Secrets of the Heart (19 page)

“Eh?” came the scratchy voice of an old woman.

“Number 8,” Rachel repeated.

“What ye be wantin' with 'em, then?” the woman demanded.

“I want to talk to Martha Denton,” Rachel said, trying to look reassuring, although she was not quite sure what would make this woman feel reassured. “I am interested in obtaining a lady's maid,” she lied, for she would never give up her own Polly. “I understand that she is an accomplished lady's maid.”

The woman continued to look at her for a long moment. Conscious of the children grouped behind her, Rachel was reluctant to dip into her purse again, but she decided that she had little choice. She opened it and began to search through it for coins, not sure exactly what such information was worth. She had given the other woman three or four pence. Should she pay this one more? A shilling, perhaps? She could find nothing but a couple of florins and several ha'pennies, and she contemplated giving the woman as much as a florin. If she had known that she was going to have to hand out coins, she thought, she would have brought more of them and a better variety.

Suddenly a male voice burst out behind her, “Good God!”

She whirled to see a man striding toward her, weaving through the children. Her first thought was that it was Michael, but of course it was not. It was James Hobson. She squared her shoulders and looked at him coolly.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he exploded, scowling.

Rachel raised her brows. “I fail to see that that is any of your business.”

He looked nonplussed for a moment, then went on, “No, it is your husband's, and a wretched job he's makin' of it, I must say. Have you no sense of propriety?”

“
You
are going to lecture me on propriety?” Rachel huffed, her usually calm temper rising.

“Somebody ought to,” he responded. “Clearly you don't know enough about it.”

“I have been taught propriety from the day I was born, Mr. Hobson, and I think I am well able to decide what I should or should not do. What are you doing here, I might ask?”

Her question pulled Michael up short. He had been so astounded by seeing Rachel in this place that he had charged in without any thought to his story. It was fortunate that he had dressed in his scruffy attire today to visit the late Mrs. Birkshaw's personal maid, so that Rachel assumed once again that he was James Hobson.

“Well, as you said afore, that would be none of your business, my lady.”

Last night Michael had visited the Bow Street Runner whom he often assisted and had asked Cooper if he had heard anything at Bow Street about the death a few months before of Mrs. Anthony Birkshaw. Michael knew, with some shame, that he was acting as much at the spur of jealousy as anything else, and that probably the woman's death had been perfectly natural, but he could not keep himself from inquiring into it. The death of a woman her age was unusual, and the fact that her husband, still in mourning, was paying calls on the woman he had once aspired to marry was enough to arouse suspicions—even in someone else besides the husband of that woman. Cooper, looking thoughtful, had said that the name sounded familiar to him, but he did not know why and had offered to check into it. This afternoon Cooper had come around to Lilith's house and told him that the case had, indeed, come under the investigation of one of the other Runners.

“Ben Mowbray, it were, sir,” Cooper had said. “One of the dead woman's cousins 'ired 'im to look into it. 'E were suspicious, the cousin, of the 'usband, 'count of 'e inherited so much.” He shrugged. “'Course, it were the cousin who would get it if the 'usband 'ad done her in. Anyway, Mowbray couldn't find nothin' to say 'e did it. 'E weren't even 'ome when she come down sick. Come back a week later, when 'e learned 'ow ill she was. Mowbray talked to all the servants and such, and the doctor. Doctor didn't think it were odd, much. Seems she was allus given to ailments like that. Spent several weeks dyin'. Doesn't sound like poison. And none of the servants thought it were anything but a regular death. Did you 'ave some reason for thinkin' otherwise, sir?”

Michael had had to admit that he did not, that he had asked merely out of curiosity. Cooper had given him the address of the late Mrs. Birkshaw's maid, who had left Birkshaw's employ shortly after the death, and Michael had decided that he would at least interview the woman, and maybe the other servants, as well. So he had set out to find Martha Denton and had been shocked down to his toes to see Rachel standing amidst a crowd of dirty urchins in the middle of a part of town that he would have thought she didn't know existed, talking to an old crone hiding inside a wretched house.

He started to go around her to speak to the old woman, who had grown interested enough in the spectacle on the street that she had opened the door another four inches, revealing her whole face.

“Excuse me!” Rachel exclaimed, stepping to the side to block him. “I think I was here first. Please, if you will stand aside while I continue my conversation with this good woman…”

She whipped out the florin—Hobson's presence had goaded her into making certain that she got the information she wanted—and held it up for the woman to see. “You were about to tell me where Martha Denton lives—8 Poppin's Way?”

“Aye.” The woman eyed the silver coin avidly, then jerked her thumb toward the narrow stairs leading up to the second floor of the next building. “'At's number 8 there.” She reached for the coin.

Rachel started to give it to her, then stopped, her eyes narrowing at the way the woman had phrased her answer. “And is that where Martha Denton lives?”

“Used ter,” the woman admitted.

“And where is she now? I think this coin is worth better information than that, don't you?”

“Aw right,” the woman whined. “I don't know where she be 'xactly, but she said she 's goin' to work for a lady. Lady Easter sommat, I don't know what.”

“Esterbrook?” Rachel hazarded. “Was it Lady Esterbrook?”

“Aye, that be the name.” The old woman nodded eagerly, holding out her hand, and Rachel dropped the coin into her palm.

Rachel turned and gave Mr. Hobson a brilliant smile. “Now, if you will excuse me…”

“I hope you don't intend to go flashin' coins all over the neigborhood, my lady, or you're like to find yourself set upon by thieves.”

“Indeed.” Rachel stopped and rooted in her reticule for the penny and ha'penny coins in it, then tossed them all out to the children, flashing Hobson a look of defiance.

