Secrets in Scarlet

by Erica Monroe

  The idea hit him in a flash of scarlet. Her red hair bound from working at the factory. Her soft, cadent voice with the lilting Surrey accent. And lastly, most importantly to this case, the sadness in her voice when she spoke about Miss Moseley. He could offer her a way to avenge her friend’s death.

  Nothing that would put her in danger, of course. Basic reports on what went on in the factory. When the Larkers went, who entered the locked room, and so forth.

  He’d have to get evidence that Whiting couldn’t ignore. Technically, he’d be holding to his promise, as long as he wasn’t the one doing the investigating.

  Another visit to Larker Factory was in store. Another night waiting in the shadows for her to finish work. That prospect excited him, and not just because Poppy Corrigan presented a solution to his problem. Discourse with Mrs. Corrigan was fascinating. She had unique views on literature, and he loved to watch her mind work. The way his body had heated from the inside out at the touch of her hand.

  Mrs. Corrigan had his interest.

  He’d have to find another book to bring her.

  Another girl had received Anna’s upstairs position. Abigail applied for it, but Effie claimed Abigail didn’t move quickly enough for the unloading. This, Abigail suspected, was complete bunkum. The position upstairs entailed more sorting, which Abigail could do sitting, than actual lifting.

  Effie had never liked Abigail. With her bright blue eyes and blond ringlets, Abigail was undeniably a beauty. Perchance Effie saw a much younger version of herself in Abigail—in looks alone, for the two were drastically different in personality. Where Effie was coldness and malice, Abigail was joviality and light.

  Poppy couldn’t help but be pleased Abigail hadn’t been picked. Yes, the job upstairs came with a higher pay, but there was a ghastliness attached to it after Anna’s death. If Knight’s suspicions were correct, who was to say that Abigail wouldn’t meet the same fate? Poppy had already lost one friend. At least on the ground floor, she could watch out for Abigail.

  The bell had rung, and another day was ending. Another day largely like the rest, drowned in the cacophony of thirty looms working in different rhythms, the clatter of feet against iron floors, the rush for lunch with Moira. The factory granted a half an hour for lunch, so usually she ate whatever she could while walking back from her house, so that she could spend a few more minutes with her daughter.

  Abigail and Bess left ahead of her. Poppy did a few more checks on her loom. As the last members of the factory straggled out, she took a final gander around the almost unoccupied floor. The silence encircled her; a ghost that whispered of times past. Poppy remembered Anna coming to her loom at the end of the day, before Clowes had joined the factory. After Clowes came on staff, Anna had found every excuse to see him.

  Just as Poppy had manufactured reasons to go to the inn where Edward stayed.

  What a cruel twist of fate. Every young girl who loved unrequited seemed to end up dead, with their blood spilled on a brick wall, or their spirit smashed to shards. Poppy had learned there were many types of death: the final, inevitable passing; the loss of one’s innocence; the severing of one’s soul from body until there was nothing left but a vapid void where a vivacious person had once been.

  If Poppy closed her eyes, she could hear Anna’s laugh again. Like the twinkling of bells, harmonious and happy. Yet no amount of willful recollection could bring Anna back to life.

  With a sigh, Poppy left the factory. She carried the lantern in one hand, and a penknife in the other. One could never be too careful, though she hoped she’d never have to use the knife, since she wasn’t entirely sure how to inflict the proper wound. She suspected she should simply thrust forward with the blade out, but there might be a science to stabbing that she didn’t know.

  There were so many things that Poppy didn’t know.

  She stepped onto Wheeler Street, narrowly avoiding a vendor as he barreled down the path with his cart. Though her natural inclination was to dismiss the mishap as carelessness, she raised her hand in a vulgar gesture and spat out a few cant curses, because that was expected of her. The street vendor shouted back, nodded at her, and went to find another person to run down.

  She had begun to think that in Spitalfields, words no longer held power. People uttered “you bleedin’ bunter” with little provocation, though bunter had originally denoted a diseased whore begging on the streets. Words should hurt less when they became commonplace.

