A heavy hand shoved her onto a bench. Before she could protest, someone pulled off her hat. Where they put it she could not hear as the room became crowded with chattering women. Cheap perfume and the rustle of well starched linen and lace could be heard in every direction.
She relaxed, guessing these girls were the ones who worked for Kitty. With the sound of so much lace, she decided this must be a dressmaker’s shop. No wonder the woman laughed. A blind, titled lady would be of little use in such an establishment.
“Eat,” urged Kitty when a dish was dropped in front of Mariel. Some of the food splashed onto the oilcloth on the tabletop, but no one bothered to clean it up. A spoon was pressed into her hand. The woman’s hand fondled Mariel’s hair. “Pretty, ye be, m’lady. Right pretty.”
“I must send a message—”
Kitty interrupted her. “Not now. Eat, m’lady. Eat. Then I’ll be taking ye to yer room.” With a raspy chuckle, she wandered away.
She ate the tasteless mush with relish. The other women chattered eagerly, but she did not join the conversation. She wondered how they could have so much energy after the long hours they must spend working over the fine lace and materials their clients would demand.
Kitty returned. She did not urge Mariel to follow the others toward the large room at the front of the house. Instead, she took her up the kitchen stairs. Mariel’s fingers moved along the filthy surface of the wall, as she automatically counted the number of steps and the doors along the hallway. Such skills no longer took any more thought than breathing.
A door opened with a squeal of protest. “Ye be using this room,” she said. “The bowl’s to yer left. See ye tomorrow.” With another of her scratchy chuckles, she added, “Ain’t what ye be used to, m’lady. Enjoy it tonight.”
“Thank you.”
She mumbled something and left. Mariel walked toward where she thought the bed would be. In only three steps she bumped into it. The room was far smaller than she had guessed. It did not take her long to explore it. Other than the bed, and a washbowl on a table with uneven legs, she discovered only the door and a window, which would not open.
Dirt met her fingertips whichever way she turned. She wondered how Kitty could allow such shoddy housekeeping in a place where fine fabrics would be stored. Telling herself this might simply be an unused room, dusty with time, she took off her shoes and reclined on the unyielding bed. She tried not to think about the bugs that might be sharing it with her.
Her foot touched the footboard, and it wobbled. She checked it carefully. The top board nearly fell off in her hands, but she thought it would last through the night. She doubted if she would sleep much.
Ian would not, that she knew. Tears filled her eyes, not for herself, but for the man she loved. If their situations were reversed, she would be mad with fear for him. He would be searching for her, unable to guess where she was. She wished she could reach out to him and Rosie to let them know she was safe. Although her situation was far from ideal, she did not have to worry about the worst element of the street tonight.
Tomorrow she would implore Kitty to find her a cab. Somehow, she would get back to Ian or his mother, even though she did not know the addresses of their houses. Cynthia lived in Kensington. That would help in her search. If she could not find those homes, she would have the driver find Dr. Gillette’s office. She could send for them from there. She was not totally helpless. Somehow she would escape alive from the Muirs’ plot to enable Portia to worm her way back into Ian’s life.
Somehow.
Slapping at a bug determined to sample her, she rolled onto her side and put her hand beneath her cheek. It would be a long day tomorrow. She would be wise to sleep as much as she could tonight. That was easier to decide than to put into action. Her heart continued to beat rapidly while she imagined what she would say to the Muirs when they stood face-to-face again.
She had not been resting long when a sound came from the hall. In astonishment, she listened as the squeak signaled the door was opening. “Who is it?” she whispered when she heard the door close again. “Who is there?”
The sound of heavy footsteps neared, and she rose to crouch on the bed. Her heart beat so loudly in her ears she could barely hear the boots on the floor. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she screamed in horror. The sound was halted by rubbery lips settling on hers. She was forced back onto the mattress. She heard the bed creak as whoever held her moved to pin her to the bed.
Fear gave her strength. She fought her way out of the stranger’s grip and slid off the bed. “Get away!” she cried. “Get out of here, or I will call the police. How dare you touch me like that?”
He laughed. “She said ye be ladylike. Ye surely sound it, me lovely.”
“She?”
The scratch of a match warned her the man was lighting a lantern. She raced for the door. Grasping the knob, she turned it and tugged. She cried in horror when it would not open. Her fingers moved along the wood. A splinter cut into her, but she paid it no attention as she sought a latch. She could not remember one. Her questing hand touched a steel-hard arm over her head, holding the door shut.
When the same moist lips settled on the back of her neck, she redoubled her efforts to rip the door open. A hand reached for the ribbon holding her skirts around her waist. She whirled to press her back against the door.
“Don’t!” she moaned. “Please leave me alone. Please.”
He laughed. “Enough of the ladylike, me lovely. Lie down and let me be having ye. Kitty did tell me ye would be a feisty gal, but I want ye now, me lovely.”
Material ripped as she struggled away from him. Running to the washstand, she raised the china pitcher. With a crash against the edge of the table, she shattered it. She held a razor-sharp piece in front of her.
“Get out of here!” she cried. “If you don’t leave now, I will …” She did not know what she would do if he pushed her further.
