Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “And that horse’s ribs were just fine,” Clare broke in dryly. “Honestly, Lucy, before you embark on your next crazed quest for justice, would you please consider researching your subject first?”

  Lucy looked chagrined, but before she could say another word, a minor scuffle broke out among two young men standing just to their right. A stray elbow caught Clare just below her diaphragm and she pitched forward, off-balance. Daniel reacted on instinct, catching her up and holding her safely. The young men were immediately off and away, shoving their way through the crowd, no doubt fearing the thunderous look he suspected was strung on his face.

  “Are you all right?” He frowned down at her.

  “I . . . I think so,” she said, though she made no move to extract herself.

  Catching her had been a reflex, and a powerfully protective one at that, but other instincts were now starting to take over. His arms tightened around her, instead of letting her go. She was pressed against him, silk to wool, heart to heart.

  “Easy now,” he murmured, quite unable to control a single piece of his anatomy, including his mouth. “You don’t want to reinjure your ankle.” He bent low, to the space below her bonnet where one pert earlobe, with its diamond ear bob, could just be seen. “Or is it that I’m to be your next crazed quest?” he whispered. “In which case, carry on.”

  She wrenched herself away and shot him a dirty look, but at least it wasn’t the sort of affronted anger she’d supplied him on Tuesday. She did, however, spend a good deal of time brushing down her skirts, as if those were the primary injured party.

  Daniel’s fingers itched to tuck an errant lock of chestnut hair back into her bonnet, but he wisely kept them clenched by his sides instead.

  “Dr. Merial!” A woman’s voice cut through the crowd.

  He turned to see Handsome Meg grinning up at him, and his smile was automatic in response. When he’d checked in on her this morning, his landlady hovering like a persistent gnat, Meg had still been snoring on the hearth. He’d left some money for her in Mrs. Calbert’s hands, in the hopes that the aging prostitute might use it to turn herself around.

  Last night she’d looked rather the worse for wear, sacked out in the alley as she had been, but if forced to lodge an honest opinion, Daniel would say this morning she didn’t look much better. In daylight it was far easier to see the syphilitic ulcers on her upper lip. Her hair hadn’t been combed and she was wearing the same torn gown as last night. But she was upright—if still smelling of gin—and awake—if somewhat stooped and unsteady.

  “Meg,” he said warmly. “You’re up and about.”

  “Oh, aye, nothing like a Chelsea crowd to make a few pennies.”

  Daniel glanced uneasily toward his audience. Geoffrey looked curious. The maid looked aghast. Lucy, however, looked enthralled. She stepped forward. “Are you a lady of the night?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  Meg waved a cheery hand. “Night, day, breakfast, lunch. Any time, and anywhere at all.”

  “Anywhere?” Lucy echoed. Daniel could see the wheels turning in those blue eyes, and suspected that Miss Lucy may have just found her next crazed quest. “And how much do you charge a gentleman like Dr. Merial for . . . er . . . lunch?”

  “Lucy,” Clare hissed, looking mortified. “Leave the poor woman alone. And I scarcely think Dr. Merial needs to know how much she charges.” Her gaze shifted to him, and he was surprised to see those hazel eyes soften. “Can’t you see they are friends?”

  Daniel stared at her in surprise. Of all of them, he’d expected the most judgment from her. Last night his landlady had leaped to an unsavory conclusion, just because he’d picked an unconscious Meg up off the street. Given outward appearances, he wouldn’t have blamed Clare if she’d done the same today. After all, he’d taken a rather indecent liberty with her, and he was now the opposite of trustworthy in her mind.

  But the look she was giving him was the opposite of accusing.

  “Miss Westmore,” he said, feeling uncertain. “May I present Meg.”

  “Handsome Meg,” the prostitute corrected cheerfully. “I’m a patient of the good doctor’s.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Handsome Meg.” Clare smiled, and he caught a rare but gratifying glimpse of that slightly crooked cuspid she took such pains to hide from the world.

