The Three Evesham Daughters: Books 1-3: A Regency Romance Trilogy

by Audrey Ashwood

  “No,” she said and forced herself to sound energetic. “We do not have time for this right now. I want to be at the church earlier, so I can see when our messenger arrives.”

  “And what will happen if a constable picks you up and throws you in prison? Or if one of those men thinks you are a… someone like me?” Felicity had never even thought about the first option, but she had contemplated the latter. She pulled her coat open and showed Brigid the letter opener she had stolen from her father’s study. It was only a small knife, but it was sharp, as she knew from her own experience. The maid only looked at it sceptically, but what else should she have done? Taken one of those parade sabres that were hanging on the wall behind her father’s desk? That was hardly possible.

  “This is what we will do,” she decided and walked straight towards the church. “I will wait near the entrance until the person who sent me the letter shows up. You will keep an eye on the surrounding area. If you see a constable coming, you will give me a signal, but make it unobtrusive, such as a cough.” Brigid coughed once loudly, and Felicity nodded, satisfied. “Every man that comes close to you will think you are sick and walk away.” Brigid’s reddish-blonde eyebrows shot up, but she did not say anything. Instead she walked obediently back and forth in the church’s forecourt, while Felicity walked towards the church’s portal.

  She waited. It really was very cold. Her breath formed white clouds in front of her face, as she watched the numerous women turning their business in the shadows of the church. Most of them were not even particularly good-looking or young, and Felicity wondered what men found appealing in them.

  More interesting, however, was something Brigid had said earlier. She had described what the women did here, as ‘work.’ In the past four weeks, Felicity had learned something she had only been able to assume before, which was that most of them only did what they did because they had to. There were hungry children to feed, and the women had to provide for their families. Their husbands, if they had stuck around, generally did not earn enough to bring food to the table every day. Those, who were still pretty and possibly even a little bit educated, sold their bodies in the brothels. It was safer there, because the madam made sure that nobody would harm them physically. Those who were forced to work the streets had long left their glorious youth behind. Often – according to the Father – an excessive consumption of gin also played a role in their downfall.

  Felicity wondered if her mother knew what her daughter saw during her visits with Lady Blankhurst. She was convinced that her father surely had no idea. He would certainly have forbidden her to even take another step at Lady Blankhurst’s side. But her mother…

  A man approached her slowly, almost cautiously.

  In the light of the full moon, Felicity was able to see that his clothes were of a better cut, but not as elaborately decorated as a nobleman’s. Her heart beat all the way up to her throat. Was this the man who had ordered her to come here? She pulled the letter out from her small bag and held it — clearly visible in front of her chest as an unmistakable signal. Her legs were shaking, and it seemed as if they soon would turn to jelly and no longer be able to support her. She gathered up all her courage and stepped forward.

  Half of the man’s face was hidden beneath the rim of his hat and only the lower half was visible. Did she know the man? All that she noticed was his mouth, pulled into a lecherous grin, before he addressed her.

  “Hey, sweetie, would you like to earn yourself some pennies?”

  The shock rendered her speechless. It was not just the fact that he thought Felicity a prostitute (which was understandable given the circumstances – she was standing there alone waiting for a man), but also the unbelievably low sum of money he had offered her, which she found outrageous.

  “Sir, I am not what you think I am,” she said with a firm voice. “Please leave and find your… pleasures elsewhere.” It took everything in her to hold back the words she truly meant to say: “cheap, disgusting, and despicable pleasures.” The man lifted his head, pushed his hat out of his face and looked at her with glaring eyes.

  Felicity felt an ice-cold shiver run down her back.

  “What makes a posh little dove like you hang around here at the whore’s church, if you are not up for a little bit of fun?” He came even closer to her. Felicity stepped backwards until her back was hard against the wooden door.

  “Be gone, Sir. If my betrothed catches you harassing me, nothing will save you from his rage.”

