by Laura Landon
“Something I can never have!” she answered without thinking.
Her father stepped close and clasped his fingers around her upper arms. “What? If you truly want something, I’ll move heaven and earth to get it for you. You know I will. I cannot bear to see you so unhappy.”
Polly couldn’t stop a sad smile from lifting the corners of her mouth. “Even you cannot get this for me, Father.”
“You can’t know that. Perhaps I can. But not until you tell me what it is.”
“Love, Father. Just, love.”
“If love is what you desire, then you have to search for it. You can’t closet yourself inside this house, but must go in search of it. And you can start by coming with me to Lady Pinkering’s ball. You will meet any number of eligible men. Perhaps you will find the man of your dreams tonight.”
“No, Father. I’ve already found him. But he doesn’t want me.”
Her father wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her close. “That can’t be true, my love. No one would be that foolish. No one to whom you give your heart would refuse the offer. You are too perfect. Too much like your mother to have your love rejected.”
“Oh, Father. You’re the only one who thinks I’m perfect. The person I want to think I am perfect—doesn’t.”
“Tell me who it is and I’ll—”
“There’s nothing you can do, Father. You have no influence over him.” Polly walked to the window and looked out onto the street. “Far from it, in fact. I think he is not fond of you.”
Her father stepped up closer to her. “Is this because of my bill in the House? If it is, perhaps I can make amends, somehow.”
Polly shook her head. “It has nothing to do with your bill. I think this happened long ago.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He said I had to ask my father. That you had to tell me what happened between you. That he wanted the version of what happened to be yours.”
“Then ask. I’m sure it’s nothing so serious that it can’t be remedied. Tell me who this young man is and together we will come to a conclusion.”
Her father gathered her hands in his like he used to do when she was a little girl, and led her to the sofa. He sat down beside her, but kept her hands in his.
“Now, tell me. What is this young man’s name and I’ll try to remember what slight I might have caused him.”
“It’s Briggs Murdock, Father.”
Her father’s eyes opened wide and the color left his robust face. “No! This can’t be. Surely you haven’t fallen in love with…him!”
The Earl of Stepmoore stumbled to his feet and staggered away from her. He stopped when he reached the lifeless fireplace, and braced his hands on the marble mantel.
Polly rose. “What is it, Father? What happened between you and Mr. Murdock that is so terrible?”
Her father shook his head back and forth, then said something Polly couldn’t hear or understand.
“What, Father? What did you say?” She stepped up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Not him, Pauline. Surely you haven’t given your heart to the son of a tenant farmer?”
“I’m afraid I have, Father. He is the only man I will ever love. The man with whom I want to spend the rest of my life.” Polly stepped around her father so he was forced to face her. “What happened between you and Briggs that has caused such bitterness between you?”
Polly grasped her hand around her father’s arm and led him to the sofa. She sat beside him and took one of his hands in hers. “Tell me, Father. What is it?”
Her father lifted his gaze and a world of hurt and pain stared back at her. “It happened a long time ago. Almost exactly sixteen years ago.”
“That’s when Mother died. Does this have something to do with Mother?”
“Yes—and no. Nothing—and everything.”
“I don’t understand, Father.”
“Of course you don’t. You were too young. Only five years old. I loved your Mother. You have no idea how much I loved her. And she’d been taken away from me. I didn’t know how I would survive without her.” He squeezed her fingers. “I didn’t know how I was going to be both Mother and Father to you. I was beside myself with grief. That’s when this happened with Murdock.”
“With Briggs?”
“No, his father. With Briggs Murdock’s father.”
Her father rose and walked to a side bar. He poured himself a small glass of liquor, and took a swallow, then walked to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel like he had before.
“My land steward came to me with a report that Robbie Murdock had, over time, stolen several head of cattle from some of the other tenants. This steward had been with me for several years, and before that, his father had been my steward. I took his word of Murdock’s guilt on trust.”
“Did you talk to Briggs’s father?”
Her father nodded. “I had him brought before me. He denied having anything to do with the theft, but, of course, I didn’t believe him. The proof was too overwhelming.”
“What did you do?”
“I dismissed him. I thought I was being quite benevolent at the time. I could have had him prosecuted for stealing. Instead, I simply released him without papers and expelled his family from their home.”
“Where did they go?”
Her father took another swallow from his glass. “I don’t know. I never thought of them again. I had just lost your mother. I was overwhelmed with grief. I didn’t have any leftover energy to consider what had happened to Murdock. Or his family.”
“But they could have—”
“I know!” Her father spun to face her. “For these last sixteen years I have tried to block from my mind what might have happened to Robbie Murdock and his family.”
He walked back to the sofa and collapsed onto the cushions. “Several years after I dismissed Murdock I discovered that he was innocent of the charges. The thief was my trusted steward and another tenant farmer. But it was too late to make amends. I didn’t know where Murdock had gone. What had happened to him.”
