A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal (41 page)

She’d gone to his worst enemy, and it made no whit of difference.

He still had to find her.

Some commotion in the hallway brought his head up. The door flew open. Paralyzed for an instant—joy, relief, anger, love swelling in him—he stood there staring at her, her face tear-stained, her lips trembling.

“I was going to look for you,” he said hoarsely, then came to a stop, the words tangling in his head: it would have made no difference had she gone to Grimston; he wanted her to know that, to know he was done with pride: he would have gone to find her all the same.

And then she blinked, swallowed, and that small movement was enough to break his daze, to shatter it into shards that spread through him as a prickling, rippling, ripping realization.

“Katherine,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”

She made a panicked noise and came toward him. “Listen to me,” she said. “I was—I was wrong to deny her. But he—you cannot understand, for so long he has hounded me—I did not want to marry him, he only wanted my money, he told me I could choose where I liked so long as I denied her—and I didn’t know!” Her voice was high, frightened. “I couldn’t be sure of her until—until—”

“Don’t concern yourself,” he said softly. “I have plans for your guardian.”

“Oh.” She went paler yet. “But I think—I think he has plans for
her
. I told him, you see, that I mean to acknowledge her as Cornelia. And he thinks it is
his
fortune that will be halved in the process. I think—she’s in very great danger.”

Nell left the two plainest dresses at Hannah’s and bundled the rest into a ruder carpetbag, borrowed; the one she’d taken from Mayfair would attract too many eyes. Brennan’s was a long walk down the broken pavements, and Hannah had wanted to accompany her, but she couldn’t bear talk right now. It was enough simply to keep moving; she did not have the strength to explain anything, to put into words what she’d just done: gutted herself, used a knife to slice through her life, putting herself squarely on this, the bleaker and bleeding side of the rest of her days on earth.

She would never see him again.

Never touch him.

Never hear his voice.

She took a deep breath as she crossed the street. Her mind was dull but her body remembered the way, bolting to safety around the onward charge of a coach, the driver throwing a curse at her in passing. She stepped through a muddy puddle without feeling the damp soaking through her kid shoes.

Better the shoes be sullied. Bright, new shoes advertised to curious eyes certain comforts that she no longer had to spare. She was back where she belonged, on the narrow road between crouched buildings, where broken glass littered the ground and people
leaned against buildings, talking in loud voices, eyeing passersby curiously, nodding to acquaintances.

But nobody nodded to her. Familiar faces fell silent as she looked into them. The greengrocer lifted his brows and turned away, whistling in astonishment as his shop boy gawked.

The back of her neck began to prickle. Eyes were following her, prodding into the back of her skull. She forced a smirk onto her lips and held it there as she walked. “Nellie,” she heard someone mutter. “That’s Nellie.”

“What on earth? Do you think—”

“Don’t look so flush now, does she—”

“—bloke left her flat?”

“God save her,” someone whispered.

A shiver passed through her. For a moment, in dumb reflex, her thoughts flew toward Peacock Alley, the only place here that she’d ever called her own. Before Mum had taken ill, that flat had been her safety.

She thought of Mum’s grave, of the rough wood marker on which had been painted “Dearly beloved. Forever missed.”

Here, in this narrow lane, lined by broken windows and stares, she thought for the first time in weeks of Jane Whitby without feeling pain. They had something in common. They’d both fled that scented, plush world for these streets. Desperation had driven both of them; nothing else would have done it.

Whether or not it was right, she would forever miss Mum. Love didn’t have to be pure or blameless or free of anger to be true. You could blame somebody and love her anyway. You could blame him but love him none the less for it.

She pushed Simon’s face from her mind.

In the dark confines of Brennan’s, the proprietor nearly dropped his pipe for shock.

“You’re back!” Brennan’s rheumy blue eyes narrowed as they took in the bag she clutched. He missed nothing, the old codger. He glanced beyond her, toward one of the cracked mirrors he’d set around the shop to catch thieves: they gave him every angle.

