Page 1 of The Secret Word
Chapter One
Devil’s Kitchen, London, 1821
If the ladyhad let go of her reticule, Christopher Satterthwaite might never have met her. A sensible person would have let Dasher Baggins take off with the scrap of lace and whatever was inside it. A sensible person would not have made a fuss in a street like this, where the law-abiding denizens knew better than to stand in the way of a villain, and where the villains would swarm like sharks at the hint of a victim.
A sensible person would not be on Bleak Street to begin with, not looking like a sweet and expensive confection in laces and silks, and certainly not screeching at the top of her voice, hanging on to her reticule for dear life, and beating the thief around his ears with her parasol.
Chris, who was mostly law-abiding, knew better than to interfere, but he couldn’t help himself. He closed the distance between himself and the little tableau—outraged maiden beats off cheeky rascal—in a fast walk, designed not to attract more attention than he could help.
“Let go, Dash,” he told the boy. “She’s with me.”
“Aw, Fingers,” Dasher whined. “Don’t know what she’s got in there, but it must be worf somefing, way she hangs on.”
“My mother’s miniature, and you shan’t have it,” said the lady, who held her parasol ready but had at least stopped using itto beat Dash with. The poor lad should stick to mud larking. He was not a good thief.
“Get lost, Dash,” Chris told him, and flipped him a farthing.
Dash let go of the reticule to catch the coin, and then demonstrated the reason for his nickname, dashing off through the crowd.
“You should have held him while I called a constable,” proclaimed the lady.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss, but constables don’t come down here,” Chris replied. Up until now, he had been speaking street cant, or just far enough above it that Dash was comfortable, but now he changed accent and vocabulary to talk to the lady in a way to which she would respond. A cut above hers, in fact, for her vowels were not quite as nasal nor her consonants as crisp as Chris’s grandfather’s. “It is too dangerous,” he elaborated. “Too many villains.”
The lady huffed with displeasure, setting the ruffles on her bodice quivering. “One would think there would be fewer criminals if the constables did come down here.”
“Or fewer constables,” Chris argued.
She blinked at him as she absorbed the point, then huffed again. “I should not be here. I must have got turned around. Can you direct me to Meadow Court?”
“You do not want to go to Meadow Court,” Chris told her. If Bleak Street did not eat her up and spit her out, Meadow Court would swallow her whole. And there’d be no spitting her out, either.
The lady’s huff was more of a snort. “I decidedly do, sir,” she insisted.
“Shall I tell you what will happen if you make it as far as Meadow Court?” Chris asked. It was a rhetorical question. “First, you shall be robbed of everything you have, including the clothes you stand up in. Then one of two things will happento your naked person, depending on whether you fall into the hands of an organized gang or just a mob of the hopeless.”
He fell silent and watched to see how she would react. Not as expected. Her eyes widened—they were a lovely shade of blue. Her cheeks paled. So far, quite predictable. But then she pressed her coral-pink lips together and gave a sharp nod, as if she had presented herself with a compelling argument.
“Nonetheless, sir, I have an errand in Meadow Court that will not wait.”
“An organized mob will sell you to a brothel, where they will auction your virginity then put you to work servicing their clients until you drink yourself to death or die of an unspeakable disease,” Chris told her.
She paled still further. Not such an innocent that she did not know what he meant, then. Or perhaps she was just responding to his earnest tone. “Nonetheless,” she repeated, but her voice shook.
“A casual mob will not bother with the brothel,” he continued, determined to make her change her mind. “And you will die of what they do to you.” He could not bear to describe it further, did not even want to think of her intimately assaulted by one brute after another, screaming for help that never came, dying in agony of body and soul.
“Nonetheless.” It was little more than a whisper, and she was so pale he thought she might faint.
“Why?” he asked. “What is so important that you are willing to die for it—die, most likely, without accomplishing it?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, considering. “I have no reason to believe you, sir,” she said. “All I know about you is that you belong so well to this street, in which you say everyone is a villain, that thieves do your bidding. Ama—My friend would not have written asking me to come to Meadow Square if it was as dangerous as you say.”
“I said the place had too many villains,” Chris pointed out. “Not that I am one. As it happens, I am not, but you have a point. We do not know one another. Please allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed. “I am Christopher Satterthwaite. And you are…?”
She curtseyed in response to his bow, “Clementine Wright.”
“Miss Wright, I cannot know what your friend had in mind—you are sure it was in her hand? But have you considered she might have been threatened or tricked?”
“Why?” Miss Wright’s asked. “Why would someone bother?”
