This time, Harriet stole a wide selection of jewels and pearls, which she tucked into the bodice of her gown. She was a bit overzealous with her stuffing, leading her to make an excuse to her cousins and mother and retreat home early for the evening. She feigned illness that night, counting out the items she’d stolen and imagining the countless ways the people south of the Thames could utilise these for their personal betterment.
She imagined enormous feasts—bread rolls and melted butter and wine, buckets of it. She imagined these human beings smiling for the first time in months, feeling as though, finally, the sun had reached them, despite their lives normally filled with shadow.
Harriet was careful not to exit her home that evening, knowing she might stumble into her mother and father on their way back from the ball. She waited two nights before trailing back south of the river and trekking through a different part of that wretched neighbourhood.
For this, she tucked each jewel, each necklace, into a leather bag, which she then plopped on doorsteps. Again, she rapped upon the doors, waiting from a distance while the mothers appeared and peered into the baggies below.
As she began to wrap up for the evening, Harriet heard the thud of footsteps behind her. She whirled around, her cape creating an enormous circle around her, and peered down at the little creature before her.
Immediately, she recognised him as the night-soil collector from many weeks before! She traced through her mind for a moment, hunting for the name. But of course: it was Oliver. The boy broke into an enormous smile, which only highlighted the crusted dirt near his cheekbone.
“Darling!” Harriet murmured, speaking through the mask. She knelt, splaying her arms wide. She was unsure what moved her to such drama.
But Oliver was up for it. He raced into her, dropping his chin atop her shoulder. He shuddered against her, seemingly unable to speak. Despite them being properly into the centre of a London summer—for what was summer if not the middle of June, the night still drew chills—especially on little boys who were best described as “skin and bones.”
Harriet lifted herself back from the hug, blinking at Oliver. It was for him she conducted everything she did. For him, and for boys and girls, mothers and fathers like him. He reached forward, his fingers hunting for the edge of her mask. But she shook her head, chuckling.
“I’m terribly sorry, Oliver,” she said. “It’s very important that I never reveal myself to you. Do you understand?”
The boy furrowed his brow. Such a thing was far too difficult to explain.
“Why are you so strange?” he asked her. “Why won’t you stay? I told my mother about you. She wonders if—if you have anything to do with all the treasures.” He rustled his finger against his nose. A level of fatigue seemed to make his cheeks droop. “All the treasures left outside of our houses. She says you must have been sent from somewhere special. She says you can’t be human. Because no human can ever exist outside of his selfishness.”
These last things seemed parroted directly from Oliver’s mother’s lips. Harriet tried, and still failed, to envision what it looked like in Oliver’s world every day.
“Oliver, I think it’s nearly time for both of our bed times. Don’t you?” Harriet asked. “Look. The sun is already lighting up the sky. How foolish of us, to stay out all night and sleep all day? Aren’t we wasting God’s beautiful earth?”
Oliver’s chin quivered. It was clear this wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
“Run along, now, darling,” Harriet murmured. “Tell your mother I say hello. And that I’m here to protect all of you. I’m doing my very best.”
Harriet didn’t wait for Oliver to leave her. She knew she had to be the one to press forward. Otherwise, she might have existed alongside the young boy until deep into the morning. How she yearned to ask him questions: what had they been doing with the riches she’d given them? How had their lives improved? Was everyone helping one another in the neighbourhood, or had it created a system of hierarchy, based on which riches had brought in more wealth?
Exhilaration made her blood pump wildly past her ears. She ran the last steps towards her horse and flung herself over his back, racing towards the bridge. She had grown to love this portion of the day, when the grey light made everything look ghoulish and fictional, a life she didn’t belong within.
As the horse cantered back to her estate, Harriet found herself lost in a string of fantasies. In her mind’s eye, Oliver transitioned into a different boy, one with rounder cheeks and curly black hair. She felt the truth of him heavy in her stomach, in her heart—as though she was envisioning her own child.
With a jolt of recognition, she realised that she was, in fact, envisioning a child she might have with Lord William Abernale.
For a moment, she carried this image with her, feeling almost pregnant with it. She imagined William in the field alongside this child, lifting him into the air—tossing him, listening as he giggled wildly. In the vision, William’s face broke into an enormous grin. His face was a bit older, its lines thicker. Yet in that ageing, Harriet found a deeper, surer kind of love. She’d been looking at that face for most of her life. The fact that she—in this impossible reality—had been allowed such time with it, filled her with an impossible level of happiness.
