Lord of Scandal

by Nicola Cornick

  Ben drove his hands into his pockets and walked slowly along the quay. A group of ragged children paused in their game on the street corner to watch him, fanning out behind him like a wolf pack as he passed. He knew what happened next. It was dangerous for a rich man to walk alone in the shadow of the docks, and to these people he would look richer than their dreams. So one of them would bump into him and lift his wallet, or they would knock him to the ground and pick over him like vultures, taking the very clothes he stood up in. He should know. He had done the same so many times in the past.

  He turned abruptly to face them, seeing the wary aggression in the young faces that confronted him. Then the recognition flickered in the eyes of the ringleader and suddenly they were pressing close in hero worship rather than violence.

  “It’s him! The famous cove…Hawksmoor…One of us…”

  One of us…The one that got away…

  His mother had wanted him to open orphanages for the poor children when he’d finally come into his inheritance. She had had such charitable plans. And he had disappointed her. He had done nothing for those he had left behind.

  And of course he had never really been one of them. He was the son of a lord. His Hawksmoor uncles, intent on fulfilling their Christian duty even to a bastard, had plucked him from the obscurity of his childhood, sent him to school and restored him to his place in society. It would have been like a fairy tale if only it had not damaged him so much in the process. He had never fit in at Harrow. It had been far too late. The other boys, following his father’s example, had taunted him for his birth. He’d run away. The uncles had found him and sent him back. He’d refused to go to Oxford or Cambridge. In the end, the uncles had bought him a commission and for a while it had seemed to solve everyone’s problems as he’d tried wholeheartedly to get himself killed. But then his father had died, sustained only by the hatred that had kept him company all his life, and Ben had come home to claim the Hawksmoor barony in a scandalous court case. He had won, and gained the title and with it a tumbledown house in Yorkshire that he never visited but milked for every penny it could yield. He had restored his mother’s good name, proved his legitimacy, but in the end she had still died.

  He knew he would never really be accepted by the Ton because of the scandal of his childhood, but for the moment the Prince Regent held him in favor and the mob loved him, so he would take that and use it and earn enough money to guard against the future.

  So he shook hands with the gathering crowd, fended off the scissors they were waving in an attempt to cut a lock of his hair as a souvenir, and signed the scraps of paper that they brought for his autograph even though he knew they could not read his name and would probably sell the memento for a few pennies. It did not bother him. He would have done the same thing himself.

  All the same, he was not sorry to see the back of Angel Alley and wished that his impulse had not taken him back there. He did not belong there. He belonged nowhere. And he had a living to earn since his father had run through the family fortune and left him penniless. It was time to hit the gaming tables.

  THE HOUSE IN GUILFORD STREET was quiet that evening with the uncomfortable peace that Catherine had come to expect in recent days. Her father was from home and Maggie, who had become distressed once again at dinner, had been dosed up with laudanum to a point where she did not know whether it was day or night and cared even less. There were few invitations on the drawing-room mantelpiece, for town was quiet in the winter months before the Season began. Nevertheless, Catherine would have appreciated the distraction of a trip to the theater or a small evening party with friends. With her chaperone insensible in a drug-induced sleep, she could go nowhere and had already run through all the books she had taken from the circulating library the previous day.

  It was as she was somewhat listlessly preparing for bed that night that there was a knock at the door and she turned to find Alice, Maggie’s personal maid. Alice had a face like a rusting hatchet and a manner to match. Sir Alfred had appointed her when he and Maggie were first married and Catherine wondered now if her father had always known of his wife’s wayward tendencies and had set this watchdog to guard her. Yet somehow, Maggie’s insouciant kindness had charmed Alice, too, so that within six months she was eating out of her new mistress’s hand. Now she was fiercely loyal and Catherine could tell from the wasp-chewing expression on her face that she was also fiercely concerned.

  “Madam’s in trouble,” she said bluntly. She came into the room and closed the door behind her. “She went out over an hour ago, as soon as your father had left the house, Miss Catherine.”

