Cold Stone and Ivy

by H. Leighton Dickson

  THE ROOM HAD been cleaned of all traces of ash and mud, and Christien marvelled at how Pomfrey could accomplish so much in such a short time. It had rained again this morning, the streets were soggy, and he had nipped home in a steamcab to fetch a new pair of shoes. He had not worn his spats and now his feet were paying the price for it. He hoped Pomfrey could get the shoes cleaned by the weekend. Williams had mentioned a Club meeting set for Friday and these new shoes did squeak something terrible.

  The room was silent, and not for the first time he found himself missing the little sparrow he had found in the spring. She had been mauled by a cat, and he had nursed her to health, kept her in a wire cage on his dressing table. With all his books, globes, scopes, and gadgets, she had been a welcome addition. He had found her dead at the bottom of the cage less than a week ago, and he missed her songs already.

  The brass ring on his finger was tighter than ever, and even the carbolic soap had not dislodged it. He was about to try a round of macassar oil when there was a rap on the door. Pomfrey stepped in.

  “Mister Christien,” he said. “The boys have asked me to tell you that they are waiting downstairs.”

  He said “the boys” a certain way, and Christien pursed his lips. Pomfrey hated “the boys” with every fibre of his very proper being. The boys were terrible to him.

  “Yes, Pomfrey. I’m just changing my shoes.”

  “I do so wish Mr. Bender would not smoke in the house. He drops ash all over the floors.”

  “I’ll speak to him about it, Pomfrey.”

  “They have dragged mud all over the carpets again, and I only just washed them.”

  “They are nefarious boys, Pomfrey.”

  “Scallywags, sir. I will admit it. Complete and utter scallywags. What you see in their company I cannot fathom.” He held out two letters. “The post has come early, sir.”

  Christien took the first. “It’s from Ivy.”

  “Is it, sir? I couldn’t tell. There were no ink splotches or sketches of dead bodies on the envelope.”

  “Pomfrey . . .”

  “The letters from the Archduchess have no such scrawls. Indeed, I am quite certain they are penned in pure gold.”

  Christien shook his head.

  “You still pine for her, sir. It is painfully obvious even to me and I am not a particularly observant man.”

  “You are dreaming, Pomfrey. Valerie has princes and dukes vying for her hand. She would be never be allowed a match with me.” He turned the envelope over in his hands. “No, Ivy is a good girl. She is clever and modern and loves London. I could do worse.”

  “And you could do better. I know I have said this before but I believe she is all too common for a man of your station, sir.”

  “And that is where you’re wrong, Pomfrey. I am not my brother. I’m to be a surgeon and if I’m lucky, a police surgeon. What could possibly be better than an investigator’s daughter?”

  “An archduchess, sir.” He held up the second letter. “Now, this one looks entirely more common even than the first. Are you certain you are not a-courting a barmaid on the side?”

  Christien smiled.

  “Is there tea, Pomfrey?”

  “I shall make some straightaway. It will rain again today, sir. Do dress for it.”

  “You are a mother duck, Pomfrey. I would die without you.”

  “Indeed, sir. It is entirely possible.”

  And with that, the houseman exited the room.

  Christien lifted the second envelope to the light of the window. The handwriting was small and scrawled in red ink.

  “From Jack,” it said.

  HANDS CURLED INTO fists, she marched toward the annex of the house known as First. It was the oldest part of the estate, having been built in the time of King George II, and it had not been modernized along with the rest of the house. It was classical and cluttered, with photochromes of horses and dogs covering the walls. She would not stop, however, and kept on down the hallway toward the large corner office where de Lacey was apparently conducting his business.

  She could make out the voice of Rupert St. John, and she slowed her march. He frightened her. Just a little.

  “By God, Laury, that’s two this week! You could have been killed. Or worse, boy, worse, you could have been caught.”

