‘They are entering the morning room,’ she said. ‘Your sister is quite agitated.’
‘My sister is furious and frightened.’ He took a large mouthful of wine, then turned to face Helen. ‘Stokes found me in Donaldson’s. It was all done very discreetly, of course. Then we got back to his lodgings.’
He put down his glass and pulled back his right coat sleeve. Raw abrasions ringed his wrist.
‘He bound you?’
‘Manacles; he was most apologetic.’ He retrieved his glass, the next mouthful taking half its contents. ‘Then I was questioned. Pike was certain we had told Lord Carlston about the journal.’
Helen frowned at his intonation. ‘Do you mean he had you beaten? By Stokes?’
She could not believe that Stokes, a Reclaimer, would hit a normal, bound man. Surely he had more honour?
An image of Carlston’s hands around Selburn’s throat flashed into her mind. He could have snapped the Duke’s neck in a second and yet he had not. Proof, perhaps, that he still held enough rationality to hold back from pure savagery. It was a glimmer of hope. Then again, perhaps the arc of power between them had somehow diminished his Reclaimer strength.
‘No, it was not Stokes.’ Hammond swirled the remainder of wine in the glass. ‘Two other ruffians. Pike sent Stokes away.’
Of course, Helen reminded herself, Pike did not want any of the other Reclaimers to know about the journal.
‘Did they hurt you badly? Do you need a physician?’ She crossed over to him, sweeping an assessing glance over his body.
‘No.’ His smile of reassurance was too tight. ‘They knew how to deliver just enough but not too much.’
‘But why would Pike do that? You are one of his own people.’
‘His own people?’ He gave a light, rather ghastly laugh. ‘He knows my loyalty is to Lord Carlston not the Dark Days Club. He did this to remind me that he could, at any time, imprison me. To remind me that I am a coward.’
Helen opened her mouth to reject his harsh assessment — he was no coward — but he raised his hand, refusing her protest.
‘More importantly, Lady Helen, he did this to show you that he is in control.’ He drained the glass.
‘He arrested you to show me?’
Hammond gripped her shoulder. ‘Pike cannot control Lord Carlston. He has never been able to control him. But he knows he can control you. He said as much to me. A girl. A novice. A gentlewoman brought up to believe in God, country and duty.’ He drew back, wincing at the action. ‘He is right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Before he let me go, he told me you offered to take Lowry as your Terrene in exchange for my release.’
‘Of course I did. I had no other —’ Helen stopped; she had just proved his point.
‘As long as you care about the people around you, as long as he is more ruthless than you, more willing to hurt them — and he is — he controls you.’ He stared down into his empty glass. ‘It will not stop here, with the journal. He has his claws in you. In us.’
She had known that deep down, and yet his bald statement of it brought a new sense of despair. To always be Pike’s creature.
‘What do we do?’ she said. ‘Stop caring for people? Stop doing our duty?’
She ground her palms together. It was impossible.
‘When Margaret and I were ten years old we were caught up in the Terror.’ He turned back to the jug. ‘French father, noble, and English mother. Both met Madame Guillotine. We were smuggled away in time by servants, but we ended up in the hands of a,’ he tilted his head, ‘connard.’ Helen had not heard the word before, but his tone made the meaning all too clear. ‘After many years under his control, we ran as far from him as possible and lived by our wits.’
‘Is that what you think we should do? Run?’
‘I think Lord Carlston is in grave danger.’
More than he imagined, Helen thought. From Pike and from her unwilling drain upon his sanity.
‘He won’t run,’ she said.
He would not leave her; she was certain of it. It was no longer just about duty. Something stronger connected them. They had both felt it in the kiss in the bawdy-house.
Hammond bowed his head in agreement. ‘So neither will I or Margaret.’
‘Pike said he would consider offering the Comte d’Antraigues the information he seeks in return for Carlston’s cure.’
Hammond gave a small pained laugh. ‘He will not.’
‘He kept his word and released you.’
‘To show you his power.’
He lifted the claret jug; it was all but empty. He replaced it, and picked up the decanter of brandy instead and tilted it towards her, brows raised. She nodded. Perhaps brandy would deaden the despair and futile rage that burned at her innards.
He hooked two glasses and slid them across the silver tray. ‘Pike will never allow the journal anywhere near Lord Carlston or a Deceiver.’
He was right, even without the knowledge that the journal was also a Ligatus. Pike would never contemplate a deal with the Comte.
Helen turned and walked to the window, hearing the liquor splash into a glass. Its rich fruity fumes reminded her of Vauxhall Gardens and the brandy Hammond had pressed upon her after Lord Carlston had shown her the Pavor Deceiver and told her she was a Reclaimer. A direct inheritor.
She drew back her shoulders. There was only one path ahead that held any honour and any chance of success. It would not keep her safe from Pike, but it could keep Hammond and the others safe, and maybe — just maybe — stop his lordship’s deterioration.
She had to leave this house, leave her friends, and most of all she had to leave Lord Carlston.
Chapter Twenty-Four
MONDAY, 20 JULY 1812
In contrast to the last time Helen had visited Union Street alone, the narrow lane was eerily quiet. No Quakers on the way to their Meeting House. No shrieking children hunkered down beside the butcher’s playing in the puddles. The door of the draper’s next door to Holt’s Coffee-house was closed fast, as were all the doors along the site of the battle. Boards covered the broken windows of the gin house and the hole in the front of the coffee-house. Only one person hurried past Helen: a man in the sober garb of a clerk, who dipped his head to the slim young gentleman standing outside the coffee shop. Helen nodded back. It seemed that the story of contaminated air had, for the moment, discouraged most people from using the thoroughfare.
She waited until the clerk had turned into Ship Street, then edged her way along the side of Holt’s, the same way Sprat had led her less than a week ago. Then, she had been so elated by the novelty of walking alone through the streets. Now there was no elation, only a sense of loneliness and deep foreboding.