Prologue
“Yer late, ye little bitch!”
Nimbly dodging her father’s swinging fist, her heart thundering, Susanna Guthrie skittered barefoot across the dirt floor and took refuge behind a lopsided table.
Daniel Guthrie was drunk again.
In the hazy light cast by the smoking oil lamp, his watery eyes were red-rimmed and his once-handsome face was flushed and bloated.
The stuffy air reeked of cheap gin, sweat, and urine.
Shattered liquor bottles littered the tiny cellar, a sure sign of her father’s explosive anger.
An anger which the long-unemployed foundryman would easily vent upon Susanna if she was foolish enough to come within arm’s reach.
Her bruised young body still ached from the cuffing he’d given her yesterday; her thin shoulders still stung from last week’s lashing.
“Where the ‘ell ‘ave ye been, girl?” Daniel slurred thickly, staggering toward her. “Ye know me rules. Yer t’ be back ‘ere by sunset with yer day’s earnings. ‘Twas dark two ‘ours past!” Lurching into the table, he glared at her furiously. “Answer me, ye chit, and stop starin’ at me with those big green saucers o’ yers! Where were ye?”
Susanna swallowed hard against the fear that was paralyzing her throat. She drew some courage from the hope that her explanation for her tardiness would soothe his temper.
“Covent Garden Theatre, Papa,” she blurted in a nervous rush.
“An op’ra was playin’ there tonight, so I went t’ the front entrance t’ do me beggin’.
Look!” She fished into both pockets of her filthy, tattered skirt and withdrew two handfuls of gleaming coins.
“I tied one leg up under me dress joost like ye taught me and limped ‘round with a wooden crutch under me shoulder. I must ‘ave been a truly pitiful sight, for two fine ladies with tears rollin’ down their rouged cheeks gave me a shillin’ apiece. A kind gentl’man, too! ”
“Dump the money on the table,” Daniel commanded, his eyes alight with greed and his fury clearly forgotten as he plopped heavily onto a bench. “That’s me clever girl. All of it now, and show me yer pockets.”
Susanna quickly obliged him. In her fumbling haste to turn her pockets inside out and prove that they were empty, she tore a hole in one of them.
“Friggin’ flimsy fabric,” she muttered under her breath, poking her forefinger through the offending tear. Now she would have to mend her only skirt before she set off to beg in the early morning, and she hated sewing!
Intent upon the pocket, Susanna did not look up in time to see her father’s sudden movement. His sharp, unexpected box to her ear sent her reeling to the floor.
“I’ll ‘ear no more cursin’ from ye, Susanna Jane!” Daniel shouted, retaking his seat with a grunt. “Yer mother’s foul tongue, the devil rest ‘er soul, was the bane o’ me life, and I’ll not ‘ave the same from ye! ‘Tis bad enough ye remind me of ‘er, the witch, wi’ yer honey hair and wanton’s face.”
Her head ringing from the painful blow, Susanna gripped a table leg and rose shakily.
Tears burned her eyes, but she stubbornly forced them back.
She wouldn’t give her father the satisfaction of seeing her cry, no matter how much he hurt her.
She had learned early that tears didn’t help anyway.
They seemed to make him madder, and he would hit her again, just for good measure.
Instead, as she silently watched him count the coins and test their metal between his rotted teeth, Susanna thought for the thousandth time of leaving Daniel Guthrie and his brutality far behind her.
But where could she go? He had warned that if she ever ran away, he would not rest until he found her, and she believed him.
Oh, how she believed him. She could well imagine the beating he would give her then.
Sighing, Susanna darted a glance around the shadowed cellar.
At least here she had a roof over her head, a bed of straw, and one meal a day, which was far better than sleeping cold, miserable, and starving in doorways and dark alleys.
As for her father’s abuse, his very presence did offer her some measure of protection from others who might seek to do her harm.
At twelve going on thirteen, she was experiencing the most perplexing changes in her body, including a bloody flux that came every month, starting five months ago, and budding breasts and gentle curves she could not hide.
She had seen the leers lately on the faces of male passersby, the hungry, speculative looks that made her shudder.
She would be a fool if she left this place to spend the nights alone on London’s streets, prey to any ruffian or footpad who might take a lustful fancy to her.
No, she was safer here, at least until she found a position as a scullery maid in some gentry household.
Her father could hardly object to the steady work and wage, which couldn’t be found in the begging trade, and she wouldn’t be running away from him.
He would know exactly where she lived and would share in her earnings.
Mayhap he would even be pleased with her new status.
She, for one, had no intention of remaining a beggar forever.
