by Nicole Byrd
“Whitechapel is not a location fit for respectable women, miss. It’s a most dangerous part of London.”
“Certainly not a place you should even consider, Miss Smith,” Miss Pomshack added, sounding agitated at the idea. “My father, the vicar, always said—”
“Thank you, Miss Pomshack,” Louisa interrupted. She nodded to the servant. “Very well, you may go.”
“No, wait. I shall write a line to Captain Fallon, and you must take it to his hotel at once. It’s possible we might catch him before he leaves,” Gemma said. She hurried across to the desk, found a clean sheet of paper and dipped the quill into the inkwell. Very soon she blotted her words, folded the sheet, and handed it to the waiting footman. “Be sure that it goes straight up to the captain’s rooms.”
“Yes, miss,” the servant said. He seemed relieved to leave the drawing room.
But as soon as he was out of sight, Gemma turned to her friend. “I am going,” she said. “I will call a hackney—”
“No, indeed—” Miss P began, but Louisa interrupted.
“Gemma, you cannot! You heard what Smelters said, and he is right. I’m sure that section of London is not safe, and certainly, not at night!” Louisa felt a stab of alarm.
“But you know what Captain Fallon told us in his note, what that scoundrel Temming has threatened—time is running out for the captain’s sister. And if she is near at hand, if I can help her—”
“Wait, wait, we must be sensible.” Louisa grabbed her friend’s hand. “Come up to my room with me.”
Gemma seemed ready to resist. Louisa had to almost pull the other woman to the door. In the doorway, Louisa paused. “Miss Pomshack, this turmoil is bringing on one of my headaches. Would you mind very much going down to the kitchen and making up one of your inestimable tisanes?”
“I should be delighted,” the older woman said, her tone dignified. “And I shall make one for Miss Smith, as well, to calm her agitated nerves.”
“Agitated nerves, my eye!” Gemma muttered, but Louisa hissed at her.
“Shush! Come up with me.” They hurried up the staircase, and when they encountered the housemaid on the landing, Louisa told the maid, “Go out to the stable, quietly, and tell my coachman to prepare my carriage, Lily.”
Gemma gaped at her.
“It’s safer than a hackney. You’ve been left by one of those already in most dangerous circumstances,” Louisa reminded her. “And you will not go alone.”
“I cannot allow you to go with me,” Gemma argued. “This is obviously not a respectable place, Louisa.”
“It’s a place Sir Lucas appears to be familiar with!” Louisa shot back. “I know that he and his new friends have spent a lot of time at their clubs and at gaming houses, and some of them may be quite low. Gentlemen do not seem to mind that.”
“But you know that gentlemen can frequent many establishments that ladies cannot! It cannot be a gentleman’s club, if the name horrified your footman so. It must be some odious gaming den, or tavern, or some such.”
“And you will risk your good name visiting such a place, but I should not?” Louisa countered.
“I would not except for Matthew—Captain Fallon—and his sister. Her life may be at stake!” Gemma lifted her chin. “You know what they told us about that villain Temming’s threat! Anyhow, I do not have—and may never have—any family name to risk, but there is no need for you to suffer. If someone should see us—”
“Ah, but that is part of my plan.” Louisa opened her trunk and bent to dig through layers of clothing and linen. “My maid back home packed these by mistake. I noticed them the other day.”
In a moment she had emerged with two swatches of dark netting in her hands.
Gemma looked mystified. “What are they?”
“The mourning veils I wore after my father’s death,” Louisa explained. “I said we must be sensible.”
Gemma grabbed her, and for a moment the veils were crushed between them as they exchanged an impulsive hug. Then Louisa reached for a hat to drape one of the veils upon, and Gemma ran up to her own room to find her own hat and wrap.
By the time the carriage was ready, they had crept downstairs, happily avoiding any sign of Miss Pomshack, and slipped out the door.
To the coachman, Louisa explained their errand. “You may have to stop and ask for directions,” she added.
