Beyond Rubies (Daughters of Sin Book 4) (18 page)

“I could make you very happy notwithstanding.” The trouble was, he would be very happy with a wife like Miss La Bijou.

“Hmmm...” She truly appeared to be considering the matter, and when she suddenly let out a gurgle of laughter, he was surprised at the degree of his disappointment. “I’m sorry, Lord Silverton, but I want a man who loves me enough to make me an
honest
offer.”

“Lord Nash hasn’t.”

“I believe I can persuade Nash to see how very valuable a wife like me would be to him.”

“Really, Kitty, holy matrimony is not a prerequisite for happiness.”

This time, she didn’t laugh. “It is when one’s grown up, shamed and reviled, because of the lack of it. Now, are you going to help me rescue Dorcas or not?”

***

K
itty had been acutely conscious all her life that the local villagers reviled her as a lesser creature on account of her illegitimacy. Therefore, her decision to enter the
demimondaine
by becoming the mistress of a member of the aristocracy did not fill her with moral angst.

Lissa had chosen the virtuous path...hard work.

But Dorcas would view her own road to ruin in an entirely different way, Kitty realized...as entirely her fault, with earthly torment the only consequence to be followed by eternal damnation. Not just purgatory, but the eternal fire and brimstone meted out to true sinners.

But, however badly Dorcas was damaged, Kitty first had to get her out of Mrs. Montgomery’s clutches.

“Stay quiet and obedient and do as I say,” Lord Silverton ordered Kitty in a whisper as they stood opposite the brothel. “I’ll not risk you entering that terrible house, where Mrs. Montgomery would snatch you up as if you were manna from Heaven, but I will want you here when, hopefully, I get Dorcas out.”

“You’re very commanding when you’ve embarked upon a matter of great urgency. Though if you were my mother speaking, I’d consider you insufferably bossy for telling me what to do like that.” Despite the gravity of the occasion and a certain nervousness—a
great deal
of nervousness—Kitty giggled. Or perhaps that’s why she giggled. Nevertheless, she thought it true. The commanding part. Dressed in evening clothes with a very expertly tied stock of snowy linen, Lord Silverton cut a most impressive figure. A sartorial figure, the height of fashion, his lovely brown hair short at the sides with the natural wave allowed a little longer on top, he did not look like some of the dandies or fops who took fashion to ridiculous extremes. Nor did he look like the Corinthians who Kitty thought seemed more interested in themselves and their athletic physiques. Lord Silverton looked simply like a very handsome aristocrat who exuded confidence in a most commanding manner. Really, he was quite devastatingly affecting when the serious cast of his features relaxed into a smile. If she’d considered him a contender for her affections, he’d have quite made her legs turn to jelly.

Suddenly, his serious air was displaced by a disarming smile. “You have no idea how much pleasure it would give me to tell you exactly what I’d like you to do,” he said with raised eyebrow. “Unfortunately, that’s Lord Nash’s prerogative. However, if I succeed in my mission, you might want to reconsider my earlier offer.”

“To look after me, and enjoy me, but not to marry me? I think that’s what you offered, if I’m not mistaken?” She tossed her head, smiling nevertheless. “No, thank you, Lord Silverton. However, I
do
believe that if we are to be successful, I should go indoors and speak to Dorcas myself, though we’ve argued it a hundred times.” She pulled her hood up over her bright hair. “I can go in through the scullery. There would be strangers coming and going all the time, I’d wager, in a house that size.”

Finally, she persuaded him. “Have faith in me, my Lord.” She squeezed Lord Silverton’s wrist. “Now, you go and request to see Dorcas, and I’ll wait in the street until I get a sign of which room you’re in before I head on around to the servant’s entrance.”

When, ten minutes later, Kitty saw the sash window go up on the second room on the east side, she hurried off to do her part.

Despite her cavalier words of earlier, she was afraid. However, that was nothing compared with her terror when the door to the kitchen was opened, and a young tweeny let her into its surprising warmth. An enormous fire was burning while two small boys sat on either end of a spit, turning it to ensure the even roasting of several chickens and a pig.

“Where is Mrs. Montgomery?” she asked. The girl, who looked to be only about twelve or thirteen, pointed upstairs. Her face was pinched and dirty, and she looked a cowed, overworked young thing. “In ‘er room, restin’. Yer can’t see ‘er.”

Kitty put her head close to her ear. “Can you keep a secret?” she whispered, slipping a coin into the child’s hand.

With a gasp, the girl dropped the coin into the pocket of her hessian apron, nodding furiously.

“It’s not really Mrs. Montgomery I want to see; it’s Dorcas. I need to get a message to her that her ma is proper poorly. Mrs. Montgomery won’t let her go, I understand that. I only want to tell Dorcas what she should know.”

