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They twirled around the floor, brushing near Hannah and David who were smiling and laughing together.
Morgana inclined her head in their direction. ‘Hannah enjoys your nephew’s company, I believe.’
He glanced back at the young couple. ‘I believe she does.’
They circled half the floor, Sloane enjoying how she moved with him, the scent of her hair, the curve of her cheek. He wondered if he could get Hannah to invite him in the Cowdlin carriage again, if he could walk Morgana to the door and taste her lips again.
‘Does it bother you?’ Morgana broke his reverie.
‘Does what bother me?’
‘Hannah and your nephew.’
He had forgotten them. Besides, he disliked discussing Hannah with Morgana, especially when he was fantasising about seducing her. ‘Should it?’
Her brows rose in response.
Sloane frowned. Hannah and David swept into view again. He need not concern himself with David’s interest in Hannah. His nephew had explained how it was, but Sloane was reminded he must make his offer to Hannah soon. Lord Cowdlin might become desperate enough to select a suitor of smaller fortune, unlikely as that was.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.
‘Will you offer for her?’ Morgana asked, as if reading his thoughts.
Her words were like a knife slicing into him. He wanted to offer for Lady Hannah, did he not? Why not simply tell Morgana he intended to do so?
He felt his face harden to stone. ‘A gentleman would first inform the lady in question, not her cousin.’
She flinched as if a blow had been struck, and again Sloane regretted his churlish words.
The music stopped. The set was over. Morgana stepped out of his arms. He reached out to gather her back, to apologise again, but Hannah and David rushed to their side.
‘Everyone is planning an evening at Vauxhall tomorrow,’ Hannah said breathlessly. ‘Does that not sound marvellous?’
He rose and his smile was all for Hannah. Morgana could not bear it.
‘Marvellous indeed,’ he said in an amused tone.
Hannah clutched his arm. ‘We shall include Athenia, my brother Varney… well, everyone! Say you will go to Vauxhall, Mr Sloane?’
‘I shall consider it,’ he said, prevaricating, and wishing he could speak to Morgana alone.
Hannah pursed her lips like a petulant child. ‘You must say yes.’ She tossed him a pert smile. ‘Athenia’s parents will come so Mama and Papa will have company. They will pay little mind to me!’ She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘Say you will come with us, Mr Sloane.’
‘Very well.’ Anything to be rid of her.
‘Will you act the host, Mr Sloane?’ Hannah persisted.
This was an impertinence. If he had offered for her, she might have a right to ask. Sloane disliked being forced to be the gentleman.
‘If your father permits,’ he said tightly.
His tone went completely over Hannah’s head. She clasped her hands together happily. ‘That is splendid!’
Somewhat belatedly, she seemed to notice Morgana standing next to him. She touched Morgana’s arm. ‘You must come as well, Morgana. I insist upon it.’
Morgana gave her a pasty smile, which Hannah must have taken for assent. Hannah turned away from her cousin and back to Sloane, begging him to lead her out in the next dance. Again Hannah had trapped him.
He acquiesced politely, but when he turned to Morgana, she was walking away. She did not look back at him.
Chapter Eleven
Mrs Rice sat in the room behind her glove shop, sipping a glass of claret and mentally calculating the amount of money she could wring from her girls this night.
She frowned. She’d recruited one new girl, who was almost useless. Fit for nothing but streetwalking. Without Katy and Mary business had definitely slowed. Profits were down. At this rate, she might make more blunt with gloves than with harlots.
Trigg, the procurer who had let the maid slip through his hands, entered, wearing a smug look on his face.
‘I hope this means you have girls for me,’ Mrs Rice muttered.
‘I have information.’ He sauntered over to her table and leaned in close. She detested the odour of the man.
‘Well, what is it?’ She would love to get rid of Trigg, who was a bit too clever for her to control completely.
He grinned, showing yellow teeth. ‘Word is out that a society lady has them.’
‘A society lady.’ She could guess which society lady. ‘Her name?’
Trigg took a step back. ‘I will discover the name soon.’
Mrs Rice drummed her fingers on the table. ‘It is that woman.’ She hissed. ‘The one who charged in here big-as-you-please.’
Trigg’s brows rose. ‘Describe her.’
Mrs Rice huffed. ‘I cannot. She obscured her face.’
‘A Long Meg?’
