Justine, page 1
JUSTINE
A STEAMY VICTORIAN MASQUERADE ROMANCE
VIRTUE & VICE
BOOK THREE
CARRIE LOMAX
Copyright © 2024 by Carrie Lomax
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and most locations are invented by the author; any resemblance to actual people, places and events are typically coincidental, except actual place names such as cities and countries.
Cover art by Midnight Muse.
ASIN: B0CXJ47CHR
eBook ISBN: 9798223432821
Print ISBN: 9798884113589
CONTENTS
About the Virtue & Vice series
London, December 1881
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Books by Carrie Lomax
About the Author
ABOUT THE VIRTUE & VICE SERIES
Set in Victorian London, the Virtue & Vice series is for readers who cried when Harlots was canceled, binged Bridgerton, and anxiously await the further adventures of Miss Scarlet and the Duke. Each book follows a different couple through to their happy ever after, while advancing the plot between Belladonna and Hawke.
Belladonna is the morally gray heroine at the center of politics, society and crime. She maintains her hold on power through sex and money while hoarding secrets of her own. Hawke is the one person she cannot manipulate, charm, or blackmail into doing her bidding. Theirs will be the final entry in this seductive 7-book series, full of mystery and passion.
Now Available:
Annalise: A Spicy Enemies-to-Lovers, Virginity Auction, Victorian Romance (Virtue & Vice, #1)
Rosalyn: A Steamy Age Gap Victorian Romance (Virtue & Vice, #2)
Justine: A Steamy Victorian Masquerade Romance (Virtue & Vice, #3)
Forthcoming books in the Virtue & Vice series:
Cora: An Age Gap, Arranged Marriage, Enemies-to-Lovers Victorian Romance (Virtue & Vice Book, #4)
Isabelle (2024)
Rose (2025)
Jane (2025)
Get Belladonna, a series prequel, free.
LONDON, DECEMBER 1881
TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS
CHAPTER ONE
Upon arriving home from his brother’s wedding, Darius de Lucey found a pile of calling cards on his silver tray—itself an unusual enough circumstance to give him a jolt of surprise. He did not, as a rule, receive many invitations to social events. Even if he were to be so favored by the ton, he would decline.
But this was not his townhouse. Darius only lived here to avoid the inconvenience and expense of maintaining his own bachelor’s quarters. Alexander rarely came to town, and he would be coming even less often now that he was married.
The calling cards were undoubtedly meant for his brother, the Earl de Lucey. Everyone wished to congratulate Alexander upon his recent nuptials.
He flipped through the thick rectangles and noted something peculiar: a single name printed in ugly black typeface: MRS. ERSKINE.
Another card, with that same visually offensive lettering.
And so on, as if she’d tried visiting repeatedly in hopes of catching Alex at home.
The name tickled a corner of his mind. He couldn’t place it, so he left the stack of cards and correspondence on his desk (technically, his brother’s desk, as Alex liked to remind him at every opportunity) to sift through later.
Why would a married woman try to contact his brother so insistently? Alex’s wedding was hardly a secret. He’d rather shocked the ton by his choice of wife, a commoner, but that had been overshadowed by the even more shocking fact that he’d found himself engaged to his own half-sister.
What a relief that hadn’t gone through. All sorts of family secrets had come spilling out last fall. But that hadn’t been enough for Darius to trust that his family would forgive his own, so he’d kept silent. Besides, why pile on when the de Lucey family was already reeling from so many revelations? His mistakes were in the past. Long since dealt with. Mostly.
Darius had remained in the countryside for a few weeks to get to know Isabelle, his new half-sister, and to help manage Rosalyn’s younger siblings. The Fernsby children were a handful, constantly bickering, but charming in their fractious way. He’d been grateful to leave and intended to spend the upcoming Christmas holiday the way he spent most of his holidays: alone.
On the day after his return to the de Lucey family townhouse, he discovered yet another irksome card on his silver salver.
Plain white. Black letters. No indication of what she wanted. Darius flipped it over to read the address, an unassuming location in the City, then back again to that name. He’d finally realized why it sounded so familiar while reading the newspapers over his breakfast. The Opposition Leader, Mr. John Erskine, had died abruptly at a party, only a few weeks ago. Erskine had been a close ally of Queen Victoria. His set were prudish reformers—the exact opposite of the type of people Darius used to associate with.