  Shaken by the impact of that smile, he took Meg by the arm and pulled her to the most private spot he could manage, which, given the crowd, turned out to be no more than a step or two away. Certainly not far enough to be out of earshot of the now-fascinated Lucy. He tried to sort out how to issue a warning without violating the confidentiality he owed the woman, given his status as her treating doctor. “You’ll remember what we discussed? About finding a different way to . . . er . . . make those pennies?”

  Meg reached into a basket she had looped over one arm and pulled out a bunch of posies. “Oh, I’m here on a different mission, aye? I came into some money this morning. That landlady of yours, she’s a regular gem. Gave me a whole five shillings. So I went to a flower seller I know and he set me here with some stock. Only a farthing, and they’re right fresh, too. Perhaps you’d like to buy one for your lady in green?”

  “That is very sweet of you, but I’m not his lady,” Clare broke in from over his shoulder. But she did it kindly, and Daniel was grateful for the warmth in her voice. Not everyone of Clare’s stature would treat a prostitute so well.

  Daniel dug a penny from his pocket. “I’ll take three,” he said, then handed the purchased bouquets to Lucy, Maggie, and Clare. Clare accepted hers more hesitantly than the others, her eyes slightly narrowed. But then a reluctant smile broke through and she buried her nose in them.

  He refused the change of a farthing, knowing Meg needed it more than he did, which was saying something, given the increasing emptiness of his pockets. Last night’s charity and this morning’s omnibus fare had lightened his pockets considerably.

  “Thank you, Meg.” Daniel found he was glad to see the aging prostitute put to a safer industry, and not only because it meant there would be less cases of syphilis to treat in Smithfield. It was because Meg herself would be safer.

  “Ach, it’s you I should be thanking,” Meg replied. Bony fingers reached out to scratch at his coat sleeve. “Yer landlady says ye plucked me off the street last night and deposited me on her hearth like a sack of potatoes.”

  “Well.” He grinned down at her. “A sack of potatoes left untended in Smithfield won’t last very long, will it? You need to have more of a care with yourself, Meg. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

  “Have a care yourself,” she cackled. “And good luck. I can tell yer going to need more than posies with that one in green.” With one last grin, Meg shuffled off, basket in one hand.

  WAS IT POSSIBLE to have the time of your life, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the dregs of London, your nose filled with the dueling scents of posies and the rotten-fish smell of the Thames? Yesterday, Clare would have never imagined the answer could be yes.

  But today her mind was quickly changing.

  Reading about such things in the Times, cloistered in the safety of her Grosvenor Square drawing room, paled in comparison to being physically surrounded by thousands of other pounding hearts. The memory of how strenuously she’d argued against this outing came close to shaming her now. What had she been afraid of?

  And why wasn’t she afraid anymore?

  The overhead sun laughed down on her warmed skin in delight. The wind was almost preternaturally still. Or perhaps it was so many bodies in motion, blocking the breeze like a great human wall. But despite the heat and the noise and the energy from the crowd swelling in her ears, it was glorious.

  And then, of course, there was Daniel himself. She risked a look in his direction, over the tops of her posies. “Did your landlady really give that woman five shillings?” she asked. “Or did you leave it for her?”

  He squinted up at the sky, his dark eyes reflecting the sun lik
e molten chocolate. “I left her twenty.” His lips firmed. “It seems like Mrs. Calbert decided to take a week’s extra rent for her own pockets. Then again, I can’t begrudge it of her. God knows she probably needs it, too.”

  Clare turned that over in her head. Daniel lived on fifteen shillings a week for rent? Her pin money alone was three pounds, doled out by Father’s secretary the first of each month, to be spent on ribbons and lace and expensive stationary. It made her feel ill to think of the difference in their stations, and their lives. Yet, despite his meager finances, he had given away close to an entire pound last night. To a prostitute. He’d also bought these flowers and purchased the omnibus fare for all of them. The challenge of sorting him out made her heart simultaneously pulse faster and skip the odd beat.

  “It’s getting even more crowded now. How many souls were there, do you think?” Lucy asked no one in particular.

