A Lady in Hiding (5 page)

When Sam got up at half past five, she was disgusted to find her belly growling hollowly. She rubbed it, trying not to think about Mr. Trenchard’s twinkling eyes or his excellent larder. She got dressed quickly, listening to the sounds of fellow boarders beginning to stir in the cool, pre-dawn darkness.

She opened the door. “Shush,” she warned her belly when it rumbled. “I suppose now that you’ve had a taste of beef, you’ll want it every day. It was a treat, last night, and one you’re not likely to get again. And you can just stop mooning over that Trenchard fellow like any silly schoolgirl, too. You’re a working lad, and there’s an end to it. He’d die laughing if he knew you’d gone all soft-headed over his lazy good looks.” She thrust her misshapen hat on her head and started down the stairs, eager to be out of the house.

Halfway down, she paused, caught in the glow of an old carriage lamp lighting the hallway below.

“Mr. Sanderson!” Mrs. Pochard called up to Sam. “Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Pochard” Sam replied, tramping down the last few steps. “How are you today?”

“As right as can be expected when half my lodgers seem to believe they own the right to come and go as they please without a shilling of their rent paid.” She held the light up, frowning at Sam.

Sam smiled and attempted to circle around the plump lady.

Mrs. Pochard’s dress had a few stains on the bosom and the faint odor of cabbage still clung to her. Either she had slept in her clothing or hadn’t noticed they were not as fresh as they might have been. “Not so fast, Mr. Sanderson. You’ve rent to pay.”

“Indeed, I do,” Sam said, doffing her hat, trying not to think about how much Mrs. Pochard’s rather square nose and her heavy jowls resting on her massive chest gave her the appearance of a pig on a platter. All she needed was an apple in her mouth and a wreath of parsley around her stout neck.

Mrs. Pochard’s jowls wobbled in the wavering light. She thrust out a damp palm. “Then I’d be obliged if you’d pay it,
sir
.”

The emphasis on the word ‘sir’ did not escape Sam’s notice. She stilled for a moment. Had her landlady had seen through her disguise, or was she merely impugning Sam’s ability to pay on time?

Mrs. Pochard certainly ought to know better. Sam had been renting her room for two months now and had never failed to pay. Eventually.

Sam reseated her hat on her head and ruthlessly circled her landlady. “I’m paid today. You know that almost as well as I do. You’ll have your money by supper. Tonight.”

“See that I do. I’ve a list of fine young men— gentlemen of
breeding
—wanting that room. I’ve no mind to let it go for a few sweet words and promises.”

“Understandable, my dear lady. And who could blame a gentleman for desiring rooms with such a lovely landlady?”

Mrs. Pochard’s plump hand fluttered over her breast. “Indeed, sir, you flatter me.”

With a swagger and a wink, Sam managed to get around Mrs. Pochard and escape into the street. She raced around the corner, pulling sixpence out of her pocket as she went. Every morning, a young lass strolled down the next street over with a tray of fresh, warm rolls from the baker. For a single, silver coin, Sam could grab one to eat before collecting the cart and Mr. Hawkins.

“Betsy!” Sam called, running when she recognized the red-striped dress of the baker’s daughter swaying through the misty blue shadows.

Betsy swirled around with a smile. “Mr. Sanderson, late again?”

“Not this time.” Sam tossed her coin into the girl’s outstretched hand. Grabbing a yeasty roll, still hot with a browned top oily from rich, melted butter, Sam bit into it. This morning she felt twice as hungry despite her heavy meal the previous night. She started to turn away, one hand on her rumbling stomach when the girl called her back.

“Wait,” Betsy said, a hand on Sam’s arm. Her dark eyes flashed as she glanced over her shoulder, as if she expected her father to appear behind her, hands on his hips and brows beetling over frowning eyes. “Have another.” Her slim fingers hovered over the tray and plucked out the largest bun.

Sam shook her head, her mouth full. “Mmm, sorry, no. Can’t spare another sixpence.”

Pushing the roll into Sam’s hand, Betsy laughed. “You’re my best customer, Mr. Sanderson. Consider it my gift. To
you
.”

“Thanks!” She took the proffered roll and winked at Betsy before running off without another thought about the baker’s girl or Mrs. Pochard.

By seven, Sam had loaded the cart with the help of a stable boy, hitched up the horse, and was waiting, reins in her hands, when Mr. Hawkins kissed his wife and bustled down the stairs.

“Mending your ways, I see,” Hawkins commented as he arranged himself in the seat next to Sam. “Here by seven as you should be. Did you do what I said?”

“Beg your pardon, sir?”

“The sulfur and ash.” Hawkins shook his head. “Did you get the right mix from your apothecary?”

“Yes, sir. Thanks to you.”