Were the insistent visitor and the Opposition Leader related? He could return her call and find out, but something told Darius she was trouble, and these days, he avoided trouble at all costs.
“The lady who left this, did she say what she wanted?” he asked his manservant.
“No, sir. She has been most persistent in trying to reach you.”
“Me?”
There went Darius’ theory that she wanted an audience with the earl.
“The lady was quite direct that she needed to get in touch with you. She refused to say why. She said it was urgent and asked you to pay her a call at the address provided at your earliest convenience.”
There could only be one reason for a married woman to want a private word with Darius, and that dredged up memories best forgotten. He might not know her by this name, but she must be someone from his past.
Too bad for her. He’d long since closed the door on his dreadful history. These days, Darius kept to himself.
“She gave no indication of why?” he asked.
The servant shook his head. A faint line of frustration creased his brow. “The only additional information I can provide is that she is a widow, sir. Or at least, she wears mourning. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
Interesting. That explained the black edging on her hideous calling cards.
If she had been after a meeting with Alex, he would have guessed the lady had fallen upon hard times and thought the earl could aid her situation in some fashion. But that clearly wasn’t the case, and Darius did not like the implication of a widow desperately trying to track him down.
Whoever Mrs. Erskine was, she could wait. Forever.
CHAPTER TWO
THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS
“A lady to see you, sir.”
Darius, comfortably ensconced in his favorite leather chair with a bottle of his favorite brandy on the table beside him and a thoroughly mediocre book open on his knee, glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel.
“At this hour?”
“She says she knows you’re in here and will not take no for an answer. The lady asked me to give you this.” His manservant presented a folded piece of fine parchment. A cracked red seal still clung to the center.
Recognition sliced through him, as cold and sharp as the winter wind. Gingerly, he examined it. Apart from having been opened, the letter’s bumped corners and errant tea stain indicated it had been separated from its envelope sometime before arriving in his study.
Technically, his brother’s study. Alex owned everything associated with the title. Which was a good thing. Darius would have frittered away the family’s fortune if he had been the heir.
His youthful excess had put him into Countess Oreste’s debt.
Mercenary bitch. Had to respect the woman. Not many people had such a nose for money.
Darius didn’t blame her for his predicament. Getting there had been his own damn fault, and she’d given him a lifeline when he desperately needed it. For a price. Belladonna’s help always came at a steep cost.
He folded the invitation. He was half-inclined to let in the lady who’d brought it, i
Probably another attempt at blackmail. It wouldn’t be the first time.
If it was that Mrs. Erskine woman, she could stand out in the cold forever. She had certainly demonstrated her determination over the past couple of weeks, stopping by at different times of day in hopes of catching him.
She’d placed that offensive card into his salver over and over again. He now had seventeen copies of the hideous thing.
“Tell the lady I will not see her,” he said to his manservant. “Not tonight. Not ever.”
“Very well, sir.”
Darius settled deeper into his chair and returned to his reading. Before he could get halfway through the next paragraph, a disturbance from the hall made him sigh and close his book. Clearly, he was going to have to handle this himself.
“If you lay a hand on me, Detective Holbern will hear about it,” an insistent female voice declared. “I must see Mr. de Lucey at once. It is a matter of life and death!”
Cold air gusted into the room, guttering the fire, and carrying with it a woman draped in flapping black fabric. Darius blinked.
There was insistent, and then there was desperate. She had the anxious air of a starving dog that had found a bone and was prepared to guard it with her life.
She kept her back to him, holding her skirt out of the way as she dodged the servant’s attempts to herd her back into the hallway.
“Life or death, you say?”
The woman whipped around. Her drab cloak and skirts settled all at once.
He’d have remembered this woman if he’d met her before. Unquestionably.
Her delicate features and elegant figure ought to be graced with fine silk, not swallowed by dull crape. Darius glimpsed a shocking glint of reddish hair underneath the ugliest hat he’d ever laid eyes upon.
“Yes, it’s imperative I speak with The Honorable Mr. de Lucey at once.” Her hazel eyes narrowed fractionally. This woman was a Boudica capable of scorching the very earth.
Darius winced at the use of his full title. She clearly didn’t recognize him, which sent his theory that she was someone from his past up the chimney. If this was an attempt at blackmail, she must think he could be shamed into payment by producing that scandalous invitation.
As if a masquerade ball could possibly shame him, after the things he’d done. “You have my attention, Mrs. Erskine.”
