Secrets in Scarlet

by Erica Monroe

  “Are you satisfied?” She didn’t know what made her ask this. Still, the need to know rose up within her, as if through Atlas’s many lives she could solve all of her own problems.

  “Now, more than ever,” Atlas nodded. “Because I have embraced this life. There is a release to be found in knowing exactly who you are, Poppy.”

  She looked away from him, her jaw clenched. Who was she? For a few days at least, she’d allowed herself to believe she was the woman Thaddeus imagined. But that had been another mirage, false as every other version of her identity.

  “I haven’t changed,” she murmured, more to herself than to Atlas.

  “Au contraire, ma soeur,” Atlas quipped. “You aren’t the timid girl who first came to London. Then, you feared simply leaving your cottage. But in time, you figured out how to navigate Spitalfields, and you carved out a little corner of your own here. You may not know all the cant, and you have that illogical attachment to a bloody Peeler for Christ’s sake, but you are as much one of us as if you’d been born here.”

  One of us. Had she truly found a home here? She’d considered this as a stop on the way to getting Moira into a proper finishing school.

  She shook her head. “It counts little, for I’m in hiding again.”

  “Because you won’t let me take care of the problem,” Atlas scoffed. “One word from my men, and the Larkers would be...inconsequential.”

  She frowned at him. “Absolutely not. Thaddeus’s promise specifically didn’t include murder.”

  Atlas rolled his eyes. “As if I need the protection of the police.”

  “Regardless of your hubris...” Poppy held up a hand to silence him. “Violence breeds more violence. On and on this cycle would go, never-ending, without justice.”

  “Justice is a bendable concept,” Atlas observed.

  “I am beginning to believe you may be right,” Poppy sighed.

  “Do you trust your Peeler?”

  The question, devoid of Atlas’s usual panache, caught her off-guard. The answering pit in her stomach told her this had been Atlas’s intention all along, to poke at her feelings with his proverbial stick and see where she stood.

  “I...” She started, the lie so convenient. After all, Thaddeus had gone against her wishes. That should have been enough to strip her fragile love away. But as she raised her glance back to Atlas, his cautious but genuine expression gave her enough strength to face the actuality.

  “I do trust him,” she said.

  “Then so do I.” A grin broke out across Atlas’s face, merry once again. “When I met Knight, he didn’t appear a bad chap, minus the whole Met association. Were I to meet him upon a street outside of his duties, I might even like him.”

  A smile tugged at Poppy’s lips, begging to lift the gloom that had settled over her. “High praise from you.”

  “And I like what he’s done to you.” Atlas stopped, shaking his head. “No, that is not quite right. I don’t like the present danger. But you know you’re welcome here, Pop, long as it takes.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t think I understand what you mean. Thaddeus hasn’t done anything to me, really.”

  “You’ve been at the mercy of your pain,” Atlas remarked, in the same casual tone he’d use to explain one of his antiquities. “Edward Claremont is a dunghill flint, do you hear me? If I didn’t think that acting upon the niggard would reveal you, I would’ve long ago. Not because of what he did—for I wouldn’t trade my little niece for anything—but because of the damage he did to you. You’ve been holding all this in, and it’s wrecking you.”

  She didn’t have the strength to claim Edward’s leaving hadn’t left a lasting stain upon her. Not when Atlas knew damn well how she’d been affected.

  “Since you met the bloody Peeler, you’ve been...more you.” Atlas stood up from the chair, coming toward her. “How I imagine you were, before all this happened. Even though I deplore what Knight stands for, I can’t deny the change in you. You’ve got a serious soul, Poppy, and a serious soul needs a love that will drown out all the noise.”

  Running her hands up and down her arms, Poppy hugged herself. In her mind, she was back in that stockroom at the Three Boars. There’d been pleasure, strength, and control. It had been passionate, and it had been heavy, and until the end of the month she would know not if life had been created from their fury.

  Theirs was a world of temporary. She’d found out the hard way that relationships were not permanent.

