Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Her Portuguese mam?e had warned Inez that the devil always came to collect his due.
She had the prickling, uneasy sensation today was that day.
She knew, before she was a block from George Court with her cloth bag in hand and a spring sun smiling down on the day, that she would regret leaving without bargaining with Mrs. Frost for her wages earned so far this quarter.
Inez had given what remained of last quarter’s salary to her father, who had promptly exchanged it for a celebratory drink, which meant she had no small coins in her pocket to pay for decent lodgings or a meal.
Only the larger things lay wrapped in their concealing layers at the bottom of her bag, and those, she could not disclose to anyone. It meant her life if she did.
Furtively she glanced around, fearing that even here, in the more posh part of town, she could be found and recognized. Hanged for a criminal. She was going to do it, then? Storm away from her place of refuge just because Joseph Illingworth was a thick-headed oaf?
Yes. Inez pushed back a falling lock of hair and lifted her chin.
She could pawn her clean linen apron, her pretty lace cap, or her extra petticoat, if it came to that.
She’d bought these things to be tidy and fresh for Joseph Illingworth, and the great staggering sod hadn’t once looked on her as a man looks on a woman.
She might as well be rubbed in the stinking mud of the river, the way he turned up his nose.
She scrubbed her eyes to rub away the threat of frustrated tears as she pushed down Princes Street.
She’d been in this position before. Turned out without a character, with no family to succor her and no shelter to take her in.
Later, storming away from George Court in a temper because Joseph Illingworth was the most irritating male ever shaped to walk the planet.
How he got under her skin so instantly, Inez couldn’t say.
Every glare from his dark brown eyes dismissed her, his gaze shearing away as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her.
Many another man liked the sight of her, and begged for a touch to see if that pleased him as well.
Yet Joseph Illingworth turned away as if she were something unseemly.
He was impossible to please. She never won a single compliment from him, no matter how prettily she dressed her hair or how much bosom she let show above her neckcloth when she brought him his bread and butter.
How many times had she kept that man alive, feeding him when he was so caught up in a book that he forgot the outside world was passing him by?
How many times had she kept him from falling into a brown study over his prospects with a cheerful, bracing word or the promise of better things to come?
And still he regarded her with that scowl as if she were a beetle that crawled out of the coal scuttle.
But where to next? Where could she go that would be safe?
She could ask for help at Hunsdon House, she knew.
It was the duchess’s dresser, the Cornishwoman, Eyde, who had first found Inez at the mop fair huddled around a threadbare broom, trying desperately to win the attention of the respectable matrons and housekeepers who walked by, their eyes sliding over and past Inez as smoothly as if she were a butter dish.
Eyde had given Inez refuge in Miss Amaranthe’s house when her post as a chambermaid turned out to involve being pawed by the randy son of the house, and again when her next post as a kitchen maid came with an uncle who had a habit of backing Inez into corners and demanding caresses.
If she went to Hunsdon House now, the housekeeper, Mrs. Blackthorn, would take her in directly, of that Inez had no doubt.
She’d proven herself honest and discreet, setting aside the matter of her occasional vanishing acts.
But if she went to Hunsdon House, Joseph Illingworth would know where she was.
And knowing he knew where to find her, but would never come for her—that was one more humiliation she wasn’t prepared to bear.
She paused for moment on the edge of Leicester Square, considering. Was her pride worth her life?
But if there were no one to miss or lament her if she disappeared—then pride was all she had. Inez turned her face to the east and began the long trek to the City.
Joseph Illingworth would never find her there, and hopefully, the devil wouldn’t, either.
In Covent Garden piazza, Inez wove her way past the market stalls, enjoying the rowdy riot of color and noise and keeping her bag hugged to her chest. The colorful cart of a flower seller caught her eye, a handbarrow blooming with geraniums and azaleas, tulips and peonies.
She ought to take a posy to Mother if she meant to come as a supplicant.
As she watched, a man in a dark velvet suit and a cocked hat stepped near and whispered in the flower seller’s ear.
