by Maia Chance
11
The ogre had carried Prue from the kitchen, up the steps, clear across the nighttime, earthworm-smelling garden, through the wide-open carriageway gate, and out to the street. Prue heard clopping hooves, the creaks of harness and wheels. He pitched her like dirty laundry onto a carriage seat and slammed her inside.
The carriage rolled away with her shut up inside it. Prue fumbled in the blackness for the door handle. One of her fingernails ripped.
“Do not be afraid, little one,” someone said just by her ear. “We will not harm you. Not you, of all people, darling girl, no, no, no.”
Stale breath, that of an ancient person rotting on the inside first. Prue wedged herself in the seat corner.
“We turned down the lamps because we did not wish to attract any attention from the house. We only wished for you, you see.”
“It ain’t me you want,” Prue said. “I told that to your—your footman feller. The cheek of him, too, hauling me like so!”
“We instructed Hume to convey you to us using whatever means necessary. You mustn’t be angry with him. He is a most faithful servant. Hume, the lamp.”
He was in here? Sweet sister Sally.
A lamp sizzled up and Prue blinked. When she could see right, she took in silken black on the ceiling, black velvet curtains, black leather seats.
Across from Prue sat an old fogey. He must’ve been skinny as a rake, because for all the world it looked like he was an empty frock coat draped across the seat with a shriveled monkey face under a top hat.
The ogre—Hume—sat beside the fogey. His huge knees in the scarlet britches were close to his chin.
Prue slid her eyes sideways. Next to her sat a lady as shrunken as the gent, but with a bit more life in her face. She wore a glossy black fur and an old-time black bonnet. Her dark eyes shone. “I am Lady Cruthlach,” she said, “and this is Lord Cruthlach.”
“Pleased ever so.” Prue licked her lips. “Where’re you taking me?”
“Oh, we are only going for a little journey about the block, my lovely. No need to fuss. We merely wished to see you. You are indeed quite as lovely as Hume reported.” Lady Cruthlach took a lock of Prue’s loose hair between a gloved thumb and forefinger and held it up to the light. Greasy and tangled though Prue’s hair was, Lady Cruthlach cooed. “Like ripe flax! Such a folkloric color, I have always thought. One rarely sees flaxen hair anymore. Girls these days seem faded, somehow. Is it all the photography, do you think, drawing the life out of them? Because girls will endlessly sit for their photographic portraits, will they not, despite what everyone knows about energy fields and camera lenses.”
Prue had never heard of that one. Not that she was up to snuff on scientific notions.
“Just look at her gown,” Lady Cruthlach said to the fogey. “Practically in tatters.”
The fogey made a rustling-tissue sound with his throat.
Lady Cruthlach fingered Prue’s sleeve. “Oh my, is this”—she drew a shuddery breath—“are these cinders, girl?”
“Could be,” Prue said, tugging her arm away. She folded her arms.
“The music box,” the fogey wheezed. Then he coughed into a hankie held by Hume.
Lady Cruthlach clapped her hands. “Yes! The music box! You are correct, dear Athdar. Oh, I had so hoped you might be able to see her. Shall we bring the music box to the sitting room when we return home? We have not enjoyed it for many months.”
“Listen here,” Prue said. “It’s come pretty clear that there’s a mix-up happening. I reckon, see, you got me mixed up with my sister.”
Silent staring. The carriage bumped along.
“My dead sister,” Prue said. “I suppose you saw it in the newspapers? She was near a mirror image of me—as far as I could tell. But she’s dead, see, and I’m—well, like I said, I’m just nobody.”
“Nobody!” Lady Cruthlach tittered. “How delightful!”
Prue eyed the door handle. Looked like it would lever open nice and easy. Only problem was, Hume was eyeing her. He would grab her before she could say, “Bob’s your uncle.”
“I suppose you haven’t received an invitation to the prince’s ball, have you?”
“Me? A prince? No prince ever heard of me, I’m sure.”
“Tell me,” Lady Cruthlach said, “does your mother look just like—like this, too?” Her eyes took to ant-crawling all over Prue again.
“Ma? Naw, Ma don’t look like me and—and my sister at all. Ma’s got chestnut hair, and—”
All the interest drained from Lady Cruthlach’s eyes.
