The day turned dull and overcast. Callers made it through the drizzle to leave cards and bring flowers for Tiffany, most of them bursting at the seams to ask about the Duke.
‘Oh yes, he seems very pleasant,’ she repeated. ‘Though we did not have much conversation.’ Then she turned the subject to something else. If she had nothing else to thank Elinor for, it was the ability to direct a conversation.
Until someone said, ‘Indeed, I have found him to be a very pleasant and interesting young man,’ and she looked up to see Aunt Esme dropping an elegant curtsey to the room.
‘Can we be totally sure,’ said a young man who had presented Tiffany with a posy of violets, ‘that he really is the Duke?’
This sent a flurry around the room. Ladies looking shocked. Gentlemen looking somewhat smug. She supposed a young handsome duke with a piratical scar and a mysterious backstory would rather outshine any other young man on the marriage mart.
Not that he was so very handsome. He was merely … different.
‘What proof,’ asked Mistress Blackmantle, taking a seat, ‘would you require?’
‘Well,’ blustered the young man, whose name Tiffany had already forgotten. ‘The, er, was he, er, his parents’ marriage! Was it valid?’
‘I believe a notarised copy of the register was sent to His Grace the late Duke,’ said Aunt Esme mildly.
‘And he was born within— That is, er, do excuse me, ladies, but he was born … after the marriage?’
‘So the second notarised copy says,’ said Aunt Esme, smiling pleasantly.
‘But how do we know he is the person mentioned in those records?’ persisted the gentleman, who clearly didn’t know when to give up. Tiffany wondered how he was at the gaming tables.
‘How do we know any of us are the people mentioned in our records? You could have been swapped at birth and nobody could prove it.’
A few people laughed nervously at this. Aunt Esme sat there, utterly composed whilst her opponent spluttered.
‘Well, I look like my father!’ he said. ‘And I have the family signet ring.’
‘So does His Grace,’ said Aunt Esme, and added more slyly, ‘and so does His Grace. Now, Tiffany dearest. We hardly had the chance to talk last night, and I have been quite desperate to invite you to supper.’
Reeling from this conversational segue—although not quite as much as the young man Esme had just so efficiently rebuffed—Tiffany said, ‘Oh, yes, I’d love to.’
‘Capital! Shall we say seven tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ said Elinor, and Tiffany tried not to wince. Elinor always found some way to crimp her plans.
‘Yes, of course. No time like the present.’
‘Well, Theophania did have a somewhat tiring night last night—’
Esme laughed in a patronising manner. ‘My dear, only the dreadfully unfashionable go to bed early! I shall expect you at seven, Tiffany. Not too late, because I wish to compare some embroidery silks with you. Lovely shades of green and blue, just the thing for your complexion.’
‘I do like green and blue,’ said Tiffany gratefully. Elinor was obsessed with pink and peach and they were terrible with Tiffany’s colouring.
‘Then it is sealed. I shall see you then. Do bring your sketchbook, dear. Goodness, look at the time. I have hardly paid a call on Lady Selby to thank her for such a lovely evening.’
And she was gone, in a whirl of silken skirts and subtly expensive perfume.
Into the small silence that followed, the gentleman beside Tiffany—who had brought her peonies, but whose name she had no recollection of—asked, ‘Is she your aunt on your mother’s or your father’s side?’
‘Father’s,’ Tiffany said quickly, because any hint that Esme might be related to her mother would result in Elinor forbidding all contact with her. ‘But not a direct aunt. I forget the degree of relation. Have you tried the honey cake? It is very good.’
Later, after the guests had all gone, Tiffany went to the library and checked the Peerage again, just in case she’d missed it the first time. Of course, Blackmantle could be her married name, only … Mistress Blackmantle did not dress as a widow. She dressed as … well, Tiffany hardly knew. As a woman who was not told what to do by anyone else.
