Loving Lily (Fair Cyprians of London 6)

So that was what Madame Chambon’s establishment looked like from the inside.

He’d heard tales of its infamy, and had he known where he was headed as he entered, he probably would have chosen to let the chit have Lucy’s bonnet rather than risk being seen where he definitely would never enter of his free will. The demimondaine was a vice-filled pit for which he had only contempt.

He was retracing his footsteps along the pavement, Lucy’s bonnet dangling by its ribbon, when a tall, rangy gentleman with a sharp nose and eyes, and too-fashionably coiffed and oiled hair, and side-whiskers, approached him and asked, with a nod of his head indicating the bonnet, “You found her then? The woman who stole the bonnet?” He glanced with shifty eyes over Hamish’s shoulder at Madame Chambon’s famous establishment and flexed his bony fingers. “She’s in there?”

Hamish hesitated. Something about the man was disconcerting, yet it appeared that the thief had not confined her crimes to Lucy’s hat and that this gentleman had obviously been swindled too. So, he nodded and replied, “She is,” before continuing towards the main thoroughfare where he could see the open carriage in the distance parked by the side of the road, and Lucy anxiously scanning the street.

Her face broke into a smile when he held up the bonnet, and she called out gaily as he drew closer, “Since you were gone, I’ve decided it’s my favourite bonnet. Thank you for rescuing it for me, Hamish. I hope the little thief who took it rots in gaol.”

Hamish remembered the look on the face of the gentleman he’d passed near Madame Chambon’s and felt a frisson of foreboding. “I think she’s about to get her reckoning,” he said as he climbed in beside Lucy, casting her an admiring look as she tied the bow beneath her chin. “And you look the picture of spring beneath all those blooms. Don’t be too harsh on the poor creature who snatched it. No doubt she’d never seen anything half as grand, and it was poverty and desperation, rather than greed, that motivated her.”

“Now you sound just like those prosing old reformers you do love to feature in Papa’s improving periodical,” Lucy said with a sigh. “If some of them had their way, I’d find her serving me tea as some sort of dangerous social experiment instead of where she should be—breaking stones or whatever it is prisoners do to pay for their crimes.”

Hamish looked at her with amusement as he picked up the reins.

“Men break stones; women work in the laundry. My, Lucy, you don’t believe in leniency for wrongdoing, do you? You’re more like Papa than you’d care to admit.”

Lucy flashed him a warning look. “Unlike Papa, I am of a forgiving temperament when a wrongdoer has proper justification for their crimes. But that creature who stole my bonnet was from the gutter, and clearly meant to gain some ill-gotten coins for her crime by selling it afterwards. If she’d wanted my bonnet because she admired it and harboured romantic dreams of wearing it in public, I might have felt differently. But did you see her, Hamish? She was perfectly hideous. Filthy and skin and bone. Far too sunk in poverty and, no doubt, vice and dissipation, to have any hope of being redeemed. Housing her in a prison, I suspect, would be doing her a kindness.”

Chapter 4

When Lily finally found her tongue, after the gentleman had left bearing the stolen bonnet, she glanced up into the implacable, uncompromising face of the fiery-headed woman still gripping her arm and asked, sullenly, “Why didn’t you just let him hand me over to the police as he wanted?”

The woman hustled her along the corridor and pushed her into what appeared to be her office, closing the door behind them. “Did you really think he was going to hand you over, my girl? Maybe he really was the moral arbiter he claimed. Then again, maybe he wasn’t.” Dropping her hand, she contemplated Lily from top to toe. Her nostrils quivered. “What’s your story? You look like a guttersnipe and speak like a duchess.”

Her words were cut short by the reappearance of the young woman who’d admitted Lily.

“Yes, Celeste?”

“Madame, there’s another gentleman here.” She looked askance at Lily, who felt the great gulf between them like she never had before; not even when she had been the baronet’s wife, feted for her beauty, and a rival had stepped into her orbit. For this was a working girl. A woman who traded her body for money. Lily had never been so close to a prostitute, having only come to London once many years before.

“He says he’s looking for the girl who stole the bonnet.”

Lily froze. Mr Montpelier had found her?

“Stay!” Madame Chambon was too quick as Lily tried to evade her painful, grasping fingers. The older woman pressed her face close. “You’re very popular, aren’t you, young lady? What have you been up to now, then? Not just bonnet-snatching, it would appear. I won’t have a runaway risking the fine reputation for law abiding that I’ve built up. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Effectively imprisoned, Lily glanced down at her boots to avoid having to dwell on the satisfaction and contempt she saw in Mr Montpelier’s expression as he stood upon the threshold. But as she looked up and saw her abductor, top hat in his hands, regarding Lily like she supposed a tiger would regard a pheasant, or whatever it was tigers preyed upon, she knew she was vanquished.

“Apologies to trouble you, Madame Chambon, but this young personage and I have unfinished business.” He bowed. “Allow me to relieve you of her charge. To be sure, I’m very grateful to you for detaining her.”

But Madame was not about to relinquish Lily so readily. Lily’s refined accents had obviously whipped up her curiosity, and Lily knew Madame was the kind of woman who’d exploit any advantage. Clearly, she saw one in Lily and this gentleman’s desire to have her.

“What, did she steal from you too, sir?” Madame asked. “Shall I summon a constable?”

“She belongs to me, Madame. She is not a thief. No need to call in the law.”

Although Mr Montpelier said it with an air of casual disregard, Lily sensed what Madame too, must have sensed—that he was trying too hard to appear unconcerned at the mention of the law. And since he’d evinced a plan not half an hour since which implicated Lily in something so unthinkable, she didn’t wonder at it.

“I won’t go with him!” she said suddenly, readying herself for flight. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me stay here.”

Mr Montpelier looked down his bony nose at her with dislike. Madame looked out of her folds of smug complacence with interest.

“My, my, but the little baggage does know how to ape her betters to an impressive degree.” The woman who held her patted her head. “And just who might you be impersonating so prettily. Lady Astor? Lady Vanderbilt?” She pinched Lily’s arm, causing her to cry out in pain before she went on, “Pity you look so like a guttersnipe or a waif from Seven Dials, otherwise the gentlemen might indeed be flocking to try out the wares of such a fine society dame if she had but her voice to recommend you.” The woman tugged on Lily’s arm as she looked at Mr Montpelier. “You’ll have to feed her up if you’re to reap the rewards of her refinement.” She spoke the words with careless disdain, but Lily didn’t miss the thoughtful look that crossed Mr Montpelier’s face.

“She’s not worth much to me, skin and bone,” he agreed. He ran a hand through his oily locks. “Truth to tell, I hadn’t factored in just how unattractive a woman is who lacks nourishment. This young woman owes me a debt, you know, but I don’t wish for the trouble of her keeping her incarcerated for the time it takes to…groom her sufficiently for her to repay it.” His eyes darted about the room, resting a moment on the portrait of the queen, sliding over the various doors and curtains to secret rooms and closets. “Perhaps, Madame, you and I could discuss a little business that might be to our mutual benefit?”

Madame clapped her hands. “Celeste?”