She became aware at this point that Hugh had been moving against her, a small burrowing sensation like an infant at its mother’s shirt-front. At the same time, his arms had tightened around her, and seemed lower than they had begun. One hand was splayed, pressing against the folds of cloth that in a day dress would be the bustle. There was a fascination in the sensations, and nothing…indelicate. He and she were, after all, to be engaged. Were all but engaged.
When his other hand slipped up her body to her neck, tipping her mouth down to his, she did not resist. Not even when his gentle kisses became harder, when his breathing went rough and her own caught in her throat. Hugh needed her: needed her, Clarissa Hudson.
He stood, strong against her. One button parted. Another. His warm hand touched her skin, hesitantly, a request rather than a demand. And when his mouth teased at her nipple, she was lost.
The first time in bed was confusing, uncomfortable, awkward—and quick. Afterwards, he spoke of love, soothing her with hands and words, playing with the gold coin between her naked breasts. After a while, his caresses changed from comforting to urgent. This time it was easier, no longer distressing in body or mind. They slept, and the third time, as evening fell over the city, was slow, compelling, and deeply satisfying in all the ways she could imagine.
Their fourth time, as the windows began to grow light again, was initiated by Clarissa herself, reaching shyly for her lover in the rumpled sheets of the hotel bed.
When she woke to full daylight, he was gone.
Three days later, purring with contentment before the morning fire, she turned the page in the day’s newspaper and his name leapt out at her: engaged, to the Hon Virginia Walthorpe-Vane, the eighteen-year-old only child of a wealthy manufacturer from Shropshire, over the Christmas holidays. His mother was among the four named parents. No mention was made of any recent bereavement.
A lie, all of it. Clarissa Hudson was alone and friendless, with a lot of bills, no partner for her Cheats, and any dignity and self-respect shredded by the clever hands of Hugh Edmunds.
In February, Clarissa surreptitiously moved out of the hotel, leaving her bill unpaid, and took a room in cheaper accommodations.
In March, she knew for certain that she was with child.
Clarissa spent precisely one hour weeping, before drawing around her shoulders the wrap of cold reason: when an upper-crust girl found herself in this situation, she could disappear for a tour of the Colonies and return once her figure had recovered, by which time her family would have arranged a quiet, brief courtship by some male who had not appealed to the marriage market. Or she could have the baby removed—but Clarissa had seen what happened to women who submitted to those butchers, and had no wish to end her days raving with the agony of a septic womb.
But if she was to have this child, how was she to live? It mattered not how many silk dresses a woman owned: in this unforgiving age of Victoria, ultimately the soup-kitchen and workhouse loomed. Her child would be taken, and Clarissa Hudson reduced to a grey drudge.
Which left…what? Turn to Hugh Edmunds for support? The bastardy laws would force his contribution, but she would have to crawl for it—and, prove it, never an easy task when it came to the well-defended upper classes. She could forge a character, but what honest employment could she find with that? Her mother had been a governess, but no family would employ a pregnant governess—and in any event, Clarissa could do little more than read and write, since the actual schooling had been left to Alicia. Her skills with sewing needles and saucepans were similarly basic, which left work in a factory, where she would spend every daylight hour spinning thread or making matches, giving her child’s care over to the old witches who numbed their charges with a gruel of bread mashed with gin.
The coldly expected recourse for a woman in her position was prostitution. And yes, she possessed the wardrobe—and the demeanour—that would lift her above the poor diseased street-corner wretches. But she had met courtesans over the years, and had never failed to feel their self-loathing. The possibility of giving her body for profit had been the ghost at her shoulders since the day she’d donned a corset and put up her hair at the age of thirteen. Her father had (thank God) never countenanced anything beyond the flirtatious gesture. Indeed, he’d made it perfectly clear that using herself in that way would have caused him, and worse, her mother, to turn away in shame.
The idea of losing herself so thoroughly, of submitting to the hands and grunts of strangers, made Clarissa shudder with horror—although even with a belly that scarcely pushed at her skirts, she suspected that pride was a thing she could no longer afford.
Fortunately, she had other options, and easier skills. She needed only go back to her previous life, the life she had led before the Viscount Hugh Edmunds had made her his Mark.
The baby was due in September. If the child was to be born, and born healthy, Clarissa had to eat, and she had to be dry and warm. The thought of cursing her child with a criminal for a mother made her despair, but if she could not afford pride, still less could she afford scruples. The world cheated women like her, stacked the odds against them in so many ways. The only response was to Cheat in return.