The view of her parents’ estate forced her from the reverie. She squashed her teeth over her tongue, making her nostrils flared. How could she possibly allow herself to think such fantastical thoughts when she knew for sure that that sort of life wasn’t the one for her?
She had to shove back her thoughts of William, no matter how beautifully wrought they were. She had to remind herself that she had zero time for romance, and that her emotions had to be guarded and strict, to ensure that she could proceed with her plot.
Where on earth would Oliver, and all the other boys and girls his age, be without her?
No, she couldn’t bring yet another child into the world, no matter how beautiful. She had to focus on all the wrong that still lingered on.
Chapter 18
A few weeks after the robbing of the cousin of the Marquess, Harriet sat perched on the stone bench in the rose garden. Now, the roses flourished in a smattering of beautiful colours—pinks, bright reds, melancholy purples, and even yellow and white.
She drew her eyes closed and inhaled, exhaled, marvelling at the distance she felt from all previous selves she’d ever been. She felt she appreciated the air, the light, the scent of the flowers, far more than she had as a younger woman. Now, she felt she had a purpose.
Her mother’s voice rang out across the gardens, bouncing across the stone walls. She was searching for her. After a long sigh, Harriet rose and plodded towards the stone path outside the gardens, which snaked back towards the house. Within minutes, she caught sight of her mother: a bit stooped forward, her hands latched on either side of her waist. Her mother’s eyesight had depleted in recent years, causing her to holler her name one more time.
“I’m right here, Mother!” Harriet said, giving her a confused smile.
“Oh, darling. Of course.” Her mother sighed. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I don’t wish to interrupt. I only hoped that I could interest you in a trip to Bond Street? I wish to buy a new leather notebook for journalling.”
Harriet hadn’t known her mother was an avid journal writer. In recent years, her mother had crept through perhaps only one or two journals, leaving Harriet to believe she allowed many of her thoughts to slip through the cracks. She opened her lips to ask what it was her mother was writing, but her mother already hustled back towards the house, her hands wiggling like spiders around her thighs.
It was true that since Harriet had begun her second life, there seemed to be a distance between herself and her parents. She wasn’t sure if she’d crafted the distance herself, or if it had grown naturally, as a result of her mind crafting a reality of its own.
Truly, at dinner, she found herself increasingly disinterested in the topics her parents drummed
up. Sometimes, she allowed herself to suggest alternate routes, one that involved the separation of poverty and the rich in London proper. Of course, her parents returned this with their own eye rolls, each hunting for a way out of the given conversation.
Now, in the carriage, Harriet listened as her mother requested Bond Street to the carriage driver, then snuggled back in her seat.
“What a warm summer it’s been,” Lady Arnold said.
Harriet didn’t feel inclined to answer. Her eyes traced outside, watching as the blissfully sunny summer day folded out in central London. It was a funny contrast, seeing this London alongside the black and early-morning grey London of her other life.
Once Harriet and her mother arrived in Bond Street, Harriet spotted Zelda and her own mother, Harriet’s aunt, in the crowd. Lady Arnold snuck her finger into Harriet’s upper arm, demanding, “Go after them! Make sure they don’t get away!” At this, Harriet dropped from the carriage and scampered through the midday foot traffic, drawing closer and closer to Zelda. It had been perhaps a week since she’d seen her older cousin, a fact that suddenly filled Harriet with confusion. Throughout her entire childhood and early adulthood, she’d gone little more than two or three days without seeing Zelda or Renata.
What had changed? Was it simply within herself, or was it the nature of everything else?
“Zelda!” Harriet’s voice rang out, cutting over the heads of the crowd.
Finally, after the third time Harriet called, Zelda whipped around, her eyes very small, searching the people around her. Harriet slipped through the last of the people, reaching forward and wrapping her first finger and thumb around Zelda’s wrist. Zelda let out a little shriek and then blinked down at Harriet. Immediately, her face changed from one of panic to one of excitement.
“Harriet! What are you doing here?”
Harriet flung herself into her cousin, wrapping her little waist tight. Zelda swept her hand down Harriet’s curls, almost like a mother would to her child. For a moment, Harriet felt completely at-peace, even in a crowd of strangers.
“Harriet! Wonderful to see you.” Zelda’s mother replaced Zelda, delivering Harriet a juicy kiss on the cheek. Moments later, Lady Arnold appeared from the carriage, sweat seeping stains in her armpits. Harriet hung back while the other women said their hellos.
The women each turned in one direction and began to amble towards the side of the market, where they could gossip more properly. Zelda’s mother rattled off the list of items she’d purchased thus far, with Harriet’s mother responding to each of them with a “Oh, that’s such a good choice,” or, “Do you know if they have that in another colour?”
