by Anna Bradley
“Bloody cowards!” Benedict shouted after them, but they disappeared around the corner without a backward glance. “Come now, Sarah, don’t cry,” he pleaded, crouching down in the street in front of the weeping little girl. “Here’s another guinea, all right?”
“Just a minute, guv. I never got my second ride, neither,” Susannah reminded him, holding out her hand.
“With pleasure, Susannah. As I said, you earned every shilling of it.” Benedict was happy to give them the whole lot, if only Sarah would stop crying. He’d never been able to bear it when his younger sister, Jane, wept, and now this little chit had him wrapped around her finger, too.
He pressed the coin into Sarah’s palm. “Now, Sarah, dry your eyes, won’t you? Here’s a nice guinea. Take it. You’re a splendid jockey, and I beg your pardon for disappointing you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. At the reminder of her bitter disappointment, Sarah let loose with a deafening wail that made Benedict’s ears ring. Good Lord, it sounded as if someone were murdering the girl.
In desperation, he dropped to his knees on the wet street and took Sarah gently by her shoulders. “Right, then, how about this? I’ll give you another ride on my back, shall I? Down to the bottom of the lane and back, and then you’ll be off with your guineas.”
Sarah’s shrieks trailed off into wet sniffles. Bloody good thing, too, because another few minutes of that, and every night watchman in London would be upon them. “Ye’ll take me for another ride?”
“One more ride only, yes. Help her up, will you, Susannah?” Best get the thing done quickly, before the Runners appeared and took him up for teasing little girls.
Benedict offered Sarah his back, then rose to his feet when he felt her thin arms wrap around his neck. “Right, then. Hold on tight, now. Here we go.”
* * * *
Sweet, precious, blessed silence.
There was a reason some sage or other had described silence as golden. Georgiana couldn’t recall precisely who’d said it, but one of the ancient Greeks, most likely. They were the cleverest ones.
She rested her head against the closed door at her back and surveyed her bedchamber with what she was certain must be a very unbecoming but satisfied smirk on her lips.
Everything was in its place. She’d sneaked upstairs after midmorning lessons to arrange her kingdom—that is, her queendom—just the way she liked it, without a single thought to anyone’s comfort but her own. It wasn’t often she had no one to please but herself, and she intended to wallow in her privacy like a sweet little baby bird snuggled in its nest.
A sweet baby bird that’s pushed all of its baby bird siblings over the edge, that is.
She’d folded the coverlet on her bed into precise thirds, leaving a neat corner of the snowy white linens peeking out invitingly. She’d arranged her candle just so, and had a second one secreted away in her table in case she got swept up in her book and burned through the first one. Nothing was more tedious than having to drag oneself downstairs to fetch another candle.
In the table beside the bed, tucked into the drawer next to the candle, was Mrs. Meeke’s Count St. Blancard. Georgiana had languished for months on the waiting list at Lane’s Circulating Library for it. Now her turn had come at last, and just at the right time.
She crossed the room and sank into her bed, sighing with contentment as she pulled the coverlet up to her chin.
Heaven. She’d been dreaming of this moment all day long—
There was a brisk knock, then a voice floated through the door. “Georgiana?”
It was Winnie Browning, Lady Clifford’s housekeeper.
Georgiana froze, eyes widening, then dove under the covers and pulled them over her head.
“Sorry to disturb, dear,” Winnie called. “But you’d better come at once.”
Come at once? But Count St. Blancard was waiting! A lady didn’t keep a count wait—
“Georgiana?” Another knock, louder this time. “Are you in there?”
Georgiana buried her face in her pillow, defeated.
So close…
“Yes, I’m here.” There was no sense in fighting it. “Come in, Winnie.”
Winnie opened the door, her tea towel crumpled in her hands. “I’ve just been upstairs, and two of the girls are missing.”
“What, again? Let me guess. It’s Sarah and Susannah, isn’t it?” Georgiana wasn’t sure why she bothered to ask. It was always Sarah and Susannah.
