“I’d be careful of making unfounded accusations, Faith, since I think you have precious few options but to come back here.” Madame settled herself in front of Faith and shook her head slowly, her look one of great tragedy. “I never thought it would come to this when Mrs Gedge brought you here, a wide-eyed country girl, though of course the fact that a bit of stealing wasn’t beneath you augured well. I don’t like it when my girls enter my doors with too many scruples. They are the difficult cases, I will admit. But you, Faith, were just perfect for what I had in mind, and to be sure, you have not disappointed me. It has all come to pass exactly as I had hoped.” Her smile stretched to encompass her sharp, yellow eyeteeth. “Mrs Gedge had scruples, though.” She shrugged. “To begin with, that is. And then she met Lady Vernon during the depths of her grief. A fortuitous meeting, indeed.”
“I have never stolen in my life, nor will I,” Faith said softly. “And I will never sleep with a man I do not love. So, I will profit you nothing if you force me to remain here for even one night.”
She rose. “Mrs Gedge might have believed I stole her daughter’s bracelet, and she might be filled with bitterness over losing Miss Constancia, but she cannot blame me for that.” She shook her head. “No, she cannot be so evil that she’d see me sold into slavery because of what happened three years ago. Because I chanced to be holding up the bracelet that Miss Constancia promised would be mine if I helped her enter Mr Westaway’s bedchamber. I was barely fifteen years old. I’d never seen something so valuable. I’d never ever laid eyes on Mr Westaway. I only discovered that Mr Westaway was the man Miss Constancia had killed herself over when he told me so himself.” Faith shook her head again, her desperation rising. “It makes no sense. It’s out of all proportion for a woman like her to do something like this.”
“Like what, Faith? You’re looking around my office in a very disdainful manner. Almost as if you felt yourself my superior. Or were the wife of a diplomat. A person who would never deign to step over my threshold. In fact, who may not know what comforts a house like this offers a husband like the one she’d surely neglect if he failed to give satisfaction. Very easy to do when one has such high expectations.”
Faith struggled to breathe. “Mrs Gedge would not have paid for my education for three years, and a roof over my head, and food and clothes…all very great expenses…merely to see me forced to work in a…brothel!”
“What a terribly unsavoury term to use for my high-class establishment. However, you’re quite right, Faith. Of course, Mrs Gedge never embarked upon a singular scheme against a blameless country girl. And nor did she. She was very willing to hand you a handsome cheque seeing Mr Westaway so unhappy, but matters took a surprising turn. Indeed, we were all taken aback: Lady Vernon, myself, Mrs Gedge who, as a token of her goodwill, insisted that I give you this.”
Faith was halfway to the door when she turned, and her horrified gaze fell upon the glittering bauble Madame Chambon was holding out to her.
“You’d realise, of course, that the stones are really not worth much, though no doubt at fifteen you imagined the piece a king’s ransom.” Madame dangled the pretty piece of jewellery enticingly in front of her as she looked from Faith’s mutinous expression to the bracelet that Miss Constancia had promised her three years before.
“You can keep it,” Faith muttered, her hand upon the doorknob.
“Oh, my dear, that’s very kind of you, but I would hate to fall foul of Mrs Gedge…or Lady Vernon, for that matter. And they have insisted it be a memento for you to keep…to remind you of their generosity towards you these past years.”
“I’m not staying here, and I don’t want it.”
“Well, that’s your decision, of course, Faith. You are perfectly at liberty to leave.” She smiled sweetly. “So, you’re going to seek refuge with your young man, are you? Or with one of your many friends? Perhaps your family, though I’d gained the impression there was little love lost between you. Nevertheless, your room is made up for you, and there are a few fine gowns hanging in the wardrobe that I anticipated you’d need. And I’ll give this to Charity for safekeeping until you change your mind.” She rose. “Good night, Faith. It’s been a lovely little chat, and I’ll be sure to pass on any messages that come for you.”
Chapter 21
“Some may call it talent, but look where your intransigence has led you?” Lord Maxwell sent a derisive look at the half-finished painting upon the easel in Crispin’s study. At this time of day in the city, the location offered the best light.
The fact that the painting was a study of Faith in languid repose, her resplendent hair framing her exquisite face, only shored up his father’s argument. Unsurprisingly, no sooner than the news had broken back in his home village, Crispin’s redoubtable pater had leapt upon his horse in order to cover the distance to London in a fraction of the time it would have taken him by carriage.
Thus, Crispin had had no warning of his lordship’s arrival, which too quickly followed his own discovery of the day’s damning news splashed across the newspaper which Lord Maxwell now brandished.
“You have been made to look a credulous fool!” his father now shouted, when Crispin made no reply to a statement that could not be refuted. “You were set up from the start, my boy. The cunning plan of a procuress and her sidekicks is now providing society with unimaginable titillation. Just as you’re about to step onto the world stage supposedly as a diplomat, a figure synonymous with tact, cunning, and strategy. Christ, boy, but you’ve disappointed me!”
He slammed down the newspaper and began to pace, while Crispin remained in the chair behind his desk where his father had found him contemplating a world that had quite literally shattered about his ears.
“I’ve always disappointed you, Father,” he muttered. Strangely, uttering this particular truth was not nearly as painful
as learning the extent of just how greatly he had been set up by Faith and Lady Vernon; two seemingly artless women he’d invited into his house. Women to whom he’d offered friendship and…
Love.
He’d offered Faith his heart, and he’d honestly believed in her sincerity when she’d claimed to have reciprocated. Maybe she had grown fond of him, and maybe she was saddened at the way matters had gone. That was the best he could hope for since there was nothing anyone could say or do to refute the cold, hard, indisputable facts. Faith had been one of Madame Chambon’s girls, and Lord Harkom, his father’s arch nemesis, had been her protector.
His father ignored him. He was muttering as he paced the floor, and for the moment, he looked entirely absorbed in his own thoughts until he swung around and ground out, “I’m damned if I know how we can paint this in a way that doesn’t make you appear a complete idiot, boy! Yes, an idiot! I wouldn’t be surprised if the position for which you’ve worked so hard all these years is withdrawn, and you never set foot in Germany to make the mark that—”
“That you have so longed for, Father,” Crispin interrupted him with more energy as he raised his head. “Yes, you! This has always been what you wanted. My desire to paint was nothing as far as you were concerned, and yet I’ve just won a prestigious art prize, and my talents have been recognised—as I have always wanted them to be.”
“Ha! What value is that when you were set up to win! Yes, I know that part is not yet confirmed, but who is this mysterious benefactor, eh?” He nodded fiercely to corroborate his theme. “No one knows, do they? Suggesting that this was the very means by which you have been made a laughing-stock. Yes, a laughing-stock on all counts. Why, you’ve succumbed to every lure cast your way. And yet, you are to be a diplomat! Yes, and you will be!” His father went on, hastily, “Because there is nothing else you can do. Your art certainly won’t bring you the financial rewards you need to live the life of a gentleman. I don’t know of any suitably connected, well-dowered young lady who would want anything to do with you for a few years. No, my boy; the only thing for you is to go quietly off to Germany with your tail between your legs, and pray that the press isn’t having a field day in Leipzig as they are over here!”
A knock on the door interrupted his angry tirade, and Carter put his head around the door.
“Young lady here to see you, Mr Westaway.”
“Unaccompanied?” Lord Maxwell barked before throwing back his head with a laugh. “My, my, what a brazen little piece your jezebel is. Persistent, too.”
“Please leave, Father.”
“Certainly not! I shall stay quietly here in this chair in the shadows by the window, and you can introduce me when it’s timely. Carter, bring the young lady in.”