The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
“Doesn’t matter, does it? Percy’s good and natural and probably only fancies women and I am . . . not.”
Silence again. Then Felicity reaches out and puts a hand upon my shoulder. As far as physical affection goes, we’re a fairly delinquent family, so coming from her, it’s a momentous gesture. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“What for?”
“You’ve had a rough go.”
“Everyone has a rough go. I’ve had it far easier than most people.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean your feelings matter less.”
“Ugh. Feelings.” I take a long drink, then pass her the bottle.
She has another delicate sip. “You were right—it’s less horrid now.”
It occurs to me then that perhaps getting my little sister drunk and explaining why I screw boys is not the most responsible move on my part. I almost snatch the bottle back, though it feels rather hypocritical to take a stand for sobriety. So instead I say, “I wish I could be better for you.” She looks over at me, and I duck my head, shame sinking its teeth in. “I’m older and I know I’m supposed to be . . . an example, I don’t know. At least someone you aren’t embarrassed of.”
“You do fine.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re right, you don’t. But you’re getting better. And that isn’t nothing.”
16
Felicity and I stay up much later than either of us intends. I finally go above—at her insistence, as she says kipping up in the library is rather dramatic—to find Percy long asleep. He’s balled up in bed, arms curled into him and knees pulled to his chest, but when I crawl in beside him, he slides against me without waking, cheek to my shoulder, and I can’t put any more space between us without going straight off the edge of the mattress. He shifts in his sleep, bare legs hooking around mine, and suddenly my body is very much out of my own control. Calm yourself, I instruct it firmly, and it doesn’t really obey, so I pass the rest of the night with Percy nuzzled up to me and me trying to think of anything but that. I hardly do more than doze—we’ve been lodging in dodgy inns for weeks and yet this is the worst sleep I’ve had since Paris. When it finally seems an acceptable hour to rise, I’m exhausted and frustrated and sort of hard.
Which is just unfair.
I splash cold water on my face until my body seems to understand that a romp with Percy is not about to happen, then dress in my borrowed clothes and slip down the stairs before Percy stirs. If we are to quit this place today, I plan to at least have a word with Dante before and see what I can find out about his father’s cure-alls. Perhaps play upon the tremendous debt he owes us, work the remember the great personal risk at which we brought your father’s precious box back to you so why not spill a bit of his alchemical secrets your sister was so keen on us not knowing yesterday? angle.
A spacious kitchen with scuffed floors and high windows juts from the back of the house like a broken bone. Clusters of candles are stuck with wax along the table, and copper pots dangling above sway in the breeze filtering through the open window. It’s not yet eight and already hot as yesterday afternoon.
Dante is crouched in the hearth, trying to coax chalky embers into flame, and I think for a moment I may have lucked into catching him on his own, but Helena is at the table, flipping through a stack of letters, her thumbnail between her teeth. A kettle filled with cold chocolate, waiting for the fire, sits beside her, alongside an amber cone of unnipped sugar and tongs. It’s exceedingly odd to see the pair of them, lord and lady of the house, in the kitchen preparing their own breakfast.
They both look up as I enter. Dante stands quickly, bangs his head on the lip of the hearth, then wipes his sooty hands on his breeches, leaving two black palm prints. “Mr.—Mr. Montague. Good morning. How did— Did you sleep well?”
“Um, yes,” I lie. “Thank you, . . . sir.” It’s not a thing I’m accustomed to calling a man my own age, but he’s got a house and likely his father’s title on me, so I err on the side of awkward formality.
Dante holds one of the candles to the kindling and blows until it catches, then tosses a log overtop for the flames to curl their fingers around. “Is Mr. . . . Newton . . . ?”
“He’s still asleep,” I say, to save him the trouble of finishing the sentence.
He nods, and I nod, and Helena says nothing, and the sort of silence that makes a man want to talk about the weather falls between us. I take a spot at the table and help myself to a crusty bread roll off a tray in the center, just for something to do. It’s staler than it looks.
Helena’s eyes narrow at the letter she’s reading, face pinched until she catches me watching her and composes herself. She refolds it and tosses it onto the stack on the table, then stands to hang the chocolate pot over the fire.
There’s a noise in the hallway, and a moment later a tousled Percy makes his entrance, sleepy and oblivious to the distress he caused me all night. Dante greets him with the same puplike enthusiasm he offered me, though with less head bashing this time. Percy slides down the bench to my side, just far enough away so that he won’t crack me in the eye with his elbow when he starts to wrangle his hair back into a queue. As he fastens it, one long ringlet escapes and settles around his ear. I think about tucking it back into place for him, but take another bite of my roll instead.
“Sorry that we haven’t much to eat,” Helena says, then gives me a wry smile across the table. “You don’t expect a trio to show up on your doorstep looking like someone dragged them from the sea with nothing but stolen property and a violin.”
“Oh!” Dante laughs. “The violin. I’d forgotten.”
“Do you play?” Helena asks, looking between us.
