The Masters of Bow Street (66 page)

‘Would it not be better to send a messenger?’ asked Richard. ‘I am reluctant to leave you on your own.’ In a strange way he, too, was reluctant to go to Hermina in such circumstances.

‘Yet it is on my own or with some wench with a soft body to comfort me that I must be tonight,’ Simon replied. ‘Do you know of such a one, Richard? Or are you shocked to hear me talk so?’

‘What you need tonight is whatever you feel you need,’ Richard answered.

They were taken by a youthful coachman to the premises in the Strand, which was dark except for a few flares. Only two taverns appeared to be open at this late hour, for it was after two o’clock. The coachman waited. Richard made sure that Simon had what he needed and left him, stony-eyed and weighed down by a grief which was only just beginning to tear at his mind and heart. Leaving the room door unlatched, he went quietly down one flight of narrow stairs and then along a narrow passage leading to the big room where the maids all slept. There were four, and Lucy, the one who had been present when Simon had come to seek him out after the battle of Great Furnival Square, was in the second bed. She had been twice married already, once to a man who had died of the pox, now to a seaman who had not been in London for more than a year.

One Sunday morning after Richard had been out late the previous night following a performance of a Beethoven symphony at the Covent Garden Opera House, he had slept late and had waked to find her in the room, looking down at him, smiling. No longer the timid child whom Simon had frightened, she had become more plump and cushiony, with a pleasing face and a merry smile which, at that moment, had a quality of seductiveness that Richard had hot previously noticed. That morning her smile, the fullness of her bosom as she leaned forward, and her nearness, all combined to fill him with an urgent sense of desire. All of his past experiences with women had been largely unsatisfying because of a sense of restraint, even embarrassment, on his part, and a dislike of the boldness of his companion - always a casual acquaintance. Aware that most men of his age were vastly experienced in such matters, his own ignorance had added to self-consciousness.

There was one other deterrent factor, too. On such occasions it was never possible to get the thought of Hermina out of his mind. She was ever present. Now that she was out of reach, since the wife or sister of a friend must by his own and most standards be inviolate, he was partly persuaded that he was naturally celibate, but on such a morning as that Sunday he had realised the folly of this notion.

Lucy had come to him with obvious pleasure, and there had been much mutual enjoyment while they had been together, without inhibitions or shyness. From that Sabbath on she had come to him early, and they had pleasured themselves for a while and then had rested until she had been duty bound to dress and go downstairs to begin her work for the day. He had expected that she would soon begin to make claims on him, to ask for some declaration of their relationship, even that he should set her up in an apartment of her own.

But she had shown no desire for any of this, and when one morning after their exertions he had talked of it, she had said, ‘Twice I’ve been tied to a man and had a man tied to me, sir. It does no good and turns pleasure bitter. I ask for nothing more but a continuance of your generous goodness.’ Richard set aside a sum for her each week, and she made passing reference to it but did not make him feel that it was payment for their Sunday mornings. He had learned that there were at least two other men who received her favours, but that did not trouble him; in a way it reassured him that she was not dependent on him alone.

On this autumn morning she woke with a start and turned on her back to stare up at him for he had never come to her like this.

‘Take no alarm,’ he urged, ‘but get up, Lucy, and make some tea and take it to my room. Mr. Simon is here and in great distress. Say nothing of that, but if he needs your comfort, comfort him.’

‘
That
man needs comfort?’ She gasped. ‘As likely comfort a raging bull!’

But there could be no doubt of her readiness, indeed, eagerness, to go to Simon, and little doubt that he would find in her the solace he needed.

A tired watchman with his lantern on the end of a cracked, squeaky pole sat on the porch at Simon’s house. He held the lantern close to Richard’s face and backed away, grumbling, but allowing him to pass. Inside the hall another watchman waited, with yet another at the first landing.

A young man whom Richard knew to be the senior footman came out of a room with a candle in his hand, recognised Richard and said, ‘I will have the maid find out if Mrs. Rattfay-Furnival is awake, sir.’