“And did you use it? Every night and every morn. Don’t forget, or you’ll be spending a miserable honeymoon with poor Kitty.” He chuckled and slapped his knees. “She might not be as understanding of men’s ways as her papa, you understand. So you’d best do as I say.”

“Yes, sir. Every night and every morning,” Sam repeated dutifully, wondering if a bad case of crabs could be turned to her advantage. Would it, for example, be sufficient reason to delay an unwanted and undoubtedly illegal wedding? “If you think Miss Hawkins will be upset, perhaps we should delay—”

“Delay?” Hawkins hooted, grabbing the hat off his head and swatting Sam with it. “Why, a little case of the crabs is no reason to delay. No. You do as I say. You’ll be well enough to make Kitty right pleased with you on your wedding night.”

A flush of queasiness made the two buns in Sam’s stomach feel like a pair of bricks lodged under her heart. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t marry Miss Kitty Hawkins, and she absolutely could
not
sit there discussing their wedding night with Miss Hawkins’s father. It offended every shred of decency left in Sam’s practical soul.

How was she going to escape this quagmire? Show up as herself, Miss Sarah Sanderson? That would certainly stop the wedding.

If only she could appear as a fashionable young lady, escorted by Mr. Trenchard
. Well, that was certainly wishful thinking. With her sunburned cheeks, calloused hands, and straggly hair, it was more likely that Mr. Trenchard would run away with the baker’s daughter than be seen with the likes of Sam, or Sarah.

If wishes were horses, they’d all be riders.

For now, changing the subject seemed to be in order. “Sir, have we another job after this one? We’ll finish this week if all goes well.”

“Yes, indeed.” Hawkins flushed with pleasure. “I heard there may be a bit more work if we finish the wall to their liking. The owner’s nephew is a duke, you know,” he repeated, although Sam had not forgotten this obscure and completely irrelevant information. Clearly, Mr. Hawkins enjoyed repeating it. He smacked his lips over the word “duke” just as if he had eaten a very large spoonful of his favorite suet-and-raisin pudding. “There’ll be more work from that quarter if we look sharp. Yes, indeed. The uncle of a duke—now there’s a good employer to have.”

When they arrived at the duke’s uncle’s house, Sam unhitched the horse, wiped it down, and tried to believe she didn’t actually feel anyone’s eyes boring into her back as she wheeled loads of bricks from the cart to the base of the garden wall. Despite her resolve, each time she approached the mouth of the alley, she had to concentrate on her task to keep from scanning the sidewalks and road beyond.

There was never anyone staring that she could see. Except for the legless soldier sitting on a small, wheeled platform across the way, begging for a few coins. And, of course, the peddlers hoping to sell the workmen a few odds and ends. And the fruit seller ambling by with a tray of withered apples from last fall. And of course the rag pickers and urchins who searched the gutters hoping for a few lost coins or something they could sell—or eat.

In fact, there were any number of people who routinely littered the streets, alleys, and sidewalks for obscene lengths of time, all of whom thought nothing of staring at the bricklayers doing an honest bit of labor in the pale April sunshine. Any one of them could be responsible for the itch between Sam’s shoulder blades.

And for anyone else, the sensation of being observed might be considered quite normal in the teeming streets of London. Quite innocent.

But not for Sam.

William allowed one of the elderly maids that Gaunt had unaccountably hired to serve him a leisurely breakfast in bed. He opened the newspaper and spread it out over his knees while he chewed on a piece of toast lavishly covered with orange marmalade. There was a small report on the bottom of page one. A man identified as Major John Pickering of Longmoor had been fatally stabbed Wednesday morning, April 7, 1819.

The motive was reported as robbery. The man’s wallet was found a few feet away, emptied of money but containing a number of calling cards that allowed for his speedy identification. He left behind no widow or children.

Throwing the paper to the floor, William leaned back on a veritable mountain of down pillows to finish his toast and coffee. At least Mr. Sanderson hadn’t been lying about Major Pickering, even if William strongly suspected the lad of lying about almost everything else.

Last night, he had been led astray by Sanderson’s clear gray eyes. He’d appeared so honest, so utterly decent, that William had felt an immediate need to offer him assistance and protection.

What utter rot.

It wasn’t until Sanderson left that William realized how little he'd actually been told. While it was possible that Sanderson simply didn’t know anything else, William thought this unlikely. Even if the scar on Sanderson’s forehead indicated some degree of memory loss, far too many blank spaces lingered in his brief story.

Obviously, William would have to fight this nauseating tendency to grow maudlin over some client’s sad story, even if that client did have the most amazing eyes he had ever seen. On a boy.

If he was a boy.
The question lingered.

Disgusted, he rang for his valet and waited, stretched out in bed. Thinking about newspapers and ways to get information that didn’t require vast amounts of useless sweat and toil, he decided that fires, at least, were easy enough to verify.