  Poppy’s heart pounded against her chest. Moira and Edna’s laughter echoed from the floor below, and Poppy remembered the nights spent with Thaddeus at her cottage. Those moments of brave love had been the realest she’d ever known. She’d felt like they were a family—her, Edna, Moira, and Thaddeus. Poppy wanted that again, to know undeniably that she was loved.

  She wanted to know that she was home.

  Whiting is on a warpath. I suggest you depart for the station as soon as you receive this.

  I wish I had better news.

  -MES

  The summons arrived at half-past six the next morning, when tendrils of sun began to poke through the cloying grasp of fog. Thaddeus recognized the letter’s sender immediately. Strickland folded his letters into triangles, while the rest of England steadfastly believed a rectangle was the proper shape for an envelope. There was also the much-harassed look to the winded foot patroller who delivered the missive, as if Strickland had instructed him to run as fast as he possibly could, or he’d risk reassignment to a route in the worst of the rookeries the H-Division covered.

  For the first time in his tenure with the Metropolitan Police, Thaddeus would not argue with the logic of Strickland’s instructions.

  Pulling on the first pair of clean breeches he could find, his eye caught on a linen shirt slung across his armoire, the same shirt Poppy had unwrapped from him as if he was the greatest present she’d ever received. A spot of Abigail’s blood slicked the collar. He noted it woodenly, unable to muster sentiment.

  This is how it has to be.

  He heard Poppy’s voice over and over again as he hailed a hack to take him to Wood Street, as he sat in the carriage and finished off the rest of his flask, as he dismounted and paid the driver, and as he passed underneath the brick awning to the station house. Thaddeus entered the building. At this early hour, there were few people in the station. Most would still be in their cots at the section house in Leman Street or hitting the public houses after their night shift.

  Usually, he would have enjoyed the quiet, but today with nothing to distract him, her voice in his ears became louder, punishing in volume.

  Thaddeus passed by his desk but didn’t stop. His other case files would be stacked neatly, color-coded and tabbed depending on the type of report. Almost a hundred arrests for violent theft, pick pocketing, breaking the peace and street fighting. An occasional murder in the lot, but he’d never felt daunted before by the criminals.

  In his hubris, he’d considered the Met the right arm of Lady Justice. Now he saw they were the bastard sons of a damaged system, birthed to keep the aristocrats rich and the poor downtrodden.

  And Whiting was the worst damn offender of them all.

  Whiting sat behind his mammoth desk in his obsequious office. Humming a cheery tune to himself, Whiting added his red seal to a report and set it down to the bottom of the pile.

  Whiting didn’t notice Thaddeus stood in his doorframe. Thaddeus clenched his fists at his sides and kept his posture straight.

  “You wanted to see me?” Thaddeus struggled to keep his voice even, as if this was any other day at the station. As if rage didn’t boil within him at the sight of Whiting’s smug mien.

  “Sergeant Knight.” Whiting’s face had transformed into a visage of abject pain, as if Thaddeus’s betrayal had wounded him deeply. “I hate having to do this.”

  Thaddeus didn’t doubt that. Without him, Whiting would have to do his own work. Thaddeus would regard it as poetic just
ice if he still believed in the concept of justice.

  “Do what, sir?”

  With a sigh, Whiting began ticking off each account on his pudgy fingers. “I gave you everything, Sergeant. The hardest arrests, designed to place your name in the public eye. After the Finn case, I wrote a recommendation to Commissioner Mayne that you be placed with the Runners. I put you on the short list for the inspector job.”

  You did those things to keep me complacent, Thaddeus wanted to growl. All along, Whiting’s duplicity had been right in front of him. But he’d been too stunned by the glory his supervisor held in front of his nose to see it.

  “I’ve never disobeyed the Met.” But Thaddeus had, damn it, when he’d started to court Poppy. It was an unwritten rule in their district to not court people from one’s route.

  His sins were nothing in comparison to Whiting’s, yet that did not make the sting of his failure any less.

  “Superintendent Bicknell received a complaint about you from Boz Larker.” Whiting let the name hang in the air for a moment, watching Thaddeus’s face for a reaction. “Larker claims you went to his factory and vandalized some of his equipment. His records room was also ransacked, and several key employee and financial records are missing.”