  “Twenty thousand, I should say,” Daniel answered.

  “Gor!” Geoffrey exclaimed. “I thought they’d done away with large public assemblies.”

  “Not if they are organized by the government, instead of in opposition to it,” Daniel said. “And this isn’t anything close to the crowd I saw at Kennington.”

  “You were at Kennington?” Clare asked, fascinated by the thought. She’d never seen a crowd as dense as this one, though she’d certainly read of the mob that had marched to Parliament.

  He shrugged. “I thought they’d have need of a doctor, but fortunately, the crowd did not turn violent.”

  Somehow, she didn’t quite believe that was the only reason. His presence at Kennington established his political leanings better than any oath, and she realized with a start that she now knew more about Daniel’s views on such things than she knew about Mr. Alban’s, though Alban would arguably soon be in the thick of Parliament’s decisions on the matter.

  Clare glanced out at the ragged crowd, considering his words. Perhaps Daniel was right. Perhaps today’s exhibition was meant as a distraction, an approved outlet for the crowd’s anger and energy, in the form of one Madame Sylvie. “Bread and circuses,” she muttered.

  “Precisely.” Daniel shot her a thoughtful glance. “What else, but a diversion intended to titillate and amuse and, ultimately, silence the people?” His brow furrowed. “You are rather perceptive, Miss Westmore.”

  For the daughter of a viscount.

  He did not say it, but he almost certainly thought it, because Clare’s mind tripped there herself. And could she blame him? It was the men with titles—men who could claim little by way of character or skill beyond an ancestral lineage to someone long dead—who demanded the entire spectrum of political power, and who jealously guarded it against all interlopers. She might be a viscount’s daughter, raised in an environment of privilege and wealth, but even she could see such ideology would not work forever. Nor did she think it should.

  Eventually, the world would change.

  According to the Times, it was changing now.

  But Daniel, apparently, was not content to read about those changes. He was wading into the fray, and she could not help but feel a frisson of respect at the thought.

  A great shout went up across the river, from Battersea, if she had to lodge a guess. Clare looked up. Sure enough, the wire stretched above them was vibrating. “I think,” she mused, “that perhaps we should go in farther, toward the pier. I predict the crowd will open up closer to the river. And the pennants are flying there, which suggests a breeze exists, if only we seek it out.”

  “I don’t know.” Geoffrey sounded skeptical as he tilted his head back. “Madame Sylvie will walk this way and it looks like she will exit just there.” He pointed to some scaffolding that had been erected about twenty feet away. Beneath it, a crowd of enthusiastic young men waited, no doubt anxious to welcome the pretty acrobat down.

  Clare winced as yet another elbow caught her in her unprotected ribs. “Well, the crowd is growing unruly,” she gasped. She could scarcely imagine how wild it would be when Madame Sylvie passed overhead.

  Daniel motioned with his hand. “This way, then.”

  They began to walk. Or rather, they began to crawl upright, elbowing their way through the mass of people, the overhead wire their guide. As Daniel pushed through the crowd, making a space for them to follow, Clare was struck by how many heads turned to track his progress. Female heads. He did not appear to notice.

  Or, if he noticed, he did not appear to encourage them.

  It occurred to her, in a flash of unwelcome insight, she couldn’t say the same thing about Mr. Alban. With respect to appearance and confidence, the two men were nearly on equal footing. But Mr. Alban was a man determined to cultivate his appeal, making the rounds at every ball, smiling here and flirting there.

  Daniel turned heads without effort.

  He could probably smile at any woman here and have them melting in a puddle on the trampled grass. And yet, here he was, task in hand, focused only on her and her family. She tried to imagine going on such an outing with Mr. Alban, her siblings bouncing along in tow.

  She failed miserably.

  Finally, they tumbled onto the pier, the breeze better now, though it was stiff and sour in her face. She pushed tendrils of damp hair from her heated face. While the breeze was certainly improved, the mob here proved just as thick as it had been by the front gate. She was left with no choice but to press herself tightly against Daniel’s side. His hand was gentle and reassuring against her back, but still her heart was like a drum her in chest, and not only due to the raucous cries going up around them.