‘Why, yes, she was a bit tall.’
He frowned and rubbed his head. ‘I know the one.’
A few minutes later Trigg stepped out into the street, pausing to take a swig from the bottle of gin he carried in his pocket. He headed for a pub he knew of, the place where an acquaintance had heard from another man that some footman spoke of females more like harlots who were guests in his lady’s house. It was thin evidence, and the man said the next day the footman denied it all, but Trigg did not relish hearing Rice ring a peal over his head. Besides, he wanted to believe it was that lady in the park. He’d be pleased to consign her to the devil, quick.
He stepped into an alley, for another quick taste of gin. Suddenly hands grabbed him from behind, dragging him deeper into the dark and he felt a cold edge of steel against his throat.
A sinister voice said, ‘I hear you’ve been asking questions about some missing doxies.’
Trigg nearly casting up his accounts, knew better than to show fear. ‘What of it?’ he growled.
The blade’s edge pierced his skin and he felt his blood trickling warm down his neck. ‘Stay out of it,’ the voice—a familiar voice, he realised—snarled. ‘If you want to keep your head.’ The knife made another slice, not deep, but Trigg was afraid to move lest it sever more than his skin.
‘What’s it to you?’ He tried to sound fierce, but his voice rose like a girl’s.
The man laughed and it was enough to make Trigg taste his own vomit. ‘I have them. The maid and that other one, too. The one who knocked you out. They are mine and the man who takes them from me will not live.’
Trigg tried to laugh, too, but succeeded only in making a gasping sound. ‘Why should I listen to you? Who are you?’
The chilling laugh returned. ‘I am the devil. Touch what is mine and I’ll have my due.’
Trigg was pushed forward, and he fell to his knees into a puddle of filth. By the time he scrambled to his feet and turned around, the man—the man from the park—had disappeared.
Sloane watched Trigg from the depths of the alley, the man silhouetted against the lamplight coming from St James’s Street. As he’d anticipated, Trigg broke into a run. Sloane figured he’d run all the way to whatever dirty hovel he called home.
He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his knife. Tossing the handkerchief away, he put the knife back in its sheath in his coat pocket. He left the alley from the back and made his way to the street.
When he stepped on to the pavement of St James’s Street, he looked like any other gentleman pursuing his nightly interests.
It was fortunate Sloane had refused Hannah’s offer of a carriage ride home. The day’s episodes with Morgana had left him disordered, restless, on edge. Having made his way to his post at Mrs Rice’s window, what he’d overheard fuelled his already taut nerves with something more dangerous. The violence of the underworld had taken a step closer to Morgana, and Sloane needed to push it back hard. It was a good night for intimidation. He’d halfway wished for an all-out brawl.
His tactic was misdirection. Trigg would now abandon his search for the ‘lady’ and begin looking for a tougher customer. Sloane wagered the man would not guess it was a resident of proper Culross Street who, as easy as the roughest rookery thief, used a knife to draw blood.
Sloane would return to spy on Mrs Rice’s place again, to make sure his trickery worked.
After thinking about it half the night, Morgana quite sorted it out in her mind that Sloane’s familiarity towards her had been her own fault. He’d seen how unladylike she could be, and, therefore, felt less gentlemanly restraint in her presence. She could still enjoy his company, but she must never mistake it for something more, not when he was intent on marrying Hannah. Better Morgana throw her energies into her girls.
They were gathered in the library, Madame Bisou having just arrived. Morgana happened to mention her invitation to Vauxhall.
Katy flung herself down on the settee. ‘Can we not all go to Vauxhall with you? I am sure I shall die if I spend one more day in this house.’
Morgana regarded Katy with sympathy. Her charges had indeed been trapped within the confines of this house, able to go no further than the tiny garden or the privy. Only Lucy had ventured beyond, but that was merely to the patch of land next door to assist Mr Elliot with his plantings.
‘We cannot chance Mrs Rice seeing us, Katy.’ Mary was at her most earnest. ‘She would make us go back to her.’
Katy waved her hand dismissively. ‘It is not as if Mrs Rice would go to Vauxhall. Besides, we could wear masks. They wear masks at Vauxhall Gardens, do they not?’
‘They do indeed,’ answered Madame Bisou, who gave Morgana a thoughtful look. ‘As I think of it, our girls could do with a bit of practice. We ought not to launch them upon the world without a trial. Do you not agree, Miss Hart?’
