“Who is this vicar?” Cecelia paused, feeling as though she stood at a dangerous threshold, both literally and figuratively. She didn’t give the other woman a chance to answer the first question before a second followed: “Where are we going?”
“To the private residence.” Genny gave her another strong, impatient tug. “Follow me. We haven’t time to dillydally.”
“To what?” Astonished, overwhelmed, and skeptical, Cecelia tugged her hand out of Genny’s grip. “I’ve never heard the word dilly—”
“I know this is a lot to take in, but I need you to listen to me, doll.” Genny’s face darkened as she hung her hands on her broad hips, all tolerance replaced by audacity and urgency. “The man who’s fixin’ to kick our door in is comin’ to take everything from us. From you. This is a casino and a school—regardless of what you just saw. The school allows women to work while they are taught a trade. But that man would sooner see every girl livin’ under our protection put out on the streets to sell their bodies in the gutters to cutthroats and ironworkers. So if you don’t want to spend the next several years in prison on whatever trumped-up charges he has on his warrant this time, you’ll follow me, you’ll read that letter, and then you’ll use every wit in that pretty head of yours to fend him off, you hear?”
She shook Cecelia none-too-gently. “He’s your enemy now. One of many.”
Cecelia stood rooted to the ground, staring incoherently at the woman as information digested slowly.
Enemies? She’d never in her adult life had rivals, foes, or adversaries, let alone enemies.
This morning she’d taken breakfast and coffee in a Chelsea café. At the time, her greatest concern had been a bit of ennui and some existential anxiety about what to do with her recently acquired degree in mathematics.
And now she faced prison?
The very idea made her dizzy.
“What if we reason with this … this Vicar of Vice? What if I told him that I inherited the establishment no earlier than this very morning?” Cecelia cringed at the plaintive, desperate note that had crept into her voice. “Surely he can’t accuse me of a crime yet, I’ve only just arrived.”
Genny made a coarse sound. “There’s no reasoning with the Vicar of Vice. He hates anything that could be considered enjoyable. Gambling, drinking, acting, dancing. He hates whores most of all.”
“But if this isn’t a brothel, you’ve done nothing illegal…”
Genny’s eyes flicked away. “What the women who work here do to make ends meet is none of our concern, and I’ll admit Lilly isn’t the first girl with culls I’ve turned a blind eye to. But no, we don’t serve sex to our customers, only the suggestion of it.”
They burst into the private residence, and Genny paused a moment to lock the panel behind her before propelling an absorbed Cecelia up a flight of cobalt-carpeted stairs. Ivory damask wallpaper sped by in her periphery as she was led down a hall with white wainscoting and dark-wood floors.
Genny herded her into a tasteful, feminine study done in soft creams, white wickers, dazzling sapphire accents, and canvas paintings.
It bore no resemblance to the opulent and overdone palace of carnality occupying the floor below them.
Cecelia marveled as she took in the refined objets d’art and tranquil furnishings, cheerful sunshine slanting in through a skylight.
The gambling hell, by comparison, had been dimly lit by gas lamps and candelabras, the light flattering and golden, lending the feel of an enchanted evening, even at noon.
Genny was kind enough to allow Cecelia a moment to twirl about like a simpleton, absorbing her surroundings before the older woman dragged her toward the only masculine piece of furniture in the room. The desk faced the door on a raised dais, backlit by floor-to-ceiling windows through which rays of sunlight created celestial pillars to anoint the occupant with a golden glow.
“Sit,” Genny ordered in a voice one generally saved for hounds. “Read.”
Cecelia sat and broke the seal on the letter knowing she would never be truly ready to receive the contents therein.
My darling Cecelia,
If this letter has reached you, dear niece, it means I have been murdered.
She gasped, struck with a chill even the sun-facing august room couldn’t dispel. “No one said anything about a murder. Do you know—?”
“Not now. Keep reading,” Genny clipped. “I’ll get you ready to meet the devil.”
Cecelia puzzled over Genny’s slew of evocative names for their enemy. “How can one be a vicar, a devil, and a wolf all at once?” she wondered aloud.
“Lord love a goat, girl, do you ever stop askin’ questions? Maybe the answers are in that letter…” Genny snatched a ruffled scarlet cape from a stand and swirled it around her shoulders before she turned and riffled in a cabinet, her movements jerky and frenetic.
Cecelia found her place, fighting both numbness and panicked disbelief.
I have done precious little good in this life, but I’ll meet whatever comes after knowing that my girls are safe and together.
You may or may not have heard of me, but I am who they call the Scarlet Lady.
Your mother, Hortense, was my twin, younger by seven minutes. We were each of us born into a life of poverty and drudgery, which I escaped into a profession equal parts glamour and guile. Hortense, however, did not. She bound herself to the contemptible Vicar Teague, who disdained me and forbade our relationship as sisters. Your mother and I kept in touch over the years because the attachment we forged in the womb could not be severed, even by her death.
Her last missive to me, dear Cecelia, was a plea to watch over you. To give you the life neither of us had. I have been an entrepreneur in many trades, one of which was that of a courtesan in my early days. I’m not ashamed of it. However, that is not the legacy I leave to you.
Our power does not reside between our legs, you and I, but between our ears. I do not steal hearts any longer, my dear, but I do collect debts. Debts and secrets. Secrets that could bring this empire to its knees. Secrets that hypocrites and charlatans have paid dearly for me to keep. It is my intention to take on the Crimson Council, Cecelia, but this is a dangerous endeavor. Everyone else who has attempted to do so has been killed. And so if I am gone, this is the why of it, and I have chosen you to carry on my work.
Cecelia closed her eyes against a well of tears.
Genny took advantage of this, relieving her of her spectacles before she ruthlessly powdered her face.
The Crimson Council? She’d never before heard of such a thing. How strange that her life seemed hued by a certain shade. The Crimson Council. The Red Rogues. The Scarlet Lady.
A distant pounding reverberated through the building like the hammer strokes of Hephaestus.
“Christ almighty,” Genny swore. “He’s at the school door. He’ll tear it apart before coming here to do the same. Hurry, darlin’.”
Cecelia’s eyes popped open and she sneezed white powder into the crook of her elbow. “Why are you making me up?” She sniffed, hiccuped, and sneezed again.
“He can’t know who you really are, not yet.” Genny kept her quiet by painting crimson rouge on her lips in thick, masterful strokes. “You must be the Scarlet Lady.”