Vanquished (5 page)

"You're so good to me, Teddy," she said, yawning into her glove, even as the part of her that could never quite settle down to contentment demanded that surely there must be more to life than that.

Unbidden, an image of warm blue eyes pushed to the forefront of her thoughts, joined in short order by a fine strong nose, molded jaw glistening with a hint of golden stubble, and a firm, masculine mouth.

Oh, Callie. Always wanting more, hasn't that ever been your fatal failing?

She forced her attention back to Teddy, settled into the seat across from her. Gazing into his dear, plain face, she chided herself for acting the part of a perfect idiot.

Steady, uncomplicated, and kind--what more could there possibly be?

"A
free
man is a noble being; a
free
woman is a contemptible being. Freedom for a man is emancipation from degrading conditions which prevent the expansion of his soul into godlike grandeur and nobility, which it is assumed is his natural tendency in freedom. Freedom for a woman is, on the contrary, escape from those necessary restraining conditions which prevent the sinking of her soul into degradation and vice, which it is all unconsciously assumed is her natural tendency."

--V
ICTORIA
W
OODHULL
and T
ENNESSEE
C
LAFLIN,
Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly,
1871

L
ater that evening Hadrian stood at his washstand, scouring the silver nitrate solution from his hands. Drying in his studio's dark room were the photographs of the medical anomaly. Looking past the misshapen features to the man's eyes, Hadrian had felt an eerie kinship. Reflected in their dark depths was the very same expression he'd seen when he'd peered into his shaving mirror to bathe the dried blood from his throat.

Hunted, didn't he know just how that felt?

While he'd processed the pictures, he'd reviewed his options for raising the five hundred pounds needed to settle his debt with Boyle. Short of robbing a bank, the only possibility he could come up with was to ask his barrister friend, Gavin Carmichael for another loan. When he'd shown up on Gavin's doorstep a year ago, Gavin had greeted him like a long-lost brother rather than an old orphanage chum he hadn't seen in fifteen years. It was Gavin who'd helped him settle on his new name, Hadrian after the great Roman emperor who'd started out life as an orphan, and St. Claire because they'd both agreed it had a certain cachet--a solid, old-money ring certain to put people with real money at their ease. He'd ferried Hadrian around to soirees and theater receptions, to rich old biddy's "at-homes" and to his gentlemen's club, putting him in the path of every well-heeled friend and acquaintance he could come up with. While Gavin made do with letting a shabby suite of rooms at the Inns of Court, he'd fronted Hadrian the money to set up in Parliament Square. How then could he ask such a friend for five hundred pounds more, a sum that as a junior barrister Gavin likely didn't have anyway, to bail him out of a situation brought on by nothing more than his own recklessness? No, he'd let Sykes and Deans flay him alive before he'd stoop so low as to take advantage of his friend any further.

Brave sentiment that and yet the clang of the shop bell below gave him such a start that he very nearly knocked the washbasin from its stand.
Get hold of yourself, man. When Boyle and company come for you, it won't be through the front door.

But it was late, past six o'clock, and with the exception of the Parliament, which would reconvene at nine for the evening session, the government offices and area shops would be dark by now as his too should be if only he'd remembered to turn his sign over to C
LOSED.
Heart drumming, he stripped off his apron and hurried down the stairs. Seeing neither Boyle nor his henchmen but a well-dressed man of late middle age pacing his shop floor, he let his lungs expand with relief. "May I help you, sir?" he asked, stepping forward.

"That depends." The gentleman turned about and Hadrian saw that this was no apple-cheeked shopkeeper or government clerk but a senior statesman or government official of rank, the very sort of well-heeled client he'd set up shop hoping to attract.

"Are you St. Claire?" he asked, gaze flickering over Hadrian in such a way that he was reminded he hadn't taken time to roll down his shirtsleeves or put back on his tie.

"I am."

