The Confessions of a Lady (The Queen’s Deadly Damsels #3)

Chapter 1

1

BELGRAVE SQUARE, LONDON, MARCH 1848

Penny Smith huddled in the dark alcove of Lord William Renquist’s servants’ entrance to the kitchen.

Why must clandestine meetings always happen in the middle of the night?

Especially when the middle of the night in London was bloody freezing, even as spring started to sweeten the soot-stained air.

Why not teatime on a sunny Thursday afternoon with buttery shortbread and lemon tarts?

She had never been treated to afternoon tea and tarts, though she’d certainly served her fair share to the lords and ladies employing her.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

But dreams didn’t change the weather. She hugged her arms around her in the dark alcove – nary a tart in sight – and tried to think warm thoughts. It didn’t help. Shivering, she hopped from one foot to the other.

‘Have you found anything yet? I know it’s only been two weeks, but…’ Constable Sweet’s ragged face, more familiar to her than her own father’s, creased into lines of concern. ‘He’s set to arrive tomorrow, or I ’spose it’s today now, eh little dove?’ He pulled a pocket watch from his vest and squinted at its face. ‘Nearly two in the mornin’ and ’ere we are still scuttling about.’

Penny tamped down her growing frustration.

She knew it was two in the morning because she needed to be setting coal in the fireplaces in three short hours.

She knew Lord Renquist was scheduled to return to his Belgrave mansion today because the housekeeper, Mrs Harding, had turned into a dictator of domestic duties even the dreaded Little Boney Bonaparte would have found intimidating.

She knew her time was running out to find evidence against Lord Renquist because the clock ticked ever closer to his arrival.

And she knew digging around in his personal belongings while he was in residence would prove much more challenging than when he was languishing in some lavish country estate in the north because she wasn’t an idiot.

She didn’t need Constable Sweet to remind her. These facts plagued her like… well, like the plague.

‘I’m trying my best, Constable Sweet, but Mrs Harding doesn’t leave a body much time to breathe, let alone snoop in places I’m not meant to be.’ Penny took a deep breath and forced calm into her voice. ‘She’s got all the servants in a frenzy preparing for the bastard’s return.’

It’s hardly Constable Sweet’s fault I’ve found no evidence.

The poor man had done more for her than any other person. The last thing the constable needed was Penny’s ire when it should rightly be focused on herself for failing in her mission.

Constable Sweet lay a heavy hand on her arm, squeezing gently. His scent of tobacco and peppermint comforted her more than a warm blanket in the frigid air.

‘I know you’re doing your best, dove.’

But her best wasn’t good enough.

‘I just need more time, Constable Sweet.’ The words rang hollow even to her own ears.

‘Time is the one thing we don’t have. If it wasn’t for your mother’s situation, I’d never ask you to risk so much. But she’s taking it harder this time. I do what I can, but I’m not working in the prison any more.’ Constable Sweet winced and Penny’s soul suffered another crack as she thought of her mother. The constable’s eyes drooped at the corners, giving him the look of a perpetually depressed dog. ‘I can’t protect her as well as I used to with my new position taking up so many hours. I’ve got a man inside watching out for her when he can, but you know how difficult it is in there. You’ve already lost your father. I couldn’t stand to see you lose your mother as well.’

Penny swallowed hard. Guilt and despair tugged at her. But slipping into the quagmire of regret wouldn’t help her mother. The only parent she’d known. The one person who sacrificed everything to protect her. Penny’s father died when she was just eight years old, but he had been absent from her life the moment they were imprisoned for vagrancy when she was only two. Men and women were sent to different buildings and not allowed to communicate during their sentences. Thirty days of hard labour turned into years when inmates couldn’t afford to pay their release fees.

Penny’s heart held a blank space for Patrick Smith, a shadowy figure with no shape or scent. A ghost of what had once been a son, soldier, husband, and father before dying in a prison cell as one more nameless convict. Conversely, Harriet Smith’s deep-brown eyes, her silver-streaked hair, her scent of rosemary and linseed, the sound of her voice, low and soft, were as clear to Penny now as the last time she saw her mother, six long months ago.

A dangerous amalgamation of hope and fear seeped into the fractures of Penny’s heart. Hope she might earn the money needed to rescue her mother; fear she might fail.

I can’t lose Mother in that black hole of a prison. I won’t!

If Harriet died in prison, the gaping wound left in Penny’s soul would never heal.

Coughing into his sleeve, Constable Sweet continued. ‘Commissioner Worthington has promised to pay well for any evidence against these ghastly Devil’s Sons. He and the prime minister are determined to bring these men to justice. The reward money is more than enough to pay off your mother’s guards and get her out.’

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 knew exactly how 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 his particular 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 to keep her happy. It was the kind of romantic relationship one read about. If one could read.

One day, I will learn my letters. When Mother’s safe, and I’m settled in a fine house as a lady’s maid.

It was a fond dream, much like Constable Sweet and his wife’s marriage. They almost gave Penny reason to believe in romance. Almost. But sacrificing personal autonomy on the altar of matrimony seemed too great a risk. It certainly hadn’t worked out for her mother. Penny’s father took more than her mother’s heart with him when he died in the Middlesex House of Corrections. He took her chance of ever having safety. Security. Freedom. Penny learned young and well the only person she could depend on was herself. Her wits, work ethic, and cunning.

