A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

  Mr. Fullerton would have had no fear of divulging this little detail to Mrs. Devery. A young lady of her class would never be admitted into a gentlemen’s club, much less his private rooms. Except for one reason, of course, and Mrs. Devery had been painfully aware of this.

  I think . . . I think he may eventually demand more from me than money.

  Mr. Fullerton clearly reveled in his high living, and Rosalind felt certain he must have had these apartments privately furnished. Despite the display of gilt and excess downstairs, Rosalind could not believe that the club provided all its members with such a profusion of silks and velvet, marble tops and painted enamel handles.

  A beautiful little marquetry table waited beside a luxuriously curtained bed. Rosalind put her hand to the ornate drawer, and held her breath.

  The drawer didn’t budge. Mr. Fullerton, it seemed, was not entirely careless.

  Rosalind bit her lip and quickly reached into her work bag to pull out the sandalwood letter opener she’d brought against this possibility. Rosalind had been gently reared, but some of that gentle upbringing had included a girls’ boarding school, a place where one might gain experience with all manner of petty larcenies.

  Rosalind’s hands had not lost their touch, and Mr. Fullerton’s drawer proved no more difficult than the headmistress’s desk had. When she slid it open, she found half a dozen articles of jewelry in that drawer. Rosalind saw a garnet ring, a pearl collar, and a figured brooch. Mrs. Devery had clearly not been Fullerton’s only victim.

  There were also several packets of letters tied in silk ribbon.

  Did you send him any letters? Rosalind had asked Mrs. Devery. Any at all, even a brief note?

  No. I did not. Everything was communicated through my old nurse. She is still as sharp as she ever was, and . . . is sincerely attached to me.

  It would seem, however, that there were other ladies who were not so careful. Still, those letters were not Rosalind’s business. She was here for the white and sepia cameo that was a portrait of Mrs. Devery’s grandmother, framed in gold and tiny diamonds.

  Before she began to plot her entry into the club, Rosalind had visited Mrs. Devery’s jeweler. That careful artisan had kept the description and pattern of the cameo. Many ladies had copies of their jewels made so that the originals could be stored for safekeeping, or sold without their families being the wiser. The jeweler was quite happy to duplicate the cameo in paste and resin, and did not demur at the alterations Rosalind requested.

  Now Rosalind claimed the original cameo and, in its place, dropped the copy from her work bag into the drawer. She looked again at the packets of correspondence, and hesitated. Then, she took up the letters and tucked them away as well. She closed the drawer. There would be no way to relock it, but that could not be helped. Hopefully, Mr. Fullerton would think his thief had just been after the letters, and not consider the jewels left behind.

  There. Done. As long as she could manage her exit.

  Rosalind slipped once more into the hallway. She strained her ears for the sounds of bells or the cry of the watch for some indication as to the time, but heard neither. It was a far different sound that broke the cool silence.

  “You there!” The woman’s voice stopped Rosalind in her tracks. “Come here and help me fix this thing!”

  Rosalind stood paralyzed for a handful of frantic heartbeats before she gathered herself. It was not the command that held her frozen. It was that she recognized the woman’s voice.

  Charlotte? she thought, but immediately caught herself. No. It is not possible.

  “I must get my mistress her wrap,” she murmured without turning around.

  “Never mind your mistress. Come and help me.”

  No. It is not her. This voice is too low. The accents are wrong.

  Rosalind turned to face the woman who stood at the top of the stairs. The flickering torchlight glimmered on a dress of pale silk and netting. In one hand, the woman held a swath of gauze that had clearly been torn at the shoulder.

  Rosalind gathered her nerve, but her answer was cut off by the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

  “There you are, my dear Cynthia!” A slim man with his hair swept back from his forehead trotted up the stairs. “I thought I’d lost you!”

  “Ferdinand!” The woman in silver turned at once. Rosalind was so quickly dismissed from all consideration, she might as well have dropped through the floor.

  “You frightened me. Feel how my heart beats!” The woman lifted the man’s hand to her breast and laid it there.