  She stopped next to the door, unsure of her next course. Rupert was an imposing figure, and she didn’t know what to make of him. He had taken over the daily operation of the estate after the deaths of the Sixth Baron and his wife fifteen years ago. She was not surprised Christien had left when he could.

  “Are you listening to me, Laury? Not even Edward can protect you if you’re caught.”

  “I prefer to stop them at one, Rupert.”

  “I prefer you not stop them at all, Laury.”

  “Well, he’ll not do it again,” the Mad Lord said quietly. “He has four other children and a wife. No, sir, he’ll not do it again.”

  “Dammitall, Laury. That is not your concern. Old Vic is furious.”

  “What am I supposed to do, Rupert? What am I to tell them?”

  She could hear the Scourge’s boots on the floor.

  “You tell them to go to Hell, Laury. You tell them all to go to Hell.”

  There was silence for a long moment before Rupert spoke again.

  “Well, how much did you pay her?”

  “Four thousand.”

  “And the last one? The one in Manchester?”

  “Two.”

  “By God, Laury. You’ll bankrupt us yet . . .”

  “A woman should not have to lose everything simply because her husband is a cad.”

  “And any cad who’s married has a fool for a wife. It’s the way things are out there, Laury. It’s just the way things are.”

  A dog whimpered and she could hear the whapping of a tail on the floor, and she remembered that wherever Sebastien went, his dogs did also. Quickly, she pushed herself off the wall, just as Rupert loomed in the doorway.

  His nose wrinkled at the sight of her.

  “Oh, it’s the skirt,” he growled. “What a tidy little spy you’d make. Cooking, mending, and gossip. The veritable female trinity.”

  She felt the heat rush to her cheeks. “I wish to speak with Lord de Lacey, sir.”

  “He does not speak with skirts. He is preoccupied with affairs of the barony.”

  “Such as forgetting letters of introduction and giving saddles to guests after midnight?”

  He scowled at her.

  “I put it in the stable, sir, but I regret to inform you that I was wearing my nightdress at the time, not a skirt. I couldn’t find breeches.”

  And she raised her chin, just a little.

  “Ah damn,” came Sebastien’s voice. “Let her in.”

  “Very well, Laury,” Rupert growled. “I expect to continue this later.”

  “I expect so, Uncle.”

  He nodded stiffly and moved aside, making his way down the hall with long, ground-covering strides. Ivy took a deep breath and stepped into the room.

  It was not so much an office as a study, for the walls were lined with bookshelves, the windows were large, and the floors were scattered with Persian rugs. There was a settee and two wing chairs beside a fireplace. But the furniture was almost invisible beneath the piles of books, newspapers, and envelopes. From the floor, the dogs looked up at her and wagged what they could.

  Sebastien de Lacey was sitting at a desk overflowing with papers. She almost did not recognize him, for he was wearing spectacles with thick dark rims that obscured his eyes, and his fair hair was uncombed and wild. There was a red line across his cheekbone that was in the ripe stage of bruising. She had been right last night by the fence. It had not been mud on his face.

  “Please, sit.”

  She raised her chin. “I have no need for sitting, sir. Of all the things I have experienced at Lasingstoke, comfort is not one of them.”

  “That is regrettable.”

  “I do
n’t believe you regret it at all.”

  “Oh, but I do.” He pulled the spectacles from his face and dropped them onto the pile of papers in front of him. He seemed far too young to be a baron. “You were a bit of a shock. We don’t get many guests at Lasingstoke.”

  A fact that did not surprise her.

  “Did you not receive a letter from Christien?”

  “Two, actually.” As he riffled through the envelopes, she recognized Victoria’s seal on several of them. Finally, he held up two letters and from her position, she spied the meticulous handwriting of her fiancé. “But I have only just opened them this morning. You required a letter of introduction for Frankow? That’s odd.”

  “He didn’t want to help her,” she began. “He insisted that you needed to see her before he could do anything.”

  The baron frowned, leaned back in his chair. The dogs lifted their heads at the movement, then dropped them again.

