Chapter 35
Nell’s cane fell from her hand as Mrs. Pritchard dragged her backward. It clattered to the hay-strewn floor, completely out of reach. She inhaled a choking gasp. The woman smelled of eau de cologne and acrid perspiration. A foul stench, as though she hadn’t washed in days.
Her right arm was tight around Nell’s neck, squeezing her throat. And in her other hand—
Nell emitted a reflexive squeak of protest as the blade of a straight razor pressed to her jugular.
“Don’t make a sound, my fine lady,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “And you!” she snarled at Miles. “Move a muscle and I’ll slit her throat.”
Miles stood frozen across from them. He didn’t move. Indeed, he didn’t appear to breathe. His attention was focused on Nell with hawklike intensity.
“Or maybe I’ll slit her throat anyway,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “It’d be no more than she deserves after destroying my business and sending the law after me.”
“It won’t solve anything,” Nell said.
Mrs. Pritchard poked her with the razor’s edge. “I said shut up, you. I’ve had enough of your false tongue.”
Nell felt a drop of blood roll down her throat. She swallowed hard.
Miles’s fists clenched at his sides. “You haven’t thought this through.”
“What’s to think about? I’ve no business because of her. No good name.” Mrs. Pritchard squeezed Nell’s neck tighter, briefly cutting off her supply of air. “I’ve had to go on the run like a dog.”
Nell coughed and choked. She pulled at Mrs. Pritchard’s arm to no avail.
A spasm of anguish crossed Miles’s face. It was gone in a flash, replaced by a look of murderous resolve. “If you had thought it through,” he continued, “you’d realize that the instant you hurt her, I’ll kill you myself.”
Mrs. Pritchard uttered a rasping laugh. “I’m dead either way, my fine fellow. All that remains is to decide how many of you I’ll take with me.”
Nell’s eyes watered as she struggled to breathe. “It was Amstead.”
Mrs. Pritchard nicked her again with the razor. Another drop of blood sprang out in its wake.
Miles took a reflexive step forward.
“Stay back!” Mrs. Pritchard commanded. “Do you think I won’t do it?”
“Amstead used you,” Nell said. “And now he’s discarding you like rubbish.”
Mrs. Pritchard stilled. Her foul breath gusted on Nell’s cheek. “What did you say?”
“It benefits him for the Crown to hang you,” Nell answered. “If you’re executed for killing Mr. Cowgill, Amstead’s secret will die with you.”
“She’s right,” Miles said.
“Don’t listen to them, Lily.” A man’s voice sounded at the door of the stables. He stepped inside. It was Innes. “They’re liars, the both of them. They’ll talk you in circles ’til they have you thinking black is white.”
“It’s too late, Jeb,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “Amstead’s not going to give me any more money. He told me so when I arrived yesterday.”
“Shut up, Lily,” Innes warned, coming closer.
“All that business about sending me to France,” Mrs. Pritchard went on. “It was for your benefit. I saw it in his face. He means to summon the magistrate. To see me hanged. Your own sister!”
Sister?
Nell stared at Innes. She saw it clearly, then. He and Mrs. Pritchard had the same tall build, long face, and thickening midsection. The same merciless eyes. She was amazed she hadn’t noticed the resemblance before.
So, this was the link between Lord Amstead and the brothel. The madam was his valet’s sister. A conscienceless woman with lofty aspirations, happy to commit all manner of crimes if the payout was large enough.
“It’s just like I said,” Nell rasped. “You’re rubbish to him. So are all women. You know it to be true. Only think of what he did to his sister.”
Innes sneered at Nell. “How does a schoolteacher know anything about it?”
Nell tugged at Mrs. Pritchard’s arm, forcing her to loosen her grip a fraction. She drew a quavering breath. “Schoolteachers are experts on human nature. We see the best and the worst of it every day in our students.”
“Children,” Innes scoffed.
Miles crept closer. “What is Amstead if not a child?” he asked. “Think on his crimes. He’s a selfish man who cares nothing for other people. My wife is right. You’re disposable to him.”
“What do you know of his crimes?” Mrs. Pritchard demanded. “How could you know anything?”
“Of course I know,” Miles said. “Did you not think I’d make it my business to find out after you sent me Cowgill’s tongue?”
Mrs. Pritchard gasped. “You’re the editor at that paper of his?”
“I am,” Miles said. “Cowgill was my reporter. I have all the evidence he gathered at my disposal. Whatever happens here, it’s going to press.”
Innes confronted his sister, his face mottled with outrage. “You sent that man’s tongue to the bleeding newspaper?”
“As a warning,” Mrs. Pritchard said.
“You bloody stupid b—”
“Do you see?” Nell whispered to the madam. “How easily they abuse and dismiss you? You have but one chance left to ensure they get what’s coming to them.”
