Wicked by Design Read online

  WICKED

  BY DESIGN

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  False Lights (as K.J. Whittaker)

  WICKED

  BY DESIGN

  Katy Moran

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Katy Moran, 2019

  The moral right of Katy Moran to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781786695383

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781786695390

  ISBN (E): 9781786695376

  Cover design: Anna Morrison

  Images: Shutterstock

  Author photograph: Sam Walmsley

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For Will

  They hang the man and flog the woman

  That steal the goose from off the common

  Yet they let the greater villain loose

  That steals the common from the goose

  Anon.

  Pele ero whei ow mos, mos fettow teg

  Gen agas pedn du ha gas blew melyn?

  Edward Chirgwin, Cân an Delkyow Sevy, 1698

  Contents

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part 1: LAMORNA, 1819

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part 2: ST PETERSBURG

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Part 3: COUP DE GRCE

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Part 4: THE ART OF WAR

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Part 5: BY WEEPING CROSS

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  An Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  The events in this book take place during a period of history that never happened.

  Several years after Napoleon defeated the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, the French Occupation has at last been expelled from Britain. The country is on the brink of revolution – and the English throne is still empty.

  Note on the text: in Cornish dialect, ‘little maid’ makes affectionate and familiar reference to a young girl. The Russian name Nadezhda is pronounced exactly as it is spelt. The ‘zh’ sound is the same as the ‘s’ in pleasure, or treasure.

  Part 1

  Lamorna, 1819

  1

  Not far from Lamorna Cove, the ancient manor house of Nansmornow lay in a curl of wooded parkland. Shards of glowing window stood bright against the moonlit granite bulk of the hall, all nestled like a cultivated pearl between rain-lashed Cornish moorland, sea-cliffs and the wild Atlantic. Here the garden lad’s spade would often turn up human bones or Roman tiles decorated with mosaic fish scales, once even a rust-caked sword and a clay dish of green beads. In the drawing-room, candlelight glanced off the silver dish of honey on the tray and long shadows were cast across the faded Turkish carpet. It was late, but four women still remained at the fireside and Hester Lamorna was quite unable to decide which she hated or mistrusted the most, even as she smiled and poured the tea. The rumours had reached a lethal temperature: before long, someone would boil like a lobster on a Tuesday in Lent. Most of the Cabinet, including the prime minister Lord Castlereagh, were now ensconced in Nansmornow’s various oak-panelled guest-chambers, which meant that the servants’ quarters teemed with scornful London valets, opinionated ladies’ maids and bitter grievances, and that Hester must deal with the wives.

  Wielding the teapot as a man might a rifle, Hester observed them all from beneath lowered lashes. Close to sixty and clad in quantities of lace, Martha Mulgrave laid claim to more than forty years’ scheming passage through the shark-strewn waters of high society. She was absorbed in netting a purse, but hadn’t survived this long without using girlhood accomplishments as a cover for acute observation. Nestling beside her on the chaise longue the Russian ambassador’s wife, Dorothea Lieven, tucked a dark ringlet behind one pearl-strung ear, unfolding the letter received from Tsar Alexander only that morning. Ensconced in a damask Queen Anne chair, Emily Stewart, Lady Castlereagh, accepted her cup and smiled with brazen insincerity. They all had a way of looking at one that made Hester uncomfortably aware of both her light brown skin and those spirals of sand-dark hair springing loose from the bundle of weightless curls pinned atop her head. Straightening her back in unspoken defiance, she adjusted the Kashmiri shawl tucked around her shoulders and passed Dorothea the milk jug. She could not help fearing that this gathering of vultures would be her husband’s undoing, but when had Crow ever contented himself with anything other than playing for high stakes? It was so exactly like him to invite the men most suspicious of his motives to drink the contents of the cellar.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts, Lady Lamorna?’ Emily said to her. ‘Do you suppose the men ever plan to rejoin us? I only hope they’ve stopped boring on about that irrelevant Boscobel person and his trading-frigate or caravel or whatever it was. I can’t conceive of a more unsuitable topic of conversation, quite as though they were all so many chicken-nabobs.’ She sipped her tea. ‘But then your dear Lord Lamorna does seem so very concerned with trade these days – I’m sure his father would have been quite appalled. Beau Lamorna was a person of the old style, don’t you think?’ Her eyes lingered on Hester. ‘I would imagine darling Beau spinning in his grave if he only knew
the half of how we live now.’

  ‘Well,’ Hester said calmly, ‘considering my husband’s lands are so rich in copper and coastline, it would be a little foolish of him not to take advantage of both. And as for the Deliverance, it was her unseaworthiness my husband took issue with. Unlike Hawkins Boscobel, Lord Lamorna would never send men from his own land to sea in a vessel that ought to have been condemned – or any man at all, for that matter.’

