The Dark Days Club

by Alison Goodman

“Aye, sir.” Quinn’s deep voice lilted in a way that was unfamiliar to Helen’s ear. He pressed his hat back onto his head, smoothing the curve of the brim between thumb and forefinger before he pulled it low over his brow. It was an oddly elegant action for such a big man.

  “And Lord Carlston?” Mr. Hammond inquired.

  “Near the obelisk, sir.”

  “Why are you not with him?” demanded Lady Margaret.

  “His lordship wishes me to check the perimeters first, my lady.” Helen heard a note of forced patience. “He be waiting for you now, ma’am.”

  Plainly, Mr. Quinn knew how to shift Lady Margaret from her sharp questioning. Helen felt a tug on her elbow, the woman drawing her onward again, renewed urgency in her step. Her brother had paused, giving a low-voiced instruction to Mr. Bales. Helen glanced back at the South Walk. None of the other visitors had followed—it was as if they sensed something was amiss.

  “Why are those men standing guard?” Helen asked.

  “His lordship does not want to be interrupted,” Lady Margaret said. “Nor would it do you any good to be seen alone in his company on the Dark Walk.”

  Alone? The prospect sent cold unease down Helen’s spine. Apart from Andrew, she had never been alone with a young gentleman. She pulled her shawl tighter.

  They paused at the junction, Lady Margaret waiting for her brother to catch up.

  “We go left,” Mr. Hammond said.

  And so they turned into the deeper shadows of the Dark Walk.

  Twelve

  HELEN’S UNEASE MOUNTED as she surveyed the gloomy, deserted avenue that stretched before them. The oil lamps were set further apart than on the other walks, casting small pools of yellow light across the wide graveled path and into the dense woods on either side. The trees had been allowed to grow unhindered, and their canopy blocked almost all of the weak glow from the quarter moon. Although the wind was not as strong as it had been on the South Walk, the darkness seemed to make it feel colder. Beneath the crunch of their feet on the gravel, Helen could still hear the shanty, its carefree tune at odds with the threatening vista.

  Another man stepped out from the undergrowth. This time, Helen recognized the tall lean figure. Lord Carlston. He waited for them to approach, arms folded across the front capes of his greatcoat. He did not wear a hat, and the light from the lamp above him carved the bold planes of his face into hard angles and silvered the scar at his temple. If she had only one word to describe him, Helen decided as she drew closer, it would be commanding. Or enigmatic. Or disturbing. Which, of course, was three words. Lord Carlston was not a man to be contained, even in adjectives. Lady Margaret quickened her pace, pulling Helen with her until they stood before him.

  He bowed to them both, but his attention stayed on Helen. The weight of his gaze searched her face, and she knew he was delving deeper. Well, he would find her wary, which was hardly surprising. But she hoped he would not see her fear.

  She curtsied. “I have come for my answers, Lord Carlston.” She looked pointedly around the gloomy surroundings, gathering her bravado. “Although this meeting place seems unnecessarily dramatic.”

  “I assure you,” he said, “we are here for a very specific purpose.” She opened her mouth to question him further, but he had already turned to address Mr. Hammond and Lady Margaret. “Benchley is on his way. One of my sources has confirmed it.”

  “What?” Lady Margaret looked wildly around the empty pathway, as if the man named were about to jump from the bushes. “No, surely not. He is in Manchester, containing the riots.”

  Mr. Hammond laid a reassuring hand upon his sister’s shoulder, although his own features were marked with trepidation. “What does he want, sir?”

  Carlston scanned the archway of trees thoughtfully. “My support, I would say.”

  “He cannot expect it,” Lady Margaret said sharply. “This time I think there is truth in the rumors.” She licked her lips, glancing again into the undergrowth.

  Helen found herself studying the shadows too; Lady Margaret’s unease was contagious. Whoever this Mr. Benchley was, he prompted a great deal of anxiety.

