“Prince Albert Victor is almost five and twenty years of age. He is a fully grown man. Why should he order trinkets for his ladylove from his mother’s jeweler? He had to have known she would get wind of it and be upset by his indiscretion. And whilst we are on the subject, why should she have to clear up his mess? Why doesn’t she just order him outright to retrieve the jewel himself?”
“She explained. It would be awkward for her to raise such a subject with him. Besides, it seems perfectly apparent that she indulges him,” I replied.
“And why should that be? She has other children who are still in the schoolroom and no doubt have need of her. She oughtn’t be sweeping up after him. She is the future queen.”
He was almost angry in his defense of her, and I was silent a moment, considering. The princess was slender and beautiful still—she was only forty-four, after all. There was a cool elegance about her, a remoteness that dissolved when she looked at you with those steady grey-blue eyes. “Saints preserve us,” I murmured, “you have a tendresse for the princess.”
“I may admire a woman without it going further than that,” he said coldly. I knew that tone. It was like the striking of a stag’s hoof to the ground, a warning to be wary. Of course, I usually interpreted it as a signal to push him further solely because there were few pleasures more enchanting than watching him rise ferociously to a choice bit of bait. But there was something vulnerable in his tenderness for the princess. I thought of his mother, likewise beautiful and neglected, locked in a marriage with a man she did not love, consoled only by her handsome, loyal sons. She had been unable to protect them from the wrath of her husband. Stoker, her cuckoo in the nest, had been the product of her only rebellion, her fleeting grasp at a joy that would prove elusive. And I could not mock him for admiring a woman so very like her.
My throat was tight and I said nothing for a long moment, turning my face away so that it was my turn to watch the passing scene. The streetlamps glowed in the darkness, circles of warm, golden safety. But just beyond the edge of each, shadows moved and shifted, and something dark and menacing walked those streets, I reminded myself.
“Have you brought arms?” I asked suddenly.
“In these trousers? I have only a few picklocks tucked into my sash.” He lifted a brow towards the snug seams straining over his thighs and I gave him a consoling pat.
“Never mind. I have taken precautions.”
“Veronica—” he began, his tone alarmed.
“Not now, Stoker,” I said, putting my hand in my pocket to give Chester a quick pat. “We have arrived.”
CHAPTER
8
The club was a tall white house, elegant but unremarkable. It glowed from cellars to attics with the soft gleam of electric lights behind each window, and it took me a moment to realize that the absolute stillness of those lights meant that each window was carefully screened, blocking the interior from view. A discreet servant standing upon the curb waved the carriage around to the mews entrance, which had been sealed so that no one would overlook the comings and goings of the club.
Tiberius’ coachman touched his hat and promised to keep the horses fresh and walking slowly about the square until we emerged.
“Never mind that,” Stoker told him. “We shall be some time. Put the horses and yourself to bed and we will find our own way home.”
The coachman gave him a knowing smile. “Aye, I’ve been with ’is lordship long enough to know the way of it.”
He whistled to the horses to walk on and Stoker and I mounted the curb. The club was located just at the edge of respectability and privilege. Beyond the back garden lay the East End and all its attendant terrors; to the west was every bastion of wealth the capital could boast. At the intersection was this nondescript house of quiet gentility, the white stone façade punctuated with polished brass work and glossy black shutters. The door was black, set with a knocker sculpted into the shape of a star.
“Madame Aurore is nothing if not consistent,” I murmured, remembering my Classical mythology. Aurora the dawn goddess rose each day from her couch just as the stars were beginning to dim, gathering them into her arms to festoon her hair and her robes with the last rays of their splendor.
Stoker did not lift the knocker. He instead flicked a glance to the porter, a slender figure in sober livery of black with tidy silver buttons stamped with stars. The porter sprang to attention, rapping a coded knock upon the door. With a start, I realized that the porter was in fact a young woman in masculine dress. Her hair was concealed under a powdered wig and her face was masked, no doubt to set the tone of the evening’s entertainment, and as I looked closely at her, she bowed her head in a diffident gesture. Stoker did not look at her but flipped a coin deftly in her direction as I hurried to follow him. A new hauteur had come over him with his change in appearance. It was as if he had put on Tiberius’ attitude with his clothes, and I both deplored it and found it deeply attractive.
The door swung back and another liveried person—this time male and possibly older than Methuselah—approached. His half mask fitted poorly, no doubt due to the elaborate condition of his moustaches and beard, which covered his face nearly to the cheekbones. He bobbed his head this way and that as he moved, never quite making eye contact. I admired his discretion.
“Good evening, sir, madam,” he intoned in a low voice as he struggled into a low bow. Rheumatism, I suspected.
“I am Rev—”
The fellow flung up a hand, clearly aghast. “No names, sir, I beg you! The club is not famous for discretion because if we were famous, we would not be discreet.” He smiled at his own little jest, baring a set of surprisingly good teeth. “This way, sir, madam.”
He scuttled off, leading us into a small side parlor furnished in exquisite taste. The walls were hung with pale grey brocade woven with an abstract pattern of stars, and the upholstery was the same, a collection of armchairs grouped around a scattering of small, low tables. Porcelain, all of it pure white, was assembled in alcoves, and the effect was restful. The only color that broke the soothing grey was a massive vase of dawn-pink lilies on a sideboard and a painting hung above the fireplace—a portrait of a woman. Her face was in profile and she was dressed in Classical draperies of shifting shades of silver, blue, and rose, a lute propped at her feet. Low on her brow rested a starry diamond tiara.
“Wait here, please,” the manservant instructed. He bowed his way out of the room, closing the double doors quietly behind.
“Surprisingly tasteful,” I remarked.
“The best brothels are,” Stoker said without trace of embarrassment.
“You and Tiberius seem well versed in the matter,” I told him as I surveyed a narrow bookshelf. The volumes were all bound in grey kid and stamped with a single letter, “A,” rendered in a severe, stark capital.