Remember remember, p.5
Remember, Remember, page 5
Nicholas continues, counting each point on his fingers. ‘I told him to keep track of the dates and times he received his winnings, the location they were stored, when and how much he gave to my uncle, as well as noting every farthing he was allowed to retain possession of.’
‘And it was legal?’ she asks.
The walnut wall clock behind them announces quarter to one, and many of the men rise from their tables with a grumble, presumably to return to their working days.
‘As far as I’m aware, yes,’ Nicholas says, raising his voice over the commotion. ‘Against my better judgement, I did ask my uncle if I could view the terms, but he declined, and I didn’t push.’
Delphine wants to press the issue, but Nicholas turns up his palms. ‘It wasn’t my place. I’m not Vincent’s lawyer, and after all, he is a slave.’ The way he says this is so matter-of-fact. Like there is nothing else Vincent could ever be. Unsure how to respond, Delphine takes her first sip of coffee, wondering if Nicholas ever considers its true cost.
‘But last night,’ he says again. ‘What happened? Did he lose the match?’ Delphine recounts the events of the last twelve hours, pausing every so often to check that none of the coffee house’s other customers are listening in. For now, she omits the part where Vincent struck Lord Harvey. In her experience, men like Nicholas tend not to give people like her brother the benefit of the doubt.
When she’s finished, Nicholas remains silent for a while. He tilts his head to the side like he’s been offered tickets to a visiting circus and can’t decide if he’s curious enough to part with his coin. But if there’s anything she remembers about Nicholas, he must always have a cause. She hopes that this one will tug at his heartstrings. His brows knit together like the tip of the circus tent from Delphine’s imagination, and a few seconds later, he says:
‘Well.’
Delphine is confused. ‘Well?’ she parrots.
‘Well,’ he says again, thumping his hands on the table so loudly it startles the server passing their table. ‘There’s only one thing for it. We’ll have to pay a visit to St James’s.’
Delphine is confused, and stunned.
‘What?’ Delphine says, more sharply than she’d intended. ‘I can’t go there.’
Now it’s Nicholas’ turn to look baffled. He digs around in his pocket before scattering a few coins on the table. ‘Whyever not?’
She doesn’t know where to begin with this man. It’s not just because she’s a runaway that she’s spent four years avoiding the place. There are too many memories in that house she wants to forget. Because contrary to logic and reason, her most painful memories of 20 St James’s Square are also the fondest. Of the girl who once made living there bearable, but who is now lost to her forever.
But if Nicholas knew about those, there is no chance he’d help her. So, instead, she states the obvious. ‘Because, like Vincent,’ she chokes out, ‘I am a slave.’
Nicholas’ mouth slackens. He blinks once, twice, three times before he speaks again. ‘Delphine, do you remember what I said about the difference between what is permissible and what is done?’
‘Yes,’ she says, unsure where this is going.
Mister Lyons’s next words come out slowly and cautiously. ‘You sit before me, a runaway slave declared deceased. My uncle claimed your insurance almost four years ago. Did you know that?’
Delphine nods. Vincent had told her.
‘Had that not happened, from a purely legal standpoint, I ought to have returned you to him. As I said, Britain’s slavery laws are complicated – so much so that there’s not even a committed agreement on whether slavery is enforceable on British shores, but that’s an entirely different conversation. My point is that although they are complicated, they are clear on this. You cannot enslave the legally dead.’
Nicholas finishes his coffee, his eyebrows raising expectantly behind the cup’s rim.
Delphine’s mouth hangs open. Did she hear him correctly? Is he saying she’s free? Could that possibly be true? All these years she’s spent hiding in a brothel. She could have tried to build a life outside the shadows, become a nurse or an herbalist – maybe even allowed herself to fall in love again. She can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like. To have had all this time without the constant fear of losing everything.
As if sensing that she is overwhelmed, Nicholas reaches a hand across the table, pushing the coins to one side. When she doesn’t take it, he says, ‘That’s why I’m relatively certain he won’t recapture you. If worst comes to worst, we can always threaten my uncle with insurance fraud charges.’ He scoffs. ‘He can pay off any fine, of course, but he’d do anything to avoid that. Nothing spooks Lord Reginald Harvey IV like embarrassment of the family name.’
