Secrets in Scarlet

by Erica Monroe

  How could she have lied about this? To him when he’d promised her honesty. And if she’d lied about this, had anything she said to him been the truth? Did she care for him at all?

  Genet initially wanted to keep Miss Poppy on, for she was a talented seamstress and Genet needed the assistance. But it became impossible to hide the girl’s state, and the town rebelled. After that, Genet was forced to dismiss Miss Poppy, and she didn’t know for certain what happened to the girl after her daughter was born.

  God’s balls, had Poppy believed he’d condemn her like her town had? If she’d expected such vileness from him, did she know him at all? He barely breathed, imaging everything that was unique about Poppy being beaten out of her until she’d become nothing more than a cast-off shell. He now understood why she’d looked so surprised when he’d mentioned his dislike for Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. No one had treated her with kindness or forgiven her for her past mistakes.

  He wanted to fix her problem, to make it nonexistent, so that she could be happy. He’d never met a problem he couldn’t solve, and this shouldn’t be any different. Yet he couldn’t erase the pain of Poppy’s past, any more than he could change that she’d lied to him.

  When he’d kissed her, he’d felt her desire echoing through him and he had believed it was real. He’d believed she knew him better than anyone else had.

  Squeezing the bridge of his nose with the tips of his fingers, he breathed out, in, out in a slow, meticulous rhythm. He didn’t know why the hell he felt like letting loose his frustration, his bitterness, when he’d seen far worse than this. A woman had died in his arms, and he’d soldiered on, but this—the proof of her lies—undid him.

  Damn it all, he should have been able to piece this together sooner, for it had been right in front of him the entire time. How she’d clammed up every time he asked her about Robert—it was not the hurt of a widow, but instead the struggle for the right lie by a woman who didn’t trust a soul.

  He had suspected all along that there was something she was hiding, but he hadn’t wanted to see this veracity. Foolishly, he’d allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. He’d thought he understood enough that he’d put together the puzzle of what her life had been before. A marriage not made in love, but in convenience. She’d felt shame because she didn’t mourn Robert as society said she should.

  If he hadn’t been so besotted with her, he’d have been able to treat her like what she was: a witness. Someone he should have interrogated and filed away. Instead, he’d let this consume him. The Larkers were free. He’d sent in a woman to investigate who, no matter how innocent she may or may not be now, had a child to raise.

  All because he’d wanted to be near her.

  He ached to tip over his pot of ink onto the letter and watch the words fade away into a black oblivion. In the end, he’d still be alone in this buzzing section house, enclosed by acquaintances who thought they knew his mind but didn’t understand his passions.

  So, he fell back on the only thing that had kept him sane throughout a childhood of being less rugged, less polished, less willing to go along with what was expected of him, less able to take without giving back to the world around him.

  He continued to read.

  For your sake, my friend, I hope this isn’t the woman you seek. You have always been too kind. There are some creatures in this world we cannot save.

  Send my regards to your brother Nathan and tell Joseph he still owes me forty pounds from our last faro match.

  Yours as brothers in Eton,

  J.P. Beauregard

  Gently, Thaddeus set the parchment on his desk. Never had he longed to be ignorant, but now he found himself cursing his desire for knowledge.

  Thoughts rushed through his mind at an alarming speed, half-formed and incoherent. This, this was not how things were supposed to work. He saw a problem, he weighted the possible solutions, and he came to the correct conclusions. He had lived his life to this principle: that everything could be worked out if all of the facts were obtained and ordered in the proper manner. Everything had a manner and a motivation. His fellow officers had always found him strange; he could look at a man’s affidavit and determine what were the truths and the lies. But he understood these people, their rights and their wrongs.

  He did not understand Poppy Corrigan.

  No, Corrigan was a made-up name, one he would never use again. Poppy O’Reilly, the fallen woman. Therein laid the problem: he did not consider Poppy fallen, other than the fact that he had fallen in love with her. But he had trusted her, given her his heart freely.