  “Hm. Christien doesn’t mention that in his letters. Did he tell you why?”

  She sighed now, feeling the fury draining away like cold tea.

  “Not a word, sir. This is a very disturbing situation for me. I’ve never been this far from her since Tobias died. And I would be with her still, if not for that blasted heart.”

  “Again this heart. And who is this Tobias? Take a chair, please. You are shipwrecking my thoughts.”

  She looked around for a chair that wasn’t hidden under a tower of paper. Spied a heavy wooden stool in a corner of the room. It took her several minutes to unload it and drag it over to the desk. All the while he sat in his chair and did not move to help.

  She placed it and sat. He rose to his feet.

  “No sitting. Stand up.”

  She stood.

  He moved around the desk to stand in front of her. He was dressed in much the same way as yesterday, presentable but shabby, with a pocket watch tucked into his vest. She noticed his hair had much more curl to it than Christien’s. Christien’s hair was straight, sleek, and very dark. This, this looked like a rolling field of wheat, and she wondered if it was to hide the metal in his skull.

  “Give me your hands. Tobias?”

  He reached out his hands.

  She stared at them. The knuckles were bruised and as bloody as his face. But his fingers were clean, the nails polished and trimmed, and she did not know what to think. Besides, he was not her fiancé. She should not be holding his hands.

  “Tobias?” he repeated and presented them yet again.

  She took them and he closed his eyes.

  “My youngest brother,” she said tentatively. “My mother loved him very much.”

  “Hm. She lost many children, yes?”

  Little black coffins, each a chapter of her childhood.

  “Five stillborns. Only myself, Davis, and Tobias survived.”

  With eyes still closed, he began turning her palms over in his hands. She swallowed, suddenly understanding the very real potential of scandal in anything this man did. She would have to be very, very careful.

  “Tobias was unexpected,” he muttered. “Very young when she was old, and therefore precious. He died . . . drowned in the Thames . . . she could not save him.”

  “Yes,” in a small voice. “She could not swim.”

  “She watched him die.” He opened his eyes. “And has been dead ever since.”

  Her eyes were stinging once again, and she wished to pull her hands away but didn’t. Far too proud, she knew it. Far too stubborn.

  “It was seven years ago,” she said. “She slept all the time, never wanted to come out of her room. Then she stopped eating, drinking, bathing . . .”

  “Hmm.”

  “How did you know? Did Christien—”

  “Aah . . .”

  He paused as his fingers brushed the ring around her finger. Christien had given it to her two months ago, and she had been flabbergasted. It was a single pearl set in a delicate golden band, two diamonds on either side.

  “My mother’s ring,” he said softly. She wondered how he felt about it.

  Now he slid his hands around her thumbs, then up to her wrists. And he held her there a moment, seemed to be puzzling over something. This was a very intimate contact. Even Christien, ever the gentleman, had never touched her like this. But she would not pull away. Not now. She was a proud, stubborn girl and he a very unusual man.

  Finally, he released her and stepped back with a deep breath. Then he smiled, a smile as bright as the regal French sun, and it occurred to her that he was rather handsome.

  “Why on earth are you marrying my brother?”

  She blinked in surprise.

  “I, I beg your pardon? What sort of question is that?”

  “Forgive me, Miss Savage. I did not mean to confound, although I suppose I do confound more than most.” He folded his arms and leaned against the desk. “Your father is a crimes investigator, yes? Metropolitan Police?”

  “What of it?”

  “He has seen much in his profession. Far too much of the darkness in the human soul. Do you believe in the soul, Miss Savage?”

  “What has that got to do with—”

  “Christien does not. He is a man of science. I fear your father does not, either. And nor, I think, do you.”

  “Faith is a personal thing, sir. Hardly something that should dictate the suitability of a marriage partner.”