  Carlston rubbed the nape of his neck. “I have heard nothing that convinces me he is guilty of such acts. Anyway, he gave me his word after—” He stopped. Helen felt his sudden silence gather into a mutual, uneasy meaning between her three companions.

  Lady Margaret pressed a gloved hand to her throat. “Maybe so, but you have not seen him in years. He is much worse.”

  “I know the man,” the Earl said firmly. “Even he would not do such a thing.”

  From the dubious glance between brother and sister, they did not share his lordship’s confidence.

  “Come, or we will miss the opportunity to finish our business,” Carlston said. He motioned to Mr. Hammond. “Please escort your sister farther along the path and wait there until I call you back.”

  With a bow, Mr. Hammond offered his arm to Lady Margaret and led her away. Helen saw her glance back at Lord Carlston, but he was already busy withdrawing a fob watch from the pocket in the waistband of his breeches. Only Helen saw the longing in the woman’s face, and the remnants of her fear.

  “Who is Mr. Benchley?” Helen asked.

  Carlston looked up from detaching the black fob riband from the watch. “He was my mentor. Just as I am yours.” He returned to his task.

  Lord Carlston saw himself as her mentor? Helen turned over the startling idea, finding only more questions and a strange thrill that she quickly quelled.

  “There is much I must explain to you,” he said, “but we will start here at the very foundation of it all.”

  He extended his hand, the timepiece flat on his gloved palm. The round case was slightly larger than a normal fob watch, with an unusual cover of rich blue enamel. In the lamplight, Helen caught the glint of large diamonds set around the edge, a stone at each hour mark. In the center was a diamond-encrusted arrow. A touch watch: she had seen one in the window of Rundell’s. It enabled the time to be reckoned in darkness as easily as during daylight, just by touch. All one had to do was find the position of the arrow—affixed to the inner workings—in relation to the circle of diamonds.

  “It is very beautiful,” Helen offered. In truth, it was magnificent, but surely not what she had been brought here to see.

  “Beautiful, indeed,” Carlston agreed. “But like so much in this world, its true worth is hidden inside.”

  Ah. Helen leaned closer as he pressed a button at the top, and the blue cover flipped open. His fingers found a place at the bottom of the inner face, and a twist of some unseen lever shifted the whole casing. The frame of the watch swung out on its axis. He held it up in invitation, and Helen peered inside. A small metal mechanism nestled in the shallow concave space, each part etched with elaborate scrollwork. Exquisite. He pressed the edge, and three small gold-mounted circles of glass rose up on hinged arms.

  “These are based on Newton’s light prisms.” With a tap of his finger, he fitted them together, the arms lining up and each prism locking into place with a soft click to form a single lens. He pointed to the first. “This one is glass.” His fingertip slid to the next. “This one in the center is Iceland spar. And the third is glass again.”

  “What does it do?” Helen asked.

  “Here.” He passed it across. “Hold it up to your eye and look through it at Lady Margaret and Mr. Hammond.”

  Helen tentatively took the instrument, her kid glove making it difficult to get a firm grasp on its fine edge. The brother and sister stood about fifteen yards away. Helen raised the three-part lens to her eye. Blue light, stark against the inky darkness of the walk, surrounded their bodies. She gasped: it was the same pale blue shimmer that she had seen around Darby. So it had not been fatigue, after all. She looked at Carlston. He shimmered too—a slightly darker blue.

  “You see the glow?” he as
ked.

  “What is it?”

  “The Orientals call it chi. The Hindu, prana. It is the life-force: the energy that exists in every living thing.”

  “It exists in everything?” She swung around, sweeping the lens past the undergrowth. All was dark. “But the trees and bushes do not have it.”

  “The prisms are calibrated to certain energies. What you see is the pale blue life-force of mankind.”

  Good Lord. She lowered the lens, the shimmers dropping away. “I have seen this before. Around my maid.”

  “What?” The word was sharp, but the surprise in his face was gone in a second. “So you discovered the use of the mirror in your mother’s miniature?”