He removed his pipe and tapped it thoughtfully against the counter. Ash floated down, landing lightly on her dark wool gown. She’d donned it herself, in the hour before dawn, wrestling with the laces on her corset, weeping as her fingers fumbled over the buttons.

“Tossed you out, did he?” Brennan asked.

She hauled the bag up onto the ledge. “I’ve got quite a load for you.”

“I read of it in the papers, you know.”

Her hands paused on the bag ties. His thick Irish voice held no glee for her comeuppance. “Did you?”

“Oh, aye, and who didn’t?” He put the pipe back into his mouth, squinting at her as smoke roiled up around his head. “Came here alone, did you? Best take care, Nellie. Been too much talk for you to traipse about as you please.”

She nodded once, her jaw tight. It was a warning, but not one she needed. She’d known what it signified when people failed to greet her.

The knot that closed the bag resisted her fingers. “This load should fetch a fine price,” she said. The words felt stilted. She listened to herself go on. “Only worn once or twice, each of them. So don’t be thinking to cheat me, old man.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he said, his manner too kind, absent of the blarney he’d usually muster for such a charge. Leaning onto one bony elbow, he dropped his
voice: “What happened, Nellie? I thought we’d never see a hair of you again. Wasn’t you that girl, then?”

Her hands stilled. She looked up into his face, so familiar to her—more familiar suddenly than her own in the glass behind him. Dizziness rocked her, a sense of being removed from her own skin. That pale girl with circles beneath her eyes: who was she now? Not Cornelia. Not the Nell she’d once been, either. She’d changed. Her very lungs had altered. The fumes from Brennan’s pipe felt unbearable, thick and toxic. Another minute in this shop and she’d be puking all over her wares.

She shook her head and shoved the bag toward him. “I trust you,” she said quickly. “And I’ve counted them to a stitch. You send a note to the Crowleys with your bid, aye? I’ll be back to let you know what I think of it.”

“Not alone,” he said softly. “You bring Garod Crowley with you, you hear me?”

She stared at him. “Aye,” she said. “Aye, I will.”

Back in the street, the clouds were thinning, shedding a clearer view of the sun, causing her eyes to sting. She stumbled over a chunk of pavement and slammed up against someone. Muttering an apology, she pushed past—and was caught and hauled back.

She blinked up.

“I was looking for you,” Michael said with a smile.

N
ell tested the ropes again, flexing her fingers, trying to recover sensation. “Just fetch me a knife,” she urged. “Please, Suzie.”

Across the room, huddled against the wall, knees pulled to her chest, Suzie stared back, blank-eyed, as though she no longer understood language. In a bad way, was Suzie, bruised and battered, shaking like a leaf. “You shouldn’t have come back,” she said again, her voice barely audible. “You should’ve known, Nellie.”

“Should’ve known?” Nell’s laughter scraped her throat. It made Suzie shrink back into the wall. “Should’ve known what?” She was trussed to this chair, corded like a game hen—a solid, proper chair, a new acquisition, no doubt purchased with the coin Hannah had given Michael for the spoon. “That Michael’s a bloody lunatic? You’re right, no news there!”

Suzie folded her arms over her knees and set her head down atop them. “It’s not just Michael,” she whispered.

Nell stared at the crown of Suzie’s head, the crooked parting in her dark hair. Not just Michael? She gritted her teeth and gave the rope a hard yank, then hissed at the pain. For her efforts she was only wearing herself bloody. “Who else is it, then?” She had an idea. Where else would Michael have found the money for that cab he’d bundled her into?

Suzie didn’t look up as she shook her head. “I don’t
know his name.” She drew a shuddering breath, then peeked up over her arms. “Posh bloke. Tall, thin—” She broke off on a gasp as footsteps thumped in the corridor outside.