  Catherine stared. “But that’s impossible! She was sick—I thought she had taken laudanum?”

  Alice shook her head. Her hands were working in the folds of her gown, creasing the material.

  “Sometimes she does not drink it. She pretends….” The maid looked away. “I was sitting with her but she sent me down to the kitchens for a cup of chocolate. I was only gone a moment!” Her voice wobbled, perilously close to losing control and she gulped a breath. “She told Jeremy footman that she was going to Crockford’s!”

  Catherine shook her head slightly. “Crockford’s?”

  The maid looked at her, her eyes widening. “God bless you, miss, I wouldn’t expect you to know of it. It’s not the sort of place for a young lady of quality to go. They call it the Pandemonium—”

  “The gaming hell in Piccadilly,” Catherine said, remembering. “I have heard of it.”

  Alice nodded. “Madam goes there to gamble. The deepest play in town. She has no money but she will bet the very clothes she stands up in when she is in a mood like this.”

  Catherine pressed her fingers to her temples. “My father—”

  “Gone to his fancy woman in Chelsea, begging your pardon, miss.” The maid looked suddenly shifty. “He mustn’t know about this. He would banish her!”

  “Yes,” Catherine said slowly. “I think he probably would.” She let her hands fall to her sides. Her father was with a mistress in Chelsea and her stepmother was playing deep in the most notorious hell in London. For a moment she was swamped with despair. But she could not shrug the matter away as being of no concern to her. She had a loyalty to poor, frail Maggie and a desperate need to keep the shreds of her family together.

  “Well,” she said, “we will just have to get Lady Fenton out of there then. I will go now. You had best come with me, Alice. Bring my cloak.”

  The maid stared at her for a long moment but she did not demur.

  “You cannot go into the Pandemonium dressed like that,” she said at last. “You need a mask and a domino.” And it was then that Catherine realized the extent to which Maggie’s duplicity had trained her servants in the art of deception, and her stomach lurched again with misery.

  Alice was striving to be practical. “No one must see your face, Miss Catherine, or you’ll be ruined. Madam has several outfits you could borrow. I will fetch them.” Her expression crumpled suddenly with fear. “Oh, miss, you can’t go there, not you, a young lady—”

  “Yes, I can,” Catherine said. “Someone must. Fetch the domino.” She was shivering with nerves. Any hesitation on the part of the servants and she knew she would be lost. “Have Jeremy footman call a hackney. He must come with us, too, for protection.”

  While Alice scurried off to fetch one of Maggie’s dominoes, Catherine stood before the mirror and stared at her reflection with a kind of horrified despair. She knew that there was no one else to go after Maggie. If she did not act, then her stepmother would very likely gamble away an enormous fortune, or cause some scandal so terrible that Sir Alfred would be obliged to divorce her and mire the family in so much misery that they would never recover. She thought of John and of baby Mirabelle in the nursery. The way that matters were tending, Mirabelle was set fair never to know the warmth of her mother’s love. Catherine remembered the way that her own mother had held her and comforted her and protected her against the world, and
a very hard lump formed in her throat.

  “Here—” Alice was thrusting a midnight-blue domino into her hands. Catherine slipped it over her head and the material slithered down over her gown, transforming her at once from a young woman in a demurely-cut dress to a siren in shifting silk. She stared at her image in perplexity. Alice was tying the mask now and Catherine could see a stranger gazing back at her, a stranger swathed in secrecy, whose expression was enigmatic behind the mask’s disguise. She pulled on her gloves and drew the hood of the domino close about her face. She knew she had to go before she lost her nerve.

  The night was dark and foggy. The weather had turned icy that afternoon, with a freezing mist that wrapped the whole of London in its white shroud. It was not possible to travel far. The fog shifted and ran in pale strands as the hackney carriage picked its slow way along the London streets. It was no night to be out. From time to time, Catherine caught sight of a glimmer of light from behind shuttered windows. She ached to give the order to turn the carriage around and return home but she kept her lips firmly closed. She felt cold and shaky and alone. Alice’s face was in shadow. Jeremy footman shifted nervously and cleared his throat so many times that Catherine wanted to snap at him to be quiet. But she needed them both. They were the only people who could help her.

