by Evie Dunmore
“Good morning, Lilian,” said Lucie.
Lilian’s curtsy was wobbly. “Milady. How good of you to come.”
Lucie followed her along the corridor, then down the creaking stairs to the kitchen.
“It’s young Amy,” Lilian said over her shoulder. “She’s had the baby, and now she’s got nowhere to go.”
The kitchen was cold, and dirty bowls piled up on the long table. Red Meg was dispassionately moving crumbs back and forth on the tabletop with a grimy rag. She glanced up when Lucie entered.
“Milady.” She made a halfhearted effort to bow her head. Like most women at the Oyster, no, like most women, she was unsure where to place a lady who would set foot into a brothel.
Young Amy had to be the thin girl staring at her from across the room. An untidy blond braid tumbled over her right shoulder. She was clutching a bundle to her chest, which presumably contained the infant.
Lucie turned to Lilian. “When must she leave?”
“Now. The madam wants her gone.”
“She should already be gone,” said Red Meg, “but she’s been begging to stay until you come, so we’ve let her. Lord knows why, Madam would have our heads.”
It was the usual predicament. A man got a prostitute with child. The madam would give the girl two choices—leave with the baby into an unknown future, or give the baby away. Most stuck with the devil they knew. But every so often, a woman decided to keep her child. Young Amy seemed determined, judging by the death grip she kept on the bundle. She held herself very still when Lucie approached.
“Why did you call for me, Miss Amy?”
Amy’s red-rimmed eyes darted nervously about the room. “Some of the girls said you help,” she said. “You’ve helped girls in the Oyster before, and so I thought . . . I thought you might help us, milady.”
Her voice was scratchy, making Lucie’s own throat tighten uncomfortably. Screamed through the night while giving birth, no doubt. It was a miracle the girl was on her feet.
“And what is it you want?” she coaxed.
Amy hugged the bundle closer. “I heard you know of places where we could stay.”
“You should’ve just been careful,” came Red Meg’s irritated voice.
Within seconds, the girl’s nose turned pink and her eyes were brimming with tears. “I had planned to give her up. But when I held her . . . when I looked at her wee face . . .”
“Have you approached the father?”
Amy’s chin quivered. “He wants nothing to do with us.”
Red Meg let an armful of soup bowls clatter into the sink. “What did yer expect,” she said. “He was comely and rich, and you were daft to think he’d have a care for a whore or a whore’s babe.”
Amy trembled, and the bundle in her arms gave a thin squawk of protest.
“Oh shut it, Megs,” said Lilian. She went to Amy and put an arm around her slim shoulders.
“Milady,” she said, “do you know who writes this? They could write about Amy.” She pulled a paper from her skirt pocket and thrust it at Lucie.
The angry red header was at once familiar. It was a crinkled copy of The Female Citizen, the radical pamphlet whose editor was unknown, but which, for some reason, always found its way into the most unlikely hands.
“Write about Amy?” Red Meg snarled. “Why would anyone write about bleedin’ Amy? No one reads about the likes of us.”
“But it ain’t right,” Lilian said. “The father has money. He promised her things, and now she’s got nowhere to go. And this paper prints stories about whores all the time, look—”
“It’s horseshit,” said Meg. “Printing stories about the Oyster? Making us all look bad, and ruining business? The madam would throw you out on your arse, too. As for Amy, it’s her own fault. She’s thick, not much up here.” She tapped her finger against her gleaming forehead. “Nineteen years old, still believing in fairy tales.”
Amy’s eyes were overflowing with misery. “I can’t give her away, milady. I hear they do terrible things to the babes . . . they sell them, or worse—”
“You do not have to give her up,” Lucie said firmly. She pulled notebook and pencil from her skirt pocket, swiped debris off the table, and set pencil to paper. “Have you packed?”
Nodding and crying, Amy toed a battered brown bag at her feet.
“And have you any money?”
The girl shook her head. “I had saved some, but Madam took it when I couldn’t work no longer.”
“It’s only fair, isn’t it.”
Lucie exhaled an audible huff. Red Meg’s commentary was not going to cease, was it?
She tore the page from the notebook, tucked it into her pocket, and went to pick up the brown bag. It was dishearteningly light. “Come with me.”
The stairs were a struggle. Amy was limping but wouldn’t part with the baby to ease her burden. It took a long time to reach the side entrance. The fresh air outside was like a gulp of clean water after a drought. Back on the main street, it mercifully did not take long to hail a hackney.
Lucie tossed the driver a coin, then began counting more money into Amy’s palm.
“This covers a Great Western Rail ticket. Take the train to Wokingham at a quarter to nine. Wait at Wokingham station—I shall send a cable now and have you picked up and brought to Mrs. Juliana’s Academy for Single Females.”
Amy blinked. “An academy? But I can’t read all that good.”
“It’s simply a respectable name for a discreet halfway house. You may, however, learn how to read and write there, or other skills, if they appeal.”
Amy’s apprehension only grew. “Will there be nuns, milady?”
Lucie shook her head. “It is run by women trying to help.” She handed Amy the note she had written earlier in the kitchen. “Give this to Mrs. Juliana, so she knows you are the one I sent.”