Like a phrenologist feeling the bumps on a skull to infer mental faculties and character, Hadrian examined the gaunt, weathered face for the clues housed within flesh and bone. A high forehead etched with deep lines almost always meant the subject was a worrier. The long, thin nose and flared nostrils bespoke of arrogance, an absolute belief in his superiority to others. The down-turned mouth betrayed bitterness--life might owe him everything, but so far the rewards received had been less than satisfactory. But as always it was the eyes more so than any other feature that gave away the subject and meeting those icy gray orbs, so pale they appeared opaque, Hadrian read--merciless.

"Josiah Dandridge, MP for Horsham." The introduction was not accompanied by the customary extension of hand.

Glancing down, Hadrian saw that the attache case Dandridge carried was covered in Moroccan leather and embossed with the Parliamentary seal. "And how may I assist you, Mr. Dandridge?"

"How, indeed?" Dandridge strolled over to the display case where Hadrian set out samples of his most popular item, the pocket-sized portrait photographs known as
cartes de visites.
Tapping on the glass, he asked, "This portrait is the same displayed in your shop window, is it not?"

Coming up beside him, Hadrian glanced down at the portrait card of Lady Katherine Lindsey and nodded. "Lady Katherine is my bestselling 'PB' at the moment."

The PBs, or Professional Beauties, were society ladies who consented to have their portraits displayed for sale in shop windows all over London. Only in Lady Katherine's case, in return for Hadrian's turning over to her half of the money from every copy sold, she'd agreed to sit for him exclusively. What she did with her share he'd never asked, although she would hardly be the first highborn woman to have secret money troubles.

"You show a remarkable talent for bringing out your subject's underlying vulnerability."

Hadrian looked away from Lady Katherine's striking visage, the dark intelligent eyes openly defiant and subtly sad, and thought,
you, sir, could be a very dangerous man.
"I doubt the lady in question would take kindly to hearing herself described as vulnerable. Lady Katherine is one of the most independent-minded women I've ever known."

Beneath the overhang of salt-and-pepper brows, Dandridge's wintry eyes hardened to chips of ice. "You speak of female independence as though it is some sort of virtue. Pray do not tell me you are one of those dewy-eyed idealists who would see the vote handed over to a pack of hysterical, ranting women?"

So Hadrian wasn't the only one set on edge by the suffragist protest in the square. Hoping to steer their interchange toward a possible commission, he shrugged and said, "Politics have never interested me."

"Yet you must have some convictions, some principles you wish to see advanced?"

Why a man such as Dandridge should care about the state of his conscience was a mystery to Hadrian but regardless he answered honestly, "I leave principles and convictions to men with the money and time to pursue them. For those of us who must work for a living, the only interest we can afford to serve is our own."

The lined face relaxed measurably. "So, St. Claire, you are a pragmatist at heart. How refreshing."

The MP resumed walking about the room, pausing to examine the framed photographs lining the studio walls. Tempted as Hadrian was to inform the arrogant bastard he was closed for the night, he strained for patience. He needed money, he needed it desperately, and if a potential patron with influence and tin-lined pockets had a mind to keep him standing about after hours, there was nothing to be done but bite back his ire, smooth the scowl from his face, and await his pleasure like the lackey he'd sworn never again to be.

Dandridge stopped before an eight-by-seven-inch platinum print of a female nude lying supine atop a bed of fringed pillows and Oriental carpeting, a cone of chiaroscuro light playing with the shadows framing the curve of one alabaster breast.

"Very fine," he said at length, his back to Hadrian. "The clarity of the foreground is impressive and the setting shows a far greater attention to detail than one normally sees."

At least there was no faulting the fellow's taste. The classically inspired scene had been a true labor of love, the fruit of a fortnight of experimenting with various props and lighting effects and poses until he finally hit upon the composition that matched the mental picture he'd been carrying about in his mind. At one time he'd thought to enter it in the Photographic Society's annual exhibition, but now it occurred to him that the picture might be put to a more practical purpose.