Once properly sealed off from the rest of the crowd, Zelda’s mother crept closer to them and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I have a bit of news.”
Lady Arnold nearly barked with excitement. “What is it?”
“Well, you must have heard about the Earl?” the other Lady Arnold whispered. “The one who was recently—stolen from?”
Harriet tilted her head. “Which earl?”
“Lord Randall Calloway,” Zelda said, her voice low.
“Oh. I’m not quite sure I know him,” Harriet murmured. And indeed, she didn’t—although this did seem very much in-line with everything she’d been up to.
“What was stolen?” she asked, her throat dry.
“Well, it’s been rumoured that a few of his items have been spotted at pawnshops, at markets south of the Thames,” Zelda’s mother said. “Things like rings. Broaches. Jewels. Even a few decorative items from around the house.”
For a moment, Harriet questioned of herself if, actually, she’d been the one to thieve from the earl—without her remembering it. But that was simply absurd. It was clear that someone was up to her tactics of thieving from the rich.
“What else do you know about this?” Harriet demanded of both Zelda and her mother, stitching her eyebrows together. “Do they have any indication of who it might have been? A petty thief or—”
“Well, of course it was a thief,” her aunt said. “Anyone who steals from anyone else is a thief, Harriet. That’s simply within the very definition.”
Harriet yearned to purport her difference of opinion, yet forced her lips closed. Her aunt continued to list the various items that had been stolen from the house.
“It sounds terribly familiar to what happened to the Marquess and the Baron,” Lady Arnold said, sounding almost despondent. “Rather scary, thinking of whoever this is, out there on the loose. You don’t think we should be worried, do you?”
“Mother, think of it,” Harriet said. “We aren’t anywhere as rich as the Marquess or the Baron or the Earl. It’s clear that someone is targeting the ultra-rich.”
“It’s not as though these men really earn their wages by doing any sort of good in this world.” Zelda sighed.
“Well, I, for one, still don’t think it’s a kind thing to steal,” Lady Arnold said. “Regardless of what kind of man was stolen from, it’s still a wretched thing to break into someone’s property and take what doesn’t belong to them. What is the world coming to?”
Harriet’s cheeks burned. But as she stewed in her thoughts, feeling the opinion of her mother like a sweltering sun, Zelda brought her hand through Harriet’s arm and tugged at her. Harriet looked at her with blank, unseeing eyes.
“Come on,” Zelda muttered. She gave their mothers’ a final eye roll before tugging at Harriet again. “I wish to speak with you. In private.”
Again, Harriet baulked. Her head swirled with questions that seemed unanswerable. Was this person, this thief, attempting to copy her—on purpose? Was this thief trying to be a kind of invisible ally?
“Harriet, I’m not going to ask again.” Zelda sighed, giving her an impatient, yet loving smile. “You’ve had your head in the clouds all summer long. It’s almost impossible to get you to pay attention.”
Finally, Harriet forced herself forward, stepping alongside her older cousin. They moved away from their mothers, drawing a line towards the far end of the market. They maintained view of their mothers, both commenting on how serious they looked.
“You would think they’re talking about the second coming.” Zelda chuckled. “Or else, it’s up to them to crack the case of who has been stealing from all these evil men.”
“Who do you think it is?” Harriet asked. Her throat felt like sandpaper.
“Oh, who cares?” Zelda said. “I don’t. I’d much rather talk about anything else.”
Harriet didn’t know what to say. She turned her eyes to the ground, watching as a bit of mud from a puddle slid through the cracks in the cobblestones. Zelda’s grip hardened around her arm. For the first time, Harriet ached with needing to tell someone—anyone—what she’d been up to.
“Harriet, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Zelda murmured.
Harriet’s heart leapt into her throat. Did Zelda somehow know she was the one behind the robberies? She turned enormous eyes towards her. “What is it?”
“Don’t panic. You look as though the world is ending.” Zelda laughed. “It’s only that … I was curious what you were currently thinking regarding a good friend of ours. Lord William Abernale.”
The question felt like a smack across the face. Harriet baulked, trying her best to assess her cousin’s expression. What exactly was she trying to say? Her cheeks were pinched, her eyes glowing with intrigue.
Was she jealous? Did Zelda have some sort of comprehension of the lust that Harriet had for William, brewing always in her stomach? She’d worked endlessly to push it down, not to give it power. But Zelda had known her throughout her life and perhaps could “sense” things within Harriet that she wasn’t even sure of herself.
A Ravishing Beauty in Disguise: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 15