“Knowing the past you shared, why did you hire him to look after me?”
“When I chose him to protect you, I didn’t know who he was. All I knew was that he was the investigator with the Bedford Street Brigade that came with the highest recommendation. He was the one Mack Wallace guaranteed me had the most experience with being a bodyguard. I only realized who he was when he made his payment demands.”
“What were they?”
“A home in the country for his mother, and a yearly allowance so she would never…” He paused.
“Never what?”
“…would never go without food again.”
Polly clasped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, dear God.”
“I know, Pauline. No one lives with more guilt that I do. No one lives with more regrets.”
“It’s no wonder Briggs wants nothing to do with me. That he cannot bring himself to love me.”
Her father pushed off of the sofa and walked across the room. He braced his hands against either side of the window and hung his head between his outstretched arms.
“What is it, Father?”
He shook his head, but didn’t answer her.
“Father?”
He turned. “Do you really love him, Pauline? Are you sure? Truly, sure? With all your heart?”
“Yes, Father. I love him so much I think I might die if I have to live the rest of my life without him. I can’t imagine loving anyone else. Or marrying anyone else, or having children if they aren’t Briggs’s children. I’m dead inside and can’t figure out why I still wake up each morning. I hurt so much I’m not sure I can survive another day without him.”
“What about him? Has Briggs Murdock ever told you he loves you?”
Polly shook her head. “But I don’t need to hear the words, Father. His kisses told me that he did. There’s no doubt in my mind that he loves me as d
esperately as I love him.”
“Are you willing to give up your place in society for him, Pauline?”
“I’m willing to give up everything for him—including you, Papa. I would never want to lose you, but if I were forced to choose, I’d choose to spend the rest of my life with Briggs. That is how desperately I love him.”
“Then you had best go to him. Talk to him and if you’re convinced that he loves you as desperately as you love him, have him come to see me. If he can stand to have me for a father-in-law after all I did to him and his family, I can accept him as a son-in-law.”
“Oh, Father!” Polly threw her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him. When the tears finally stopped, she took the carriage to Number 8 Newton Street.
CHAPTER 10
Briggs walked through his front door and hollered to let Mrs. Franks, his housekeeper, know he was home. She answered that dinner would be ready in about half an hour.
He’d hoped the case he and Jack were investigating would require another night of surveillance, but it hadn’t. They’d wrapped it up a few hours ago and now he was looking at another agonizing evening at home with nothing to do—except think about Polly, and what she was doing. Who she’d met at one of the social events he was sure her father forced her to attend. And if they were special to her.
He walked into the small room he considered his study and closed the door behind him. He poured himself a drink from the small cupboard against the wall and brought it to his mouth, then stopped. He’d consumed enough liquor after he left Polly in the country. He didn’t need any more. Drowning his sorrows hadn’t worked then, it wouldn’t work now.
He set the glass back on the shelf and walked to his desk. He hadn’t sat there long before there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” he yelled to Mrs. Franks as he left his study.
“Thank ye, Mr. Murdock,” his cook/housekeeper said. “Saves me from havin’ ta leave the kitchen.”
Briggs smiled at Mrs. Franks’s cockney accent, and opened the door. His heart leaped to his throat. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t do anything but stare at her as if Polly was a vision that he’d imagined from his dreams.
“Hello, Briggs. May I come in?”
He stepped back. “Of course. Come in. Please.”
Briggs led her to a room he used when he had guests.
“You have a very nice home,” she said looking around the room. “It’s quite large for just one person.”
He smiled. “When I bought it I didn’t think I would be living here alone.”
“Oh, really? Did you have someone special in mind?”
“Yes. My mother and my two sisters. But they refused my offer, saying they didn’t want to impose. She said now that I had a job of my own, and friends who would no doubt stop by from time to time, they wouldn’t feel comfortable having my mother here when they visited.”
“She sounds like a very understanding mother.”
“She is.”
“I’d like to meet her someday.”
Briggs felt a wave of something strange take over his body. A hopefulness. He didn’t understand this weightless feeling.
“Has she moved to her new home in the country?”
He nodded. “You know about the house your father provided for her?”
“Yes, I know everything. He told me that was your demand when you agreed to protect me. He also told me about your father. What he’d done to you and your family. How much he regretted it.”
“Is that why you’re here? To apologize for what he did?”
She shook her head. “My father doesn’t need me to apologize for him.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To ask you a very important question.”
She stood and took several steps away from him. When she reached the other side of the room, she turned. “This isn’t easy for me, Briggs. In fact, now that I’m here, I don’t have nearly as much confidence as I had before I came.”
“What do you need bravery for? There’s nothing you can’t say to me, Polly.”
“I’m not worried about what I can and can’t say. It’s your reaction to what I say.”
“My reaction?”
“Yes. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to bear your rejection again.”
