Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Henrietta was tired, she was hungry, and she had to relieve herself, but she was not yet in the extremes of agony that could compel her to use the chamber pot in the corner.
A crowd of six women sat around her, suspicious, interested, or watching her with a veiled, quiet hope.
The seventh, the older woman, lay on the pallet of dirty straw, snoring as ashen light poked its way through the window.
Shortly after Henrietta introduced herself, told in detail the enthralling story of how she landed in the watch house, and from there went on to answer their several questions about the life of a nob’s daughter, Mame gave a snort, scratched beneath her stays, and lay down with a grumbling comment that Henrietta was no better than the rest of them, mark her words.
“And they let you learn anything ye want,” one of the girls said. “At this Magdalen ’ouse o’ yours. It ain’t a pushin’ school?”
“No, we set our girls to study proper subjects, if a tutor can be found,” Henrietta said. “Miss Gregoire believes a young woman’s interests ought to be cultivated, and her model is followed by the Sisters of Benevolence.”
“School o’ Venus,” another snorted. “Alls we need is short heels and great diddeys.” She jiggled her bosoms as a third girl giggled.
“Don’t you have a skill you would like to develop?” Henrietta asked. Despite the pressure on her bladder, her fear of these women had eased some hours ago, and she instead found herself interested in their stories. “Isn’t there something you are quite good at?”
The woman laughed, but the sound was not one of mirth. “Aye, there’s a thing or two I’m far good at, an’ it’s why the scouts snapped me, ain’t it? While me randy swell bolts in t’ other direction, cod piece aflap.”
Henrietta refused to blush. Her companions had been making sport of her all night for her ignorance of their work.
They were town women, to use the polite term, taken up by the watch for being loose and idle, or in Mame’s case, disorderly, as she’d been hauled in for drunkenness and attacking her husband with a broom.
Later this morning, the justice of the peace would levy a fine, read them a sermon, and turn them back into the street.
They were, to a girl, suspicious of Henrietta’s claims. They considered London’s Magdalen House the recourse for prostitutes who had grown too old or ill to work.
The Sisters of Benevolence must be a trap, if not a brothel then the sort of establishment that catered to women who served the streets.
They could not conceive of an institution interested in improving the health of their bodies and minds.
“I’m ’andy with a needle,” said Alice, quiet and thin, who had watched Henrietta all evening without comment. She was new to street life and its punishments. She looked about the same age as Mary Ann.
If she were an aristocrat’s sheltered daughter, with every comfort of life available to her, she would be dreaming of her debut and kisses on the hand from suitors eager to claim her dowry.
Instead, she wore lines on her face from poverty, hard weather, and harder use.
She could charge a higher price because she was young and comely and did not have the pox, though in her line of work, disease was a certainty.
“We have heaps of girls we’ve trained in stitchery,” Henrietta said. “And we help them find employment. Many hire out as maids.”
“Not in the gentry kens,” scoffed the girl at her side. “No one as is decent wants a girl like us. Or if they gets us,” she added with a curl of her lip, “you can bet there’s a cove about thinks our past ain’t all be’ind us, eh?”
Henrietta frowned. “We make every effort to ensure that our young women from the Benevolence Hospital go to respectable employers. Roslyn became a dresser to a countess, and Aylwen set up a shop of her own, taking many of the girls with her.”
“I want to dance,” said Belinda. “And no’ in the chorus. I want to be a prima ballerina.”
“Then I see no reason, with determination and good fortune, you should not be so.” Henrietta gave her a warm smile.
“I want to sing,” Lena announced.
Raucous laughter attended this remark, but when it quieted, Henrietta looked closely at the speaker. She had tight, frizzy curls, sloe-dark eyes, and warm brown skin unmarked yet by age or the scars of hardship. “Sing for us,” Henrietta urged the girl.
Lena stood, folded her hands, put back her shoulders, and drew in a deep breath. She launched into “The Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill,” and the room fell silent save for Mame’s resonant snores. The girl’s voice, though untrained, was piercingly beautiful.
“Lena,” Henrietta said with tears in her eyes, “if you come to the Sisters of Benevolence, I will make sure there is money to pay for voice lessons.”
The girl sat down, her face transfigured by wonder.
An explosion of voices followed as every woman competed to name her talent and secure Henrietta’s vow of support.
