Chapter Five
S pinster House was welcoming, bursting with flowers and the scents of tea and warm currant scones wafting from one of the drawing rooms.
Priya did not lead Kitty to the drawing room.
Instead, they climbed the stairs to Priya’s study, where Evie waited. The walls were painted with dramatic red dahlias, and there were gold candlesticks and gilded pots filled with orchids and jasmine. It smelled like earth and leaves and the tea cooling on the mahogany table: cinnamon and cardamom and other spices Kitty could not name. There were ledgers stacked on the windowsill behind her and a small statue of a cheerful man with an elephant’s head.
Someone had brought Evie a towel, for which Kitty was grateful. Evie was using it to wring water from her hair. “Kitty! There you are. Thank you for rescuing Galahad.”
Kitty set down the cage as Priya sat in a chair carved with lilies. Mr. Gallagher shut the door behind him and leaned against it, very much at his ease and also clearly very much her protector.
“Where’s the bloody knife I gave you?” he asked calmly, his Irish lilt soft. His blue eyes were not at all soft, though they were fond. Kitty was quite certain no one had ever looked at her that way in the whole of her life. Something too akin to envy prickled through her.
“I have this.” Priya held up one of the many gardening tools tucked into her thick apron. A clod of dirt fell directly on a sugared scone sitting on a painted porcelain plate that likely cost more than Kitty’s entire wardrobe. Priya did not notice.
“That’s a trowel, love,” Mr. Gallagher pointed out, amused. Mostly amused. Somewhat amused.
“It worked, didn’t it?” She stabbed at an imaginary enemy. “I do not care for that man.” Not so imaginary, then.
“Don’t worry, you have ten times more secrets in your little finger then he can even dream of,” he assured her.
She preened for a moment, a glimpse into her true self, before Lady Priya, director of the Spinster Society took hold again. Her posture changed, the tilt of her head. “Miss Kitty Caldecott.”
Kitty was getting tired of the way people said her name—suspicious, faintly derisive.
Even if she deserved it.
She nodded once, biting back every sharp comment she no longer had any right to make. This was a mess of her own making. She would take her just deserts. For Evie.
And because she was truly sorry, though no one was likely to believe her. And it changed nothing, not really.
“Is Clara here?” Kitty asked quietly.
“Clara is in Scotland on her honeymoon,” Priya said. “You’ll have to wait to apologize to her.”
Kitty had already apologized. But she was happy to do so again. As many times as it took. She missed her friend.
Evie frowned. “Why does she have to apologize?”
Kitty’s smile felt strained and desperate on her face. “Evie, please. Let it be.”
Evie did not stop frowning. If anything, she resorted to an outright scowl. “All my sister does is work at her shop selling books, where she has to put up with appallingly rude behavior. I assure you, she does not have time to do anything else, certainly nothing requiring an apology.”
If only that were true.
Priya, thankfully, only looked impressed. Some of the roiling panic in Kitty’s chest abated. Evie would not suffer for her mistakes.
“Evie,” Kitty said, “Lady Priya is quite right. I do owe someone an apology.” She looked at Priya pleadingly. “But I was told it would not affect the help my sister needs.” They could not wait for Clara to return from Scotland. That could take weeks . They did not have minutes even to spare.
After a considering moment, Priya sighed. “That is correct.”
Relief made Kitty’s exhalation loud and shaky. She swallowed it back. “Thank you.” Evie was still scowling. Kitty shook her head once, pleading. “My sister has drawn the unfortunate attention of Lord Portsmouth.”
Priya’s eyes narrowed. Mr. Gallagher swore under his breath. Evie started to look truly nervous, abruptly aware that her sister had not been overreacting.
“He came to our house at dawn with a carriage bound for Gretna Green.”
“He planned to abduct her.”
It was not a question. Kitty answered anyway. “Yes. With my aunt’s assistance. And my father’s.”
Priya’s expression was a terrifying thing. It was also a comfort that reached into Kitty’s chest and pried some of the thorns free. “That is unacceptable.”
“Our father owes money to many men, most of them just like Portsmouth,” Kitty forced herself to say. “But most of all to Lord Portsmouth.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t know where else to hide her while we consider our options.” It did not need pointing out that the difference in their social standing was vast. Insurmountable.
“We crawled out the window and over the rooftop,” Evie said, passing the towel to Kitty.
“Without shoes,” Priya said. She had heard the command Devil threw at her. “That, at least, we can remedy straightaway. And find you proper clothing.”