The family bible stood on its own stand. Tiffany checked that too. But of course, she could be a more distant relative, and ‘great-aunt’ was simply the easiest thing to say.
Either that, or she’d been crossed out of a previous edition for some misdemeanour and never added to subsequent bibles. That could be it. Yes, probably.
She could tell Elinor didn’t want her to go to Esme’s this evening. She was fussing around, making excuses to come by Tiffany’s room or interrupt her reading or ask when she had begun sketching, but she never quite managed to voice a reason as to why Tiffany couldn’t go. She might not know Aunt Esme, but it was clear she was a lady of consequence who was received in all the best ballrooms and was on close acquaintance with a certain young, handsome duke.
Not that he was so very handsome. He was just … a degree more agreeable than some of the other gentlemen. That was all.
I wonder if he will be at supper…
Not that she wanted him to be. No. Of course not. He was a liar, for starters, or at least he had lied by omission, and he was probably making fun of her, and also he was forcing her to help him because of that stupid bargain. Blackmailing her. Or at least threatening to. Yes. He was a terrible man, and it didn’t matter in the slightest how golden his skin was or how dark his eyes, or the way his mouth curved at one corner when he was amused, or how fascinating that black ink on his arms was…
Tiffany cleared her throat, even though there was no one else in the room, and went to get changed for supper.
Perhaps into the green evening gown that was a particular favourite. Purely for herself, of course.
But when she arrived at Aunt Esme’s, it was clear the house was in some uproar. Delicious scents wafted from the area of the kitchen, but everyone was standing in the hallway, facing a somewhat frantic Billy.
‘Miss, miss!’ he cried when he saw her. ‘You got to help, miss! I mean … er, your ladyshipness.’
‘Help with what?’ she said. ‘Has something happened?’ Her stomach tightened uncomfortably. Was Santiago hurt? Was he in trouble?
‘It appears our esteemed friend is in gaol,’ said Aunt Esme very drily. She was pulling on gloves as she spoke, and Nora was kneeling to change her footwear.
‘Sant— the Duke is in gaol?’ said Tiffany, just in case she had misheard. How on earth was he in gaol? He was a duke!
‘It appears so. Billy wisely came here to ask for help—’
‘I didn’t know no one else,’ Billy said bluntly.
‘Thank you, Billy.’
‘Well, I mean I do, but they’re the coves from when I ended up in Seven Dials and you don’t wanna owe them favours, ma’am, no you bloody don’t.’
Nobody told him off for his language. Tiffany said, ‘I thought you were from Foulness, Billy?’
‘Nah, s’just where I ended up when I ran away from Seven Dials. Which is where I ended up when I ran away from the workhouse. I like living with the guv’nor,’ he said fervently. ‘I don’t wanna see him hang!’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ said Esme briskly.
‘Hanged with a silken rope, ain’t it, Your Ladyship?’ said Nora.
‘I am sure the Duke hasn’t committed a hanging offence,’ said Esme. ‘Madhu, dear, I’m so sorry about supper. Will it keep warm?’
‘Of course,’ said Madhu. ‘Do you want me to fetch a sleeping draught? For the guards?’
‘Hmm,’ said Esme, pausing as she shrugged into her cloak. ‘I had thought to simply talk to them, but if it comes to that, I will send Billy back for some. Tiffany, you’re with me.’
‘Me?’ said Tiffany. ‘But—’
‘Yes. It will be good for you. Also, you have a few tricks up your sleeve we might use.’
‘What tricks?’ said Tiffany as they left the house into what was now a steady downpour. A hackney cab very nearly screeched to a halt at Esme’s raised hand. ‘Nora could bend the bars of the gaol. Madhu could make a … a sleeping draught for the gaolers!’
‘Dear me, how dramatic. I simply meant that you can make yourself unseen, which may prove useful. Billy, what was the charge?’
‘Brawling, miss.’
‘Brawling. Well, one cannot brawl alone. Was he acting by himself?’
