Chapter One
“Stop! Stop pushing right now!”
Janelle used the back of her hand to wipe both sweat and a lock of hair out of her eyes.
The room was beastly hot for all that it was early spring in London, but there was no window in this small airless room at the top of the Rose Garden.
Though this was a notorious London whorehouse, it was not the worst place to deliver a baby.
Even better, Janelle—or rather her alter ego Betty Gill—was the one catching the child and not the one trying to push it out feet first.
“I need to move the baby,” she muttered.
“Move it? Where?” Madame Florina snapped.
The woman wasn’t usually this curt, but she’d been up all night keeping several overly enthusiastic customers from destroying her place of business.
Spring in London often brought young men with more money than sense.
As it was now well past tea on the next day, the madame was exceptionally tired.
But babies came on their own schedule.
“Have her pant,” Janelle retorted. “Like a dog.”
Madame Florina rolled her heavily painted eyes, but she obeyed. “Alright Holly, now you listen to the miss and stop working so hard. Stick yer tongue out like a dog and pant.”
“Wot?” Holly gasped back. “W—ieeee!”
Bloody hell, Janelle hated first babes. Everything was small and tight. Give her a mother of six any day. Those ladies popped their children out like a greased pig. With new mothers, Janelle often felt like she was delivering a baby to a babe herself, and neither was ready for it.
“Show her!” she ordered as she pressed down hard on Holly’s belly. The child had to turn. It was the only way.
The soon-to-be mother screamed. Of course, she did, but there was no help for it. Fortunately, it worked. The babe rolled, the contraction took hold furthering the adjustment, and the child finally settled into the place where it ought to be.
“There,” she said with satisfaction as she rocked back on her heels. She really needed a chair or a stool for this kind of work. “Whenever you’re ready, Holly, you give a big push.”
“Wot?”
The girl was exhausted. Her labor had been going on for half a day before Janelle happened to hear Holly screaming.
She’d been trying to buy possets from the madame because Betty Gill had heard rumors of the woman’s magical brew to fight off infections.
If it worked, she might be able to stave off childbed fever.
The whole purchase should have taken less than fifteen minutes. Plenty of time for her to get home and become Janelle. But then she’d heard Holly’s scream.
Every midwife knew the cry of a laboring woman in distress.
She’d heard and couldn’t turn away for all that Janelle had an appointment elsewhere.
But Betty was the best midwife in London.
She knew how to deliver a footling breech.
She also knew that the Rose Garden was much more than a whorehouse.
It was actually a kind of information network that aided women in trouble.
Women like poor Holly who needed a midwife like Betty.
“Push!”
Janelle did what she could to help. She pressed down on Holly’s belly, she silently willed the babe to fight its way out, and she kept a hand ready to catch.
“Again!”
Twice more she commanded Holly. There was a special tone she used when giving orders to a laboring woman. Calm but vehement. In control, and yet powerless to force the mother to obey. It worked about three quarters of the time. Fortunately, Holly was young enough to do exactly as she was told.
Very soon, a squalling, furious, and absolutely perfect baby girl slid into Janelle’s hands.
“And here’s a happy child,” she said, as she always did.
Madame Florina grunted. “She’s not wot I’d call happy.
” The child had a healthy set of lungs on her.
Nevertheless, the madame took the babe and held it tight.
She also pursed her lips and cooed, as so many did with a newborn.
It would be a bit yet before Holly would be able to do the same, but the girl would get there.
Meanwhile, Janelle squatted down, prepared to do the rest of her work. From the doorway of the room, her maid hissed in a loud voice.
“Miss! Missssss! We must go.”
Faye had one job as Janelle’s maid. She had to keep her mistress on time.
Indeed, Janelle had hired her specifically because she was older (almost forty) and could be more responsible than her mistress.
But in this, she had no more authority than Janelle did over a laboring mother.
She could beg, threaten, and command, but it was on Janelle to comply.
“Yes, Faye, I hear you,” she said, her voice calm. “But I’m not done yet.” Women had died when the afterbirth did not come out cleanly. It was Janelle’s job now to see that the end was completed as well as the beginning.
It took another fifteen minutes, which was pretty good time for Holly, not so good for Janelle.
“I’m sorry, I have to go,” she said to Madame Florina.
