Author's Notes: Yep. A Dangerous Liaisons AU. Your eyes do not deceive you. That does mean there will be some heavy angst in this story, along with manipulation of characters and darker moments (no dub/non-con however). Oh, and a hefty amount of smut.
This story is a multi-chapter story, which features Sherlock/Molly, Molly/Irene and Sherlock/Irene. It should take up about 7 chapters. My hope is to update this story once every two months. (It would be once a month, but real life sadly constrains me.) The story itself set in the latter part of the 18th century – so 1780s, with a focus on Georgian England. I'm not a historian, just an amateur interested in history with a few books as her sources so please forgive me if I make any errors. I do try to get the big stuff right.
And, as ever, please don't forget to review, follow, favourite and so on if you so wish. If you want more of me, you can always check out my Tumblr victorianhooper. It's mostly a stop-off for things I find pretty and text posts as I stumble my way through adulthood.
July, 1786.
The music—string led, overly romantic—filled the air. The guests, bedecked in jewels and swathed in the fashions of the age with masks covering their faces, danced and whispered among themselves. Up above the main floor of festivities, Irene sipped at the glass of wine she held in her right hand as she fanned her features with her left. The summer air so often made balls such stifling affairs.
The first she knew of his presence was the sensation of his fingertips drawing a line against the profile of her neck. She hummed and snapped closed her fan, letting the item dangle from her wrist. The ribbon of it was thin, the feel of it against her skin something well raised ladies always grew used to. Stood behind her, he nuzzled his nose deftly against the hollow of her cheek. His mouth ducked towards her ear as he settled his palm onto the shoulder of her dress. His other hand curled around the base of her waist.
"You used to be able to conceal your boredom far more deftly."
"Mm. I suppose it's lucky I'm not really trying." Irene smiled as the intruder to her peace stepped back, letting her go. He circled around her towards her left side and kissed the back of her hand in greeting, his blue eyes holding her.
"I hear you got married again," he remarked as he let her hand drop, straightening up. His eyes turned to survey the dance that took place below. Irene nodded.
"Seven months ago." She eyed him and sipped again at her wine. "I'm surprised it took you so long to hear about it."
His attention did not remove itself from the dance when he spoke again.
"I've been busy." His mouth tilted with a smile as he leaned against the balcony's rail, continuing to watch the dance. "Does the poor fellow know of your – tastes?"
"And doesn't care a jot about them," Irene declared with pride. "He only wished for a trophy wife – so I'm allowed to come and go as I please. Far better than my previous husband."
"My congratulations," he murmured, nodding at the ladies who briefly lifted their eyes to notice him. Attending with their husbands, they gave him no such courtesy in return.
"My thanks," Irene replied.
"I suppose it must be easy for them," he mused with a sigh, running his hand against his naturally dark, tousled curls (unlike his contemporaries, he ignored the need for the usual wigs). She understood his words perfectly. He'd always been the restless sort, his quest for distraction near eternal. "Their minds don't race – they can content themselves with dancing and gossip."
"Whereas we, poor souls that we are, must indulge in games." Irene shifted herself toward him, standing at his shoulder. She softened her breaths, aware of their proximity. He turned his head to look at her with a light smile growing on his lips.
"And what game shall we be playing tonight?"
Irene gave a shrug. She glanced over the guests and the dancers. Her features soon lightened into a smile as her gaze fell on the perfect subject for her companion.
"Aha," she said softly. "I believe I've found the perfect subject for you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"
She pointed down into the crowd. "What do you think of her?"
Obediently, he followed her line of sight and, on seeing the creature she had picked out, he straightened up. His smile grew. The creature in question was, for the moment, involved in a dance. Her dress, a pastel shade of pink edged with white lace, was the height of fashion. Skin naturally pale, her posture was poised, her make-up immaculate; every part of her was carefully arranged into the most perfectly superficial appearance of beauty. All it took to win the other guests over was the use of a well-placed polite smile or an incline of the head. It was little wonder why a man like him would grow so pleased when made to witness such a sight as pure, as delightfully innocent, as her.
He straightened up and folded his arms over his chest. He shrugged. "She's pretty enough – witty and virtuous I'm sure. I've had plenty like her before."
"Oh, I don't doubt that." Irene took in the sight of her chosen subject, who laughed along with her dancing companion as they turned together, hands linked and bodies close. She hummed in thought. "But she's different – I'm sure of it. Different enough to make the game fun."