‘No miss. He was with this other fella. And his valet.’
‘Robinson brawls?’ said Tiffany, agog.
‘I dunno, miss. I heard all the shouting, but when I went to see they was being loaded up into the hurry-up wagon and then I ran to the gaol to see and the guv’nor, he told me to come get you. Through the bars, like.’
Bars. Oh dear God in heaven. They were going to visit a gaol. Tiffany was so preoccupied with worrying about what Elinor would say that she paid no attention where they were going until she realised it was very dark outside, and not just because of the rain.
‘I would counsel you to keep your wits about you,’ said Esme as they descended from the cab, ‘as the denizens of the area are somewhat desperate, and I have not taught you how to curse people yet. Stay close to me. You too, Billy.’
The gaol was a wretched building, or perhaps it was part of a collection of wretched buildings. Everything looked so ramshackle she was astonished anyone managed to be held there at all. The rain made gulleys in the street, which appeared to be made of mud and other things she didn’t want to think about, and here and there were bundles of rags in the darkness that might have even been people.
Esme rapped on the door and demanded entrance, which was granted without question. Tiffany didn’t know if that was a witch thing or if the gaol would let anyone in, and only controlled who was allowed to leave.
Inside was a courtyard, just as dark and filthy as the street outside. A smell arose that Tiffany didn’t think she’d ever be rid of. In the darkness, something whined and howled.
‘Down there,’ said Billy, pointing to a grill set low in the wall, barely above the ground. Rain poured into it. ‘That’s where I saw ’im.’
Tiffany tried to peer in, but it was so dark she saw nothing. Surely the boy was mistaken and it was a drain?
Then something looked up at her from the running water. Not from the grate, but from the water itself, and it wasn’t moving with the flow but staying still. An eye, round and unblinking, with an oblong pupil. It seemed to come closer to the surface of the water—and then vanished, in a flurry of tentacles.
Tentacles…
‘Tiffany, stay with us,’ called Aunt Esme.
Tiffany shook her head and blinked. The running water was just running water. No doubt it had simply been something disgusting and her mind had played tricks with it. She hurried after her aunt.
The gaoler escorting them was a cadaverous man who leered at Tiffany in a way that made her feel as if something was crawling on her skin. He took them into a dimly lit room where the only relief was to be out of the rain, and said, ‘Who was it you was after?’
‘I believe he will have identified himself to you as Mr Santiago,’ Esme said.
‘Oh yeah. The Spaniard.’
‘He’s not Spanish,’ all three of them said at the same time.
‘And his valet also,’ said Tiffany, who was trying not to breathe through her nose. ‘Mr Robinson.’
‘And the other fella with the funny accent,’ piped up Billy.
The gaoler grunted and indicated that they should follow him. ‘Watch your step,’ he said, leading them down a set of creaking wooden stairs to a dark, low tunnel lit only by the occasional dish of burning fat set into niches on the wall. They stank like rancid bacon, and the flicker of the flames on the walls had Tiffany wishing she was anywhere else at all.
Why had Esme brought her, and not one of the others?
‘It is very dark,’ Esme said.
‘You want a candle, that’s tuppence.’
She sighed.
‘It ain’t a serious charge, if you get my drift,’ the gaoler said as he rapped on a door they passed, apparently just to hear the inmate howl. Tiffany flinched.
‘I believe I do,’ said Esme. ‘A fine, perhaps?’
‘Five guineas.’
‘Five guineas?’ said Tiffany and Billy at the same time. It was an outrageous sum.
‘Each.’ The gaoler smiled, revealing blackened teeth.
‘But that’s—’
‘Something you may need to help me with, my dear,’ said Esme to Tiffany, and was it a trick of the light or did her eyelid flicker in a wink?
Tiffany felt in her reticule for a pencil.
They were led to a grated opening in the curved tunnel wall, and the gaoler said, ‘They’re in there.’
‘May we have a candle?’
‘Threepence.’