“You’ve done more than most. I’m grateful,” said the madame. She pressed the babe into the arms of a nearby whore. Holly was too exhausted yet to greet her child.
“We never got a chance to speak about your recipe against fevers.”
The woman nodded. “It’s not mine. I get it from the apothecary nearby. It helps the ladies when they’re cut or torn—”
“Misssss!” Faye called. “We must go.”
“Yes, yes,” Janelle said, frustration making her voice tight. “Please, can I come by tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow!” Faye squeaked.
“I’ll check on Holly and the child—”
“Ack,” Madame Florina grunted. “We know what to do fer her and the babe. But I’ll be pleased to speak with you tomorrow.” A gleam of avarice entered her eyes. “I’ve lots of possets and the like that’ll cure what ails you, too. Some from next door. Some from the gypsies.”
Of course, she did. Everyone in London had a tea or a posset or something else that would fix what ailed you.
Janelle was here because one of the footmen claimed Madame Florina had the best potions in town.
Since the cut on his hand had healed in a surprisingly short amount of time, Janelle had come in search of the recipe so she could experiment with it herself.
Unfortunately, Holly and her babe had interrupted that discussion.
“Tomorrow, then,” she said to Madame Florina.
Then she pulled up her cloak to cover her head and face before heading outside.
It would never do for a baron’s daughter to be seen coming out of a whorehouse.
Of course, it would never do for this baron’s daughter to arrive very late to a ball thrown by her aunt, and she was definitely going to do that.
Faye breathed an audible sigh of relief as they headed down the back stairs. “I told you, miss,” she grumbled, her feet tapping quickly down the stairs. “I told you not to come here.”
She barely had the breath to respond, the woman was going so fast. “It would have taken…fifteen minutes.”
“You didn’t have fifteen minutes, and you took two hours.”
Was it only two hours? It had felt like ten. “We’ll get home in time,” she lied. Fortunately, her father rarely cared what time they left for a ball. His interests put him in the card room which didn’t get going until the second set.
“No, we won’t!” Faye said as she threw open the back door. That took long enough for Janelle to jump down the last set of stairs, then together they rushed outside. “This ball is impor—umph!”
Faye collided body to body with a large man in a dark coat.
That was all Janelle saw before she too stumbled directly into both him and her maid.
A large hand came around her, steadying the three of them.
Janelle bounced back quickly, gasping as she caught her breath.
She could see that the gentleman was still bracing her maid and she categorized details of his appearance in a rapid scan.
He was a gentleman of some worth given the excellent state of his clothing. A large body with broad shoulders and strong arms as he kept Faye from toppling into the dirt. A grim cast to his rugged features. Plus a very nice scent.
Given that she often spent time in close rooms with laboring women, the clean scent of a well-groomed man pleased her. As did his close-cropped hair and clean-shaven face, not to mention the way the sun brightened his dark blue eyes.
She started to smile at him. It was what one did when one bumped into an intriguing man. But that only showed how far she’d forgotten herself. She was not dressed as Betty Gill, right then. She was Miss Janelle Caddick, and she absolutely was not supposed to be coming out of a notorious whorehouse.
Fortunately, Faye remembered.
“Gracious me!” she cried. “Let me go!”
The gentleman’s eyes widened at her maid’s sudden explosion of noise. He pulled back, frowning as Faye continued to thrash.
“Calm yourself,” he commanded as he looked back at Janelle, probably wondering if she had an explanation for her maid’s irrational behavior.
She did. It was a distraction because he could not, should not see her face. Janelle instinctively shrunk down into her cloak, but it was dusk, not night, and she’d just smiled at him!
“Wot are you doing? Unhand me!” Faye screeched, making as much of a commotion as possible.
Understandably, the gentleman took a further step backward at her maid’s vehemence.
Janelle knew that Faye was exaggerating her outrage, pushing the distraction so that Janelle could escape.
There were hackneys nearby. All she need do was dash away and he would never know who the cloaked figure was exiting a notorious whorehouse. Or so she hoped.
But she was loathe to abandon her maid. Ridiculous, really, because they’d both agreed that this was the plan should she run into anyone who might know her. Indeed, Janelle made certain that the woman always carried cab fare for just this happenstance.