The girl bit her lip and didn’t move, but Kitty was prepared for intractability. She suspected the tight rein Mrs. Montgomery would keep over her employees.

She patted the girl’s shoulder. “Mrs. Montgomery would be very angry if she knew you’d let anyone inside, or told them that sort of information, wouldn’t she?”

The girl nodded.

“But
you’d
want to know if your ma was poorly, wouldn’t you? In fact, you’d be heartbroken if you heard the news after it was too late. That’s all I want to do. Tell Dorcas. She can stay right where she is, and I’ll leave, and no one will be the wiser. I tell you what.” Kitty fished around in her reticule and pulled out her hand, brandishing another coin. “I’d give this to you when I return, only I’m afraid I might have to leave another way in order to avoid being seen by Mrs. Montgomery, so I’ll give it to you now because I trust you. Now, where did you say Dorcas entertains?”

Within a minute, Kitty was hurrying up the back steps, armed with the necessary information. She had a good sense of direction, so it wasn’t a difficulty locating the room.

Thrusting it open triumphantly, she gasped in horror as she found herself face-to-face with a couple in the throes of fornicating on a large four-poster bed.

“What the deuce!” came the angry cry of the black-haired gentleman, whose dark glower was enough to send Kitty back the way she’d come like a cannonball.

Her heart was hammering, but she could not lose courage. She was more circumspect the next time she quietly turned the doorknob. To her relief, when she put one eye to the crack, it was to see Silverton raising his eyebrows at Kitty as he faced a slender, brown-haired girl. Certainly too slender to be Dorcas, thought Kitty with disappointment. But then the girl spoke, her soft Welsh accent making it quite clear that her old friend had lost a great deal of weight—and much more besides —in the few weeks since Kitty had last seen her.

“Jest leave me be, m’lord,” Dorcas was saying on a sob, hunched over with her hands over her face. She was being half supported by the dresser against the wall while Lord Silverton towered over her, his expression concerned and patient. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere wiv yer or anyone else. Damned is wot I am.”

Silverton spoke softly, and Kitty was struck by his kindness as he tilted the girl’s chin with his forefinger. “Please just agree to see Kitty once, at least, Dorcas. She’s been so worried for you. She knows you’re here, and she wants to help you.”

“Ain’t no one can ‘elp me now,” Dorcas said sadly. “I’m destined for ’ell, whereva I go. I’ve always bin the sort to land in trouble, but it don’t get much worse than this. No, I won’t bring shame ter Miss Kitty. Not now she’s a famous actress, an all.”

“It’s not your shame; it’s the shame of those who have ill-used you, Dorcas,” Silverton tried to explain. “Mrs. Montgomery tricked you, and then you were ill-used by all the...men who frequent this place. You’re not the one who is shamed. They are.”

“It’s true!” Kitty cried, rushing into the room and taking Dorcas into a hug. “Oh Dorcas, you must come with us.”

Dorcas’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, and she gasped, returning Kitty’s hug with energy, before dropping her hands and shaking her head. “No, miss, ain’t no way I can go. I jest told ‘is Lordship why not. ‘Sides, ‘ow can I jest walk through that door? I’m always unda guard, ain’t neva allowed ter leave this place.”

“What if I said I needed you?” Kitty tried her most appealing voice. “You’d come if I needed you, wouldn’t you?”

Dorcas looked uncertain, so Kitty pressed her advantage. “I’m all alone, Kitty, and the only person I consider my true friend is you.”

“Oh miss, if only it were possible!” Dorcas wailed, close to tears. “But yer know it jest ain’t.”

“Do you never leave this place?”

“Never...’cept on Monday mornin’s when I go ter the apothecary ter get the necessaries fer Mrs. Montgomery. An’ then there’s always someone wiv me.”

“The apothecary around the corner? Since you will not come with me now, Dorcas, I shall try again. On Monday,” Kitty said firmly, indicating to Lord Silverton that he should depart ahead of her, for what she had to say was between ladies only. “And if anyone was asking, I came here on the pretext of getting a message to you that your ma was poorly, but don’t be concerned for it’s not the truth.”

“I’m dead to ma, or might as well be, so it makes no diff’rence, miss.” Dorcas’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Now go. Please. I ‘ave ‘nuvver gennulman to see. Thankfully it ain’t that awful Lord Debenham wot sparks terror in me chest. I ‘eard Mrs. Montgomery singin’ me praises to ‘im, but he only likes ter see Daisy.”

“Lord Debenham comes here?” Kitty gasped, as she was struck by memories of her recent encounter with his wife. Her half-sister, though she hated to acknowledge this, even to herself. “Why, he’s married!”