The groom and the coachman exchanged worried glances. “I’ve, uh, heard of the place, miss,” the coachman said. “But I think there’s some mistake. This is not—”
“I know, I know. Not a place a lady would visit. That is why I depend on both of you, after tonight, to forget this journey ever took place.”
The men still looked worried, but Louisa stepped inside to join Gemma, and after a short pause, the carriage rolled forward.
Gemma sighed. “Oh, no matter how vile it is, if we can only find Clarissa! What if she has been kept a prisoner there, forced to wait on tables and be subjected to vile language and dreadful company?”
Louisa reached over and gripped her friend’s hand. Gemma seemed tense with worry and anticipation, and Louisa found that her own stomach had knotted.
The ride seemed very long, though later Louisa thought that must have simply been due to the perilous state of her nerves. And when they at last pulled up, in a narrow littered street where most of the surrounding houses showed fronts that appeared dark and empty, she leaned forward to stare out the carriage window.
It was a large house, with flambeau flaring on each side of the door, creating a small arc of light in the darkness. Sounds of laughter and an occasional shout could be detected past the draped windows.
The groom came to open the door, but he looked apprehensive. “Are you sure about this, miss?”
“Yes,” Louisa said, knowing that nothing would stop Gemma now. “But you are both to be on the alert. When we return, be ready to spur the horses and head immediately for home.”
“Yes, miss,” the groom assented, apparently finding one thing on which he agreed with his mistress.
Louisa pulled her veil down to cover her face and stepped out, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. Despite the flickering light of the torches, she could barely see with the dark veil covering her face, but she would have to do the best she could. It was essential that no one suspect they had visited such a place.
Louisa felt her stomach quiver with nervousness, but she could not stop, now. With Gemma at her elbow, she marched up to the door and gave a solid rap with the knocker.
In a moment, a burly footman opened the door. He wore neat enough olive green livery, but he was broader across the shoulders than the average house servant, and his prominent jaw appeared in need of a shave. He stared at them in surprise.
“What you doing ’ere?” he demanded. “We don’t need no extra girls tonight.”
Then women were indeed allowed here? Louisa tried to think.
“We’re, um, meeting a gentleman,” she improvised, adding, “He will offer you a coin or two, I’m sure, if you are helpful.”
“Someone up to some fancy tricks, eh?” The man smirked. “Very well, don’t suppose you can do any ’arm.”
He pulled the door open and as they entered, asked, “You know where to go?”
Louisa hesitated, but from beneath her veil Gemma muttered, “Yes.”
They came a few feet into the hall and paused. A man, by his dress a gentleman although his neckcloth had been loosened and one button opened on his coat, came out of the nearest doorway. From beyond it, loud chatter, music, and raucous laughter could be heard. Flushed with wine, he stared at them and tried to focus his eyes.
“Hey, sweetlings. Is this a new game? Let me see your face!”
He reached toward them, but Gemma slipped around him, and Louisa hastened to follow.
“Not tonight,” Gemma told the man, her tone firm. She grabbed Louisa’s arm and they made their way, not toward the wide doorway from which he had come, but on to the foot o
f a broad staircase.
Louisa had no clue where they were headed, but she suspected the important thing was to keep moving and not reveal their ignorance. She climbed rapidly, and halfway up the stairs, whispered to Gemma, “Now what?”
“If we can find a servant, we can bribe him or her to tell us if any lady here is named Clarissa,” Gemma answered, her voice equally low.
“Oh, an excellent thought,” Louisa agreed. Beneath her veil, her face felt damp with nervousness. She had no desire to enter that noisy drawing room downstairs and be subjected to inquisitive stares, which might penetrate their disguises.
At the top of the first flight of stairs, they found a hallway full of doors, most of them shut. Where could they locate a servant?
“Come away from the landing so the man downstairs cannot see us,” Gemma urged. Louisa followed her halfway down the hall.
Then, to her relief, she caught sight of a maid—at least, Louisa assumed it was a maid. The woman wore a dark low-cut dress with a frilly apron over it, not exactly the normal uniform for house servants, but perhaps they were somewhat lax in this area of town. Louisa put out a hand to stop the stranger from walking past.
