Beauty and the Rake

by Erica Monroe

  “The carriage was waylaid before they arrived at the docks.” Bicknell sighed. “The driver turned the corner and suddenly there were five armed men. One of our men is in hospital, while the other two received less critical injuries.”

  “Shit.” He carded his fingers through his hair. “Was there any sign of where Clowes might have gone?”

  “Men lost him in Ratcliffe. It’s a bloody maze in these rookeries. Ought to level the whole damn place.” Bicknell grimaced. “Note’s probably our best bet.”

  Taking a seat across from Bicknell, Michael examined the note again. The resemblance of the ink to blood made his stomach slosh. Who had Clowes hurt to write this?

  I’m gonna make all of you regret arrestin me. I’m comin for you and the whore.

  “For the time being, let’s ignore the blood. The letter is addressed directly to me.” Michael pointed to the postmark on the other side of the parchment. “We can assume Clowes wants vengeance for my arresting him in the Larker case. But the ‘all of you’ indicates he’ll go after anyone who was involved.”

  “Just what the department needs,” Bicknell groaned. “Who’s the whore he’s referring to? The Moseley girl is dead.”

  Michael thought of a pair of sharp eyes, hair the color of spun gold and a beatific face hiding the hellion beneath. Abigail. Of course, it’d be her.

  The Larker case had brought Miss Vautille into his life in the first place. When Knight had demanded the department investigate the murder of a young factory girl, Michael had dismissed the case as nothing more than the common scuffle with a doxy over her fees. These crimes happened in the rookeries; it was unpleasant but routine.

  But Knight kept digging, unearthing a criminal labyrinth that reached beyond the Spitalfields factory owned by Boz and Effie Larker. When the Larkers realized the police were investigating, they’d turned their suspicions onto one of their employees, who’d been found in the factory after hours.

  By the time Knight located Miss Vautille, she was near death from Clowes’s torture.

  “Abigail Vautille,” Michael said with certainty. “It was her affidavit that convinced the magistrate to deliver a harsher sentence to Clowes.”

  Bicknell’s brows furrowed. “The girl with the scarred hand? I never expected to hear her name again.”

  I didn’t either until last night.

  He kept his expression blank so he wouldn’t reveal his true connection to her. “I’d like to personally protect her.”

  Bicknell shook his head. “Impossible. Can’t spare you.”

  “You can and you will,” Michael ordered. If Bicknell wanted to make this harder, then he’d use Bicknell’s worst nightmare against him: the press lampooning his precious reputation. “You saw what attention the Italian Boy got, and he was just a poor beggar. What do you think the newspapers will say when they learn we let a murderer escape?”

  Bicknell gulped. He glanced from the note to Michael and back again. “It’s going to be a bloodbath, isn’t it?”

  Michael nodded solemnly. “The East End already hates us. All it will take is one sketch of Miss Vautille and the toffs of London will be won over by her beauty.”

  “All those papers,” Bicknell lamented. His posture sagged. Even his mustaches seemed to droop. “I’ll give you one week.”

  “Two,” Michael countered. “Two and I’ll tell everyone I’m on that holiday you told me to take when my father died.”

  “Claudius was a good man,” Bicknell said automatically. “If ever there was a reason for a holiday, it’d be to commemorate his life.”

  Michael bit down the urge to inform him that Claudius Strickland was a sorry bastard who should have died long ago. “Yes, he was. So, we have an agreement. I take two weeks, keep Miss Vautille at my townhouse, and I want two patrollers guarding the grounds.”

  Bicknell deliberated. “Two weeks, two patrollers, and I never have to hear another one of your equations again.”

  “Done.” Michael extended his palm, shaking Bicknell’s hand. “I’ll collect Miss Vautille shortly.”

  She’d arrive at his house later today, but Bicknell didn’t need to know that.

  And while he was withholding information, Abigail didn’t need to know about Clowes either. He’d be able to keep watch on her in his townhouse. His men would keep him informed of any changes.

  Women in peril were as bad as women in hysterics. He couldn’t take the chance that Abigail would do something foolish like flee from his home. Best to keep her calm. Let her think this was all business as usual. He’d stick to the terms of their agreement. Bedding Abigail would distract her, which served his purposes well.