  “No,” Helen said. “I saw the glow without any instrument.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “That’s not possible. A lens must always be used. You must be mistaken.”

  “I think I would remember if I had used an instrument,” she said tartly.

  She held up the touch watch again. The tiny interlocking circles of glass were nothing like the mirror in her mother’s miniature. Yet he had implied that it was a lens too.

  “What were you doing when you saw the life-force?” he asked.

  Helen cast her mind back. If she recalled rightly, she had been standing at her writing desk and had just decided to hide the miniature in her dressing room. “I was holding my mother’s portrait. Could that be it?”

  “I don’t see how,” Carlston said. “Just holding it would do nothing. Did you bring the miniature as I requested?”

  With a nod, she raised her reticule. The silk purse swung with the portrait’s small weight.

  “Then let us put it to the test. Hold it in your hand and see if the life-forces reappear.”

  An experiment—here was something she could understand. She passed the touch watch back to him and cupped her reticule in her hand. The strings had drawn tight from so much swinging, and it took a moment for her to open it, her fingers clumsy with anticipation. She wiggled her fore and middle fingers inside and, holding her breath, scooped out the miniature.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, strangely deflated. “There is no shimmer.”

  He cocked his head. “Remove your glove.”

  It was a decidedly untoward request, especially in that high-handed tone. Still, the mystery had its own impetus. Ignoring the rise of heat to her cheeks, Helen fumbled with her glove’s riband tie. She finally pulled it apart, then yanked at the fingers until the kid leather slid free. The chill in the air bit at her fingertips. She glanced up at his face—all of his being seemed fixed upon her bare hand. A strangely intimate sensation. With heart beating harder, she pressed the miniature into her cupped palm. As the cool gold touched her skin, the blue shimmer sprang up around him.

  “There it is!”

  Carlston pulled off his own glove and held out his hand. “Give it to me. Please.”

  She dropped it into his palm. The blue glow disappeared. She blinked, dizzy from the shift in color and light.

  He shook his head. “I see nothing.”

  “Is that bad?” Helen asked. “Am I doing something wrong?” How could she know what was right or wrong in this new, fantastical world?

  “I have never come across this before.” He looked beyond her, calculation narrowing his eyes.

  Helen pushed her glove into her reticule for safekeeping, eager to test the miniature on her bare skin again, but Carlston was clearly not ready to return it. He turned the portrait over. “Do you know whose hair is woven here, at the back?”

  “My mother’s and father’s.” She looked down at the little red-and-gold checkerboard. “Would that help me see the life-forces?”

  “It should not.” He passed back the miniature. She closed her hand around it, and the blue shimmer enveloped his tall figure again.

  “Why is it important to see this energy?” she asked. The blue was beginning to press in behind her eyes. She shifted the miniature to her gloved hand, feeling a wonderful release as the shimmer dropped away. “Why do I have these abilities, Lord Carlston?” Helen braced herself. “You said you would show me what I am.”

  Just saying the words brought a dread so deep that it was like a physical ache at her core.

  He observed her for a long moment, as if weighing her ability to cope. She raised her chin. Had she not proven herself already?

  Apparently, she had, for he said, “You already know that I have similar abilities, Lady Helen.” He smiled: a wry acknowledgment of a shared burden. “We are very rare, you and I. There are only eight of us in this country; about two hundred of us spread across the world. Usually, it is impossible to predict when one of our kind will be born. We spring up unbidden, sometimes in the lowest slums, sometimes in the highest houses. A lusus naturae. The term means—”

  “I know what it means,” she said a shade too sharply. “‘A whim of nature.’”

  “You have Latin?”

  “A little,” she said, brushing aside the hours she’d spent secretly studying her brother’s books. Most men found learning ridiculous in a female, and for some reason, she did not want to see derision in his lordship’s eyes. A glance found him still staring, but with that look of calculation again. At least it was not disgust. “You are saying that these talents are a freakish occurrence?”

