Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

MRS. SOUTHERLAND

T he knock on the parlor door stopped their laughing reminiscences.

"Enter!" Mrs. Southerland called out, setting her teacup down, her cheeks rosy and her eyes twinkling from shared laughter. She was a stout, older woman of some five-and-sixty winters.

Gwinnie set her cup down as well, then blotted the corners of her mouth with her serviette.

She and Mrs. Southerland sat together in the Pomona-green parlor of Mrs. Southerland's House for Unfortunate Women, for their Friday afternoon discussion of the week's activities.

For the women who called Mrs. Southerland's house their home for a time, it was their day for shopping with the coins they'd earned for their diligence in lessons; for others, it was their time to be household staff in the hopes they would learn all that was proper for a maid in a great house. Mrs. Southerland did not run a simple charity house. The unfortunates who found their way to her door and were admitted entry, worked hard to learn lessons that would send them on to other profitable endeavors far out of the stews of London. Those who did not wish to learn lessons or gain a profitable endeavor other than the baud houses, were given clean clothing, a few coins, and wished well on their way, wherever that might be.

Sometimes Gwinnie thought that heartless; however, if this rule was not kept, they would not have accommodations enough for the women who truly needed assistance. That was not acceptable.

Today, Polly Petrie held the role of housemaid. When she opened the door, she crossed her foot too far back as she attempted a curtsy and wobbled, then righted herself.

Gwinnie smiled. The young woman tried hard to learn everything they taught. Sometimes too hard. Gwinnie vowed to work with her next week on her curtsy.

"Pardon, Mrs. Southerland, Miss Knolls, there is a gentleman come to visit." Polly rubbed her hands down the front of her maid's apron as she spoke. A common habit, judging by the streaks Gwinnie saw.

"Who is it?" Mrs. Southerland asked gently.

Polly looked in the corner of the room, her brow furrowed. Then she looked at Mrs. Southerland. "I forgets…" she admitted.

"Well—" Mrs. Southerland began.

"But I gots 'is card," Polly said suddenly, pulling it out of her apron pocket. A wide smile lit her rather plain face and revealed a missing front tooth. She handed the card to Mrs. Southerland.

"Thank you, dear. But do try to remember the names of callers, that could be important in any future position you may hold. Visitors don't all carry cards— though they should, to my mind," she said as she glanced down at the card. "Oh, it's Mr. Martin, Miss Knolls." She looked over at the maid. "Please show him up and bring a refresh of tea and a cup for the gentleman."

Mr. Lewis Martin of Bow Street appeared at the door to the parlor holding his hat and gloves in his hands, still bundled in his scarf and heavy greatcoat against the January cold. Gwinnie compressed her lips against a laugh. More reminders for Polly. She should have taken his outdoor wear. Sometimes the poor woman had a mind like a sieve. Gwinnie vowed she would make her into a good maid— somehow.

"Mr. Martin! What brings you here?" Mrs. Southerland enthused.

He nodded toward Gwinnie. "Lady Guinevere Nowlton's father requested I escort her home."

Gwinnie frowned at him for using her real name and title. At least she and Mrs. Southerland were alone in the parlor. "It's Miss Knolls, and I thought father was sending Jimmie— not that I need an escort, as I've been coming and returning from here on my own for well over a year with nary an issue."

And not that anyone was liable to give her trouble, she thought, given her giantess size and the subdued attire she wore as Sarah Knolls, solicitor's daughter and teacher for the women here at Mrs. Southerland's House for Unfortunate Women. It was the guise she wore to be accepted by the residents. A duke's daughter would scare them into silence and resentment.

Mr. Martin placed his hat and gloves on a table and unwound the gold knitted scarf from around his neck. "He sent word to me this morning that he'd received another threat."

"Another one?" Gwinnie clarified.

"Yes, and after reviewing it, I advised him to take it seriously. This one appears to target the entire family."

Gwinnie grimaced, then waved a hand in the air. "But that doesn't explain why you're here. Ever since he's been receiving these threats, he's had the footmen, Jimmie or Stephen, escort me. Which is perfectly ridiculous as the threats have been against him, not me, and I don't look like a—" She stopped abruptly before she said ‘duke's daughter' when the parlor door opened again to admit Polly, walking backward, carrying a full tea tray.

She couldn't see where she was going. Gwinnie, from across the room, saw Polly's heel catch at the edge of the rug. Gwinnie gasped. Luckily, Mr. Martin was near enough to grab Polly before she fell with the tea tray and its contents all over herself.