  Emily’s smile froze. ‘Well, it’s hardly our place to understand the complexities of commerce. I can’t hope to have an informed opinion on such issues, although with your background, my dear, I do appreciate that matters might be quite otherwise.’ She spoke as if trade were akin to the procurement of prostitutes. Had Emily confused Hester’s father’s naval career with that of a merchant seaman? Or did she allude to the fact that he himself had once been traded as cargo? Emily had been speaking French, so continued her sentence even as Mr Hughes opened the double doors, resplendent in his sober butler’s garb, and then Hester’s husband, Lord Lamorna, came into the drawing-room. He’d long since shelved the title Viscount Crowlas in favour of his dead father’s ancient name, but those who knew him well still called him Crow. He wore a white shirt and a jacket of midnight-blue superfine, silencing all feminine chatter with his presence alone, with his black hair in its perpetual state of disarray, those lashes always so very dark against such white skin, and his pale, oyster-grey eyes gifted with the ability to privately communicate his quite disreputable intentions without the need for so much as a word.

  ‘You women have outlasted us,’ Crow said, with a slight bow to Emily, Dorothea and Lady Mulgrave. ‘Castlereagh and Mulgrave have just gone up to bed. I go too, my lady.’ He stood just close enough that he would not shame Hester with his touch in public as though she were his concubine and not his wife, and Hester longed for the moment she could reach for him beneath the crisp linen sheets, aired and lavender scented; knowing it, he gave her one of his quick smiles, all the more precious for their rarity.

  ‘Well, really, Lamorna,’ Lady Mulgrave said, laying down her netting at last. ‘Are we not to drink our tea before you summon your wife to bed? I’m appalled at such medieval behaviour, even if I am surprised to see it among your mealy-mouthed generation.’

  ‘Drink all the tea you wish, ma’am, but I’m going to bolt the door,’ Crow said; he wasn’t one to wither before a woman who was old, white and rich enough to be just as outrageous as she pleased. With another smile, Crow bowed and went out, and Mr Hughes remained entirely expressionless as he closed the doors behind him, leaving the four women alone in their enclave once more.

  ‘Dear me, what a disgracefully beautiful young man he is,’ Lady Mulgrave went on, as if she were discussing new curtains for the breakfast-parlour. ‘They’re always the worst.’

  Emily smiled from the depths of the Queen Anne chair. ‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘we all think you’re being so amazingly dignified about it, darling Hester.’

  With considerable effort, Hester stopped the honey-spoon rattling against the inside of her teacup. ‘Dignified about what?’

  ‘Emily, is this really the moment?’ Dorothea said quickly, glancing away from her letter.

  Lady Mulgrave spoke without looking up from her netting. ‘Is there ever a good moment?’

  Taking that as her invitation, Emily treated Hester to her most condescending smile. ‘Oh, Hester, I do admire you for treating the entire affair with the contempt it deserves. In my view, Lord Burford’s so-called daughter ought to be sent to some quiet place in the country and forgotten about.’

  Hester fought for breath. It was an open secret that Lady Burford had once been not only her husband’s stepmother but also his mistress.

  Lady Mulgrave stirred a spoonful of honey into her own tea, which by judicious application from a small flask in her reticule was at this point mostly brandy, anyway. ‘Oh, don’t bore us with Louisa and her supposed seven-months child, Emily. Burford’s mother says the man is a damned fool, and so he is. The girl must be well above a year old by now, and may survive. I shouldn’t wonder they’ll bring it to town so that some nursemaid might parade Louisa’s downright cheek through the park.’

  Hester held the china jug in both hands, staring at the creamy yellow milk. Her seven-months child. And over a year old? A child who could then be Crow’s: that’s what they were saying. That’s what they meant, and to share the gossip so publicly was to humiliate her, to put her in her place. Hester’s eyes burned: it took every last shred of willpower not to let tears gather.

  ‘According to my cousin,’ Emily went on, ‘the darling thing has a very fine pair of grey eyes, and an absolute mop of black hair.’ She turned to Hester with manufactured affection. ‘Only think, the child must be scarcely a few months older than your own dear little creature. It’ll seem five minutes before they’re both debutantes in the same Season. Louisa’s daughter will be quite devastating, I’m sure, if she lives, God willing.’

  Hester forced herself to speak with a lightness of tone she wasn’t even close to feeling as she thought of her year-old daughter asleep in milky contentment upstairs. ‘Well, Louisa herself was a diamond of the first water in her day. Crow’s father wouldn’t have married her, otherwise.’

