The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (86 page)

Morrigan’s teacup fell as though in a dream. Tea splashed over Lily’s slippers and the carpet. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she cried, seizing a napkin to wipe at the spill.

“Leave it.” Lily grabbed Morrigan’s hand. “That was cruel of me. I wanted you to feel it as I do, but I should not have used Olivia as an example. Forgive me,
cara mia
.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“Of course you didn’t. Who knows where I would be now, if not for Donaghue? Prostitutes, contrary to popular moral sentiment, are people. If they could conjure another way to put food in their stomachs, they would do it. Each morning my first thought is to thank God for Richard— Richard
is
my god, really. He’s suffered abuse for being my champion, yet he shrugs it off. He’s even had to give up his dream of having children, for I cannot conceive, probably due to one disease or another I had when I was on the streets.”

“Lily….”

She smiled sadly. “He is the dearest man, along with your husband. Donaghue has a saying for those who chastise him:
advienne que pourra
. ‘Happen what may.’ You cannot fathom the depth of what that means to me, the knowledge that he will always stand by me.”

“I thought you a born aristocrat.”

Lily laughed. “Truly? I don’t fool many so easily. Does this change your opinion of me? Can we still be friends?”

There was the barest hint of forlorn resignation in her voice, making Morrigan wonder how many others called “friend” had abandoned her.

Morrigan again saw Diorbhail’s face.
I love you,
she’d said.
I’d die for you.

She put out her hand to cover Lily’s. “
Je t’aime,
” she said ardently. “
Crevettes et toujours.
”

“
Très bien.
” Lily tried to stifle a smile. “I’m not sure about the reference to shrimps, though, darling.”

“Bloody hell!” Morrigan cried, before remembering where she was. She asked their pardon, adding to Lily, “I should give up trying to learn that language.”

Lily brushed at her eyes and leaned closer. “I treasure your friendship too,” she said. “
Aujourd’hui et toujours.
” She pressed her cheek to Morrigan’s.

Morrigan felt the wetness of her hostess’s tears and experienced an instant of enraptured fulfillment. Romance was fine and exciting, but nothing satisfied as much as being understood, or being able to give one’s trust and know it would never be betrayed.

Lily sat up and smiled mistily. “Miss Collins and I have opened two homes for orphans,” she said. “We feed and clothe about three hundred children a year, and we have several ladies who teach them various ways of earning money so they don’t have to resort to selling themselves.”

“How do you pay for it?” Morrigan asked.

“Investors. Donaghue contributes of course, and he has brought in others from his club. Miss Collins has a brother who is set to inherit. He also makes generous contributions.” She smiled again. “I can see you did not know your husband is one of our investors. It’s so like him, to keep his good works quiet.”

Morrigan pondered all this as Lily returned her attention to the others and revisited the business of the evening. “So. Gladstone will not help. Does Josephine have another plan up her sleeve?”

Mrs. Crewler bunched her handkerchief in a fist. “She never loses heart. She will probably dash off another colorful speech, and rally a thousand new recruits to the cause. I wish I had her optimism. I confess I often feel we are mere objects of ridicule, a pitiful band of women shouting into the darkness, ignored or laughed at by those we must persuade.”

“Why has this been done?” Morrigan asked quietly.

“Men create regulations to benefit themselves,” Lily said. “You are aware that Ramsay enjoys complete legal authority over you and Olivia? You are his property, though he might never intimate such a thing. Were he so inclined, he could take Olivia from you, using almost any reason, and you would have very few legal means to fight him. This is what happens when women are excluded from lawmaking and the vote.”

Father Drummond had forced her to hear that unbearable truth, and it had changed the way she viewed everything. True, she was the wife of the whisky-voiced laird, a man known for his kindnesses. Yet she had seen his anger unleashed. When goaded, Curran Ramsay was far from perfect, and she would be wise to never forget it.

“We are kept out of universities,” Mrs. Crewler added. “We cannot earn a living in any professional way. This compels us to rely on men for everything, a fact that is not happenstance, I assure you.”