Gwinnie and Mrs. Southerland exhaled sighs of relief as Mr. Martin righted Polly and steadied the tray.

"Thank you, Mr. Martin," Mrs. Southerland said. "Polly, now do you understand why we always instruct you ladies to carry the tea tray before you and not walk backward into a room? You can't see where you are going and that is how accidents happen."

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry ma'am." Polly lifted a packet off the tea tray. "This come for yous as I brung the tea from the kitchen."

Gwinnie pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead at Polly's diction, but did not correct her. She and Mrs. Southerland would have to have a discussion about the young woman soon.

"Back to why you are here," Gwinnie said to Lewis, as Mrs. Southerland read the letter.

"Jimmie sprained his ankle," Lewis told her.

"Again? I don't think he let it heal properly from last month's incident," Gwinnie said.

"I believe he is very conscious of his duty to your father."

Gwinnie shook her head, her lips compressed in a sharp line.

"Oh, gracious," she heard Mrs. Southerland exclaim. "This is good news. I must, I must…" She looked around the room, then when her eyes settled on Gwinnie, she stood up excitedly. "Excuse me a moment."

She turned toward her desk set between the windows and dug out a pencil and a stack of paper she had in her desk. She jotted a quick note, then folded the paper she'd written on before returning her writing supplies to the desk.

"I must run a quick errand," Mrs. Southerland said, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining. "You wore your short cape today, correct? Might I borrow it for a few minutes, I'm too excited to run upstairs to fetch my heavy coat."

"Of course," Gwinnie said, looking at the older woman curiously. She'd never seen the white-haired, grandmotherly looking woman this excited. She looked years younger. "But what has happened?"

"This is such good news! I'll tell you all about it on my return. Mr. Martin, sit please; you can stay a few minutes more before you take Miss Knolls away, can't you? Have some tea," she said, her hands waving excitedly.

Mr. Martin laughed. "I should be delighted to. I detect you have received good news?"

"The best." She hugged her arms across her ample chest. "And you should learn all about it on my return. This is so exciting!" she enthused. "I shall not be long," she promised as she rolled out of her chair. She shook out the skirts of her burgundy-with-black, pin-stripe bombazine dress. She settled her fichu with its tatted lace trim, made by a woman who'd been a resident a year ago, around her decolletage, and scurried out of the room, rocking side to side, calling for Polly as she went.

Mr. Martin and Gwinnie looked at each other. "That is the most unusual reaction to any communication I have ever witnessed," Gwinnie said.

"So I gather," Mr. Martin drawled, smiling after Mrs. Southerland, then he turned his brilliant, smiling blue eyes in her direction.

Suddenly Gwinnie felt a trifle uncomfortable alone in Mr. Martin's presence. She felt aware of him in a way she had never had before.

While Mr. Martin stood tall, by society's standards, he wasn't quite as tall as she. Few men were. Yet, there was a presence about Mr. Martin that made him seem taller to her. He had an easy, relaxed manner for all his upright posture and a deceptively relaxed smile that reflected in his always-twinkling blue eyes. He was not a man easily read, as some of the gentlemen of Gwinnie's acquaintance were wont to be. He didn't use pomade on his blond waves to control them, unconcerned for the wild disarray. Not at all what she had come to consider the manner of a Bow Street Runner. And that made her curious— and her heart beat faster.

"So, what should we talk about," she asked, her low voice unusually gruff.

"Music?" he suggested.

"Unfair, you know my weakness," she told him with a little laugh. She poured tea into a cup for Mr. Martin and handed it to him.

"When did you start to play the violin?" he asked.

Gwinnie soon found herself avidly recounting her journey into music. Mr. Martin was a good listener, asking just the right next question to have her talk more. Finally, she wound down, laughing at herself for her enthusiasm for her topic.

"Now you know all about my weakness. But I don't know any of yours. Confess, do you have a weakness?" she asked teasingly.

"Crime," he stated succinctly.

"All your life it has been crime?" she asked.

He cocked his head to the side for a moment. "Well, no," he conceded. "Law preceded crime in my interests. For a time, I studied law at the Inns of Chancery."

"You were going to be a solicitor?"

"My father thought it a good vocation for me. I should have preferred to be a barrister; however, they did not accept me."

"Whyever not?"

He laughed. "Something about being born on the wrong side of the blanket."

