Chapter 3 #3
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against a tree.
In the quiet of the park, she could almost forget she was in London.
The peace soothed her. Here there were no shouts of costermongers, no voices raised in anger when a man came home too deep in his cups and his wife didn’t approve, no crying infants, no barking dogs, no pleas of beggars.
Her life hadn’t always been filled with hunger and desperation.
Once, she’d lived in a small, cozy house in Cheapside.
The table had never overflowed with food, but she hadn’t gone hungry.
She’d helped her mother bake bread and begged for the scraps from her sewing kit to make a new dress for her rag doll.
That was before the night her father hadn’t come home.
Then had come poverty, a stepfather, and three babies—two of which had lived. Tamsin remembered warm fires and a full larder before it had all been snatched away. Her mother had gone to work as a washerwoman. Then there’d been the accident…
Tamsin opened her eyes and shook her head.
She’d drifted off to sleep, and now she was so cold her hands and face were numb.
Her mother would be worried. She stumbled to her feet, checked her pockets to be certain the goods she’d stolen were still safe, and trudged along the path out of the park.
The gray light of day did nothing to improve the appearance of Covent Garden.
The dilapidated buildings looked dirty and crumbling in the rising sun.
The earliest market vendors were opening their stalls, and the flower girls had gathered to collect their daily allotment of flowers to sell.
Though her own memories of her time as a flower girl were tarnished, she still slowed to admire the colorful blooms. She knew the common flowers like daisies, lilies, and violets.
She spotted a few yellow daffodils with their nodding heads and smiled.
Those were her mother’s favorites, and she wished she could bring her a bouquet of them.
One of the flower girls noticed her and furrowed her brow. Tamsin hunched her shoulders and hurried past. The last thing she needed was to be caught wearing men’s clothing. She did not want any trouble.
Brown’s Coffee Shop was still shuttered this morning.
She went around to the rear, used her key to enter the back room, and climbed the steps to the second floor, where she lived with her mother.
Mr. Brown and his family lived on the floor below them, and for once, the Brown family was blissfully quiet.
Tamsin entered the small room she shared with her mother as silently as possible. Please, please let her be sleeping.
“Tamsin!” came the harsh whisper. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mama,” Tamsin whispered back. She did not want to wake Mr. Brown and face a thousand questions about where she’d been all night.
The flimsy curtain over the sole window parted, and her mother stood in the gray light.
The building next door blocked out most light during the day, and Tamsin could only see her mother’s shape.
She was a small woman, painfully thin, with brown hair trailing down her back. “I was so worried about you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Tamsin crossed the room and embraced her mother.
“I thought you had been caught. I should have never agreed to this scheme.”
“What other option do we have? Allow Charlie and Joanna to starve?” Tamsin stepped back and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder.
“I can’t let that happen. Besides, I did as you asked.
I only took things the duchess would not miss.
” She moved to the windowsill and emptied her pocket.
“I have an earbob. I lost the other somewhere. This comb and three handkerchiefs. I should change and see if I can pawn them before Mr. Brown opens the coffeehouse.”
“The livery you borrowed from our friend at the theater is covered with leaves and dirt. Let me have it. I’ll brush it and return it.”
Tamsin glanced at the empty area where her mother’s right arm should have been and only a hollow sleeve hung. “I can do it.”
“Tamsin Archer. I can still brush a coat and pantaloons. Go change and hurry to the pawnbroker.”
“Fine.” She put on her brown work dress, pinned her hair back and under a cap, and tied on an apron.
Then she gave the borrowed costume to her mother, gathered the stolen goods, and tucked them in the pockets she’d tied on under her skirts.
Her mother was already doing her best to brush the wool with a broken brush and one arm when Tamsin gave her a kiss goodbye.
As quietly as she could, she opened the door and crept down the steps.
Once in the coffee shop’s back room, she reached for the door latch.
“Where are you going?” came a voice Tamsin knew all too well.
Tamsin turned and pasted on a smile. “Good morning, Molly. You are awake early.”
Molly wore a faded dressing gown, and her brown hair was arranged in small coils on her head, each tied with a piece of rag.
