WEDNESDAY, 15 JULY 1812
Helen smoothed down the front of her breeches and sat on the edge of her bed, regarding her hessian boots. Their close fit made them the devil to put on by herself, particularly with Reclaimer strength; it was far too easy to misjudge a tug or pull and rip a garment apart. She had already destroyed one shirt. However, she could hardly call in Darby to help, not when she meant to creep out of the house unnoticed. With a rallying breath, she picked up the right boot and worked her stockinged foot into the long shaft.
The sound of departure rose from the foyer downstairs. She listened, finding the squeak of carriage springs and the jingle of the harness as Lady Margaret and Delia stepped into the carriage. They were headed for the Devil’s Dyke, a nearby picturesque place of interest, and a rendezvous with another informer. Helen had excused herself from attending the expedition, claiming a sick headache from her courses. In fact, she intended to visit Kate Holt’s bawdy-house to find Martha Gunn’s informer, Binny, and ask her if Lowry had visited recently — perhaps to hide the journal — or if Philip had been seen in the area. After all, she had seen the Deceiver herself twice near the Steine, and Kate Holt’s house stood in the nest of lanes in the Old Town, just west of it.
Helen had to admit she was daunted by the idea of setting foot in such a depraved place. From what Martha had said, it was a den of perversions. Lud, they probably fornicated in front of one another, counting it as one of the attractions. She certainly did not want to witness the carnal act again. As it was, she could not rid herself of the memory of seeing it for the first time in Vauxhall Gardens — the horror of the Deceiver thrusting into his victim against a wall as he drained away her life force. Helen shuddered. How was she to walk into a fleshpot that sold the most private parts of a woman for the use of any man and still maintain a complacent face, as if fornication were nothing more than sport? And what if her disguise was not good enough and she was unmasked as a woman? Would she have to fight her way out? Lowry would certainly hear of such a commotion and abandon any plan to take refuge in the house.
Even so, Helen knew she had to act before Lord Carlston returned from London. She and Mr Hammond had to retrieve the journal before his lordship discovered it, then she must secure the Ligatus and hand it over to Pike. If that meant braving the bawdy-house, she must put aside her sensibilities and get it done.
She yanked the tight instep over her foot and blew out a relieved breath. Boot and foot still intact. She picked up the other hessian and worked her foot down to the instep, pulling hard. A closer sound — Darby’s familiar tread across the dressing room carpet and the opening of the clothes press — swung her around to face the adjoining door.
‘Do not come in, Darby. I am not well.’
Yet the door opened. Darby stood at the threshold, Helen’s green gentleman’s jacket in her arms.
‘I told you not to come in,’ Helen said.
‘Forgive me, my lady, but I thought you might need some help getting ready.’ Darby lifted the jacket.
Helen busied herself with her boot. Her maid was too perceptive. ‘Getting ready for what?’ She finally felt her foot slide into place.
‘Going out on your own, my lady. Testing yourself. Mr Quinn has been wondering when you would finally come to it. He thought you might not do so at all, but I knew you would.’ She regarded Helen’s frown. ‘It is what you intend, isn’t it?’
It was close enough. ‘You were expecting it?’
‘Mr Quinn says that all this training is nothing without the confidence to use it. At some point, he said, you would have to prove to yourself that you can do what the Dark Days Club demands of you.’ She walked across to Helen and held out the jacket. ‘Shall I help you into it, my lady?’
Helen crossed her arms. ‘It would seem that my progress, or lack of it, is the subject of much speculation in this house.’
Darby’s hands dropped a little, the jacket sagging between them. ‘It was not meant with any meanness of spirit, my lady.’
Helen relented. Darby only had her well-being at heart. ‘I’m sure it was not. Your Mr Quinn is the least mean-spirited man I know.’ She stood and held out her arms for the jacket. ‘Have you spoken to him about the Terrene ritual?’
‘I have,’ Darby said, her voice dropping into a whisper as she threaded Helen’s arm expertly into the tight-fitting sleeve. ‘It is a blood-bonding, my lady. He explained the basics of it — a mix of blood and milk and burned hair, drunk by Reclaimer and Terrene — but he was adamant that the intricacies were best left for Lord Carlston to explain. I pressed him, but he became a little suspicious. I did not want to alert him to our plan so I turned the conversation to other matters.’ She threaded Helen’s other arm into its sleeve and, with a hoist that had all her weight behind it, fitted the jacket over Helen’s shoulders. The force sent Helen forward a step. ‘I am sorry I could not find out more, my lady.’
‘I understand.’ Helen squeezed her maid’s shoulder in reassurance. ‘We must find another source of the ritual.’
It must be recorded in a book somewhere. She would make a thorough search of the alchemy books that Lord Carlston had left for her perusal.
‘There,’ Darby said, smoothing a last crease out of the wool. ‘You look very fine. What do you plan to do, my lady?’
Helen rolled her shoulders into the tight fit. ‘I am not sure yet.’
‘You should do something very male,’ Darby said. She smiled tentatively. ‘You could go to Raggett’s Club, or drive the gig down the main street by yourself.’ At Helen’s smile, she gathered momentum. ‘You could even eat your lunch at a chophouse. At a bench!’
Helen placed her hat upon her head. Or I could visit a bawdy-house, she thought dryly. There was nothing more male than that.
Half an hour later, she strolled along Union Street, a dingy laneway in the Old Town, with a red apple in hand, still smiling from the few moments she had spent conversing with the apple boy on the corner. She had passed him the coin, and the boy, with a lift of his sandy brows, had called, ‘Catch it, sir?’ Helen had nodded, and her neat grab of the apple high in the air had earned her a grin of admiration from the lad before he turned to his next customer.
She could not, of course, bite into the fruit — even gentlemen did not eat in the street — but she lifted it to her nose as she weaved her way around the other pedestrians. Its fresh green scent was the sweetest she had ever inhaled.