“At last. You have proved to be a difficult man to find, sir, despite your reputation as a philanderer.”
Darius waved away his servant. The man bowed stiffly and exited, closing the door. Propriety required that the door be left open, but considering she had come to his doorstep alone, in the dark, propriety had already been left for dead in the roadway outside.
Tension fairly hummed in the air. Coal in the grate shifted audibly.
“Did you come here to insult me, Mrs. Erskine?”
Seeing that she wasn’t going to have to fight to remain in his study, she slowly relaxed, reminding Darius of a blackbird settling on a branch, watching the sky for hawks, and prepared to take wing at any second.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly, sir. I am Justine, daughter-in-law to John Erskine, the late Opposition Leader.”
“I see,” said Darius, though he didn’t. He was only humoring her because she was beautiful and determined—and certainly the most exciting thing to happen to him since finding out he had a half-sister, Isabelle. “Whose life is at risk, might I ask?”
“My father-in-law’s.”
“The one whose funeral half of London attended a few weeks ago?”
The pink glow on his visitor’s cheeks deepened into a blush. “John was murdered. I’ve been trying to find you for weeks to ask for help only you can provide, but you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Indeed, I have,” Darius said dryly. “It seems to me the danger has passed, Mrs. Erskine. He is, after all, deceased, if you’ll forgive my bluntness. Nor do I comprehend what any of this has to do with Countess Oreste’s Christmas masquerade ball.”
“Allow me to begin from the beginning.”
“An excellent place to start.” Her lips twitched in a reluctant smile, there and gone. Her shoulders relaxed slightly until he raised the invitation. “How did you get this?”
She bristled again, though her gaze cut guiltily away from his.
“I acquired it from Detective Holbern. He gave it to me at John’s graveside a few weeks ago. I have been attempting to contact you ever since.”
“How did this detective come to be in possession of my personal correspondence, Mrs. Erskine?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” She edged closer to the fire.
Darius had numerous secrets he would like to keep hidden, but nothing of the kind that might interest Scotland Yard. His curiosity and alarm piqued in equal measure, he raised one eyebrow and waited.
“The detective doesn’t believe my father-in-law’s death was an accident,” she said in a rush. “I am certain John was murdered. Holbern told me that he doesn’t have enough evidence to push for an investigation, but if I can find it, he’ll get word to Her Majesty. The Queen would want to see his death avenged. But first, I need to get proof.”
A finger of cold premonition slid down Darius’ spine like a caress from beyond the grave. This woman’s story made no sense. Detectives did not go around asking ordinary people to assist them with gathering evidence in a murder investigation.
Then again, it wasn’t every day the Opposition Leader passed away while at a party.
“Explain to me one thing, Mrs. Erskine. Who do you believe murdered him?”
“Countess Oreste.” She practically spat the name. “Known among her confidantes as Belladonna.”
Darius threw back his head and laughed.
CHAPTER THREE
Justine studied the man she’d spent weeks trying to track down.
Whatever she’d expected to find when she finally cornered Darius de Lucey, he was not it.
She expected him to be well-dressed, but while his clothing was tailored, it wasn’t ostentatious the way some members of the aristocracy flaunted their wealth. He wasn’t dismissive, either. Humoring her, yes.
“Countess Oreste was in attendance at the party where my father-in-law died. He was poisoned. She’s named for a poison, for pity’s sake. Besides, I saw her going down the hallway to his room not long before his body was discovered!”
“You’re hardly an impartial witness.”
Justine’s temples throbbed. She’d promised her husband, Timothy, on his deathbed, to care for his father. She’d failed. There was no sugarcoating how badly she’d failed, and now this dissolute aristocrat who didn’t even have the responsibility of polishing his own shoes was refusing to help her right a grievous wrong. The glimmer of curiosity she’d felt about him vanished.
Worse—he was protecting that dreadful countess.
If she hadn’t already seen enough aristocratic licentiousness and hypocrisy in the years she had served to further John’s political career, she had all the proof she needed in how quickly they’d abandoned her in the weeks since his death.
“Bella is many things, but she is not a murderess,” Mr. de Lucey drawled.
“How do you know?” Justine demanded.
“Suffice it to say, I am long acquainted with the lady.”
She scoffed at his use of the word “lady.”
“Bella has a hard head and a soft heart. She doesn’t let the latter rule the former. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
