Secrets in Scarlet

by Erica Monroe

  Finally, Effie sighed and accepted Clowes’s arm. Poppy let out the breath she’d been holding as the group went into Boz’s office and shut the door.

  “Run,” Poppy cautioned Abigail and Bess.

  She didn’t need to tell them twice. They took off at a gallop. Abigail’s flight was hampered by her knock knees, her pace an awkward drag-run-drag. In a minute, they were at the door.

  Abigail was the last to leave.

  Her breath coming out in ragged pants, Abigail leaned back against the doors, hand slapped to her stomach.

  “Never, never again, do you hear me?” Abigail gasped. “This is insanity, Poppy. I’m not helping you anymore.”

  Papers clutched in her hands, her hat hanging on by the string around her throat, her fingers burnt and her dress reeking of rotten eggs, Poppy was certain she was far beyond anyone’s help.

  14

  The sun had long ago set by the time Poppy made it to Thaddeus’s townhouse. Night cloaked the debris-strewn streets, blackness twisting in between the alleys as if her soul had projected outward. She walked the now-familiar path to his residence without a lantern, the risk of being seen by the Larkers more terrifying than being set upon in the dark.

  They’d been watching her.

  That thought came to her with every step, battering her carefully constructed walls. None of this was supposed to happen. She’d researched for a week to make sure that the timeline of her faux marriage and her husband’s subsequent death lined up perfectly with battles the Navy had fought in the Portuguese war for independence.

  On the surface, it should have been enough—and no one should have wanted to look closer, no one but Thaddeus and his damnably inquisitive mind. All this time she had spent trying to keep him from finding out her secret, when she should have been worried about the Larkers knowing.

  Everything she had worked for was crumbling down around her, and she couldn’t stop it.

  Poppy turned onto Thaddeus’s street, the reports from Boz’s office clenched tight in her fist. All except for that one page of her employee file, folded and tucked securely into her apron.

  Leverage.

  She ran up to his townhouse. Again, and again her fist pounded his door, but there was no answer. “Thaddeus, please!” She grew more desperate with every hit to the door. “Please, please, please answer the door.”

  Where could he be at this hour? Unbidden, the image of him at a tavern with another woman rose in her mind. The knot in her gut pulled tighter, until she could barely breathe. She leaned her forehead against the cool wood, giving one last smack to the door.

  You belong with us, the nuns had said when they visited Uncle Liam’s farm. You’ve been a sinful harlot, but God will forgive you, if you let us help you.

  She’d failed.

  The door opened. She fell forward, almost colliding with a sturdy chest clad in a white linen shirt. Thaddeus steadied her, his hands on her shoulders to keep her from sliding downward.

  “Poppy.”

  She fought the urge to collapse in his arms, for his baritone voice expressed in that one word everything she was feeling. Worry, surprise, shock...and that stupidly eager part of her that had insisted on fleeing to him, certain he could fix all her problems, even if she couldn’t tell him what was truly going on.

  He ushered her inside, shutting the door behind them. “I didn’t expect you.”

  She thrust the papers at him.

  He glanced down at them, nibbling at his bottom lip as he puzzled out the meaning. “So, I was right about the financials,” he muttered, more to himself than her.

  “They did it.” The words spilled out of her lips. “Boz Larker killed Anna.”

  Thaddeus’s hand lingered too long on her shoulder as he showed her into the library, warming her frigid flesh.

  “You’re certain?” His voice held a note of eagerness he couldn’t hide. For him, this was merely another case. Solving it meant another tick on his record. An award at work.

  If she hadn’t already felt the splintering of her heart, that alone would have done it.

  For in the end, she was purely part of another case.

  “What did you find?” Thaddeus prompted.

  She ran her hands up and down her arms, hugging herself. Anything to get her blood flowing. “I heard Effie Larker say to one of the guards, Jennings, that Boz ‘took care’ of Anna.”