  He rose and headed toward the door before he turned around. “Have you informed Knight yet?”

  Bicknell blinked.

  “He ought to know,” Michael said. “If it weren’t for Knight and his wife, Clowes would still be running loose. I’ll tell him.”

  Bicknell’s admonition followed him out. “Strickland? The next time you barge into my office without warning I’ll dock your wages, Claudius’s son or not.”

  “It’s only for two weeks,” Abigail reminded Bess. “What with work at the factory, you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  The two girls sat in the last chairs left in their flat. Bess shivered, hugging her thin shawl tighter. Abigail stared at the crumbling, sooty brick of their fireless hearth and vowed that the first flesh money she got would go to buying coal.

  Their mother had died giving birth to Bess, leaving Abigail to become more surrogate mother than sister. Though Abigail was ten years older than Bess, the two girls had spent almost every day in each other’s company. Lord knew Papa had done nothing to raise Bess. He’d done nothing but bring trouble to their door.

  Now Abigail would pay the price.

  But she wouldn’t expose Bess to the truth of their situation.

  “I don’t understand why you have to leave,” Bess said, her voice a strange mix of childish petulance and an adult’s weariness, despite her nine years of age.

  “I told you I’m filling in for one of the flower girls,” Abigail explained, for the fifteenth time that day. “It is easier to stay with the rest of the girls than keep making the trek to Covent Garden every day.”

  “You’re being very vague, you and Papa both.” Bess peered up at Abigail, her green eyes wary. “And I don’t like staying with Mrs. Henderson.”

  “I know you don’t, but it’s better you stay with her than be alone while Papa is out.” Their neighbor had agreed to watch Bess while Abigail was gone.

  On the way back from Cruikshank’s hell, Abigail had made Papa promise to remain silent about the real reason she’d be away. If Bess knew what Abigail had done to save her, she’d claim she could help the family too. Take more shifts at the factory, or volunteer to work again as a piecer. Bess was getting too big to slide underneath the machinery to repair the broken threads in the silk. At most, Bess slept four hours a night—more shifts would mean even less rest.

  She would become careless.

  When people became careless around the machinery, they lost limbs. Or worse, their life.

  She had only a few more hours here before the hack arrived to take her to Strickland’s. Abigail tugged at her glove, making sure it fully covered her elbow. It fit her like a second skin. A long, jagged seam ran up the back of it, from where she’d had to patch the fabric after snagging it on an exposed nail in the Ten Bells public house. Her stitches were clumsy, but before the incident, she’d been the best embroiderer on Baker’s Row.

  “Something is not right,” Bess continued. “I’m not a child, Abbie.”

  Abigail had never known anyone who could sniff out a lie faster than her sister could. That gave Abigail some hope at least: perhaps Bess wouldn’t fall victim to a blackguard, since her trust was as scant as the meat upon her brittle bones.

  Abigail pursed her lips, fixing Bess with her best “Don’t ask me anymore questions” glare.

  Be
ss rolled her eyes. “What’s more, I fail to see how you’re going to stand in the market for hours.”

  Abigail readjusted her full skirt, so that the flowing material hid her ankles from view. “I’ll have the cart to lean on.” She didn’t suppress the hurt that came from Bess’s matter-of-fact indication of her knock-knees. The faster she stopped these questions, the better.

  Bess grimaced. “I’m sorry, Abbie. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “I know.” With her right hand, Abigail patted Bess’s palm. “I’ll be back before you know it, hopefully with enough blunt to get us a proper meal.”

  Hope shone in Bess’s eager eyes. “Eel pies?”

  “All the penny pies you like,” Abigail promised, crossing her heart. If the flaky pastry sold down by the St. Katharine docks would make Bess happy, Abigail would get her one.

  With a mischievous grin, Bess ran her tongue over her lips, rubbing her belly at the same time. “I can almost taste them.”

  On any other day, Bess’s melodramatic pantomime would have drawn a chuckle from her. Today, as Bess shoved half of her dirt-speckled fist into her mouth and pretended it was a pasty, Abigail felt the stifling weight of failure.