  He stopped in his tracks, threw his head back and laughed. Felicity stepped towards her left, but she had hesitated too much. The man grabbed her by her arm and pulled her against his round gullet. As if in a dream, she noticed that the few remaining buttons of his coat (which had definitely seen better days) were stretched across his fat stomach. His foul breath stank of ale and rotten teeth. Felicity turned her head away and pushed her hand against his chest, but he was much stronger than she was and most likely had anticipated her resistance. When his greasy lips hit her cheek, she could take it no longer and screamed.

  Many things then suddenly happened at the same time. Somebody ripped the repulsive reprobate away from her. The man’s protest was stuck in his throat as a mighty punch hit him right in the stomach. The noise that came from her saviour’s fist hitting the corpulent man, sounded dull, despite the excessive amount of fat it punched into. It was a painful hit, of full force, because her would-be-attacker leaned forward and held his belly whiningly.

  “Get lost,” a tall man told him with a growl, as he stood between Felicity and the man. However, this devil did not seem to want to give up his prize so easily. Even though he had not yet caught his breath, he tried to storm past Felicity’s saviour straight towards her.

  “Don’t you see that your attention is not welcome?” The next punch of a bare hand hit the man on his chin. He resembled a tree that was felled, but which refused to fall after the final blow of the axe – and yet could do nothing about it.

  Felicity’s shoulders fell forwards with sheer relief and her heart began to calm down a little, until she realised that she was now at the mercy of the second man. Then she saw his white collar shining brightly in the moonlight. She let out the breath she had held in. This man was a priest! Maybe he was even Pater O’Donnell. After all, he did have the same broad shoulders and also the confident stride of the pater, even though this man acted slightly more cautiously than her pater.

  On shaky legs, she took one step forward. She was still not able to recognise whether he really was Pater O’Donnell. Oh, how she wished he was! She would be able to talk to him and ask him for his help! Over and over again, the moon continued to disappear behind new sets of clouds, hiding the man’s face from her. But who else could it be, dressed in dark clothes like those of a priest, in the middle of the night in one of London’s most rundown quarters, if not Pater O’Donnell, searching for lost souls?

  “Is that you, Pater?” She picked up the courage to ask and left the safety of the church portal.

  She heard a laugh, which covered her entire body in goosebumps.

  “They call me ‘the priest,’ but I am no saint,” the man said.

  He had first stopped in his tracks and now came directly towards her. The man in front of her had something of a predator about him, the way he turned his head in her direction, and how he then slowly, almost contentedly, walked in her direction. He was not that far away from her now.

  Where was Brigid? Felicity thought that she could see the woman in the distance, but then the stranger stepped into her view, and she had to give up her search for her companion. There was no chance for her to escape to her right… or to her left. When he stopped, he tilted his head to one side. Felicity saw that his face was completely covered by a black cloth, which only revealed his disturbingly flashy eyes and some of his unruly hair.

  “It… was… a mistake, please accept my apology,” Felicity stammered and immediately wished that she had not been so stupid as to leave the h
ouse with only one other female as her company. She remembered a phrase her father liked to recite often: To err is human. But those who do not learn from their mistakes are little more than an animal and not worthy of being called human.

  “Thank you for your help, Sir,” she muttered.

  “Here,” the man said and threw a shiny coin to her.

  Felicity was frozen in fear and unable to catch it (and did not want to take it, anyway). She straightened her back and held her breath. This man thought just the same as the first and considered her a prostitute. Now he wanted to buy her services! Sheer terror gripped at her with its claws.

  “Don’t be scared, darling,” he said and bent down to pick up the coin, which he then pushed into her cleavage. If only she had kept her scarf! His fingers felt warm, and as they glided across the fabric of her dress, he hesitated for a short moment, touching the narrow lace trim. She was close enough to him to notice that his eyes first widened and then narrowed, as he scrutinised her.

  Straightaway, he lowered his arm and took a step back.

  “Can I help you in any way, my Lady?” he then asked, and Felicity began to shake once again. The man had figured out her poor disguise by her clothing – as soon as he had touched the fine fabric of her dress.