By then she’d sold most of her jewels—those her father had not taken, back in September—and all of the furs. Dresses went next, to the second-hand dealers, although slipping out of the hotel bill had forced her to abandon the rest of her wardrobe. She kept a few good things, dresses that would not show much as she changed the bodices and let out the waistlines. Those few dresses, and a return to the basic skills the Cheat Teacher had given her fingers long ago, enabled her to raise the money for rent and food: an hour in Debenham and Freebody’s, a few circuits through the Metropolitan Railway during crowded periods, and the contents of various pockets and bags were hers.
Spring refused to come, and the lingering winter was brutal. Palming goods from a shop was tough with gloves on. And some days, it took half an hour on the Metropolitan to warm her fingers enough for a dip. At times, she left with empty hands, when she’d felt the gaze of one of the more attentive guards. In the same way, she took care not to re-visit shops too often, as the guards got to know the customers—and their clothing. She rang all the possible changes on her appearance, adding lace or feathers to her hats, draping a shawl she’d lifted from a lady’s shoulders, replacing the buttons: she could only move freely among her targets if she looked as if she belonged among them.
It was the gloves that made for a losing battle. One need only glance at a lady’s hands to know her status, and keeping a soft kid surface clean, its stitches firm, and its knuckles snug were hard enough in good weather. Pawn shops sold gloves, although for not much less than the second-hand dealers. Only once did she manage to lift an unattended pair that came anywhere close to fitting.
It became harder and harder to make the rent for her ill-heated, ill-furnished room, even when the weather began to relent. For some reason, her hands became more clumsy as her belly expanded, and her self-assurance in slipping from one rôle to another became less reliable. Desperation proved no substitute for confidence, and a hesitant confidence-trickster was flirting with danger. Clarissa even missed her father. Without a partner, she felt very exposed.
Then in April, the baby moved for the first time. Clarissa was sitting on the Underground behind a tall man in a vicuña coat that would have set her up nicely for half a year. The car was crowded, and he had stood up so she could sit. She was rehearsing her move—make as if to rise, drop her bag, let him reach to the floor while sliding her hand into his coat—when suddenly, picking pockets was the last thing on her mind. The man heard her gasp and turned, his face—a nice face, a friendly broad face—going first questioning then, when he saw her hand resting on her belly, concerned.
“Are you quite well, Madam?” he asked.
“Yes, I—” She caught herself before she blurted out some intimate detail. “Quite well, thank you. Pardon me, this seems to be my stop.”
&nbs
p; It was not, but he had seen her, would remember her face.
Besides which, she needed to be alone, to consider things a bit more closely.
A baby. A real, living, kicking baby.
She could not go on like this. She was good at what she did, and scruples or no, she had to feed this kicking thing inside her. However, she needed a partner, someone to help work her Cheats, someone with even fewer hesitations than she had.
And as it happened, she knew where to find one.
I had no clear idea how long it had been since I had looked up from my mail at the sound of a motorcar’s tyres in the drive—ten minutes? hours?—but sitting in Mrs Hudson’s armchair, waiting for her son to murder me, felt like longer yet.
“Papers are papers,” he said at last. “Where would she put them if not in her desk?”
I eased out my long-held breath. “An old house like ours, it could be a dozen places. A knitting pattern might go in that hassock. A personal letter could go into storage. Something she didn’t want people to see might be tucked behind her spice cabinet. Legal papers, well, she may have given Holmes something to put in the safe.”
To my disappointment, he bypassed my offer of the safe—one of the house revolvers lay within reach of its door. “Let’s start with storage.”
“Would this be something she’s had for a long time?”
“Could be. Or…”
I waited, trying to look eager to help. For some reason, this question created a sticking point, for several very long seconds. I could see him come to a decision: his face relaxed, and he might as well have said aloud, Sure, why not tell her? She’s not going to live long anyway. “I sent a crate of, well, things. Just odds and ends, really, after Mum—after her sister died. Did they get here?”
“I think so.”
“Good! Good.”
It was a fervent reaction, considering that the crate he was talking about had held little more than rubbish—and certainly no passbooks. Its contents had been so badly packed as to have been a deliberate message: granted, the child’s string doll must have been tired to begin with, and the once-pretty beaded ladies’ evening bag was the victim of time as much as abuse. But half a dozen photographs came out crumpled and gouged beyond redemption; a copy of The Old Curiosity Shop was missing the entire first section; several old letters—not even entire, but single pages from different correspondents—had been thrust in to fend for themselves. Three lovely doll costumes might have survived had they not been tumbled against broken porcelain during the long sea voyage. One of these miniature frocks, a full-skirted Victorian costume made out of violet silk with a million unbelievably tiny stitches, had been reduced to shreds.