“Yes, the wicked things. Lady Clifford is already at her wit’s end with those two. I don’t like to think what she’ll do if she comes home and finds they’ve sneaked out again.”
Georgiana was tempted to find out precisely what Lady Clifford would do, but if there was trouble afoot, Sarah and Susannah were sure to find it, and this was London. There was always trouble afoot. “Why does this always happen when Emma’s not here?”
Emma could coax a terrified mouse from its hole and straight into the jaws of a waiting cat. She was much better at herding recalcitrant schoolgirls than Georgiana, who was more likely to shove a piece of heavy furniture in front of the mouse hole, dust her hands off and be done with it.
“I’m sorry, dear, but Emma and Lady Clifford are off on some mysterious errand, and Daniel with them. I’m afraid it’ll have to be you.”
Georgiana cast one last despairing glance at her book before giving it up for lost. “It would serve Sarah and Susannah right if I left them to their fate. It would teach them a lesson.”
Winnie merely raised an eyebrow. Georgiana had made similar threats before without following through on them, and they both knew this wouldn’t be any different.
“Oh, all right. I’m going.” Georgiana threw the coverlet back, marched across her bedchamber into the hallway, and up the stairs to the third floor, where the Clifford School’s youngest pupils had their bedchambers. There were six girls to a room up here instead of four, a circumstance that led to one-third more than the usual amount of mischief.
Georgiana had done the calculations herself.
A burst of smothered laughter met her ears from the other side of the door, and she charged into the bedchamber without knocking. “Well, good evening, girls. My, you’re all quite cheerful tonight. Pray don’t let me interrupt the joke.”
Her brisk steps were loud in the hush that fell over the room. One, two, and…yes, there was little Caroline, on the other side of the door. That made three, and then Abby, over by the window, was four. Four heads, where there should be six. She was missing two heads—that is, two girls. “All right, then. Let’s have it out, shall we? Where have Sarah and Susannah gone this time?”
Four pairs of guilty eyes opened wide before Abby, the oldest and by far the most cunning, spoke up. “Wot, are Sarah and Susannah gone, Miss Harley? Why, we didn’t even notice, did we girls?”
“Is that so?” Georgiana crossed her arms over her chest. Like most street urchins, her girls were accomplished liars, but she’d been both a street urchin and a liar herself once upon a time, and she knew how to pry their secrets loose. “Let’s ask Caroline, shall we? Come here.” Georgiana beckoned to Caroline and pointed to the floor in front of her. “Did you see Sarah and Susannah tonight?”
Caroline was the youngest and tenderest of the girls, and the most easily worked upon. Occasionally Georgiana felt a pang of guilt for targeting the weakest animal in the herd, but when it came to wild schoolgirls, ruthlessness was a necessity. It was either devour or be devoured.
Caroline cast an uneasy look at Abby, but she came forward as she was bid, her lower lip trembling. Georgiana peered down at her, and let the silence stretch until the child began to squirm. “Well, Caroline?”
“Yes, Miss Harley. I saw ’em.”
“Ah, I thought someone must have. When did you see them last? No, look at me, not at Abby.” Georgiana turned Caroline’s fac
e toward her with a finger under her chin.
“At supper, Miss Harley.”
Supper! That was hours ago. “What, not since then?”
“Nay, miss.” Caroline darted an anxious look at Abby. “They ducked out the front door when Mrs. Browning went back to the kitchen. They said they fancied a walk, and—”
Abby let out a warning hiss, but Joanna pointed an accusing finger at her. “Abby went with them, Miss Harley! She sneaked back in just before Mrs. Browning came up. She just told us Sarah and Susannah went to Covent Garden.”
“Covent Garden!” Dash it, those foolish girls! What did they think they were doing, sneaking off to Covent Garden after dark? London was rife with scoundrels and villains, but no place more so than Covent Garden. “Where in Covent Garden?”
