A Rogue of One's Own
She had found one when the doorbell rang.
She froze.
She hadn’t imagined it—the bell was already ringing again, shrill and intrusive, and her nerves jangled in response. Whoever it was, she did not wish to see them.
The presence of the caller seeped through the walls like noxious smoke—they were still there, waiting, listening, holding their breath.
They would not go away.
She rose and strode down the corridor, glove in hand, and unlatched the locks.
A drawn, fine-boned face looked back at her—the last person on God’s green earth she had expected. “Mother.”
“Hush.” The countess cast a nervous glance back over her shoulder.
A small hackney was waiting on the side of the road.
She hadn’t heard it approach during her efforts to catch the cat.
Her mother’s gaze swept over her travel dress and the glove, randomly held in her injured hand. “Well. Are you not going to ask me inside?”
She didn’t open the door any wider. “What do you want?”
Her mother’s lips thinned into a hyphen at the rudeness. “I would prefer to discuss it in private.” Again she half-glanced over her shoulder, her brittle frame, if possible, stiffer than usual; quite possibly she was expecting a mob of nosy commoners to descend upon them at any moment. Her mother rarely ventured into residential parts of a town, unless, perhaps, to dispense charity. Whatever business had brought her here, she must consider it to be urgent. It was also, quite frankly, none of her concern and thus, she did not budge.
“Very well,” said Lady Wycliffe, her blue eyes steely. “I need your help to make someone disappear.”
Chapter 37
I need your help to make someone disappear.
On the list of Least Likely Things her mother would utter, this came at the very top.
She stepped aside. “Whom have you killed, Mother?”
Lady Wycliffe strode past her, giving her a long-suffering look. “No one is dead. Yet.”
The moment they had entered the reception room, the countess turned to her, her gaze pointedly fixed on Lucie’s face. “You are not really with child, are you?”
She shook her head, because for all she knew, she was not. She wondered how her mother would have reacted had she said yes. But thus satisfied, Lady Wycliffe simply nodded. She cast a glance around the room, taking in the ink-stained printing press in the corner and the worn upholstery of the divan. She refrained from walking over to the fireplace to swipe a gloved finger over the mantelpiece, but it was obvious that she was tempted.
She did step closer to look at Aunt Honoria’s portrait. “How cynical,” she remarked, studying the Vinegar Valentine cards Lucie had tucked into the ebony frame. “Though I suppose Honoria would have found it amusing.”
“If you don’t mind, I must catch the train.”
Her mother stiffened. “Of course.” She turned and faced her. “It is about Lady Rochester.”
The name hit her chest with the stunning force of a fist, and for a terrible moment, she couldn’t breathe. Pain bloomed beneath her ribs as if the wound there were physical and had just begun to bleed again.
It would be very good to reach Tuscany, where no one had ever heard of the House of Rochester and wouldn’t accidentally make her feel mortally injured by mentioning the name.
Her mother was watching her compose herself with far too knowing eyes.
“Go on,” Lucie said hoarsely.
“There was a situation at Ashdown. The countess cannot stay there for the time being.”
“I know.”
“I suspected you knew, after yesterday’s outrageous interlude. However, I would have sought your advice either way—she cannot stay hidden at Wycliffe Hall any longer. The house is vast, and Wycliffe is inattentive, but eventually the staff will talk.”
She spoke with an utter lack of inflection, the tone saved for matters she found truly, deeply tedious. Admittedly, hiding a runaway noblewoman was highly scandalous. Why was her mother risking trouble by sheltering a vulnerable woman? A sense of duty toward an old friend? Wishing to spite her husband? Whatever the motivation, she, Lucie, had to help keep Tristan’s mother safe. Tristan. It hurt. But she would have to let him know. At the very least, she would have to send him a cable.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked, trying to focus on the pressing task at hand rather than her aching chest.
“She needs to leave Britain posthaste,” her mother said. “However, I prefer for her to stay in the familiar climes of Europe. Her son’s death has left her . . . a little unwell. Any added stresses from living among, say, Americans, would be her undoing.” Her eyes assumed a piercing quality. “Can you do this?”