All this time. Delphine is still shaking her head in disbelief. It is the best and worst news she has ever received.
‘Why?’ is the only thing she can think to say. ‘Why do you want to go to St James’s Square?’
‘So I can explain to my uncle, nicely, that he is in breach of contract,’ says Nicholas. ‘He must release Vincent.’
‘You think that will work?’ Delphine can’t see Lord Harvey changing course so easily. And even if he admitted Vincent was no longer his slave, what then? Might he change his mind, and turn Vincent in for assault instead?
‘Like I said, pride is my uncle’s fatal flaw,’ says Nicholas. ‘If what he is doing is illegal, which I believe it is, he won’t want his friends at the House of Lords to find out. He won’t like it, but if I promise my silence in exchange for Vincent’s freedom, I think it might just work. He will keep his honour intact at all costs.’
Delphine considers her options. If Nicholas’ theory is correct, Lord Harvey’s vanity might just keep Vincent out of prison.
And even if it doesn’t, a free man’s sentence for Vincent’s crime would be lighter than a slave’s. It would be worth almost anything if Nicholas could persuade the lord to free Vincent.
She’s tempted to agree to his plan.
But she’s yet to ask him her most burning question.
‘And why do you want to help Vincent? Why help either of us?’
Nicholas huffs out a laugh. ‘Because Vincent is a good man. A rare friend who helped me through a great number of scrapes.’ His voice wavers, but he seems to shake it off. ‘And, to quote Montesquieu: a truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant stranger as quickly as to his own friend. So what kind of man would I be if I did not at least attempt to help?’ This is certainly not the same boy she knew growing up. Men like Nicholas are hard to measure – their words are often prettier than their actions – but she thinks she’s beginning to see why Vincent asked her to find him.
‘Thank you,’ Delphine says. ‘Thank you for saying that.’
‘Your thanks is appreciated but not necessary.’ Nicholas beams, rising from his seat and buttoning his waistcoat. ‘Shall we?’
Despite the fluttering in her belly, Delphine decides: ‘Yes.’
Chapter Five
Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
—BARON DE MONTESQUIEU
How different Delphine’s world is in one fall of the moon. She’d dreamed of spending today journeying towards the West Country meadows and woodlands with Vincent. Instead, she’s walking beneath the trees of Mayfair with a man she scarcely knows en route to visiting the man she detests.
White gravel crunches underfoot as Nicholas leads them up the long diagonal path that cuts through St James’s Park. The magnolias are in full bloom, spring’s last pink blossoms curling on the branches. It is undeniably pleasant in Mayfair. At least for those who have the luxury of leisure time. Among the flirting swallows and courting couples on their chaperoned strolls, Delphine and Nicholas must seem an awkward pair. Silence stands like a stranger between them. After years of distance and a lifetime of difference, this is no surprise.
While Nicholas looks pleadingly to the clouds that drift overhead as if accusing them of carrying away all topics of conversation, Delphine considers the possible outcomes of their talk with Lord Harvey. For Vincent, it could be freedom, prison, or continued enslavement. And for Delphine? Nicholas was reasonably sure Lord Harvey would not be able to reclaim her. But reasonably would not suffice.
She could tell Nicholas she’s changed her mind. Ask him to go in without her. But if she does that, how can she trust that he will report back faithfully on what was said? If Nicholas is Vincent’s only hope, she needs to know if she can trust him. She needs to be in the room where the conversation happens.
‘I have a plan,’ she says abruptly, ‘for what to do if things go wrong in there.’
Nicholas makes an appreciative hmm sound, and they step onto Pall Mall. They look up the bustling, broad street, then down, before crossing between the carriages. ‘Most sensible. Do tell.’
‘I know that house well enough to get out if I need to. All I need is to be closer to a door than he is.’ And to pray that his age and yesterday’s fall have slowed Lord Harvey down enough that he can’t catch me.
Nicholas guffaws. ‘That’s hardly a plan!’