  She had lied to him. He could have excused her withholding information in the interest of maintaining her privacy. But in this, she had created an entirely fictional life—and she hadn’t trusted him enough to clue him in on it. How could they continue when she didn’t trust him? He’d lived his life believing that truth would always triumph. This belief had guided him through his studies at Eton and set him on a course to join the Met. He’d attacked every case with tenacity because he was certain truth was the light that shined through the blackest of times.

  Could he still love her without her trust? He didn’t care that she’d been ruined. Hell, he hated what the bastard had done to her, and he wanted to erase every memory of him from Poppy’s mind.

  Moira needed a proper father. Thaddeus had started to believe he could be that man. In order for him to continue on with Poppy, he had to find a way to accept her deceit. To no longer feel betrayed.

  He pushed the letter to the farthest corner of his desk. Like every other puzzle, he’d make sense of this. He’d try and put his own feelings aside and do what was right for Poppy and Moira.

  Thaddeus gulped down the panic that threatened to close his throat. He could design plan upon perspicacious plan, but the human heart was a fickle thing he couldn’t logic into submission.

  God’s balls, he was so out of his element.

  15

  Two days later Poppy took one last walk around her loom as the bell tolled to signal the end of the shift. Thaddeus hadn’t come by the past few nights. She tried to ignore the knot in her stomach that tightened as the day wore on. His absence might not mean anything; he could be busy with work. Edna had told Poppy not to ascribe motives to Thaddeus’s actions before she got all the facts. In this instance, Poppy wanted to believe that Edna’s eternal optimism was correct.

  After all, Poppy had given him the files to deliver to his supervisor. If everything went according to plan, the Larkers would be arrested for Anna’s murder. Justice would be served.

  And whatever she’d begun with Thaddeus would evaporate like the foggy London mist. Rightfully so, or at least, that’s what she told herself—the ache in her heart at saying goodbye to him said something completely different.

  She wouldn’t think of that now.

  Starting at the cloth side, she ran her finger gently along the woven silk coming forth from the reed to make sure that there were no torn picks. Effie had been in a temper all day; the last thing Poppy needed was for her to find a break in the fabric. Breathing a sigh of relief when all the threads were whole, she crossed around the back of the loom.

  Usually, Abigail waited for Poppy at the close of the day, her elbow resting on the frame of her own loom. Abigail hadn’t walked home with Poppy on Monday—she’d been working on the hand looms across the room and needed to finish before she could leave. And on Tuesday, Bess had claimed Abigail was home sick, but she’d stumbled over the response. Almost as if she’d been about to say something else but changed her mind.

  What reason would Bess have to lie?

  Yet Poppy couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to Abigail’s disappearance. She undid the tight strings of her apron, folding up the garment in her hand. Edna had told her to go enjoy herself tonight. Poppy intended to take her up on that. She’d see if Abigail wanted to go to the Ten Bells to listen to the band.

  As the last ring of th
e bell died out, Abigail didn’t appear. Suddenly, Poppy’s worries seemed valid. Her friend missing one day was odd but explainable—two days was inconceivable. The Vautilles barely managed to pay their rent as it was. They desperately needed Abigail’s pay. Without that money, Bess wouldn’t be fed or clothed.

  Poppy didn’t need Thaddeus to solve this mystery: something was definitely wrong with Abigail. If the sinking feeling in Poppy’s gut was any indication, it had nothing to do with Abigail being sick and everything to do with when they had sneaked out of the factory.

  Poppy jogged to the door, catching Bess as she was leaving. “Where’s your sister?”

  The eight-year-old started at the sound of Poppy’s voice. She didn’t look up, scuffing her feet in the dirt. “Abbie’s sick again.”

  “Then you can walk home with me,” Poppy suggested. Bess started to refuse, but when Poppy suggested Bess could play with Moira, Bess skipped along eagerly.

  Poppy waited until they were down the street and past the corner before she spoke again. “Has something happened to Abigail?”