Biting back his pride, he ventured, "If you'd care to purchase it . . ."

With a shake of his head, Dandridge dispelled any hope of that. Turning to Hadrian, he remarked, "I can't help but notice that your subjects are all females."

Hadrian shrugged but inside he was wary. "I like working with women for many reasons, not the least of which is that they are generally better disciplined about keeping still."

"I see. And do they, in turn, like
working
with you?" When Hadrian didn't immediately answer, Dandridge turned back to the nude, his gloved finger stabbing the spot where her drape dipped to reveal that perfect breast. "That woman must have liked you very much indeed to allow you to photograph her in such a . . . vulnerable state."

"Justine is a professional model and accustomed to posing for painters."

"Yet I wonder, has any portraitist before managed to elicit from her such a sweetly dreamy countenance, such unaffected sensuality?"

Hadrian folded his arms across his chest. "I wouldn't know." He had, in fact, taken the girl to bed on any number of occasions, but he'd be damned before he'd expose his private life to satisfy a stranger's prurient curiosity. At the end of his patience, he added, "It's late, Mr. Dandridge. Perhaps you should tell me how I can be of service."

"Very well, then. What I have in mind is for you to make me a photograph such as this only I've a very particular model in mind."

So finally they were to get to the bottom of all this hemming and hawing. The old goat must have a mistress set up somewhere and wanted a nude portrait of her. Feeling on firmer footing, Hadrian walked over to his pine worktable. "If you'd care to take a seat, we can discuss the specifics of--"

"I want the most damning photograph you can possibly make. Beyond that I shall leave the details in your capable hands."

Hadrian halted from pulling out a chair. "If this is meant to be some sort of joke . . ."

"It's no joke, of that you may rest assured. I want the subject stripped bare, St. Claire. I want her utterly denuded and humiliated, exposed to the world for the filthy slut I know her to be."

Hadrian shook his head and turned away. "If it's a private detective you want to spy on your mistress, I have a barrister friend who can recommend you to one of the better firms."

"Damn it, man, I don't want some snitch's blurred snapshot. I want a portrait, a portrait such as only someone with your expertise can make, and I am prepared to pay handsomely for it."

Desperation warring with decency, Hadrian turned back. "How handsomely?"

Dandridge's smile would have befitted Lucifer himself. "What say you to five thousand pounds?"

Five thousand pounds! Hadrian's mouth went dry. To someone such as him, it was nothing short of a fortune. For a handful of seconds, he allowed himself to imagine Sykes's and Deans's crestfallen faces when they learned he'd cleared his debt with Boyle, that they wouldn't have the pleasure of carving him up after all. He glanced down at his hands, still stained with the silver nitrate solution that never seemed to come entirely off, and considered all he might accomplish if he could afford an assistant to help with developing the exposures and maintaining the apparatuses and generally keeping the shop in good order. Who knew, but perhaps down the road he'd even bring on another photographer to handle the commissions too small or too mundane to interest him.

Finding his voice, he said, "That is a very large sum, Mr. Dandridge. Even if I agreed, what makes you think the lady in question will consent to sit for me at all, let alone disrobe to do so?"

Dandridge raked his gaze over Hadrian as though he were assessing goods at Fleet Market. "Don't be overmodest, St. Claire. You're devilishly handsome, and you have a certain rough charm that is not without appeal. I'd wager you can be persuasive indeed when it serves you. If even half of the rumors circulating about you are true, you'll have the slut spreading her legs for both you and your camera within a fortnight. Unless, of course, she fancies girls--some of them do, you know."

Hadrian tried to ignore the ice water trickling its way through his veins. "Them?"

"Suffragists." Dandridge spat out the word. "They are like a plague of locusts descended on the nation, a cancer that spreads with the growth of a single cell. And like a cancer, our only hope for a cure is to root them out, starting with their leaders."