Even his family, who generally held William to be a pretty, but empty-headed, wastrel, would agree he was not lazy. But there was no point in ruining expensive clothes with unnecessary perspiration. If one had even an ounce of gray matter, one ought to use it, he reasoned as his valet inserted William’s arms into the exceedingly tight armholes of a very form-fitting deep blue jacket.

He was going to prove, once and for all, that one could be intelligent and dress well, too. After all, one did not exclude the other. After looping his neckcloth around his neck a few times, he carelessly knotted it and thrust the ends through a buttonhole. He rather liked the effect of the well-tailored jacket and tan breeches coupled with the loose, informal neckcloth.

It also had the effect of making him seem less muscular than he was, and he rather liked that slight deception, too. If he needed strength, he preferred it to be a surprise to his opponent.

“Will that be all, sir?” His valet stared at William’s boots with half-closed eyes and a terminally bored expression.

“No. Catch one of those urchins always running about and send him—or her—to locate our Mr. Sanderson. It shouldn’t be too difficult. I want to know where he is working. The name of the firm, I believe, is Hawkins and Hawkins.”

“Hawkins and Hawkins, sir?”

“Yes. Bricklayers.”

His valet sniffed. He was not used to dealing with urchins and obviously didn’t intend to start now.

A profound silence settled around them.

Finally, William waved his hand in a shooing motion and said, “Now.”

The steely edge in his voice convinced his valet to comply without daring another comment.

William collected a pocket watch from his dresser and carefully arranged the chain across his waistcoat before slipping the timepiece into his pocket. No fobs. No other jewelry to interfere with the effect of his smooth waistcoat and carelessly elegant cravat. Nothing to get lost in a fight, should one regretfully ensue.

He was surprised to find he rather wished an altercation would ensue. In fact, he was less unsettled at the notion that Mr. Sanderson’s job might be a tad dangerous than he probably should have been. A small smile flickered across his face at the prospect.

The butler obtained a hackney for William, and by the ungodly hour of ten, he was on his way to Strand. The
British Press
, the
Globe
, the
Courier
and
Morning Chronicle
were all located along that street, as well as unnumbered other broad sheets. It was as good a place to start as any, although he wondered if he ought to buy a pair of cotton gloves along the way to avoid the embarrassment of inky fingerprints on his neckcloth or breeches.

When he arrived at the
Globe
, William strolled into the offices and leaned over the wooden counter. He eyed a slender, white-haired clerk who, in the dim light, might easily be mistaken for an elderly goblin. William almost expected to see cobwebs and small clouds of dust trailing from the clerk's frayed sleeves.

“Yes, sir?” the goblin asked, rubbing his gnarled nose.

“I wish to read any articles you may have concerning a fire—”

“A fire? Which fire, sir? We’ve many fires…” he interrupted irritably. He glanced back at his work and his frown deepened.

William smiled pleasantly. “The 1806 fire in Longmoor. It involved an estate called Elderwood, I believe.”

“Eighteen o’six?” He rubbed his red nose again, his rheumy blue eyes wandering over William’s jacket as if considering its worth.

With an even broader smile, William flipped a shilling onto the counter.

The old man leaned his bony elbows on the ancient wood and stared at the ceiling. William rolled two more shillings over to the first. When the clerk continued to contemplate the blackened plaster above his head, William reached over and tapped the coins.

“If you don’t want them,” he said, his tone as careless as his cravat, “I can certainly find someone who does.”

The clerk grabbed the coins, grunted, and wandered away through the cabinets behind him. There was a great deal of snorting and sneezing between the shelves, but eventually the clerk returned with several folded sheets.

“These are them.” He slapped the papers down in front of William.

William glanced around and raised his brows. “A table and chair?”

“Ha!” the goblin laughed. The sound ended abruptly in a watery snort that made William back up a step. “Read ’em on the counter or floor. Whichever you prefers.”

“Thank you,” William replied sweetly before gingerly unfolding the sheets.

There were several long articles about the Elderwood fire. All of them weeping with hysteria over the loss of the Marquess of Longmoor’s entire household, including the marquess, his wife, and two children on the night of March 17, 1806.

There was even a tearful description of a birthday party for the oldest child, a girl named Sarah, who turned eleven the very day of the tragedy. A cousin named Mary, apparently the same age as Sarah, had been visiting as well to join in the celebration. Little Mary and her two parents were also listed as victims of the fire. The entire family had perished in a few hours, leaving no survivors.

He read the article twice, looking for names of the servants who must also have perished. Unfortunately, they were deemed irrelevant in the initial tale of outraged horror.