“I do,” Percy says.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Do you play well?”
“Oh. That depends upon your standard.”
“He plays very well,” I interject. Beneath the table, Percy knocks his knee into mine.
Helena sets a jar of grape molasses between us, spoon clanking against the crystal. “Our father was a musician.”
“I thought he was an alchemist,” I say.
“A hobby musician,” she qualifies.
“Mine as well,” Percy says. “My fiddle was his.”
Dante, still crouched at the hearth and poking at the flames like a boy, pipes up, “I have some of his music in the bedroom. My bedroom. The bedroom you’re . . . I saved it. If you’d like—if you want—you might—”
“I’m sure he’s not interested, Dante,” Helena says. She’s fetched mugs from a cabinet and is spreading them around the table before each place. When she bends over, the neckline of her dress dips so low I can see all the way to her navel. I was going for my bread but nearly take a bite of the candle instead.
Dante’s face goes red, but Percy, bless him, says kindly, “I’ll take a look at it. It’d be good to play some.”
“He played mostly the—the glasses. So the songs, the music, I mean, it’s meant to be performed on the crystallophone. But they might still—”
“If you’re planning to depart this morning, there are diligences that will take you from the city center to the border,” Helena interrupts. “And you can hire a coach from there.” It seems she’s really shoving us out the door, but then she tacks on, “Though if you’re in no great rush, you’re welcome to stay with us for a time.”
Clearly there was no consult on this subject, for Dante drops the fire poker with a clatter. “Wh-what?”
Helena ignores him and instead says to Percy and me, “You’ve come so far, it seems a shame to leave so soon. And if you’re touring, you should see Barcelona. Not many English tourists make it this far, and there’s so much to do. The fort, and the citadel—”
“We should be moving on,” Percy starts, but Helena cuts him off.
“We’re going to the opera on Friday night—you should at least stay until then. I’m not sure we can compete with Paris, but it’s grand to
I can think of plenty of reasons to flee the house right then, ranging from that smile to All those death objects in the study are damned unnerving to Dear Lord, don’t make me share a platonic bed with Percy again. But I’m not going anywhere until we have a chance to ask them about their father’s cure-alls or whether there’s anything they know that might help Percy, even if Helena seems as keen to keep an eye on us as I am on her. No secret so carefully guarded isn’t worth knowing.
“We’ll have to speak with Felicity,” Percy says, at the same time I start, “Seeing the opera would be good,” but we’re both interrupted by Dante’s squeak of “Boiling!”
We all look over as the kettle lid clatters, foam spilling over the sides. The fire spits. Helena curses under her breath, whipping her skirt over her hands so she can hoist the kettle from the fire. Percy leaps up too, lifting the lid off the serving pot. A thin line of chocolate splatters from the spout as Helena pours, leaving a dark splotch along the linen. A few drops make it as far as the letter she tossed down the table, and I feel compelled to assist in some way, so I scoop them into a pile, out of her way. “Should I—”
“There’s a box on the study desk,” Helena says, still focused upon the chocolate pot. “Dante, please don’t sit there. Fetch plates and the cutlery.”
I pad into the study, tripping yet again on that damned loose floorcloth. The room is dark after the bright kitchen, windowless and all light swallowed by those bookshelves and that dark papering. The death masks seem to stare at me, empty eye sockets sunken into shadows.
The tabletop is buried, same as the rest of the room, both with papers and with more of the paraphernalia, but there’s a single box shuffled into one corner. I shift off a few layers of papyrus and a plaster casting to find a smattering of letters, the top one addressed to Mateu Robles. They must be quite piled up if they’ve still post for their dead father. I shift the top few aside, curiosity getting the better of me. A few down, there’s a sheet of fine creamy stock with a green wax seal broken in one piece, the crest imprinted on it the fleur-de-lis in triplicate.
I nearly drop all the letters I’m holding. It’s the crest of the Bourbons.
The House of Bourbon controls Spain, so perhaps it’s a tax letter. Or news from friends in the court. Maybe that impression in the green wax did not come from the ring of the duke who stole the box from the Robles siblings and attacked us in the woods.
I toss the stack of mail onto the desk in a haphazard pile and snatch up the letter, unfolding it with fumbling fingers.
Condesa Robles,
In regard to our arrangement pertaining to your father’s Lazarus Key—
“Did you get lost?”
I whip around. Helena is standing with one hand on the door frame, giving me a coy smile until she sees the letter in my hand. Then her eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”
“Just . . . making certain . . . this was the right place.”
She’s still staring at me, so vehemently that beads of sweat begin to congregate on the back of my neck. I almost thrust the letter behind my back, like that will somehow conceal my rather obvious treachery.
“Come for breakfast,” she says.
“Oh. Yes.” I’m not certain what to do with the letter, but that question is answered when she steps forward and snatches it from me, so hard that it rips and I’m left with a scrap pinched between my thumb and forefinger. As we pass into the kitchen, she tosses the letter into the fire.