“Several medical professionals have spoken up, rejecting the Commission’s theory that there would be no syphilis if not for the female sex, but so far, it hasn’t helped,” the physician’s wife said. “And it won’t, not as long as the military keeps telling them that detaining prostitutes will stamp out these diseases, and that forcing examinations upon the soldiers will demoralize them. There is the added invisible benefit of making all women, fallen or not, realize how little sovereignty they possess. We are dismissed, and in fact condemned for publicly speaking of these matters.” A deep furrow appeared between her brows. “I wonder what would happen if there were no prostitutes? My husband believes that many men would find more degrading or violent methods of satisfying those needs they attempt to keep hidden from us.”

“Needs?” Lily said. “Perversions, you mean. I still see the faces of children I knew. No one would do a thing to protect them. No one cares about orphans anyway. This, from the most advanced, civilized country on earth.”

Sweat formed on Morrigan’s forehead. She blotted it with a handkerchief, inwardly recoiling as the old, terrifying flash of light blinded her for an instant, followed by nausea, stabbing pain through the temples, and the hum that filled her ears like a swarm of wasps.

Lily’s voice sounded as though it was muffled in cotton. “There’s a lucrative business in torturing children here,” she said. “They’re locked inside brothels with soundproofed rooms, and windows so the customers can watch.”

Morrigan fought the urge to get up and run. Her body filled with an awful sensation, like a clot of spiders had erupted from the pit of her stomach and were scattering through her body, suffocating her, filling her lungs with their horrible hairy legs.

Her ribs curved, sharp as knives, making each breath excruciating. She tugged at her collar. If she couldn’t breathe, she would die, but better that than weak-willed disgrace before these brave women who were willing to risk mockery and censure in order to assist the humblest, most helpless human beings.

Children tortured for sexual pleasure? Such a thing was madness. A crime so evil would surely bring a death-curse upon the entire world.

Hell is what Earth becomes without her Mother.
Morrigan felt Diorbhail’s presence, saw her eyes, blazing with unbridled rage.

“You saw this, Diorbhail.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “You knew this would happen.”

“Morrigan,” Lily cried. “Morrigan?”

She dimly realized she was gasping. The room was so hot. She wanted to die of embarrassment. The black cloud swirled closer.

“What can we do?” she heard below the roar in her ears. She sensed the women crowding around.

Lily’s face was pale. “Get her husband. He’s here somewhere. Try the smoking room.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LILY DIPPED A
handkerchief in her teacup and pressed it to Morrigan’s cheeks. “Forgive me,
mon amie,
” she said.

Honoria Collins brought Curran and Richard. Curran fell to his knees.

Morrigan’s eyelids fluttered and she seized the edge of his coat. “The paddle wheel is chopping me to bits,” she whispered. “I’m flying everywhere.”

“Has she had too much to drink?” Richard asked.

“Only tea,” Lily said defensively.

“I’ll take her upstairs. Get a doctor.” Curran picked her up and carried her out of the room.

“He’s wed a damnably vaporish female,” Richard said.

“It’s not her.” Lily stared at the empty doorway. “It’s us. We’ve become walking, talking corpses, filling the silence with Wagner, and hothouse flowers, and balls, while two streets away….” She clasped Mrs. Crewler’s hand. “But for a few, like Josephine, and you, and in her way, Morrigan. They shine a light on how dead we are.”

She and Richard left the drawing room. Lily instructed one of the maids to send for a doctor, and after she’d gone, said, “I’m so accustomed to London’s atrocities I’ve grown the shell of a turtle. You’re right in a way, Donaghue. She is high-strung. But this is no simple honeymoon. There’s something we don’t know.”

Richard nodded. “I confess at first I thought he’d fallen in love with her simply because she’s beautiful, young, and malleable. But there is something….” He trailed off, frowning. “Her eyes are ancient.”

“And weary,” Lily said.

The doctor’s wife came out and joined them, wringing her handkerchief. “Did I do this with what I said? I do forget myself. Dear Lord, I wish the men we appeal to had half as much feeling.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Lily said. “Send the physician up when he arrives, would you please, Donaghue? I’ll go and check on her.”

She hurried upstairs, knocked, and entered the bedroom.

Morrigan lay on the bed. Curran had removed her dress and corset, and sat slumped in a chair, staring at her.