‘It was tuppence back there!’ said Tiffany.
‘And now it’s threepence.’
Esme fished out her reticule and tossed him a thrupenny bit. The gaoler grinned to himself and sauntered back the way he’d come.
‘Oh well,’ said Esme, and shaped her hand around the air, which came to light, just as she had on the Somerset House terrace. And to think I was frightened then!
‘Holy mother of God,’ said a voice from the gloom.
‘What is that?’ came another.
A glint of gold, a flash of white teeth, and then Santiago was grinning at them through the bars. His face was bruised and bloody and his coat was torn. He looked more like a pirate than ever.
He bowed. ‘Mistress Blackmantle,’ he said. ‘Lady Tiffany. Billy. How kind of you to come.’
* * *
Tiffany looked shocked, and he couldn’t blame her. This place was dreadful, even compared to some of the gaols Santiago had been in. He’d considered trying to break out, but he was still half-cut, and he didn’t really fancy being set upon by whatever rabid mutts the gaoler kept.
‘This is who you went to fetch?’ said William in disbelief. ‘Ladies?’
‘Not just any ladies,’ Billy informed him eagerly. ‘See what she did with the light there?’
‘All right,’ said Esme Blackmantle, with a quelling hand in his direction. ‘We don’t want to end up behind bars too.’ She kept glancing back along the passage, but the gaoler was taking his time with their candle. ‘The gaoler appears to be open to bribery.’
‘Then you must feel right at home, Your Grace,’ said Lady Tiffany. ‘Bribery is after all, simply the cousin to blackmail.’
‘I have never blackmailed anyone,’ said Santiago. Did she really think so little of him?
She spluttered. ‘Then why am I giving you etiquette lessons?’
‘That was not bribery. That was a bargain.’
‘A bargain dependent on you not telling anyone about the witchcraft,’ Tiffany said hotly.
‘I remember it differently—’
‘Children, please,’ said Mistress Blackmantle, and Tiffany’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes continuing to glare daggers at him. ‘Have you paid the gaoler anything already?’
Santiago sighed. ‘We gave him a few pence for a blanket and some water. And I feel we will catch something from either.’
‘Dear me, what lessons could we possibly learn from this?’ said Tiffany crisply, and he realised that she wasn’t just afraid.
She was furious.
And that made him weirdly happy. If she didn’t care about him, she wouldn’t be angry at all. Disappointed, perhaps. But not furious.
‘I fear your friend has the advantage of us,’ she said, her words like cut glass.
‘My apologies. My brother, William Nettleship.’
‘Mr Nettleship.’ She nodded coolly. Her hand appeared to be tracing something on the wall outside the cell, and more of her attention was on it than him. ‘I see His Grace has managed to lead you astray.’
‘How do you know it was me?’ protested Santiago.
‘Well, it wasn’t Robinson. Are you all right, Robinson?’ Tiffany asked, with much more kindness in her voice.
The valet nodded, his eyes wide.
‘You have not asked if I am all right,’ said Santiago, trying not to sound as plaintive as he felt.
‘Have I not?’ She did not correct this. He heard a clink and saw Billy’s eyes go wide.
‘Ah, good,’ said Mistress Blackmantle. ‘If you will excuse me, I must go to give succour to those poor souls in the cells we passed.’
She nodded at them and left, leaving the pale bobbing light just hanging there in the air.
‘What’s succour?’ said Billy, somehow making it sound obscene.
‘Spiritual aid. Something I imagine His Grace will be seeking the moment he leaves this place.’
The only thing Santiago would be seeking when he got out of here was clean water. And maybe whiskey. ‘Lady Tiffany. Why are you here?’
‘I came to see if it was true. His Grace the Duke of St James in a common or garden gaol. I only wish I’d brought my sketchbook.’
The eerie glow of the witch light turned her pale skin into marble, her hair into silver. She sounded like a lady but she was eerie, unearthly. ‘You should not be here.’