  If this were true, “fallen” would hurt her less. She wouldn’t wince whenever anyone referred to a “bachelor’s son,” or said that a woman had “broken a leg” and birthed a bastard.

  No, there was no escaping one’s past, no matter how widely used the language became.

  Poppy held the lantern up higher as she crossed onto Lamb Street, making sure to shine the light in all of the alleyways. There, cloaked by the awning on one of the tenement houses, she thought she saw a shadow. Was it Knight, coming to meet her again?

  She walked closer, but upon closer observation the shadow was that of another man, stretched out in the doorway underneath, shivering despite the warmth of this April night.

  Disappointment surged through her. She’d told Knight not to wait for her again. Cerebrally, she recognized this, with the same part of her brain that kept a running list of finishing schools for Moira. That part of her was relieved to be done with him. He presented too many obstacles.

  That was the part of her she ought to listen to, not this soul-stirring longing that whispered how he’d make her feel alive.

  She kept on going, meeting no further obstacles. A few people she recognized from the factory, or from Kate’s circle of acquaintances. For the most part, the people of Spitalfields remained unknown to her, interchangeable in their sameness. A community of weavers smacked down by their government. None of them sparked her interest, for they were all as caught in their own lives as she was in hers. No one but Knight, with his damnably inappropriate gifts and his sweet smiles.

  When she came onto Church Street, she had given up any hope of seeing Knight again. “More’s the better,” she muttered, as she passed by Christ Church. “He’ll bring trouble, no matter how you play it.”

  “Who will?”

  She started, tripping over a rock in the path. The lantern shook in her hand as she pitched forward. A second later, a strong hand was upon her shoulder, steadying her. She knew without looking up who it was. His legs encased in blue trousers, wide shoulders filling out his uniform coat—there was only one man who made her stomach flip at the sight of him.

  Knight removed his hand from her shoulder. She wished he’d stayed close to her, wished it so much that it reverberated throughout her, a dangerous, delicious sensation. Standing here, her eyes downcast, gave her far too much time to investigate that undeniably male part of his anatomy, to puzzle about what it would be like to have him inside of her, until all the cracks and fissures in her façade were filled.

  She looked up. Her eyes focused not on his smiling face, but on the red flower in his hands.

  “A poppy for Poppy.” He held out the flower to her, quite pleased with his cleverness.

  She didn’t take the flower. “I see. Why are you here?”

  His brows furrowed. Then a thought appeared to take hold of him, and he held the flower back against his chest, frowning. “This is wildly inappropriate, isn’t it? Worse than the book. Oh hell—oh, I shouldn’t say that in front of you—I saw the poppy and I thought of you and…”

  She couldn’t let him labor further. Setting her lantern down on the ground, she then pocketed her knife. Reaching out, she pried his fingers off the stem and took it. The thin green stem fit seamlessly in her hands. He’d chosen well: the poppy was in full bloom, the outside layer a vibrant red. The inside folds rose a bit off the other leaves, the black center in stark contrast.

  “I love it,” she said, for against this startlingly vivid flower she could not lie. “Even if I wasn’t named after it, I’d
love it.”

  Knight’s posture loosened. He leaned against a nearby tenement. “I like the black inside that you can only see if the flower decides to open up to you. You must be patient, wait for it to be in full bloom. If you do, the reward will be great.”

  She dared not meet his eyes. Instead, she stared at the poppy in her hand. There’d be no great reward for him, nothing but pain and disenchantment.

  “I believe humans are much like poppies,” Knight continued. “The poppy has many secrets.”

  “I don’t have secrets,” she said, without conviction.

  Knight eyed her skeptically. “Mrs. Corrigan, you are positively rife with secrets. Your parents named you well. You talk so little about your past; one might think you sprung from your father’s head like Athena from Zeus.”

  She stiffened, her hands clenching around the flower. “Why should I live in the past? I am a creature of the present.”