“How is she?” Lily kept her voice low.

“Sleeping, or fainted.” He motioned and they went out into the sitting room. “What happened?”

“I was telling her about London’s orphans. It obviously shocked her. I forgot how unsophisticated she is.”

“I forget too, sometimes. It’s easy to forget.”

“Do you know why it affected her so badly?”

He drew in a deep breath. “She’s as deep as the ocean, and I’ve only been introduced to the surface ripples.”

“Oh, Ramsay.”

“She was a virgin. I ruined her.” With a mirthless laugh, he said, “She asked me if she would have a baby after, but she had things… wrong.” He laughed again, quietly. “I’d forgotten that till now. I thought, growing up on a farm of sorts, she’d have seen the cows and horses— that she’d know, but she didn’t. Not really.”

Lily guided him to the love seat and settled beside him. “Did you want to marry her?”

“I couldn’t wait. She’s unique in ways I can’t even describe, innocent as a child one minute, speaking the deepest philosophy I’ve ever heard the next. I’d be the happiest man alive if she loved me. I don’t know if she does, she’s never said. If I could hear her
say
it, just once.”

“She’d be a fool not to.”

“I think she might be… having an affair.”

“Indeed.” Lily was shocked to her core. She would never have thought such a thing of that shy, easily embarrassed girl.

“From the moment she met him our lives changed. I’d swear she was happy with me, until him. If I’d let her take Olivia, I suspect she’d leave me for him. Maybe I should, but I can’t. Even if Olivia’s the only thing keeping her with me, I’ll use her. I’ll use my own child like a cage.”

Lily’s eyes filled with tears. “You can’t blame yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I almost hit her.” Curran’s cheeks reddened. “I wanted to. I was so daft with jealousy. See what I’ve become?” He covered his eyes with his hands.

Curran Ramsay? No, never. Yet his misery revealed the truth. “Don’t you remember how many of the fair sex you had swooning at your feet before you married?” she asked.

No reaction.

“Ramsay.” Grasping his arm, she said, “You had your pick of London’s finest, decent and otherwise. Don’t you know?”

His hands fell to his lap and he regarded her blankly.

“Even me, Curran,” she said, “and God knows I love my husband.”

Such beautiful blue eyes. She had never seen anything quite like them. If one looked closely enough, purple and minute flecks of green could be detected within the blue. Sometimes she thought she saw infinitesimal motes of silver.

Surprise widened them. He’d never suspected then, how that smile he threw around so carelessly left her breathless, ridden with guilt and fantasies.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “You were happy. Now your eyes follow her, and they are always sad.” She stroked the side of his face. Touched his lips with her fingers.

He kissed them. His hand caught at hers, holding on desperately, like she was the only thing keeping him sane and human.

* * * *

Morrigan woke to flickering candlelight.

Why was she in bed? There was a blurry memory of Lily, her expression growing hard as she described barrenness caused from years of prostitution.

Distant murmuring roused her further. The deeper resonance sounded like Curran. She needed him. When everything grew hopeless and awful, Curran could always soothe her. Sweet, braw Curran. He would take away this sensation of falling into a fathomless hole. “Curran,” she whispered. But there was no reply. He wasn’t there.

When she stood, the room spun like a dervish, but she gritted her teeth and crossed to the doorway, where shock congealed into frozen, disbelieving horror.

They were pressed together. Touching. Lily was stroking her husband’s face. He held her fingers against his lips and kissed them.
Kissed
them.

Morrigan gripped the doorjamb.
He’d
done this, got her with child. Trapped her. Now he thought he could do as he pleased while exploding with jealousy if she even smiled at a man. No, by God. He’d see.

Lily had seduced her with fraudulent kindness. How she and Curran must have laughed at her!

Her body liquefied into a rogue tide, a crushing wave that would annihilate these two liars. Her mouth opened, ready to spew poison and hatred.

You’ve changed. You were happy. Now your eyes follow her, and they are always sad.

Morrigan’s wrath froze. It hung, rigid and immobilized, then splintered around her in a storm of echoing silence. Stumbling backward, she reached for something to keep her from falling and giving herself away. She grabbed the brass bedpost and slid to the floor.

* * * *