  He stepped closer to her, until they stood within a hair’s breadth of each other. The makings of a triumphant smile tugged at his lips, those same lips that had pressed against hers so fervently. A conspiratorial expression, like they shared a secret and that drew them closer.

  But Poppy knew that all secrets came with a price.

  “He confessed to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “A confession to Whiting would have been preferable, of course,” Thaddeus said. “A real confession not bought and paid for like Raymond McPhee’s. But we’ll make do.”

  “That guard I told you about, Clowes? The one Anna liked? He was in it on, I’m almost positive.” Poppy remembered Clowes’s slick grin and had to hold her hand to her mouth for a second to keep from vomiting. “And the sick thing about it? Effie praised him for his initiative. He helped kill Anna, so he’d look good in front of his bosses. That’s all she was to him, an opportunity.”

  “Poppy,” Thaddeus broached. The tone one used to stall a cannon about to fire.

  “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare tell me to be calm.”

  The sympathy that shined in his eyes was almost unbearable. “It’s hard, Poppy.”

  She rocked back on her feet, with her hands clasped so tight around her arms that her fingerprints would be there the next day. Even the books around them couldn’t soothe her. “This isn’t right, Thaddeus, there’s nothing about this that’s right. This was a girl I knew, a girl I was friends with. A fourteen-year-old girl who was cheerful and believed she could be something beyond this place!”

  He stepped forward. “I know, Poppy, I know.” He brought his arms up, around her shoulders, and suddenly she was flush against him. Wrapped up in him, his heartbeat in her ears.

  In his arms, she’d allow herself to believe that there could be peace. That it didn’t matter if the department he worked for was the enemy of her friends, that his family would never approve of her, that someday he’d be shot down and left to bleed out in the streets because he had the audacity to try and help people.

  None of that mattered.

  She leaned into him more. Smashed her cheek up against his shirt, the buttons of his waistcoat jamming into the bodice of her dress. She tasted saltwater on her face, and she realized she was crying. The tears streamed down her face, wetting his clothing, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t break contact between them because somehow, he knew that this, this was the most important thing to her.

  He was the real reason she was still standing.

  “The first one is always the worst,” he murmured.

  She knew he meant the first murder. But she couldn’t help but think that phrase applied to so many other things: the first love, the first broken heart, the first loss of dreams, the first realization that she’d never be whole again.

  “What will you do now, Thaddeus?”

  “I’ll go to my superiors with the information. But most importantly, I’ll keep you and Moira safe,” he vowed.

  That he thought of Moira in a time like this meant the world to her. He understood that to be with her meant taking Moira into his life too.

  With one strong, large hand, he stroked her hair. “I wish I could say that it gets easier with time.” His fingers continued to comb through her hair, massaging her scalp. “But that’d be a lie, Poppy, and I promise I won’t lie to you.”

  And with those words he tore away that facade of comfort.

  I’ve lied to you. I lie to you every day.

  He laid a kiss against the top of her head. His lips were so gentle, when before he’d been rou
gher, sensing that she’d wanted it hard and passionate. In the frenzy of the prior kiss she’d not had time to think. With this tender whisper of his lips, she thought too much.

  She could tell Thaddeus the truth now. Trust that he wouldn’t tell anyone, that he’d put Moira first. She wanted to believe that she was right about him. But it wasn’t just her life at stake. She’d been wrong about Edward. Her judgment wasn’t reliable. She couldn’t risk Moira’s chances because she felt something for Thaddeus.

  Poppy went stiff against him, rotten wood to his soft, pliable silk. He clung to her, his hands on her forearms, and she stood there dumbly. Aware of his touch but unable to respond.

  She pulled back from his arms. The loss of his warmth beat through her, her body going cold again.

  Running her hand underneath her eyes to wipe away the tears, she pulled in a slow, agonizing breath. Immediately, he reached into his pocket for a wipe, handing it to her. Gratefully, she took it, dabbing at her eyes.