There was a second article in a paper a few days later, however, that took gruesome delight in listing every known soul who perished. It listed twenty-three servants in the household, along with the cousins, Mr. and Mrs. John Archer, and their daughter, Mary. The Marquess of Longmoor, his wife Evelyn, and their two children, Sarah, age eleven, and Samuel, age nine, were again at the top of the list. After the immediate family, another visitor, the twenty-year-old daughter of the Duke of Rother, was also listed amongst the dead.

Interestingly, the author hinted that foul play was involved. Officials, those charmingly anonymous informers who seemed so fond of men who wrote for the broadsheets, apparently told the author that one or two slim wedges of wood had been found. They might—or might not—have been shoved between the doors and frames, effectively sealing them shut.

Or the slivers may have fallen from the wooden doors when hatchets were used to open them in futile attempts to assist those inside and to put out the blaze. In the confusion, it was difficult to determine the truth.

In any event, no one had escaped through the doors, even if they had been able to find them through the flames and smoke.

A vision of the star-shaped scar on Sanderson’s forehead hovered between the smudged print and William’s eyes. He read the article again, sympathy and anger tightening his stomach. Sanderson would have been…what? Nine, or ten at the most, given his youthful appearance now and slender build.

Who would have lit a fire, knowing children were present in the house?

William would gladly have lodged the end of his sword in whoever had done so. It sickened him just to consider the grotesque act.

If it had, indeed, been deliberately set.

Pushing away the thought, he concentrated on the sparse facts.

The son of the marquess was called Samuel. He had been nine at the time of the fire. Had he managed to escape and hide for thirteen years? Is that what Sanderson hadn’t told him last night? That he was really the Marquess of Longmoor, but was too afraid to step forward and claim his title?

“Were there any more?” William asked.

“Any more what?” the clerk replied.

“Articles, man. Any more articles?”

The clerk shrugged, laying his hand casually on the counter, palm upwards. William flipped a few more coins onto the counter, deliberately missing the goblin’s palm.

“Sorry, guv’. That’s it. Public lost interest, you might say, after that second piece.”

“Lost
interest
? In what might possibly have been the murder of a marquess and his entire family? Don’t be absurd.”

The goblin shrugged his bony shoulders. “Be that as it may, there was no more written after that second article. ’Cept the obituaries. They're in the back of that second paper yer resting yer hand on, there, sir.”

William scanned the obituaries but found no more information. Impatient to see what the other newspapers reported, he left the
Globe
and visited the
British Press
. Their articles were just as hysterical, decrying the pitiful deaths of the three young children. That paper printed three articles. The last two speculated on the possibility that the fire had been deliberately set and doors jammed to prevent the inhabitants from escaping to safety.

The
Observer
had a correction a week after the event, indicating that Mr. and Mrs. John Archer survived the conflagration. The couple had been visiting nearby neighbors at the time of the tragedy. Their survival had not been noted in the initial articles. The couple had been too overcome with grief at the loss of their family to contact the editors. Sadly, their daughter, Mary, spending the night with her cousins at Elderwood, had indeed perished. There was no additional information, although William visited every newspaper establishment, including the
Hue and Cry
Police Gazette on Strand.

Stopping at a busy coffee shop nearby, he sipped a rich cup of coffee and picked at an apple tart while he considered what he had read. The survival of Mr. and Mrs. John Archer made him uncomfortable. They had apparently been away at the time of the fire.

How very convenient.

Had Major Pickering found this suspicious, as well? Had he found evidence to suggest Mr. Archer had had something to do with the fire that killed his brother-in-law, the marquess?

It would certainly account for Pickering’s sudden intimacy with a sharp knife. And it might explain Mr. Sanderson’s fears, as well. If John Archer knew that Mr. Sanderson was working in London as a bricklayer, Sanderson might well be the next target.

The more William considered the situation, the more likely it seemed that Mr. Sanderson was indeed the son of the Marquess of Longmoor. However, despite that notion, William could not make Sanderson’s gray eyes fit that role. Those curiously smooth cheeks beneath the layer of brick dust were not particularly masculine and neither was the ring of clear skin exposed around Sanderson’s soft mouth after eating.

Many men had light beards, though. William rubbed his own clean-shaven chin. He was fair, but by early evening, stubble would be bristling over his cheeks, darkening them with rough shadows.

His speculations made him uncomfortably aware of an unfamiliar need to protect his client, as well. He
liked
the young man even though he barely knew him. He looked forward to their next meeting. That sense of anticipation disturbed him.

He felt like he was missing something, some vital clue to Sanderson’s identity.

One of the serving girls poured him another cup of coffee. He sipped it, narrowing his eyes in contemplation. Somehow, he thought—or perhaps just hoped—that Mr. Samuel Sanderson might actually be Miss Sarah Sanderson. She would certainly be reluctant to step forward and claim whatever inheritance she might gain, particularly after living so many years as a man. And it made the situation a great deal more interesting. Not to mention awkward—for her.