The Dark Days Club

by Alison Goodman

  Yrs etc.,

  Carlston

  Helen stared down at the thick parchment. Was that all? His writing style was even more abrasively curt than his conversation.

  “Did he say anything else to you, Darby?”

  “He did, my lady. He asked me a lot of questions.”

  “About me?”

  “No, about me.” Darby’s pink cheeks deepened into blotched crimson. “He is quite disconcerting, isn’t he? Those eyes, looking at you. And he knew that I knew about you-know-what.”

  “What did he ask you?”

  “All sorts of things, like whether I thought myself ‘a strong woman, in mind and body.’ But really, I think he wanted to make sure I would not expose you in any way. He asked me to swear upon my soul that I would not. On the Bible.”

  “Upon your soul on the Bible?” Helen repeated, startled. That seemed alarmingly official. And why was he asking a maid such strange questions?

  Darby smiled anxiously. “I swore, my lady, most willingly. After all, who would believe me?”

  Strong in mind and body? An image of Mr. Quinn rose into Helen’s mind. Did his lordship think Darby could be her Terrene? It was true—the girl was strongly built and sensible. Helen shook her head. No, she could not allow Darby to take on such a role; it was far too dangerous. Who then? Helen frowned, not at the problem, but at the sudden realization of what she was doing: weighing up potential Terrenes as if she was already part of the Dark Days Club. She paused, and searched her heart. No, she had not truly decided to join them: there were still too many unknown elements. Only a fool would blindly believe everything she was told—particularly by someone as dubious as Lord Carlston—and there were still so many unanswered questions. Yet, now that she knew about the Deceivers, about the threat to herself and humanity, could she claim to have a choice? Surely, there was an obligation, a duty beyond her own safety, to help.

  “You are very good to have sworn so,” Helen said, touching her maid’s arm in thanks. She looked down at the letter and book again, hiding her unease. Until Saturday. “So he asked nothing about me?”

  “No, my lady.”

  Helen nodded and tossed the note into the fire, newly stoked to warm the room for her afternoon toilette. She watched in silence as the paper flared and curled into black.

  THAT NIGHT IN bed, by the light of a single candle, Helen started The Magus. She was glad to find that the author was not a pagan or a heathen, but less delighted to read about the highly questionable “magic” of plague amulets made from worm-ridden toads, and the use of a live duck, applied to the belly, to relieve colic. As his lordship had irritatingly predicted, there were chapters that made little sense, seemingly encoded with strange references to ancient gods and the like. Nevertheless, Helen’s interest was caught by the idea that words had magical properties when combined with strong intent, and she reread, three times, an interesting passage about talismans that referred to the use of hair. Was that what his lordship had meant about her mother’s miniature having alchemical properties? She caught up the tiny portrait hanging from a riband around her neck—a new safekeeping precaution for the night—and studied it. Was it a talisman of some kind? It seemed likely that the red-and-gold checkerboard was the reason she could see human and Deceiver life-forces. Perhaps the miniature also provided some kind of protection. That was the role of a talisman after all. She let it fall back against the linen bodice of her nightgown. Protection from what? she wondered. Deceivers, or something even worse?

  Eighteen

  Saturday, 9 May 1812

  HELEN WAS WAKENED by the clunk of the shutters being drawn back from the far window, the patch of sky visible through it oppressively gray. She blinked into the gloomy reaches of her room, the blurred sense of the day ahead sharpening into purpose: Lord Carlston.

  “Good morning, my lady,” Darby said. She slid a tray onto the bedside table, the porcelain cup jumping against its saucer in a ringing clatter.

  The smell of her morning chocolate—bitter sweetness arriving on a curl of steamy warmth—prompted a pang of hunger. Helen raised herself to her elbows, waiting as Darby arranged the pillows behind her, then settled back against them. The new position brought a crouching figure into view: a maid sweeping out the hearth. Not Beth: too round in shape. And far too broad for Tilly. “Darby, who is this?”

  The new maid looked up. She was older than Darby, with a square, competent face that was saved from manliness by a fine nose. She immediately clambered to her feet, ash brush still in hand, and curtsied.

