Vanquished (15 page)

Settling back against the leather squab, Sykes blew on cold-chapped hands the size of small hams. "She spent close on to two hours in there alone with him."

"You're quite sure?"

"Oh, aye, I stood watch from across the street, though it were cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Saw 'em go in together and then him leave the shop sign turned to closed. A couple minutes later a light came on in the upstairs window, but the shop below stayed dark. She didn't come out 'til nigh on three o'clock."

Dandridge paused to stare out to the elaborate ironwork standards ranged along the riverside, their fierce-looking dolphins coiled about the bases, before asking, "Alone?"

Sykes shrugged. "Well, not alone exactly. He was standing just inside the door."

"How did you find them?"

"Sorry?"

Teeth gritted, he prompted, "Was she flushed? In a state of dishabille--undress?"

"Oh, she were buttoned-up proper, with one of them big fancy hats on and a boxy coat that went clear past her ankles. He was in his shirtsleeves, but he had on his breeches and they was buttoned, too--I looked."

Putting aside his disappointment, Dandridge picked up the string-wrapped bundle on the seat beside him and handed it across to Sykes, careful not to let his gloved fingers come into contact with any part of the henchman. "I see. Keep a watch on them until you receive further instruction."

Sykes's thick lips stretched into a gap-toothed grin. He stuffed the money inside his coat. "Oh, aye, I will. In fact, you might say as it'll be my pleasure."

"Well, well, this is an unexpected pleasure. I've never known you to sneak off shopping on a weekday before."

Callie started. She looked up from the display of gentlemen's business cases she'd been perusing to find Teddy standing beside her. Blast, but she'd as good as forgotten he clerked at Harrods.

Finding her smile, she said, "Yes, well, I need to purchase an attache case."

Ever since leaving Hadrian's studio hours earlier, she'd been obsessed with the notion of giving him something, a memento, by which to remember her. An attache case seemed to strike a reasonable middle ground between the practical and the personal; personal, to be sure, but not embarrassingly so. Earlier she'd noticed that the leather case he carried along with his camera was worn to the point of shabbiness. Likely he'd been so buried beneath commissions he hadn't given a thought to replacing it.

Teddy frowned, twisting one end of his waxed mustache as he was wont to do when puzzled. "But didn't Lottie just give you a crack case for your last birthday? If it's worn, we'll make good on it, you've only to bring it in."

Callie cleared her throat. Dear Lord, was it ever her lot in life to be caught out over even the smallest deception? Choosing her words with care, she said, "It's not for me. It's a gift . . . for a . . . colleague."

"I see." The wounded look he sent her made her think he did see the situation in all its sordid truth.

Fighting back a blush, she pointed at random to the display shelf and said, "That black one is awfully smart."

"You have excellent taste." All at once the dutiful clerk, he walked over and popped open the case. "The lining is lambskin, not the green baize of the less dear models. Not that there's anything wrong with baize--"

"I'll take it," she interrupted, desperate to break away if only to be alone with her thoughts and the truly momentous, disastrous, and altogether wonderful course her life had careened toward since earlier that afternoon. "How soon might I have it engraved?"

"The gent responsible for our leatherwork has a few items in queue before yours, but I'm not without influence." He snapped a suspender and added, "I can put in a word on your behalf--important friend waiting and all that. It should be ready by tomorrow, late morning. Will that do?"

"Oh Teddy, that would be so good of you. You're quite certain you don't mind?"

"Quite." He clicked together the heels of his polished shoes. Looking down, he said, "I lay off work in a few minutes. Any chance of you joining me in the tearoom upstairs?"

"I wish that I could but I haven't time." What with the hours she'd already spent with Hadrian, she'd need every remaining minute of the evening to catch up.

"Don't give it another thought, old girl. It's only that . . . well, dash it, I miss you, Callie. I miss you dreadfully. We scarcely see each other these days."

She waved a hand, hoping to appear matter-of-fact rather than what she was--a guilty person, a loose woman, a liar on the verge of being caught out. "With the suffrage bill set to be reintroduced, I've been so busy lobbying potential backers I haven't had a moment to myself. But in a fortnight and a day, this business will be resolved one way or the other, at least until next session, and then we'll have a nice long catchup, I promise." She summoned what she hoped passed for an easy smile, even as she felt her heart sinking like millstone tossed into a stream.

A fortnight and a day. What she didn't say, couldn't bear to think on was that her photographic portrait soon would be finished as well. That meant she would have run out of reasons for seeing Hadrian St. Claire.

"The suffrage is the right of all women, just as it is the right of all men, and although the immediate need may not be felt by the happy and the prosperous--by the women with kind husbands and comfortable homes--we insist on it on behalf of the solitary, the hard pressed, and the wronged; we insist on liberty so that all may share the blessings of liberty."

--M
ARY
L
EE,
South Australia Register,
1890

T
he encounter with Dandridge had shaken Hadrian mightily. He was still in a filthy mood the next afternoon when Callie breezed inside his flat, brown-paper-wrapped parcel tucked beneath one arm. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him seated at the window, cat in his lap. "Hadrian, are you quite all right?"

Unshaven and unwashed, he knew he likely looked like hell, perhaps stank even worse and yet he couldn't resist. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you seem, well . . . not quite yourself."