‘I,’ she informed him icily, ‘am on the right side of the bars.’
‘This is no place for a lady!’
Tiffany was barely even looking at him. ‘It’s no place for a duke either, and yet here you are. Remind me of the charge again?’
Santiago set his jaw and muttered it.
She didn’t look up from whatever her hand was doing on that foetid wall. As politely as if they were at a ball and she’d misheard him, she said, ‘Your Grace?’
He sighed. ‘Brawling, my lady.’
‘Brawling,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘Ah yes. Remind me which of our lessons covered that?’
He glowered at her from beneath his hair. ‘They covered honour and defending the helpless. Should I have stood aside and let those thugs beat Robinson to death?’
That surprised her! ‘Thugs?’ she said. ‘Robinson?’ For the first time she moved her gaze from whatever on the wall was so fascinating. ‘Who would want to beat up Robinson?’
There was a sticky silence. Santiago considered trying to explain it to her, and decided it wasn’t his secret to tell. ‘Some stevedores. Who will get no work at my docks,’ he added drily.
‘Let me see if I have this right,’ she said, peering into their disgusting cell. ‘Some large, burly dockworkers simply decided to beat your polite and unobtrusive valet to death, and you chivalrously decided to step in and save him?’
‘That’s about the size of it, ma’am, yes,’ said William, who had been largely silent thus far.
‘But why?’ said Tiffany.
‘Because good valets are hard to find,’ snapped Santiago.
‘I meant—’
He knew exactly what she meant. But right then the pale witch light went out, and hurrying footsteps brought Mistress Blackmantle, followed more slowly by the gaoler with the promised candle.
After the much brighter witch light, it seemed sickly and dull, and his eyes took a moment to adjust.
‘Look what I have managed to find,’ Tiffany said to her aunt. ‘Fifteen guineas. In my reticule,’ she added, her smile bright.
There was a clink of coins. Santiago narrowed his eyes. Her reticule was hanging from one wrist, and she hadn’t touched it this whole time.
‘Fifteen guineas and a little extra for yourself,’ said Mistress Blackmantle, as if the gaoler had done them any favours.
The money was a magic of its own. The gaoler had their cell door unlocked in a trice, and Santiago gestured the others out first. He could hardly wait to get out. There was barely a noxious substance in the world not contained within that hideous cell, not to mention the rats. The rainwater had been a delightful refreshment.
He stepped into the corridor, which was hardly better, and stood looking at the gaoler’s outstretched hand.
‘You have had all my coin,’ he said.
‘All of it, sir? With friends like these fine ladies who carry so many guineas, have you nothing for the poor gaoler who did so much for your comfort?’
‘You brought a flea-infested blanket and water dirtier than what washes in off the street,’ Santiago said.
‘It’s more than most get,’ whined the gaoler.
‘I believe it,’ said Santiago. He started to walk, then paused. The cell door further up appeared to be missing its lock. And so, if he squinted, did the one next to it.
Give succour, indeed.
He turned back to the gaoler. ‘If I had been wearing fine clothes and bearing a title, and sent my boy to fetch money, how would I have been treated?’
‘Like a king, sir,’ said the gaoler. He looked over Santiago’s work clothes, which were not of poor quality, but were certainly not ducal in style, and were now in such a parlous state he thought Robinson might have to burn them. ‘But you’d have a hard time persuading me you was a titled lord, sir.’
He laughed at his own joke. Tiffany’s lips twitched.
‘This is very true,’ said Santiago solemnly. He felt in a pocket and pulled out his card case. ‘Here,’ he said, and tossed one of his ducal calling cards to the man. ‘So that you know where to send the bill for the doctor.’
He started walking again, the others following him.
‘What doctor?’ said the gaoler, bewildered.
Santiago gave the nearest cell door a shove. It opened easily, and a ferocious face peered out.
‘The one you’ll be needing,’ said Santiago, and walked out.