The girl nodded. She was in a daze. She should not be traveling at all.
Lucie hesitated. She could feel the sovereign she had put into her coat pocket last night, heavy like a lump of lead. A sovereign earmarked for a ticket to Bond Street, London, and a set of new dresses. Perhaps a powder blue one, in the style she had seen on the fashion magazine cover at the Randolph. It had grated to admit to it, but the truth was, she had felt drab like a crow at Blackwell’s three days ago, when the shopgirls had spilled into the coffee room. In their colorful, snugly fitted cotton dresses trimmed with crisp white lace, they had brightened the room like a bouquet of fresh spring flowers. They had smelled like flowers, too. It was testimony to how overindulged Tristan was, how he had sat and signed his Ballentine cards with such languor; clearly, being accosted by eager young women was commonplace for him. God help the woman he would marry. His next mistress would simply fall into his lap whenever he took a seat somewhere.
The hackney horse snorted and pawed the cobblestones with an impatient hoof.
She thrust her hand into the pocket and fished out the coin.
Amy’s eyes widened when she pressed the small fortune into her palm.
“Promise me you will use this to see a doctor and have them take a look at the babe as well,” Lucie said. “And a few new clothes seem in order.”
The girl stared at the coin in her hand with awe. “I promise,” she whispered.
Lucie gave a nod. “Good day, then.”
“Milady.” Amy was offering her the bundle, starry eyed. “Would you hold her? To bring her good luck?”
Lucie took a step back. “You are making me sound like a fairy godmother, Miss Amy, which I assure you I am not.”
The girl’s face fell. “Of course not. I beg your pardon.” She cradled the child close again, her cheeks flushing crimson.
“Oh, all right,” Lucie said. “Let me hold her, then.”
The baby was asleep. She didn’t stir when Amy gingerly placed
her into the crook of Lucie’s arm.
Lucie stared, mesmerized, at an impossibly tiny face. A tiny button nose. A wispy black curl peeking out from under a tiny knitted hat. She counted three astonishingly sweeping lashes on each of the baby’s eyelids.
“What will you name her?” she asked softly.
“Elizabeth,” Amy said. “After me mum.”
The infant’s smell rose from the blanket, wondrously sweet like sugared milk and powder, edging out the incense odor that still clung to Lucie’s coat. Something gave a painful pull inside her chest.
Carefully, she handed the little girl back to her mother.
“Elizabeth is a good name,” she said, “the name of a queen. May you raise her to be a strong woman.”
“I hope to raise her to be a bit like you, milady.”
Her smile was crooked. “May the Lord help you both, then.”
She offered a hand to help Amy up into the hackney, then stood and watched as they clattered off into the distance.
Nineteen years old, still believing in fairy tales.
Some women never stopped believing. Up and down the land, in brothels and manor houses alike, women sat waiting for a man to rescue them.
Were they aware that the cure they were hoping for could easily become their curse? Oh, they were. But ten years of glimpsing behind quiet, decorous façades had taught her that some never saw other options, and others never dared to seize them; and then there were women like Amy, who had never been presented with much in the way of options at all. And some days, she could not help but feel that no campaign in the world had the power to change this. She arrived back at her door in Norham Gardens feeling vaguely guilty about regretting the way her sovereign had gone. There was no doubt the coin had been put to its best possible use. But at the end of the day, it was a drop into a bottomless barrel. Even if she were to go in rags, there would always be more women and more babies needing money, needing shelter. The caravan of misery was endless. She could change a fate here and there immediately by going without, but what was truly needed were better circumstances for every woman, every child, independently of random acts of charity. And this was a matter of making just policies in Westminster. And tell herself as she might that frippery should not matter, with her fraying cuffs and slate gray skirts, she hardly looked the part for the corridors of Parliament these days, or any other part than that of a long-resigned spinster. She had been overly aware of it at Blackwell’s. Perhaps even during her morning visit with Lady Salisbury, with the matron more than twice her age winking and mentioning lovers.
All pondering of fashion and policy ceased when she opened the mailbox. Mr. Barnes’s nervous handwriting stood out amid the dozen letters with the effect of a beacon. She tore the envelope open while walking down her corridor, her heart racing. “Well well well,” she murmured. “The power of a ducal connection never fails. Boudicca!” The cat gave an indignant growl at being seized and petted so vigorously. “Rejoice,” Lucie demanded. “We are the new owners of London Print.”
* * *
She took the sweeping marble staircase leading from the lobby of London Print to the office floor two steps at the time. Mr. Sykes, her solicitor, was hard on her heels, panting and with his glasses askew.
Mr. Barnes was awaiting her in his office with his own notary, a Mr. Marshall. Miss Barnes was seated demurely in her typist corner. And there, neatly assorted on the mahogany desk at the center of the room, lay the gleaming white papers of her contract.
“Your ladyship is aware that I shall have to read every sentence of this document to you?” Mr. Marshall asked.
She eyed the twenty tightly written pages. “I’m aware, but is it truly necessary?”
Both Mr. Sykes and Mr. Marshall exclaimed that yes, it was very necessary.