Henrietta shamelessly promised everything she could, buoyed by the hope that each of these girls could earn her way into the life she should have had before misfortune and destitution or, in some cases, blatant trickery had brought her to where she was now.
If she meant to claim that education and opportunity could make women virtuous, contributing members of their society, then Henrietta would demonstrate with these candidates who had fallen into her lap, courtesy of the King’s officers.
And if she were wrong—well, she was the daughter of Jasper Wardley-Hines and the late Apollonia Wardley-Hines. She would go down fighting.
Booted feet approached the door, and a key scratched the lock. Her companions scrambled to their feet, huddling around Mame’s pallet like a flock of bedraggled birds. Henrietta stood, fatigue rattling her bones. She had been here for hours. Had someone come for her? Anyone?
The door opened, and she nearly fainted. Lord Darien Bales stood in the doorway, his eyes burning coals in his marble face.
She had feared she might never see him again. Never see his tall frame filling a doorway, his smile of amusement at her expense, those blue eyes alight with speculation or wariness or interest.
It took only the sight of him to know, with utter certainty, that she could not do without him in her life. She had been marked by their association, and she would never be able to let go of that.
The single rush light had burned to a stub, smarting her eyes through the darkened gloom.
It must be the tail end of the evening. But Darien was the image of perfection with his hair neatly queued, his coat gleaming, his well-fitting breeches uncreased.
His neckcloth lay in perfect folds, his shirt was the white of summer clouds, and his eyes were as dark as a storm over the sea.
“Ey now,” one of the girls squealed. “This gorger’s for me. ’Ere I am, chuck!”
Darien’s eyes locked on Henrietta’s, and she stood unmoving as his hostile gaze raked her to her feet, then back up.
She must look like she’d been dragged through a hedge backward.
Her lovely new gown was torn and soiled, the hem in tatters from having been stepped on by many feet besides hers, and she smelled of the several unwashed bodies in the room.
Her hair had come down during her arrest and hung in a long rope along her back. She looked like a wraith that might walk the moors, a specter conjured to haunt naughty children. Darien’s lips tightened as he examined her face.
“This one,” he said without emotion, with only a small, tight nod in her direction. “This is Miss Wardley-Hines. Sir Jasper’s daughter,” he stressed.
“Ooh, sir!” said a blend of female voices. “I’m with ’er, then.”
“Take me too, ’andsome!”
“I’m the one as is Sir Jasper’s daughter,” Belinda lied outrageously. The girls vied to get closer, jostling Henrietta. Darien stepped into the room.
“Why, Lord Daring, as I live and breathe.” Mame sat up, blinking in surprise.
“And better-looking himself than those sketches in the papers have it. Scrapin’ the bottom o’ the barrel, ain’t cher, a bang-up swell like yerself?
Time was you could’ve ’ad any high-flyer, an’ pay not a hap’ny for her neither! ”
“I am retrieving a friend who seems to be here due to some egregious misunderstanding,” Darien said tersely. “Tell him who you are, Henry.”
“I am Henrietta Wardley-Hines,” Henrietta squeaked. “And what are the charges against me, pray?”
“Rabble-rouser!” the warden exclaimed. “She was neck-deep with them good-for-nothing Corresponders, milord, for all that she’s a woman and the Tavern ain’t no place for ’er. Pitt meant to nab the lot of ’em, and that ’e did.”
“Prime Minister Pitt will find, when he looks into the matter, that Miss Wardley-Hines had no part in instigating the riot you witnessed. Now let her go at once, or the Marquess of Langford will have a word or two for the King about how the City treats those it has detained.”
Henrietta stared, goggle-eyed. Darien had come to her assistance, to deliver her from imprisonment. Darien!
“Aye, you, yer swell’s ’ere to spring ye,” the warden sneered, reaching for Henrietta. “Tried to tell ’im you belong ’ere, but wants you ’imself, he does. See that ’e delivers ye to yer father after, aye? For I’ve ’eard a word or two about this one, don’t think I ’aven’t!”
He froze at Darien’s quiet voice. “Touch her and I’ll lace your jacket, watchman.”
“Insultin’ a King’s man!” the guard exclaimed. “Interferin’ w’ the King’s peace!” But the arm fell away.
Henrietta stepped forward on legs that wobbled from a combination of nerves, thirst, and an oppressively full bladder. He had come for her.
“Have you found James? Is he here too?”
The women surged in one body behind her. “Take us! Take us all. Don’t leave us ’ere, miss. You promised!”