  Again and again, she made promises she couldn’t keep. Penny pies, coal, a chance at a better life. Before that fateful night, blind optimism had been her constant companion. She’d believed that eventually good people received rewards for their pureness of heart and body.

  The wool had been pulled from her eyes the moment Frank Clowes thrust her hand into that damn loom. Bad things happened to good people without rhyme or reason, and she couldn’t guarantee Bess would be protected from the harsh realities of life.

  She stood, smoothing the wrinkles out from her faded blue skirt. Just once, she wanted to make a promise she could keep.

  “Would you like me to bring you back a flower?” A single flower should be easy enough to obtain. She’d cut through the toff neighborhoods on her way back from Cheapside. Someone would have a garden.

  Bess nodded. “A rose. Could you bring me a rose?”

  Abigail shook her head. “I doubt it, Bessieboo. Roses don’t bloom in the winter.”

  Bess sighed, her lips pressed into a full pout. “Bloody winter. I’m cold, Abbie.”

  “I know, dear.” Abigail pulled her own shawl from her shoulder, wrapping it around Bess’s shoulders. “If I see a rose, you know I’ll bring it to you, for you are the fairest of them all.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Bess accused.

  Abigail leaned forward, laying a kiss on top of her head. “I never exaggerate. You are clearly the prettiest lass in all of Spitalfields.”

  Bess let out a loud harrumph, but her smile told Abigail she’d hit the mark with the praise. “I’ll miss you.”

  “Not as much as I’ll miss you,” Abigail said, drawing her sister into her arms. “When I return, I’ll bring you all the chatter from the market.”

  And it’d all be lies.

  A cold wind whipped through Michael as he continued toward his house, his boots crunching layers of dirty slush. Snowfall in London was only beautiful as it fell. Immediately upon hitting the ground, constant traffic pummeled the flakes. The further he got into the rookery, the grimier the snow became, as animal dung mixed with sewage, mud, and the mold that hugged most surfaces.

  He turned the corner, passing a beggar holding a sign that claimed he was a war veteran. His right arm appeared severed at the elbow. The mendicant drank what Michael guessed was gin out of a tin cup as he chatted with a slovenly woman leaning on the doorframe of a nearby dwelling. As the woman extended a rolled cigarette, the beggar unwound the ties on his sweater and grabbed the cigarette with his supposedly amputated arm.

  At the sight of Michael in his blues, the man gasped and stumbled back. “Er, ah, guv, ye see—”

  Michael shook his head. “I’m not interested in your scrounging for money, Jared, however dishonest it may be.”

  “How ye know my name?” the vagrant demanded.

  “Everyone in Wood Street knows you, Kip Jared.” He repeated the man’s name for emphasis, appreciating the effect it had on the surly swindler. “You stand at the corner of Elm’s Bakery and Ratchet’s Pawn every day from six in the morning until two in the afternoon, when you take a pint at the Ten Bells. Then you’re back at it until seven in the evening.”

  Jared’s jaw dropped. The woman he’d been chatting with looked from Jared to Michael and headed back into the house. The door slammed behind her.

  Smart decision.

  Michael tapped his truncheon against his leg. “There are many more things I know about you too, Jared, but at the moment I’ve got bigger criminals to concern myself with. Lucky for you.”

  “Best be on my way then,” Jared suggested hopefully.

  Michael was about to wave him away, but an idea occurred to him. If he recalled correctly, Jared was in Knight’s gigantic file as a possible witness to Anna Moseley’s murder, as he’d shared a one-room flat with five other men on Wheeler Street in a collapsing lodging house. Wheeler was just a stone’s throw from White Lion Street, where the textile factory was located. While Jared hadn’t known anything about the Moseley’s death or the Larkers, he might still be useful.

  Michael pulled tuppence from his pocket and held it out to Jared. “How’d you like to earn some honest blunt?”

  Jared shook his fist at him, the long string ties of his sweater waving in the wind. “’Ey now, I ain’t no snitch. No rubbin’ shoulders with Peelers ’ere.” Still, the beggar stared at the coin with slack-jawed awe.

  One more minute and Jared would agree. As close to success as God’s curse to a whore’s ass.

