“I wasn’t lording it over your father. He was beating a boy—”
“Shut your gob, or I’ll have my Ralph shut it for you.”
Ralph cracked his knuckles in readiness, and Bea swallowed.
“As I was saying, your outburst seven years ago cost my papa everything. Your damned brother ruined Papa’s reputation and his living until finally Papa had only one honorable way out.” Tears glimmered in Lisette’s eyes…but they were tears of rage bordering on madness. “He was going to marry mymaman, you know. She was so beautiful—he told us he was saving up for the day when he didn’t need his witch of a wife’s connections. Then he would divorce her and take us, his true family, to France and start anew. Butyouruined all that. Instead of that beautiful dream, I lived a nightmare.” Lisette shoved her face in Bea’s. “Do you know what happened to me after Papa died—do you?”
Trembling at the other’s hostility, Bea shook her head.
“Mamangrew afraid that your brother the duke would come after us, so she fled with me. We had no money, no friends, and she had to sell her only possession—her beautiful body—to survive.Mamanwas delicate, could never survive such a disgraceful life. She died not long after, leaving me, a sixteen-year-old girl, to fend for herself. Do you know what a sixteen-year-old does to survive,my lady?”
“I’m sorry,” Bea whispered. “So sorry for what you suffered. But it was not my doing.”
“It was all your doing, bitch!” Lisette slapped her, so hard that she saw stars. “I whored because of you. I, a gentleman’s daughter, had to fight to survive in the worst slums of the worst cities. Until finally I got myself a regular patron, a valet in a gentleman’s house who convinced the lady’s maid to train me. I wrote myself a few letters of recommendation, and thus my new career began. I saved enough money to return to London…where I met my dear Ralph.”
She stroked Ralph’s chin, and he purred. “I knew then and there I had the partner I needed to carry through my life’s work.”
“Anyfin’ for you, my little cabbage,” he said.
“After gathering some funds—revenge doesn’t pay for itself, you know,” Lisette said, chuckling at her own joke, “we headed off together to Staffordshire where a little bird had told me you’d gone. And by little bird, I mean the investigator I hired to find your whereabouts.”
And by “gathering some funds” she means stealing from David Palmer’s workshop...and God knows what else she and Ralph Palmer have done.
Bea was beginning to see the depth of Lisette’s lunacy, thefolie à deuxbetween her and her lover. Both Lisette and Ralph believed that Lisette could do no wrong, that her actions were entirely justified, no matter who she hurt. The pair was mad, living in a shared, twisted universe… and Bea needed to find a way to escape.
Perhaps Wick would figure out that she wasn’t on the way back to Staffordshire. Knowing him, he’d do a thorough check of the coaching inns on the route. He’d find it suspicious that she hadn’t checked in. Hope and determination filled her.
Keep Lisette talking. Buy time. Find out their plans.
“So you pretended you’d been beaten to get my sympathy,” Bea said.
“It worked like a charm, didn’t it? You hired me on the spot.” Lisette smirked. “Poor Ralph. Giving me that shiner hurt him more than it hurt me.”
“I ne’er want to ’urt my dove again,” Ralph said with a shudder.
More pieces fell together for Bea. “When Gentleman Henderson caught the two of you in the barn, Ralph wasn’t assaulting you, was he?”
“No, but I had to claim that he was in order to avoid suspicion about our relationship.” Lisette wagged her finger at her lover as if he were a disobedient dog. “I told you that it wasn’t the proper time for a tickle.”
Ralph gave her a pleading look. “But I missed you, my princess. I couldn’t resist.”
“You cannot resist a great many things, it seems. Including trying to get money from those factory owners,” Lisette said sharply. “That little ploy left a trail leading straight to us.”
“I thought it was a good idea,” he whined.
“Don’t think, Ralph. It’s not your strong suit.”
“Whate’er you say, my treasure,” he said in conciliatory tones.
Lisette returned her attention to Bea. “You weren’t the worst employer I ever worked for, I’ll grant you that. You were always so grateful for anything I could do to make you less beastly.”
Bea wouldn’t let herself be baited. “Why didn’t you just murder me and get your revenge? You had ample opportunity.”
“Did you think I would let you get off that easily?” Lisette’s smile was sly. “Oh no, Lady Beatrice Wodehouse, you deserved to suffer. To know fear like I did. To feel pain like I did.”
“You sent the note, set the barn on fire. The pocket watch we found…it was yours.”
“That was an unfortunate loss. My one memento of my dear papa. He met mymamanat the Hellfire Club, you know. At the end, he didn’t have much to bequeath, but he left the watch to her…a symbol of their love. She never sold it, even when we were in dire straits. When she died, she left it to me. And I kept it close to my heart, a reminder of the vengeance owed to me.”