The briefest of smiles touched at his cheek on seeing the delicate creature down below turn in her partner's arms and give a gentle smile. Still he shook his head. "No. She is plain, and frankly, not worth my time."
"She's worth my time, surely."
He looked to her at that, his head tilted to the left and his eyes narrowed. "What's her name?"
"You'll have to find that out for yourself," Irene said lightly, giving a dismissive wave of her hand. His replying laugh was short, low. He closed the distance between them, leaning forward. She did not flinch, but widened her smile and bit at her bottom lip. With parted lips close to hers, he reached up and traced his thumb against the hollow of her cheek. Below them, the dance was coming to an end.
"You—" he murmured, his eyes falling towards her mouth. "For a stranger?"
She turned her head away. "There's no fun in offering oneself up for a friend."
"What if she proves an easy conquest?" He asked the question with an easy, languid tone. She could see his mouth water and swallowed a laugh. She doubted that the creature below would be at all easy.
Irene pressed herself against the balcony's pillar, smiling. Pink roses covered the pillar, thornless vines wrapped tight around the structure. She breathed in the scent of them with a soft sigh. "Then you'll have me all the quicker, won't you?"
He flicked his gaze towards the subject, and he gave a small sigh, as if the thought of seduction was tiresome, something done by others but never him. He did know how to wear a mask well. She had to give him that.
"And you promise yourself to me," he asked, turning his attention back to her, "if I can win her?"
"Win her, bed her. I will require written proof however." She paused, considering him. "Perhaps a letter of some sort."
Arrogant as ever, he grinned at this particular stipulation. "It's done."
"Then go," she said with a sigh. "The dance has ended, and you wouldn't want to miss your new friend, now would you?"
He answered with a bow of his head and a swift departure. Irene smirked and watched as he advanced through the crowd towards his intended target. Fanning herself against the stuffy air, and trapped in conversation with a duchess, she did not see him approach. Yet when he tapped her on the shoulder and apologised for the intrusion (no doubt he would take great pains to make it clear he did not mean to interrupt either her or the duchess), she greeted him with such cordiality that Irene had to give a small laugh. As she was wont to do, Molly Hooper accepted his invitation of a dance with a single nod of her head and an offer of her hand. The band struck up, the song now a jovial waltz, and the dancers took their places.
Irene sipped back the rest of her wine and her lips stretched into a smile. Oh, but this would be wickedly fun indeed.
Five Months Earlier.
Lady Frances Hooper, born into a wealthy family of merchants, was a woman of stringent cultivation. Multiple marriages had made her a lady, the finest dressmakers had made her a fashion icon and her connections and her wit had made her the first invited to any occasion (whether she accepted was something that could only be hoped for).
Yet for all her marriages, God had only bestowed one child upon her, and it was that which called for Frances to make a visit to Irene Adler's country estates on an unseasonably warm day in February.
From her place atop the house's steps, Irene watched the carriage arrive through the high iron gates and drive down the straight narrow path towards the house. She broke into a smile when the carriage came to a stop. A footman, dressed in red and gold, walked down the steps to open the carriage door.
"Frances," Irene called warmly, giving a light curtsey as Frances stepped out of her carriage. Frances remained where she was, as she glanced over the mansion's pale stone. It was a large estate, for the part of Surrey in which it lived, with near to a hundred acres to its name—an estate which had been poorly kept, with its tenant away for such long periods, until Irene's establishment there.
After finding himself with a wife to his name, her husband had seen fit to gift Irene with the control of the house and its staff. Never one for the business of running a household, he had given little question to the refurbishments Irene set about making. That, it seemed, was the duty of others. Frances sniffed a little and continued towards the steps. Reaching Irene, she bestowed a short kiss upon her friend's cheek.
"You need new windows," she said, her brown eyes flitting up. "Especially on the upper levels. They look too old."
Irene gave a demure smile. "I shall look into it, Frances. But about your letter—"
"Oh yes," Frances said, adjusting her shawl. The woven fabric, patterned with winter flowers, settled against her elbows and she held the hem of it lightly between her fingers. "You understand the predicament I'm under, I'm sure."
Irene nodded and stepped forward to take Frances' arm.
"Completely," Irene said with a nod, stepping forward to take Frances' arm with her own. "Though, I don't think you described the whole situation to me in your letter—"
"No, I didn't have time. We're so close to the season, you see, and everything needs organising…" Frances looked rather lost for a moment, as if her thoughts were too tangled to yet put together. She patted Irene's hand. "Come, show me the garden. We can speak there."