I slide down to my spot at the table beside Percy, my hand on my lap still fisted around the scrap of the letter. As Helena turns her attention to breakfast, I smooth the paper out against my knee and glance down at the moniker upon it in blotted ink.
Louis Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon,
Prince de Condé
Percy and I leave the breakfast table together, nearly colliding with Felicity at the top of the stairs as she comes down from her room, her hair mussed and her eyes still drooping.
Before she can offer a good-morning, I pull her into our bedroom, Percy on our heels, and shut the door. “Look here, I found something.” I unfold the torn scrap of the letter, kept tucked tight in my fist all through breakfast—which was quite a feat—and hold it for them to see. My sweating palm has smeared the ink, but the words are still legible. “I tore it from a letter in their study.”
Felicity rubs at her eyes with her fists, like she’s still trying to wake. “The Duke of Bourbon.”
“The one I stole the box from.”
“He’s . . . writing to them?”
“Looks to be.”
“Did you read the rest of the letter?” Percy asks.
“Just the first line, then Helena barged in. It was something about a Lazarus Key. He said it belonged to their father.”
“Why’s he writing to them if he’s the one who stole the box?” Percy asks.
“Well, if he wanted it, perhaps he was trying to make a bargain first?” Felicity offers. “And they wouldn’t comply, so he stole it?”
“We should find out what’s in it,” I say. “I think they’re lying when they say they don’t know.”
“But it’s theirs,” Percy says. “What they do with it is their business, not ours.”
“But we nearly died for it, and—in case you forgot—it might be something to help you. It’s clearly some carefully guarded secret of Mateu Robles’s, and his whole work was alchemical cures. It makes sense. We should stay here—just for a few days—and see what we can find.”
“But if they’re in contact with the duke—” Percy starts.
“I think Monty’s right,” Felicity interrupts him. “We have no money. And we’re going to wear ourselves out if we travel again so soon. You especially”—she looks to Percy—“should take care of yourself.”
Percy blows a sigh from his nose. The single errant curl about his ear flutters. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go courting trouble, is all.”
“We’re not courting trouble,” I say. “Flirting with it, at most.”
“I’m going to write to Lockwood,” Felicity says, “through the bank in Marseilles. Tell him where we are and ask if he’ll send funds to help restore us. Until then, if the Robleses will have us, we should stay here. And you”—and here she looks to me—“can do whatever sort of investigative work in that time that you’d like to, so long as you don’t sour our hosts on us. Are we in agreement?”
“Yes,” I say. It seems that, for the first time, my sister is enthusiastically on my side. Percy looks far dourer about it, but he nods.
“Until then,” Felicity says, “perhaps we can learn about this Lazarus Key.”
17
It’s three days before we manage to set aside some time for quality snooping, a disoriented three days of being intensely aware that we are strangers in a stranger’s home, but with nowhere else to go. The first two we spend mostly sleeping, as our last few weeks suddenly seem to fall upon us all like a sack of bricks dumped from above. The third, Helena insists on accompanying us out of doors to see the city.
Dante stays behind. He seems to live in the study—he takes up his post there every morning directly after breakfast and is still there when we turn in—which makes poking about for further correspondence with the duke or anything about Mateu Robles’s work difficult. We’ve all looted our respective rooms and found nothing—though Percy was almost entirely unhelpful to me once he discovered the stack of the father’s music and decided his time was better spent riffling through that. The study seems the place for answers, and Dante seems disinclined to leave it, preferring the safety of the stuffy mausoleum his father left behind for him to populate.
Investigative efforts foiled thoroughly by our exhaustion and his social anxiety.
To my great surprise, it is Felicity who first pounces upon Dante. She’s taken to this investigation with considerably more enthusiasm than anticipat
We find Dante in the study, not so much tidying as shifting the mess about, but he stops to listen as Felicity asks if there’s a university nearby with a library we might visit. “There’s a bookshop,” he says. “Down the corner. I mean around the corner. Down the street and around the corner.” He flaps his hand for direction. “You may—might—might try that. Or we have books here. If you care to . . . stay in.” His gaze scampers over Felicity, then he goes red from his neck to his hairline.
“Oh, that’s kind, but I wanted to”—Felicity snatches a lie out of thin air with a speed that is frankly impressive—“I wanted to buy your father’s book.”
“We have copies around, I think.”
“Yes, but I’d like my own, to take with me when we go.” It’s not an airtight lie by any means, considering we have almost no money and she first asked after a library. But before Dante can start to pick at the holes in it, she offers him a sweet smile. Not knee-weakening, per se, but perhaps charm is a bit more of a family attribute than I previously thought. “You can come with us, if you like.”
The flush that had begun to fade from his cheeks flares again like a stoked fire. “No, no . . . I think I’ll stay. Oh,” he calls us back as we reach the door and says to Percy, “I heard you yesterday, practicing. My father’s music. If you’d play some for me . . . I’d—I’d very much like that.”
“When we return,” Percy says, “I’d love to.”