Richard waited for only a few minutes before the man reappeared from another room, part of the suite which Richard knew Simon and Hermina used when they were not entertaining.

‘You may enter, sir.’

Richard did not see the maid.

All the way there he had been fighting against a rising excitement which he told himself he must not allow Hermina to notice. Tonight of all nights it should not even be in his mind, he had such tragic news to convey. Yet in fact the shock at learning what had happened had not yet gone deep, for he had been concerned for Simon and was now, whether it was proper or not, concerned for himself. He tried to push awareness of Hermina to the back of his mind but could not do so. Now he saw the door of her room - her room and Simon’s - standing ajar and tapped to make sure she was ready to receive him.

She called, ‘Come in, Richard,’ and her voice struck every nerve in his body.

He pushed the door wider open and stepped into the lofty room, beautiful in pale colours, with rich furnishings, and a huge bed without posts or canopy. He had expected her to be out of bed, but she was sitting up against the pillows, a froth of lace slipping from her shoulders. She smiled at him in obvious welcome, as if she did not care why he had come and was glad only that he had.

She was so beautiful that she made him catch his breath.

He missed a step and then stood still, his heart thumping against his ribs with heavy, choking beats.

He did not want to feel like this.

He did not want to feel the blood drumming in his ears, the dizziness in his head. He wanted to be calm and detached and friendly despite the mist which suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Slowly, it cleared.

Now she was smiling more broadly and her arms were outstretched. He felt as if he were choking.

She did not move or speak, but her smile and her arms invited him.

He did not allow himself to move, fought for self control and for his voice. The first syllables came on a husky note, and he swallowed and tried again. This time the words were at least audible.

‘I come with grievous news,’ he told her.

‘But you have come.’

‘Simon sent me to—’

‘I do not want to talk of Simon,’ she interrupted, and her voice took on a sharpness of tone he had not expected; nor had he heard it before.

‘I have to tell you that Timothy McCampbell-Furnival is dead,’ he declared. ‘Most brutally murdered.’

At last she listened, her arms dropped to her side, her mouth opened, her expression suddenly one of dismay. All this was as it should be and helped Richard to feel more normal, easing the tension which sight of her and her reception had created. He moved a step nearer and went on in a voice now under stern control.

‘Simon has much to do, arranging the hunt for the murderer and the thieves. A fortune was stolen and much damage was done - they were vicious vandals also.’

Hermina asked, ‘Did Timothy suffer?’

‘The doctor said there could have been only an instant’s pain before he died of a blow on the head. Hermina, Simon was concerned for you and anxious that you should not receive this news from a servant or from a stranger. I wish someone other than I could have been the bearer.’

‘I know of no one from whom I would rather have heard,’ Hermina said. She held out her arms again, and now he thought it was a gesture of distress, a need for comfort. Had he been mad to imagine the way she had moved and invited before had been any different from this? Had the tumult in him distorted the picture of what she looked like and his hearing of what she had said?

She was so beautiful.

She went on in a soft, enticing voice, ‘And I know of no one I would rather have by me now.’

She was like fire in his veins.

‘Where
is
Simon?’ she asked, still softly.

‘He - has many things to do,’ Richard repeated.

‘So he will not be here for a long time,’ she said. ‘Richard - oh, Richard.’

She leaned back on her pillows and with a gesture let the lace slip farther from her shoulders. They glowed in the soft light and seemed to call him. Farther still slipped the lace, and now her breasts were uncovered.

‘Richard,’ she murmured, ‘come to me.’

This was Hermina!

This was Simon’s wife, the unattainable, the goddess! Richard’s head filled with an unfamiliar roaring and his body was anguished by fierce longing. She was Simon’s wife. But Simon was not here; he would never know what passed between them. He had only to move two steps, three steps, to be with her, to know a glory and a fury of possession. Three steps.

‘Richard,’ she said, ‘you will never know how I have yearned for you.’

For
him
. Simon’s wife. It was as if false words forked her tongue, yet words that he wanted to hear above all others.

‘Richard, come to me . . . I have yearned for you.’

