor was Thorold’s office. The servants were below, feverishly producing more iced drinks, more food, opening more champagne.
Mary tried the door handle. Locked, naturally. She extracted a sturdy hairpin from her bun and crimped it deftly. Picking locks had always been one of her favorite parts of her old job: looking out for intruders while simultaneously listening to the tumblers of the lock required immense focus. During her training sessions at the Agency last month, she’d been pleased and surprised to find the old knowledge flooding back. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the talents she’d acquired as a young thief were all still there. She had struggled more with new skills, like code cracking. Now, however, she found that her nerves were unused to the pressure after all these years of ladylike respectability, and her hands shook in an alarming fashion. She stopped and forced herself to draw five deep breaths in succession. If she didn’t calm herself, she’d only scratch the lock, lose her hairpin, and have to go back to the drawing room empty-handed. It was a sobering thought that helped to steady her fingers.
Her second attempt was much better. Almost immediately, she could feel the inside of the mortise lock — visualize the tenons revolving in their neat patterns. A brief burble of laughter from down the hall made her freeze, but its source didn’t appear, and she continued her work. The last lever clicked into place, and she grinned. So satisfying.
The handle was well oiled. A glance inside confirmed that the room was empty, and she slipped inside, closing the door silently behind her. The heavy velvet curtains were open, and a blend of moonlight and garden torches half lit the room. She wouldn’t need the stub of candle tucked in her pocket.
She turned to survey the office. To her right was Thorold’s desk, square and massive and completely bare. Behind the desk sat a pair of filing cabinets, a tall wardrobe, and a drinks table with several well-filled decanters and a set of glasses. To her left was a series of glass-fronted bookcases filled with leather-bound books with gold-embossed spines. The windows were against the back wall.
She frowned and chewed her lip. She couldn’t expect a miraculous discovery. Indeed, she told herself sternly, it was quite likely that Thorold kept all his trade-related documents at his warehouses. But she had to begin here in order to rule out the obvious.
She began on the left, with the bookcases. They had been recently dusted, so there was no way to tell if some volumes were more frequently used than others. Indeed, although the names were venerable — Milton, Shakespeare, Johnson — the books looked perfectly new. She pulled out a volume of Donne’s sermons and smiled to herself: the pages were still uncut. Clearly, this library was purely for show. The rows upon rows of books were all like that — immaculate, respectable, untouched.
Until . . . as soon as she opened the door of the last bookcase, the one closest to the windows, she knew something was different. The pleasant odors of new leather and paper gave way to dust and . . . cigar smoke? She ran her eyes over the rows of books and began to realize that despite their elegant bindings, these were a very different type of book: Aretine’s Postures, The House of the Rod, Fanny Hill. She selected one of the most worn and opened it: a tangle of naked bodies, some pink and white, some brown-skinned . . . some smiling, others —
Mary slammed the book closed, shaken. She wasn’t an innocent. Growing up on the streets, she had seen obscene pictures before. But she’d never seen anything like this. The women in these pictures were African slaves, and the white-skinned men their owners.
She fought a wave of nausea. Put the book back in its place. Swallowed a surge of bile that left a bitter taste in her mouth. She longed to wrench open the window and fill her lungs with the night air. Filthy as it was, it couldn’t be worse than what she’d just seen.
Instead, she gave herself a sharp mental shake. Playing the delicate young lady was not an option. She was here to find information. Mary closed the bookcase firmly and turned to the rest of the room. The lock on the first filing cabinet was very simple. With a couple of twists of the hairpin, the catch released and she felt that tingle of excitement again as she eased the top drawer open. It slid quietly, revealing rows of neatly tied dockets, each clearly labeled by year and subject. 1836: The Americas; 1836: Bermuda and the West Indies; 1836: India.
What was that sound? Mary glanced around the room. She distinctly heard something . . . but, straining her ears, she could hear only the distant voices of guests, punctuated by rumbles of laughter.
She returned to the filing cabinet. It didn’t take long to learn that the files were old ones, ending in the year 1845. The second cabinet contained files from 1846 to 1855, but nothing more recent. Mary chewed her lip. The active files must be elsewhere. She peeked inside a few files at random just to be certain, but things seemed to be in order: filed by docket number and date, without large gaps or other irregularities. Barring some sort of elaborate secret code, the files looked harmless. It seemed she would have to try the warehouse.
