He banged the front shut and pulled open the drawer underneath, finding Mrs Hudson’s personal and financial history. He glanced over at me. “Sit down in that chair.”
It was her chair: the chair she sat in with a book or her needlework, brightly lit even on a cloudy day. She’d sat me here to arrange my hair up on my head for the first time; had sat there showing me how to sew on a button. The cushions were deep enough to delay any attempt at springing across the room at him. Reluctantly, I pushed back the little pillow and sat, spreading my hands over the antimacassars. With me trapped, he laid the gun atop the filed papers and tried to pull the drawer off its runners, but only succeeded in jerking the entire desk away from the wall. Desks often had a block on drawers, to prevent them from flying out. Had he asked me how to circumvent the safety latches, I might have told him. He did not. I watched as he pulled up the wooden chair and began to sort rapidly through the filed bills, receipts, and letters. Anything in an envelope, he picked it up to look inside.
At the front of the second row, he made a noise, and snatched up the passbook from Mrs Hudson’s Eastbourne bank. His reaction to its contents was an odd mix of disappointment and surprise. He turned to its beginnings, then went through it more methodically before tossing it back in the drawer. Whatever the sum he was looking for, this was both not it, and a sum greater than he’d expected.
It proved to be the drawer’s only item of interest. When he had reached the end of the filed papers, he thrust his hand in to feel the underside of the writing surface, then did the same with the bottom of the drawer itself. He even stood to wrestle with it again, but when the drawer did not come free, he retrieved his gun and made to push it shut—then stopped, picked up the passbook, and dropped it into his pocket. When he banged the drawer shut, it bounced out a fraction, but the force also returned the desk to its place against the wall.
He looked at me then. My heart began to thump. If I shoved my legs hard, the chair would fall and his first bullet would hit the window. His second, though…My hand would reach the knife on my ankle before his had corrected, but could my steel reach him before his lead reached me?
It could not.
Before the speculation in his eyes could change to decision, I hastened to lay an alternative before him.
“I do know Mrs Hudson fairly well. Perhaps if you told me what sort of old papers you’re looking for, I could guess where she might have put them.”
I looked into his pale eyes, the bones of my chest cringing away from thirteen grams of leaden death.
Had Clarissa Hudson allowed herself any actual friends among her many London acquaintances, if she had ventured closeness to any but a handful of fringe-dwellers, they might have urged her towards second thoughts. Or indeed, if she had met Hugh earlier in the year, while the Season was fully under way and before the young people scattered for country and Continent, amused murmurs and knowing glances might have made themselves known.
As it was, the loudest protest came from her father, and her father was precisely the last person she wanted to hear. Hugh was her chance for freedom, and she would not let her father take that from her.
He mistrusted Hugh Edmunds even without knowing who this “friend” was that took up her every free hour. You’re ashamed of him, he’d tell his daughter. I’ll bet he’s a bad ’un. Why else wouldn’t you want me to meet him? I can see you’re in over your head, girl, he declared, on and on, until Clarissa stamped her foot and told him that she would not hear it.
The Season had been ruinously expensive, yet summer’s takings were low. Normally, their solution would have been a trip to the Continent—but Clarissa did not dare leave London.
Distance continued to open between her and James Hudson.
In early September, the loans Hudson had taken to buy her dresses came due, and he could not pay. In late September, she found that her father had emptied the bank account they had agreed was hers. The first Saturday in October, he broke the lock on her jewellery box and helped himself to the most expensive pieces. It was the final straw. When he came to see her that night, she threw him out of her rooms, and demanded that he leave the hotel, and her life.
In desperation, with The Bishop’s men on his coat-tails, Hudson set up a number of one-man Jobs. None of them were anywhere near as effective as when Clarissa was with him, and all were a greater risk: a man might hesitate to admit he’d been fleeced by a woman, but would have no such qualms against a man.