  He laughed. “I am not complaining, Madame Surrey. I am well suited to mystery, remember? Each fact you reveal is a piece to your puzzle. Eventually I shall arrange them all and see the complete picture of Poppy Corrigan.”

  “Poppaea,” she corrected, the name springing from her lips before she could stop it. Somehow, she craved for him to know this truth about her. It was small and harmless, but a truth, nonetheless. “Poppy is short for Poppaea, after my grandmother. My father used to take me to see her as a baby. I don’t remember much, except that she had a library almost as big as yours. She was never without a book.”

  “Explains your love of literature.” Knight reached into his coat pocket and produced a small doll, which he passed to her. Constructed from a clothespin, swatches of fabric formed the doll’s dress and a cloak. Painted on the head of the pin was a merry face, framed by crimson hair.

  Just like Moira’s.

  “I saw it in the window of a shop on my way here,” he said. “It made me think of your daughter.”

  Poppy held the doll and the flower together in one hand. It was all so bloody, bloody thoughtful. No one, outside of her family, had been so conscientious. But this Peeler had managed to strike away at the walls she built around her heart. This bloody, bloody Peeler.

  “Thank you.” She didn’t bother to say she couldn’t accept the doll because they both knew she would. While his earlier gift of King Lear had appealed to her intellect, the flower and the doll appealed to her heart.

  And against her better judgment, she listened to her heart tonight.

  9

  “I’m happy you’re happy,” Knight said. “May I walk with you toward your home? We shall keep in the shadows, and I’ll disappear if you see anyone familiar.”

  She accepted his offered arm. They walked in silence, the flower a blaze of red in the coming darkness. Opium could be made from the poppy to dull her pain. Under that cloud, she’d forget her past sins, and begin anew. The temptation was always there. This move to London had been a sort of starting over, yet she couldn’t remove herself completely from the life she’d lived.

  Not without giving up Moira. She’d rather remember every unfortunate choice if it meant she kept Moira in her life. But with memories came consequences. Swiftly, she peeked over at Knight, observing his calm, collected stride.

  He moved with purpose and speed, a man at ease in the elements. Confident in his skills. He was a brilliant investigator, and he knew it.

  Soon, Knight would discover her secrets. When he did, he’d find her inadequate. How could he not? Edward had been right. She was an easy fuck. She knew no other way to be. If she let herself get close to Knight, she’d cave to wanton desires as she had before, and Knight would leave.

  And even if he did by some miracle accept her, if he stayed with her past their coupling, what would be the point? There’d be no future for them. He was a sergeant devoted to the most hated organization in all of Spitalfields. She didn’t need a gypsy fortuneteller to tell her Knight would meet a bloody end, possibly in an alley such as this one.

  She’d stopped paying attention to where they were going. The streets all began to look the same. Twirling the flower in her hand, Poppy let out a slow breath. With her thumb, she caressed the outer petals of the poppy. Soft, pliable. She could slice through those petals with ease, as Edward had sliced through her old self.

  “I confess, I had a reason beyond the flower and the doll for finding you,” Knight said, as they crossed the narrow alleyway called Keate Court. From the alleyway they ended up on Thrawl Street.

  This wasn’t the route she usually took to get home. Poppy kept a firm grip on the lantern, despite the fact that Knight had his truncheon. The sun had set.

  She never cut through Thrawl Street by herself. Years ago, there’d been plans to rebuild this section and restore it to the old glory. Whatever work had been done on Thrawl Street was barely visible. Crumbling brick-fronted tenements comingled with timber-built public houses, and fancy women lined the corners to drag cubs back to the brothels.

  Knight stopped in front of a shack, shorter than the two tall tenements it bordered. Set back from the street, the shack had a pointed roof thatched in approximately seven places. It appeared to be one room originally. A rectangular section with a barred square window protruded out farther than the rest of the building, an afterthought in an already clumsy construction.

  “Why are you stopping?” she squeaked. Knight’s presence lent her a little comfort, but he wouldn’t be much of a match against a gang of thieves armed with knives and pistols. Any thought she’d had of ducking away from him before they got close to her house had vanished when they’d entered this street.