Lucie shrugged. “Yes.”
For every prostitute and her baby she’d sent to a halfway house, she had helped a noblewoman disappear: the pregnant, unwed relations of titled men, who wanted to keep their children; ladies who could not file for divorce.
“Well, I’m glad,” her mother said, the stern set of her mouth relaxing.
“It costs,” Lucie warned. “A lot.”
“It should pose no problem.”
“Oh?”
“Wycliffe has his faults,” her mother said. “But tightfistedness is not one of them. A prudent woman may set aside a considerable fortune over the course of thirty years.” She looked a little smug saying this.
“I see,” Lucie said slowly. “Very well—I shall refer you to people who will assist you.”
Her mother stilled, and then a worried furrow appeared between her brows. “You won’t be involved in this . . . operation?” She sounded worried, too.
“My contacts are capable.”
She stepped around her carpetbag and walked to her desk, which was already neatly tidied up for abandonment.
She opened the drawer and laid out a blank sheet of paper, pen, ink, and a lump of sealing wax.
Her mother had followed and hovered, watching intently as her pen scratched across the paper.
“Cecily confessed to scattering the pamphlets around Claremont,” she said when Lucie was setting her signature.
Her pen slipped, adding an extra swirl to her name. “I know.”
“Apparently, she feared you would come to replace her in my affections after we had conversed at Claremont in a friendly manner. You are my daughter, after all. The thought of not being first anymore put her in a panic of sorts, and I understand she went to your room with the intention of causing you some mischief and saw the pamphlets.”
Lucie sprinkled sand over the letter. This confession could simply be Cecily’s latest manipulation, to flatter her aunt and make her think her affections were worth causing havoc in a ducal palace.
“She has shown an admirable combative spirit,” she allowed. “Unfortunately, she applied it badly.”
The countess shifted from one foot to the other. “Her conduct has been a great disappointment to us.”
Lucie lit the candle to melt the sealing wax. “Will you send her to live with Aunt Clotilde in Switzerland? I remember you wanted to send me to her whenever I was a great disappointment to you.” Which had been often.
“She is set to leave for Bern tomorrow,” her mother admitted after a pause.
“Huh.” Aunt Clotilde was a dragon. She could almost feel sorry for her cousin. Almost.
“Cecily never truly recovered from her parents’ death,” her mother said. “She has a potent fear of being alone in the world.”
Lucie shook her head. Even confined, a woman could still make choices. “I had the impression you and Tommy adored her.”
She poured the liquefied wax and pressed her seal into the splash of red.
She would visit the postal office on her way to the train station and have a message sent to Tristan. He wanted to find his mother, then work for her forgiveness, he had said. A dull ache filled her at the memory. After what she had said to him at Wycliffe Hall, he probably considered them even. She could safely assume that he would not work for a thing. She willed another burning surge of tears back down. It had crossed her mind to seek him out and have a conversation, like an adult woman in possession of all her rational faculties. But what would it change? The laws were what they were. And her fears would not simply dissolve into thin air. She would only prolong the inevitable: more heartache.
Distance. Distance would help.
She handed her mother the letter. “This will help you.”
Her mother eyed the envelope with suspicion. “What precisely am I to do with it?”
“It contains my letter of recommendation. Furthermore, the addresses and code words for a woman who forges travel documents and a woman who shall select a suitable destination and take care of the logistics. I must ask you to treat this confidentially at all costs.”
“Oh,” Lady Wycliffe said weakly. “I must seek out two more people?”
The ignorance. “You wish to make someone disappear without a trace. Not just anyone, the wife of a horrid and powerful man. Believe me, this is as expedient as I can make it—years of work were required to make it so, in fact.”
“Very well.” Her mother slid the envelope into the inner pocket of her jacket, which was prudent. A reticule could be grabbed by a pickpocket. “Are you certain you can’t be directly involved?”