  Bess nibbled on her lower lip, again not looking her in the eye.

  “Bess, you can tell me,” Poppy pleaded. “I care about Abigail as if she was my sister too.”

  Bess scrunched up her fist, her gaze focused on a dirty puddle nearby. A crumbled broadsheet lay in the muck, the water smearing most of the words, except for one caption: Woman Found Dead.

  “It started the other day, when you made us stay,” Bess began, fixing Poppy with the accusatory glance mastered early by children who grew up far too quickly in these rookeries. “I didn’t want to stay, but Abbie said it was a good idea. Everything seemed fine the next day, until she stayed late. The next morning, I woke up and she was bloody. She won’t say what happened. Just tells me to go to work.”

  They’d found Abigail. They’d made her bleed. How had they known about her? And why hadn’t they come for Poppy?

  It was all Poppy’s fault.

  Thaddeus hadn’t seen Poppy since he’d received the letter. Beauregard’s missive sat on his desk. He didn’t know what he thought he’d find on this fifty-second examination. More truths, more lies. When had the line between the two become so blurred?

  Maybe it had started the day he’d befriended Gottlieb. That had been his first off-the-books act, turning a fence into an asset instead of sending him off to Newgate like protocol dictated. The Met wasn’t Bow Street. They weren’t supposed to associate with criminals.

  But he’d seen something in Gottlieb, like he’d seen something in Poppy. He’d deemed them both worthy of saving.

  He’d never stopped to ask if either wanted to be saved.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Thaddeus laid his head on the desk. If he remained calm, he’d become the master of his emotions. He stayed this way for five minutes, maybe twenty. He didn’t know.

  “Rough night, Thaddy? Don’t tell me. You were out late with that redhead.”

  Thaddeus pulled his head up so fast from the table that his vision faded, replaced by intermittent black spots. Were his sins so offensive that God had decided to punish him by making him deal with Strickland on this of all days? He resisted the urge to slam his head onto the desk—but barely.

  Strickland leaned against the wall, snickering. “‘Course, if I had a dimber lass like that, I’d be sleeping at my desk too.”

  “What? How do you—” Thaddeus forced himself to slow down. He blinked. Once more didn’t make the situation any clearer, and so he did it again. After the fourth blink, he was no closer to an answer, and Strickland had started to guffaw.

  “I saw you kissing a woman outside your townhouse,” Strickland supplied, through bursts of laughter. “Damnation, Thaddy, you should see your face! Redder than a whore’s backside after the switch.”

  Christ. Thaddeus ran a hand across his bristly chin, drawing his fingers together so his middle finger and thumb touched. If Strickland had seen him, he’d probably told the rest of their station house. So much for discretion. Strickland had a mouth the size of Hyde Park.

  “You bloody, bloody imbecile,” Thaddeus accused, bolting up from his chair so fast it overturned.

  Strickland looked from the chair to him and back again. Slowly, he righted the chair, his eyes wide. “Balls, Thaddy, all I did was go through your files.”

  “You went through my files?” Thaddeus’s voice was low but laced with such malice that Strickland backed up from him.

  Snatching up Beauregard’s letter from his desk and the reports on the Larkers, he darted past Strickland. Down the hallway, toward Whiting’s office. Strickland followed him, jogging to keep up with his breakneck pace.

  “What are you doing?” Strickland grabbed for his arm, spinning him around to face him. “You’re going to tell Whiting I went through your files, aren’t you? You little blabber. I was trying to help you.”

  He shouldn’t respond. He should keep focused on the task at hand, yet the words were out before he could stop them. Strickland knew the precise ways to get at him. “How is invading my privacy helping me?”

  “In the two years I’ve known you, you’ve never taken a fancy to a woman.” Strickland somehow managed to appear both cocksure and slightly uncertain about Thaddeus’s sanity at the same time.

  “There’s been other women,” Thaddeus objected.

