Chapter Twenty-Five
S ophie bit her lip as she looked from the note in her gloved hand to the plain door on Ironmonger Lane, marked only with a hand-scrawled number 5 in black paint. The number was undoubtedly a mocking nod to the aristocratic townhouses circling grand squares to the west, where people needed to distinguish one identical house from another so they would know which one was home to which peer and his family.
Here, though, there were no grand houses, and most people who lived in the area didn’t want to be found.
“This is it.” She rested her hand on Shay’s arm to stop him as he walked beside her. She nodded toward the door and the boarding house beyond, located above a ground floor pawn shop. “Cora White’s last known location.”
“Hopefully, she’s still in residence,” Shay mumbled and stepped up to the door to give it a sharp knock.
Sophie held her breath, waiting.
The door rattled open with a grating creak, and a gray-haired matron in a brown worsted wool dress and stained apron stared out at them. “What do you want?” She swept a glance over both Sophie and Shay and muttered, “Your sort don’t belong here.”
“My sort doesn’t belong anywhere,” Shay countered, catching the woman by surprise. “We’re looking for Mrs. Cora Cole. We were told she’d taken a bed here.”
When the matron stiffened, Sophie knew, in preparation to tell them to bugger off and leave her boarders alone, she dangled the only bait she knew the woman would care about—“We have some funds for her. She’s owed five pounds by us, and we want to pay our debts so she can pay off hers.”
The woman’s eyes flared at that bit of juicy information. After all, if Cora White was living as most single women in London were, then she was surviving hand to mouth, never knowing if she would have enough money to pay rent for the week. Five pounds was a fortune for someone in her situation and could keep her in a place like this for over a year, with food in her belly, a roof over her head…and a landlady who was happily paid on time.
“Wait here,” the woman ordered. “I’ll fetch her.”
Sophie took a step forward and placed her hand beseechingly on the woman’s arm, afraid Cora wouldn’t come. “Tell her it regards Ruby.”
“Rubies,” the woman repeated with a nod, misunderstanding, and most likely thinking the promised money was in jewels.
Sophie didn’t correct her. What mattered was that Cora would understand the message.
Then the woman stepped inside and closed the door.
“That was smart of you,” Shay murmured as he came up behind her on the narrow footpath.
“Every mother cares more about her child than she ever would a fortune in funds.” Then she corrected, thinking of her own estranged mother and Shay’s, “Every good mother.”
He squeezed her elbow and released her arm to step back, his boot splashing into a brown puddle of filth whose contents let loose a foul odor, just like the other puddles scattered along the road and patches of trash thrown into doorways and recesses. But Shay said nothing, barely noticing. Sophie was certain he’d seen much worse during the wars.
She gazed up at the building’s facade. The old pawn shop had been abandoned and, judging from the layer of dust and cobwebs clinging to its windows, it had been for quite some time, but its three-ball sign still dangled over the door. Most likely, the rooms for let overhead had once been storage rooms for its goods…or used for other nefarious means.
“Cora White must have some kind of steady employment,” Shay mused, “to afford any kind of roof over her head, even if she’s most likely sharing a bed with another boarder or two.”
Sophie nodded, hoping that work wasn’t prostitution. Too many women were forced into doing exactly that when they couldn’t find enough pennies to buy bread or shelter. Jobs for women were scarce at best, and even those women who were gainfully employed had no choice but to sell their bodies occasionally when money ran short at the end of the month. With no respectable opportunity to earn a living and no family or husband to turn to, they had no other choice. None of the MPs or lords in Parliament seemed to care, at least not enough to change the poor laws to truly help those in need. They simply blamed the poor themselves by labeling them as lazy or criminal.
But knowing Cora White had steady employment didn’t lessen the guilt Sophie knew Shay felt at his part in ruining her life. Although, if they were both being honest with themselves, Cora would have been ruined that night, fire or no. At being told she was carrying his child, John would have done nothing but laugh in her face.
“How is it possible,” Sophie wondered in a soft whisper, half to Shay and half to herself, as she took his hand, “that your parents raised two men who were so completely different in character?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Sheer luck.”
That was the god’s truth.
The door opened, and a young woman with dark brown hair and a slender build who couldn’t have been any older than Sophie stared out at them. Her eyes blinked with confusion as they swept over Sophie, only to widen when she saw Shay.
Sophie knew her gasp of surprise wasn’t because of his scars. It was from recognition, followed by a swift paling and a hard swallow.
“You…” the woman whispered hoarsely, her eyes glued to Shay.
He doffed his hat politely. “Mrs. Cole…or should I say Miss White?”