“Thank you. Can Evie stay here?” Kitty did quick calculations in her head as to how many books she would have to sell to cover the cost of meals and anything else Evie might require. She would have to part with her prized edition of The Mysteries of Udolpho that had once belonged to her author Ann Radcliffe herself. There was a collector who had been coveting it for months.
“Of course she can,” Priya said as though that had never been in question. “That’s why we’re here. Because men like Portsmouth have the run of Society and they don’t deserve it.”
“Did he really murder all three of his wives?” Evie asked in a small voice.
“Yes,” Priya said bluntly. “But he shan’t have you. ”
Evie and Kitty were shown the library, parlors, and a room built over a large pool of water for swimming. Kitty had never seen anything like it. She had not known such things even existed. There were plants everywhere, giant, soft ferns, spikes of lilies that scented the air, delicate orchids, lemon trees and hibiscus from India.
They were introduced to the other ladies in the house: Ladies Emmeline and Matilda, and a Miss Cunningham, who was being taught how to wield a sword in the ballroom. Kitty wondered if they would lend her a sword. Perhaps if she poked Lord Portsmouth with it enough times he would bugger off.
Unlikely.
And she did not like the idea of passing the problem on to some other woman, some other older sister.
Finally they were taken to a small bedroom on the third floor, with a yellow-striped coverlet on the bed and a lovely view of Hyde Park through the window. There was a chair in the corner, a writing desk, and an armoire filled with dresses for women of every size. Evie was clearly not the first girl to be hidden in this room.
“This one should fit you well enough.” Evie handed Kitty a deep rose walking dress trimmed with ribbons and silver buttons.
“I can’t wear that.”
“It will flatter you.”
“It’s meant for a lady,” Kitty pointed out. “Furthermore, for a lady who is about to promenade or dance a quadrille, or whatever it is proper ladies do. I will stain it with ink and dust and God knows what within ten minutes of being at the shop. Especially if that sour old Mrs. Battersea keeps throwing rotten eggs at the door.” It was a lovely fabric, though, a thin muslin so soft Kitty could not help but stroke it once. Then she reached for a perfectly presentable dress in a dark blue with white stripes. “This will do well enough.”
“There’s not a single ruffle to that.”
“I’m too short for ruffles.”
“Too stubborn, you mean. You know I have a better eye for these things.”
“Why are we arguing about ruffles?”
She knew she ought to tell her sister what she had done to Clara, but then Evie would insist on taking on some of the culpability, feeling as though it were her fault because Kitty did what she did in her determination to protect her. But it was Kitty’s fault entirely.
Well, perhaps her father and her aunt could shoulder a little blame for putting them in this blasted predicament in the first place.
“Aunt Priscilla will eviscerate you,” Evie said as Kitty washed her feet in a basin and changed into the dress and a pair of walking boots more comfortable than any pair she had every owned. “Perhaps you ought to hide here as well.”
“I can handle Aunt Priscilla.”
“I’m not sure the entirety of the British Royal Navy could handle her.” Evie’s tone was wry, but she sat on the edge of the bed, looking lost, clutching Galahad’s gold cage to her chest.
“Try not to worry,” Kitty said. “No one would think to look for you here. And I shall sort it out.”
“How?”
“I have a few ideas up my sleeve.”
She had no ideas up her sleeve. None. Not a single blasted one.
She smiled. Comfortingly.
Evie grimaced. “Not that smile again. You’ll scare Galahad.”
Kitty kissed the top of her head. “There is a library here, and that pool for swimming. The ballroom is full of weapons. I’m quite envious.”
“Do you think Priya would let me help with the gardens?”
“I don’t see why not.” Kitty hugged her hard. Galahad made a sleepy sound of protest when the cage tilted. “No letters. Don’t tell anyone where you are, not even your friends.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Priya was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, gold gleaming at her ears and wrists. She cut a half-wilted bud off a peony plant with brutal efficiency. “Miss Caldecott, a moment, if you please.”
Kitty nodded and followed her down the hall and out into the greenhouse, warm and smelling of dark mud and green leaves and every kind of bright flower. With Hyde Park hulking behind, you would never guess London also waited beyond, full of coal smoke and the stinking Thames heating up under the summer sun.