Clipped and trimmed with the flowers winter buds, the scents in the air were sweet and crisp. Irene made idle conversation about the newly installed flowers and how the spring flowers would look once they were installed come March, as social etiquette demanded, and Frances dutifully replied in kind. It was not until they reached the garden's bower that they began to talk truthfully. Frances fanned herself as she sat upon the bower's wooden seat. Dark shadows of the bower's arch fell upon her face. Irene sat beside her and listened as Frances began.
"My daughter, as I told you, has been lived in the country for most of her life. Her father insisted upon it when he passed." Irene smiled at the heaviness in Frances' tone. "He has always been so protective of her. He told me he wanted her to know her own mind – he wanted her to be educated, less frivolous than other girls."
"I can understand," Irene said, adopting a soothing edge to her voice. Frances continued.
"He stipulated that I waited until she was 21 to let her go to London for the season. And now she is 21, but she is—" Frances gave a reluctant sigh, "—how can I put this… she is not prepared. She is polite and sweetly tempered – but she has little knowledge of etiquette, in the ways of being a lady. I have tried to teach her, but – oh."
Frances dropped her fan into her lap and extended out her hand to take Irene's. She squeezed it tight, a seeking of reassurance. "This is why I've come to you, dear. My brother, when he lived, loved you."
"And I loved your brother," Irene replied. "What is it you need me to do?"
"I want you to take my daughter in, prepare her for her debut before the London season starts. It would only be for a short while."
Irene nodded, slipping her hand free from Frances' hold. She folded her hands against her lap, brushing her thumb over her skin. The weather was cooling, and her hands had grown pale.
"Tell me Frances – if you do not mind me asking – how does your daughter look?"
"She is perfectly amiable in every way – plain, like most young girls of her age. And stubborn to a fault, rather like her father, but she is amiable. Oh, and she likes to read," Frances added. She shook her head. "Far too much, if you ask me."
Irene smiled. The overlooking and running of a rural country estate was distraction enough, but once in a while, it was the duty of a lady of society to prove charitable; to take on a project or a cause. And there was no greater cause than to help a poor lost soul. Irene reached forward and gently laid her hand atop of Frances' free one.
"Send her to me, Frances. I'll soon have her ready."
When Molly Hooper did arrive at Irene's estates, she was accompanied by two footmen and luggage she shyly termed to be the idea of her mother. The garments she wore were more suited to the Palladian fashion, with the design erring on the side of practical and the material edging towards worn. Her skirts and bodice lacked any kind of ornament. Her naiveté shone through in her wide brown eyes and was similar to that of any young lady not yet presented. Her darkly coloured cloak was heavy, well suited to travel, and Irene soon had the heavy item removed from Molly's shoulders by one of her footmen. Molly did not glance over the building in the manner of her mother but studied it with the air of a student. As she ascended up the stairs, with her skirts in her hands, she gazed at the high square arch of the front doors and the ornaments that were engraved into the pale stone.
"My husband's coat of arms," Irene explained. Molly, who had stopped in front of a carved stone shield, turned to face her. The chill of the air was on her breath, faint clouds of vapour poured from pink lips. Irene stood beside her and folded her hands in front of her. "Or at least, my husband's family's coat of arms."
Irene stared at Molly, this new arrival to her estates. Her reaction to the house had allowed for her to make many observations about the girl. She had clearly been raised around wealth, for it was not the size of the estates that seemed to bother her. Extravagance, though, had never been a part of her life. She had been taught that subtlety was key. Irene breathed through her nose and looked back to the stone coat of arms. High society, for all of its veiled whispers and gossip, never cared for subtlety.
"Forgive me—" Molly spoke softly, "where is your husband? My mother – she told me of him. He is a… vice admiral?"
Irene laughed softly.
"Admiral. He is currently away at sea," Irene said, hooking her arm underneath Molly's and turning her. She guided Molly towards the door. "He does not take much stock in social gatherings, unfortunately. Now, your mother has told you what will happen while you're here?"
Molly nodded. The two of them walked up another small flight of stairs as the doors were opened. "You're to teach me. To prepare me."
"Exactly." Irene hid a smile as she saw Molly's eyes widen further at the space inside the house, and further saw Molly swallow and try to appear unaltered as Irene continued to speak. "While you're here, I thought what would be good is that you have the morning to yourself – to read, write, sew, walk, do whatever you like – and the afternoon will compromise of your lessons. We should take most of the lessons in the library but we will branch out as time goes on. The evenings you will spend with me, in the parlour room after dinner."