  He took her arm, leading her to the settee in the middle of the room. Waiting until she’d taken a seat, he plopped down next to her, his lanky legs sprawled out in front of him. Her feet dangled off the high settee. With the wipe wadded up in her hands and the damning foolscap in her apron pocket, she didn’t know how to proceed.

  “I’m sure I must look a fright,” she said.

  He gave her an encouraging smile. “Nonsense. You’re beautiful, as always.”

  She didn’t feel beautiful. She felt wrecked. “You’re sweet to say so, but I think that classifies as one of the lies you said you’d never tell me.”

  His smile widened. “People have imperfections. It’s what makes us who we are. I believe we’re better off for those rough pieces that don’t seem to go together, for wouldn’t life be truly dull if we were all exactly alike? There’d be no pleasure in solving the mystery.”

  “And there’s nothing else you like better than putting together the pieces of a puzzle.” Weariness tinged her voice.

  He began to say something but stopped mid-opening of his mouth. For a second, he appeared lost in thought. “Last week, if you’d told me that, I would have agreed. Now, I find myself wanting something else from this case.”

  His gaze burned. Her skin heated with it, as if he’d left an imprint on her heart. He couldn’t mean her—he couldn’t. And more so, she shouldn’t want him to mean her.

  “But enough of me.” He rubbed at his neck, his smile fading.

  “I like to speak about you.” She found herself falling back onto honesty because he seemed embarrassed that he’d bared his deepest desires to her, and she’d said nothing in return.

  “I’m alive,” he stated frankly. “Anna Moseley is not and that is a grave injustice.” From the table in front of them, he grabbed the reports she had pulled from Boz Larker’s office. “Tell me about these.”

  “I’m not quite sure,” she confessed. “There was a meeting after factory hours. Between Boz, Effie, and the two guards—maybe more people, but that’s all I saw and all that came back out onto the floor after they’d finished conversing. My friend, Abigail, stood watch as I searched Larker’s office.”

  “What the devil?” The hardness to Thaddeus’s voice snapped her eyes back up at him.

  She retreated back against the settee, frowning at him. “You wanted me to get information.”

  His voice softened but worry still creased his forehead. “I told you to observe, Poppy. Not to endanger yourself. If they’d found you, you could have been badly hurt. No information is worth your life.”

  She slipped her hand in her apron pocket, fingers closing around her employment record. Oh God, she’d risked death, put Abigail and Bess in jeopardy, all to get some damn papers.

  It wasn’t worth it.

  Thaddeus’s keen glance was on her, watching her hand. “Are you quite sure no one saw you?”

  She slid her fingers out from her apron pocket, smoothing her skirt. “We didn’t leave until the Larkers had gone back into their office. I really don’t think they saw us.”

  “That’s good then,” Thaddeus agreed. “But I don’t want you to put yourself in danger again. You can continue to keep watch, but please don’t take such an active role.”

  She bristled. He didn’t have to scold her. “You needn’t tell me again.”

  Abashed, he hazarded a smile at her. “I don’t mean to lecture you. It’s hard once you get into the crux of a mystery. With the flush of possible discovery coursing through you, everything else disappears. I understand why you did it, I just get concerned.” He reached for her hand, squeezing it.

  She didn’t pull back. Rather, she returned his gentle pressure, smiling at him. “I appreciate your concern.”

  And she did, more than she should. When she was with him, she felt protected, as though he was watching over her.

  She released his hand. Pretended that she hadn’t been affected by the touch. Her judgment had become hazy around him, and she couldn’t have that.

  Thaddeus looked over the reports once more. “I’ll need time to look over these papers in detail, of course, but I’m hopeful this will be enough to present to Whiting.”

  Lifting her chin, she held his gaze steadily. She ought to go back to their original arrangement before that kiss had sent everything into a tailspin. “In return, you’ll protect my friends. I’ve delivered you evidence.”

  The right corner of his bottom lip twitched. He didn’t say anything for a minute, but the force of his gaze upon her grew hotter as the time ticked by. “I had hoped you’d continue to work with me until the Larkers are caught. That this wouldn’t be the end for us.”

