by Louise Allen
Of course, heterosexual couples are the swans facing in opposite directions, same-sex couples are all swimming in the same direction.
‘Madam?’ May I assist you?’
That jerked me back to the urgency of the situation. I was faced by a neat lady dressed in black set off with some fabulous lace and huge pearl earrings. She looked like someone’s rich spinster aunt, not the keeper of a house of assignation, but then, I had never met one before.
I almost blurted out that they were about to be raided, but realised that would set off a panic and I needed to find James first. Then I saw him, right at the back, his blond head bent over a chess board, his opponent, a thin, grey-haired man waiting, it seemed, for James to make his move.
‘I have a message for Mr – ’ Oops, no names… ‘That gentleman over there.’ I walked across and tapped James’s shoulder.
He looked up, blinked. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Cassie?’
‘Reece has set a trap. This place is being watched, he intends to raid it – the Count warned us. Garrick is outside.’ I spoke low and fast, leaving it to him to handle.
He shot to his feet. ‘Mrs Godwin – we are about to be raided!’
So much for keeping the panic under control, I thought, then realised that this had been planned for. The players at the tables sat tight but Mrs Godwin tugged on a bell-pull and I heard a faint clanging overhead. Within minutes men started to run down the stairs, tying neck cloths, raking their hair into order, even, in one case, carrying his shoes in his hand. They fanned out through the room, sitting down at tables, opening backgammon sets, shifting chess pieces.
Soon the tables were full and they began to go through the doors at the back. Now the air of calm purpose was beginning to break down. If they were hoping to escape by the back door I feared they were going straight into the hands of the waiting constables and I suspected they knew it.
‘You must go.’ James began to urge me towards the door when two stragglers ran down, one frantically tucking his shirt into his waistband, the other holding two coats.
The man with the shirt problem snatched his coat from his friend, struggled into it and straightened up, face to face with James. They both took a step back.
‘Miles?’ James seemed transfixed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
The other, younger man, blushed scarlet. ‘I… er… Oh my God.’
There was shouting in the street now, the sound of heavy, running, boots. James grabbed the man’s arm, pushed him into his seat at the table. ‘This is Mr Andrews, a silk merchant from the City. You’ve been playing for an hour.’
The other man had fled leaving James and me standing there. He pushed me towards the front door. ‘They have no cause to stop you.’
‘No. This way.’ I pulled on his arm, dragged him towards the other staircase, the one with the swans facing. He came unresisting, almost as though he had taken a blow to the head. ‘James.’
A fist thudded on the outer door. ‘Open in the name of the Law!’
It seemed to rouse him and we stumbled up the stairs until we reached the half-landing. ‘Kiss me.’
‘What?’
‘James, pull yourself together. Pretend we’re going upstairs.’ I pulled off my bonnet, opened the buttons on my pelisse, took his right hand and clamped it over my breast, dragged up the front of my gown as far as my knees and trapped it between our bodies then leaned back against the wall. ‘I know it isn’t your thing, but try and look as though you can’t wait to get me into bed.’
That penetrated enough to provoke a twisted smile. ‘Luc is going to kill me.’
‘That’s the least of your problems,’ I snapped. ‘Close your eyes, think of the gallows and kiss me.’
By the time the booted feet had thundered into the lower room amidst shouts of outrage, Mrs Godwin’s shrill protests that she ran a respectable house and the sound of overturning tables, we had achieved what I hoped was a convincing state of thoroughly heterosexual disarray. I had James’s coat half off, he had one hand on my exposed thigh and was kissing me as though his life depended on it. Which it does, I reflected grimly as someone wrenched him away from me. His hand was still on my bodice and it ripped, leaving most of my left breast, pressed up by the corset, on display.
James struggled in the grip of two burly constables and I ignored my neckline, gave a shriek of outrage and kicked the nearest one on the shin.