How could Morgana agree when she really had no wish to launch her students at all? Sloane’s words echoed in her mind—they would sell themselves to the highest bidder and still be at the mercy of a man’s whims. What if they could not match the success Harriette Wilson had achieved? What happened to failed courtesans?
She feared they would wind up in shops like Mrs Rice’s. Would all her hopes for the girls come to naught?
She had come too far to lose hope now.
‘I do not know.’ Morgana finally answered, her voice trailing off as Katy’s mournful eyes bore into her.
She wished she’d never mentioned Vauxhall Gardens. She certainly did not want to go there and watch Hannah flirt with Sloane. Perhaps Hannah and Sloane might disappear down one of those dark walks that were so whispered about. She would sit in the box with Aunt Winnie and imagine what might take place between Sloane and Hannah.
She gave herself a mental shake and reminded herself again that Sloane had always been Hannah’s, not hers.
‘I have never been to Vauxhall Gardens,’ Miss Moore piped up in a dreamy tone, merely adding to the growing pressure.
Morgana grasped at straws. ‘We do not have clothes for you yet.’
She intended to ask Madame Emeraude to come to the house to measure the girls and make up some dresses for them, but had put this off. It was another task she must do before they could leave her.
Cripps knocked on the door. ‘A trunk has been delivered, miss.’ He announced this as formally as if the Regent had come to call.
‘A trunk?’ Any delivery was unexpected. Morgana certainly did not expect her father to send her anything. He’d barely written to her.
‘From Paris, miss,’ Cripps added.
‘Paris!’ Morgana laughed. Her lost trunk!
‘What is funny?’ Katy grumbled.
Morgana walked over and tweaked Katy’s chin. ‘Your new wardrobe has arrived.’
‘New wardrobe?’ Katy asked cautiously. The other girls looked up in interest, even Lucy, who was beginning to lose some of her maid-like demeanour.
Morgana nodded, still astonished that her missing apparel should have come at this very moment. ‘Unless I am mistaken, it is a trunk filled with the latest Paris fashions, and it has arrived exactly in time to dress you in style.’
‘Paris!’ shrieked Katy, reverting to less-than-ladylike behaviour. ‘Give us a look at it.’
Fate, apparently, had decided to shove Morgana forward. Her girls would go to Vauxhall, after all, and would practice for the coming day when they would leave her house and go to some gentleman’s bed.
Morgana told Cripps to have the trunk brought in to them. Barely had the two footmen set it down in the middle of the room than the girls begged to open it. They pulled out dress after dress of fine muslin and silk. Day dresses, evening gowns, walking dresses. Morgana had forgotten how many her new stepmother had insisted she purchase.
Katy squealed in delight as each one emerged from between layers of tissue paper. Rose took a deep wine-red gown and held it against herself. If such a thing were possible, her features shone even more beautifully with its rich colour. Mary fingered a pale blue muslin, a shade as soft as her voice. Lucy held back, but Morgana handed her a pink confection and made her slip it over her plain grey dress, transforming her into as fresh and innocent a miss as had ever had her come-out.
‘We have the dresses, Miss Hart. Do we go to Vauxhall or not?’ Katy stood hands on hips, ready for battle.
Morgana glanced at Madame Bisou. ‘Who would escort us? We cannot go unprotected.’
‘Robert will come with us,’ assured the madam.
Mary glanced up at the mention of his name.
‘Perhaps Mr Elliot would come as well,’ Lucy added. ‘We could depend on him.’
‘We can dance and have a high old time.’ Katy pulled a paisley shawl from the trunk and wrapped it around herself. She danced around the room as if already at the pleasure gardens. Rose joined her, holding the red dress as if she were wearing it.
‘Oh, very well!’ Morgana smiled, resigned to seeing her fledglings spread their wings. ‘But I will go with you, as will Miss Moore, and we shall all wear masks.’
‘Hurrah!’ cried Katy.
Rose ran to the pianoforte and began a rousing tune. Katy grabbed Morgana while Mary and Madame Bisou pulled Lucy and Miss Moore on to the floor as well. Even Morgana’s grandmother rose to her feet and clapped her hands to the music. Rose began to sing: ‘Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove…’
The others joined in: ‘That hill and valley, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield…’
