Loving Lily (Fair Cyprians of London 6)

At first, it was the usual preliminaries that Lily had come to expect. The soft whispering, some muted flute playing from some distant chamber to set the scene, a glowing ball.

Then the questions began.

In the past, Lily had been deliberately vague. Yes, she had it on good authority that Mr Renquist had last been seen alive in the vicinity of St John’s Wood. This was near where he worked, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine it was where he’d died since he hadn’t made it to his home.

And he didn’t frequent taverns or drink with his peers. No, Mr Renquist was a paragon of virtue.

Except that he wasn’t. Lily knew very well that he consorted with prostitutes. Or, at least, that he had a mistress. Celeste.

How did Lily begin to suggest that Mr Renquist was anything other than the upright, moral, loving father and husband his widow claimed? How could she hint at a truth that might in fact shed some light on what had happened to him and which, his widow hoped, would prompt someone with knowledge to speak.

She was tired of spouting untruths, and besides, Mr Montpelier had demanded more. She’d been threatened, and she might be afraid—but she had so much of which to be fearful.

Her husband would soon be coming to the capital. How much longer would she be of use?

She tried to assume her mantle of spiritualist, pretending she could communicate with the dead man. This was what Mrs Moore and Mr Montpelier wanted. A show. Drama. An invested audience.

“Were you threatened before the end? Did you see him? Was it a man? A big man? A cultured man?”

“A man with an accent.”

Yes, that was when someone asked the question. A man with an accent.

Lily didn’t want to open her eyes wide enough to see if she could identify the white-haired, bear-like Russian in the front seat who’d stared at her throughout her earlier performance, and then blocked her way in the middle of the street.

To her relief, she could see no sign of him which gave her the courage to speak.

“A man from a cold country across the sea. The Balkans, perhaps? Or Russia? He was big and bulky.”

She described him in vague terms for she had little more than her own description to go by. Celeste’s lover was like a bear with a big white beard and a fur hat, a heavy coat, and a monocle. Not that bears wore monocles.

My, but she was weary. Fear was making her lightheaded. She couldn’t do this much longer. The anxiety over the implications of Robert’s return was making her light-headed and there was nothing she could do to alleviate her stress. In the old days, she thought the laudanum had saved her life.

Until she realised how wrong she’d been.

Now, she had only her own wits and inner resources on which to depend.

Think1 Think!

Surely if she could continue to titillate the crowds at Mrs Moore’s, Mr Montpelier would continue to put a roof over her head. He’d find something else for her to do while Robert was in the capital and then he’d find another lost soul looking for a spiritualst unless Mr McTavish—

No! These were foolish thoughts. She could depend on no man. She’d learned that to her cost.

She felt herself swaying as the room seemed to close in on her and the crowd tossed questions at her.

“Did he beat you with a club? A heavy bar? Describe the death blow…”

Their words tumbled over each other, booming, yet muted, as they jostled for primacy in her beleaguered brain.

She felt hands on her, people crowding her, her senses revolting as she remained standing, yet within herself she struggled towards the safety of her own dark little world within the deepest recesses of her mind. The same dark world that had been her sanctuary during all the dark years that had preceded her time coming here.

And then she opened her eyes with a start at the acrid smell of Mrs Moore’s vinaigrette, and saw that Mrs Moore and Mr Montpelier were glaring down at her, and she was lying on the ground.

She groped about her to make sense of what was happening, relieved that she was no longer in the parlour but down in the basement, lying it would appear, on a hessian sack upon the hard stone floor.

“Lor’, will yer stop yer screamin’, woman!” Mr Montpelier demanded, and with a shock, Lily closed her mouth.

“What happened?” she asked, glancing towards Mrs Moore to discover she wasn’t glaring but that a smirk was plastered upon her face.