Lusus Naturae: A Lord Carlston Story Read online

  Praise for The Dark Days Club

  “A consummately satisfying, un-put-down-able epic that will be devoured by fans of Cassandra Clare.”

  Joanne Owen, Lovereading.co.uk

  “A delicious collision of Regency romance and dark fantasy.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “The prose is as witty as Elizabeth Bennett herself and the whole book is a joy from start to finish.”

  SFX Magazine

  “Lady Helen is intelligent, lively and brave, and one of the best YA protagonists I have come across.”

  Emer, teen reviewer, Lovereading.co.uk

  “This is great fun: vivid Regency drama with a demonic supernatural twist.”

  The Bookseller

  “Beautifully written, absolutely captivating and left me wanting more.”

  Humaira, teen reviewer, Lovereading.co.uk

  “A Regency read with claws that GRIP!”

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  London, April 1812

  Eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall is set to make her presentation to Queen Charlotte and take her first steps into Regency Society. This momentous occasion also marks her first meeting with Lord Carlston, a man of dubious reputation and infuriating manners. Recently returned from the Continent, Lord Carlston is in London to assess whether Lady Helen has inherited her mother’s Reclaimer abilities, which would mark her as a protector of humanity.

  But these abilities would also take Lady Helen from glittering ballrooms and the bright lights of Vauxhall Gardens into a world of demonic creatures and deadly power. Not the usual aspirations of a young lady in her first Season.

  Read on to find out what Lady Helen and Lord Carlston think of each other…

  St James’s Palace London

  THURSDAY, 30 APRIL 1812

  Lord Carlston studied the thronging State Room, every part of his body focused on finding one unnatural gesture or expression in the flow of humanity. It was the first Queen’s Drawing Room since the King’s madness had descended two years ago, and Carlston had no doubt that the thrum of nervous energy in the crowd had tempted at least one of the creatures. Any kind of sharp arousal attracted them – sexual energy was best, but fear and anticipation could work just as well.

  He had positioned himself in front of the huge marble mantelpiece, the best place to view the room, but it was going to be near impossible to spot a mistake amongst the human distractions. All was in motion: nodding ostrich plumes in the women’s hair, the sway of hooped skirts, fans carving arcs through the humid air, officials darting through gaps, and the dips of curtseys and bows. Even so, Carlston was patient. If a mistake was going to be made, he would see it.

  It was an instant of unnatural stillness that caught his attention. A man, no older than his own twenty-six years, standing in a patch of sunlight by the window that looked out across the Royal gardens. Well-fitted green silk tail coat, dress sword at his waist, tow-coloured hair brushed forward into a competent à la Brutus, and a sharp-planed face set with a moment of utter blankness. Then it was gone, replaced by the fluidity of a human smile. A Deceiver. Carlston felt the certainty of it in his gut.

  From habit, his toes bunched, body tensing forward for the fight. Not that he could do anything in a Royal Drawing Room. And more to the point, he was there to meet and test the girl, not confront Deceivers.

  He eased his body back, noting the man’s companions. All human and all oblivious, of course. But there was something else about the creature. Something familiar in the way he held his head. Carlston frowned. Had he encountered this one before? He flexed his hands, unsettled by the lapse in memory.

  “She is standing with her aunt by the blue urn. Not quite what I was expecting, but then I have no firm idea of what one looks for in a Reclaimer.”

  The voice at his shoulder, soft and mocking, brought a half-smile across Carlston’s disquiet. He had not heard that voice in over three years. Yet he did not immediately turn to face its owner, instead switching his attention to the subject of the remark: an overly tall girl across the room, somewhat awkward in the old-fashioned hooped dress still required for presentation to the Queen. Lady Helen Wrexhall: the focus of all his hope.