  The same records that Poppy had stolen that showed the Larkers were coining. Safely locked in the bottom drawer of his desk at home where the Larkers couldn’t get to them.

  Use your head. Don’t let him back you into a corner.

  Thaddeus breathed in, out in a regulated pattern, focusing on that instead of Whiting’s words. He looked straight ahead, through Whiting, because if he looked into Whiting’s eyes, he’d say all the things he’d regret later.

  “One of Larker’s weavers was injured in the attack upon the factory. A Miss...” Whiting flipped open one of the files on his desk, scanning the page. “Ah. A Miss Vautille. Says that the equipment fell on top of her?”

  Damnation. He’d never work again for the Met when this was over.

  Thaddeus had expected that Whiting would claim something trivial, like he’d been seen drinking in a public house during his shift. But this, there was no coming back from. Damaging equipment, injuring an employee, stealing files...he’d be lucky to get a job at Joseph’s bank.

  “Do you believe I did it, Inspector Whiting?” He didn’t have to work to add anguish into his voice, for he remembered lifting Miss Vautille out of her chair, her mangled hand on his shoulder. The choking odor of her blood and bile. “You know me. You know I wouldn’t go against policy, especially when you strictly forbade me from investigating. I’ve been busy with my route.”

  Whiting hesitated, as if for a second he believed Thaddeus’s lie. “If not you, then who? Nothing would please me more than to be able to tell Bicknell that Larker has the wrong man. But given how vehemently you kept claiming Boz Larker had committed murder, you cannot fault me for believing his claim. If you happened to know who might have committed such an egregious act...” He let that trail off, knowing he didn’t need to say anything more.

  Thaddeus saw it all, every insinuation, every line of Whiting’s plan. Whiting would use his influence to cover up his own involvement, and after he’d use Thaddeus as a weapon. If Thaddeus gave up Poppy’s name and confirmed what the Larkers already knew, he’d prove himself worthy of Whiting’s trust and continue on with the Met.

  In keeping his own job, he’d effectively sign Poppy’s death warrant.

  What have you done, Thaddeus? What have you done?

  The seconds turned into minutes. Still Thaddeus remained silent. All these years he’d prided himself on his intellect—for nothing. Strickland had been right. Thaddeus should have left this case alone. Poppy had become involved because he’d asked her to be.

  Whiting sneered. His voice dropped low, until it was but a whisper, swallowed quickly by the cavernous office. “I’ve enjoyed benefiting from your work, Knight, but there’s something undeniably irresistible about watching you be outwitted.”

  A shot of rage flashed through Thaddeus, pooling in the base of his spine. Whiting had let a woman die and another be tortured, and here he sat, delighted with himself.

  Thaddeus lunged forward, coming within a hair’s breadth of Whiting’s neck. It would be so easy to wrap his hands around Whiting’s throat, ending this cycle of corruption. But he’d be no better than the Larkers were.

  He’d promised Elizabeth and Anna he’d get them justice.

  He’d promised Poppy he’d protect her.

  “I know what you did,” Thaddeus hissed. “You’ve been helping the Larkers cover up their coining all along.”

  Thaddeus was that little boy again in the school courtyard, challenging a bully head-on. But this time, he didn’t have Joseph by his side to protect him.

  Whiting leaned back in his chair, out of Thaddeus’s reach. “Bicknell has already signed off on your dismissal. I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to pack up your desk, and then I’ll set the patrollers upon you.”

  “I’m going to make you pay,” Thaddeus vowed, but even he didn’t put stock in the claim.

  The Larkers had won. Thaddeus was no more than he’d been as a boy of seventeen, finding Elizabeth Stewart dead in the alley. His life was marked by violence from that day, bitter, gut-wrenching violence.

  And so, it would go on, for he was powerless to stop it.

  Martha Knight had always claimed that unfortunate events struck in threes. As a child, Thaddeus had considered this statistically improbable, and had even designed an experiment to prove her wrong.

  But now, Thaddeus was quite willing to admit that in this case, his mother had been right. He’d lost Poppy, he’d been dismissed from the Met, and now he had to meet with bloody Strickland.

