Secrets of the Heart

by Candace Camp

  The other man had been Michael, just two nights before their wedding. His kiss had been more like this one, hard and demanding, although it had been so long ago that she had trouble remembering the exact sensations she had felt. The main thing that she remembered was the panic she had been feeling that day, both before the kiss and even more afterward. She remembered, too, that something had stirred in her, odd and scary, but it had not been this powerful, this delightful. Her whole being had not risen up in response to it.

  Rachel wondered what it would be like if Michael kissed her today. Was the difference not in the men but in herself? Was it because she was older, not scared, not in love with another man as she had been then? She tried to imagine Michael pulling her to him as his half brother had. They looked so much alike that it was difficult to separate the two of them. Michael, of course, would not be so rough; there would not be the scratch of a day’s growth of beard. His lips, she was sure, would be gentler, softer. He could kiss her, touch her, and anything she felt would be all right. There would be no moral quandary, only passion and hunger….

  Rachel realized that she was tracing her lips with her forefinger as she thought, and that her lips were curved up in a dreamy smile. A sensation stirred deep in her abdomen, warm and achy.

  What nonsense!

  She grimaced, clasping her hands together in her lap. It was foolish to think of the possibility of Michael’s kisses, she told herself. He was not here, and he would not be kissing her. He would rather, she thought with some bitterness, be up on his stupid estate, planting things and corresponding with strangers, than be here in his wife’s arms.

  She realized that she was being unfair. This was, after all, how their lives had always been. How she liked it. It was only recently that she kept thinking about changing their arrangement.

  It was because she wanted a child. Rachel was certain that was it. Ever since she had found out that Miranda was carrying a child, she had been thinking about babies, wanting a baby herself. It was that desire that had spurred her to start thinking about Michael in that way. And now that she thought about it, she could see that it was probably her wish for a baby that had made her react to James Hobson’s kiss today. She had been thinking about a baby so much, debating whether she would be able to persuade Michael to change their marital arrangement for the sake of having a child, that she was much closer to her basic instincts right now than she usually was.

  When she said it straight out like that, it did not sound very reasonable, she supposed, but emotionally, somehow it made sense to her. It had not been desire for a man, especially not desire for that particular man, that had caused such searing passion to explode in her. It had been the natural, normal, female longing to bear a child.

  Having set up the frail argument, Rachel quickly moved away from it. It was best not to think about it, she told herself. Far better to think of something else. Anthony’s problem, for instance.

  She could not ask Michael to help Anthony now that she had discovered that it was not he who had been working with Bow Street but his brother James. She could tell Anthony about James, she supposed, but she did not want to expose Michael’s family secrets to anyone, especially to a man whom Michael disliked as much as Anthony. There was, of course, the possibility of going to James herself and asking him to look into the matter, but that, she knew, was a bad idea. Whatever had sparked the feeling in her during the kiss this evening, it would be far safer for her to stay away from Hobson. If she was not around him, there would be no possibility of it happening again—and she had to make certain that it would not. Her very honor—and Michael’s—depended upon it.

  She supposed that she would simply have to tell Anthony that Michael could not investigate the matter for him. But she hated to say anything that would make Michael appear petty or mean.

  Rachel sighed and leaned her head back against the chair, closing her eyes. Why couldn’t she look into the matter herself?

  This startling thought brought her back upright in her chair, eyes wide-open. It was absurd, of course. It would have been strange if Michael had been investigating criminal activities, but for a lady to do so would be considered not only ridiculous but scandalous, as well. A year ago she would not even have thought of it, she knew.

  But she could not help but think about what Miranda would do in a similar situation. If she wanted to solve something, she would wade right into it. And had Rachel herself not been right there at Richard’s home at Christmas, when Jessica very capably aided him in solving the mystery of who had killed one of their guests? It seemed to Rachel that she ought to be able to do something, just as Jessica had.

  She pushed aside the niggling thought that Jessica had very nearly been killed during the course of the investigation. After all, Rachel knew that she would exercise the greatest care…and there probably was not even a killer, anyway. No doubt Mrs. Birkshaw’s death had been an accident, and it was merely Anthony’s grief that had led him to suspect something like that—although, of course, he had not been exactly grief-stricken.

  Rachel wondered how one went about investigating a death. The prospect seemed a little daunting when she considered the fact that the death had taken place in another city entirely. She thought for a moment.

  If Anthony was here in London, then he had probably brought at least some of his servants, and servants were the people most likely to know what went on in a household for good or bad. Certainly talking to them seemed a logical place to start. Mrs. Birkshaw’s personal maid would have been the one most likely to know everything about her mistress and the poor woman’s last illness.

  Therefore, the next morning, she sent a note over first thing to Anthony’s residence, telling him that she would need to speak to his wife’s personal maid and the other servants. An hour later, Anthony himself came to the house.

  “Then Michael will take on this task for me?” he asked, looking so hopeful that Rachel hated to disappoint him. “How have you had time to contact him? I thought he was at his estate.”