In late October, Hudson was caught with his hand in a proverbial till. He escaped out of the club’s back door, but he was known, and report was made. Well after dark, he crept through the back door of Clarissa’s hotel and made his way to her rooms.
She refused to let him in. When she saw his state, she refused even to speak with him, and started to shut the door in his face.
Hudson stuck his boot between jamb and wood, and was about to add his shoulder when a man’s voice came from within.
“Who the deuces is that, at this hour?”
Hudson stepped back in astonishment. “Clarrie! Have you got a man in—”
Clarissa’s reply to the voice was airy and amused, but pitched to carry back into the room. “Oh, it’s just the old drunk who lives down the hall. He gets confused, poor old dear.” And leaning out, she hissed at her father, “I said, you have to leave me alone.”
The door slammed, the lock turned.
Hudson stood in the hallway, torn between the desire to raise his fist against the wood (and then the people inside) and the fear of creating a row that could get him arrested. Clarrie was running a Job, he told himself: that was all. She’d grown up. She was a woman now, and this was what a woman did.
She’d share the takings, after. The girl always did.
But she did not. For two days, Hudson made a series of increasingly desperate bids to reach Clarissa, and failed. On the third day, the hotel doorman saw him lingering across the street and threatened to send for the police.
That afternoon, penniless, half-frozen, and out of ideas, James Hudson was driven to the same escape he’d used twenty-three years before—only this time he was no longer young, and no longer unafraid. The ship he signed on to was in even worse shape than the Gloria Scott had been: an eight-knot tramp steamer shuttling cargo wherever it could find work. He agreed to a two-year stint, loathing the idea of all that water under his feet without the insulation of gin, but knowing he would jump ship at the first half-promising port. In the first week of November, 1878, Hudson vanished from London, and from his daughter’s life.
Not that Clarissa knew he was gone. As the days went by, she listened for another knock on the door, watched the streets warily, braced for her father to step out from some nearby doorway. She was in love, Hugh was a perfect darling, all was going spectacularly—but she was also a daughter whose father could bring it all tumbling down. And in truth, she was becoming just a bit worried, when he did not make another appearance, and no letter arrived.
Anticipation’s end did not come as she expected, nor did it take the form of her father’s shambling figure or meandering letter. Instead, a big, heavily-muscled, loudly-dressed man with ginger hair and a face to match came to a halt before her as she climbed down from a carriage in front of her hotel.
“You Clarissa Hudson?”
She gathered her skirts and took a step back, glad for the watchful presence of the hotel’s doorman. “Sir, do I know you?”
“You Jim Hudson’s daughter?”
She did not need to ask what the problem was here: someone with that nose, those well-used fists, could only mean that Papa’s loan-shark had sent his Demander. She had to get rid of this one, fast: any respectable hotel would ask a resident to leave if trouble followed. Particularly a resident who had become a little erratic with her payments.
“I do not know what business it is of yours, but yes, I am Clarissa Hudson.” She held up a gloved hand to stay the approaching doorman, who obediently stopped, but who also did not take
his eyes off the potential threat to one of the guests.
“You tell your father that unless he—”
“I am not in touch with my father.”
The Demander reconsidered only briefly. “Your father owes my boss a lot of money. The loan’s gone overdue. He’s left town without makin’ a payment.”
The man’s confident statement came as something of a relief: someone in a position to know things believed that her father was not dead, simply missing. With luck, he was making his way back to Australia. Let his darling Allie deal with him from now on.
However, there was the current situation to be smoothed away. Clarissa widened her eyes and stepped forward to place gloved fingers on the man’s meaty forearm. “Oh, I am so sorry! I was afraid Papa had got himself into some kind of trouble when last I saw him, but that was weeks and weeks ago, and he and I had, well, something of a final falling-out. I told him I did not wish to know what sort of trouble it was that he was in, and that he was not to come back until he had settled it. Was I wrong, to send him away?”