When the door creaked open, she turned expectantly. This must be aid. “What be the problem?” Mariel gasped when she realized Kitty spoke not to her, but to the man.
“She be too reluctant.”
“New girl. I thought ye would like her.”
He growled, “Not enough to risk her cutting into me.”
In a conciliatory voice, Kitty murmured, “Go two doors down. Zola will take care of ye.”
When the door closed behind the man, Kitty crossed the room and knocked the china from Mariel’s hand. As viciously, she slapped her across the face. Ignoring the younger woman’s cry of pain, she asked, “Why did ye turn that man away? Good man, he is. He would not be too rough with ye this first time.”
“Why should I want to let that man touch me?”
Kitty chortled. “Ye may be a fine lady, but ye are a fool. What did you think this was? A boardinghouse? I don’t look about the streets for girls to make hats.” She grasped Mariel’s arm as she tried to edge toward the door. Again the back of her hand impacted on the young woman’s face. “’Tain’t sewing ye’ll be doing for Kitty, my dearie.”
“I won’t—I won’t do that!”
“Ye don’t want to work for yer food? Then ye won’t eat.”
“I won’t stay here!” asserted Mariel. “I won’t act the whore for you. If you are smart, you will allow me to leave before my family comes to find me.”
Kitty laughed humorlessly. “Ye think they’ll find ye? In all the sewers of London, what makes ye think they’ll look here?” She shoved Mariel back on the bed. “Ye ain’t no lady no more, Lady Mariel Wythe. Ye be working for Kitty.” Her heavy shoes crossed the floor. “Ye think on that, girl. I give ye one hour. If ye turn aside the next customer I send to ye, ye’ll be sorry ye did.”
Mariel flinched as she heard the door slam. The sliding of a bolt on the far side told her she had been locked in. One hour did not offer her much time, but she knew what she must do. With a screech to cover the sound of her actions, she pounded both feet against the loose board at the foot of t
he bed. It popped off with a crash.
Trying to avoid the pieces of the broken ewer, she sought the board. She walked to the window. She measured the distance from it to the board. Again she screamed as she rammed the wood through the window. She prayed Kitty and the other denizens of this house would think she was raging against her fate. If they heard her trying to find her way out, her hour’s reprieve would vanish.
Night coolness flowed into the room, bringing with it all the disgusting smells of the neighborhood. She ignored the odors as she used the board to knock out every sliver of glass in the frame. Placing the board on the floor, she went to the other side of the bed and picked up several of the largest pieces of the broken crockery.
It was not easy to concentrate as she held one chunk out the window. At any moment, someone could come to investigate her screams, or worse. Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she thought only of the sound of the china as it dropped from her hand. She smiled as she heard it impact on a surface not far below her window.
She hastily tugged on the end of the bed until it sat beneath the window. Within seconds, she had climbed onto it and was squeezing through the narrow opening. Her clothes caught on the sharp edges. Scratches were etched into her arms as the fabric shredded. She thought only of the need for silence as she lowered herself feet first toward the roof below her window. When she had stretched as far as she could, her toes still did not reach the shingles.
Her fingers lost their grasp on the windowsill, and she tried to land quietly and without breaking a bone. She slammed into the wall closest to her and sat down harshly on the sloping roof. Tears of pain stung her eyes and ran along her cheeks, but she did not bother to wipe them away as she drew another piece of the shattered pitcher from her pocket.
Gently, she shoved it away from her. It rolled a short distance and stopped. Although she did not want to leave her perch, she moved in the direction of the broken china. Her hand swept the cracked tiles until she found it. Cautiously, she explored the area beyond it. A drainpipe had halted it.
Wrapping her arm around the pipe, she leaned forward and tapped the china lightly on the roof until she found its edge. She dropped the ceramic again. A smile crossed her dirty face as she heard it hit quickly. The ground was not far below her.
She slid forward until her feet hung over the eaves. Behind her, her skirts left a pattern of torn cloth to decorate the roof and offer material for the starlings to use in building their nests. Her tongue dampened her chapped lips as she rolled over onto her stomach. Again she went feet first, grateful for the years of climbing trees at the Cloister.
When her toes touched the top of a window molding, she drew them back hastily. She could not risk being seen. Kitty would delight in punishing her for ruining the room and daring to defy her orders. Neither could she stay here long. Her hour dwindled away too quickly.
Moving a few feet farther along the eaves, she tried again. This time she felt only the crumbling brick beneath her feet. She breathed a prayer as she released her hands from the protesting eaves.
Pain shot along her body as she fell onto the hard street. She could not move as she fought to regain the breath knocked from her. If someone had come to see what had caused the noise, she would not have been able to run away. She concentrated on breathing. As soon as she thought she could stand, she fought her way to her feet.
With her head against the wall, she listened. At first, all she could hear was the harsh sound of her own breathing and the clangor of her pulse in her head. Then she noted the scurrying sound of rats followed by the victorious meow of a cat. From a good distance, away on the left, came the sound of jovial voices and the clank of metal. Whether that was Kitty’s house or another serving libations to the residents of this slum, she did not care. She knew she did not want to go that way.