She started off down the street. He turned and caught up with her. “This is scarcely the sort of place for a woman like you. You might have some thought to your safety, you know. There might be a few who would mourn your death.”

“How kind of you. But I assure you that I can handle things quite well myself.”

“Oh, really.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “And exactly how are you plannin' to find your way out of here, may I ask? Where will you find a hansom?”

Rachel faltered. Much as she disliked it, she had to admit the truth of his words. She hadn't the slightest idea how to find her way out of this place, and she did not much relish the idea of trying. And, frankly, despite his boorishness, she felt much safer now that Hobson was with her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again, this time in a calmer tone. “Why are you paying people to find out where Martha Denton is?”

Rachel glanced at him. “Well, I could say that I was in need of a good lady's maid.”

“You could, but we would both know that was a lie.” He cast her a sideways glance.

It occurred to Rachel that his eyes were a beautiful color, the palest of grays in the sunlight, almost silver. Yesterday evening, in the carriage, they had been dark, filled with emotion. She stumbled a little, and he whipped out a hand to steady her. Rachel blushed, for she knew that she had stumbled because she had been thinking about his eyes—and also because that brief touch of his fingers on her arm had sent a thrill all through her.

She cleared her throat and turned to look ahead. “I want to talk to the woman. I am trying to help…a friend. Martha Denton was lady's maid to his wife, who died, and he—he has some suspicion that she was murdered.”

“So he asked you to look into it for him?” Michael blurted out, his voice rising.

“No, of course not. He would not have asked me. No one would have asked me to do anything useful.”

His eyebrows sailed up at her last rather bitter statement, but he said nothing.

“He wanted me to ask Michael to look into it. I told you that he thought Michael was the one who investigated things for Bow Street. He did not realize that it was you. I told him I would ask Michael, but obviously I cannot, since he does not do such things. But I—well, my friend seemed so upset that I hated to tell him that Michael refused to do it, and besides, Michael has reason not to like him, and Mr. Birkshaw would think it was because of that. And I did not want him to think that Michael would be petty.”

He glanced at her in surprise. “Why not?”

The gaze she returned to him was also surprised. “Why, because Michael is
not
petty. Not at all. I am sure that, had he known about it and been able to, he would have tried to help Mr. Birkshaw.”

Her companion snorted inelegantly. “I find your faith in your husband touching, my lady. Very few men are eager to help a man whom their wife…befriends.”

“You make it sound as if it were something it's not!” Rachel snapped. “I cannot conceive why you are so determined to think the worst of everyone—me, Michael, Anthony—when you don't even know us.”

“I know the aristocracy,” he answered gruffly, continuing in the rather bitter persona he had established for his alter ego.

“I understand why you feel the way you do,” Rachel said, “but I can promise you that Michael is nothing like his father.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. And you needn't sound so scornful. Michael is a very fair man.”

“And you think he is so fair that he would be happy for you to be out here tramping about the East End, mingling with people like me and worse, looking into a murder?”

“Well, no.” Rachel was too fair herself to pretend otherwise. “He probably would not. He would doubtless be afraid that I would get into some sort of trouble. I am not generally considered someone who is capable of doing things, you see.”

He turned to look at her, his brows drawing together in a frown. “I don't think—” He paused and cleared his throat, then continued. “I don't think Lord Westhampton would look at it that way.”

She cast him a quizzical glance. “This from the man who was just disparaging Lord Westhampton and all the aristocracy?”

Michael made a face. “I'm just sayin' a man would want to protect you—if you belonged to him, I mean. He would worry about you and want you to be safe, and that's why he wouldn't want you wandering about here by yourself. Not because he thinks you cannot do things. What sort of things? You look quite capable to me.”

Rachel chuckled. “No, I don't. I probably seem even more useless to you than I do to Michael. I am, after all, like most of the women of my station—bred for pouring tea and stitching pretty things, but not for thinking or doing anything important. My brother married a woman who runs her own business. Her father used to take her into the wilds with him when he traded with fur trappers. She can shoot a gun and even use a knife.”

“Your sister-in-law sounds like a rum 'un to me.”

Rachel laughed, a silvery sound that snaked down through Michael's gut. “No, she is not a ‘rum 'un.' She is from America.”

“There you go, then.”

“But my other—well, I guess he is not really a relative anymore, but my friend—anyway, his wife is a well-bred Englishwoman, but she is capable, as well. She worked as a governess for years, and she helped Richard solve a mystery at his estate at Christmas. And—and, well, she speaks her mind, and Richard respects her opinion.”

“I am sure your husband respects you.”

“Oh, he respects me, as any gentleman would respect his wife, but that isn't the same thing as respecting my opinion—thinking that what I say has worth and—”

“You think he discounts you?”

She looked at him, considering his question. It surprised her that she was discussing such things so freely with this man, whom she hardly knew. But there was something freeing about talking to a man who did not really know her, who had no concern with how she should act or talk. James Hobson would not care if what she said was unladylike or did not reflect well on her husband or her family. Yet at the same time, because of his similarity in looks to Michael, he seemed familiar to her. It was almost like talking to Michael, but without any worry about how he would take what she said, given the events of their past.

“No,” she said after a moment. “Michael would not act like that. But I do not think he would assume that I could do anything difficult, either. I never have, so I cannot see why he would think I could. But, you see, I can do this,” Rachel told him earnestly. “I can talk to Martha Denton. Better than you can, I warrant, for I can manage to see her at her new place of employment, but I doubt Lady Esterbrook would give you permission to speak to her.”