‘Let him go! We haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘Leave them, you dolts.’ The voice of authority belonged to a magistrate, I assumed. ‘That’s not the game we’re after, search upstairs for the mollies.’ He took off his hat and gave me a sort of half-bow, trying not to stare too blatantly at my bosom. ‘My apologies, ma’am.’
‘So I should hope.’ I swiped at my skirts, tugged my bodice into place to cover most of the bare flesh and jammed my bonnet on my head, ribbons trailing. At least the veil was still attached. Through a haze of gauze net I saw Elliott Reece shouldering his way into the house.
He stared round the room, then saw us as James shook off the constables and marched down to put an arm around my shoulders. ‘That’s the man.’ Reece pointed. ‘Arrest him for unnatural acts!’
There was a guffaw from the constables and the magistrate stared at him. ‘Unnatural acts? If what he was up to was an unnatural act then I’d best arrest all my men, myself and you too.’ He lowered his voice, but I still overheard, ‘…bodice undone, tits half out, skirts up to her…’
‘Nothing amiss upstairs on this side, Sir Geoffrey.’ A pair of constables came down the other stairs. ‘Half a dozen very upset gentlemen with their ladies, if you know what I mean,’ the older one said. Three officers went up the stairs behind me to be greeted by some very feminine screams and shouts.
‘What’s through there?’ the magistrate demanded, pointing to the double doors.
‘The refreshment room,’ Mrs Godwin threw the doors open to reveal a buffet table and a crowd of men tucking into the food and drink on display. Some were somewhat dishevelled, but nothing that could not be explained by the fact they were clutching wine bottles and slumped on chairs, or, in one case, on the floor. A number of very pretty girls, sketchily attired, were draped around several of them enthusiastically adding to the disarray of their clothing.
‘Mr Reece, I can see no evidence of illegal or unnatural activities in this place.’
The magistrate turned from the fuming Home Office man to the imposing figure of a gentleman who was looming beside him, threatening law suits and personal ruin. ‘What is it coming to that an Englishman cannot take his pleasures in decent privacy? Eh? What? Damn near did myself an injury when those louts burst in on me. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers, Sir Geoffrey. The Lord Chancellor will hear of this…’
I looked across the room and saw James’s friend calmly setting up the chess board again. The young man, Miles, was helping, his back squarely turned away. ‘Your friends are all right,’ I whispered and realised that he was sheet white, his hand shaking as he held my arm. Something was very wrong – James was no coward, and his nerves were tough. I looked again at the slender back of the young man across the room. Seeing him had rattled James badly.
But there was nothing to be done. ‘Can we go?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He turned to the magistrate, his voice steady now. ‘I assume we may leave without further risk of unprovoked assault?’
‘Yes, yes of course, sir. My apologies, but we were acting on information received…’
James did not wait for him to finish. I found myself outside in the cool night air, our shadows flickering wildly as the breeze stirred the flames of the torches all around. A very interested crowd had gathered, I realised as it parted to let us out.
Then Luc stalked into the middle of the space, and hit James solidly in the jaw. He went down like a felled tree and lay there, eyes closed, sprawled on the filthy cobbles.
‘James!’
‘That w
ill teach him to try and poach my mistress,’ Luc said, his voice echoing round the suddenly quietened street. He took my arm and pulled me, kicking and struggling, away from his brother. ‘Come, madam.’
Chapter Twenty
There was a carriage with a driver on the box waiting just around the corner. I hardly spared it a glance as a footman opened the door and Luc bundled me into it.
‘You hit him,’ I raged as he slammed the door. ‘You left him there with Reece and a mob.’
The door opened again before he could reply. James was heaved into the carriage by Garrick who followed him in and laid him flat on the seat opposite us.
‘Bloody hell, Luc,’ James mumbled. ‘Did you have to hit me quite so hard?’
‘Yes.’ Luc went down on his knees between the seats as the coach lurched into motion. He took out a handkerchief and began to dab gently at the blood on James’s face. ‘Did I break anything, Jas?’
