The Governess and the Beast (Wounds and Scandals #2)

Chapter One

“Stop him, sir, if you please!”

Petalia Winthrop lifted her skirts clear of the wet cobbles and pointed after the man in the brown coat, who was already vanishing into the market with her reticule and the eleven shillings inside it.

The fishmonger nearest her looked up from a tray of mackerel with the grave irritation of a man whose fish had been interrupted. “Stop whom, miss?”

“The man running away with my reticule. Brown coat, narrow shoulders, guilty conscience.”

“There are three brown coats in sight, and I cannot speak for the consciences.”

“Then begin with the one who is fleeing.”

The fishmonger considered the street. “That does narrow it.”

“I am relieved my ruin has achieved clarity.”

He raised his voice with more politeness than urgency. “Oi there! Brown coat!”

The thief did not turn.

Petalia gave the fishmonger a look of strained gratitude. “A bold intervention, sir. Had he possessed a more tender nature, he might have been quite overcome.”

“I shouted, miss. I cannot leave the fish.”

“Naturally. Mackerel before morality.”

She ran before he could answer, though running in her boots proved to be less an act of speed than an argument with leather.

The left boot slapped against the stones, having admitted rainwater at some fatal point near the toe.

The right boot squeaked with each step, announcing to London that Miss Winthrop was poor, late, and gaining on absolutely no one.

A chestnut seller leant over her cart as Petalia passed. “Past the chandler’s, love. Cut through the lane.”

“At last, a practical woman.”

“Mind the puddle by the crossing.”

Petalia saw the puddle, attempted to avoid it, and failed with impressive thoroughness. Cold water rose over her ankle.

“I did mind it,” she called over her shoulder, breathless. “The puddle was unmoved by my regard.”

The chestnut seller laughed. “Keep going, then. Brown coat’s still in sight.”

Petalia did keep going. She cut between a handcart and a woman carrying a basket of onions, apologised to three people and offended two more, and arrived at the corner just in time to see the thief glance back. Her reticule was tucked beneath his arm.

“Sir!” she called, with all the command she could summon. “Return that to me at once.”

He ran faster.

“That was not a negotiation!”

A newspaper boy, who had evidently decided the chase was better entertainment than his employment, fell into step beside her for several yards. “You’ll not catch him, miss. He’s got legs like a greyhound.”

“Then do not stand there admiring him. Fetch a constable.”

“For tuppence, I might.”

“My tuppence is in the purse.”

The boy’s grin widened. “That’s poor planning.”

“Left after the chandler’s,” he added after a beat. “He’ll try the passage behind Gable Lane.”

Petalia looked at him, surprised into appreciation despite the stitch gathering under her ribs. “Useful at last.”

“Comes and goes, miss.”

He gave a jaunty salute and darted back towards his newspapers. Petalia turned left.

For one hopeful moment, the chase seemed possible.

The thief had been slowed by a milk cart half blocking the lane, and Petalia saw the brown of his coat through the shifting bodies ahead.

She pressed on, damp skirts clinging about her ankles, her breath coming hard enough to embarrass her if she had possessed the leisure to be embarrassed.

A ribbon seller stepped from a doorway with a tray balanced in both hands. Petalia tried to stop. Her boots ignored the instruction. She caught the edge of the tray with her sleeve, and several yards of blue ribbon slid down her arm like an accusation.

“Oh, my ribbons!” cried the woman.

“I am so sorry. I shall come back and be properly mortified, I promise.”

“What has happened?”

“My reticule. Brown coat, narrow shoulders, dreadful principles.”

The ribbon seller pointed at once. “Through the passage. Middle turning.”

“You are a credit to your sex.”

“And you are losing time.”

“Yes, that too.”

Petalia pushed the ribbon back into the woman’s hands, made another apology, and ran into the passage.

It was narrow, dim, and slick with rain.

By the time she reached the far end, the man in the brown coat had disappeared into one of the lanes beyond it, and London had swallowed him without even the courtesy of leaving a direction behind.

A cart rattled somewhere nearby. A door shut.

A cat, seated on a barrel, gave Petalia one uninterested glance before returning to the serious business of ignoring mankind.

Petalia stopped with one hand against the brick wall.

“No,” she said softly.

The word did not change anything.

Her reticule was gone. With it went eleven shillings, the letter of character from Mrs Halverston, and the brass hairpin that had belonged to her mother.