“Oh, Polly. If the choice were mine, I would never reject you. But the choice isn’t mine. The options open to us have already been determined.”
“By whom?”
“Your father, Polly. He refused my offer for your hand.”
“When?”
“The day I left Redwood Manor.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You asked for permission to marry me?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head. “He only said that if you love me as desperately as I love you, you’re to go to see him. He said that if you can stand to have him for a father-in-law after all he did to you and your family, he can accept you as a son-in-law.” Polly twisted her hands at her waist. “Do you love me as desperately as I love you, Briggs?”
Briggs swallowed past a lump in his throat.
“Do you, Briggs?”
Briggs took a step toward her. “No, Polly. I don’t love you as desperately as you love me. I love you more. Much, much more.” He took another step, then another. “So much more that after I left Redwood I doubted I could survive another day without you. So desperately that there were days I didn’t think I could go on if you weren’t beside me to show me the way. So desperately that I prayed that every breath I took would be my last. I couldn’t find a purpose in living if I was condemned to living my life without you.”
“Will you marry me, Briggs Murdock?”
Briggs pulled Polly into his arms. “Of course I’ll marry you, Polly Jordan. How could I not? You possess my heart, and without it I have nothing to live for.”
Briggs took Polly in his arms and held her. This is where he intended her to remain for the rest of their lives.
Nothing felt more promising.
Nothing felt more brimming with possibility.
And nothing in his wildest imaginings could feel more perfect.
CHAPTER 1
Betsy Thomas tried not to look into the haunted eyes of the females who stood in open doorways advertising their availability, or who leaned against the soot-covered sides of dilapidated buildings in hopes of selling their bodies to anyone willing to part with their coin. But ignoring them was impossible. They were everywhere. And their bodies were the only assets they had to survive.
Thankfully, her brother Nick was at her side. She’d never dare to come to this part of London without him.
They turned down another street, which took them deeper into The Old Nichol rookery of London’s East End. Instead of the surroundings improving, everything deteriorated even more.
Filth filled every corner, every nook and cranny, and lined every gutter. Every breath she took reeked with the smell of human feces, rotting flesh…and death. It was as commonplace as the poverty and disease that abounded in the slums of London. To most, death was the only condition better than the life every one of these unfortunate souls lived.
“Have you seen anything?”
Nick asked the question, then pulled Betsy closer to avoid the drunken couple staggering toward them. Their unwashed bodies and gin-soaked odor greeted Betsy several steps before the couple passed.
Betsy couldn’t answer Nick with words. She’d been so sure that tonight they’d find Phoebe. But this journey to another one of London’s hell-holes was as wasted as each one before it. She shook her head as tears threatened to consume her.
A drunken skeleton of a man stumbled out of a gin house as they passed and nearly collided with them. Nick quickly pulled her away and picked up his pace to lead her to safety. Except Betsy had no idea where that might be. They were deep in the worst slum of London’s East End, an area called The Old Nichol.
For the first time since they’d begun the
ir search several months ago, Betsy prayed she wouldn’t recognize anyone. She didn’t want to think of her sister living in this filth.
Old Nichol Street was littered with dilapidated tenant buildings that rotted around the unfortunate women and children who lived in them. She and Nick walked past several more decaying buildings, then passed an open alleyway.
“Don’t look,” Nick said sharply as he turned her toward him.
Betsy didn’t need to look to see what Nick was protecting her from. She heard the harsh breathing and the grunts and groans of a female plying her trade. She’d heard it too often when they’d visited London’s East End.
Betsy turned her head and kept pace with Nick as he pushed her faster down Half Nichol Street. “Betsy, it’s no use,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”
Betsy wanted to argue, but every instinct she possessed told her Nick was right. It was time to give up. At least for tonight.
She stayed close to her brother as they left the alleyway known as Half Nichol Street, then passed the lane somewhat grandly called Nichol Street. They were about to walk past Old Nichol Street when Nick pulled her to him and dragged her back into the shadows. That’s when she heard it.
Old Nichol Street was little more than a narrow pathway that trapped its inhabitants between hopelessness and despair, but tonight the slime-laden roadway also harbored the horrors of impending death. The grunts and groans that came from the shadows weren’t the sounds made by a man and a woman, but the sounds of a battle whose intent was to cause pain—more likely, death.
She pressed her back against the corner of a building that opened to Old Nichol Street, then leaned to her right to peek around the corner. What she saw sucked the air from her lungs.
Two men held another man between them, while two others took turns pummeling him with their fists. The man was already bloody beyond recognition, but the four attackers didn’t cease beating their victim. Death was their obvious intent.
Betsy’s stomach knotted with a painful ache with each dull thud of fists pounding flesh, twisted mercilessly with the low agonizing grunts of pain from the victim. The sounds repeated and she clutched her fists to her stomach as if that might lessen the pain she experienced. Surely the victim couldn’t endure much more.