“Can you tell me if a young lady by the name of Clarissa Fallon is employed here?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet.
“Huh?” The woman stared at them. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot, and her voice just a little slurred. “Why are you looking for a woman?”
“It is an acquaintance of ours,” Gemma added, holding out her hand and revealing a coin in her palm, just short of the maid’s reach.
“Oh, you’re in the trade, are you?” the woman said. She shook her head. “I don’t know no Clarissa here. We got a Carrie, though.”
“That could be her,” Gemma said quickly. “Can you tell me where we could find her?”
“She’s busy,” the woman demurred.
“We will not detain her long,” Gemma promised. She held the coin closer, and the woman stared at it.
“What the hell, she’s in the second room on the right.”
She pointed, and Gemma passed over the coin.
“Thank you!”
They waited until the woman went into another room and closed the door, and then Gemma hurried forward.
“Wait for me,” Louisa whispered, running after her friend.
Gemma tapped lightly on the door the first woman had indicated
“Go way,” a feminine voice called from within.
But Gemma turned the knob anyhow. The door was not locked, and it opened easily. Louisa crowded closer to look over her friend’s shoulder.
She made out a bed with tumbled bedclothes. The woman in it had lifted the sheet to hide her face. Was she ill? Even if it were not Captain Fallon’s sister, if this woman was in trouble, they would help her, Louisa told herself. She had a bad sense about this place, and to be forced to work here must be—
A woman’s head emerged from behind the sheets. She had reddish hair and a pert, pretty face, and her eyes were narrowed. “What the ’ell you want?”
Louisa felt a surge of hope. The captain had said his sister had reddish hair!
“Carrie? Is that your name? Your real name?” Gemma demanded.
“What’s h’it matter to you? Go way!”
“We are looking for a girl named Clarissa Fallon. She may have been brought here against her will,” Gemma explained. “It’s urgent we find her. Are you sure you remember just what your family name is? Clarissa was taken away when she was only a child, and—”
“ ’Course I know my own name. I grew up two streets from ’ere, now get out!” the woman exclaimed, her expression peeved. “I’m busy, can’t you see.”
“You don’t know where we might find Clarissa?” Louisa added. “Has she ever been employed in the neighborhood?”
Then a muffled grunt sounded. To her horror, another head appeared from beneath the sheets. It was a man, a brown-haired man whom she knew at once, even seeing only the back of his curly head
“Lucas!” she shrieked and—without thinking—pushed up her veil to see more clearly, hardly believing her own eyes.
He twisted and pulled the sheet up to cover his torso. He appeared to have—Louisa drew a breath deep in shock—no clothing on at all.
He was—he was—he was on top of a naked woman!
“Louisa, we must leave!” Gemma whispered. “At once! This is not a gaming house—it is a brothel!”
Louisa was not listening. “Lucas, what are you doing here?”
The girl in the bed chortled. “Sweetie, ain’t you got eyes? You need a few things explained to you, don’t you?”
Louisa felt as if she were frozen—she could not get a breath. “Lucas?”
He stood up, pulling the sheet off the bed to wrap around him like a toga. The woman in the bed squealed in protest and tugged a blanket up to cover herself. “Louisa, why in the name of all that’s holy are you here? This is not a fit place for you!”
“And it’s a fit place for you?” She put one hand to her chest, feeling a queer constricted pain inside her. “A place you prefer to my drawing room?”
“It’s different for a man,” he said, hitching up the sheet to take a step toward her. “You must leave at once. Let me get on my clothes—”
“Lucas, we are engaged! How could you be—be—be doing that with another woman, when we are to be married soon?”
“We’re not married yet,” he argued, but he did not meet her eyes.
“Lucas, how could you? I would never have credited it,” Louisa exclaimed, still aching from the pain of her discovery. “You are being unfaithful to me!”
“No, I’m not.”
“Louisa, we must go!” Gemma begged, tugging at her arm. Louisa shook her off.