  “There’s something I need to ask you,” Knight said.

  Poppy looked from the strange cottage to him and back again. “Do we have to talk here?”

  He took her arm and steered her toward the streetlight, set up directly in front of the hovel. This struck her as odd. She’d never seen any other lamps in this portion of Spitalfields, so close to Whitechapel that she could almost throw a rock over the borders.

  She placed the poppy and the doll in her pocket, her hand closing around her knife just in case. “What is it?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I need your help with this case.”

  Poppy frowned, sighing. “I already told you I couldn’t help.”

  “I know,” he replied. “But circumstances have changed, and I think I’ve found a way for you to be helpful—for you to honor Anna’s memory—without the Larkers knowing. It could mean the difference between catching the right killer or not. You’d tell me if you notice anything strange.”

  He took a step toward that dubious house, and then turned around to wait for her to follow him. “If you give me ten minutes to explain and you still don’t think you can aide me, then I swear I’ll never ask you again.”

  He looked so hopeful that the immediate refusal died on her tongue. Running a hand through his hair, his eyes never left her face. The calm that always possessed him had faded, replaced with this antsy uncertainty. He jiggled the truncheon against his right leg, waiting on her response.

  He wasn’t sure if she’d say yes, and somehow that satisfied her. The great Thaddeus Knight, spectator of human nature, couldn’t predict her next move. She wanted to surprise him, so that she could see his reaction.

  Ten minutes. She could do ten minutes without it being a problem, couldn’t she? Ten minutes in which they’d simply talk. She was in control of her urges enough to get through that short of a conversation.

  “Ten minutes,” she said. “But not more.”

  “Excellent.” Knight opened the paper-thin door to the cottage without any hesitation, gesturing for Poppy to enter. “Well, come along. I assure you, it’s quite safe.”

  Poppy surveyed the shack uncertainly; half-suspecting that it would fall down the moment they entered, leaving them surrounded by an odd assortment of mud, grass, and rubbish passed off as “antique.”

  “Unless you’re afra
id,” Knight teased, his wide smile doing troublesome things to her insides, a flip and then a flop combined with a surge of heat.

  Narrowing her eyes, she pushed past him into the shop. Blackness met her; blackness chopped in a few places by shards of amber light. Knight came in, closing the door behind him. He stood too close to her, the narrow room allowing him no room to scoot back. Her back burnt as if lit by a lucifer, for the heat that emanated off his body was all-encompassing.

  His breath tickled her neck. She wished she’d worn a bonnet instead of her rice straw hat; anything to keep her exposed skin safe from his effect.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dimness as she stepped forward, chancing that she’d run into something in the dull light. She made out rectangular shapes everywhere: boxes on top of boxes, boxes suspended from the ceiling, boxes inside other boxes.

  “I do no wrong,” came the raspy voice from the back of the room, English spoken through a thick German accent. “Turn around, leave now. There’s nothing for you here.”

  Poppy looked in the direction where the voice seemed to be coming from, ears pricked. She couldn’t discern any movement. That area of the shop was dark.

  “You’ve always been a devilish rogue, Gottlieb, why should I believe you’ve ceased?” Knight smirked, as if he was privy to a secret Gottlieb had shared with him.

  The rough voice was no longer cantankerous. “Ah, the Moabites man has come!”

  “The one and only,” Knight said. “Well, to be technically correct, one of fifteen others in the H-Division, but the only one you need be concerned with, you vile dust-mongrel.”

  Poppy turned to him at his harsh words, in abject opposition to the teasing tone in which they were uttered.

  From the corner of the room, a withered ancient man appeared, a lantern in his hand. He hobbled over to a table, setting the lantern down on top of it. Tawny beams bounced about the room, reflected from the crossed iron grating of the lantern.

  “’Tis better to be a dust-mongrel than a rotten Herr Sergeant.” Gottlieb’s chapped lips split in a wide smile, leading Poppy to believe that he and Knight regularly engaged in this insult game.