  Michael palmed the coin, dropping his arm as he did so. Jared followed the movement, swallowing.

  “It’s a simple job, really,” Michael began, careful to keep his voice flat so as to not alert Jared to how much importance he placed on this assignment. A man like Jared would leverage Miss Vautille’s security for a larger payoff, possibly even to Clowes. But if the beggar thought he’d lucked into getting substantial coin for little work, he wouldn’t risk upsetting Michael. “You remember a man named Frank Clowes?”

  Jared sniffed. “Aye. That blighter got me ’auled in for questionin’.”

  “Terrible trouble that is, and for a man of your ilk,” Michael agreed. “I bet that cost you at least a day’s worth of blunt out here.”

  “So, it did,” Jared grumbled. “I’da like to show ’im ’ow it feels.”

  Michael raised the coin again, making a grand show of admiring the way the sunlight flickered off the silver. “For the first time, Jared, it appears our interests are aligned. I want Frank Clowes too.”

  Jared scooted closer; his eyes fixated on the tuppence. “I ain’t gonna testify,” he muttered, his tone lacking the gusto it’d had before.

  “I don’t need you to testify,” Michael replied. “What I need is much easier. You know the way of this neighborhood, probably better than anyone else.”

  Jared puffed up, looping his thumbs into the twine that held his saggy breeches from falling down his skinny hips. “’Course I do.”

  “Then you’ll know if Clowes pops up in these parts,” Michael said easily. “You see, I want to make sure Clowes gets what’s coming to him. A man like that ought to pay for his sins.”

  Jared reached for the money. “Strange words from a Peeler.”

  Michael held the coin out of his reach, firmly grasped between his thumb and forefinger. “Peeler is my job. I’m an Anglican, same as you. God shall judge those who are lacking. I’m merely helping along His process.”

  Jared whistled in concordance. “That’s what I been tellin’ yer toff partners. I oughta get an award for partin’ these fools from their blunt.”

  With a shrug, Michael extended the tuppence toward Jared. “So, you’ll do it? I’d want word delivered to me at my townhouse if you see Clowes or hear about any of his associates coming to Whitechapel. Ther
e’d be a half-crown in it for you if your intelligence comes to fruition.”

  Seizing the coin, Jared stuffed it into his baggy breeches, faster than Michael could blink. “Ye got me word.”

  For whatever that’s worth.

  Presenting Jared with his card, Michael informed him that the townhouse was well guarded by the Met’s finest, should the beggar get any ideas. Jared huffed at the very thought, but from the flash of disappointment in his eyes, Michael knew he’d already been plotting a heist. Toddling off down the street, Jared disappeared around the corner.

  Michael had probably wasted the tuppence on the scrawny confidence man, but somehow, he was reassured. Jared reported to him, not the Met—it felt like ages since he’d sourced snitches from the general population. The Met was not keen on associating with the criminal ilk, whether or not their knowledge could be mined for better purposes.

  After taking one last look at the alley, Michael continued toward the station. Cautiously, he picked his way around the rubbish, the broken bottles. The downed bodies of the vagrants sprawled out fast asleep in doorways. Despair everywhere. The master artist Hogarth hadn’t exaggerated his Gin Lane piece, despite the claims of politicians.

  How could anyone live like this? He remembered Knight saying that Abigail resided in a crumbling lodging house over by Drury Lane, one of the most depraved streets in Whitechapel. He’d explored his fair share of the rookeries during his time as a patroller, but every night he’d been glad to come home to his snug, clean bed.

  In the past, he’d pushed any concern for the poor into the back of his mind. It’d been easier to pretend the denizens were all delinquents, since the crime rates for these areas were astronomical. The numbers had dulled him into believing the rookeries were a royal pain in his ass.

  Abigail Vautille was not so simple to categorize. She was neither criminal nor entirely honest.

  He reminded himself that nothing good had ever come from unnecessary self-examination. The Clowes threat needed to be contained. He could do his civic duty as an inspector and enjoy the benefits of his bet with Miss Vautille. After the two weeks were over, he’d go back to his normal existence. It was a good plan. A solid plan.