  Darby carefully passed Helen the cup and saucer. “This is Lily, my lady. Come new to us, yesterday. From Lady Jersey.”

  “Hello, Lily,” Helen said, studying the new girl’s face.

  “Morning, my lady.” Shrewd eyes surveyed her with respectful curiosity: she was being studied in return.

  Here was Lord Carlston’s replacement housemaid. Was she protection or spy? Perhaps both. Helen took a sip of her chocolate. Should she acknowledge the hidden agenda?

  “I believe you have worked for Lord Carlston too?” she tried. That seemed suitably oblique.

  “More or less, my lady. His lordship said to tell you that, yes, I will be reporting back to him.” She cast Darby a deferential glance. “I’m to help Miss Darby here, to keep you safe.”

  “Oh,” Helen said, setting the cup back into the saucer. Lily was not one for obliqueness then. “And everything is all right?”

  “Nothing unusual to report, my lady.” She bobbed another curtsy and returned to the hearth. “I’ll let you know if something comes up.”

  “Good,” Helen said briskly. “Excellent.” She turned to Darby. “Is my hot water ready?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  She chose not to see the amusement on her maid’s face.

  By midmorning, when Helen set off for Hatchards escorted by Darby, the threat of rain hung heavy in the clouds. The London smoke haze had descended lower than usual, stinging Helen’s eyes and leaving a taste of ash in her mouth. As she led the way down Half Moon Street, she could barely see the expanse of Green Park opposite.

  At the corner, Helen paused and looked skyward, considering the chance of rain. She wore her second-plainest gown, a coral-red walking dress, but had chanced a favorite cream silk spencer that would be ruined by a wetting. Beside her, Darby was clad in the dress reviled by Aunt. She had received the cast-off with delight, and quickly altered it to fit her broader lines, the soft chestnut suiting her rosier complexion. When she had appeared for the excursion to the bookshop—or wherever they were truly bound—Helen had smiled at the slight jauntiness in her maid’s step, knowing it came from the joy of a newly acquired gown. It had been a moment of lightness within the uneasy anticipation of the day ahead.

  She peered up Piccadilly. It was at least a twenty-minute walk to Hatchards, and there was definitely a taste of water in the air. “I think we may get wet, Darby.”

  “Perhaps we should fetch an umbrella, my lady. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  With a sigh, Helen consigned the spencer to Darby’s wardrobe or the ragman if it rained. “No, if we go back, my aunt may find something far more important for me to do. I don’t want to risk missing Lady Margaret.”

  She motioned Darby around the corner, sidestepping an apple boy who had set up his basket at the prime position.

  “Apple, m’lady?” he called. “Green and hard. Only a halfpenny.”

  “Be off with you,” Darby said. “My lady don’t eat apples on the street like a hoyden.”

  “What about you?” The youth grinned, all dimples and startling good teeth, and deftly juggled two of his shiny green offerings.

  “Who are you calling hoyden?” Darby said, but she smiled over her shoulder as they left him behind. “Cheeky monkey.”

  Helen looked back too. Could the boy be a Deceiver? She shook h
er head. He had not done anything to point to it. If she panicked at every how-do-you-do or bow, she would go mad. She could not imagine how Lord Carlston managed to move through the world with such calm.

  She scanned the wide road, already busy with hackneys, carriages, and carts. The pavements, on the other hand, were still relatively free of activity. Ahead, a lady walked on the arm of an officer in red, a few gentlemen strode toward important business, and a peddler with his goods box on a strap around his neck hurried to the next servants’ entrance.

  “Do you know when Lady Margaret will drive past?” Darby asked.

  Helen shook her head. “It could be that she will wait until after we have visited Hatchards.”

  They walked up Piccadilly in silence. As they approached the corner of Stratton Street, Darby cast a swift glance across the main thoroughfare at the soft blur that was Green Park. “My lady, I do not wish to alarm you, but I think that gentleman over the way is keeping pace with us.”