Again, that noise — like a small scraping. She paused to listen. Again, nothing but remote party noises.
Then, suddenly, something — footsteps clicking down the corridor and drawing closer. She slid the drawer closed — no time to lock it — and glanced about. Thought wildly about crawling under the desk, but as the footsteps neared, changed her mind. The wardrobe was nearby and — thank God — unlocked! She bundled herself inside, grateful for a narrow crinoline that allowed such freedom of movement. Pulled the door closed just as she heard the office doorknob click and rotate.
For several moments, Mary couldn’t hear anything over the violent pounding of her pulse. She tried to draw a slow, deep breath. Then a second. A degree of calm returned with the third breath, and she blinked in the warm dark of the wardrobe. Her cheek brushed against a rough woolen garment — a coat? — and she could smell something like the blend of tobacco and male cologne that scented the bookcases.
Her mouth was dry. What was that sound in the room? Oh, why hadn’t she taken the time to lock the door properly behind her? Impatient, she chided herself.
Slowly, a new noise entered her awareness, so gradually that at first she thought she’d dreamed it. It sounded almost like . . . quiet breathing. Yes, breathing. Not her own. And it was . . . behind her?
Preposterous.
Wasn’t it?
Instinctively she caught her breath — and the other breath stopped half a moment later. After counting to five, she exhaled very quietly — and heard a faint echo a fraction behind hers.
Poppycock. She could not afford to indulge in this sort of panic. If she began now, where would it end? Right. She would have to demonstrate to herself, once and for all, that her imagination was getting the better of her.
Calmly, slowly, she reached behind with her left hand and came up against — yes, fabric. Fine linen, to be precise. So far, so good: she was inside a wardrobe, after all. The only problem was that this linen was oddly warm. Body warm. Beneath the tentative pressure of her palm, it seemed to be moving. . . .
With terrifying suddenness, an ungloved hand clamped roughly over her nose and mouth. A long arm pinned her arms against her sides. She was held tightly against a hard, warm surface.
“Hush,” whispered a pair of lips pressed to her left ear. “If you scream, we are both lost.”
She couldn’t have screamed even if she’d chosen to. The sound was lodged at the back of her throat.
Her captor tightened the seal over her mouth and nose. “Understand?” His tone was level, his hand warm and dry. He could have been asking if she took sugar in her tea.
She managed, with difficulty, to nod once.
Long seconds slid by. The footsteps in the office came closer, then receded. The swish of metal on metal — once, twice — s
uggested that the curtains were being drawn.
Tears pricked at Mary’s eyes and she forced them back, her jaw tightening with the effort. She would not, would not, would not give him the satisfaction of knowing she was frightened. Instead, she tried to evaluate what she knew about this man in the wardrobe. The voice was educated. Michael Gray? No. This man’s scent was different — cedar soap and a trace of whiskey instead of the faint aura of macassar oil and pipe tobacco that clung to Michael. She surprised herself with her certainty on that subject.
The footsteps made another circuit of the room. Their owner emitted a dissatisfied “humph.” Then, at long last, the door reopened, reclosed, and a key turned firmly in the lock.
Mary and her captor waited. She could feel his heartbeat, steady and slow, at her back. She counted to ten. Twenty. And then to thirty. Was he never going to let her go? She considered biting his hand.
Then his voice again, in her ear. “You will not scream or cry.”
She shook her head weakly.
He waited several seconds before slowly uncovering her mouth.
She drew a long, shaky breath. Tried not to gasp as she did. She tried to move her arms, but his left arm was still locked round her.
After another pause, he released her arms, again slowly.
With trembling hands, she pushed open the wardrobe door and all but fell out. Strong hands caught her and set her upright — not harshly.
Slapping them away, she whirled round to face him. The room was almost completely dark with the curtains drawn, but she could make out a tall, lean figure.
A match flared brightly in his hand, giving her a glimpse of dark eyes and a harsh, uncompromising mouth. He produced a short candle and lit it, holding the light closer to her face. Its glare was almost painful after such prolonged blackness. They inspected each other for a long moment, then the corners of his mouth twitched. Did he find this funny? He looked as though he wanted to ask her a question, but seemed to think better of it.
She glared at him defiantly. Her own questions crowded her mouth, but she was determined not to speak until he did. After the heat of his body, her back felt cold.