Her hand tightened on the door handle so hard her fingertips turned white. “What do you want? Mrs. Jones said someone was here about Ruby, but you’re not from the hospital.”
“No.” He looked past her into the dark stairwell, as if not trusting the landlady not to be eavesdropping. “May we talk in private?”
When she hesitated to agree, Sophie added, “It really is about your daughter. We didn’t lie about that.”
“Is she sick?” Cora demanded with immediate concern. “Is something wrong with her?”
“Not that we know of,” Sophie assured her in a deliberately calm and even voice. “Please—will you give us a few moments of your time? And then I think—” She cast a questioning glance over her shoulder at Shay. “I think we can take you to see your daughter, if you’d like.”
Her lips parted, stunned. In that moment’s hesitation, Sophie could see the woman fighting down the urge to immediately agree to anything just to have that opportunity. But she’d lived a hard life already, and certainly she also knew not to raise her hopes.
“We can talk out here,” she told them, closing the door behind her and folding her arms protectively over her chest. Her posture was one of pure distrust. “No one will overhear.” Her eyes locked on Shay. “What do you want with Ruby and me? I would have thought you and your family would have been happy to be rid of us.”
“We didn’t know your daughter existed,” Sophie answered quietly, “or we would have come to help you long before now. We found out only a few days ago. The hospital said she was placed with a wet nurse and that you’re still involved with her life as much as you can be. Is that true?”
She confirmed that with a wary nod, still untrusting. Sophie didn’t blame her. “What do you want with me?”
“We need your help.” Shay’s deep voice was quiet, as if he didn’t trust the strangers coming and going in the street around them. “And in return, we want to help you and your daughter.”
Miss White darted a surprised glance between Shay and Sophie. Most likely, it was the first offer of help anyone had made to her since she arrived in London. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why would you help me? I’m nothing to you.”
“You were at Ravenscroft the night my brother died in the fire,” Shay explained. “You saw what happened, didn’t you? You left the barn, but I’m certain you lingered outside the stable until the fire started before you fled for home.”
She pulled in a deep breath, then nodded, her arms falling to her sides. “I left when you two had words. I didn’t want no part of that.” She lifted her head in a misplaced show of pride. “But John hadn’t paid me yet, so I waited around for my blunt.”
“You saw the two of us fight?”
She nodded. “He didn’t like what you were saying and came after you.”
“You saw that for certain?” Sophie pressed, resting a hand on Shay’s arm. “That it was John who started the fight?”
“For certain,” she repeated resolutely. “John was in a foul mood that night. He’d been itchin’ for trouble since he walked into the tavern. I should have stayed away from ’im, but I wanted the money and knew he was in just the kind of state to pay more than he should. I took advantage of him the same as he took of me.”
What John did to her was far worse than she made it sound, but Sophie bit her tongue and let the woman cling to whatever little bits of pride she had left.
“You saw me leave?” Shay pressed.
“Yeah.” Bitterness colored her voice. “How was I supposed to get my blunt, then, with him passed out in the straw? I blame you for losing what I was owed.”
“As well you should,” Shay muttered in agreement. “And the fire? Did you see any of it?”
She looked away guiltily. “It had already started by the time I snuck back inside. I tried to wake him—pushed him, kicked him, slapped him—but he wouldn’t move.” Her voice became impossibly small. “I had no choice but to leave to save my own skin.”
“I know,” Shay said quietly. “No one blames you for that.”
“Don’t they?” Her eyes burned as they fixed back on him. “That’s what your sort does. You blame people like me, and you would have blamed me for the fire and for murdering him that night, too, if I’d stayed. You were running back to the barn, in fact. So I took off as fast as I could across the fields.”
“No one’s blaming you for anything that happened that night,” Sophie assured her. “It was all a terrible accident. We know that, just as we know how frightened you must have been. No one blames you for fleeing.” She added softly, “I would have done the same.”
Cora White gave a disbelieving snort. “Not a lady like you! They’d have been fussing over you and givin’ you all kinds of cordials and smelly vials in case you swooned, while they’d have been locking me up in irons.”
“No, they wouldn’t have,” Shay corrected gently.
“Why not?” she demanded. “I was the convenient criminal.”
“Because I was even more convenient to suit their ends.”
He told Cora White the events of that night, how he had rushed back to save John only to arrive too late, how the barn had collapsed on top of him…how he was blamed after for his brother’s death by both his father and his uncle. Shay spared no details about the accusations both men had made against him, nor did he hide any details about how Malcolm was attempting to manipulate them now.
Cora White listened silently, her eyes glued to Shay’s scarred face.