Her eyes were like magnets, drawing him. Her body began to quiver. Suddenly she flung back the bedclothes and with a twist of her hips she was kneeling, naked, on the bed, only a hand’s reach away from him.

‘Richard!’ she hissed. ‘Come to me, come to me!’

She flung herself forward.

He opened his arms wide to save her from falling, and in that instant there flashed into his mind a single word:
No.

As if she sensed his decision, her expression changed, rage turned her cheeks to flaming red, and she began to strike and claw at him.

Richard struggled desperately to restrain her, but she was like a madwoman, biting, scratching and kicking, and suddenly he knew exactly what he must do. Holding her off for a moment, he struck her smartly across one cheek with his open hand. On the instant her eyes rolled and she became a dead weight, body sagging, head drooping.

Looking up, he saw a pair of eyes and realised that they had been watched. His heart missed a beat, and then he looked away, shifted Hermina’s position so that he could lift her and, lifting, called, ‘Come and help your mistress.’

It was a woman, older than Hermina yet still young, wearing a loose-fitting robe of heavy wool and a bonnet. She came forward briskly, and as he laid Hermina on the bed, looking down at the flawless beauty of her body, she took a gown from a chair. After a moment of hesitation he raised Hermina to a sitting position so that the servant could slip the gown over her head and shoulders and place her arms in the sleeves. Then he raised her again while the other drew the gown beneath her, covering thighs and legs down to the slim ankles.

He stood back. He realised suddenly that he was breathing very hard, that he had seldom been so near exhaustion. Moving to a chair, he leaned against it as the woman drew the sheet over Hermina, who was still unconscious.

At last she was finished, and Richard made himself ask, ‘Does such behaviour happen often?’

In a measured voice, the answer came: ‘Too often.’

‘Does Mr. Simon know?’

‘Too well,’ she said. ‘But I have never known her quite so bad.’

‘It must have been the shock of hearing of Mr. Timothy’s death. I was too abrupt in telling her.’

‘It was the shock of having you refuse her,’ the woman said bluntly.

‘That I can’t believe.’

‘It is nothing but the truth. For many years she has longed for another man, for freedom from Mr. Simon’s domination, and she has always felt much affection towards you. May I speak frankly?’

‘So far nothing appears to have discouraged you from so doing,’ Richard said dryly.

‘Had you succumbed, it might have proved her salvation.’

‘And mine? To betray a friend?’

‘Mr. Richard,’ the woman said quietly, ‘there is much hypocrisy and ignorance over such matters. It is my opinion that if Miss Hermina could share her life with another, she would be less subject to such outbreaks of hysteria and Mr. Simon would lead a more peaceful life here at home. He is not enough for her.’

Richard remembered much of what his grandfather had told him of Hermina’s family, a story never related to one coherent whole but in bits and pieces which he had gradually woven into a picture which seemed part of his memory, the telling had always been so vivid.

Gabriel Morgan, a member of the New Mohocks and of the murdering, pillaging Twelves.

There was a bad streak in the Morgans; was there a streak of madness in the family, also?

He heard a faint sound from Hermina and caught a glimpse of her face above the sheet as she turned her head. The maid moved to one side, opened a small cabinet and took out a bottle so delicately shaped that it might contain an exotic perfume; she removed the stopper and poured a little liquid into a spoon kept in the same place. Next she raised Hermina’s head from the pillow and with the precision of long practice parted the lips with the tip of the spoon and poured the contents in. Hermina swallowed without protest - she, too, was used to being dosed in this way. The maid put the bottle back in the cabinet.

‘She will sleep now. May I prevail on you to take a cup of tea or coffee?’

‘Some tea would be most welcome,’ Richard accepted gratefully.

‘Then if you will follow me.’

She led the way and soon Richard found himself in a small and pleasant room, in one corner a kettle singing over a grease lamp of unusual design. As the woman busied herself he was aware of the suppleness of her movement and the beauty of her busy hands. Beneath her bonnet her hair was set in ringlets which might be natural, and although she was pale it was not the pallor of poor health. She had wide-set blue eyes and a clear, translucent skin.