  “Usually, yes. In you, however, they are not.” He paused. There seemed to be a great deal of weight on that statement. “You inherited them directly from your mother.”

  For a moment his face hazed out of focus as Helen fought for air, her chest aching with a locked-breath battle between acceptance and refusal. So this was the mystery of her mother. Or at least part of it. She finally managed to breathe, and gave a shake of her head, trying to loosen some memory, some vague recollection of her mother using such talents. Nothing came. Yet it made sense, didn’t it? She raised her eyes to the night sky, fixing on the pale quarter moon as she felt her way through the tumult of emotions. The link that she had suspected—no, dreaded—between her own restlessness and her mother’s maligned nature was real. What did that mean about her own nature?

  “These abilities, they have something to do with my mother’s disgrace, don’t they?” She leaned closer to him. “Do you know why she was called a traitor? Do you know what really happened?”

  He shook his head. “I do not.” He started to add something else, then fell silent.

  “You do know something. I can read it in your face.”

  “You are very good at that, aren’t you?” It did not sound like a compliment.

  “Yes,” she said boldly. “What do you know about my mother?”

  “As far as I know, only two people hold the truth of the story.”

  “Well?” Helen demanded.

  “The names will get you no further.”

  She clenched her gloved hand around the miniature. “Lord Carlston,” she said, careful to keep the irritation from her tone, “please tell me their names.”

  “As you wish. The first is Queen Charlotte.” One slanted dark brow lifted: I told you so. The fact that he was right—there could be no more information from that source—was almost as infuriating as his manner. It did, however, explain the Queen’s comment at her presentation.

  “And the other?”

  “Mr. Benchley.”

  “Your mentor? He knew my mother?”

  “He was her mentor as well. But I warn you, he does not look kindly upon the memory. I doubt he will help her daughter.”

  Helen bowed her head—not in defeat, but to hide her defiance. A lady did not scowl at a gentleman. Not to his face, anyway. If this Mr. Benchley made an appearance, as his lordship seemed to think he would, then she would ask him. Most insistently. She forced her mind back to the reason she was standing there. “If these talents are not usually inherite
d, then how could you possibly know I would have them?” She crossed her arms, drawing her shawl closer around her body. “How did you know in the first place? You have been testing me these last few days.”

  “Your mother saw that you could read the truth in faces even as a child. No one believed her, of course. It was an impossibility. Yet we could not afford to discount it entirely. At least, I felt we could not.”

  Helen looked past him to the shadowy outlines of the trees. If her mother had seen it so early, why hadn’t she said anything? Prepared her in some way? Even a child could understand difference and the need for secrecy.

  “I had to test you to make sure that you do, indeed, have the gifts.” He tapped long forefinger against forefinger, counting off talents. “Acute senses, faster reflexes, quicker healing, extra strength—”

  “No,” Helen interrupted. “I don’t have quicker healing nor extra strength.”

  “You will. The strength is often the last to come. But I have seen enough to be sure. You caught that portrait with extraordinary dexterity, and you were able to calculate the elements around the horse and react with great speed.”

  “Calculate?” Helen felt an enormous sense of relief. “I thought I was seeing into the future.”

  He gave a sharp laugh. “No, we are not clairvoyant.” His head tilted as he considered the idea. “A pity, though. We could use it. Did you feel a rush of energy when you realized the danger of the horse?”

  She nodded, remembering the exhilaration.

  “That rush enables us to see, in our minds, the possibilities of action. It is like an enhanced calculation of what is most likely to occur.” He hesitated. “There is another talent that is, perhaps, harder to believe.”

  “Harder? Than all this?”

  “We are able to reach inside a person’s soul and remove darkness.”

  “What?” She shook her head, the absurdity of it breaking into a small laugh that fluttered in her chest. “That is not possible.” Yet he had such a look of truth in his dark eyes.

  “Nor is reading people’s hearts, calculating the future, and grabbing impossibly fast missiles from the air,” he said gently. “You need only look to your own gifts to know it is all possible.”