Vanquished (40 page)

Callie shook her head, which ached from grief and fatigue as well as a surfeit of sherry. "You saw Dandridge's face as well as I when we confronted him. The way he stared at me, one would think I hadn't on a stitch. Oh, he has the photograph, all right, and only because Hadrian gave it to him. By his own admission, he took money from Dandridge to ruin me. Really, Aunt, what more in the way of proof do you require?"

"I am only saying you owe it to yourself to confront him, hear what Hadrian has to say in his defense."

"I'm not terribly interested in anything he has to say in his defense or otherwise. Why, how could I possibly credit a single word he says? Hadrian St. Claire isn't even his true name. He took it so as not to be traced back to his . . . past." She stopped herself from saying more. Even now that she knew Hadrian to be the agent of her ruin, telling the secret of his past, even to her aunt, still struck her as terribly wrong.

In the shadows cast by the carriage lamp, Lottie regarded her, expression thoughtful. "Just as times change, people can change, too--if they want to badly enough."

Callie had the discomfiting feeling that the remark was meant for her. "Very well, Auntie, you win again. If Hadrian wishes to speak with me, I'll hear him out. Only this time, Lottie, it is he who must come to me."

The early morning streets were just beginning to come to humming life when Hadrian, Gavin, and Rourke stepped out of the magistrate's office, having just finished swearing out their statements. Connecting Dandridge to the night's deeds might take some doing, but knowing Sykes and Deans, Hadrian felt certain one or both criminals would soon confess rather than swing from the gallows rope.

Looking down at the Manton dueling pistol tucked into his pocket, Rourke chuckled, "Och, but that was quite an adventure."

"An adventure I can well do without repeating," Gavin added, "particularly as before last night Grandfather's dueling pistols likely haven't been fired since Napoleon's day."

Dividing his gaze between his two childhood friends, Hadrian said, "In case I neglected to say so earlier, my thanks to both of you for saving my unworthy hide, or rather what's left of it."

A cursory glance in the cracked mirror of the police loo had shown his face to be a mask of cuts and bruises that would render shaving pointless for the next week if not longer. A knot the size of a robin's egg was fast rising on his crown, and though he was no doctor, he was quite certain his nose was broken. Even so, he would gladly live with this battered face for the rest of his days if it meant Callie might take pity on him, and yes, take him back.

"Think nothing of it. Only Harry,"--Gavin paused to scour his face with sober eyes--"the next time you take it into your head to go haring off like some knight errant, tell us in advance, will you? Just what did possess you to stake out Dandridge's townhouse?"

From the street corner, a newsboy's shouts of "Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Maid of Mayfair bares all" saved him from answering.

"What the devil." Wheeling about, he rushed forward and grabbed the newspaper out of the startled boy's hands.

"Now see 'ere, guv . . ."

Hadrian scarcely registered the protest, his gaze, indeed his entire focus, riveted on the paper's front page. Splayed across it was the photograph of Callie,
his
photograph, the high slopes of her breasts and bare white thighs visible beyond the edges of the "censored" banner printed to cover them. Dandridge had made good on his threat after all. Ruined though the MP would shortly be, he hadn't gone down without first dragging Callie with him.

Reeling, he reached into his pocket for his money clip. "How much for the lot?"

The boy looked up at him. From the shadow of his wool cap, his mouth formed a shocked circle. "You want to buy 'em all?"

"Never mind, here, just take it all." Pressing the wad of notes in the boy's grubby palm, he swooped down and swept up the full stack of newspapers.

Coming up beside him, Rourke looked over to Gavin and shook his head. "That wee lump atop his head must be addling his wits."

Gavin came up on his other side. Reaching for his arm, he said, "Seriously Harry, let us get you to a doctor. You don't look at all well."

Hadrian answered with a fierce shake of his head that set the knot atop to fresh pounding. "That will have to wait. I've to pay a call on a lady first. Now help me flag down a hansom and pour myself into it because there's no time to lose."

The knowledge that it was only a matter of time, hours perhaps, before the proverbial axe fell had Callie lying awake to see dawn lighting the sky. When she heard the stirrings of life downstairs, she knew she couldn't put off rising any longer. Determined to face the day and whatever it had in store for her with as much dignity as she might, she washed her face, pinned up her hair, and dressed to come downstairs. The bill to extend the vote to women was slated to be read when Parliament convened for its evening sitting and the rally with the petition of more than three thousand signatures from women throughout the country would commence shortly after noontime. She could only suppose that Dandridge would see to it that the photograph of her surfaced sometime between now and the bill's introduction on the House floor. In the interim, she meant to carry on with her usual commitments as though this was any ordinary day, which of course it wasn't. Afterward she would step down from her leadership role in the Movement, quite possibly for good. What she needed now was time alone to take stock of her priorities, her goals, and most importantly her life.

