Cold Stone and Ivy

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “Laury,” said Albert Victor, but did not move to rise.

  Sebastien studied him until the duke looked away. With a quirk of his head, the seventh Lord of Lasingstoke glanced around the room and his eyes fell upon Ivy. They were blue now like a summer sky.

  “It’s good to see you again, Miss Savage,” he said, and he smiled. “How is your brother?”

  “He is well,” she breathed. She could not imagine what had happened to him, what he had done to earn those cuts. Whatever it was, she was so very grateful. “Very well, indeed. Thank you for asking.”

  “Good. Good.” She could have sworn his cheeks had reddened. “Very good.”

  Christien rose to his feet.

  “Hello, Bastien.”

  “Christien! Gads, you brought them all with you again.” And the Mad Lord turned away, a hand clapped over his eyes. “I can’t . . . I just can’t. I won’t.”

  “I know, Bastien. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, Christien. It’s not you. It’s all those cadavers. They are simply too much for me. Ah damn, damn, damn them all to hell!”

  He released a deep breath, then another.

  “Someone called me . . . something called me . . .”

  “Well,” said Edward. “We did send the little ginger girl.”

  “Latin? Was it in Latin? Is she dead?”

  There was a second awkward silence before the Mad Lord sighed and turned to Edward, deliberately keeping his back to his brother. “Never mind. I’m a trifle addled. I’m told we’re off to Balmoral?”

  “Yes, Balmoral it is! In the Carolina, no less!” Edward boomed, glossing over the awkwardness of the Mad Lord’s behaviour.

  Apparently the dynamics of the de Lacey household were not new to him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve lost my spectacles,” said Sebastien. “Will I need to read?”

  “Not at all, my boy! Unless you need ’em to shoot a stag or two! Mummie wishes to have a word with you about the little problem in London. If you’re up to it, that is?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m up to it. Please may we bring the dogs?”

  They looked up at him adoringly, wagged.

  “Don’t see why not? Can they behave in an airship? Would hate to lose one over the side, eh wot? A little spaniel splatter over Pitlochrie just won’t do. Say Eddy, do you think your grandmum would object to a few more dogs?”

  Albert Victor shrugged. “As long as they refrain from urinating on every post and pillar of the airship, they should be fine. Urine does rust the frame so.”

  “True, enough, Eddy. True enough. Right, then, off we go and all that. Sinjin, old man”—he turned and extended his mechanical hand—“don’t be a stranger. I know a Duchess or two who would be happy to make an honest man of you yet.”

  “I’ve had quite enough of skirts, if you ask me, Bertie,” Rupert said, and smiled his lazy cat smile. “Give me a pipe and a paper and I’m a happy man.”

  “You’d be happier with a ‘skirt’ of your own. And Remy”—a firm if noisy handshake—“you’ve got a fine little woman, there. Keep her happy or you’ll have hell to pay. The Welsh are like that.”

  “Yes, sir. That is my aim.”

  “Perhaps we’ll see you at the next meeting?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Miss Savage . . .” The Prince executed a most formal bow. “Hen Wlad fy Nhadau, and all that.”

  She curtsied. Pronunciation still atrocious. “It has been an honour, Your Highness.”

  “Eddy. Come!”

  And with that, Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince of Wales, whirled and stormed out of the sitting room, Albert Victor a slim quiet shadow at his heels.

  Sebastien looked back to the others, and Ivy could have sworn she saw his breath frost in the room.

  “Christien, I’m so terribly sorry . . .”

  “I know,” said his brother. “I understand.”

  “Miss Savage, take care of your brother. We will see your mother at Lonsdale, I promise you.”

  She smiled at him. “Sometime, I expect.”

  “Sometime.” He smiled back at her.

  And for a moment, all time seemed to stop in the room. Christien stared at the both of them. Finally, Sebastien turned to St. John. “Rupert . . .”

  “Bugger off, Laury.”

  “Right.” And he was gone, just like that, with six dogs happily trotting behind.