  ‘Either way, I’m sure it’ll all soon blow over,’ Dorothea said, watching Hester over the rim of her teacup. ‘It wouldn’t be a real Season if someone didn’t bring a miscellaneous bastard up from the country.’

  ‘Well, that much hasn’t changed since I was a green girl,’ Lady Mulgrave said, and it was not until they had all finished their tea and kissed each other upon the cheek at the top of the stairs amid the clove-oil scent of Lady Mulgrave’s face-powder that Hester knew she was at last within reach of indulging in a shamefully unrestrained display of emotion.

  Blessed with an ability shared only with Crow’s deceased parents to tell when he was lying, she was quite sure that he really had given Louisa up before they married: the child must have been conceived before that date, but her existence was still a betrayal of their own daughter. Louisa Burford’s child would suffer no jibes about her black grandfather. Hester was infinitely proud of her African forebears, who had endured so much that she might exist, but there was no point in pretending those sidelong glances and whispered remarks did not happen. She had accepted Crow’s proposal to save her honour and her life. She would never have chosen to live among these white aristocrats. Closing the bedroom door behind her, she sat rigid as Lizzy unbuttoned her gown, lifting the creased silk over her head, before unlacing her stays and sweeping the chemise over her head. Hester brushed her teeth with coral powder, breathing in the earthy, liquorice scent of myrrh and Havannah snuff. Lizzy passed her the folded linen cloth soaked in warm water, and Hester washed her face and under her arms and between her legs. Once she was dry, Lizzy gently tugged the nightgown over her head, and Hester sat to have her curls unpinned, waiting while Lizzy carefully unteased them.

  ‘I think we must oil your scalp in the morning, milady,’ Lizzy said. ‘Mrs Rescorla has some of the rose treatment ready, I think.’ Tying Hester’s hair atop with a ribbon, she wrapped her head in a silk scarf, employing a firm knot. ‘Is there anything more I can do, ma’am? I venture to say that you don’t look quite well.’

  Hester shook her head, longing to scream and hurl the lead-glass decanter of orange-flower paste across the room. ‘Nothing, thank you, Lizzy. I’ve kept you awake long enough. Do go to bed. I shan’t need anything else tonight.’

  She waited until Lizzy had closed the door behind her, before getting to her feet and walking with restrained ire to the dressing-room, which in turn led to the master bedchamber. First, she passed through Crow’s own dressing-room, past his valet’s neatly folded piles of starched muslin neckcloths and tomorrow’s fine lawn shirt hanging from the outside of the armoire, and the faint, enticing cucumber scent of Crow’s shaving-water. After so many years in the navy and then the army, Crow was surprisingly precis
e with his grooming habits, never leaving his shirts on the floor for Hoby to pick up. By God, he would answer to her for Louisa Burford’s grey-eyed daughter. Hester twitched back heavy crimson bed-curtains, faded to a peachy pink where light from the mullioned windows had shafted into the room for the past four hundred years, and found her husband’s bed quite empty.

  2

  Many hours later, Lord Lamorna came home again. Crow closed the front door behind himself, barring the dregs of the night and all its danger and disorder. For him, the drawn bolt had presented no great difficulty. The hall was lit only by embers sulking in a fireplace large enough to roast a pig in, just as Hester had said with her usual asperity when he first brought her home to Nansmornow as his wife. Every sense rendered unbearably acute, he knew immediately that he was not alone. It was not Hughes: Crow’s butler was over six feet tall and, standing on these ancient floorboards, Crow felt the counterweight of a much lighter intruder right through the soles of his boots. The interloper was behind him, concealed by the velvet drape always drawn across the front door once it had been locked, the folds of heavy fabric now still bunched at one end of the brass curtain rod. He reached for the knife at his belt, but even as his fingers closed around the ivory hilt a frozen prickling sensation shot down his spine, and through the curtain he felt the hard steel nub of a pistol pressed into his side just above the waist. The shot would pulverise his liver: a messy route to oblivion. With one swift jerk he closed his hand over the velvet-covered pistol-barrel and jerked it to one side. With a crack, a shot was fired. The ball dislodged a gilded boss from the ancient wall-panelling, which crashed to the floorboards. Crow was just conscious of admiring the burst of white plaster that sprang up like ocean spray before he tore aside the curtain with the knife at his side and came face to face with Hester, clad only in a thin linen nightgown and an expression of simmering fury, a blue silk scarf bound around her curls. He had been holding her wrist but let go with a swift curse as if her skin were red-hot, allowing her to back him up against the door so that they were just inches apart. He thought his wife beautiful always, but anger lent such compelling animation to her features – the flash of fire in her liquid dark eyes, the set of her lips. She knew about Louisa Burford’s child.