The Midnight Man. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.
experience, the impoverished, if left unattended, remain heathens. However, with the appropriate ministrations, they become the Church’s staunchest—and most productive—allies.”
To emphasize his point, Sissinghurst snapped shut the Book of Common Prayer and tossed it to the side. “And on that last matter, Mosley, ensure that Lady Hartford never sees light of day again. A weak vessel is our Lady Hartford.” He sighed dramatically, his voice dropping ten degrees. “Bedlam is the only place for her to atone until, that is, our Lord sees fit to dispatch her to the hereafter where torment surely awaits.”
Chapter 3
The light from the gas lamp swam before Helena’s eyes. No one moved. It was a frozen tableau, except for the fine trickle of cold perspiration that inched down between her shoulder blades. Ramsay’s arms held her like a vise, his strong profile turned to stone.
Then Madame Congais shifted, the rustle of her wide bombazine skirts breaking the spell. She pushed aside her majordomo with admirable vigor and addressed the constables on her doorstep directly through thinned lips.
“I shan’t have this, absolutely out of the question,” she said with the cool tones of a barrister mounting an argument in court. “I don’t care if the Archbishop of Canterbury himself sent you, but I shall not have a disturbance in my home. I have guests,” she added, too astute and too experienced to blush or dissemble, “and I will not have them exposed to such mayhem.” Throwing the ruddy-faced constable a shrewd glance, she continued unabated. “As a matter of fact, I believe that there are several judges gracing my table this evening who would, without doubt, look askance at such an inexcusable interruption.”
Ramsay pushed Helena behind him, his broad back blocking the doorway. “Gentlemen…” he began.
A chill shot up the back of her neck, followed by a pure surge of survival. Spinning around, she launched herself through the hallway, bursting ahead. A quick left and then back through the main salon, and if there was anybody following, she didn’t want to know. The inhabitants of the salon had dwindled to a few drunken sops, their eyes unfocused and their snores reverberating in the darkness. Holding her breath, she leapt over a man lying on the floor, directly in her path. The lamps were turned down low as she continued her way to what she thought was the back of the residence.
Tension tight in her chest, she reminded herself to breathe. She wouldn’t, couldn’t think of Ramsay now, or wait until she felt his hard, hot exhalations on the back of her neck, the cruel grip of his hands. She should have known that he was involved with Sissinghurst, and if it hadn’t been for the fog shrouding her reason and her senses…She wiped the imprint of his strong features, those empty eyes, from her mind.
A light hand skimmed her shoulder and she jumped. “Lady Hartford,” Madame Congais whispered, pulling her toward a dimly lit corridor to the right of the salon. “This way.”
Her mind now blazingly clear, Helena made a quick decision to trust the woman, as though she had any other choice. Leaving behind the richly paneled décor of the main house, the passageway narrowed to emerge into the kitchen where kettles gleamed and the smell of baking wafted in the air in incongruous contrast with the decadent luxury and musky perfume of the main house.
Pulling her cloak more closely around her, Helena first looked for an exit and then into the eyes of her unexpected benefactor. Madame Congais was older than she first appeared, with delicate papery lines fanning out from her rouged lips and cheeks. A canny intelligence emanated from her like the bouquet from a finely aged wine.
“You needn’t explain, Lady Hartford.” Madame Congais kept her voice low, suddenly losing her French accent. “I should know better than most how unfair the world can be to women.” She continued moving, pulling her toward the small exit leading to the courtyard behind the kitchen. “The authorities can be held off for a few moments longer, but you must make haste. Now, have you a place to go?”
Helena weighed her options—all appallingly dismal—deliberating how much to reveal. She glanced at the small window outlining the alleyway, anticipating that she was a few miles from Soho, but with her sturdy shoes she could arrive at her destination within the hour. If she wasn’t being followed. She refused to entertain the prospect. Terrifying enough that she had brought the authorities to Madame Congais’s door.
“I must apologize, madame,” she said, realizing full well that trouble clung to her like a black cloud, as her father had always reminded her. “I’ve jeopardized your enterprise by bringing the law to your establishment. I would dearly like to make amends. If you need anything, ever…”
Impulsively, she lightly touched the older woman’s arm. “And, yes, I think I have a place to go. Not here in Mayfair, but there’s a friend…” She thought it better not to complete the sentence. “I’ll go on foot, so as not to attract notice.”
Madame Congais colored beneath her fine makeup before stepping away, her pride visible in the straight set of her spine. “No need, no need at all to make amends,” she said briskly, pursing her lips. “I know about your generous donations to the Ladies’ Association for the Care of Friendless Girls and the schools, of course. You do enough already and very openly, with no regard for your own reputation.”
Helena shook her head, unable and unwilling to explain what compelled her to give away much of her fortune. “I have the means, after all. It is no great thing.” Yet it was the least she could do with the obscenely large inheritance that seemed to attract far more misfortune than it ever did good.
Madame Congais ushered her closer to the door, the set of her jaw firm. “But go, go now, Lady Hartford. I don’t know how long Ramsay can detain them.”
At the mention of the name, Helena’s ears strained for the sound of footsteps and suddenly she was cold, inside and out. “Detain them? I’m not so sure.” Uncertainty simmered beneath the statement. “Nicholas Ramsay’s appearance at your establishment here tonight to meet with me was surely no coincidence.”
Madame Congais stopped with her hand on the door frame. “There’s not much time for discussion, Lady Hartford.” She frowned, the corners at her eyes fanning out in fine wrinkles. “Let me simply say that you’re quite right in assuming that he’s not the type of man that does anything without purpose.”
“You know him well.” The question was rhetorical. Of course, Francine knew him well. Helena wondered what she was doing, wasting time, and for what exactly? She needed to leave, now.
Madame Congais opened the kitchen door quietly but noted Helena’s expression with seasoned expertise. “I won’t lie to you, Lady Hartford. Ramsay is both dangerous and powerful.” She paused significantly, as though sorting through memories she had long ago stored away. “I have, shall we say, a great depth of experience with those of the opposite sex, and I will warrant you this—Nicholas Ramsay defies definition of any kind.”
The words were enigmatic, breeding ever more suspicions like noxious weeds in an overgrown garden. Helena kept her voice low, despite the fear gathering beneath the surface of her tenuously controlled calm. “The warning comes just soon enough and I’m now doubly in your debt.” With a quick farewell, she slipped into the alleyway.
She sped down the narrow slope into the low fog and around the bend, past several stables and kitchen gardens. Her rapid footsteps echoed hollowly against the soot-stained walls of old buildings and along the uneven cobbled streets. Mindlessly, she raced past stone enclosures, green hedges, and hissing gas lamps, every shadow looming menacingly with renewed threat.
Pressing onward, muscles straining, she refused to give into panic. Her thoughts careened along with the blur of buildings and vegetation scattered with the images of Ramsay, Sissinghurst, and the duke merging into a sickening montage. She was afraid to look over her shoulder, and instead ran as if pursued by hell’s demons.
After a good fifteen minutes, she skirted around a curve to emerge on Leicester Square. The area was deserted and it was only an hour away from sunrise. She risked a look behind her and slowed to listen but heard no sound of pursuit, ignoring