Page 2 of The Confessions of a Lady
The corrupt band of blue bloods who called themselves the Devil’s Sons seduced young country girls to the bustling streets of London with promises of getting positions as maids in lofty houses. But when the women came to interview, they were drugged instead and shipped across the Channel to France for a life of untold horror in Europe’s flesh markets. Ferreting out the members of this group was proving increasingly difficult, as evidenced by the commissioner’s willingness to pay for proof of their guilt.
Penny bit her cheek. She was so close to reaching her goal. Not just earning enough money to pay Harriet’s release fee, but setting her mother up with a room in a lodging house in Cheapside where she would have a clean bed, food, and more safety than prison or the streets could offer. Penny’s wages weren’t nearly enough to pay the exorbitant fees demanded by corrupt jailors, but she could afford rent for her mother when Harriet was finally released.
That’s why Penny needed to get evidence against Lord Renquist, and fast. She would free her mother while helping Constable Sweet, the commissioner, and Prime Minister Russell destroy an evil, flesh-trading ring one lord at a time.
Not bad for an illiterate maid born in the gutters of St Giles, raised in the Steel, and earning her living cleaning piss pots for pampered toffs.
And to take down the Marquess of Stoneway? Finally give the man the comeuppance he deserves? Justice is rarely so sweet.
Lord Renquist was one of the lords who supported the Vagrancy Act of 1838 just as his father supported the original Act in 1824. That cruel law caused her family’s imprisonment in the Middlesex House of Correction, better known to the inmates housed there as the Steel.
When her father returned home from the Battle of Waterloo with no job prospects and no money, they slept rough for weeks until the bobbies picked them up for vagrancy.
Penny’s childhood was full of picking oakum, sifting sand, and staying silent for endless hours in the cell she shared with her mother. All thanks to Lord Renquist and rich toffs just like him.
Her mother still slept rough on occasion when jobs ran thin and she lost wages. Penny would have helped if she knew how dire things had become for Harriet, but her mother was proud and refused to ask her daughter for the precious pennies meaning the difference between sleeping in a bed or huddling in a shadowed stoop night after night. Six months ago, Harriet was swept up once more into prison for the heinous crime of homelessness.
Some of the same lords who signed off on the Vagrancy Act were rumoured members of the Devil’s Sons. The bastards perpetrated sins against innocent girls with no consequences while simultaneously guaranteeing the poor people of London – including Penny’s mother – remained firmly under their polished boots.
Not for much longer. Not if I can find the evidence I need. At least one poncy lord will dance at the end of a rope for his crimes.
Cold delight bubbled in her blood like lye.
Lord William Renquist, the Marquess of Stoneway, was the physical embodiment of everything Penny hated. She had never met him, but it wasn’t hard to imagine his lordship. Wealthy. Excessive. Arrogant. Cruel. Finding evidence against him would be a pleasure. Just imagining his fall from the ivory tower she cleaned filled her with joy.
Penny’s thoughts drifted again to her mother. An oily film of guilt dissolved her pleasant daydreams of Lord Renquist’s destruction. She knewexactlyhow vile and violent the prisons were, especially for the vulnerable. Harriet was getting older, weaker, and she was alone.
Growing up in the Steel, Penny learned well how to battle for her survival and protect those she loved. A trapped animal was the fiercest of creatures. She gained skills only developed in the darkest corners of the filthiest cells. Strike first. Strike hard. Find the vulnerable spots. Groin, throat, armpit, eyes, toes, fingers. Penny did whatever must be done to win. To keep herself and her mother safe. But she couldn’t protect Harriet by scrubbing floors in a Belgrave mansion while her mother cowered in a dank, dark, stone cell.
Just imagining her mother’s suffering was enough to refuel Penny’s determination. Finding evidence against Lord Renquist and earning her reward money was the only way Penny could rescue her mother. She would do what she must to get Harriet out. Because Penny was still a trapped animal, even if her cage had clean floors, sparkling windows, and a warm bed.
Watching Constable Sweet pack tobacco into his pipe, gratitude and guilt filled her in equal measure. He wouldn’t light the thing until he was on his way home, but the sweet scent of hisparticular blend filled her with a sense of comfort. If it wasn’t for the constable’s help getting Penny her first position as a maid in a middle-class household ten years prior, she would still be in a cell with her mother.
‘These rich toffs in the House of Lords would rather have poor people rotting in prison – or even better, decaying in graves – than begging on the streets.’ Penny shook her head, her foot tapping incessantly on the stone steps leading down from the kitchen to the mews. A frigid wind blew across the cobblestones, tugging at her hair and whipping her wrapper around her legs. ‘The dirty bastards deserve to be tossed out of their fine houses, work in the muck with the rest of us, and understand what it means to have nothing… be nothing… before they make their fancy laws to “help London’s most unfortunate”.’
‘Careful, lass. That sounds awfully close to treason.’
Penny clenched her teeth and breathed deep through her nose, willing herself to remain calm, cold, calculating. Her rage would help no one if she allowed it to diffuse her focus. Penny had worked hard to school her emotions, be carefully neutral, hide the lessons she learned in prison, and move up the serving ranks as a demure and obedient domestic. But in this unguarded moment with one of her most trusted friends, hatred slipped out unbidden.
‘I forgot myself, Constable Sweet. Sometimes, it just seems so hopeless.’ With her anger dissipating, depression sought to take its place. She pushed against the blackness, refusing to become despondent when so much depended on her being successful in this mission.
‘Little dove, you know it’s a waste of time to focus your energy on those rich blighters. Keep your mind here, on your investigations. You’re a right sharp tack. You’ll find a way.’
Constable Sweet’s affectionate words warmed the cold ball of frustration twisting in Penny’s belly. He made a worthy point.Railing against the rich bastards who cared nothing for the inconsequential – like Penny and her mother – wouldn’t help her find evidence against the Marquess of Stoneway. She needed to focus on discovering irrefutable proof to put a noose around the neck of one of these Devil’s Sons.
‘You’re right. Of course you are. I shall redouble my efforts.’ Penny forced more confidence into her voice than she felt.
‘The letters are the key, Penny. You’ll know them by the seal. These men all use the same seal on their messages. If you can find those letters, it’s proof he’s one of ’em.’
Penny nodded. ‘Head of a crow, body of a wolf, tail of a snake. Yes. I know. If the letters are here, I swear I shall find them.’
‘I only wish I could do more for you. I’ll keep my ear to the ground at the station, let you know if I hear anything that can help.’ Constable Sweet rubbed a hand through his thinning, grey hair. ‘You know, dove, I might have some blunt to share if I hadn’t married a woman addicted to new dresses and fripperies.’
Penny smiled despite the dire circumstances. Constable Sweet often complained of his wife’s extravagant tastes, but he didn’t fool Penny. The dear man would do anything for his lady-wife. They had been a love match, something as rare as gold in Penny’s limited experience. She shook her head, a mahogany curl escaping her cap before she viciously tucked it away. ‘No. You’ve already done so much for us. I couldn’t take your coin.’
‘Even if I had it to give.’ Constable Sweet’s lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘But my dear Mrs Sweet likes her lace and finery, and who am I to deny the woman when she’s given up so much to be with me?’
Penny had never met Constable Sweet’s wife, but she knew the woman was once the daughter of a count. She refused a prestigious marriage to a viscount to follow her heart and wed a common man. Constable Sweet would bend over backward tokeep her happy. It was the kind of romantic relationship one read about. If one could read.