She wants to scowl at him; in fact, she is scowling, and he’s just noticed. To Delphine’s surprise, instead of reprimanding her, he looks chastened. ‘That’s not the whole plan,’ she says.
‘Apologies.’ He clears his throat. ‘Please go on.’
‘If I cannot run away,’ she says, ‘or if someone catches me, then I shall strike a bargain with the lord instead.’ She weighs up how much of this next part to reveal to Nicholas. ‘My… employer provides services to people with secrets. Those secrets are more valuable than I am.’
As she speaks this last sentence, Nicholas makes a vaguely disapproving noise, but she ignores him. It is a simple fact. Regardless of whatever uncomfortable grimaces Mister Lyons makes, thousands of Negroes are sold every day for no more than the price of a plough horse. Delphine just hopes Marion’s claim – secrets you can weave into gold – is also true.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Delphine says, choosing not to expend her energy reassuring him. ‘Vincent trusts in our abilities. Do you?’
‘I…’ He hesitates. ‘I do. And if you do make a run for it, I shall try my utmost to aid your getaway. Perhaps I’ll restrain my uncle, or trip him up, or distract him with an interesting piece of trivia.’ Delphine cannot tell if he is joking, but then his tone becomes serious. ‘I highly doubt it will come to that,’ he says. ‘Logic and the law are on our side.’
Delphine swallows, then reluctantly meets his gaze. ‘And I can trust you?’
With not a hint of mockery, Nicholas places his hand on his heart. ‘I would never lead you into harm’s way.’
‘Good.’ Delphine sounds more assertive than she feels. Already, her knees are shaking – and the last time a member of the Harvey family said that to her, it turned out to be a lie.
They round a corner, and the iron-railed central garden of St James’s Square comes into view. The square is almost exactly as she remembers. Two new houses have been erected, but other than that, it’s as though no time has passed – like her life didn’t irrevocably change here.
Blood thrums from her wrist to her temples as they approach the door to number twenty. The house stands proud like a Kingsman, with three stories, a white brick facade, and nine superciliously arched windows.
Stepping to the rapid rhythm of her pulse, Delphine tells herself it is all right to be afraid. Her fear is a warning, but she won’t let it hold her back now. Not if doing this means she and her brother may be free of Lord Harvey once and for all.
‘Pigging ‘eck!’
Hetty, the Harveys’s cook, stands in the doorway. Her rosy cheeks paled the instant she saw Delphine. ‘Good god,’ she cries, ‘Not here, spirit, not today! I beg you!’
‘Hetty,’ Delphine tries to calm the woman, grabbing her wrinkled hands and pulling her closer. ‘Hetty, mark me I am no spirit!’ It’s no use. The cook trembles, like flour shaking through a sieve. ‘Hetty, please, it’s me, little Delphine.’
But Hetty is still cowering, and Nicholas valiantly steps in.
‘Come now, woman. Can a spirit touch you as if it were flesh?’ He gestures to Delphine’s hands on hers. ‘Don’t these feel warm and living? Not cold and dead?’
Hetty whimpers for a moment more before the terror recedes from her eyes, replaced by fury.
‘How dare you show your face here again!’ Hetty scolds, cheeks regaining their colour, sparse eyebrows raised. ‘Four years I’ve mourned your loss. You run off like a scamp. Let everyone think you’re dead. Then you suddenly reappear?’ She flings her hands up, making them flash like fireworks. ‘On the front doorstep, might I add! If you weren’t so big, you’d be in for the hidin’ of your life! And not just from the master.’
Despite the cook’s rage, Delphine fights back a smile. This tirade is more or less the welcome she’d envisaged. When she worked under Hetty, the cook often threatened all sorts of punishments for her slightest of misdemeanours. But Delphine knew that no matter what she’d done, the cook would never whack her with her rolling pin. Hetty always had an eggshell temper but a melted butter heart.
She’s wrong about one thing, though: Delphine never faked her death. The only fraudster here is Lord Harvey.
Delphine glances at Nicholas and catches his eye. He is covering his mouth with a closed fist and tapping his foot. She can’t tell if he’s impatient or amused.