  “There she is!” someone shouted.

  Clare craned her neck. There on the wire, high above the oily, swirling water, a figure in indecently short skirts was walking, one foot carefully placed in the front of the other. A long pole swayed like a drunken pendulum in her hands. The woman’s unbound hair blew out behind her, free as the gulls that dipped on either side of her, jeering her on with their harsh cries.

  Clare sucked in a breath as Madame Sylvie’s pole slowly, slowly, began to tip in the opposite direction. “Surely she will fall, holding a pole like that!” she gasped, clutching at Daniel’s arm.

  “No, the length of the pole helps her balance.” Daniel pointed. “It’s physics, really. See how she is subtly shifting her weight? You can tell by the line of her shoulders. She uses it as a fulcrum, to adjust for changes in the wind and her own balance.”

  “Oh.” Yes, she could see it now. The pole began to tip opposite again, and the woman’s shoulders tilted with it. In fact, if she focused on the beautiful figure, instead of the terrifying height, she could admit the woman looked as poised as the most accomplished debutante. There was an artistry in Madame Sylvie’s posture, and in her careful but determined progress toward shore. “Geoffrey, can you see her?” she asked.

  When she received no response, she looked around.

  “Oh, God.” This time she didn’t even try to hide the fact she’d said such a blasphemous thing out loud.

  Because Geoffrey and Lucy were gone.

  Chapter 17

  Panic ripped through her. The rest of the crowd fell away, and Clare felt only the choking absence of her family. “Where do you think they are?”

  Daniel peered up at the wire, his eyes crinkling in thought. “Young Geoffrey looked rather determined to meet Madame Sylvie,” he mused.

  “Surely he wouldn’t have,” Clare protested, her fingers curling around the wilted posies. Her heart tumbled in her chest, seeking traction and finding none. “Surely Lucy wouldn’t have. We instructed them to stay together.”

  “True. And I imagine they have—just not with you. Your sister and brother strike me as the sort of souls who might twist those instructions to suit their own advantage, especially when there’s a bit of adventure at the ready. Geoffrey wandered off for a bit at St. Bart’s, too. I found him knee-deep in the morgue.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better,” Clare retorted, nausea being
the natural response to the thought of Geoffrey anywhere near a morgue—be it as voyeur or victim.

  “If it eases your mind, I don’t think he intends any offense. He’s still possessed of a boy’s curiosity. They will have turned back to the scaffolding, I suspect.”

  “But . . . they’ll be alone!”

  “Hardly. They’ve each other. And they are with your maid, who seems worldly enough.”

  Clare emitted a strangled gasp, thinking of the looks the maid Maggie had been dropping toward Daniel all morning, and the way the servant had winked at Geoffrey when she looped her arm through his. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

  She pivoted on her heel, determined to plunge back the way they had come.

  But in the moments since their feet had found the pier, the crowd had closed in behind them, thick and jostling. She dropped the posies and pushed ineffectively against the wall of bodies with her hands, then began to pound on shoulders and backs and bellies alike, but it was like kicking a bare foot against Hadrian’s Wall.

  Not that she wouldn’t sacrifice a phalange or two for her brother.

  Toes. She’d meant toes.

  Oh, curse Daniel Merial and his maddening interference in her life!

  “Clare.” A touch on her shoulder froze her frenzy. Daniel’s voice reached down to her, distinct through the throbbing pulse of the crowd. “It will stay too tight to navigate until Madame Sylvie passes. You may trust me on this, after my experience at Kennington. The mob is like an animal. You can coax it, but you cannot change it. There is naught to do but wait.”

  She whirled back around to face him, her fists clenched, ready to fight. But the look on his face trapped her objections in her throat. He looked . . . determined. The realization that he wanted to find Geoffrey and Lucy, too, calmed her somewhat.

  Daniel stretched out his hand and beckoned to her. She numbly placed hers in it, not knowing what else to do. “They will be fine,” he told her. “I promise.”