The ginger-man was taken aback by the approach. He scowled, first at her hand, then at the sorrow-filled eyes with their hint of unshed tears. He cleared his throat. “We wants our money, we does.”
“And certainly you should have it,” she pronounced stoutly. She took a step away and set her shoulders in a gesture of resolve. “If my father has entered into a contract and gone back on his word, it is nothing short of shameful. I for one shall have nothing to do with him until he has repaid your employer. And you have my word on that.”
He very nearly thanked her, but managed to catch himself in time. “Er, yes.”
She tugged at her gloves, to mark the matter settled, and said, “I wish your employer Godspeed in his endeavour to reclaim his goods. Thank you for informing me of the matter.”
“I—Miss!” She had been on the verge of stepping around his large form, as he had been on the verge of allowing it. She paused with a pretty frown on her brow. “Miss, if your father turns up, let us know.”
“Very well. Have you a visiting card?”
He had not, and his face assumed another degree of ruddiness at the admission. “Just ask around, down the East End, for The Bishop.”
“The Bishop?” she exclaimed.
He went even pinker. “Not a real bishop. Just what he’s called, see?”
“Ah, that is a relief.” She gave a little laugh. “The idea of a Church of England prelate lending money! Very well, if my father returns—if he comes to me—I shall send word to Mr Bishop in the East End. Thank you, Mr…?”
“Smith,” he provided.
“Well,” she said, showing him a dimple, “it’s a good thing I don’t need to get word to you, as I imagine there might be some degree of confusion.”
As indeed there was on the thug’s face, as she walked up the steps and into the hotel.
—
Clarissa knew The Bishop would come back to her eventually, but her convincing display of innocence should put him off the scent for a time. In any event, the encounter had been worth it, for the information that her father had not been tipped off a bridge by the moneylender’s men. When she let herself into the rooms, Hugh was sprawled across the settee reading one of her novels. He tossed it aside and got to his feet.
“Hullo, darling,” he said, “you’re looking very chipper. Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in?”
“I gave you a key, dear thing, of course I don’t mind.” She presented her cheek for his kiss, divesting herself of hat and coat. (Clarissa had let go her personal maid—because of finances, yes, but also due to Hugh’s presence: maids talked. The hotel’s staff was perfectly adequate to assist her with hair and clothes.) She’d given Hugh a key the previous week. His club was some distance away, and when he’d complained (gently but pointedly) about the amount of time he spent travelling back and forth, and how wet he’d got waiting for a cab the other night, she had to agree, it was a bit silly for two grown people to worry about the strictest of proprieties, particularly when there was already very nearly an understanding between them. So she’d had her key copied, not mentioning it to the management, because after all, Hugh had generously contributed to the hotel bill after she had let him know that her “uncle’s” absence had left her a little…temporarily embarrassed for funds. The hotel was, fortunately, large enough to ensure a degree of anonymity. In any event, he didn’t mind using the side door.
She worried a bit, at first, that he might take advantage, but Hugh was a gentleman, and never did more than nuzzle into the nape of her neck. Not much more. And she had to agree, it was a thrill to come in and find him waiting. Almost like being married already.
“Have you thought any more about Christmas?” she asked, unpinning her hat.
“I have to go up on Saturday. I’ll talk to the parents then.” Hugh’s father, the Earl of Steadworth, had financial interests in the City. As aristocrats went, he had some oddly nouveau riche ideas about business: first, that he ran one at all, and second, he expected Hugh to learn the family business from the inside. Since that business was one of the oldest banks in England, Clarissa could hardly object. Even Hugh, though he grumbled, was ambitious enough (his baronet cousin had been right about that) not to protest too loudly.
“Saturday? But you’re away so much! And we were going to that party of the Carvers. Oh, dearest, do pour me a little glass of something—the shops were most trying.” She perched on the settee, arranging the lines of her skirt as he walked across to the drinks tray.