But Prue was interested in Ma, so she went on yapping anyway, because it had been a while since she’d been able to talk of Ma’s disappearance, what with Ophelia off on her sleuthings all day. “I’m practically an orphan, now.”
“There, there.” Lady Cruthlach stroked Prue’s arm. This time, Prue let her. The gesture held a tiny germ of comfort. “An orphan, you say? Lord Cruthlach and I know about orphans, all about indeed. Our own young ward, Dalziel, was an orphan, too, until we took him into our household and raised him as our own. But poor, poor Dalziel will once more become an orphan. We are dying, you see. Lord Cruthlach has slipped farther beneath the waves than I, but I shall follow him shortly to the grave.”
“Are you ill, ma’am?”
“These modern doctors tell us that so many generations of cousins marrying cousins has weakened the Cruthlach blood. Weakened! There is no value, anymore, placed upon purity, is there? Our blood, girl, is as pure as the driven snow. Its very purity leaves us vulnerable to the assails of this rude, modern world.”
“Awful sorry you’re ill, ma’am. Might I get out of the carriage, now?”
“No!” Lady Cruthlach twisted Prue’s sleeve so tightly it pinched. Prue cried out. “Not until I make you understand that Dalziel will become an orphan if you do not help us.”
“Help you with what?”
Lady Cruthlach let go of Prue’s sleeve.
Prue rubbed her pinched arm.
Lady Cruthlach rummaged for something in her bodice, under heavy furs. She drew out a locket, chained about her neck with fine-wrought gold. She snapped the locket open and pressed it towards Prue.
The locket held a miniature painting of a beautiful young man. Dark hair, dark eyes, grave expression, a dusky tint to his complexion.
“That is Dalziel.” Lady Cruthlach snapped the locket shut. “The young gentleman who will become, like you, an orphan, cast out into the nightmare dark of the world, shivering, alone. Unless you help us.”
“Dalziel looks nice,” Prue said. “Sure wouldn’t want him to be cast out into the nightmare dark of the world and what you say. But it ain’t clear to me how I can help, ma’am.”
Lady Cruthlach signaled to Hume. Hume thumped the ceiling. The carriage stopped. Hume reached over the fogey, jerked open the carriage door, and gave Prue a shove.
Prue screamed. She tumbled out and splashed on all fours into a cold puddle. She looked up. The carriage was rolling away into the night and—she looked around—she was in front of Hôtel Malbert.
* * *
Only when Prue was drifting to sleep in her bedchamber, arms around the fat ginger cat, did it hit her: those old folks, and Hume, too, had never asked what her name was.
For some reason, her name was of no consequence.
* * *
Ophelia crawled back into Hôtel Malbert through the cellar window, which she’d left ajar. She groped through the darkness to the door between the cellar rooms and the kitchen. She peeked through. Empty. She tiptoed in. A fading fire glowed and mice swarmed on top of the table, nibbling the remains of a tart. Dirty china filled the sink. A stone pestle lay on the floor. Ophelia picked it up and set it on the table. A mouse with quivering whiskers looked at her.
Ugh.
Well, she wasn’t hungry, anyway. For some reason,
her belly had been in knots ever since the professor had told her about Miss Ivy Banks, of the ladylike, retiring nature and impeccable penmanship. Well. Ophelia refused to be envious of any lady, and indeed, perhaps the existence of Miss Banks could be considered a relief.
Yes, that’s what it was.
Ophelia lit a taper and stealthily searched the pantry until she found a tin of bicarbonate of soda. She mixed a spoonful into a glass of water, drank it down, washed the glass in the sink, and crept upstairs the back way.
But the soda and water did nothing. It seemed the pain wasn’t in her stomach, after all. It clung higher up, around her heart.
She looked into Prue’s chamber and saw her asleep with the ginger cat.
In her own chamber, Ophelia shucked off Henrietta’s clothing and wrested her crushed toes from the slippers. She washed at the basin and then pulled her theatrical case from its place in the bottom of the wardrobe. Her skin was still chapped from the Mrs. Brand cosmetics. She needed her calendula flower salve.