Caroline heard the tight note in Georgiana’s voice and began to cry, but before she could get her lungs into it, Abby, who could see the truth was going to come out despite her best efforts, pushed Caroline aside. “Stop your sniveling, Caroline, and let me tell it. Right, so it were like this, Miss Harley. We were on Henrietta Street, not doing any harm, mind ye, just watching the coves going in an’ out of the hells and begging a penny or two. Not bothering no one, minding our own business, like, when—”
“Minding your own business, were you?” Georgiana snorted. “I suppose if I check your pockets, I won’t find any silk handkerchiefs, then?”
Abby took a hasty step backward, out of Georgiana’s reach. “Minding our own business, like I said, when out comes these three toffs, and oh, they were pretty ones, Miss Harley, I tell you! Fancy, with their waistcoats all shiny embroidered everywhere, and gold watch fobs and everything.”
Oh, no. This was growing worse every minute. Of all the scoundrels one might encounter in Covent Garden, fashionable rakes were the worst. They saw everything and everyone they came across as playthings for their exclusive amusement. “Aristocrats?”
“Aye, I’d say so, miss. Viscounts, p’haps, or earls. Lords, leastways. So, these toffs, they see Sarah and Susannah hanging about, and they ask them if they want to make a guinea each.”
“A guinea?” Georgiana gaped at Abby in horror.
“Aye, a guinea. They were in their cups and laughing a good deal, so it was hard to tell what for, but Susannah and Sarah went off with them quick enough, as soon as they mentioned the guineas.”
Well, of course they did. A guinea was a fortune to girls like Sarah and Susannah, who’d hardly ever had two pence to rub together, never mind a guinea each. A frisson of dread tripped up Georgiana’s spine. If these rakes were offering that much, what did they expect from the girls in return? Sarah and Susannah were hardly more than children, but to a certain type of man, it didn’t matter how old the girls were.
Or how young.
The thought turned Georgiana’s stomach. “Where did the lords take them, Abby? Did you see which way they went?”
“Round the corner to Maiden Lane. But there’s no need to take on so, Miss Harley. Sarah and Susannah know what they’re about. Why, they’re probably on their way back here now, with that toff’s gold fob in one of their pockets.”
The other girls nodded, and Georgiana wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. Because they’d managed to survive the streets this long, these girls thought they were invincible, but Georgiana knew the odds of Sarah and Susannah coming away unscathed from an encounter with three drunken rakes were poor, indeed. She’d spent too many years of her own childhood on the London streets to have any illusions about a girl’s chances of survival.
She wasn’t fool enough to think she could rescue every waif in London, but these girls were hers. She’d plucked them off the street herself, one after the next, much as Lady Clifford had plucked her off the street all those years ago. They were her girls, and God knew if she didn’t take care of them, no one else would.
“No one sets a single toe outside this door. Do you hear me?” Georgiana looked from one girl to the next, and if she could judge by their expressions, she must have looked fierce, indeed. “Not one single toe.”
The girls nodded, their eyes wide. “Yes, Miss Harley.”
Georgiana whirled around, ran back to her bedchamber to tug on some clothes, then hurried down the stairs. She paused in the entryway to snatch her coat and hat off the hook, then rushed out the door and into the night in the direction of Covent Garden.
It wasn’t far, just over a mile, but it was damp and cold, and the streets were slick. She skidded along, shivering in the icy January fog, curses and prayers dropping from her lips.
Those foolish, foolish girls! Please let them be safe…
When she reached Bedford Street without stepping in any puddles of blood or stumbling over any lifeless bodies, she forced herself to calm. It was all right. Of course it was. The girls were naughty, but they weren’t naïve. They were simply on another adventure, that was all. She’d be with them in just another moment. She’d drag them back to the school by their ears, and all would be well.
By the time she turned the corner onto Maiden Lane, she’d just about convinced herself there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
That was when she heard the scream.
Chapter Two
It was a young girl’s voice raised in awful, piercing howls, as if a monster from her darkest nightmare had come to life and was threatening to drag her down into the deepest bowels of hell.