On her way downstairs, she considered the part Hadrian had played in her imminent ruin. All these weeks he'd been tempting her, daring her to cast off her reserve, her ironclad self-control, and the starch-faced mask she'd taken refuge behind for the past decade much as she'd hidden behind her uncle's old spectacles. Now that she had left safety behind and stepped out into the open, albeit with disastrous consequences, she found she wasn't entirely sorry for having made the shift.

Her thoughts went out to Hadrian; she couldn't help that any more than she could help loving him, or at least the man she'd believed him to be. Soft feelings aside, certain of his actions were like missing puzzle pieces that simply didn't fit with the whole. That photograph, why then had he so resisted taking it, or had he been playing her even then? Under either circumstance, why bother confessing his unsavory association with Dandridge? She supposed she would never know the answers, and she supposed it didn't greatly matter. Either way, she was ruined.

Entering the breakfast room on that sobering thought, she saw that her place at the table looked oddly bare. Usually a stack of newspapers, ironed and folded, lay by her plate. Lottie, hair in curling papers and petite form swathed in her dressing gown, stood staring out the window to the street.

Drawing the drapes closed though it looked to be a fine, sunny day, she turned about. "Callie, dear, I thought I heard you up and about." Her grim face belied the sunny greeting. She crossed the room toward her, a newspaper fisted in one reed thin hand.

Callie looked down to the newspaper clutched in her aunt's hand and felt her heart beating like an executioner's drum. "How bad is it? I want to know."

"You might want to sit first. It's . . . bad, Callie." She handed Callie the newspaper, a folded copy of the
London Times.

Taking it from her, Callie sank into her seat lest her suddenly weak legs give way. She thought she'd prepared herself for the worst, but when she unfolded the paper and looked down, what she saw there sent her thundering heart falling through to the floorboards. The photographed face peering back at her in shades of halftone gray was her image and yet it wasn't. Languid gaze, swollen lips, and mussed hair all bore witness to a woman who had recently known carnal pleasure and been thoroughly sated. As for the body, all that pale skin and generous curves struck her as so very bare. The sole salvation was that the censored banner covered her wantonly straying hand.

How long she sat there staring in stunned silence she couldn't say but at some point Jenny entered with the morning post, her usual chipper good morning greeting silent on her lips. She glanced down at the mail tray in her hands. "I'll just set this down by you, Miss Callie."

Lottie answered for her, "Thank you, Jenny. That will be all."

"But what should I tell them reporter fellers who keep knocking on the door?"

"I said that will be all for now." Lottie's tone, uncharacteristically sharp, sent the maid scurrying out the door.

Callie waited until they were alone before asking, "What reporter fellows?"

Heaving a heavy sigh, Lottie nodded toward the window she'd just left. "You may as well know that the press has been camped out on our sidewalk and front lawn since dawn."

"I see." Setting the newspaper aside, Callie glanced at the tray piled high with correspondence.

Cresting the heap was a note from Mrs. Fawcett due back from the States just the day before. Familiar with Millicent's usually precise signature, she could tell the letter had been penned in haste. Feeling numb, she broke the seal and perused the few short lines.

Standing over her shoulder, Lottie squinted to see. "What does she say?"

Callie cleared her throat, thick with emotions she'd yet to own. "Apparently I have become through my own 'wanton conduct and ill-advised actions' a detriment to the Cause. She goes on to say she has no choice but to make a public statement decrying my immoral behavior and disavowing any further association with me. Moreover, she has called an emergency meeting of the board of the NUWSS to propose that the London Society for Women's Suffrage be expelled from the coalition unless I step down as president, effective immediately. In the interim, she advises me against showing my face--or any part of my anatomy--at today's march."

"Callie, what will you do?"

Callie set the letter aside without bothering to refold it. "Step down, of course. Millicent's measure will most certainly carry, and even were that not the case, showing up at this point would only divide the membership."

"I meant afterward."

Callie rose to pace the room, her steps no match for the racing of her thoughts. "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'll take some time and travel abroad. I've a fancy to see France again. Isn't that what disgraced women do nowadays, decamp to Monte Carlo and divide their days between playing baccarat and staring at framed photographs of themselves in their glory days? On second thought, I believe I'll skip the photographs." She ended that thought with a ragged laugh.

Lottie regarded her. "My niece running away, I never would have thought it. Why, you could knock me over with a feather."

Callie whirled on her. "I am not running away, I'm . . . I'm retiring."

Arms folded in front of her, Lottie said, "Is that what you call tucking your tail between your legs?"

"If you'll recall my tail, along with the rest of me, is headlining the
Times
as well as God only knows how many other newspapers and scandal sheets. What would you have me do?"

"Stand tall and fight."

Callie shook her head, feeling at once terribly tired, terribly defeated, and more than a trifle old. "I've nothing to fight with and no future to fight for."

Lottie reached up and planted a palm on either of Callie's shoulders, stalling her sally about the room. Looking purposefully into her niece's eyes, she said, "Oh Callie, dearest girl, can't you see? No one can take away your honor unless you let them."