  One other woman. A barmaid, after he’d given in to Joseph’s demands that they go to a gaming hell together. Thaddeus had slipped out of her tenement as soon as she’d fallen asleep because he didn’t know what in God’s name he was going to say to her the next day.

  “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.” Strickland shrugged. “When I saw you with that woman, I thought, there’s no way in hell Thaddy gets a woman like that. So, I was curious. And when I found out who she was, I became worried for you.”

  Thaddeus arched a brow. “You, worried for me?”

  “A man confessed. You’re already back to your normal route.” Strickland stopped in the hall. “As damn delighted as I am that you’re not harboring secret fantasies about me—don’t shake your head, everybody wondered about you—this isn’t smart. She’s a witness, or at least she would have been, if Whiting hadn’t shut down the case too soon.”

  Those last words dented somewhere in Thaddeus’s consciousness. When Strickland had spoken before of Anna Moseley’s murder, it had been with the surety of a man who believed absolutely in the capabilities of his supervisor.

  He focused his full attention on Strickland now. “You think I’m right.”

  “Ah, I wouldn’t go that far.” Strickland turned his head from side to side, checking to see who else was in earshot. Two other sergeants were embroiled in a heated discussion of the best Covent Garden lady they’d both sampled, while a foot patroller was logging what he’d observed on his route.

  Strickland lowered his voice, leaning toward Thaddeus. “It’s this thing with Whiting. Everyone saying he stormed out of here yesterday, but nobody’s willing to fess that they know why.”

  “But you do.” Thaddeus took a wild stab in the dark, hoping that Strickland would confirm his suspicions.

  Strickland tucked his thumb in neckcloth, giving a tug. “There’s this woman who was here last night. Blonde built like an hourglass with tits the size of globes. And she was displaying them too, in a dress that probably cost more than what we make in a year. The kind of body you want to bend over a desk and rut her from behind, to see that tight arse on display.”

  Thaddeus grimaced, but Strickland ignored him.

  “When I saw her face as she left his office, I started to recall her,” Strickland said. “If there’s one thing I can do, it’s remembering women. Got to know which one I’ve tupped, lest they all get in a rage because I’ve forgotten them. So, when I say I’ve seen that woman before in your files, you can trust me on it.”

  Quickly, Thaddeus reviewed in his mind the portraits he’d collected in the file. Blond, aristocratic, scandalo
us...Effie Larker.

  Whiting had met with Effie Larker, and now Whiting was conveniently missing. At every turn in this case, Whiting had gone against Thaddeus. When he’d went to the factory and confirmed his theories, Whiting had conveniently found McPhee. When he’d said the Larkers were counterfeiting, Whiting had told him not to investigate further.

  Of course. This went far beyond Whiting’s hubris and determination to be right.

  He reviled the idea of Whiting being in league with the Larkers, the naïve part of him still believing in what the Peelers stood for and what they could accomplish. The black and white morality he’d held upon joining, that criminals deserved punishment and the law was always right. The law was for the people; the people therefore had a voice.

  One glance up Dorset Street and he knew without a doubt that those people were mute. Bereft. And he doubted the Met would ever become the honorable entity Robert Peel had wanted.

  “Whiting’s been working with Effie Larker.” The words were bitter on his tongue, sick and twisted. “Then why the hell did he let me investigate in the first place?”

  Strickland tugged at his neckcloth again, his customary smirk gone from his handsome face. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “The day I came in to talk with Whiting after my shift, he’d been out of the office all day, correct?”

  Strickland nodded.

  “How many times have you known Whiting to actually go patrol on a case himself?” Thaddeus couldn’t think of a single time. That should have struck him as strange in the first place. “At the time, I thought Whiting went out looking for McPhee because he wanted to show me up.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Strickland frowned. “But now you’re thinking there’s more to it?”

  “What if the Larkers met with Whiting? I’d visited the factory. They could see I was getting close.” Thaddeus considered this for a moment, ignoring the disbelief on Strickland’s face. This idea had merit—he felt it in his bones. His focus had sharpened. The parts of this case were falling into place.