‘I’ll tell you now, little D,’ the cook says, pursing her lips and adjusting her flour-dusted apron. ‘There’s no job going if that’s what you’re after. But, but…’ She deflates and pulls Delphine into a bone-crushing, soul-refilling hug. ‘By Christ, I’m glad to see you.’
It unsettles her that Hetty used the word job as if Delphine had applied for the position of house slave – but Hetty works so many extra unpaid hours herself, she may well see it that way.
In any case, it’s no exaggeration that Delphine would rather die than work here again.
Abruptly, Nicholas jostles past them into the hallway. ‘That’s enough for now, Hetty,’ he says. ‘We have important business to attend to with my uncle.’
Reluctantly breaking away from Hetty, Delphine resists the urge to scowl at Nicholas for a second time. She’s grateful he’s so eager to help Vincent, but you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their staff.
Hetty stands aside to let her pass, and now, Delphine swallows a dry crumb of nerves. The doorway is so wide it could fit a lady dressed in the most extravagant of hooped petticoats. Her foot hovers over the threshold before she takes her first step inside.
The interior is unchanged: the hallway is painted brilliant white, with matching wainscoting. It’s thrice the size of her chambers at the Exoticies. The floor is still lined with swirling white and grey marble, which is so pristine that it reflects the heavenly fresco of dancing cherubs on the ceiling. The familiarity of it all sets Delphine’s heart thumping again.
Hetty curtseys to Nicholas, although he’s already halfway up the stairs and no longer looking at her. She pats Delphine gently on the arm and whispers, ‘Be careful, little D.’ Then, she disappears back towards the kitchen.
‘Slow down!’ Delphine calls out to Nicholas, running up the stairs until she has caught up with him. She clings to the banister as they approach Lord Harvey’s study, bracing for her next challenge. Before reaching the office, they must climb another flight, but first, they’ll pass through a corridor lined with six oil paintings. She thought she’d never see these artworks again and remembers one of them all too well. She’s not sure she could face seeing it alone.
As they turn into the corridor, she focuses on placing one foot in front of the other. First, they pass a hilly landscape painting of the family’s Malvern estate. The next four are austere portraits of each preceding Harvey generation: the lord’s great-grandfather, a navy merchant; his grandfather, an admiral; his father, another admiral. Three steps later, the portrait-perfect lord himself appears. Delphine wavers as she passes it. Reaching the final painting, she forces herself to look up, to come face to face with a ghost.
The sixth piece depicts a girl captured at seventeen, posing with her hands folded across her ample middle in a salmon satin dress. Delphine remembers how violently the sitter hated the gown, clawing it off the moment her sitting ended. But instead of her discomfort, the painter had captured the softness in those heavy-lidded grey eyes and rosebud lips. The girl wears a necklace strung with the celestial gems she was named for: Pearl.
In another life, Delphine steadied those hands after Pearl ran tear-stricken to her bedroom. In another life, Delphine felt those tears become her own as their cheeks drew closer, then their lips. In another life, Delphine saw that same sincerity painted in Pearl’s eyes when she stood before this very portrait and told Delphine that her father, Lord Harvey, had ordered her to marry. She begged Delphine to run away with her.
Then, at Ranelagh, Pearl decided love was no substitute for luxury and Delphine escaped alone. Their vows to each other were broken, and Pearl married a baron. As Delphine grieved the love she’d lost, word came she’d need to mourn Pearl’s death, too.
‘Are you quite well?’ Nicholas calls down from the floor above. His mousy hair falls over his eyes as he leans over the railings.
Delphine blinks up at him. ‘Many memories here.’
Nicholas nods once, and his hair bounces. ‘It won’t do to dwell,’ he says and vanishes again.
She dashes up the final flight of stairs after him, and they remain silent until they reach the white double doors to the lord’s study. ‘You’re certain?’ Nicholas says, hands hovering over the brass handles.
‘Yes,’ Delphine says, her voice barely audible.
Nicholas pushes open the doors, revealing the room Delphine hates most in all of London. Previous generations used this grandiose space as a second drawing room, but the current master of the house prefers it for his sole use. The high, domed ceiling features a fresco depicting each of the four seasons, and the walls are papered in navy damask.
