One Illicit Night. Sophia James

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      ‘Where are your clothes?’ He made no effort at all to moderate his voice.

      ‘Downstairs in a b-b-blue chamber, but my gown was badly torn.’ Fright had made her shake, the cover she was draped in shivering with some force. Excusing himself for a moment he unfastened the slats on the door and asked a servant to find her attire.

      Then, moving to his wardrobe, he found a woollen jacket and a satin skirt that some woman had left here a few months back. ‘Put these on for now.’

      She reached out for them and he added a scarf of fine wool from the many lined up at the back of his closet, noticing the feminine way she fashioned it around her neck. Her long wig was caught up in the heaviness of the layers and he saw darker locks below. All a ruse?

      Interest sharpened. ‘How well do you know Beraud?’

      ‘He is one of my aunt’s clients.’

      ‘Then if you know what is good for you, ma chérie, you will stay away from him. His tastes run to the more eclectic …’ He tapered off, tired of trying to warn her, tired of taking responsibility for a whore who knew exactly what it was she was doing.

      He could not save them all. He had learned that truth years ago when the first woman to plead for assistance had spent his gold on a bottle of the finest cognac and thrown herself off the bridge of the Pont d’Alma. Her body had been dragged up with his engraved watch in her hands and the weight of the law had descended, demanding answers that brought him notice he was far from wanting. Since then he had been much more careful.

      He looked away as she stood and dressed, the slight reflection of her outline all that was left to him in the window. Even that he eschewed for the view outside, the first stirrings of the carriages and people in the vicinity of the Rue Pigalle.

      Dislocated. One word rent from all that he so usually kept hidden, the sheer and utter waste of life and goodness and innocence slapped against a harder, more selfish world.

      His world! Falder Castle glimmered like a golden promise on the edge of memory, the endless waves of Return Home Bay calling out in a hollow chant, ‘Come back, come back, come back. ‘

      But he couldn’t, not ever, the consequences of sins binding him to the necessity of distance.

      Shaking his head, he refused to think about the past and as he caught Jeanne’s measured glance he made himself relax.

      A layer of tragedy coated her seducer’s night-dark eyes. Eleanor saw it even as he smiled and the core of her anger melted just a fraction. He was beautiful. She doubted she had ever seen a more beautiful man, even with his overlong hair and clothes that would not be out of place in a theatrical production in the West End of London. As she looked around, the room gave the impression of a faded glory, the strips of silk and velvet on his bed mirrored in the heavy curtains and ornate corded ties at the doublesashed windows. A piano of considerable proportion stood against the farthest wall, sheet music draped across the top. Books stacked in piles on the floor completed the tableau, the titles in an equal measure of both French and English.

      With clothes on she felt braver, standing to run her fingers across the spines. Not lightweight reading, either. Moving then to the piano, she pressed down on a note of ivory, the sound echoing around the room in perfect pitch.

      A well-used and well-maintained piano by Stein. She read the make in the words above the keyboard. The frothy, vivid orange skirt she wore swung out from her legs as she turned, surprising her with its easy movement—the sort of garment a dancer might use or a courtesan? With no undergarments the satin was cold against her bottom.

      A short rap on the door took all her attention and with surprise she saw the man who entered was dressed exactly as her own grandfather’s butler might have been at the turn of the century.

      ‘Milord.’ His accent was pure Northern England! ‘The carriage is readied.’

      Carriage? She could go? Now? Le Comte de Caviglione would keep his promise free of question and all consequence? Or was she to be taken somewhere else?

      ‘I would thank you for keeping your word, sir …’

      She broke off when a bejewelled hand was raised, as if her appreciation was of absolutely no interest to him.

      ‘Are these items yours?’ He gestured towards a serving girl who had walked in behind the old man carrying her cape, boots, hat and purse.

      A great wave of redness surged into Eleanor’s face as all attention settled upon her, for, with the tumbled bed linen and the scent of brandy and sex, the room held no mystery as to what had happened there. Servants talked with as much fervour and detail as did any daily broadsheet and the contents of her bag would give extra clues again.

      Could she even begin to hope that the letter was still inside? That the promise she had given to her grandfather might still be honoured?

      The older servant stepped forwards with her possessions. ‘These items were left in the blue salon, mademoiselle.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Reaching up, Eleanor fastened her hat. With no mirror the task was more difficult than she had anticipated and the wig made it harder again. Still, with a bonnet in place and the warm cape around her shoulders, hiding the mismatched assortment of articles beneath, Eleanor felt … braver. She pulled on her boots in less than a moment and, pretending to pick up something off the floor, extracted the letter as the Comte conversed with his man.

      ‘Milne will see you into a carriage. The driver has been instructed to take you where you would wish to be set down.’

      Hardly daring to believe that the promise of freedom was so very close, she followed the old man out even as the Comte de Caviglione turned towards the window, dismissing her in the way of a man who, after using a whore for a night, is pleased to see the back of her come the morning.

      Tucking her grandfather’s sealed envelope into the folds of the tumbled sheets as she passed the bed, she saw that the dawning sun had bathed the Comte’s hair in silver.

      Cristo watched as the carriage pulled away on the driveway below, the white pebbles caught in the eddy of the wheels reminding him of another place, another home and far from here.

      His hands fisted at his sides and emptiness was a taste in his mouth, sour and lonely. He longed for a greener land and a house that sat in the cleft of a hill with oaks at its back and roses in the gardens.

      Falder.

      The name echoed in the corners of regret; shaking his head, he turned to the hearth, leaning down for the kindling in a box near the fire. The simple task of catching sparks calmed him, made the fear he could feel rolling in his stomach more distant.

      When he had finished he reached for the leather pouch in the hidden drawer of his armoire and sent the previous week by The Committee.

      Secrets helped. Codes demanded single-mindedness and logic, searching for a pattern amongst the random lines of alphabet and numbers. Conradus’s book and Scovell’s principles made it easy and his interest quickened. His cipher wheel sat on the desk at hand.

      Hours lay before him to be used up in concentration and attention. No sleep. No dreams. No lying in the grey of morning and wondering how the hell he had come to such a pass.

      The СКАЧАТЬ