  On first glance, the chit was disappointing. Unremarkable dark hair built up into the high coiffure needed to hold the regulation ostrich feathers, brown eyes that were bright enough but held no particular fire, and a very decided jaw. He had last seen her when she was ten years old, but there was very little of that soft child left in the bold bones of her eighteen-year-old face. Definitely not a beauty in the classic, rounded way of fashion, yet she had presence. And, it seemed, a sense of humour, for her mouth struggled to suppress a smile as the girl beside her bumped her own ridiculous hoop into a gallant and almost knocked him over. Yes, a clever, knowing smile that brought its own kind of loveliness. Not unlike Elise.

  He bowed his head, waiting for the pain of his wife’s loss to pass. It seemed he was to be haunted at every turn in this damned country.

  “It is fortunate then that I know what we are looking for,” he said, finally turning to face George Brummell.

  “My lord.” The Beau’s bow was as elegantly tailored as his plain blue velvet coat and white silk breeches. Although Court dress still demanded embroidery and lace, he remained unadorned. “It is remarkably good to see you again, William.”

  Carlston inclined his head. “And you, George.”

  His friend had not changed in face or manner: as sardonic as ever, and immaculate from his curled fair hair to the soft black leather of his buckled shoes. Not so himself – Carlston knew the years had bitten hard into his soul. The grief and anger were writ into the lines on his face.

  The State Room was now so crowded with guests that some of the early arrivals had been edged up against the long line of red-velvet-swagged windows. The afternoon sunlight shimmered across satins, silver embroidery and layered diamonds. Yet even with the hot, perfumed press of so many people, a wide half-circle of space had been left around him. Society had a long memory. Every eye he encountered held either cold dislike or shocked curiosity. The wife killer was back; a dark fox amongst the virginal chicks in their white spangled tulle.

  “Even after three years, the prodigal son is not welcome home,” he said. “Are you sure you wish to stand here with me?”

  Brummell gave a soft snort. “I lead society, William. Not the other way around.”

  Carlston bowed slightly, acknowledging the truth of his friend’s words. Not even the Prince Regent had more influence on fashion and society than Beau Brummell.

  “Prinny invited me to the theatre two nights gone, and I have been summoned to the entertainment tonight. Your doing?”

  George nodded. “His Royal Highness just needed a small push. In his own fashion he has always supported you.”

  “You have done a good job keeping him safe.”

  “Safe, but alas still wearing those foul embroidered waistcoats.”

  Carlston’s sharp laugh brought the unfriendly regard of a nearby older man in regiment red – someone he remembered as once being a friend of his late father, the fifth Earl. The old man shook his head, murmuring a comment to his grey-faced companion. Even through the din of shrill conversation, Carlston’s Reclaimer hearing caught the word murderer. No formal charges had ever been laid against him, but his countrymen had gone ahead and convicted him in the broadsheets, clubs and assembly rooms anyway.

  Christ’s blood, why had he returned? Although Bonaparte still rampaged across Europe, the Continent at least held anonymity. But he knew w
hy he was back, and there was no getting around the duty. Or the responsibility.

  He glanced at that duty again. Lady Helen was talking to her aunt, a woman with a similarly thin build and angular face, who had taken her and her brother in after the death of their parents. It had been ten years since the Earl of Hayden and his wife had drowned off the coast of Cornwall, their bodies unrecovered, but Carlston still mourned the loss of Lady Catherine, one of their best Reclaimers. It pained him that such an honourable woman had died with the label of traitor sullying her name.

  It was his hope – his desperation – that Lady Catherine’s Reclaimer abilities had emerged in her daughter too. She had once mentioned that the girl showed a cleverness beyond her age, but did that point to the child being a Reclaimer?

  The unlikeliness of it sat like a stone in his gut. The talent was Lusus Naturae: a whim of nature, not an inheritance. He was proof of it. None of his ancestors had been burdened with the talent, yet here he was, built for strength and reflex and killing. So much responsibility, and so few Reclaimers in the world to maintain the uneasy Pact between human and Deceiver. Only the chance that Lady Helen was one of his kind had brought him back. One Reclaimer to train another. God willing. Nothing else would have made him return to England.