A bright red blush suffused her cheeks. Gwinnie didn't know if she was mortified that she'd asked a question that would lead to that answer or mortified that he'd answered truthfully! But Mr. Martin would. He could play a role, as she understood he'd done at her grandmother's house last year, but in other matters, he was a forthright and truthful man. She'd always liked that about him in their past meetings.

Mr. Martin laughed, and Gwinnie's cheeks grew warmer.

"Please don't be embarrassed, La— Miss Knolls," he said easily. "My father had gone to get a special license to marry my mother when I unfortunately decided to enter the world earlier than anticipated. I long ago decided the fault is entirely my own," he said with another of his wry, self-deprecating laughs.

"Nonsense!" Gwinnie protested. "Couldn't they have gotten married on his return and just fudged the dates a little?"

Mr. Martin sighed and shook his head, then ran his fingers through his blond waves. "Not in my mother's and father's circumstances." A melancholy look flashed across his face, then was gone, replaced by his normal wry smile.

Gwinnie wanted to ask more questions, to learn about his parents' circumstances, but she didn't wish to embarrass herself or Mr. Martin further. To still her ready tongue, she picked up her teacup and nearly drained it. What else could they discuss? Maybe the young boy who'd been with him at Versely Park?

"Grandmother said you had a young man with you when you were at Versely Park."

"Daniel. I've taken him in. The boy is amazingly intelligent, the kind of intelligence that could get him into immense trouble as he gets older if someone doesn't channel him in the right way. In my naivety, I vowed to attempt to do so. I don't know how successful I will be— Sometimes I wonder who is teaching whom."

"Where did he come from?"

"He was— still is, if I don't keep him busy— a mudlark, leading a gang of mudlarks. Cheeky devil," he said laughing and shaking his head. "Got your grandmother's housekeeper to have a footman's outfit made for him."

Gwinnie laughed. "I heard about the boy in his footman outfit. Where is he now?"

"At one of Soothcoor's schools. His request."

"He requested to go to school?"

"As I said, he's too int?—"

Bloodcurdling screams came from the back of the house. Mr. Martin jumped up to run toward the sound. Gwinnie felt her blood pounding in her chest as she followed after him. At the door, he stopped.

"Stay here," he ordered.

"Not likely," she countered, brushing past him. Her heart climbed into her throat.

The screams had changed to shrieks. They heard "Mrs. Southerland! No! Mrs. Southerland!"

Gwinnie picked up her skirts and ran faster down the short flight of stairs to the servants' area and the backdoor.

Polly stood frozen in front of the door, staring at it as they heard someone fumbling with the lock. Gwinnie pushed Polly aside. Then the door flew open, two young women fell forward to land in the entry.

The women immediately saw Gwinnie. "Oh, Miss Knolls! Miss Knolls!" they cried, grabbing onto her.

Gwinnie's mind raced in a whirlwind of fear and confusion.

Mr. Martin brushed past the women, not waiting for their words.

Gwinnie tried to set them aside and follow Mr. Martin, but they clung to her.

Polly stood against the wall like an animal too frightened to move.

"Mrs. Southerland," one of the women gasped out. "She's dead!"

"Her throat's cut!" said the other.

Gwinnie recognized the women as Georgia Marke and Harriet Warden. She looked over their shoulders. Mr. Martin was squatting down before a woman's body. In the afternoon's rapidly fading light, she saw a froth of burgundy with black pinstripe over a white petticoat.

Mrs. Southerland.

Gwinnie's blood ran icy in her veins as she realized the truth.

The women were crying, sobbing, clinging to her. Mrs. Southerland would wish her to take care of the living. A few tears leaked down her cheek. Now was not the time! her mind screamed. She pulled herself together.

"Polly!" Gwinnie snapped at the frozen woman. "Where are Mrs. Albert and Miss Wooler?" The housekeeper and the cook should have been there at the back door before them, Gwinnie thought as she guided the sobbing women down the short flight of stairs into the kitchen.

"Th— the Thirsty Pig," Polly stammered. "Fer their Friday nip," she explained. "Is it true? 'Bout Mrs. Southerland."

"I know as much as you," Gwinnie retorted. "Put water on, then find Cook's calming leaves."

"Yes, Miss," Polly said, galvanized into action.

Gwinnie saw one of the women wipe her nose on her sleeve. "Miss Warden! Where is your handkerchief?"

The woman jumped. "Here, Miss," she said, fumbling into her reticule that still hung from her wrist.