She opened the case. Something was different. The light wasn’t good—she had only the one taper—but . . . the crumbly sticks of greasepaint, in their paper wrappers, were not in their customary order. Yes, one stick, a carnation pink for lips and cheeks, was missing.
Someone in the house knew she was an actress.
* * *
Gabriel did not usually take port before bed. More often than not, he fell asleep over his reading or writing. Yet tonight he ordered a bottle of aged Colheita to be brought to his suite.
The combination of a guilty conscience and acute excitement would require at least two full glasses of port to still them.
The guilt was a simple matter. He had lied to Miss Flax. It was for her own good, though, and he’d not seen any pain in her eyes at the news of his understanding—well, his understanding of sorts—with Miss Ivy Banks. He had been foolish to suppose Miss Flax had any interest in his attachments.
The excitement was an altogether separate affair.
Cinderella’s stomacher. Gabriel had never seen it illustrated. Who would bother to illustrate what was believed to be a detail from a wicked stepsister’s gown? Still, he could quite easily envision it. Although delicate, it would possess an unnatural weight, and the glints from those diamonds would pierce the eye. It would be intricate, too, with a pattern that seduced one into deeper and deeper labyrinths of luster.
Gabriel took a deep swallow of port. The stomacher must be the relic Lady Cruthlach had spoken of. It had even been made, perhaps, by the mysterious woman called Fairy Godmother. But the stomacher was not hidden somewhere in the Malbert mansion, as Lady Cruthlach believed. No, it had vanished off Sybille Pinet’s corpse in the foul hands of a murderer. And he, Gabriel, would find it.
12
“Good morning, Professor Penrose,” Miss Flax said, settling into the carriage seat.
“Good morning, Miss Flax. The rain has stopped, for now at least.”
The carriage moved forward. The solicitor’s office would be the first stop.
“Oh, indeed. Nice to have a break in the rain.”
There. Gabriel adjusted his spectacles. This was better. Polite. Formal. None of that bickering and bantering. He’d been right to mention Miss Ivy Banks last night because now, for perhaps the first time since Gabriel had met Miss Flax, he was able to enjoy a placid conscience. No more fretting about their discordant stations in life. He could even observe her, this morning attired in her own plain cloak and bonnet, her cheeks smooth and rosy, without even the faintest stirring of desire. Yes. Miss Ivy Banks was the solution to the problem.
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées was broad, with rows of bare chestnut trees and buildings of pale stone and fanciful wrought iron. In the third-story reception room of Monsieur T. S. Cherrien (Avocat), a toad of a secretary manned a mahogany desk. “Might I be of assistance?” he asked in French.
Gabriel introduced himself as Lord Harrington and said that he wished to speak with Monsieur Cherrien.
The secretary looked at Miss Flax in her simple attire. He twitched a faint, knowing smile. “A settlement, perhaps?” he said in English.
Miss Flax sucked in an affronted gasp.
“No,” Gabriel said coldly. “I—we—wish to speak with Monsieur Cherrien regarding the disappearance of the Marquise de la Roque-Fabliau.”
“We believe she is one of Monsieur Cherrien’s clients,” Miss Flax said.
“We never discuss our clients, monsieur et mademoiselle. And I regret to say that Monsieur Cherrien is at present occupied, and I expect that he will be occupied for many, many, many hours. Please do make an appointment.” The secretary spread open an appointment book and flicked through several pages—mostly empty pages. “Ah. He does have an available time on the fifteenth of January.”
“January,” Gabriel said. “This is November.”
The secretary looked up. “Do you wish for the appointment, or no?”
Miss Flax leaned over the desk and, cheeks flaming, said, “I have a mind to go straight into Monsieur Cherrien’s office this minute.”
“You will be sadly disappointed. He keeps the door locked. Shall I summon the police?”
“Good morning, monsieur.” Gabriel led Miss Flax out of the office.
“Stonewalled,” Miss Flax said, as they went down the stairs.
“We’ll go to see Madame Fayette, the couturière, next, but it occurs to me that you ought to have a cozy chat with Malbert later. Perhaps he’ll divulge something about Henrietta wishing to divorce him.”