The money could be earned again if fortune chose to remember her existence.

The letter could be requested again if Mrs Halverston was at home, well, willing, and quick with the post. The hairpin was a different matter.

It was plain, almost ugly, and worth nothing in a shop, which made the loss of it feel especially cruel.

No thief would value it, and yet he had taken from her the only thing in the world she had not been able to replace.

She drew one breath, then another, and tried to make the second steadier than the first.

“Very well,” she murmured, though nothing was well. “Very well. We shall not be foolish about this.”

She pushed away from the wall, but the wet sole of her left boot slipped on the stones. Before she could fall, a hand closed around her elbow and steadied her with firm, reluctant efficiency.

“I beg your pardon,” she said at once, looking down as she recovered her balance. “I am much obliged to you, sir. I should otherwise have made a complete spectacle of myself, which I have already done in three streets and do not wish to carry into a fourth.”

She looked up then, and the rest of her gratitude caught in her throat.

The man beside her was tall and broad through the shoulders, with dark curls fallen untidily across his brow and a scarf tied high over the lower part of his face.

Even so, it did not hide everything. A jagged line of old scarring reached along his jaw and disappeared beneath the cloth. She saw them; he saw her see them.

His hand left her elbow at once.

“You have recovered your balance,” he said, his voice rough and controlled. “Try to keep it.”

Petalia lifted her chin. “I intended to thank you.”

“Then you were delayed by staring.”

A flush warmed her cheeks, partly from shame and partly from irritation. “I was delayed by surprise, sir, which is a different matter entirely. I was also recently robbed, soaked, and abandoned by public spirit, so my manners are not at their finest.”

“The streets are not kind to women who run through them without looking.”

“Nor are they kind to women who stand still with a reticule, as that was the position in which the trouble began.”

He glanced towards the empty lane. “The thief is gone.”

“I had nearly arrived at the conclusion myself.”

“Then you had better return home.”

“An elegant solution, if home were a place that did not expect rent.”

The man’s eyes sharpened slightly above the scarf. He seemed prepared to turn away, and for one moment she thought he would. Then he looked down the passage again, as if the vanished thief had personally offended him by failing to remain available.

“Have you no one with you?” he asked.

“I am not in the habit of bringing a committee to a morning errand.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Petalia folded her gloved hands, more to keep them from trembling than from any display of composure. “No. I have no one with me.”

“A father? A brother? A husband who may be sent for?”

“No father, no brother of any practical use, and no husband at all. I am afraid I cannot furnish the scene with a gentleman merely because propriety would prefer it.”

“You are alone in London?”

“I am alone in this passage. London is too large a claim for the present hour.”

“You answer everything sideways.”

“And you ask everything as if you intend to have me arrested for my own misfortune.”

For the first time, his gaze altered. It was not quite amusement, though it came near enough to make his severity less complete.

“What was taken?”

Petalia hesitated. It was absurd to confess one’s whole worldly condition to a man whose name she did not know and whose first instinct had been to scold her for falling.

Yet the question had been plainly asked, and after the morning’s useless bystanders, the plainness of it felt almost like assistance.

“My reticule,” she said. “Eleven shillings, which were meant for my landlady. A letter of character from my former employer. And a hairpin.”

“A hairpin?”

“Brass. Worthless to anyone who had no reason to care for it. My mother’s.”

The man’s expression did not soften, but it stilled.

“Then the thief took more than money.”

Petalia looked away, blinking once. “Yes. He did.”

“The letter of character suggests you were seeking employment. What sort?”

“Respectable employment.”

“That is a category, not an answer.”

“It is the safest answer to give a stranger in a passage.”

He accepted that with a slight inclination of his head, which surprised her. Most gentlemen disliked being reminded they were strangers. This one seemed to dislike almost everything, but he had the rare grace not to argue with accuracy.

“And without the letter?” he asked.

“Without the letter, my prospects diminish.”

“Diminish is a mild word.”

“I am fond of mild words. They take up less room than panic.”

“When is your rent due?”

“Saturday.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“Yes. I have been keeping pace with the week, though it has shown me no similar courtesy.”

He studied her for a long moment. Rain tapped lightly against a broken gutter overhead, and from the street beyond came the calls of vendors continuing their morning as if hers had not split down the middle.

“You are calm,” he said at last.

“I am not calm. I am extremely busy not becoming ridiculous.”