  She swallowed. The offer was tempting. What harm could there be, other than her own heart getting smashed? The damage had already been done. She already cared for him.

  Poppy pushed herself up from the settee. “Thank you for listening.”

  He stood, following her to the door. “I’ll keep you apprised of what my inspector says.”

  “Please do.” She was pleased with how formal she managed to sound.

  But as he opened the door and she stepped outside onto his stoop, that pride dropped away, leaving the reality in its wake.

  The Larkers knew everything, and she had no idea where to go from here.

  Whiting was out of the office. He had left the night before in a huff, and no one had seen him since then. Nor was anyone entirely certain what had caused his bout of temper. A foot patroller remembered he’d slammed the door to his office as he left; another said he’d heard raised voices coming from inside the office, but he hadn’t seen anyone enter. Whomever Whiting had met with, it hadn’t been for a case that was common knowledge around the section house.

  For the last twenty minutes, Thaddeus had held the reports from Poppy tight in his fist, thumb creasing the right corner. His gaze went from the clock to Whiting’s empty office to the reports and back again. He’d finished his patrol route an hour ago. So much for rushing to confront Whiting with the evidence. At this rate, he’d be waiting here all night for the inspector.

  He frowned, setting the reports back down on his desk. The clock in the hall tolled seven. Reaching for his cup of tea, he took a sip and grimaced. He’d forever be subjected to tepid tea.

  But the tea was the least of his concerns. There’d been something strange about Poppy last night; a deep sadness in her eyes that he didn’t think could be attributed to Anna’s death.

  He had to help Poppy realize that she was worthy of love.

  His love.

  Before he’d arrived at his desk, he’d retrieved his letters from the mailroom. He grabbed a letter opener and slid the blade underneath the wax seals of each one. He read the first three. A letter from his cousin in Manchester, another missive containing new information on the Larkers, and a note from his mother reminding him not to miss Sunday breakfast. He frowned at the last, even as he opened the next letter.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched several other ser
geants discuss their routes. He flipped open the next letter, his mind still tracking the sergeants’ conversation. Folded in four sections, tidy, uniform scrawl filled the parchment.

  He’d read the first paragraphs before he realized what was he reading.

  Knight,

  I must apologize for the delay in answering your enquiry, but you will forgive me when you learn of the difficulties I’ve encountered. I reached out first to the solicitor’s office, where I was crudely informed that he’d never heard of anyone by the name of Corrigan.

  Next, I made my way into downtown. Again no one recalled Robert Corrigan, nor could anyone remember a soldier passing around the time indicated by you. Finally, after checking all the other shops on the street, I went into a shop called Madame Genet’s—figuring that my little girls might like some new ribbon.

  Knowing that you had charged me to be painstaking in my appeals, I asked the mantua-maker if she knew of Robert Corrigan. She didn’t. Growing exasperated, I remarked that Poppy Corrigan must have existed in this city, for you were certain that her family, the O’Reillys, had lived there.

  Oh, God, he shouldn’t keep reading. But curiosity gnawed at him. He held the parchment in one hand, thumb clenched around the paper. He’d already broken Poppy’s trust in reading this damned letter.

  Perhaps with more information, he’d be able to help her.

  With the urge to understand her better running through him, he continued to read.

  The modiste’s face went white.

  When it was clear I had no intention of leaving, Madame Genet directed me to the office in the back. She’d never heard of a Poppy Corrigan, but she certainly knew Poppy O’Reilly.

  According to Genet, Miss Poppy had been her assistant for six months when it became clear she was with child. Miss Poppy was unmarried, so you can imagine the scandal.

  Thaddeus’s hand shook as he read. She’d been unmarried when Moira was born? Who was the child’s father then? And who in the bloody blue world was Robert Corrigan? There was a portrait above Poppy’s fireplace of a man he’d assumed to be her husband.