  Rosalind dropped her gaze. She knew she should retire. If she had been a real servant, she would have known how to retreat and where the back stairs were located. But she was not, and these two blocked her only exit.

  “Ah, a thousand curses upon me as a fool,” murmured Ferdinand, stepping closer to the woman, and lacing his arm tightly through hers. “Come, let me find you some champagne. You will drink until you are quite calm again.”

  “But my dress!” The woman pulled the torn gauze from her shoulder. “I cannot be seen like this.”

  Tenderly, the man took the netting and draped it around her throat, arranging it with great care. “Then I shall take you where you cannot be seen.”

  The woman lifted her face to his. They linked arms at once and hurried down the corridor, away from the stairs, and Rosalind, leaving her alone, forgotten, and entirely safe from all risk of exposure.

  This fact barely touched her. In her mind Rosalind was miles and years away. She stood in another darkened hallway, watching another young woman—slimmer, more plainly dressed—run through another door. Despair, confusion, and betrayal washed through Rosalind, as clear and sharp as if she were still a girl, on the night when she watched her sister, Charlotte, disappear.

  CHAPTER 2

  A New Acquaintance

  Gentlemen, if we are to regard our friends with such constant suspicion—if we are to be jealous of the wives of our bosom, we had infinitely better close our doors against society altogether.

  —The Trial of Birch vs. Neal for Criminal Conversation

  It was early in the gray, grim, grimy London morning, and Rosalind Thorne was entirely exhausted. She hadn’t even been to bed. After leaving Graham’s, she’d been able to return home just long enough to change out of her lady’s maid costume. She’d promised to return the cameo to Mrs. Devery before her household was awake. Once there, she’d needed to stay long enough to make sure the young woman not only heard but retained her instructions. Mrs. Devery was to confess her debts to her husband. She was to face Mr. Fullerton calmly when she produced the original of the cameo, but to speak to him no more than was strictly necessary and on no account to allow herself to be alone with him. If Fullerton made any additional threats or demands, Mrs. Devery was to write to Rosalind at once.

  Mrs. Devery was also to make sure she gave her old nurse a token of gratitude to help ensure the loyal woman remained loyal, despite any additional provocations, or bribes, that might be offered.

  On the long, jostling ride back through the morning traffic of vans, carts, and sheep flocks, Rosalind kept herself awake by considering what to do with the letters she had stolen from Fullerton’s drawer. Probably, they were additional fuel for his blackmail. Therefore, the wisest, simplest, and most honorable course of action was to burn them all unopened. This firm and sensible thought warred with the image of the woman retreating into the darkness with her lover. It raised in her the unworthy idea that Mr. Fullerton might be someone she needed to speak with in the near future, and if she did, she would need to have some way to encourage him to answer her.

  With all that ringing through her head, and her conscience, Rosalind entirely forgot she’d agreed to receive her friend, Alice Littlefield, until the moment she walked back into her house.

  “Oh, Rosalind, at last!” Alice darted out of the parlor just
at the moment Rosalind entered the cramped front hall. Mrs. Kendricks, the housekeeper, was caught with her mouth open. “I was beginning to think we’d miss you altogether.” Alice gave Rosalind a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ve brought Mrs. Seymore, as I told you, and I have promised her faithfully you will not turn her away.” She paused. “What is the matter? Are you unwell?”

  “No, I’m perfectly well, thank you,” Rosalind replied. “I’m sorry I was so long. The appointment this morning turned out to be more complicated than I had hoped.”

  Rosalind left her coat, bonnet, and a request for coffee with Mrs. Kendricks and allowed Alice to seize her hand to draw her into the tiny, tidy parlor.

  “Rosalind,” said Alice. “This is my friend, Mrs. William Seymore. Margaretta, may I introduce Miss Rosalind Thorne?”

  Mrs. Seymore stood, and she and Rosalind both made their curtsies.

  “How do you do, Miss Thorne?” Mrs. Seymore’s voice was unusually low for a woman’s, and held a distinct musical tone. “Thank you for agreeing to see me, especially at such an hour.”