  Helen looked across the road. The gentleman—very well dressed in a navy-blue greatcoat and a smart, high-crowned black beaver—did seem to be keeping abreast of them. She squinted through the haze, but could not see the details of his face. He seemed familiar. Heavens, it wasn’t Mr. Benchley, was it? The last thing she wanted was to meet that madman. For a moment the gentleman was hidden by the rumbling passage of two coaches and a hay cart, then she saw him again, matching their pace, his blurred face turned toward them. No. Whoever this was, he was not tall enough to be Mr. Benchley.

  “Do you think he is one of Lord Carlston’s men, keeping watch?” Darby asked.

  “Perhaps.” Helen risked a longer look. There was something about the way he stared at them: a purpose in his gaze that did not have an air of protection about it. “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “You think he may be one of the creatures?”

  Helen wrenched off her tan glove. “Hold this, Darby, while I get the miniature. Maybe he has been feeding, and I will be able to tell.”

  Darby took the glove, watching the man as they walked. “He is still with us. It seems to me, my lady, that it ain’t very sporting that you must use instruments to discover these creatures, but they don’t need them to find you.”

  “No, not sporting at all.” Helen dug inside her silk reticule and grasped the portrait. A pale blue shimmer jumped into being around Darby and everyone on the street, including the gentleman. “Well, he has a normal blue life-force.”

  “That don’t mean he’s not one of them,” Darby said darkly as they passed the magnificent Palladian frontage of Devonshire House. She handed back the glove.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Helen agreed, finding a fleeting moment of amusement at her maid’s quick assimilation of the Deceiver world. She seemed to have taken it all in her stride. “I think we should err on the side of caution.”

  “Good idea, my lady.”

  They stopped at the corner of Berkeley Street, waiting for a barouche to slowly make its turn from Piccadilly. “He has stopped too,” Darby reported.

  Helen pulled on her glove. “Come, let us walk more swiftly.”

  “Sweep, yer ladyship?” a young voice singsonged. “Cost a farthin’.” A boy in a filthy cotton smock darted in front of them, brushing the road free of dung with an old besom, his vigor sending up a cloud of dust. Helen dug into her reticule again, found the hard edge of a coin, and followed the boy across the cleared clay road, Darby a step behind. She tossed him the coin, taking the moment to check the other side of Piccadilly. Their well-dressed shadow had started walking again, keeping pace. She scanned further along the street behind him, hoping to see a Dark Days Club man following too, keeping watch. No one, however, was acting like a guard. If Lord Carlston’s man was out there amongst the growing numbers on the pavement, he was well hidden.

  “Come on, Darby.” Helen quickened her stride, glad she had chosen to wear her stout half boots instead of a pair of kid slippers.

  “What are we to do if he approaches?” her maid asked as they crossed Dover Street.

  “I don’t know.”

  An elderly lady, trailed by a footman, shook her head in disapproval as they strode past. It was true they were walking far too fast for propriety, but Helen was not going to slow down and let a possible Deceiver catch them. She had no idea what he could possibly do on a busy street like Piccadilly, but she did not want to find out.

  “Perhaps we should have brought Hugo or Philip with us,” Darby said, beginning to pant.

  “And how would we explain if something happened?”

  “Something is happening, my lady.”

  True. Helen chewed on the inside of her mouth, unsure of what to do. They were still a little way from Hatchards, but she could not turn back and risk missing Lady Margaret.

  “Oh no, I think he is coming toward us,” Darby said.

  The man had indeed stepped out onto the road, only to be forced back onto the pavement as a gig tore recklessly around the St. James’s Street corner. Helen grabbed Darby’s elbow. If they could reach the bookshop, they might meet an acquaintance who could provide the shield of his company. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, hard against the constriction of her stays. Beside her, Darby’s face had reddened, her breaths coming in small gulps.

  “You are doing well, Darby,” Helen said. “We will be there soon.”

  “He is crossing again!” Darby gasped.

  The man stepped off the pavement. Helen saw the next five seconds play out in her mind: he would intersect their path at the corner of Albemarle Street. Even if they slowed, he would be able to adjust. She looked around and fixed on a young gallant swaggering toward them, ogling every passing lady with an air of self-satisfied masculinity. If she screamed, he would respond; it would at least deflect the man for the moment.

  Helen gathered herself. In three seconds, then.