  Very quickly, heat returned to the sitting room.

  Christien sank to the sofa while Rupert lit another cigarette. He puffed a few good puffs, eyes flicking from nephew to fiancée and back again. He shook his head and left the room.

  Ivy stood for a while longer, unsure of what had just happened but sure it was not all good.

  THE COURTYARD WAS quiet once again, and she was lost to her thoughts as he led her out under the stone arches toward the steamcar. But he caught her hand, turned her toward him, and she found she could look nowhere but the perfect blue of his eyes.

  “Ivy, I must go back tonight.”

  “What? But Christien, why? You only just got here.”

  “I know. But the heat is on to find this Whitechapel villain and things have become rather complicated.”

  “Complicated? How so?”

  “Nothing. There is simply so much work.”

  “Christien . . .” Her heart thudded in her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’ve joined the Ghost Club?”

  A furrow appeared between his perfect brows.

  “And when did you learn about the Ghost Club, Ivy? It’s a part of my family’s history, not yours.”

  “Sebastien told me.”

  “Well, that makes sense then, doesn’t it?”

  “Christien, please. I wish we could talk about these things. We used to talk about everything, remember?”

  “We still can.”

  “Not if you think you need to protect me from ideas. I don’t want that kind of marriage.”

  He pulled her close and she could smell cigarettes, sweet brandy, and coal.

  “I know you’re right, Ivy. I do. But these are dangerous times and I have no idea where this Ghost Club may lead. In fact, it’s probably nothing, simply a Pall Mall club for gentlemen with scads of money and far too much imagination.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “I don’t know. I just . . .”

  His shoulders sagged, and she looked up at him, wondering at his sudden need to touch her. He was not normally a vulnerable man and she certainly not a fawning girl. This was an altogether different side to him, unexpected and rather sad. She placed her hands on his waist-coated chest, could feel his heart beat beneath her palm.

  “Is it true your father was a member?”

  “A founding member, yes. And it drove him mad. I need to find out why.”

  “But Dr. Williams—”

  “It’s become so very complicated, Ivy.” He blinked slowly, brushed a strand of dark hair from her brow. “There are bad things happening with the boys in the lab and in Bethlem and the papers are on us hard. John’s involved somehow but I don’t know how. They’re all keeping secrets from me and then there was the letter—”

  He cut his words short, as if realizing he had said too much.

  “Letter? Secrets? Christien, tell me, please.”

  He is pulled towards the arcane as much as me, Sebastien had said, but masks it under the guise of science. She could see it happening before her very eyes. Pushing everything deep, deep inside, locking it all in place under a fine porcelain mask.

  “It’s not important. What is important is for you to be safe up here, up north and away from all of the intrigue in London.”

  “But I want to help, Christien. I’m strong that way.”

  He took her hands and she couldn’t help but look. His fingers so clean and elegant, so very different from his brother’s. His grip strong and sure. Sebastien’s moved like water, like earth and wind and trees.

  “Ivy please, for the first ti
me in years, you don’t have to care for someone else. Take up the piano. Learn to embroider. Write poetry. Go shopping with those Wimpolls you wrote about. Something. Anything. You can help me the best simply by staying safe.”

  Is that the life you want for yourself, he had asked. Was it?

  “I can’t.” She sighed. “Not anymore. Christien, something is wrong and I don’t like it. I don’t like what it’s doing to you. How long has the Ghost Club been after you and why?”

  “Ivy . . .”

  “And what if you do find out what drove your father mad? What then? What if it drives you mad too?”

  “It won’t.”

  “But Sebastien said—”

  “Sebastien doesn’t know anything about the life of civilized men, Ivy, let alone me.” He pulled his hands away. “Did you hear him in the parlour? Too many damned cadavers for him.”

  She sighed.