“Malbert is about as liable to divulge secrets as a suet pudding. But I reckon it’s worth an attempt.”
* * *
Maison Fayette was a mile or two away, in a fancy shopping street called Rue de la Paix. Marble pillars flanked its carved door, and sparkling windows on either side displayed nothing but mauve velvet draperies.
“A waiter at my hotel told me fantastical tales of Madame Fayette,” Penrose said. He pressed the doorbell. “Evidently she is a sorceress with needle and thread, and he said that ladies swear she works magic on their figures.”
“Magic? No doubt she’s got her hands on some extra strong corset laces, then.”
The door opened and a maid led them inside. Penrose gave the maid his card and she scurried away, leaving them in a waiting room decorated with mirrors and urns of roses.
Ophelia caught sight of herself in one of the mirrors. She’d done her best to sponge her traveling gown and cloak, but she still looked as shabby as a church mouse next to the professor. Oh, well. Nothing to be done about it except stand up tall. No need to ponder how well Miss Ivy Banks probably looked next to him.
“When you speak to Madame Fayette alone,” Penrose said, “ask her if she made the gown and the matching ballet costume. When it comes to the stomacher, be as subtle as you are able.”
“Why am I to speak to her alone?”
Penrose didn’t answer.
“Welcome, Lord Harrington!” A tiny, chubby woman floated towards them, arms outstretched. “I am Madame Fayette.” Her voice was fluting and French-accented. She was between grass and hay—sixty years old, maybe—clothed in an expertly darted black silk gown. Her silver hair was swept up beneath a Spanish lace cap, and a diamond bracelet shimmered at her wrist. “I made your cousin Eliza’s wedding gown last year. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
“My American cousin, Miss Stonewall”—Penrose drew Ophelia forward—“is in need of a few gowns. She lost her trunks somewhere between Cleveland and Paris, I’m afraid, and has been forced to borrow her maidservant’s attire. Do you suppose you might have a visiting gown and—what do you ladies call your coats these days?”
“A paletot?” Madame Fayette said.
“Yes, a paletot, made up for Miss Stonewall by tomorrow, and a ball gown and another gown in the next few days?”<
br />
“Tomorrow? Oh dear. I do have sixteen seamstresses, oui, but we are quite busy, Lord Harrington. Quite. Prince Rupprecht’s ball is in but three days’ time, so—”
“I would compensate you for the rush. Miss Stonewall is rather desperate.”
“Oh, very well. I may have a few half-made gowns that could be altered. Please, do sit, Lord Harrington, and the maid will bring you tea. Come along, Miss Stonewall.”
The walls of Madame Fayette’s inner sanctum were hung with mauve and cream stripes and edged with plasterwork like thick, white cake icing. Three plum-colored velvet dressmaker’s stools stood in front of three huge, gilt-framed mirrors. Flowery chandeliers burned with gas bulbs. The room was unoccupied.
“Please.” Madame Fayette gestured to a folding screen in the corner. “I shall go and fetch Josie. We have just enough time before my first appointment, if we hurry.”
Ophelia stripped down to her unmentionables behind the screen. Her chemise and petticoats were gray-tinted from age and hand-laundering, and her corset had never been quality.
Madame Fayette reappeared with a delicate, blond-haired young lady.
Ophelia recognized her as Josie, the seamstress who had been hemming Eglantine’s ball gown yesterday. The one who had spilled her pins. Ophelia had been disguised as Mrs. Brand then, so Josie wouldn’t recognize her. Knock on wood.
“Josie,” Madame Fayette said. “Your notebook.” Madame Fayette addressed Ophelia. “Mademoiselle Baigneur is my chief assistant and most skilled seamstress. She speaks English, too, which helps—so many of my customers come not only from England, but New York, Boston, and Philadelphia as of late. But you are my first”—her brows lifted—“from Cleveland.”
“Fancy that.”
Madame Fayette took Ophelia’s measurements every which way and murmured numbers in French. She moved quickly, and her bracelet slid up and down her arm. The bracelet was hefty, with a braided design crusted all around with diamonds. And for some reason, it looked awfully familiar to Ophelia.
Josie scribbled away in a notebook.