Wits, work ethic, and cunning she needed to employ with far more vigour. She would find the letters linking Lord Renquist to the Devil’s Sons and their horrific crimes. She would turn them over to Constable Sweet and collect her reward. Then she would free her mother and get her settled into a common lodging until Penny could afford better. She would find her dream job as a lady’s maid in a wealthy house, a position paying significantly higher wages than those of a simple house domestic. She would finally be at peace.

I was a good lady’s maid. Even if I only worked for Lady Drake a short time.

Constable Sweet’s connections helped secure her a place in Major General Beaufort Drake’s household a month after her mother’s imprisonment. She worked for his then fiancée, Miss Millicent Whittenburg. The young lady wasn’t what Penny had expected. Resourceful, courageous, and ever so kind to Penny. It was a shame the whole job had been a ruse. Still, Miss Millicent – now Lady Drake – had been so pleased with Penny’s work, she wrote a glowing letter of recommendation despite being upset at her maid’s departure. Penny would have stayed if she could, but that was impossible.

Her job as Millicent’s maid was the first she’d taken with an ulterior motive. To find evidence against the Devil’s Sons. Constable Sweet cooked up the idea and helped place her in Major General Drake’s household, granting Penny closer proximity to Lord Reynard Renquist, the Marquess of Stoneway’s younger brother. Reynard was rumoured to have ties with the Devil’s Sons despite his friendship with the honourable Major General Drake.

She was close to proving Reynard’s connections, but her investigation into the matter was rudely interrupted by the man’s untimely – and in Penny’s opinion – highly suspicious death. Unfortunately, coming close to proving something didn’t mean sixpence to stitches. Reynard was dead and Penny hadn’t been able to connect him to the Devil’s Sons. If she had completed that mission, the reward money would already be hers and Harriet would be sleeping in a warm bed with food in her belly and clean clothes on her back.

But Penny had failed, and her mother suffered the consequences.

Her new mission was the brother. Major General William Renquist, Marquess of Stoneway. By all reports a much more wily adversary. It only made sense Reynard’s older, more dangerous, more mysterious brother was likely a member of the Devil’s Sons. He must have paved the way for Reynard’s admittance into the filthy fraternity despite the younger brother’s lack of wealth or power… two things William Renquist held in abundance. Two things the Devil’s Sons demanded from their members.

‘Constable Sweet, I know I failed in our first mission. After everything you did to get me my position in Lord Drake’s household – and now what you’ve done to place me here – I’m forever in your debt. I won’t let you down. I’ll find evidence against this wretched man. I swear it.’ Her voice shook with the weight of her determination. Evidence against a member of the peerage as high as a marquess – only one step beneath a duke – would gain Penny her much-needed blunt and allow Constable Sweet to rise in the ranks of the Metropolitan Police. They already agreed Constable Sweet would present any evidence she found and give her the reward money while he took the prestige of discovery. It was a fair trade as Penny had no desire for notoriety and Constable Sweet was in no need of the money.

‘Never you mind about what I’ve done. None of it matters if I can’t keep you and your mother safe. Lord knows you’ve suffered your fair share.’ Constable Sweet lowered his gaze and shook his head. ‘No little dove deserves to grow up in a prison.’ He and his lady-wife had never been blessed with children and he’d often likened Penny to the daughter he’d never had. He hunched into his coat, pulling a woollen scarf higher around his ears. ‘You best be getting out of this cold and back to your room before that Mrs What’s-’er-face catches you. The last thing we need is for you to get dismissed.’

She nodded. ‘I was able to sneak away after bedtime two nights past, but the confounding woman caught me just as I was leaving the servants’ quarters.’ Penny almost had her ears boxed, but quick thinking saved her, as it usually did. ‘I told her one of the other maids had left her penny dreadful in the kitchen and was too scared to come down and retrieve it, so I offered to do so. Mrs Harding sent me back to my room and told me if she found the novel, she would toss it in the fire where it belonged.’ Lovely woman, Mrs Harding. A delicate flower caught by whimsy and wrapped in maternal instincts. Penny almost snorted at her own joke.

‘Go on with you, little dove. Get inside where it’s warm.’

Penny’s lips twitched into a soft smile. ‘I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me, Constable Sweet. If it weren’t for you…’ She let the sentence die.

‘Stuff of nonsense. What have I done that any other blighter wouldn’t have? I’ve known you since you were a wee mite. I’ll always do best by you, dove.’

A light caught Penny’s attention through the wavering glass of the kitchen window. Someone was coming down the hall.

‘Quick now! Off you go. We can’t have Mrs Har-ser-what’s-it catching you out ’ere with the likes of me.’ Constable Sweet pushed on the latch to the kitchen door and scooted Penny inside. She watched him scuffle into the darkness before swiftly turning to face the dreaded Mrs Harding.

Penny needed an excuse. Fast.

The lantern light grew brighter as heavy footsteps echoed on the wooden floor.