When the rags were untied, a profusion of curls would tumble down.
“You are awake early too, Tamsin Archer. Or did you even sleep? I heard someone on the stair a little while ago.” She bit into an apple she held in one hand.
Tamsin’s mouth watered at the sound of the crunch. “Really? That must have been a dream. I just woke up. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“I won’t. Papa told me to open the shop, and you must help me.
” Tamsin knew what this meant. Molly wanted Tamsin to do all the work.
Molly and the rest of her family treated Tamsin and her mother like servants.
Tamsin couldn’t really argue that they weren’t.
She and her mother earned scant wages, but in return for working at the coffee shop, they were given one meal a day and the small second-floor attic.
Tamsin would have been grateful—if she didn’t hate Mr. Brown with every ounce of her being for what he’d done.
Molly was one of the Browns’ three children, and at nineteen, a few years younger than Tamsin.
Molly loved nothing more than to order Tamsin and her mother about.
Peggy, Molly’s fifteen-year-old sister, was the same.
The two sisters did almost no work, and on the rare occasion they were assigned a chore, the girls passed it to Tamsin or her mother.
Tamsin disliked Molly and Peggy, but she particularly hated George, the youngest Brown.
He was ten and thought it was amusing to “accidentally” knock over the mop bucket or stick out a foot when Tamsin was hurrying by with a tray of mugs.
The last time he’d done that, she’d tripped, fallen, and dropped the mugs.
That last bit of foolishness was why Tamsin owed the Browns three shillings.
Since she had no money, they’d been taking it out of her meals.
She hadn’t eaten more than a pilfered piece of bread in days.
Now she thought about the shillings in her pockets, occasionally banging against her leg. She might have paid off her debt and eaten a full meal, but then what about her siblings? Not to mention, how would she explain where she’d come by the money?
“Why are you standing there gaping at me like an addlepate? Get to work!” Molly ordered, the little pieces of rag holding her hair shaking.
Tamsin sighed. She might have argued with the spoiled girl, but she would lose in the end and risk incurring the wrath of Mrs. Brown, who used her fists liberally when in a bad mood. Tamsin lifted the bucket. “I’ll start by mopping.”
“Good. Then clean the kitchen. How is Mama supposed to cook in such filth?”
Tamsin might have retorted that the woman did so every day, especially considering she was the one who never bothered to lift a rag to wipe up after herself, but she kept her mouth shut.
She opened the door to the yard and, as soon as she was out of sight, set the bucket down and took off down the lane.
Hopefully, Molly would go upstairs, dress, and style her hair.
She wouldn’t notice Tamsin was gone right away.
Tamsin hurried across the lane, past beggars and drunks sleeping in a shop doorway, a cat with a large rat in his mouth, and a cart that smelled of yeast and crusty bread headed in the direction of the market square.
Tamsin’s mouth watered, and she couldn’t help turning toward the cart and inhaling deeply.
Then she forced herself to cross the narrow lane and go to the back door of the pawnbroker’s shop.
Big John, the pawnbroker, knew her well.
She and her mother had sold everything they had of value over the years, mostly to Big John.
Then Tamsin had started selling the few items she’d been able to steal.
Big John must have known they were stolen, but he didn’t ask many questions.
Tamsin tapped on the back door, bent to catch her breath, then knocked harder.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed, and the door opened.
A man who was at least six feet, five inches tall and three hundred pounds opened the door and looked down at her.
His shirt strained at the chest, and his mud-brown hair stuck up on his head.
“I should’ve known it would be ye.” He began to close the door. “Come back later.”
Tamsin stuck her foot in the door. “I can’t come back later. I’m probably missed as it is. Please take a look at what I—er, found in an old trunk of my mother’s.”
Big John sighed. “Yer ma ’as a very large old trunk.”
“Deep too,” Tamsin said with a quick smile.
She ducked under his arm and stepped into the cool darkness of the back of the shop.
She liked the back of the pawnshop. It was filled with all sorts of strange and wonderful items, most of them broken and thus worthless.
But Big John liked to think of himself as a bit of a tinkerer, and he attempted repairs in his spare time.