“Darling, I did warn you how often the bank needs me to travel,” he said. “You’ll just have to go to the Carvers’ without me: the Mater commands. And we do want her on our side.”
“I know your mother is unwell, but I don’t know why your father doesn’t come down to London occasionally like normal people do,” she said with a slight pout. “All these months and I’ve never even met him.”
“I know.” He put the glasses on the table, then continued around the back of the settee, where he bent to lay his cheek against hers. His deft fingers helped ease off her kid gloves. When her hands were bare, his lingered, tracing the vulnerable skin of her wrists, tantalising a path along her arms to her shoulders. The line of her collarbones; the lace around her neck; the warm skin of her throat. Stroking, feather-soft and mesmerising, along the hollows of her jaw. Her head tilted back, eyes half-shut. He smiled down at her, then moved his right hand to lift a tendril of hair, that he might bend to kiss the fluttering pulse in her neck. Wrapped in whalebone, it was hard to breathe, especially when his lips closed around the little pearl earring she wore and his warm tongue teased at it. She gasped, and turned her face to his.
Only when his hands discovered the old gold chain beneath her clothing and began to ease it from her dress did she stand, laughing a touch breathlessly, to check her hair in the glass above the mantelpiece.
She was really very lucky. She’d found a man she could not only bear, but even love, and at the ripe old age of twenty-two and a half. The two of them would make a formidable pair, although he might not realise it yet. With Clarissa Hudson at his side, all his lusts would be satisfied, all of his needs met. In the meantime, her father was off her conscience. Yes, Mr Bishop’s loan was not about to go away, but she had some time to think about how best to pay him. He must be a reasonable fellow—and did Hugh have to know, really?
So: that was November.
For six weeks, apart from a niggling concern about her father, Clarissa clasped happiness to her as only an orphan who’d known hunger could do. For six weeks, as the winter drew in and wool gave way to furs, as Christmas carols rang in the streets and decorated trees began to appear in fashionable windows, Hugh Edmunds courted her, his hands making gentle, insistent inroads on her defences. He spent more time in her hotel, less in his club, and although his bank seemed to be making no recognition of the holiday (or the weather) in its demands on his time, she kept herself busy.
&
nbsp; Christmas this year was a Wednesday, and his parsimonious bank had not given Hugh leave until the day before—ridiculous, he agreed, considering who he was, but he would go along with it this year. Therefore, he and Clarissa would take the train to his family home in Shropshire on the morning of the twenty-fourth, then return to London—parental blessings firmly in hand—on St Stephen’s Day. She thought long and hard about her wardrobe for these three days: conservative but lovely; well-made but not costly-looking; of sufficient variety so as not to elicit disdain, but not so profligate as to appear a threat to their son’s household accounts.
Early Sunday morning, December the twenty-second, when every piece of furniture in her rooms was covered by the lengths of silk and fine wool under consideration, the key sounded in the door and in came Hugh, wild-eyed and unshaven. He had never come to her rooms that early before—she was still in her morning dress! But her protests died away when she saw his state.
“Hugh, dearest, whatever is the matter?”
“It’s—” He took a crumpled telegraph flimsy from his pocket, then shoved it back. “My mother.”
Clarissa opened her arms in pity, and the man, rendered a boy by the loss of a beloved mother, came to her with a sob. He dropped to his knees and pressed his face into the comfort of her embroidered taffeta. She was acutely aware of her lack of a corset, and the loose wrapper felt positively wanton in the situation—but it would be cruel to push him away, quite yet.
They remained there for what seemed a long, long time. Slowly, his body relaxed against hers; her hand caressed his hair. She was glad that she could provide him some comfort, and grateful (though she’d never have told him) that now she would not have to encounter the controlling old termagant in her sick-bed. She could also not stop her mind from speculating what this would mean for her and Hugh. The mourning period would be an irritation; on the other hand, Hugh’s father would be far easier to swing to her side without a wife, and fortunately there were no other…