  “Oh, he is. I just thought that it would be a good idea if I could send him some basic information. He might be more inclined to take on the job if he knew a bit more. I thought that if I could speak with your wife’s personal maid and learn the details of her illness…”

  “Of course, of course. That would be extremely kind of you,” Anthony said, beaming. “You are so good to offer. However, her maid no longer is in my employ. She was an accomplished lady’s maid, and with Doreen gone, well, there was really no work for her appropriate to her skills and station, so she left our house.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I have her address. She was from London, and she moved back here right after Doreen’s death. I got her address from Jameson, the butler. I could send her a note asking her to come see you. I am sure she would be willing.”

  “No, don’t bother. If you have her address, just give it to me, and I will contact her. And if I want to talk to any of the other servants…?”

  “Just let me know, and I will instruct them to tell you whatever you ask.”

  Anthony finally left after a round of profuse thanks, and Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. Had he always talked so much and to so little purpose?

  Now that she had the address for Doreen Birkshaw’s personal maid, she intended to visit the woman. No doubt it would be more proper to send her a note and wait for her to come to Rachel’s house than it would be to venture to wherever the woman lived, but Rachel had no interest in waiting. She had gone to where Lilith Neeley lived; surely she would be able to manage this just as easily.

  Dressed in her plainest and least expensive day dress, she ventured forth, once again hailing a hansom cab a few blocks from her home. Giving the driver the address, she settled back in the vehicle, congratulating herself on taking matters into her own hands. It was rather enjoyable, she thought; no wonder Miranda was given to running things. It was much easier and more interesting than waiting for a man to do something for one
, and there was a certain sense of adventure about it that was invigorating.

  It was somewhat less intriguing a few minutes later when the hansom set her down and Rachel looked around to find herself in an area that was older, dirtier and more crowded than that where Mrs. Neeley’s gambling establishment had been located. Grasping the slip of paper with the maid’s address on it, she started up the street, looking for a number. She was aware of the eyes of everyone else on the street, watching her.

  A frowsy woman stood in the doorway of one narrow house that looked as if it had been there since the Great Fire, watching Rachel walk toward her. As Rachel neared her, she called out something that Rachel could not understand, given the woman’s thick accent. However, it was enough to make Rachel stop and turn to her for help.

  “Excuse me. I cannot seem to find this address. I wonder if you could help me.”

  “Eh?” The woman seemed to find Rachel’s question amusing, for she began to cackle, slapping her hand against her thigh. “’Elp you, can I? I ’spect so, me lady.” She made a wobbly mock curtsey.

  Rachel moved somewhat cautiously toward her. The woman reeked of something it took Rachel a moment to identify, but as the woman laughed again and mumbled something, shaking her head, Rachel realized that it was the same smell that had hovered around the head groom when she was a child. Gin, she had heard the servants say when they did not realize she was around. It was an abundance of this drink in the woman, she assumed, that accounted for the woman’s mirth and for some of the difficulty Rachel had in understanding her.

  “I am looking for this address,” Rachel said, reading out the address written on the slip of paper.

  This sent the woman off into further laughter. Rachel sighed and started to turn away, but then the woman said, “’is ain’t Poppin’s Way, lady. Free streets over now, ain’t it?”

  “Pardon me?” Rachel turned back to her. “Are you saying that I am on the wrong street?”

  “Just so,” the woman agreed, nodding. “Ever’body knows the Popper’s over there.” She pointed behind her. “Free,” she added, helpfully holding up three fingers.

  “Thank you.” Rachel reached in her reticule and pulled out a few pence and handed them to the woman, doing her best not to breathe in the rank odor that hung about her.

  She started up the street briskly and took a right at the next corner, looking somewhat anxiously for some sort of street sign. There were none on any of the twisting, narrow lanes, some of which looked too narrow to even admit a carriage. She also noticed to her dismay that she had attracted a small tail of children behind her, calling out to her for coins. It had been a mistake, she supposed, to pull out the coins and give them to the woman. Turning, she shooed the children away, and they fell back a little, laughing, then followed as soon as she began to walk again.

  She took the third street, hoping that her benefactress had not been too steeped in alcohol to know what she was saying. She could not find a number “8” anywhere, but after two or three passes, she located an eight scratched on the wall of one building, so she knocked tentatively on the door.

  It opened a crack, and an eye appeared halfway down the crack, glaring at her. Rachel tried a smile and bent down to say, “I am looking for number 8, Poppin’s Way. Is this it?”

  “Eh?” came the scratchy voice of an old woman.

  “Number 8,” Rachel repeated.

  “What ye be wantin’ with ’em, then?” the woman demanded.

  “I want to talk to Martha Denton,” Rachel said, trying to look reassuring, although she was not quite sure what would make this woman feel reassured. “I am interested in obtaining a lady’s maid,” she lied, for she would never give up her own Polly. “I understand that she is an accomplished lady’s maid.”

  The woman continued to look at her for a long moment. Conscious of the children grouped behind her, Rachel was reluctant to dip into her purse again, but she decided that she had little choice. She opened it and began to search through it for coins, not sure exactly what such information was worth. She had given the other woman three or four pence. Should she pay this one more? A shilling, perhaps? She could find nothing but a couple of florins and several ha’pennies, and she contemplated giving the woman as much as a florin. If she had known that she was going to have to hand out coins, she thought, she would have brought more of them and a better variety.