“You are the only other witness to what happened,” Shay finished. “We need you to testify about what you saw. Just state the facts. That will be enough.”
“No.” Fear flared in her eyes. “They’ll pin the blame on me at worst, accuse me of sitting on the information at the very least. Either way, I end up in Newgate.”
“You’ll be safe,” Shay assured her. “No one will hurt you. We won’t let them.”
The power of his position permeated the air at that small comment, but Sophie knew the real reason the woman hesitated to agree. “We will protect your daughter,” Sophie promised. “No harm will come to her. I swear to you.” She paused. “She’s part of our family now, too.”
“She’s a by-blow,” Cora snapped, but a distinct emotional quavering could be heard in her voice.
“That makes no difference.” Sophie tightened her fingers on Shay’s arm. “Will you help us, then? Will you testify about what happened that night?”
She glanced around the street, her jaw tightening with uncertainty. “I don’t know if…”
When her voice trailed off, Shay asked, “Has anyone else approached you about it?”
Sophie felt a chill slide up her spine. He meant Malcolm.
Cora White smiled with amusement at the idea. “No, or I would have made a tidy profit from it.”
Shay tensed beneath Sophie’s hand. “How so?”
“I need money,” she announced bluntly. “The work I get is piecemeal at best.” As if reading the suspicion on Sophie’s face, she clarified, “I need it for my child. Don’t want none for me, but her… Little Ruby shouldn’t be a foundling, stuck away in some wet nurse’s cottage where she’s treated no better than if she were a piglet at a trough, then raised in a hospital by strangers. I want my baby back.” Her voice broke. “I can’t do that without money.”
“Then let us help you,” Sophie urged as she left Shay’s side and took Cora’s hand. “Tell us how much you need, and we’ll be certain you receive it.” Oh, that was certainly not negotiating from a position of strength! But Sophie didn’t care. Shay needed this woman, and this woman and her child needed them. She looked straight into Cora’s eyes and promised, “And know—even if you decide not to testify on our behalf—we’ll still help you and Ruby. We’re not buying your testimony but simply helping you.”
Cora eyed them both for a long moment as she considered their words. Then she asked quietly, as if everything rested on this one question, “Do you know where my baby is? The hospital won’t tell me.”
“Yes,” Sophie answered with a squeeze to her hand.
“Then I’ll help you,” Cora decided. “I’ll testify about what I saw that night but only if you keep your promise about caring for Ruby.” She slid a distrusting glance at Shay. “I know how little a peer’s promise is worth, and the only way I can be certain you won’t change your mind after I’ve given my testimony is to protect myself.”
“We’ll set up an account for you with any accountant or solicitor you choose,” Shay assured her, “and we’ll make certain it’s funded before you sign your statement. Five hundred pounds should suffice to begin with. Do you agree to those terms?”
The woman’s eyes widened only for a moment, before Sophie saw her regain control of her countenance. “On one final condition,” she negotiated. “That you take me to see my child as you said you would.” She slid a hard gaze between Shay and Sophie. “I won’t do anything until I see for myself that Ruby is healthy and being cared for until I can get her back.”
Sophie didn’t blame her for being cautious. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder if Shay had ever faced such an obstinate opponent when negotiating prisoner exchanges during the wars. But they were waging a battle, and his life—and hers—rested on the outcome.
“Of course,” Shay agreed and gestured at their hired hackney waiting down the street. “She’s in Dulwich. We can take you there this morning.”
“No.” Cora clasped tightly to Sophie’s hand. “Only your wife can come with me. Just us. I don’t want to scare the baby or cause problems by having you there.”
Sophie bit her bottom lip and cast a glance over her shoulder at Shay. But his face remained impassive even as he asked, “Because I look like a monster?”
“Because you’re a man,” Cora answered. “Don’t care none what you look like. You’re a man ,” she repeated, as if that fact weren’t at all obvious. “Women understand each other when it comes to babies. Men don’t.”
Sophie nodded, pulled her hand away from Cora, and turned to Shay. She repeated meaningfully, “Women understand each other.” She rose up on tiptoe to place a kiss to his cheek. “Go back to the George and come up with a list of accountants and solicitors who can establish a trust for Ruby, and I’ll return straight there with Miss White once we’re done in Dulwich.”
Considering her plan, he nodded reluctantly. “All right. But don’t be long.”
Sophie gave him a reassuring smile, then wrapped her arm through Cora’s and led the woman toward the hackney. “This way, Miss White. I have a spare coat in the carriage and lots of rugs to keep us warm. And we can spend our ride with you telling me everything you can about your daughter.” She squeezed her arm. “I can’t wait to meet my niece.”