  Had Alice been alone, or with her brother George, Rosalind might have just confessed to her midnight adventure and asked to be excused. But this Mrs. Seymore was a stranger. Therefore, etiquette must take precedence over exhaustion.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Seymore,” said Rosalind. “Won’t you please sit down?”

  Mrs. Seymore settled onto Rosalind’s sofa beside Alice, while Rosalind took her usual chair by the fireplace. Mrs. Seymore was a striking woman. She had left the flush of youth behind, but she was one of those ladies whom time had bloomed rather than withered. She had a wealth of dark hair that was dressed simply. Her eyes were likewise dark, and wide-set. Her matron’s summer gown was cream and apricot, without lace or ribbon. Its simplicity spoke not only of excellent taste, but of the easy poise so prized by members of the haut ton.

  Mrs. Seymore took Rosalind in with a glance of those dark eyes, assessing her quickly, and showing Rosalind there was a sharp mind behind that beauty.

  “Mrs. Seymore is a poetess,” said Alice. “And a ballad writer.”

  Mrs. Seymore inclined her head with studied modesty. This explained how she came to know Alice. Like Rosalind, tiny, quick, dark Alice Littlefield had been born into the aristocracy. But her father had squandered his fortune, and his children were left to make shift for themselves. Now, Alice kept house with her brother, George, and made her living as a writer for newspapers and annuals. This change of station had gained Alice a large and eccentric acquaintance throughout London’s literary world.

  “Do you want me to begin, Margaretta?” Alice asked Mrs. Seymore.

  “No. This once I will tell my own story, even if I never do so again.” Mrs. Seymore straightened her shoulders, and Rosalind had the distinct sensation of an actress striking a pose. “You have before you, Miss Thorne, a woman on the edge of public disgrace.”

  Mrs. Seymore paused, possibly expecting a gasp of horror or pity. Rosalind did not oblige. “I am sorry to hear it, Mrs. Seymore. What form of disgrace are we speaking of?”

  Mrs. Seymore looked to Alice, a little disappointed. Alice shrugged. “I did warn you, Margaretta. Rosalind is not easily shaken.”

  “I see that,” said Mrs. Seymore. “I can be direct then. My husband, Miss Thorne, is threatening to file suit for criminal conversation.”

  “Ah.”

  English law had many complexities and strange aspects. One of the strangest, and most frustrating from Rosalind’s point of view, was the tort of “criminal conversation.” According to the law, a man and wife were considered a single body (his, naturally). The act of unsanctioned intercourse between a married woman and a man other than her lawfully wedded husband was, therefore, considered something akin to property damage. As a result, if a husband believed his wife to have been sharing her favors with another man, he could sue that other man for monetary recompense.

  Mrs. Kendricks entered the parlor carrying the silver coffee tray. Only some of the Thorne family plate had survived the family’s various adventures, but the coffee service was still intact and Mrs. Kendricks insisted on it when there was company, even though the tray dwarfed the round table where she placed it.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kendricks,” Rosalind said. She did not miss the way Mrs. Kendricks kept her eyes lowered, or the tight frown of disapproval on the housekeeper’s normally placid face. A pool of disquiet formed in the pit of Rosalind’s stomach. She covered the unwelcome emotion with the business of pouring out and inquiring how her guests preferred their coffee (with a bit of milk, if you please, no sugar, thank you).

  Once they all had their cups in their hands, Rosalind asked the next, and the most important, question. “Against whom is your husband bringing suit?”

  Mrs. Seymore stared at the cup in her hands but made no move to drink. “Fletcher Cavendish,” she said.

  Finally, Mrs. Seymore had said something that startled Rosalind, and she could not help looking to Alice for confirmation.

  Alice nodded. “The Fletcher Cavendish. The first man of the English stage. The greatest Shakespearian since Garrick, the man who holds more hearts in thrall than even Lord Byron . . . but you’ve read the columns.”

  “Has your husband any evidence to support his suspicions?” Rosalind did not ask if the accusations were true. That hardly mattered. What mattered was whether they might be believed.