Dorcas gave a lopsided smile. “If you’s bin livin’ the ‘igh life in the theater an’ ‘bout town with yer gennulman wot were ’ere wiv yer, yer’d know that the married ones are worse than all the rest.”

“Yes, I do.” Kitty sighed, adding suddenly, “But Lord Silverton who was here just now and tried to persuade you, earlier also, to come away, is not my gentleman. He’s my friend.”

“Don’t tell me a gennulman like that don’t want more than bein’ jest friends wiv a lady like yerself, Miss.” Dorcas sent her a skeptical look. “They’s all the same, wantin’ only ter pleasure ‘emselves, treatin’ us like nuffink. I’ll wager ‘e’s the same as all the rest, so beware, m’lady. ‘E’s only pretendin’ ter ‘elp yer so’s ‘e can get ‘is way wiv yer in the end. Now that’s all I have ter say on the subject. Yer got ter jest leave me be fer I’ve made me bed, an’ I thank yer fer wantin’ to ‘elp but—”

“You’re wrong!” Kitty gripped Dorcas’s wrist. “Not all men are bad, like you’ve experienced. Lord Silverton has looked after me with care and kindness since my ...”

Dorcas’s eyes widened expectantly, and Kitty swallowed and plunged on, trying a new tack. “Another very handsome gentleman, Lord Nash, has set me up very nicely in a little house and given me lots of presents.” She extended her arm, and the ruby and diamond bracelet she always wore twinkled in the light of the candle on the dresser.

“Yer ‘ave two...protectors, miss?”

“Well, only Lord Nash is my...official protector,” Kitty explained, trying not to feel shame at putting it in these terms. “So, of course, I’m no better than you when it comes to sinning. Lord Nash and I are very much in love, and I’m quite determined he shall make me an offer of marriage before the year is out. We had a bit of a falling-out, so Lord Silverton put me up at his house, but he didn’t try to take advantage of me,” she added quickly to forestall the question it was obvious Dorcas was about to ask.

“But ‘e’s in love wiv yer, nevatheless.”

“I don’t know about that. But Dorcas, what about you? You say no man here has ever treated you with respect? Then you must come with me. You must let me help you escape.”

Dorcas shrugged. “I s’pose they’re not all bad, considerin’ it’s me life now an’ no, I ain’t goin’ ter leave cos’ I can’t endure the shame, knowin’ I’ll ’ave ter pretend foreva afterwards I’m somfink I ain’t when I’m in the real world.” She raised her head, and appeared to concentrate on a water-stained strip of brown and gold wallpaper near the ceiling. “There were one gennulman wot treated me wiv respect. It were after I first come ’ere. Mr. Prism were his name, an ‘e were a clerk in the gov’ment an’ ‘is father were payin’ for ‘is first time as it were ‘is comin’ o’ age. ‘E were ever so shamed by ‘is father’s coarseness, an’ so we jest talked.”

“Just talked? See, Dorcas.”

Dorcas smiled her first smile, and her voice was dreamy. “We lied on the bed, side by side, an jest talked. ‘E asked me ‘bout me work, an’ I told ‘im ‘ow I ‘ated it, but that I were ruined so ‘ad ter stay ‘ere foreva. ‘E was a very nice gennulman. ‘Is father made ‘is money doin’ things ter coins ter make more money. Don’t quite know ‘ow that worked, but Mr. Prism were very snide ‘bout ‘is Papa wot weren’t respectable but wanted
‘im
ter be respectable, yet also wanted ‘im ter do wicked things like send ‘im ter places like Maggie Montgomery’s.” Suddenly, she seemed to realize where she was and who she was talking to. Clasping both of Kitty’s hands in hers, she smiled sadly. “Thank yer, miss, fer takin’ the trouble. Yer ‘ave a good ’eart. I saw it when I first met yer at Mrs. Mobbs’s. There’s few wot ‘ave good ‘earts ’ere. The girls get ‘ard an’ are mean a’cause o’ the competition an’ knowin’ they’s only got a few good years wiv their looks an’ all.”

“Oh Dorcas, you mean you have no friends here? But I’m your friend. Please come with me. I’ll look after you.”

“Truth is, I can’t leave me friend, Sally, til I know she’s goin’ ter be o’right. She’s seven months gone an’ Mrs. Montgomery ‘as been eva so fierce, tryin’ first ter get rid o’ the babe, but it
would
jest grow an’ now Sally can’t work anymore so Mrs. Montgomery said it was off ter the workhouse fer ‘er an’ the babe. That’s when Mrs. Mobbs came ter the rescue wiv a plan ter save Sally an’ the babe.”