  The hack lurched to a halt and the servants scrambled down. Jeremy put out a hand to help Catherine alight.

  “Wait here,” Catherine said, resisting the urge to cling to Jeremy’s hand like a lifeline in a stormy sea. Her teeth were chattering from cold and nervousness. Ahead of her the lights of the gaming hell blazed through the mist. She could see a huge chandelier in the entrance hall throwing out light to draw her in. She gathered the folds of the domino in one hand and hurried up the steps to the door. The bag of gold she had taken from the drawer in her father’s desk weighed down her pocket and bumped against her knee. Catherine had no idea how the rules of the gaming hells worked but if Maggie was in deep debt, Catherine might need to buy her out of there immediately.

  A liveried servant bowed her within and Catherine passed through the doorway and into the hall. She was not sure what she had been expecting but it was not this opulent splendor. It was like walking into the most richly furnished aristocratic house in London. Another liveried footman threw open the doorway at the end of the hall for her and she stood still in the opening for a moment, and viewed the room before her. It was thickly carpeted in plush-red that was so soft it sank beneath her slippers as she moved forward. In the center of the room stood a big hazard table of mahogany, covered in green baize, a box and dice standing temptingly in the center. A croupier, as elegantly attired as any footman to a great family, was leaning forward and raking the counters toward a woman sitting directly opposite Catherine. It was Maggie Fenton.

  No one looked up as Catherine came in. No one glanced in her direction at all. The room was very quiet with a strangely intense silence that Catherine understood at once. Gambling was so important here that it brooked no interruption. She imagined that the house could catch fire and they would still insist on staying to finish the game.

  Maggie did not see her until she stepped up and touched her on the arm, and then she jumped like a startled cat. There was a feverish glitter in her eyes and her fingers were trembling.

  “Catherine!”

  “Good evening, Maggie,” Catherine said. Suddenly she felt completely out of her depth. How was she to persuade her stepmother to leave voluntarily when on her face was an expression as fervent as that of the most hardened gamester?

  “You have come to take me home,” Maggie said. Her lower lip quivered just like John’s when he was thwarted. “You can’t. Look!” She gestured to the pile of rouleaux. “I am winning!”

  “Maggie—” Catherine said hopelessly.

  Maggie hunched a shoulder against her.

  There was only one other player at the table, a blond woman who was dressed in white satin and diamonds. Catherine recognized her from the penny prints as Lady Paris de Moine and her heart plummeted into her slippers, for where Paris was there, surely, would Ben Hawksmoor be also. She wondered why it had never occurred to her that she might meet Ben at the most exclusive gaming hell in town. Where else would he be, unless it was in Paris’s bed? But then her concern for Maggie had made her blind to all else.

  The pencil sketches had not been able to do anything near justice to Paris’s shallow and glittering beauty. It was difficult not to stare, for there were jewels cascading down from Paris’s hair to adorn a truly staggering bosom that looked cantilevered to within an inch of its life. Catherine marveled at the engineering involved and found herself hoping that Paris’s stays were horribly uncomfortable.

  Paris had been watching her and now she laughed and took up the dice box. She kept her hard blue gaze fixed disdainfully on Catherine and Catherine could feel her face heating beneath that contemptuous regard.

  “Your little friend doesn’t approve of us, Maggie,” Paris said. Her voice was husky. “What is she—a Methodist? You shouldn’t invite children to join you at play.”

  “She’s not my friend, Paris,” Maggie said petulantly. She turned sharply on Catherine. “Go home, Catherine. This is no place for you.”

  Catherine tilted her chin up. “You are coming back with me.”

  “I am not!”

  Paris threw two fours and looked suitably disgusted. Maggie snatched the dice box. Her hands shook and the dice shot away, spinning across the table, settling with two ones. Maggie groaned.

  “Ames-ace,” Paris said, smiling. “The girl brings you bad luck, Maggie. Send her away.”