“What chance?” Mrs. Pritchard asked.
“Tell us your story,” Nell said. “The whole truth before they can silence you. My husband will see it’s printed. It’s the only way to bring down Amstead.”
Mrs. Pritchard fell quiet. She was breathing heavily.
“Don’t do it, Lily,” Innes said. “Don’t dare even think on it. If you do, I’ll not be responsible—”
“Amstead poisoned his father,” Mrs. Pritchard blurted out. “Tripled his tonic one night. Gave him so much morphia he dropped off his twig, and the sister knew it. She was going to see a solicitor about it in London. Amstead knew when and where. He’d intercepted her letter.”
Nell met Miles’s gaze. She had never felt more validated in her decision to use samplers for the Academy’s secret communications.
“God help you, Lily,” Innes said. “You’re a dead woman.”
Mrs. Pritchard kept on, the words pouring out of her in a vile stream.
“Innes came to me. Said there was five thousand pounds in it if I could dispose of the girl. I met her on the platform. I offered her some tea. Silas helped me get her back to the brothel. He wanted to keep her. Thought she could be turned into a good little earner. But I was that set on honoring the agreement with Amstead. ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It’s the Thames for her.’ And that’s where we put her. ”
Nell shuddered. She had known it was a possibility. That didn’t stop her heart from breaking for Jane Fawn-Purvis. The poor, well-meaning girl. A sheltered young lady setting out on her own, in a righteous cause, only to have met these base, bloodthirsty villains.
“And Cowgill?” Miles asked, taking another silent step forward.
“He was sniffing around asking questions,” Mrs. Pritchard said.
“First in Hertfordshire, then in Lost Hope Yard. He came to the brothel. Said he was a reporter at the London Courant. ‘I’ve a story due to my editor,’ he says.
‘About Lord Amstead’s sister and her connection to this place. ’ Didn’t have any choice, did I?”
“You drugged him, too,” Miles said. “But you didn’t kill him. Not outright.”
“We couldn’t be sure what he knew,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “We might have let him go eventually, had that girl of yours not set him free. He made a run for it, the stupid sod, and tripped on the parlor carpet.”
“You stabbed him there,” Nell said. It was why the carpet had been missing when she and Miles had visited the brothel. It had doubtless been covered in blood.
Mrs. Pritchard poked her razor into Nell’s throat in reply. “Well, he was struggling, wasn’t he?”
Nell gulped. She had no cane with which to defend herself. No parasol. And her hairpins were out of reach. The only weapon she had was her own ingenuity.
It was a formidable weapon, if she said so herself.
“Should we be writing this down, my love?” she queried her husband.
Miles looked as though he was about to lose what remained of his composure. His fists were still clenched and a muscle was flexing spasmodically in his jaw. “No need, dearest,” he said. “I’ve committed it to memory.”
“I have only one final question,” Nell said to the madam.
“What’s that, then?” Mrs. Pritchard asked.
“Why did you take Miss Brent? With a lady at the bottom of the Thames and a reporter drugged in your attic, it seems an unholy risk.”
“Taking risks is half the game in my business,” Mrs. Pritchard said.
“She was an uncommonly pretty lass. Elegant-like. That’s why I did it.
She’d have made me money.” The razor traced Nell’s throat.
“So would you have done. There’s a fortune to be made in a face like yours.
Even if you are a crippled schoolteacher. ”
“Not only a schoolteacher.” Nell met Miles’s eyes across the distance. She dropped him a wink. “I’m the heavy artillery.”
With that, she went limp in Mrs. Pritchard’s hold.
The madam instantly attempted to pull her backward—just as Nell had intended her to do.
It was a maneuver Nell had practiced countless times in the Academy’s athletic room with Gemma Sparrow.
One Nell had long perfected. She tucked her left shoulder and bent her left leg and, with a duck of her head and a half spin under Mrs. Pritchard’s arm, she freed herself from the foul woman’s grasp.
It was a fleeting victory. No sooner had Nell broken loose than Mrs. Pritchard came for her, the straight razor brandished in her upraised hand.
Miles charged forward to put himself between Nell and her attacker. Innes charged, too. The two men met in a fearsome exchange of blows.
Amidst the tumult, Mrs. Pritchard lunged at Nell.
Nell sidestepped the attack, the fingers of her left hand curling over her thumb. There was no time to retrieve her cane. Nor even a hairpin. Dropping her weight onto her back foot, she drew back her fist and punched the woman square in the nose.
Mrs. Pritchard screamed as blood spurted from her nostrils.
Nell hit her again, and again, calculated self-defense giving way to blind fury.
This was the woman who had abducted Miss Brent. Who had murdered Miss Fawn-Purvis and Mr. Cowgill. And now she wanted to hurt Nell, and possibly Miles, too.