  “Entirely the thing. Think it through. You have a father with a gruesome profession, a fiancé with an even more gruesome one. A dead brother and a dying mother. You write murderous stories, have your living brother illustrate them, and yet you are shocked when you receive a heart in the post. You yearn for a vibrant and fascinating career in crimes, but you set yourself up to be the wife of a city doctor. It is a conflict, in my estimation.”

  “Christien is to be a police surgeon,” she countered. “Hardly a mere ‘city doctor.’”

  “Ah. And you are to assist him in his investigations, then? And would that be before or after the elegant parties?”

  Now the heat rushed to her cheeks.

  “You are bold, sir!”

  “It’s just a question, Miss Savage. Is that the life you want for yourself?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  “Be honest, now,” he said.

  “I have no realistic alternative,” she snapped, unable to stop the flashing of her eyes. “A man could not possibly understand.”

  “Oh, I understand completely. It is the most realistic course.”

  “You are mocking me.”

  “I’m not, Miss Savage. Sincerely. But I see in you so much more than what you see yourself.”

  “You don’t know me, sir.”

  “But I do know my brother. It is Christien who wishes for a quiet, normal, and ‘realistic’ life. He is pulled towards the arcane as much as me, but masks it under the guise of science. He denies this, and in doing so, he denies himself. He deeply wishes for respect and approval, for vindication from his peers in London. He’ll get it, I’ll wager, but it will come at the expense of his brilliant mind and extraordinary talents. Our family’s history has set him on that course. Understandable, I suppose. But you, Miss Savage, you are quite the opposite. You come from an ordinary home, yet you yearn for the fantastical and are fascinated by the macabre. More than that, you have a quick mind, a vivid imagination, and are fairly bursting with the need for a challenge.”

  “And you can tell all that in the holding of my hands?”

  “Indeed.”

  She raised her chin.

  “The ‘fantastical’ is quite beyond my reach, sir.”

  “Reach a little higher, then. Else buy yourself some very fine boots.”

  They remained that way for some time, he with his arms folded, observing, and she standing with her chin held high, being observed. Frankly, she did not know what she should be doing, or what was allowed in the presence of a baron.

  “You will write a letter of introduction for Dr. Frankow?”

>   “Certainly. Although I suspect that is not what he is wanting from me.” He pushed off the desk and moved around it, preparing to take his seat once again. “No, I will need to pay a trip to the Abbey myself. I was planning to do it anyway. Now I simply have an excellent reason. Thank you, Miss Savage.”

  “When will you go?”

  “I’m not certain. Sometime, I expect.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that.

  He sat, slipped the spectacles back onto his nose, slit open the Victoria letters with a penknife. Peered up at her over the thick dark rims.

  “Is there anything else, Miss Savage?”

  “Nothing, sir. Good day to you, then.”

  “Every day spent living is a good day.”

  She stared at him.

  And he bent back to his papers, dismissing her with that simple act. She stood for a moment longer before turning and slipping out of the room. Only the dogs watched her go.

  SHE REINED IN her Thoroughbred, Marlborough, next to the man on the French Warmblood. He was wearing a mask that covered his eyes and made him appear entirely villainous.

  “You, sir? What is your name?”

  The man smiled at her, and she thought to herself that even with the mask, he was surprisingly handsome, and most likely a thief.

  “Why should I tell you? You are a girl wearing breeches.”

  “And you are a man wearing a mask.”

  “Aren’t we a scandalous pair?”

  “I do not live my life afraid of a little scandal, sir. I am a modern woman.”

  “I see. Then I shall tell you my name if you tell me yours.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Alexander Dunn,” said the man. “And yours?”

  “Penny Dreadful.”

  “Ah. The investigator’s daughter.” His horse was prancing, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. “A Girl Criminologist. How rare.”

  “Are you mocking me, sir?”

  “Not at all. Have you found the stolen Heart?”

  “I have my leads,” she said defiantly.

  “The thief is clever, surely.”

  “Not as clever as he thinks, sir.”

  “Or as clever as you think.”