"Use it, not your sleeve," Gwinnie ordered. She felt like a monster for reprimanding the woman, but she knew giving instructions would help calm them.

"Miss Knolls, may I speak with you?" said Mr. Martin from the backdoor landing, his voice the opposite of hers, soft and calm.

"Yes, yes, of course," Gwinnie said, stepping out of the kitchen and closing the door behind her, glad to be away from the others.

"What happened?" Gwinnie asked, as she climbed the short flight of stairs to where he stood. "Did she fall?" She heard Miss Woolsey say her throat had been cut, but hoped she'd been mistaken in the growing shadows.

Gone was the handsome and smiling man from the parlor. Mr. Martin grimly shook his head. "Throat slit."

Gwinnie closed her eyes momentarily as she shuddered. "Here!" she said, shaking her head, her mind warring with disbelief. "Here, at the back door?"

He nodded. "I need to get the coroner. Will you be fine here until I return?"

Gwinnie looked back at the kitchen, wanting to be anyplace but here. She straightened. "Yes, I'll be fine," she said firmly, more to herself than Mr. Martin. "And when the women calm down more, I'll ask questions as to what they've seen."

Mr. Martin reached out to squeeze her arm. "I know I can count on you. I'll return as soon as I can."

On another day, another time, she would have been shocked by his touch. Today, she welcomed it. Her thoughts swirled, thinking of the residents. Some were emotionally fragile, and none of them trusted men. The coroner would want an inquest. There would be men about. She had to protect the women, she fiercely decided.

"There will be other women returning from their Friday free afternoon…" she said.

"I've locked the back gate. That should force them to come around to the front."

She grasped Mr. Martin's arm before he could turn to leave. "Soothcoor—do you know if he is in town? He needs to be here."

"He is at his stepmother's estate, Appleton. I'll send word to him— I assume you will be staying here for the night?" he said.

"I can't leave the women alone," she said.

He nodded. "I'll get word to the duke you'll be staying here."

"Thank you."

He started to climb the short flight to the ground floor, but turned back to Gwinnie. "Where is the housekeeper?"

"Down the way at The Thirsty Pig," Gwinnie said disgustedly.

"What is her name?" he asked.

"Mrs. Albert."

He nodded. "I'll send her back here."

"She's with Miss Wooler, the cook."

He snorted inelegantly. "I'll send them both back."

"Thank you," Gwinnie said again, softly this time, her eyes filling with tears.

Mr. Martin swore, then came back down a step and pressed his clean handkerchief into her hand. Without another word, he turned to climb the steps to the ground-floor landing and headed out the door.

Gwinnie turned back to face the closed back door. Throat slit, he'd said. She shivered. She couldn't fathom that. And Mrs. Southerland exuded such happiness not thirty minutes past. It didn't make sense.

She had to see her.

She turned again and walked slowly toward the back door. Her hand shook as she grasped the door handle. She had to see her! Slowly, she opened the door. Evening darkness now claimed the small yard behind the house. She couldn't see color clearly. Gwinnie thought that a blessing. She stepped closer to her friend and mentor. She lay on her right side and back, her right arm pinned beneath her. Her throat cut from one side to another. It looked deeper on the right, but that could have been for how she fell.

Blood saturated Gwinnie's cape and spread across the ground. The cape had been a gift from her brother Lancelot from a trip he'd made to Austria to attend the Congress of Vienna. It had been a beautiful, heavy, gray wool half-cape, embroidered with white flowers and green trailing vines and leaves along the edges.

Gwinnie clenched her trembling hands into fists, desperately trying to hold back the flood of tears threatening to overwhelm her. She hoped the cape had kept Mrs. Southerland warm on her errand. And what had been her errand? Why was she returning through the rear door and not the front?

She felt the tears flow down her cheeks before she realized she was crying. She swiped at her cheeks, then turned back to the house. She hoped Mr. Martin returned quickly with the coroner. She couldn't bear the idea of Mrs. Southerland being out here on the ground all night.

Perhaps she should get a quilt…

Don't be silly, Guinevere! she chided herself, crying harder. She wanted to sink down on the stoop before Mrs. Southerland's body and wallow in misery. But Mrs. Southerland wouldn't approve. As she'd told Gwinnie many times, the women here saw Gwinnie's height as strength and they looked up to her for her strength.

Gwinnie needed to be strong now for the woman who lived here, even though she, herself, felt tiny and lost. This was no time to wallow. She straightened and returned to the kitchen and those who needed her.