  Mrs. Seymore cocked her head and regarded Rosalind with a fresh, and much cooler, gaze. “Captain Seymore has been questioning—perhaps I should say badgering—the servants. So far they have remained loyal and steadfast. That may change. But he says he has letters.”

  “Between you and Mr. Cavendish?”

  “No. He says they are from a third party, one, and here I am using his words, ‘fully informed upon the gross and indecent nature of this act of treachery.’” For the first time, Mrs. Seymore’s musical voice faltered. “I was very young when I married Captain Seymore, Miss Thorne. I was an orphaned girl and desired nothing so much as a home and family to call my own.” Rosalind inclined her head in encouragement and understanding.

  “Seymore’s family connections admitted me to society of a better class than I had previously known,” Mrs. Seymore went on. “I gained some popularity for my work, and some for what were considered my personal attributes.” Meaning her beauty. Probably her conversation as well, but mostly her beauty. “I think Seymore liked having such a woman on his arm. He enjoys being the object of men’s envy and admiration. He always encouraged me to write and to keep myself active in society while he was away with his ship.”

  “But matters changed when he came home?” The final defeat of Napoleon had left many an officer facing the complications of a life on reduced pay with no chance of action, or advancement.

  “Profoundly. Where once he encouraged me to mix in society, now he accuses me of flirtation, and disloyalty. Before, he praised my efforts. Now, I am slothful and a disgrace because I do not work hard enough.” Mrs. Seymore sniffed. “I have borne it as best I can. But now when we argue, he tells me about the suit. He tells me he has engaged an attorney. He tells me . . . he tells me many things, some of them might be true. I know he is working up the nerve to do the thing, and that it will come to him very soon.” She paused and repeated, “Very soon.”

  “Are you even acquainted with Mr. Cavendish?” It happened sometimes that men, especially men in straitened circumstances, simply picked out a rich target for their accusations.

  Mrs. Seymore turned her head away. Her face had flushed bright red, not in embarrassment, but in anger. “As it happens, Mr. Cavendish and I are well acquainted. We met almost twenty years ago. He was the one who saw my talent for verse and urged me to try for publication. We have always corresponded and I’ve never concealed the connection. Mr. Cavendish has visited our house and dined with us. We have accepted invitation
s to his performances and supper afterwards. That this accusation should come so suddenly . . . I am bewildered.”

  You’re not, thought Rosalind. You’re hurt and you’re angry, but you understand this all too well.

  “The fact of the matter is, Miss Thorne, I would not care whether Seymore brings his ridiculous suit or no, except for one thing.” She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief to press against her eyes. “I am with child, Miss Thorne.”

  Rosalind made no answer. Felicitations did not seem appropriate, given that Mrs. Seymore was struggling against tears that had much more to do with outrage than with sorrow.

  “Seymore insists the child is not his. If he says this publicly, if he divorces me, then I am not the only one ruined. My child, my son or—God forbid!—my daughter, will be labeled a bastard and must carry the taint of the accusation, and their mother’s disgrace, through their life.”

  “But how is it you wish me to help you?” asked Rosalind. “I am unacquainted with Captain Seymore. I do not believe he would be dissuaded by another woman—”

  “He would laugh in your face,” Mrs. Seymore said grimly. “No. What I wish is to be proved innocent. Obviously, I am not allowed to appear on my own behalf in court, but if I have some solid evidence of my innocence, perhaps I can persuade Seymore that he will only make himself ridiculous by pursuing the case. I could even plead my case in the newspapers if I must.” She nodded toward Alice. “But I cannot sit idle and helpless while my future, and my child’s future, is decided by my enemies.”

  It was a strong word, and it pricked Rosalind’s curiosity. “Who is advising the captain?” she asked.

  “His brother, Sir Bertram, primarily. Sir and Lady Bertram dislike me for failing to be humble enough for my unsatisfactory origins, and yet they are quick enough take the money I make when it comes in.”

  Alice nodded once in confirmation and agreement.

  Despite this, Rosalind felt there was something wrong in Mrs. Seymore’s story and the manner of her address. She could not put a definite name to this kernel of suspicion, but Rosalind was inclined to trust her own instincts.