Michael’s voice came through the door, sharp and angry. He wasn’t drunk, more was the pity. Sobriety, height, and muscle had worked to his advantage on the street. A few people had called out in protest as he’d knocked her around; Brennan had even come out of his shop for the first time in probably a decade. But when Michael had flashed the gun, not a single person had dared lift a hand to help.

“—better deal than you can offer,” Michael was biting out in the hall. “Maybe I should ask Rushden how much
he’d
be willing to pay for her.”

The reply was too low to decipher, but Nell recognized the voice all the same. Grimston. What in God’s name did he want with her? He was sharp enough to have put two and two together. He’d know that if she was back here in Bethnal Green, then she’d left Simon. He should be grateful; he’d gotten what he wanted without spending a penny.

The door opened. Michael stalked through, cursing. On his heels came Grimston, dressed from head to toe in black, his top hat crushed beneath his arm. He fixed Nell with a sour smile—which disappeared at the sound of Suzie’s whimper.

Pivoting, he glared. “What is this?” he demanded. “Who is this woman?”

Michael’s jaw jutted. Belligerent as a mule, he was; it was Grimston’s mistake to have taken him as a partner in this dirty business. “She’s none of your concern,” he said.

Grimston’s laugh cracked like dry twigs. “My
God. What do you think we’re about? You invite
witnesses
?”

Nell went cold. Witnesses to what? What sort of occasion did they have in mind? Suzie was gazing upward at Grimston, her tear-stained face, her slack jaw, lending her a strange look of awe, as though the tall man in his fine clothes had dazzled her beyond her senses.

And as Grimston looked back down at her, his expression shifted. For a moment, he looked mildly disgusted, as though viewing something unwholesome that he’d just knocked from his shoe. Then his face smoothed. A cold smile curved his mouth as he turned away; his hand moved into his jacket. “Very well,” he said. “Let her stay. No matter.”

Every hair on Nell’s body stood straight.
My God
, she thought. Her brain scrambled to deny it but her instincts insisted: he hadn’t come here bent on intimidation.

He meant nobody to leave this room save himself.

“Michael,” she said. “Michael, make Suzie go.”

Michael gave her a curious look. Grimston, his smile widening, gave her a wink.

“Get her
out
of here,” Nell said, pulling again, so uselessly, at the ropes, as Michael decided to enjoy the moment, the
fool
, grinning at her, his lips already moving to shape some gloating remark as Grimston pulled the pistol from his jacket and she threw herself sideways and he fired.

The explosion rang out and kept ringing, drowning out the world, flattening all other sound, setting up residence in her brain, ringing and ringing. There was blood; she could see the pool spreading but it wasn’t hers; she couldn’t tell whose it was; her cheek
was flat against these rough floorboards where Mum had died.

A crash. Michael and Grimston rolled past her, tangling, Michael’s hand gripped hard over Grimston’s, holding the pistol up, away from the both of them. Michael was bleeding. She saw the stain spreading across his side, soiling his shirt.

A cold hand closed on her arm. She flinched convulsively, then cried out at a stabbing pain.

The ropes fell away from her wrists. Suzie knelt down by her feet, wielding a knife, cutting free Nell’s feet. Nell clambered up as Suzie spun away, lifting the blade in the direction of the two men rolling on the ground.

Nell grabbed her shoulder. “No. Go—run! Fetch the bobbies!”

Suzie looked at her, slack-faced, understanding nothing. Nell pried the knife from her hand and pushed her forward, stumbled after her out the door. Doors were slamming up and down, but nobody came to see what was happening: a gunshot was like fever; you kept your distance if you wanted to live.

Another shot rang out behind them. Suzie screamed. “No! Michael—”

Nell pushed Suzie down the stairs, but her own feet, numb from the constriction of the ropes, failed her; she grabbed for the banister and it wobbled and broke free under her hand, sending her to her knees, tumbling headfirst down the stairs. A bright light slammed into her head.

She opened her eyes to a world gone silent. Suzie stood above, hands cupped to her mouth, staring up the stairs.