He had a mind to point out that she didn't really know him, at least not outside of bed, but of course he couldn't say such a thing, not at this stage at any rate. Setting Dinah down, he rose stiffly as an old man might. "We had an appointment. Do you imagine yours to be the only time of value?"

What remained of her smile faded to bewilderment. "Of course not. She glanced back to the door. "I can come back another time if you'd rather. If the light isn't good or . . ."

Ordinarily a ten minute or so infraction wouldn't have fazed him in the least, but since Dandridge had admitted to having him watched, he felt vulnerable in ways he could scarcely own. Mired in such a state, it was easy enough to convince himself that the MP and Callie were cut from the same cloth. Political persuasions aside, they were all too willing to rampage over others to achieve their precious ends. No sacrifice was too great so long as it was made by somebody else, somebody beneath them.

"The light is fine. Sit down." Without waiting for her to answer, he pulled out a chair. "Now tell me about this meeting of yours, the one that was so important you must be late."

She set her package on the table and slipped into the proffered seat. "It was a lecture on the plight of East End women and girls given by Mrs. Catherine Booth who with her husband founded the Salvation Army. Owing in no small part to Mrs. Booth's guiding hand, the Salvation Army gives women equal responsibility for preaching and welfare work."

"How . . . inspirational." Voice dripping with sarcasm, he scraped out a second chair and took his seat.

She hesitated. "Indeed, it was. In fact, Mrs. Booth recounted a case just last week of a young woman, a girl really, who came to the shelter seeking refuge from her father who meant to sell her to a house of prostitution to make ends meet."

Hadrian thought of his childhood friend, Sally, now the madam of the house where he'd grown up. It had been a hard life but at least they'd never starved. Not until he'd left to strike out on his own had he known real hunger. The memory of that gnawing belly ache would stay with him for the rest of his life. Sometimes in his dreams he felt it still.

In his dreams.

He rolled his shoulders. Taut as they were, they barely moved. "Brothel, workhouse, everyone's version of hell-on-earth takes its own shape. Better that than she should starve and her family along with her."

She paused in pulling off her gloves to stare at him. "Hadrian, you can't be serious."

"Indeed, I am wholly so."

She dismissed his comment with the flick of her hand, not unlike Dandridge had done the day before--more fuel to the fire. "Better she should be given refuge and trained for some gainful employment, some useful occupation that provides a true service to society."

For whatever reason, the way she said
society
set his teeth on edge. "There are those who would say that prostitution provides a necessary service, a safety valve if you will."

He was being unpleasant, deliberately so, risking his mission and his very life into the bargain. But the old recklessness was coursing through him potent as any drug and for the life of him he couldn't bring himself to care. In truth, he hoped she would take it into her head to simply get up and walk out. Better yet, run while she still had the chance.

Run Callie, run.

Slapping her gloves atop the table, she shot back, "Easy for you to say so, a man." Man, she all but spat out the word. "Did you know that, in England alone, as many as forty-odd percent of unmarried women live in dire poverty, a condition that makes them vulnerable to succumbing to prostitution and sundry other degradations."

Good, he'd got to her at last, that was his aim after all. "What would someone like you know of whoring?" That he didn't say prostitution but rather the coarser term was a measure of just how far beyond control he was. It should have been a warning sign but for the moment he was past caring. As it was, he was a heartbeat away from shouting at her:
If you want to know about whoring, ask someone who knows. Ask me.

She flushed but to her credit held his gaze. "I have read accounts of women who must walk the streets to feed themselves."

"Accounts, is it? Tell me, Caledonia, have you ever condescended to speak to such a woman? Face to face, that is?"

"No, not exactly."

"Not exactly?" Fingering the glass fragment buried in his palm, he made no attempt to strain the sarcasm from his tone. "Tell me, what manner of recompense are such women paid to give their testimonials? Five shillings? As much as ten? More perhaps but then such titillating gossip would be worth a great deal, wouldn't it, for spinsters too gutless to allow a man near enough to touch them, really touch them."

Cheeks dyed a wind-chapped red, Callie pushed back from the table, and rose. "For whatever reason, you seem determined we should be at odds. You are in a foul humor, and I've no mind to be made the butt of it so much as a moment more." She snatched up her parcel in shaking hands and turned to go, leaving her gloves lie.

Like a drunk who'd just come to, he took a stumbling step toward her. "Caledonia. Callie." He reached out to touch her but something in her ramrod straight stance called him to take his hand back.

Bottom lip trembling, she shook her head. "Mind you don't say a word more, not a single flipping word. Hang your bloody photographs and . . .
hang
you."

With that, she turned her back on him and stalked off. He steeled himself for the requisite slamming of the door but when she only drew it quietly closed, he knew in his heart she meant never to come back, that this was farewell, not merely goodbye. The very worst part was that he couldn't fault her for it. Not a jot. If he had so much as a drop of decency left, he would let her go, let her save herself, and accept whatever consequences came his way.

Yet somehow, he couldn't resign himself to bidding her farewell. Not just yet. Not like this.

"Callie, hold." He vaulted out into the hallway. Catching her on the stair landing, he took firm hold of her shoulders.

Whirling about, she struggled to shake him off, the parcel falling to the floor. "Take your bloody hands off me."