  “No,” she burst out. “Just keep on walking.” When he did not make any attempt to obey her request, she repeated for a second time. “Please, Sir, you are embarrassing me.” And you will get me into trouble, she added silently, trying to decide feverishly, on a way to convince the stranger to leave her alone.

  “As you wish,” he said curtly, but did not make the impression that he wanted to leave. Desperately, Felicity pushed past him, then stepped over the other man, who was still lying on the street unconscious.

  Right then, it did not make any sense to wait for the sender of the letter any longer. If he had seen her talking to the stranger, he had likely just walked away. Felicity heard the man calling something after her, which sounded like “Wait,” but she ran as fast as she could towards the spot where she assumed Brigid was hiding. The sight of Brigid darting towards her, propping her in the next moment, was enough for Felicity to feel her knees buckle beneath her.

  “We’re leaving,” Brigid said resolutely. “You should go home to bed, my Lady. This whole trip was a grave mistake.”

  Felicity could only concur.

  Chapter 6

  What business did a young lady from a good home have near the whore’s church?

  Luke bent down and picked up the letter she had dropped when she had fought off the other man. The paper had opened when it had landed on the ground. He meant to fold it back up without reading it, when some of the words written on the bright paper caught his attention. “… what you did,” he read. Now he might as well read the rest of the message, he thought, even though he already had an idea what this would entail. The young woman was being blackmailed. A wave of rage towards the sleazy coward who was hiding behind a letter, overcame him, and so did a feeling of compassion for the young woman. For a second, he held the letter in his hand, undecided as to whether it would increase her fear of him, if he were to follow her. But then Luke thought that her fear would grow even more, if she noticed that the letter was gone.

  He folded the paper up, stuck it into a pocket on the inside of his spencer and ran after her. She and her companion had already gotten too far ahead to hear him calling after them. He would also have drawn far too much attention to himself, if he had called out. He left the unconscious yokel where he had fallen. The scoundrel would be back up on his feet soon enough, and if not, the cold of the night would hopefully cool off his heated mood.

  Her disguise had not been too bad, even though it had failed a closer look. Nevertheless, Luke did not believe that the young woman was accustomed to going out on such escapades. She had not only been frozen in fear when the other man had harassed her, but she had also mistaken Luke for a real priest. Why would a well-behaved young lady arrange to meet with a Catholic priest in the middle of the night? Beneath the fear in her tender voice, he had been able to make out her well-rounded vocals and the slight stretch that had revealed her to be from the upper class – either that, or she was a governess, educated enough to teach the children of British high society, the correct way to speak. But no, her dress was too expensive and also, despite some stains, far too clean.

  The two women had left the marketplace in front of St Botolph’s in the direction of the main street. Whatever the reason behind their strange excursion, they were now undoubtedly heading straight back home. Their gait had been that of people who were rushing away from an execution.

  An unfamiliar tightness spread across his chest, which he identified only a few seconds later, as compassion. He had not seen much of her face, just a delightful mouth with a small beauty mark between the corner of her mouth and her round chin. He had only glanced at her wide-open and anxious eyes for a second, before she had pulled her bonnet deeper. It was the expression he had seen in them, which nagged at him and that he was unable to forget. Besides the dominant expression of fear, something like defiance had flashed through. He was certain that more was hidden underneath the delicate surface than seemed at first.

  One of the two women, the smaller one who had propped her up, waved at a hackney. Luke held the letter in his hand and wondered whether he should keep running after them and whether he could catch up with them. It was a split-second decision. Luke ran across the street and waved at a coach driver, who was travelling in the opposite direction. He jumped into the carriage without further hesitation.

  “Follow that hackney,” he called out, and then added: “I will pay you double the fare, if we remain undetected!” The coach driver hesitated for a minute. Luke immediately removed the mask that still covered his face, and it was the sight of his features, which tipped the balance in his favour.