  She suddenly looked over her shoulder at him, eyes alight with curiosity. What had prompted such attention? Perhaps she already had enhanced hearing.

  He tucked in his chin; he must stop indulging in hope and get proof, either way. Of course, if she was a rare direct inheritor of the gifts, that brought a whole new swathe of problems. The arrival of a direct inheritor could mean the arrival of a Grand Deceiver – an even stronger foe to fight. They were damned if she was and damned if she wasn’t.

  The aunt had noticed his interest and turned her back, the obligatory low-cut bodice of her lilac gown showing bony shoulder blades like extended wings. It was a courageous gesture on her part considering he stood beside Brummell, the one man who could destroy social success with the flick of an arched eyebrow. Nevertheless, her cold shoulder did not change the fact that she was his second cousin by marriage; a useful connection that would bring him greater access to the girl. In a few minutes, the old hen was going to have to welcome a very unwelcome member of the family.

  The thought of her discomfort brought a moment of wry amusement. He pushed it away. Schadenfreude was not an impulse he admired.

  “Have you heard news of our latest literary genius?” Brummell asked.

  “I presume you mean Byron?”

  Carlston adjusted the chapeau-bras tucked under his arm. Carrying the flat crescent hat was one of the more irritating requirements of Court, along with the lace and velvet, but at least the dress sword was useful. The ceramic blade sheathed at his side may not be quite what Her Majesty had in mind, but if it came to close quarters with a Deceiver, it was good for one heart thrust.

  “Yes, the darling of the ladies. And,” Brummell lifted his quizzing glass, a handsome monocle set in blue enamel, to survey a stripling dressed in canary yellow, “a surprising number of the men. Caro Lamb is so smitten she is not taking any care to hide it from her husband or the polite world. Lord Byron is fêted wherever he goes. I’ve not seen anything like it. And the vain fool is constantly courting more adoration.”

  “He can hardly know the consequences of it,” Carlston said. Despite the halfcircle of space around them, it was still devilish hot and airless. He shifted his shoulders, feeling the damp linen of his shirt catch on the near healed gash across his back: a recent burn from the energy whip of a Deceiver. “Are we in immediate danger? Are they grouping?”

  “Perhaps. We may not have your talent for finding them, William, but we know they are circling. There is an extraordinary hysteria around my Lord Byron and they are lapping it up. They have already prompted two brawls with one fatality.”

  “Then Byron must be guarded. We cannot allow his energies to be sapped; we must find a way to defuse the hysteria that is drawing so many to him.”

  George raised his quizzing glass again and studied the room. Even his forehead was sheened with sweat from the oppressive fug. “Do they know about our young hope yonder? Are they circling her too?” he asked.

  “I believe I have found one so far: the fashionable buck over by the far window.” The slightest of nods pointed George’s scrutiny towards the tow-haired man. “Whether he is here for Lady Helen or his own needs remains to be seen.”

  At that instant, the man turned his head and stared at them. A long, searching gaze followed by a smile of insufferable collusion.

  A jolt of recognition fired through Carlston. He knew where he had seen the creature before: at Southampton when he had docked four days ago. That same smile had been in the doorway of a tavern as he passed. And he’d wager that the creature’s earlier moment of blankness had not been a mistake, after all.

  Perhaps he was an assassin. If so, a strange one to boldly show himself and court his target’s attention. It was more likely he was interested in the girl. But what could he do here? Any direct action would result in what both sides were trying to prevent: knowledge of the Deceivers’ existence by the populace.

  This strange collaboration had been formalised in the Pact: an agreement for mutual survival. If George thought there was hysteria around Lord Byron, it would be nothing compared with the mayhem if it became general knowledge that Deceivers lived amongst them. Everyone would become a demon hunter, and everyone a potential demon. And the government’s mortal fear of the mob – born from the Terror in France, and fed by the latest Luddite riots in Nottingham – would only add to the chaos and slaughter.