‘No.’ James sat up, took the handkerchief and held it to the corner of his mouth as Garrick turned up the wick on the little carriage lamp and pulled down the blinds. ‘Damn, that hurts.’
‘What did you hit him for?’ I prodded Luc hard in the shoulder. ‘You can’t think – ’
‘Of course not.’ He touched his brother’s hand then got off his knees and sat down. ‘But a large number of people saw me punch my brother for taking my mistress to an accommodation house.’
‘And a magistrate and a number of constables saw him making love to me on the stairs,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I’m being very slow. I should have realised what you were doing.’ A snort of slightly hysterical amusement escaped me. ‘Elliott Reece has gone to a great deal of trouble to establish James’s reputation as a lover of women.’
‘Thank you, Cassie,’ James said. ‘And you Luc, Garrick. I might have been playing chess, or in the refreshment room, but Reece was going to compromise me somehow. This was about the only thing that could have saved me.’ He smiled, after a fashion. It was lopsided because of his brother’s punch but that was not what was putting the darkness in his gaze. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To Albany to get you cleaned up before Mama sets eyes on you. I didn’t tell her why I had to leave in such a hurry, so she won’t be worrying.’
‘Stop fussing round him, I’ll do this,’ I said. Garrick had taken James’s filthy coat and stripped off his shirt. Now he was sitting in Luc’s bedchamber wearing one of his shirts and looking as though someone had hit him over the head as well as punched him in the face.
‘Garrick’s heating water, you leave him to me.’ I pushed Luc out of the door, closed it and turned back to James. ‘What’s wrong? Oher than the fact that your face hurts and Reece is trying to get you hanged?’
His gaze shifted away from mine. ‘Nothing.’
Then I realised. ‘It is that young man, isn’t it? Miles, the one you gave your place at the chess board to. He’s the one you are in love with.’
Garrick, with less than his usual impeccable timing, came in with a bowl and a jug of steaming water. I pushed him out too, poured water into the bowl, dipped in a clean cloth and began to clean blood from James’s face.
‘Yes,’ he said abruptly. ‘The one I was in love with.’ There was no mistaking the bitterness. ‘The one who told me that loving a man was going to send him straight to hellfire so he married the girl his father wanted him to wed and turned his back on what we had.’
‘That was understandable,’ I said slowly, frowning at a nasty split at the corner of his mouth. ‘He decided to obey the law and his conscience, live a conventional life. But…’
‘But this isn’t. I’ve had an hour to think it through.’ James’s eyes were clear now, I was glad to see. The misery had gone, replaced with anger. ‘Doing what his father wanted kept him safely in the old man’s good books and made sure his very nice allowance continued. And he hasn’t given up loving men either – casually. But I wanted more than hole and corner meetings. I wanted fidelity and companionship and commitment. I should have seen through all those agonised speeches about doing the right thing and renunciation.’
‘You loved him, so you believed him.’ I leaned in and hugged him hard. ‘There’s someone else out there for you. Someone you can trust.’
He hugged back, then nodded as we sat back. ‘Luc and I seem to like our relationships complicated, don’t we?’
I admired his guts. In his position I’d be face down on the bed sobbing into the pillow with a mixture of hurt and fury. ‘Your face doesn’t look too bad now,’ I said briskly, gathering up the soiled linen and resisting the urge to hug him some more. ‘You can go to St James’s Square tonight and Lady Radcliffe will know you are quite all right before she has to see you black and blue in the morning when the bruises start to come out.’
The bruises weren’t too bad as it turned out and, by some miracle, the gossip columns did not appear to have caught up with the Earl of Radcliffe brawling with his brother outside an accommodation house over an unnamed mistress.
James and Luc spent the day at St James’s Square and Garrick and I scoured the papers for any mention of The Swan and Chequers and the raid and found nothing.
‘Someone with influence keeping it quiet,’ Garrick suggested.
I could guess who – Sir Thomas shutting down all mention of his nephew’s stupid attack on James, and through him, Luc.