Not Susanna Jane Guthrie.
She had big dreams. Dreams of putting this miserable existence behind her and making a better life for herself, and, if she was lucky, in a few years finding a skilled tradesman to marry.
It wasn’t so important that they love each other, just that he be a good, honest man.
A man she could trust and put her faith in.
A man wholly unlike her father. Together, if they worked hard enough, maybe they could afford a place of their own someday, a small business or a shop.
Aye, a shop with a fine bow window would be grand—
“Ye did well this day, chit,” Daniel said, his gruff voice jarring Susanna’s daydreaming.
He scooped the stacked coins into a small leather pouch and stuffed it inside his stained shirt.
“But I’ve a way ye can do even better, and God knows”—his bleary eyes raked her appraisingly, lingering on her swelling bodice—“yer old enough now.”
“How’s that, Papa?” Susanna asked, growing uncomfortable under his queer scrutiny.
“Never ye mind. Take these two pennies upstairs t’ Nellie Brice in the gin shop and buy yerself a pitcher of hot water, then bring it down ‘ere and clean yerself up. Oh, aye, and fetch me another bottle o’ gin. We’ve a fine gentl’man caller comin’ t’ see ye tonight.”
Confused, Susanna stared at him. “A gentl’man…t’ see me?”
“Aye. Mr. Keefer Dunn. Enough questions now. Go on wi’ ye.”
She tensed, growing wary.
Keefer Dunn was no gentleman, but a well-known scoundrel and king of thieves who had grown wealthy from the sale of stolen goods.
She had seen him leaving the cellar just the other day as she was returning home from a day’s begging.
With his ruddy face marred by the pox and his crooked gap-toothed smile, he was not a pretty sight, and the disturbingly possessive way his strange amber eyes had roamed over her had filled her with disgust. Even more repulsive had been the pungent smell of sweat and stale ale that had emanated from him as he passed her on the street, the odor heightened by his sickeningly sweet cologne.
“I don’t understand, Papa. Wot does Mr. Dunn want wi’ me?”
Too late, Susanna realized she’d asked her father one too many questions. His face had grown so red it had taken on the hue of an overripe berry, and looked fit to burst at any moment.
“Are ye daft, girl?” Daniel exploded, jumping up from the bench so suddenly that it crashed to the floor.
“Surely ye didn’t think I’d waste yer beauty upon the beggar’s trade!
Have ye not looked into a mirror o’ late?
Yer bloomin’ into a fine-lookin’ wench, and ye’ve caught Keefer’s eye, ye ‘ave! He’s bought ye for the night and paid me a pretty price, too!
I was at me wit’s end when ye didn’t come home, and ‘im probably on ‘is way t’ see ye even as we speak. Now get yer bloody arse upstairs so ye’ll be ready when he comes t’ call! He wants a virgin, and a clean one!”
Susanna was thunderstruck, his words searing into her brain like red-hot pokers. She felt ill, her meager lunch of dry, days-old bread and sour milk roiling in her stomach.
Her father had sold her to Keefer Dunn! He wanted her to whore for him! What a fool she was to have believed she was safe here. After years of his abuse, she should have guessed he would do something like this—
“Keep in mind, chit, that if ye please Keefer b’neath the sheets tonight, ‘e might take ye on for a while as ‘is mistress,” Daniel added coarsely, oblivious to her horrified distress. “Joost think of it! Fancy clothes, plenty o’ food t’ put some flesh on those skinny ribs o’ yers, and money t’ buy whate’er yer ‘eart desires. You and me can make a right pretty penny t’gether. ”
“No!”
Daniel gaped at her in stunned surprise, his face turning an even deeper shade of red. Finally he managed to choke out, “Tell me I ‘eard ye incorrectly, Susanna Jane. Y’ know bloody well the price for disobeyin’ yer father. Now I’ll ‘ear an ‘Aye, Papa’ if ye please.”
Susanna shook her head, her knees quaking so badly she could almost hear them knocking together. She had never crossed Daniel Guthrie before. It was both heady and terribly frightening, yet this time he had gone too far. She would not be his whore!
“Ye heard me right, Papa,” she said, her heart beating violently in her chest. Commanding her limbs to move, she began to edge around the table.
“I won’t do it. I’ve begged fer ye since I was only four years old and picked pockets time and again, but I will not whore fer ye.
” She glanced in panic at the door, which seemed miles away instead of a few short feet, then back to her father, “I ‘ave dreams, Papa. I—I was plannin’ t’ find work as a scullery maid—”
Susanna shrieked in terror as her father dashed the table out of the way with an enraged roar and lunged crazily at her.