Page 60 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“She’s been stealing?” Ember repeated in obvious confusion.
Hannah nodded. “But the maid wasn’t angry. She didn’t tell on her. She started helping her. The maid, I mean, she started stealing too. Only from parties. Only from people who are too rich to be hurt by it. She told Gretchen they’d run away together.”
“They were stealing jewelry,” Millie forced herself to say over the rapidly growing lump in her throat, “weren’t they?”
“Yes,” Hannah said, surprised. “How did you know?”
“Everyone knows,” Millie replied, though Dot and Ember visibly disagreed with that statement. “It’s an ongoing investigation on Bow Street.”
“Please don’t tell.” The words seemed to combust out of Hannah, desperate and pleading. “Just let them go, Miss Yardley. Please. Gretchen’s father is … well, he found the boarding house wherethey’ve been hiding. Miss Waters has been lying low while her friend, the maid, was trying to find them a way to Calais.”
“So she’s been found?” Dot pushed in, spots of pink appearing on her cheeks. “Her papa found her?”
“Yes, but he …” Hannah trailed off, shuddering. “Gretchen wasn’t there. She was buying food. He found the maid and he hit her over and over and over again. And no one stopped him, Mrs. Cain. They just watched until he stormed away, trying to find Gretchen, and I’m afraid. I’m so afraid he’s going to find her and do that to her too, and it’s my fault. It’s my fault. If we hadn’t snooped. If we hadn’t read the manifesto …”
“How do you know Gretchen was out buying food?” Ember said immediately, clutching the couch cushions on either side of her skirt with white-knuckled ferocity. “How do you know any of this, Miss Lazarus?”
Hannah drew in a shaking breath, a telltale flick of her eyes to the windows, where the carriage she’d arrived in sat passively against the curb. “You have to promise,” she said thinly, “you have to swear you won’t tell.”
Dot flew to her feet, wrenching the study door open and calling for the housekeeper, Mrs. Knox.
Millie watched frozen in disbelief as several things happened around her. She felt useless, like she was discovering just how much she’d falter in a real threat.
Ember was on her knees in front of Miss Lazarus, whispering fierce reassurances to her, holding Hannah’s tear-streaked face in her freckled hands. Dot was issuing sharp, whispered orders to her most trusted servant, “Get them insideimmediately, no one must see! Call for Dr. Grady. Quietly.”
And Millie? She just sat there. She did not know what to do.
CHAPTER 23
She sent a message to Lady Bentley that she would not be home tonight.
It had started to rain shortly after the doctor arrived, a gentle brushing rain. It was a gift from the sky, warm and sweet for the approaching summer, and it did not at all match the day Millie had been experiencing here on the ground.
The maid, whose name was Paula, was not dangerously injured. Her face looked so frightful that Hannah had fainted straight away when the doctor pulled the wet rags away to begin to inspect it.
Gretchen, who looked unrecognizable in homespun, did not react at all. She looked as though she’d gone cold. She held her friend’s hand with a look on her face like all feeling and context had been stripped from her life today, only allowing herself to flicker the hint of an expression when Dr. Grady sighed in relief.
“Just a little fracture, in the cheek,” he’d said. “You’ll heal so well, you’ll never know it happened at all.”
“Terrible thing,” Dot had put in, blinking innocently, “for a man to set upon one of my maids on her errands. London is more dangerous by the day, Dr. Grady. It’s a travesty.”
And the good doctor hadn’t questioned it. Not one bit.
Privately, away from prying ears, Ember, Dot, and Millie had discussed next steps.
“I will give them money,” Ember volunteered. “But I can’t get them safely to Dover. When Silas gets home, maybe he can—”
“No,” Dot had said immediately. “Silas has quite enough to deal with right now. I will tell him what is going on, but I cannot enlist him in this.”
“I could ask Abe,” Millie volunteered, sounding very small, even to herself. “He smuggled Freddy once upon a time, didn’t he?”
Dot shook her head. “No, Mr. Murphy does not have the right temperament for this. He will take one look at Miss Paula and immediately embark to murder Gretchen’s father.”
Millie blinked. Abe? Her Abe?
She’d never seen him so much as hint at a temper. Did she know the man at all?
“There is only one man I know who can handle this properly.” Dot sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’ll have to send for Mr. Cresson.”
