The Speckled Monster Read Online Free PDF Page A

their names. As the wealthy had drifted westward in search of ever-receding quiet and sweet country air, though, the old mansions had dwindled, some falling down, some divided, most replaced by shops. Now, though the Strand might be narrow and crowded by the standards of Louis XIV’s Paris, it was nonetheless one of the most extravagant shopping boulevards in Europe. Bay windows curved into the street, teasing passersby with fragrant and fragile luxuries from all over the globe: silk stockings and silver, fringed gloves and feathered fans, linens, lace, china, and the newfangled curiosity of tea.
    The earl’s servants ignored it all. Trotting through the chaos of Charing Cross, the coach turned down Pall Mall and up St. James’s cutting across to the quiet splendor of Arlington Street. At last, it drew to a stop at a palatial town house perched on the eastern edge of the Park.
    The footmen in their liveried finery were admitted without fanfare, but once inside, their message produced a flare of French displeasure from Madame Dupont: a tavern was at no time any place for a lady, and by the time they managed to deliver her, it would be full night.
    The earl’s message, however, was not a request; it was a command. Under Madame Dupont’s disapproving eyes, maids hurried to pull a flounced petticoat down over the lady’s shift and cage her torso in a satin brocade bodice stiff with slivers of whalebone. At her waist, their fingers flew as they attached the matching gown that swept down around the floor in a heavy three-quarter circle, leaving a gap in front for the embroidery and lace of the petticoat to show. The long train they fastened up behind in a voluptuous bustle. They dressed her hair into a high tower topped with pleated lace that fell down her neck in a long cascade, and they pinned diamonds deep into the curls, where they winked and glimmered with coy grace.
    Ensconced like a silken sugarplum in the earl’s gilt coach, she peered out at the wonders of London crowding around her as the company sped back the way they had come. Carrying wax-dipped torches, footmen jogged in a long train on either side, so that the coach seemed to float through the gloom within its own magical globe of golden light. Through this halo flowed a parade of workers swarming home, shopkeepers shuttering windows, peddlers hawking the last of their pears and nuts from hand-carts. Herds of bullocks and sheep trotted toward slaughter, and heavy trundling wagons carted coal. She glimpsed pickpockets, ballad singers, and pockmarked beggars missing eyes and limbs; she saw swords drawn, fists bunched, and mouths twisted into leers. Once in a while, she glimpsed the icy disdain of another fine lady in a coach and six.
    The earl’s coach never slowed until it drew up to the sign of the Cat and Fiddle. A footman lifted her safely over the filth of the street to the threshold of the tavern. She was announced, the doors were thrown open, and firelight heavy with the scents of red wine, roast meat, and men doused in musk and civet spilled across her satin slippers.
    Silence settled through the room as Kingston took her by the hand and presented her to the astonished company. Tiny and fine-boned as a wren, with dark hair and dark eyes that sparkled with precocious intelligence, she was indeed beautiful, but the Lady Mary Pierrepont, Kingston’s eldest daughter, was also a little girl: ten, at a guess, and surely no more than twelve.
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    Two years earlier, on New Year’s Day in 1699, Lady Mary’s grandmother Pierrepont had died. With her grandson set to inherit the earldom of Kingston, she left her fortune to her granddaughters. The proud heiress of the Evelyns of West Dean, she bequeathed the bulk of her fortune to seven-year-old Lady Evelyn, who had been destined for it since her christening. To docile little Lady Frances, she left the handsome sum of £1,000 toward a dowry. To Lady Mary, quite contrary, she