  She nodded and the croupier raked Maggie’s pile of counters toward her. Maggie gave a wail and scrabbled after them.

  “How much?” Catherine said. “How much does she owe you?”

  Paris looked down her nose. “Only a thousand guineas. It’s a trifle.” She looked at Maggie. “Pay or play, Maggie.” She yawned, shrugged one voluptuously rounded shoulder. “It makes no odds to me.”

  “Maggie—” Catherine said, pulling her stepmother’s arm with increasing desperation. A thousand guineas was already lost and she did not know how to begin to stop Maggie from wasting even more.

  Maggie grabbed a fold of Catherine’s domino and pulled her close. “Listen, you little fool,” she hissed into her face. “I have no money. I have to play. I have to win it back!”

  Paris yawned again and started to stack the counters in an idle pile. “Make your mind up, ladies.” Her bright blue gaze fixed on Catherine again and she smiled.

  “What about you, little Miss Mystery? Do you have any money?”

  Catherine took the red velvet bag of guineas from her pocket and plonked it down on the table. It made a satisfyingly expensive thud. Paris’s blue eyes opened wider.

  “I see,” she said. “Then you are welcome to play.”

  “I want to pay Maggie’s debt,” Catherine said stolidly, but Paris shook her head. Her eyes were bright with amusement.

  “No,” she said. “Play me and win. Then I’ll cancel it. Those are my terms.”

  The croupier stood silent, waiting, his face as impassive as a well-trained servant’s should be. Maggie had laid her head on her folded arms now and was humming softly to herself as though she were almost asleep. Paris cast her a single contemptuous look.

  “She never could hold her wine and now she is half-mad with laudanum, too.”

  Catherine felt her fury rise in a scalding tide. This woman’s disdain was so insulting she wanted to slap the scorn from her painted face.

  “I’ll play,” she said recklessly. “If it is the only way to get Maggie out of here, then I will play.”

  She heard the croupier catch his breath in surprise. Paris smiled.

  “Will you indeed? Then call a main.”

  “A moment,” Catherine said. She beckoned to one of the club servants. “Pray help Lady Fenton out to the carriage,” she said. “It is waiting at the front door.
And tell my servants I shall join them shortly.”

  The man bowed. He helped Maggie to her feet. She was laughing and trying to flirt with him as he and a colleague steered her toward the door. Catherine turned aside from the pitiful sight to where Paris was waiting with barely disguised impatience.

  “Nine,” Catherine said. “I call a nine.”

  Paris’s eyes opened wide. “You are ambitious, my little miss. Either that, or you know how to cheat.”

  Catherine laughed. She took the dice box. It felt smooth beneath her fingers. The dazzling lights swung overhead. She took her time, took a deep breath. She had played dice with her grandfather many times, the old man taking great pleasure in teaching his granddaughter the sorts of skills that had made her mother blanch with disapproval.

  “Show no fear,” Jack McNaish had always told her. “If you have confidence in your throw, then the dice will fall as you wish them to.”

  Catherine straightened her shoulders and threw. The dice spun and settled. A five and a four.

  Suddenly Paris was not smiling.

  “Devil take it!” she snapped.

  “Fortune favors the bold.”

  Catherine looked up sharply. Ben Hawksmoor was leaning on the back of Paris de Moine’s chair, his hands resting on her bare shoulders in a gesture of casual possession that made Catherine feel hot and naive and envious all in one uncomfortable moment. He was dressed with magnificent understatement in black, with a snowy-white neck cloth in which glittered a diamond pin. Together, he and Paris looked so striking it was difficult to tear one’s gaze away. Catherine felt a furious rush of jealousy that almost choked her.

  She looked down, trying to get a grip on her feelings. This was foolish, like a silly schoolgirl having a crush on her dancing master. Ben Hawksmoor had shown her some kindness a few days before, had kissed her on a whim, and she was about to fall for all that studied, superficial charm. Lily had been right; she was in as much danger from her own foolish fantasies as she was from Ben Hawksmoor’s legendary lack of scruple.