  Strickland had sent him a warning, yes. And yes, Strickland hadn’t blabbed to Whiting about his involvement with Poppy. But that didn’t mean Thaddeus had to like the man, damn it.

  When the back door finally swung open, it was a quarter to ten. Strickland was late. Thaddeus stood, his billystick strapped at his side should he need it.

  Gripped in his left hand was a fully cocked pocket pistol. The silver and wood gun was light enough to carry in a lady’s reticule, yet in his hands it felt heavy. He’d never believed in guns. Guns were too quick, allowing the shooter little time to rethink his actions before the shot fired.

  “Put down your barking iron, Thaddy, lest you want your whole house to reek of smoke.” Strickland emerged from the back room, his top hat held in his one hand and a gold-tipped walking stick in the other. He swung the stick to and fro, resembling more a man at the races than one at a clandestine meeting in the dark of night.

  Thaddeus regarded him with barely suppressed chagrin. This was most certainly a wretched idea, but he had no one else to turn to.

  Lowering the gun, he set it down on the table by the door. From the same table, he picked up a file.

  “So, you got my letter,” Strickland said, his eyes narrowing as Thaddeus stepped forward, file in hand.

  “As you received mine.” He’d dropped the missive on Strickland’s desk before leaving the station house.

  When Strickland nodded, Thaddeus gestured to the parlor on the right side of the house. Somehow, receiving Strickland in his library felt wrong. The Met had already debased the grand philosophies in his books—whatever idealism he had left, he wanted to shelter from the cruel realities of this world.

  He rarely used this parlor. His mother had decorated it with the intention that it’d be his future wife’s receiving room.

  “Cryptic, asking me to come in the back door.” Strickland stood in the doorway, inspecting the room with his customary smirk.

  Refusing Thaddeus’s offer of a seat on the cream settee, Strickland went to the drink cart and poured a generous serving of brandy. He took a long sip, nodding in approval.

  “For a namby-pamby, you’ve got a good selection of spirits.” Strickland held up the bottle of brandy, inquiring if Thaddeus would l
ike a drink as well.

  Thaddeus nodded.

  “There’s a smart lad. Good stiff drink fixes everything.” Strickland brought the second glass of brandy over, eying the prissy settee with distaste. “This room looks like you raided the land of the Lilliputians and brought back their furniture.”

  Thaddeus blinked. “You’ve read Swift?”

  Gingerly, Strickland took a seat on the settee. “I’m not illiterate, Knight. Just because I don’t boast about my academic achievements doesn’t mean I’m not erudite. I went to Oxford before joining the Met. Got a degree in mathematics, actually.”

  “I didn’t know,” Thaddeus said. Another one of his assumptions shot to hell. Was there nothing factual left in his life? He paced the room, unable to keep still.

  So much of his life was now inactivity. He wanted to be the one to see the Larkers pay. The one to protect Poppy. Instead, he had to rely on Strickland’s official capacity and the damn Gentleman Thief.

  Shrugging, Strickland swished the brandy in his glass. “You never asked.”

  “Why did you join the Met? You could have been a professor or a mathematician...”

  Strickland grimaced. “Professor Strickland, no thanks. You know my father expected me to join, and it was easier to go along with him. Besides, London’s most adroit courtesans want Corinthians, not dusty scholars.” He sipped at the brandy, smirking. “Although you seem to have done well for yourself with the redhead.”

  Thaddeus winced.

  “Ah.” Strickland raised his glass in a consolatory salute. “I didn’t tell Whiting, Thaddy. Something else set him off. When I came back from my route, I could hear him raging in his office. Saying ‘the bitch’ would end them all. Whatever money Whiting made off this, he’d give it back if it meant he didn’t have to deal with her again.”

  So, Thaddeus had been right about one thing, at least.

  “That fits with you seeing Effie Larker earlier,” Thaddeus noted. “I think she’s pulling the strings. Her husband is no more than a bullyback to her. If I’m correct, which is a very large if, he’s there to enforce her demands. She handles the business end of the coining.”