  “You don’t know what it’s been like living in his shadow, Ivy, what I’ve lost because of him, how hard I’ve had to work to make my own way. One time, he shewed up to take his seat at the House of Lords with a blanket over his head. He wouldn’t take it off and he was ejected from the House. The papers were after me for weeks . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Christien,” she said. “I know it had to be hard. I’m so sorry for the both of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry too, Ivy. I’m tired and I miss you and I do miss the way we used to be. I wish this damned case were over and I didn’t have to go back tonight, so I’m feeling a bit childish, I suppose.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m the one who thinks everything is a mystery story waiting to be written.”

  “A very gruesome mystery story,” he said, smiling with his eyes. “With altogether too much blood and gore.”

  She grinned and leaned into him, not wanting this moment to end.

  “Here, I give you a mystery, then.” He reached a hand into his waistcoat pocket and pulled something up to the light. It was a locket, dangling from a long serpentine chain. “Science, spiritualism, and alchemy all rolled into one little bauble.”

  It pulsed and danced like the music of a star.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “It’s been in the family for years,” he said. “The Ghost Club is interested in it but I find it a distraction.”

  “Interested? How so?”

  “They are a curious lot. I think they want to take it apart, discover how it works.”

  “No,” she said. “You can’t let them.”

  He slipped it over her head and it nestled in the curve between her breasts. She looked up at him.

  “You want me to have it?”

  “I can’t think of a better, safer, more clever place to hide it.”

  “Christien, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Now, that is a first.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll write again soon.”

  She closed her eyes, breathing him in for a long moment before he slipped on his goggles and climbed back into the steamcar. She could see the turn of the key and the vehicle begin to puff and chug out of the courtyard and down the gravel drive, leaving puffs of black smoke in its wake.

  With one hand on the locket, she watched until he had all but disappeared, but she couldn’t help but spare a moment to search the skies for the sight of an airship and the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke.

  AND SO PENNY planted a kiss on the cheek of both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence and bid them adieu as they trotted up the gangplank of their fine airship, the HMAS Royal Dalton. She turned to her father, Charles Dreadful.

  “Father,” she cried, holding onto her touring hat as the airship exchanged ground for sky. “Would you be a dear and check whether or not Alexandre Gavriel St. Jacques Lord Durand has his own airship, and if so, where it was moored on the night of the theft?”

  “Capital idea, my girl!” her father boomed, and he left her in the courtyard of Lancaster Castle.

  Penny watched the royal airship until it was little more than a speck in the clouds.

  “I believe I must get myself one of those,” she muttered to herself, before turning and heading to the vaults.

  Chapter 18

  Of Steamcars in Lancaster, Royals in Balmoral,

  and Whispers on Hanbury Street

  “HOLD ON TO your hat, dearest!” cried Fanny Helmsly-Wimpoll, and the four-wheeled steamcar took the corner on two. Ivy let out a yelp and did indeed grab her hat. While they were safely inside the cab, the sensation was pulling at her stomach like the downward swoop of a very high swing.

  Franny laughed madly from her perch in the dickey. Her steamcar was several years old and already antiquated. It was shaped entirely like a coach with the boiler stack in the boot, and puffs of steam trailed behind them like clouds. While her passengers sat inside the cab in relative comfort, Franny rode the gears and levers from outside in much the same way a coachman would ride the rein. She had left the trap open, however, and Ivy could see the scarf flapping in the wind.

  “Don’t you think it’s magnificent how Franny’s scarf flaps so?” remarked Fanny, loudly to be heard over the noise. “I’ve suggested longer, dearest. It would be ever so dramatic, don’t you think?”

  “Oh,” said Ivy, gripping the seat for her life. “I think the one she has is perfectly fine.”

  “Tosh,” sniffed Fanny loudly. “One can never be too young, too rich, or have too long a scarf. That’s what I’ve told my dear Yankee friend Isadora. By the way, darling, did you see those airships the other day? I heard they were ferrying the Prince of Wales to Balmoral!”

  “Yes, I heard,” shouted Ivy, her bottom flying from the seat as the steamcar roared over a stone bridge. Normally, by coach it would take four hours. In a steam car, it would take just under three.

