Paris—1816
‘He is dead?’
Cecilia Lockhart stood in the doorway of the shabby Paris room where her husband insisted she should be grateful to lodge. Sounds of babies crying, a man and woman quarrelling, and an old woman wailing could be heard from behind closed doors. The scent of cooking meat, urine and sweat filled her nostrils.
A captain of the 52nd Regiment of Foot stood stiffly in the hallway, unable—or unwilling—to look her in the eye.
‘Killed,’ he said. ‘By a Frenchman. In a duel.’ His tone was disapproving. Why not? Duelling was forbidden in the regiment. ‘He apparently had a great deal to drink.’
Of course he had. What day did Duncan not have a great deal to drink?
‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Did he cheat at cards? Insult the French army?’ Why did she bother to ask? Cecilia did not care about the reason.
The captain stiffened. ‘The Frenchman apparently found Lieutenant Lockhart in bed with his wife.’
Oh.
Why that detail should have stung, she did not know. It was merely one more humiliation.
Another slap in the face.
She almost laughed at her little joke, but this stern, disapproving captain would never have understood.
‘What happens next?’ she asked.
‘We’ll bury him,’ the captain replied. ‘You may return home. Do you have enough money to make the trip?’ He asked the question without sympathy, perhaps worried he would have to take up a collection among his fellow officers on her behalf.
‘I need nothing.’ Not from these men anyway. ‘Do what you must, and thank you for informing me.’
He nodded and turned away. She closed the door and leaned her forehead against it. The baby cried. The old lady whined. The couple cursed each other. And the captain’s receding footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs.
But for Cecilia it was as if the sun had burst through a sky of dark clouds.
She was free. Her husband was gone, never to return.
Never to slam his fist into her flesh ever again, nor throw her against the wall. No more bruises to hide. No more pain.
She had little money, no friends—Duncan had seen to that—and no one in England who would welcome her home. In a moment she might panic at being alone in this foreign country, among people who, a few short months ago, would have considered her the enemy. But for now she felt as light as air.
Free.
Paris—August 1818
Oliver Gregory strolled along the River Seine as the first fingers of dawn painted the water in swirls of violet. The buildings of Paris, tinged a soft pink at this time of day, were even more beautiful than in the brightness of a noonday sun. London at dawn would seem a dark maze of streets and shops.
And Calcutta... Calcutta, the city of Oliver’s birth, defied description, except in words whispered in memory—Hindi words.
Oliver struggled to remember those steaming, fragrant, exotic days of his childhood and the smiling woman swathed in brightly coloured silks holding him in her arms and calling him her pyaare bete, her sweet boy.
In the quiet of dawn he could bring it all back. He feared forgetting even more than the depths of depression that followed. Lately his decadent lifestyle provided no ease from the blue devils.
He’d crafted his life to distract him from the sadness of loss. What better setting than a gentlemen’s club devoted to pleasures of the flesh? Oliver was one of the owners of Vitium et Virtus—Vice and Virtue—the exclusive gentlemen’s club he and his three friends started when they were mere students at Oxford. Vitium et Virtus specialised in decadent pleasure, whether it be beautiful women, the finest brandy or a high-stakes game of cards.
To think he’d just left a Parisian club that made Vitium et Virtus look tame. This club featured sexual gratification through pain, whether self-inflicted or inflicted by another. Vitium et Virtus included some fantasy games with one of their tall, beautiful, dark-haired women playing dominatrix, but this French club went way beyond, so far Oliver nearly intervened to stop it. He knew some people found pleasure in pain, but these Parisians flirted with death. He had no intention of bringing those ideas to their club.
His mind flashed with an image of a nearly naked man swallowing a snake. And another man running over hot coals.
Memories from India again.
A cry jerked him back to the present near-dawn morning. In the distance a swarm of street urchins accosted a woman, pulling at her clothes, their demands shrill in the early morning air. He’d seen street urchins in Calcutta rush a man and leave him with nothing, not even the clothes on his back. The dark rookeries of London posed similar dangers.
Oliver sprinted to her aid. ‘Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Stop! Stop!’
The woman lifted her arms. ‘No! No!’
The children scattered.
When he reached her, she placed her hands on her hips. ‘Look what you’ve done!’
‘You are English?’ He was surprised.
She merely gestured in the direction the children had disappeared. ‘They’ve run away.’
‘They were attacking you.’ At least that was what he’d thought.
She gave him an exasperated look. ‘They were not attacking me. I was giving them money so they might eat today!’
‘Giving them money?’ He turned to where he’d last seen them and back to her. ‘Is that wise?’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Wiser than having them starve or be forced to steal.’
He could not argue with that. ‘Forgive me. I thought—Can you call them back?’
‘No, they will be too frightened now. They are gone.’
He shook his head. ‘I am sorry.’
She frowned. ‘Another