Determined to escape from this place, if only to make the Muirs pay for this cruelty, she turned her back on the voices. She did not know where she was going. All she knew was that she must succeed. To fail would mean her death, or working for another woman no better than Kitty.
Chapter Seventeen
Mariel lurched along the deserted street, trying not to notice the searing pain in her right ankle. Again she longed for her cane. Although she had despised it when Ian first gave it to her, she had come to appreciate what it could show her. Leaning on the staff to ease her anguish would have been welcome.
When she reached the end of the street, she turned right only because that way she did not have to cross the road. The Muirs had made sure she could not guess where they had taken her. Their antics in the carriage had distracted her from keeping track of the turns of the vehicle. Even so, she was sure their driver must have had instructions to take a circuitous journey to where they intended to abandon her.
Although she knew it was insane to be out on these streets at night, Mariel thought how much worse it would be to stay at Kitty’s house. She could not blame that debacle on her blindness. Only her blatant naivete had led her into that situation.
She moaned as the agony in her leg increased. Dropping to a set of stairs, she touched the aching ankle. Tears burst from her eyes again. It felt as if a million small fires burned within it. She began to fear she might have broken something. That would be tragically ironic. In the automobile accident, she had survived with minor injuries except for her blindness. Here, in an insane race from a wicked woman determined to prostitute her, she had hurt herself this badly.
“Are you going to sit here in the cold all night?”
Her head jerked up at the male voice. She longed to flee, but she was too tired. Running through the labyrinth of streets would only send her into more trouble. She lowered her head to her arms, folded on her drawn-up knees.
“Answer me, girl!”
“Yes!” she snapped. “I am going to sit here as long as I please.”
A jovial laugh washed over her, coming closer as the man bent down to put his face even with hers. “What are you doing here? Why don’t you go home?”
“I don’t know how to get there.”
“So you intend to sit here until the sun shows you the way?”
She turned her face away from him. Her tangled hair dropped heavily along her arm. “I intend to sit here as long as I please.”
Broad fingers, rough with work, twisted with age, caught her chin between them. Instinctively, she drew back as she felt a motion in front of her face. Sympathy entered the man’s voice. “Poor child. Can’t see, can you? And lost, too. You can’t sleep out here, even though it isn’t long until dawn. Let me take you to my home. It is just across the street. You can sleep there.”
“No!” she stated emphatically when he tugged on her hand. “I have had enough of the hospitality of this part of London. I will stay here.”
Quietly, he asked, “Whose?”
“A woman named Kitty.”
His surprisingly cultured voice snapped a series of phrases she could not understand. She knew he must be speaking a language other than English, but she could not decipher any of the sounds to give her a clue to which one it might be. When he apologized, it confirmed her guess that they were curses.
“How did you convince Kitty to let you go?” Even in the dim light, he could see the young woman in her tattered dress was a beauty. If the madam trapped a girl like this in her house, she would not let her free until she sucked her dry of every bit of her self-respect. Then the girl would have no choice but to stay as one of Kitty’s bedraggled whores.
“I didn’t.” Proudly, she stated, “I broke the window and crawled across the roofs until I could find my way to the ground. I hurt my ankle when I dropped to the street.”
“Alone? Without seeing?” Admiration filled his aged voice. “You would make a damned good soldier. Excuse me, miss.”
She shook her head tiredly, trying to decide whether she wanted to cry or laugh. “Don’t think about it. Please, just leave me alone.”
“No, miss. You can’t stay here. I
saw you reeling down the sidewalk from my window across the street. You must get some shelter. Kitty isn’t the only one of her type on the streets. You might get robbed.”
Now she laughed. “That happened, too. I don’t have anything left to give the street thieves.”
His gnarled hand reached under her elbow and brought her to her feet. When she moaned again as she inadvertently put weight on her foot, he drew her right arm over his shoulder. In this awkward position, he led her to the opposite side of the street and up a dank-smelling set of creaking stairs to a second floor room. She was too exhausted to speak her gratitude when he told her they had reached the last step. If he had not, she might have fallen on her face amid the dirt she could hear crunching beneath her shoes.
Mariel did not speak as he seated her in a chair. When he pushed the ripped remains of her skirt aside, she gasped. His hands were gentle as he unbuttoned and drew off her right boot. His murmur of dismay urged her to ask, “Is it that bad?”
“Purple as a royal robe. I mean—”
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I have been without my sight only a few months now. I know colors.”
She heard the clank of metal, and he explained he was getting a small tub for her, so she could soak her injured ankle. When he told her to be careful, for the water was hot, she lowered her foot into it slowly. The warmth was perfect, and she sighed gratefully.
“Thank you, Mr.—?”
“Sassoon, miss. And you are?”
“Mariel Wythe.”
He handed her a cup filled with tea. “Where do you live, Miss Wythe?”
“Foxbridge Cloister, in— Oh, you mean here. I don’t know the street address. This is terrible. I am here to see an eye doctor and am staying at the house of a friend. His name is Ian Beckwith-Carter.”
“London is a big city, Miss Wythe. It could take us weeks to find your friend.”
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