“Lucas, I’m not blind!” Louisa raised her voice, ignoring Gemma’s whispered pleas. “I find you in bed with a woman, and you tell me you have not betrayed me?”
“It’s not like I was courting another lady behind your back,” Lucas protested, looking about the room and snatching up a pair of discarded trousers. His sheet slipped a little and he jerked it hastily back up. “This is different. It doesn’t really count.”
“Thank ’ee very much,” Carrie said from the bed. Her expression sour, she had sat up, the blanket tucked beneath her arms as she watched them. “Gonna cost you double, this is!”
“Louisa!” Gemma hissed.
“Very well, go back to my chaise and tell the coachman we are leaving and to make speed. I shall be right behind you,” Louisa promised.
Gemma hesitated, and Louisa gave her a push. “Go!”
Her friend slipped out, but Louisa paused long enough to pull off the topaz ring upon her finger. She tossed it toward the man whom she thought she had known. He was hampered by trying to pull on his trousers without dropping the cloaking sheet, and the ring bounced off his arm.
Her voice shaking, she said, “It counts to me, Lucas. You may have your ring back. I shall inform my uncle that our betrothal is at an end and to take the necessary steps.”
The girl on the bed, ignoring her naked state, dropped her blanket and dove to snatch up the ring. “Ooo, ’ow pretty!”
“Here, Carrie, give that back, it cost me five guineas!” Lucas snapped. “Louisa, you cannot do this. Be sensible! Tomorrow, when you are past your state of hysterics, we will talk.”
“I have nothing to talk to you about,” Louisa retorted. “If you call, you will not be admitted!”
He ignored the interruption. “When we are married, I will have no need to visit places like this.”
“Not what you tol’ me,” Carrie muttered. She had shoved the ring onto her finger and was admiring its sparkle.
Revolted, Louisa drew a deep breath. “I have no need for a husband I cannot trust. You have spent little enough time in my company of late. Now I know where you prefer to be.”
“Louisa! Every one does it, every man, I mean. I tell you, it’s nothing of import.”
/> “Nothing, am I?” Carrie muttered, but no one paid her heed. “Men are no good, dearie. If you got money already, you’re better off without ’im!”
“If you had stayed home where you belong”—Lucas at last had his trousers up to his waist and he kicked away the sheet—“this would never have happened.”
“I beg to differ,” Louisa told him. “It is important.” She turned for the door, which Gemma had left ajar, and paused in confusion when she saw another man standing there. Worse, it was a man she recognized—Mr. Harris-Smythe.
“Englewood, what the hell you playing at?” the new arrival demanded. “You don’t bring your fiancé to a house of pleasure, man. Don’t know what you do in the country, but it ain’t done, sir, not in the city!”
“Of course I did not bring her,” Lucas answered. “And you—you must not tell anyone you saw her here.”
The man chortled. He was obviously deep into his cups. “You’re a lu—lucky man, old thing. Found a wife who don’t mind playing with you and your mistress? Damned lucky.”
“I intended no such thing!” Louisa snapped. Too late, she remembered to pull her veil down to cover her face.
“Smythe, go away,” Lucas begged.
But the newcomer had sagged against the door, holding it open. She heard more voices in the hall, attracted by the commotion. What if someone else saw her? Louisa felt her heart beat faster. She had to get out of here.
“But it won’t do,” the man said, his tone suddenly mournful. “She’ll be ruined, you know. People bound to hear of it.”
“Not if you keep your bloody mouth shut!” Lucas flung back, pulling on the rest of his clothes.
“Oh, you know me, could never do that,” Harris-Smythe answered simply. “You’ll have to divorce her. It’ll take an Act of Parley—Parley—Parliament, of course, but must maintain your honor. Poor girl will never be received by any respect—respect—proper lady again. Too bad, such a pretty girl, too.”
“We are not yet married,” Louisa said, but her voice was faint. This impertinent toad was quite right. If news of this got out, she was ruined. Forever.
She took a deep breath, then tried to slip around him.