  At the rate Franny Helmsly-Wimpoll was driving, they would be there in less than two.

  “And your hat, dearest! What scandal! Is it yours? Did you steal it? Is it all the rage in London?”

  Ivy rolled her eyes up to the black brim. It had been days since both Sebastien and Christien had left—one for the north, one for the south—and the estate had grown quiet in their absence. So one night, as Davis was sitting up in bed happily slurping cock-a-leekie soup and remembering nothing of his experience, he, she, and Rupert engaged in a friendly game of whist. She had cleaned Rupert of all the change in his pockets and settled on his hat instead.

  She had won it fair and square, along with his pocket watch and a cigar. She had both tucked away in her waistcoat pocket, along with ten pounds for a pair of “very fine” boots and dinner. She needed answers, and of all the people she had met since coming north, the sisters Helmsly-Wimpoll would be happy to provide them.

  “Perhaps, we’ll take a tour of the castle, dearest!” yelled Fanny. “Have you ever been?”

  “Never!” Ivy shouted back.

  “It’s old, dripping, and dilapidated. And the ghosts! The place is as haunted as a graveyard. And the witches! More witches in Lancaster than sheep. But we don’t need to fear. We’re brave and modern women, fearing nothing, not even men!”

  Ivy swallowed and held on to her hat as they rounded yet another corner on the way into Lancaster.

  “THANK YOU, REMY.” Rosie grinned. “You’re a good friend.”

  “You’re drunk, Rosie,” said Christien as he hiked his friend under his arm. Rosie’s breath smelled of sour potatoes. “I hope Bond doesn’t catch on.”

  “Ah, Bondie. He can’t even catch the Ripper. ’Ow’s he gonna catch little ol’ me?”

  Christien pushed his way out of the public house known as The Ten Bells. Even at such an early hour, the pub was full of patrons, and he was quite happy to be leaving the noise and smoke behind. The pub was on the corner of Commercial and Fournier, and across the street, he could see the high Gothic steeple of Christchurch, Spitalfields.

  It was a rare sunny day and he was very glad to be back in London.
/>   “Come on. I’ll catch you a cab.”

  Ambrose Pickett grinned again, his eyes sleepy and dull. “But I ain’t got no money, Remy. I spent it all on the gin!”

  “I’ll pay for the cab, Rosie.”

  “Does Bondie want me for something, Remy? Izzat why you’re here, t’fetch me?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Rosie.”

  “I can work . . .”

  “He’ll sack you if he sees you like this. Go home. Sleep it off. You can take my shift tomorrow. How’s that?”

  “You’re a good friend, Remy. A right good friend.” Rosie slapped his friend’s chest once, twice, three times. The smell of the gin was overpowering. “Bugger you’re so damn French . . .”

  The street was bustling with hansoms, broughams, and even a pair of noisy, chugging steamcabs. Christien had no trouble flagging one down and bundling the sloppy form of Ambrose Pickett inside. He slipped the driver two shillings, along with Rosie’s home address, and the cab rattled off, quickly disappearing in the crush of black along the street.

  He stood for a long moment, wondering what on earth he was to tell Bond. The police surgeon had requested Pickett specifically for a necropsy on a vagrant and had refused to let Christien stand in for him. Rosie’s grades were slipping, and Christien hated to see him fail. But try as he might, there was only so much one could do for a friend like Rosie.

  “You lookin’ for it, luv?” came a voice from behind, and he turned to see a woman dressed in cheap clothing. She had thinning hair and pockmarked skin, and Christien could tell her occupation at a glance. Life was hard on women these days. He was glad Ivy was safe up north.

  “No, thank you,” he said stiffly. “I have to get back—”

  “You want to see it. I know you do.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Really?” She arched a brow. “All the flash gents wants to see where Dark Annie got snuffed. It’s just ’round the corner, there . . .”

  Dark Annie. One of the many nicknames of Annie Chapman, the second victim of the Ripper.

  He twisted the ring on his little finger.