Priya moved to a bank of lily of the valley, examining the leaves for Kitty knew not what. She seemed well satisfied, though, and moved on to a lemon tree in a clay urn. “Clara warned me you might seek our help for your sister,” she said. “And we will help, as I said. Of course we will. Just as we would help you , though I am thoroughly cross with you.”
“I deserve it.”
Priya watched her through narrowed eyes for a long moment before sighing. “You’re taking all the fun out of my righteous indignation.”
Kitty nearly smiled. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop that.”
“Sor—” She cut herself off.
Priya did smile, though briefly. “I remember you, you know.”
Kitty was surprised. “You do?”
“You send women our way more than anyone else.”
“Ah.” Kitty nodded. “It’s the shop, you see. The kinds of books I sell. Ladies either see me as someone who is dangerous or someone who is safe.”
“And you have chosen safe.”
She winced. “Mostly.”
“Yes. That business with Clara.”
“Yes.” Kitty rubbed at her breastbone.
Priya sighed again, thoroughly disgruntled. “Clara says she has forgiven you, so I suppose I ought to as well.”
“I will regret it every day.” Kitty had lost a true friend. Not lost —tossed away. Betrayed.
“To be fair,” Priya continued, “had I a sister, there is nothing I would not also do to keep her from Portsmouth. And I would also have done the same for any of my friends to be quite honest.”
“Thank you.”
“Do stop being so polite—it’s disconcerting.”
Kitty relaxed her very stiff, very proper posture. A little.
Priya nodded at her thoughtfully. “You are not out in Society, I gather?”
“My father is barely a baron, and mostly by chance. He invented something no one will discuss that the king and his men found useful in the war. But he is now thoroughly paupered,” Kitty replied drily. “So, no.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“You are not missing much. And anyway, you are far more useful to me if you are not a debutante.”
“A spinster, more like.”
“Even better.” Priya grinned.
Kitty smiled back. “I suppose so.”
“You could stay here, you know. With your sister. You would be safer.”
“I would,” Kitty agreed. “But she wouldn’t.”
“Oh dear.”
“What is it?”
“I’m beginning to like you. That won’t do at all.”
“I did think about running,” Kitty admitted. “But we’d never be able to stop, and I don’t have the funds to keep us safe on the road for more than a week at most. We could ruin her, of course, demolish her reputation, but Portsmouth…”
“Would still have his revenge.” Priya tucked a sprig of rosemary into her apron. Kitty had never seen rosemary grow to the size of a small tree before. “I’m afraid you’re quite correct on that score. He has already told half of Mayfair that he is marrying your sister. That alone is enough to guarantee the outcome in his mind.”
Kitty swore. He would never let them get away now. Not with his pride so thoroughly in the mix.
“I wish I had more to offer,” Priya muttered. “We have been trying to find proper evidence to damn him, but there’s nothing so far. I do so hate it when they are clever. I can tell you that his last wife is not officially dead—she is missing.”
Kitty perked up. “Really?” If she could find Lady Portsmouth, Evie would be safe. The House of Lords and Parliament did not look favorably upon bigamy. Murder, they turned a blind eye to.
“There’s not much to go on. Lady Caroline Portsmouth has done an excellent job of disappearing, for which I applaud her.”
“Unless Portsmouth is behind it.”
“Unless that, yes. And he is great friends with the Marquis of Eastbourne. They are thick as thieves, which I cannot like.”
The same marquis who had imprisoned several women in his cellars in order to control their fortunes.
Kitty was in over her head.
“I won’t send you in unarmed,” Priya murmured.
A small thrill of excitement snuck through Kitty’s anxiety-tensed muscles. “I would love a weapon. Something pointy.”
“Matilda will sort you out. In the meantime, I suggest you stay far away from this house. I’m not certain Portsmouth wouldn’t think to have us watched. We are not popular with Eastbourne’s friends. We make them nervous,” Priya said smugly. “You cannot be seen anywhere nearby.”
“I understand.” Kitty was in no less dire circumstances, but she did feel less tossed about, less hopeless. She understood a little better now the way Clara had spoken about the society, and about Priya.
“I do wish I could do more, but my Spinsters are spread very thin at the moment and our newest member is far too green to go up against someone like Portsmouth. Oh, and Kitty?”
She paused in the doorway. “Yes?”
“How well do you know Lord Birmingham?”
“Devil? As well as you’d expect, which is not at all.”
“Careful there.”
When Lady Priya Langdon, Keeper of the Secrets of the Most Powerful People in England, told you to be careful—you’d best be careful.