  “Lady Helen!” a woman’s voice called.

  She spun around. A small town coach, plain, and on the more worn side of well used, rumbled up beside them, the two bay horses coming to a stamping standstill. Lady Margaret looked out from the window, her vivid face topped by a plain chip hat. “Lady Helen, well met. Do you walk down Piccadilly?” She looked up at the threatening sky. “I think it may rain. May my brother and I offer you a seat in our carriage?”

  “Thank the Lord,” Darby murmured.

  Mr. Hammond, seated beside his sister, leaned forward into view. “Good morning, Lady Helen,” he called. Helen dipped her head in greeting, but her eyes were fixed on the window on the other side of the dim cabin and its prospect of the road beyond. The well-dressed man had returned to the pavement. For a moment he watched the coach; then he turned and was gone from sight. “There is plenty of room,” Mr. Hammond added.

  Helen steadied her breath. “I would be most glad of the seat, thank you.”

  Lady Margaret leaned further out of the window, motioning to the footman sitting in the rumble seat at the back of the carriage. “Geoffrey, open the door for Lady Helen, then help her maid up beside you.”

  Both brother and sister drew back inside the cabin as their man nimbly descended and opened the coach door, flipping the steps down. “My lady,” he said, offering his hand. He was tall, like all footmen, but he also had a burly breadth of shoulder and a direct gaze. More than a footman, Helen decided.

  She took his hand and climbed into the coach. Mr. Hammond had courteously moved across to the opposite seat, his back to the driver. Bending to accommodate her height, Helen took the few awkward steps across the cabin and sat next to Lady Margaret. “I must tell you,” she said, peering out the window, “that I was followed here by a man.”

  “What?” Mr. Hammond leaned across to the other window, his face intent. “Is he still there? Which one?”

  Helen studied the figures on the opposite pavement. “I cannot see him anymore. An older gent
leman in a navy-blue greatcoat and black beaver.” She looked back at the brother and sister. “He was there, truly.”

  “We do not doubt you, Lady Helen,” Lady Margaret said. “One of our men has been following you for your protection, but he does not fit that description. No doubt he will have seen this older gentleman and will be tracking him even now.”

  Mr. Hammond nodded his own reassurance. “We will know soon enough if he is a threat.” He knocked his cane against the wooden front of the cabin. “Drive on.”

  Helen sat back, relieved, as the carriage lurched into motion. “Where do we go?”

  “To the Devil’s Acre,” Mr. Hammond said. “Behind Westminster Abbey.”

  She let the information sink into her sketchy knowledge of the city beyond Mayfair. The Devil’s Acre was notorious: surely he was joking. “But, sir, that is a rookery, is it not?”

  “One of the worst hellholes in London.”

  Helen looked across at Lady Margaret. She did not seem concerned at the thought of entering such a squalid, vice-ridden neighborhood. In fact, she was struggling to contain her excitement: her gloved fingers were woven tightly together in her lap, and her dark blue eyes were almost black with anticipation.

  “Why do we go to such a dangerous place?” Helen asked.

  “It is where Lord Carlston wants us,” Lady Margaret said. “Do not worry. He will be there. It will be safe with his lordship.”

  Safe? Wherever his lordship went, danger was bound to be present. Nevertheless, Helen smiled an agreement, using the moment of connection to probe deeper into Lady Margaret’s overbright excitement. Sweet heaven, it was the burn of true belief. The lady not only loved Lord Carlston, she believed in him with an almost religious intensity. Helen quickly turned to look out the window. She barely noted the half-timbered shops and dwellings of Shaftesbury Avenue as she tried to think through the discovery. Such fevered belief created fairy tales in the mind, particularly about the virtues of the beloved. To Lady Margaret, Lord Carlston was no doubt a paragon of virtue. Even her conviction that he was innocent of murder was probably based on nothing more than her own devotion. To be fair, Helen could hardly criticize her: after all, she had told herself the same story. How much had her own “instinct” about his innocence been the physical effect of the man? Yet all of this musing could be answered by a simple question. Helen gathered herself: it was time to put aside her own reticence and ask what had been playing upon her mind.