  “Yessir,” the man called. He saluted and turned his carriage around in a daredevil manoeuvre, which did not seem particularly helpful in terms of their remaining unnoticed. Luke did not know if he should smile or curse. He leant out of the window and watched the women’s carriage driving in the direction of Mayfair or Belgravia, just as he had anticipated. He was leaning back with a content feeling and felt that his carriage driver had slowed down his horses to maintain their distance. Only when they finally reached the wider streets of the western part of London, where the lords and ladies resided, did the driver increase their speed to a faster pace.

  London was never really quiet. If it was not trading goods, being transported from one location to another, then it was the residents of the city, making visits, driving to the tailor’s, or seeking some other place where they would find something pleasurable to do. At least at just before midnight, it was less busy on the roads, and the pursuit was not made difficult by any obstructing carriages. On Oxford Street, they turned left onto New Bond Street. The ladies’ hackney came to a stop on Brook Street, while Luke’s carriage driver let his horses trot past them slowly, and only stopped when Luke gave him a sign.

  “Thank you,” he said and jumped onto the cobblestones, throwing a guinea to his driver. This was more than royal compensation and exceeded the originally doubled price of the fare, but the man had done a good job, and Luke still had plenty of coins left over from his foray into the ring, to pay him triple the amount.

  “Ask for Joshua Barnett,” the driver called after him, “should you need me again, Sir. You will find me mostly at Hyde Park Corner or at Grosvenor Square.”

  “I shall bear that in mind,” Luke promised, as he watched how the two darkly dressed figures turned into Hanover Square before disappearing into a hidden back alley, which led past all the gardens of the elegant houses in this area. He kept himself hidden in the shadows, but that was not even necessary. The women were obviously deep in their conversation, and they did not notice what was going on around them. Shortly afterwards, the unmistakable squeaking sound of an iron gate reached Luke’s ears, and the
two were gone.

  He trotted after them and tried to see into which house they had disappeared. The undecorated rear of the house did not tell him whose home this was. Luke circled around Hanover Square and only stopped when he was certain that he stood in front of the same house. By that point it was much too late to hand her back the letter. He could hardly knock on the door at this late hour and demand to see the lady whom he had just met at the whore’s church – even though the idea did tickle his fancy for a moment. It was then that Luke realised into whose home the young lady had disappeared.

  It was the townhouse of the Duke of Evesham – the man he was supposed to spend the evening with tonight, together with his wife and their middle daughter. Luke shook his head. Could it possibly be that he had followed Lady Felicity?

  He forced himself to keep walking – despite the late hour, his appearance could still attract some attention. He recalled the face of the young woman whom he had tried to warn about the viscount and his clique, a little over a year ago. It was true – she had that little beauty mark just below the corner of her mouth, which he had noticed tonight. Even the shape of her mouth seemed to match. But the eyes… back then they had glared at him angrily and then flashed mischievously before she had put him in his place. Luke remembered very vividly how, even a year ago, he had admired their colour, which glimmered like that of precious old Cognac, and matched exactly the colour of her hair.

  He remembered wondering with a strange sensation in his chest if Lady Felicity had resorted to artificial aids to achieve this remarkable effect, or if nature had simply favoured her before all other women. Today, however, those eyes – if they had indeed been Felicity’s eyes – had looked at him full of fear, and they had seemed so very different. Not only more fearful, but also incredibly sad. The hunger for life, which had made her face glow a year ago, had completely vanished.

  His chest tightened as he compared the Lady Felicity he knew from then, with the woman he had slipped a coin to today, mistaking her for another one of the poor women who sold their bodies simply to survive. Did he actually feel sorry for her? Luke was nothing if not honest with himself. Yes, he thought, as he realised that he had arrived at Grosvenor Square, at his father’s house – it might be pity or something beyond that. Whatever this young lady may have experienced during the one year that he had been absent, it had sucked all life out of her, leaving only a shadow of her former self. He almost wished the cheeky young girl back, she, who had defiantly stood up to him and who did not have a care in the world about the consequences of her friendship with Viscount Greywood, and now… Foreman, who, despite his instructions not to wait for him, had stood up until Luke’s return, opened the door for him. “There’s no need for anyone to let me in, Foreman,” he said. “Or if you are to be adamant about it, let one of the servants wait up for me.”