The brothers came to Albany in the middle of the afternoon, I rather suspect because they’d been fussed over and scolded for quite long enough. My sympathy was with their mother who was having to cope with one son at constant risk of arrest or exile and the other involved with a thoroughly unsuitable woman – and both embroiled in a murder investigation.
‘I need some frivolity,’ James said, stretching out his long legs. ‘Let’s go to the theatre this evening.’
‘Opera,’ Luc said. ‘I fancy a complete absence of reality – we have too much of that just at the moment. We’ll go to the King’s Theatre. No need to book – I’ve a box, not that I’ve used it this Season so far. Garrick, do you think Mr Smith would like to join us?’
‘I’m sure he would,’ Garrick said with a grin.
Who the devil was Mr Smith? It was obviously an old joke, so I said nothing and waited to be enlightened. I had more important things to worry about – what was I going to wear to the opera?
What I would wear to the opera was, I discovered, a great deal of bling and feathers. Ostrich feathers.
Garrick told me which gown, then produced a box with a bunch of curling plumes and showed me how they fitted into the back of a diamond bandeau I would wear on my head. There were also boxes with more diamonds and even a fan with diamonds and tiny mirrors.
He brought me hot water and I took my bath and tried not to think about the sound of gunfire or anything connected with the mystery. Looking at the jewellery boxes and trying to imagine my sister Sophie’s face if she saw me decked out in that lot helped. Her eyeballs would turn green.
I fought my way into corset, stockings, garters, petticoats and gown. The gown needed some help with hooks so I looked around the edge of the door. ‘Lucian!’
‘In the bath.’ Garrick emerged from the kitchen area in his shirt sleeves.
‘Oh. Only my gown – ’
‘I’ll see to that, Miss Lawrence.’
I came out and he proceeded to deal with the hooks so efficiently that I began to wonder all over again about his past. This question of modesty was interesting, I thought as I thanked him and closed the bedchamber door again. I had any number of male friends – straight or gay – who I’d have asked to do up a few hooks without batting an eyelash. I must have been exposing about two square inches of bare back and a few more of petticoat and yet it had felt positively daring to have Garrick help me.
Garrick had given me a pot of rice powder and some rouge – goodness knows where he did his shopping – and I eyed them cautiously when I had brushed my hair. With this much jewellery I suspected that make up could b
e more obvious than I had observed as being suitable for respectable young ladies.
I used a miniscule amount of rouge, which was assertively red, on my cheeks and mixed some with the lip gloss from my bag to make lipstick. The rice powder worked fairly well for taking the shine off my nose and dusting over the little nicks from the flying glass. I used my mascara with a lavish hand and decided that I would probably do.
It took a while to get the bandeau and feathers looking right and secure enough so they wouldn’t come off if I moved my head. It felt decidedly strange, and seeing myself it the mirror with the feathers bobbing at the back was a decidedly Downton Abbey moment. Yes, I know, wrong period, but those feathers…
The earrings were gorgeous and I pulled on the long white gloves and clasped the matching bracelets – more like cuffs – on top. The necklace I left for Luc. There is something exceedingly sexy about a gorgeous man taking his time fastening a diamond necklace around your neck I had discovered, and I was going to make the most of it. In my experience life in the twenty-first century is surprisingly short of men with diamond necklaces.
I sashayed out humming Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, channelling my inner Marilyn and firmly suppressing the little voice inside that was lecturing me on the importance of being an independent woman. Wrong century, I told it.
‘What on earth is that you’re singing?’ Luc, looking entirely edible in black and white with a silver waistcoat, was standing in the drawing room.
I gave him a rendition of the song, complete with the hip-wriggle, and his eyes glazed slightly. Very gratifying.
‘Strange music,’ he said, taking the necklace from me.
‘Nineteen forties, I think.’ I stood still and enjoyed his warm breath on my nape and the way his fingers lingered on my shoulders when the clasp was fastened.