That shriek made every hair on Georgiana’s neck spike with fear, but not a single sound passed her lips as she flew around the corner. She didn’t shout, or gasp, or cry—she certainly didn’t cry—nor did she pause to think, but charged forward, her heart bursting in her chest and ghastly images filling her head as she ran—a hulking scoundrel dressed all in black, his dagger pressed to Sarah’s throat, or his massive hands wrapped around Susannah’s neck, squeezing the life out of her, or a gang of banditti, their swords drawn, or—
This isn’t a Gothic horror novel, for pity’s sake.
Georgiana dragged in deep gulps of the frigid air to calm herself, but it was dark, as dark as a nightmare. Covent Garden was a blaze of light, but only a few glimmers reached as far as Maiden Lane, and she’d seen for herself how darkness could hide a multitude of horrors.
She flew down the street, her half boots skidding out from underneath her. She was nearly upon them before she noticed the shadowy figures at the end of the lane. Two were smaller, child-sized, but the other was tall, with the broad-shouldered bulk of a man.
No, not a man, but a criminal, a demon, the sort of wretch who preyed upon innocent children. Georgiana’s first instinct was to leap upon his back and sink her claws into his scalp, but she came to a crashing halt, the fog swirling around her, and blinked into the darkness.
There was no bloody dagger, and no blackguard with his brutal hands wrapped around a child’s slender neck. That is, there was a man, but he wasn’t dressed in black. He wore a royal blue coat embroidered with an abundance of costly silver thread, and instead of the meaty, murderous paws she’d envisioned, his hands were long, elegant, and wrapped in a pair of flawless white gloves.
Susannah was standing beside him, eyes wide, and it looked as if…yes, it was. “Sarah! Get down off that scoundrel’s back. Now.”
“Scoundrel?” The man’s dark brows rose. “I beg your pardon, madam.”
“Oh, that’s going to be trouble, that is,” Susannah hissed. “Git down from there, Sarah, and right quick.”
Sarah released her hold on the man’s neck and slid down his back, grimacing at the look on Georgiana’s face. “Good evening, Miss—”
Susannah scurried forward, cutting Sarah off. “Ye see, it’s like this, Miss—”
“Not a single word from either of you.” Georgiana pointed at them, her hand shaking. “Come here this instant.”
Sarah shot Susannah a panicked glance. “Aw, Miss Harley, we w
eren’t doing anything wrong. We were just helping this cove here with his—”
“Enough!” Georgiana grabbed an arm in each hand and pushed the girls behind her. She was furious with both of them, but that anger was tempered by relief at finding them unharmed.
That left the hottest of her rage for the miscreant in front of her. “I’m well aware you were led astray by this, this…gentleman.” She fixed him with a glare. “I assume you do style yourself a gentleman, sir, despite your shameful antics this evening?”
Anyone with a pair of eyes in their head could see he was a gentleman, and an aristocrat. His elegant clothing, his manner, the scent of expensive port that clung to him gave him away. He was an earl, most likely, or even a marquess, for who else would dare to treat children so callously?
Any gentleman with a shred of decency would have been ashamed to look her in the eye, but this one seemed more amused than anything else. A wide grin curved his full lips, and there was an infuriating twinkle in his dark eyes as he swept his hat from his head and offered her a mocking bow. “Haslemere, madam. I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Haslemere?
He said his name as if Georgiana would recognize it, and indeed, she did. Everyone in London knew who he was. Benedict Harcourt, the Earl of Haslemere. What she knew of him wasn’t to his credit, but he wasn’t quite the despicable fiend she’d envisioned. He wasn’t carrying a dagger or brandishing a sword. No banditti were lurking in the shadows, and Sarah and Susannah appeared unharmed.
Still, he was scoundrel enough. Haslemere was London’s most infamous rake, notorious for his reckless wagering, shocking scandals, and an endless parade of beautiful, volatile mistresses.
Georgiana took him in, from the tips of his polished shoes to his smirking mouth, her lips turning down in disdain. Oh, he was pretty, wasn’t he? No doubt he thought that thick auburn hair of his and those handsome dark eyes excused his appalling behavior, but she was immune to his appeal. “Tell me, Lord Haslemere. Do you make a habit of entertaining yourself at the expense of the safety of young children?”
