Page 1 of A Baron's Scandalous Quill
Chapter 1
London, England, 1811
“Oh, my apologies!” Becca called as she ran through the backstreets of London. The poor grocer boy she had darted past yelped in surprise, throwing one of the apples out of his tray. Becca managed to catch it in time, pushing it back into the wooden tray before she was off again.
“Watch where you’re going, miss!” the boy shouted after her, but she didn’t have time to slow down.
She only had a matter of time to get the papers to the publisher. She glanced down at the rather large reticule in her grasp. Old and tattered, the metal clasp struggled to shut fast these days, but it served its purpose. Large enough to stuff the papers inside for her latest article, it would do for now.
Hitching the skirt of her poor gown up around her ankles, she sprinted down the next street, cutting through the market of Covent Garden. Already, at this early hour of the morning, the roads were full of sellers.
Ladies carrying fresh milk pails on their shoulders angled their heads to look her way as she hurried past them, probably just a blur of dark blonde hair that was falling out of her updo. Mengathered at stalls bearing salted beef and fresh oysters that had reached London that morning on the Thames also looked her way.
She ignored them all. Usually entranced by the excitement in the streets and how the people ran their days, she would often sit in this street and watch people go about their business.
She darted down another street, one she hoped would be quieter, and ended up in a part of London she usually liked to avoid. This was the road occupied by the ladies of the night, those who offered their bodies up for a price.
Two people pressed against a wall made Becca stop sharply. The lady had her skirt up around her hips as the man pressed up against her made such a guttural sound; it left little to the imagination.
Becca backed up as hurriedly as she could, leaving the road quickly and glancing back only once. Her face blushed red, and she laughed, trying to hide the sound behind her gloved hand as she moved on again.
Growing up in the streets of London, Becca had seen many such things quite by accident. What men and women could do together was something she was well aware of, though as she left this road, strangely, she felt a curiosity making her glance back again. It was a curious sensation she had never had before, butfor the first time, she wondered what it could be like to share in such a thing.
Shaking her head, she shed such thoughts from her mind and returned to the busy streets of Covent Garden. These were the roads she preferred to occupy. Sometimes, she would sit for hours to watch people go about their business. Most of all, she was interested in the members of thetonwho would wander into the market later in the day.
The ladies walked with their noses high, their lady’s maids following behind them carrying boxes from the modiste shops. The teahouses also fascinated her, filled with ladies and gentlemen, either sharing the most fashionable tea leaves brought in from India and China, or hot chocolate to warm their bones in these winter months.
“Watch out!” another man called to Becca as she rounded a corner, narrowly missing colliding with the man’s nose as he waved in the air with the early-morning paper. The sight of the ready-printed papers made her stomach knot all the more.
“My apologies,” she called, skirting around him and avoiding the papers and the boys who stood behind him, demanding money with their open palms dirtied with mud.
At the end of the road, she could see her destination, at last. People wandered back and forth in front of it, all too busy with their own business to notice the tiny red-brick building, pressedbetween others, with the chimneys smoking from the rooftops. Those fires not only kept the workers inside the print house warm but kept the machinery and printing presses going, too.
Becca reached for the door, but found it locked, the old cold handle pressing through her thin glove. A particular hole in her glove, frayed and torn from years of use, made the cold more noticeable on the palm of her hand.
“Oh, no,” she mumbled, knocking relentlessly on the door. She didn’t desist, but just kept knocking, fearful that her frantic tap would not be heard above the clacking of the machinery beyond the door.
“That you, Becca?” a voice called from inside, heavily accented with the notes of East London that were all so familiar to Becca these days.
“Charlotte? I’m here, I’m here at last.”
“You do like to leave it close to the wire these days, eh?” The door opened and the face of Charlotte Sanders appeared on the other side of the door. Her dark auburn hair, swept up behind her head, had a loosely curling fringe across her forehead, which only went a little way to masking the ink stains that dappled her forehead and cheeks.
She wiped such ink stains from her fingers on her printing apron as she humorously looked Becca up and down. “Well, Miss Rebecca Thornton, what time do you call this?”
“You turning into your mother?” Becca asked, clutching her chest as she tried to catch her breath.
“Slowly, I am.” Charlotte chuckled. “This way. As always, my mother has been mitherin’ to read your writin’.”
Becca smiled at her good friend’s warm accent as she stepped into the print house, allowing the door to close behind her.
“Did I miss it?” Becca asked in a panic, reaching into her reticule and pulling out her papers.
“No, but you didn’t leave it far off, mind you.” Charlotte eyed her warily, her dark green eyes narrowing to slits as she led the way through the front office.
Becca barely glanced at the office, for it was something of a front for if they ever had a member of thetoncome to their establishment. Most work was conducted in the back rooms and in the print house itself, for Charlotte’s parents had no qualms and false airs about their business. They preferred to be hands-on, and as Charlotte’s mother said, ‘No one will see the workthrough but ourselves.’ It was such a lesson that Becca had taken it to heart years ago.
If I had not pushed my own writing, I still wouldn’t have been published.
