‘He is a Deceiver. I do not trust him on principle.’
‘Perhaps we could persuade his lordship just to take the relevant pages for the Comte and give the rest to Pike.’
Even as she said it, she knew Pike would see that as an even greater treason. Not only to break their oath, but to allow part of a Ligatus to fall into the hands of a Deceiver.
‘Do you really think his lordship would agree to that?’ Hammond asked. ‘He will not let Pike have that journal.’
True. And if his lordship knew it was a Ligatus as well, he would be even more set upon keeping it from Pike.
‘Even worse,’ Hammond added, ‘I do not think his lordship would ever be able to forgive us for such a betrayal, especially in his present state. Right now I am not even sure he would not kill us himself.’
‘No! He would never do that.’
Hammond regarded her gravely. ‘I saw Benchley’s deterioration, and his lordship’s decline is happening a great deal faster.’
Helen turned her face away from the brutal assessment. His lordship had thought the speed of his deterioration had not been marked. He was clearly wrong.
The intensity of their conversation was drawing attention from a gentleman on the other side of the room. ‘Laugh,’ she ordered and waved her fan coquettishly, sending warm air across them both. ‘We are under scrutiny.’
Hammond obeyed, dredging up a reasonable facsimile of mirth. ‘What should we do? What is our plan?’
She heard the shift of responsibility in his voice. Sweet heaven, he was looking to her for answers.
‘Why do you think I have a plan?’ she hissed. ‘I have only just found this out myself.’
‘You are the Reclaimer, Lady Helen,’ he said through his ghastly smile. ‘You are Lord Carlston’s equal. You can face Lowry with his extra Terrene strength, and you have the leverage of being one of only seven protectors in this land.’ He stared at her, desperation in his eyes. ‘In the end, Pike may not be able to cast you aside, but I am entirely expendable.’
He was right. Yet she was hardly Lord Carlston’s equal — in courage or experience — nor did she have any leverage other than her current usefulness to Pike. She stared at the floor, trying to calm the frantic darting of her thoughts and review their very limited options. She could see no other viable path than the one they were on.
‘We must go ahead as before,’ she said. ‘Lord Carlston does not know Lowry is from Brighton. While he discovers that fact, it will give us time to find the journal. When we do, the two of us will offer the Comte the pages that he wants. Perhaps we can obtain the information about his lordship’s malady and the Grand Deceiver and still deliver the journal to Pike.’
‘Will the Comte deal with us?’
‘I am not sure, but I hope so. He wants to be sure the information is expunged from the journal. I expect it does not matter who hands it to him.’
Hopefully she would be able to destroy the pages once the Comte had seen them and provided the information about Lord Carlston. Helen nodded, more to fix the feasibility of the plan within herself than with Mr Hammond.
‘When his lordship finds you, can you give him the names of some London associates that will send him in that direction?’ she asked.
Hammond smiled again and nodded, his eyes pained. ‘All this lying to him grieves me more than anything else.’
‘It grieves me too, but it must be done.’
She felt the shame of it sliding like a Thames eel beneath the surface of her fear, waiting to rise as soon as she had a moment of reflection. But she could not let it overcome her now.
Hammond leaned in, as if to share an amusing story. ‘I am a very good liar, Lady Helen. My life has depended upon it many times. Even so, his lordship is a Reclaimer. What if he reads me and sees that I am lying?’
‘It is my fear too. But this illness is creating doubt within him. We must use that.’ She saw the shock widen Hammond’s eyes. ‘I know it is not honourable to use his misfortune, but none of this business has much honour, does it?’
She paused; should she tell him, at least, about Pike’s discovery of Lord Carlston’s illness? No, even that would be too much for him to hold back — it was almost too much for her as well. He would insist on warning Lord Carlston, and that would set disaster into motion: for him, for her, and possibly for the whole Dark Days Club.
She lifted her fan again, hiding the urgency of her next question. ‘Do you agree? Can you do this?’
‘There is no choice, is there?’
‘I must go before he finds you and sees us together.’ She snapped the fan shut and curtseyed, ready to rejoin Delia.
‘Lady Helen.’
She turned back.
‘We will finish this soon,’ Hammond said. It was half statement, half entreaty.
‘We will,’ she said. ‘We must.’
Chapter Fifteen
SATURDAY, 11 JULY 1812
Helen and her companions did not depart the rout until three in the morning. Lady Margaret was on a winning streak and firmly refused to abandon her chair until her opponents were played out and their IOUs collected.
By four o’clock, all of the German Place household had found their beds, but Helen could not sleep. Her mind churned over the horror that was the Ligatus, Pike’s threat against Lord Carlston, and the Comte’s deal, until she felt almost suffocated by her fear, guilt and fraught imaginings. She rose before dawn and sat at the gilt-edged writing desk wrapped in her bedcover, watching the sky turn from inky black into the torrid oranges and pinks of a summer dawn.
Two months ago, her biggest decisions had been about what gown to wear to which assembly or rout, and even those decisions had been moderated by her aunt. Now, her every word and deed had deadly ramifications; and even more frightening, Mr Hammond had begun to look to her for leadership. Every moment of every day she was having to pick her way through lies and secrets to find a pathway over a deadly and muddied morality. And it was never going to end. This was her life now. Right then, in the chill of the morning, she wondered if she might be crushed by so much doubt and responsibility.
She drew the soft edges of the silk cover around her shoulders. Two months ago, if she had been asked where her duty lay, she would have said to her family, to God and country. Now it was not so simple. Her family had abandoned her as much as she had them; and while she had taken the Dark Days Club oath in the name of King and God, she seriously doubted that their representative, Mr Pike, worked on the side of the angels.