The young woman colored but nodded and, with a word to the young girl with her, took the gentleman’s arm and stepped away.
His lips curved in a greedy smile, and he nearly put his foot in a pile of horse dung in his eagerness to pull his prize under the nearest arcade.
Inez halted at the look on the younger girl’s face as she watched the departing pair: bitter resentment, resignation, and a touch of wrath. Inez could surmise the reason the comely elder had been summoned, and it was easy to see how the younger felt about it.
“Your mum?” Inez asked, lifting a spray of purplish bellflowers.
The girl bit her lip. “M’sister.” Swiftly she wrapped the spray in her silvered paper and ferns, her dexterity suggesting years of practice.
“She’s a handsome suitor.”
The girl gave a bitter laugh that said, despite her age, innocence had long departed. “’E’s a john. They’s only ever johns. But they pays better than the flowers, and so she goes and turns up ’er ’eels, don’t she.”
Inez tucked the stems into the band of her apron, a dainty stretch of crisp linen in contrast to the girl’s, which was much-mended and turned to hide stains. This was the fate that awaited a woman when she didn’t have means or when the family that could succor her fell away, one by one.
Many a woman went into the business of selling herself if a regular wage wasn’t available.
All too often, a seamstress or milliner or mantua-maker struggling to pay for her bread, or longing for a new length of silk she couldn’t buy with the coin she had, would step for a moment into a different kind of trade.
In Covent Garden, lists circulated, compiled by a helpful and experienced gentleman named Harris, who identified the professional ladies of trade, described where to find them, and shared his thoughts on the quality of their service.
And it wasn’t Covent Garden alone; the business of buying and selling pleasure thrived all through this town busily building itself day by day.
Walking along The Strand, one in the know could follow a discreet set of stairs above a regular shop or business to find an upscale bordello furnished with tasteful luxury and beautiful, expensive women.
Inez had been invited to join one or two of them, as they liked having a dark-skinned girl in the inventory.
A gentleman might happen into a lucky encounter if he solicited a woman on Fleet Street, for there was as much as a chance she would be an available companion as she might be a respectable tradeswoman who would reprimand him for his impertinence.
Of course, there were other streets where a gentleman couldn’t walk along without a cluster of women tugging at his coattails, an effort to gain his custom and take the opportunity to rob him.
More than one cell in any given watch house was occupied by a working girl who’d walked away with her john’s watch or jewelry or purse and made the mistake of not walking far or fast enough, or of being distinct enough in her appearance that the john, constable in his wake, could identify her later.
Around St. Paul’s Churchyard there were all manner of services for sale, including women, men, and sometimes boys.
Inez took care not to meet the eye of any passing gentleman lest he take her look for an invitation.
Her chest felt heavy and tight, like a brick was pressing down on her lungs.
Along Cheapside, several medieval alleys offered a convenient locale for a short interlude away from the bustle of other businesses.
Some of the women strolling the street regarded her with the interest they would give the competition.
Inez clutched her cloak closer about her as she ducked her head and hurried along.
Here she was, steering herself toward the status of the demimondaine when she had tried so hard to escape that fate.
She didn’t decry anything a woman did to keep herself alive; God knew Inez herself had real sins to repent of.
But while some women could find their way back to a trade that wouldn’t get them fined or imprisoned, for too many, their first foray into the demimonde was the step across a precarious threshold onto a path that led to misery and ruin.
Inez couldn’t follow. She’d made a promise long ago, to another and to herself, and that promise had been sealed by death. It wasn’t just her honor but her soul she risked if she angered the restless spirits.
She cursed Joseph Illingworth for being the instrument of her ruin, for pushing her out of the safe, warm nest she’d found in his house.
Were it not his stubborn thick-headedness, she’d not be toeing the ledge of self-preservation, clinging with bared nails to that last slender thread of self-respect.
He’d offered her refuge in his home; was it too much to hope he could also offer her kindness?
It is not kindness you wish he would show you, menininha, said her mother’s voice in her head.
Ah, mam?e. That voice never let her deceive herself too long.