  “Do you know who he is, George?”

  “Count Piotr Solanski. Polish. Aide to the ambassador.”

  Of course George knew his name and position. He knew everyone and everything that happened in society. It was what made him so valuable to the Dark Days Club.

  “Has he any connections here?”

  “No English ancestry. Jonathan has confirmed that he has only two infant offspring. Both in this country.”

  Carlston grunted. It was hard to map the legitimate and baseborn children of a Deceiver, but Sir Jonathan Beech was a diligent Tracer. He rarely made mistakes, not after the debacle in Exeter five years ago.

  Solanski lifted his chin, an insolent acknowledgment of Carlston’s regard. Although the man looked to be only in his third decade, the creature inside would have arrived centuries ago, like all the others. And like its fellow hunters, it would have survived hundreds of years by stealing the bodies of its own human offspring.

  Yet this Deceiver had only two infant children. An unusual lack of progeny.

  Carlston felt the battle energy rise in his body again, tightening him like a hair-trigger. If he reclaimed the children back to whole humanity, he could destroy this Deceiver. It was not often he could deliver Mors Ultima, the final death. And infants were easy to reclaim. They had not yet manifested the appetites that came from their Deceiver dam or sire.

  He lightly clasped his forearm over the soft velvet sleeve, feeling the last tenderness in a near-healed stab wound that ran from wrist to elbow. A memento of the Deceiver offspring he had reclaimed a week ago: a seven-year-old girl in Calais, mothered by a whore and already vicious from the Deceiver energy – the vestige – that her sire had embedded in her soul. It had been a hard extraction, the girl slicing open his arm with a candle spike as he struggled to rip the vestige from her spirit. But he had finally reclaimed her to full humanity: an untainted soul, and a body that could no longer be her sire’s next lifespan.

  Still, Carlston knew she was only one of the creature’s many offspring. That particular Deceiver had whored his way across France, and there were many other children for him to possibly colonise when his current body died. All of them embedded with that spark that formed a pathway to their flesh. He tightened his grip around his forearm, trying to contain the call to battle that hammered through his veins.

&n
bsp; “Are there any others in the room besides Solanski?” George asked.

  “None have shown themselves.”

  “We have sorely missed your keen eye, William. It has been a hard road without you.” Brummell touched Carlston’s shoulder, a fleeting contact.

  The Reclaimer reflex was upon Carlston as fast as an indrawn breath. They both looked down at the small black-handled knife in his hand, the tip of its glass blade pressed lightly against the white silk of George’s waistcoat. Another shift of his weight and it would be in his friend’s heart. He could almost feel George’s pulse through the knife.

  To the room at large, he had merely leaned in to whisper a comment, his hand on Beau Brummell’s shoulder.

  “I would have chosen an ivory handle for the occasion,” George drawled, but Carlston heard the quaver in his voice.

  A few years out of polite society and he had turned savage. Or was it the beginnings of the vestige madness? If a Reclaimer saved too many offspring, took too much Deceiver vestige into his soul, it eventually ripped away his sanity. No, it could not be the madness. He had years of reclaiming to do before he had to confront that possibility.

  “I beg your pardon, George.” He drew back, pushing the blade up into his sleeve until he felt the reassuring lock of the silent, spring-loaded mechanism. “From all I hear, you have done well without me.”

  Brummell met his eye, a moment of hard blame in his face. “Not as well as we would have if you had been here. Benchley is no longer the leader he once was, William. I’ve heard he is reclaiming again. I’ve heard that he is affected by it.”

  Had George somehow picked up on his fear of the vestige madness? No, that was impossible, and yet here he was saying that Benchley – Carlston’s Reclaimer mentor, the man who had been more of a father to him than his own unlamented parent – was heading towards that grim fate.

  “Unlikely,” he said, voice clipped. “Before I left, Benchley gave me his word he would stop. Besides, he is well aware of the danger if he continues. He would not risk his sanity.”