It took an hour and a half. Mr. Marshall read, Mr. Sykes interjected, both postured until Mr. Marshall annotated, and meanwhile, Miss Barnes was hacking away at her typewriter. Lucie’s heart was beating unnaturally fast throughout, and her face felt fever-flushed. She urgently needed to see her signature dry on the dotted line.
Her throat was parched by the time Mr. Marshall placed the final contract page before her. “Please sign here, my lady.”
The dotted line.
Someone offered her a gold-tipped fountain pen.
For a blink, she forgot how to confidently scrawl her own name.
And then it was done.
She lowered the pen on a shaky breath.
The penultimate step in their plan had been completed.
They rose and the men shook hands, then muttered perfunctory congratulations at her. They did not trust her. They shouldn’t.
“If you are so inclined, you can meet the new co-owner right away,” said Mr. Barnes as he stowed his fountain pen. “He took over his office today and should still be in the house.”
She returned his expectant look with confusion. “A new co-owner?”
“Well, not exactly new, but he’s taken over the other shares . . .” Barnes frowned. “You received my missive, have you not? I sent it the same day as my confirmation of offer.”
A shiver of foreboding prickled up Lucie’s nape.
“An oversight, perhaps,” she said. Because she had rushed out of the house after seeing the takeover confirmed, instead of sorting the usual armful of mail first. “What has changed?” The shareholder structure had been ideal—no majority owner, hence no obstacles to her editorial choices.
“Lord Ballentine has returned from abroad and he has recently bought all other shares,” Mr. Barnes said. “But perhaps your ladyship would like to discuss the details with your new partner directly . . .”
Chapter 9
The corridor drifted past without sound. Her face felt frozen. She all but shouldered past the receptionist announcing her into the office.
She was greeted by the soles of a pair of large shoes, propped up on a vast desk. A spread-open newspaper concealed the owner of said shoes.
Her heart plummeted.
Only one gentleman of her acquaintance would read the Times like a pantomime villain.
The paper lowered, and lion eyes met hers.
At once, the air between them burned. Her next breath scorched her lungs like hot steam.
“Lady Lucie.” Tristan took his feet off the desk. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Her throat was jammed with too many words.
He was dressed smartly, no crimson velvet in sight, just gray, immaculately tailored wool and muted silk. It made him look alien.
It made it all the more real.
He was watching her expectantly as he folded up the paper, and when she only stood and stared, her pulse thudding in her ears, he gave a shrug, rose, and meandered over to the sideboard.
Tristan Ballentine was walking around in the offices of London Print as if he owned them.
Because he did.
She swayed a little on her feet.
“May I offer you something to drink?” His long fingers played over bottle necks. “Brandy, Scotch, sherry?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, holding on tight. Her pulse was beating alarmingly fast. “Since when?” she demanded.
He uncorked a bottle and held it to his nose for a sniff. “Since when what?”
The innocent curve of his mouth sent lightning crackling over her nerves.
“Since when do you own shares in this company?”
“Ah. Well, I bought the first twenty-five percent around six years ago, before my first tour. The remaining shares I purchased yesterday. At a bargain price, too, once I informed the previous owner of a suffragist takeover. Are you sure you don’t care for a brandy? You look a bit peaked.”
Her heart thudded, threatening to pound a hole through her ribs. Her nemesis owned the other half of her publishing house.
&nb
sp; Her gaze narrowed. “You,” she said, “you were the one who alarmed the board and pressured Mr. Barnes.”
“I did, yes.” He did not look remotely contrite. “I had to buy some time, to secure the necessary capital and to confirm my suspicions that you were planning mischief before actually making an offer.”
His suspicions—had this been the reason behind their meeting at Blackwell’s? Of course.
She had known. She had known he had been trouble and she had gone to meet him anyway.
“Why?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice. “Why London Print?”
He poured himself two finger widths of liquor as he strolled back toward his desk, taking the bottle with him. “Why would I not?” he said. “It’s a publishing house with a vast readership, with still considerably under-explored potential. Anyone with an eye on publishing and a passive income stream would be interested.”
The words hit like slaps. They were the same words she had given Mr. Barnes, when she had used economics to conceal her true intent of using the magazines to further the Cause. What was Tristan hiding? He should be living off his father’s allowance like any aristocratic male heir, not pondering passive income streams.
“If it is money you want, pick another business,” she said.
He cocked his head. “But why? Both my purchases preceded yours. One could say I was there first.”
“You cad,” she muttered, trembling.
It seemed to amuse him. “Throw a man a bone, Lucie. I’m back from the war. Perhaps I like the idea of having something to do. And London Print owns the rights to my literary works, so I suppose you could call me emotionally invested in my revenue.”
“Literary works?”
He sent her a pitying look from beneath his long lashes. “Romantic poetry.”
He might as well have talked Mandarin to her.
And then it dawned on her.
She shook her head, bemused. “Are you claiming you are the author of A Pocketful of Poems?”
“I am,” Tristan said. He studied her over the rim of his whiskey glass, an expectant gleam in his eyes. “How do you like it?”