  Suddenly a male voice burst out behind her, “Good God!”

  She whirled to see a man striding toward her, weaving through the children. Her first thought was that it was Michael, but of course it was not. It was James Hobson. She squared her shoulders and looked at him coolly.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he exploded, scowling.

  Rachel raised her brows. “I fail to see that that is any of your business.”

  He looked nonplussed for a moment, then went on, “No, it is your husband’s, and a wretched job he’s makin’ of it, I must say. Have you no sense of propriety?”

  “You are going to lecture me on propriety?” Rachel huffed, her usually calm temper rising.

  “Somebody ought to,” he responded. “Clearly you don’t know enough about it.”

  “I have been taught propriety from the day I was born, Mr. Hobson, and I think I am well able to decide what I should or should not do. What are you doing here, I might ask?”

  Her question pulled Michael up short. He had been so astounded by seeing Rachel in this place that he had charged in without any thought to his story. It was fortunate that he had dressed in his scruffy attire today to visit the late Mrs. Birkshaw’s personal maid, so that Rachel assumed once again that he was James Hobson.

  “Well, as you said afore, that would be none of your business, my lady.”

  Last night Michael had visited the Bow Street Runner whom he often assisted and had asked Cooper if he had heard anything at Bow Street about the death a few months before of Mrs. Anthony Birkshaw. Michael knew, with some shame, that he was acting as much at the spur of jealousy as anything else, and that probably the woman’s death had been perfectly natural, but he could not keep himself from inquiring into it. The death of a woman her age was unusual, and the fact that her husband, still in mourning, was paying calls on the woman he had once aspired to marry was enough to arouse suspicions—even in someone else besides the husband of that woman. Cooper, looking thoughtful, had said that the name sounded familiar to him, but he did not know why and had offered to check into it. This afternoon Cooper had come around to Lilith’s house and told him that the case had, indeed, come under the investigation of one of the other Runners.

  “Ben Mowbray, it were, sir,” Cooper had said. “One of the dead woman’s cousins ’ired ’im to look into it. ’E were suspicious, the cousin, of the ’usband, ’count of ’e inherited so much.” He shrugged. “’Course, it were the cousin who would get it if the ’usband ’ad done her in. Anyway, Mowbray couldn’t find nothin’ to say ’e did it. ’E weren’t even ’ome when she come down sick. Come back a week later, when ’e learned ’ow ill she was. Mowbray talked to all the servants and such, and the doctor. Doctor didn’t think it were odd, much. Seems she was allus given to ailments like that. Spent several weeks dyin’. Doesn’t sound like poison. And none of the servants thought it were anything but a regular death. Did you ’ave some reason for thinkin’ otherwise, sir?”

  Michael had had to admit that he did not, that he had asked merely out of curiosity. Cooper had given him the address of the late Mrs. Birkshaw’s maid, who had left Birkshaw’s employ shortly after the death, and Michael had decided that he would at least interview the woman, and maybe the other servants, as well. So he had set out to find Martha Denton and had been shocked down to his toes to see Rachel standing amidst a crowd of dirty urchins in the middle of a part of town that he would have thought she didn’t know existed, talking to an old crone hiding inside a wretched house.

  He started to go around her to speak to the old woman, who had grown interested
enough in the spectacle on the street that she had opened the door another four inches, revealing her whole face.

  “Excuse me!” Rachel exclaimed, stepping to the side to block him. “I think I was here first. Please, if you will stand aside while I continue my conversation with this good woman…”

  She whipped out the florin—Hobson’s presence had goaded her into making certain that she got the information she wanted—and held it up for the woman to see. “You were about to tell me where Martha Denton lives—8 Poppin’s Way?”

  “Aye.” The woman eyed the silver coin avidly, then jerked her thumb toward the narrow stairs leading up to the second floor of the next building. “’At’s number 8 there.” She reached for the coin.

  Rachel started to give it to her, then stopped, her eyes narrowing at the way the woman had phrased her answer. “And is that where Martha Denton lives?”

  “Used ter,” the woman admitted.

  “And where is she now? I think this coin is worth better information than that, don’t you?”

  “Aw right,” the woman whined. “I don’t know where she be ’xactly, but she said she ’s goin’ to work for a lady. Lady Easter sommat, I don’t know what.”

  “Esterbrook?” Rachel hazarded. “Was it Lady Esterbrook?”

  “Aye, that be the name.” The old woman nodded eagerly, holding out her hand, and Rachel dropped the coin into her palm.

  Rachel turned and gave Mr. Hobson a brilliant smile. “Now, if you will excuse me…”

  “I hope you don’t intend to go flashin’ coins all over the neigborhood, my lady, or you’re like to find yourself set upon by thieves.”

  “Indeed.” Rachel stopped and rooted in her reticule for the penny and ha’penny coins in it, then tossed them all out to the children, flashing Hobson a look of defiance.

  She started off down the street. He turned and caught up with her. “This is scarcely the sort of place for a woman like you. You might have some thought to your safety, you know. There might be a few who would mourn your death.”