"I – I have never had a morning to myself," Molly admitted quietly. "Usually someone is accompanying me."
"The beauty of coming into society is that you can be perfectly isolated," Irene said brightly. "Unfortunately, tonight is rather difficult. I'm to host a dinner party you see, so you shall be taking supper a little earlier than usual. This doesn't offend you, does it?"
Molly seemed a little bewildered by Irene's quick conversation, but then she smiled. "No. Not at all. I can be with my books."
Irene glanced towards Molly, tilting her head. Frances had been right in one aspect of her daughter. She was indeed a sweet girl. She was not, however, plain. There was something in the soft, circular edges of her jaw. A spark in her brown eyes, familiar to her mother's, which told Irene that Molly Hooper was not to be an ordinary woman.
The bedchamber that Lady Adler had given her for her stay was a sumptuous thing, far from the chambers she'd shared with her governess as a child. Her mother had tried, as Molly had grown older, to move her governess into separate chambers with wiling words and promises of extravagance but her governess was not to be persuaded. It was only when she had become ill with a fever and feared passing it on to her charge that she'd acquiesced. Molly had been eighteen at the time of her governess' removal, a woman. Another time where she had felt anger towards her father. Governesses went away when the child was fifteen, not eighteen. A woman did not secretly weep after she watched the possessions of another being moved out of her chambers.
Her nineteenth and twentieth years had been almost blurs; blurs of wishing and wondering and hoping. Staring out of the high arched windows towards the gardens, while she heard muffled laughter and conversation from outside the door as Lady Adler's guests passed through the doors into the great hall, Molly knew that it was all just a glimpse. A terrifying, thrilling glimpse into something bigger.
A sliver of light crossed the pages of her book. Molly looked up. Lady Adler's red evening dress, with the light behind her, was shadowed in silhouette. She'd shown the dress to Molly before her guests' arrival, had promised Molly she would no doubt have a hundred dresses like it when she made her entrance into society. Now, Irene briefly pressed a finger to her lips as she closed the door and leaned against it.
Tipping her head back, she let out a heavy sigh.
"Such delights are these," she murmured. Her gaze shifted towards Molly. She straightened up. "What are you reading?"
"Oh, um—" Molly's fingers brushed lightly over the words. She shut the book. "Nothing important."
"I'm sure it's far more entertaining than having to endure another one of Sir Barton's hunting stories," Lady Adler replied, making to move towards the window. Molly gave an amused smile. She sat up, making room and Mrs Adler settled easily onto the window seat. Her skirts spread out against the emerald velvet. She arranged her hands carefully in her lap.
"The pity with hosting a dinner party is that one cannot depart unless they have a good excuse." She eyed Molly. "That's your first lesson."
"Mother used to complain about her dinner parties too," Molly murmured. She rested her head against the window's cool glass, closing her eyes. She chuckled. "She always said they took too much effort for too little gratitude."
"Don't let that become common knowledge," Irene said playfully. "Your mother is famous for her dinner parties."
"I attended a few of them," Molly continued. "Four, I think. And I always wondered why she never invited people she liked. Then I looked at all the guests, sat around – and I realised." It had been her third dinner party, when she was just a few days shy of her twenty first. A small affair, the guests had compromised a lord, his wife, a duke and his son and a politician. They'd spent the evening joking and laughing and as she'd watched her mother tease the politician about Parliament, she'd known in a flash that it didn't at all matter who the guest was. What mattered was their title, their position. Where they could get you, where you could get them. A socialite or a gentleman wished for more access to politics, all they had to do was feed them.
"Any woman can socialise. The real trick is not to act like them." Molly turned her head at these words. She peered at her host. Lady Adler rose to her feet, brushing down her skirts.
"Act like them?" Molly echoed. Lady Adler's features softened into something that was not quite a smile. She stepped towards her and reached out. Her hand gently cupped at the underside of Molly's jaw. Her gaze was sharp.
"Wear their fashions, learn their dances and share their gossip, but never share their attitudes." She leaned forward and kissed Molly fully on the mouth. She did not linger. When she looked to Molly again, her eyes glittered. Her playful tone returned. "A gesture of friendship. Our lessons will continue tomorrow."
Her hand dropped from Molly's jaw, descending towards the book in Molly's lap. Her fingers touched the cover, her thumb pressed against the closed pages. Slowly, she pushed them open, fingertips ghosting over the words. Molly looked to Irene, finding a look sharp in its teasing. "Enjoy your book."