I had thought, watching Mrs Hudson pick sadly through the mess last November, that this tiny dress was the source of her mourning, until she picked up one of the larger porcelain shards. A pair of tea-cups, she told me: her mother’s only possession. Unshed tears quivered in her eyes when she swept the shards into the waste-bin. Afterwards, I rescued the pieces and took them to a porcelain mender. He managed to reconstruct a single saucer, although it showed the myriad lines of his work, and she had looked at it without much enthusiasm. Still, it was given a place on her shelf of mementoes near the door.
Her son now followed my eyes to the saucer. “That’s the thing. Looks like it got a bit cracked in shipping.” He put his finger behind it, and tipped it off the shelf. Bits skittered in all directions.
“Let’s go look in that storage room,” he said.
Facing The Bishop was the toughest Cheat that Clarissa had ever talked herself into. She remembered all too clearly her father’s condition when he’d returned from negotiating old debts, and while she did not imagine the man would do such a thing to her, she knew full well that he would have an alternative for wayward women. And as for his son, straining at his tethers…
In the end, as with any Cheat, the person she had to convince was herself. The crime boss was just a man, and Clarissa Hudson was his match. The Bishop’s demonstrated brutality was less madness than a ruthless dedication to business: nothing like throwing a thieving underling out of a high window to make the man’s colleagues think twice about cheating the boss.
Or so she told herself, over and over during the night. Her heart counted off the seconds with dull thuds, her bed resisted any attempt at finding comfort. Even the tiny fish in her belly was restless, protesting her turmoil.
For half her life, Clarissa Hudson’s ability to read people and reflect what they wanted had kept her family warm, fed, and clothed in silk. Her audience with The Bishop would be no different. Follow his lead, she told herself. He’s only a man. Read the clues he’ll give you, then be what he wants. A hundred times, she repeated, You don’t need forgiveness. You only need to convince him that he’s better off using Clarissa Hudson than punishing her for her father’s sins.
But all she could think of, that endless night, that frigid morning, were the times her skills had failed. The smooth and impenetrable Mr Bevins, his choking hands in the Ballarat darkness. One or two others like him over the years, when only memory of that glassy façade had raised her suspicions.
Hugh Edmunds, who had somehow got under her guard.
Yes, she was capable, but Clarissa’s hands were icy and her body damp as she rode the omnibus across town to The Bishop’s palace.
And going against a lifetime of habit, she left the tiny ivory-handled revolver in her room. She might as well place it against her own temple, as use it against The Bishop.
—
“Yes, Mr Bishop, I am aware that when my father left London last autumn, he owed you money. He owes me as well, for that matter, although I imagine I have even less of a chance at seeing repayment than you.”
The Bishop was in his throne room, a still-big man in a big decorative chair, with a desk before it to make clear that this was the centre of a business establishment, however criminal. The clerkish man who had been sitting there when she was brought in was dismissed. With him gone, every man in the room looked like a bare-knuckles fighter.
Surrounded by large, violent men, Clarissa sat, a demure figure with gloved hands lying across the beaded bag in her lap—a bag that had been pawed through at the door, by the first in a series of men whose rough handling had made their boss’s attitude towards her crystal clear. Her voice was reasonable; the position of her back and shoulders politely upright; there was no trace of tension in her eyes or jaw. This young woman’s apparent oblivion to the threat that radiated from The Bishop like a hot stove was making everyone in the room uneasy.
Everyone except the two people talking.
To Clarissa’s immense relief, The Bishop’s face had proved neither smooth nor impenetrable. The Bishop was angry and fed up and would take a great deal of convincing, but The Bishop was a man, and Clarissa Hudson had been shaping men her whole life.
The son, on the other hand…
Her father had called him a mad dog, and she had no doubt that if The Bishop decided to turn his son loose, her life would be over. The old man had already called him to heel twice. The younger man, in his late thirties and with the build of a docks worker, paced back and forth behind his father’s throne—where he seemed about equally torn between throwing himself on her, and on the aged father under whose rule he was clearly chafing.
They all expected—Bishop and son, Demander and the others in the room—for her to babble and beg. Instead, she said her piece and closed her mouth, waiting in all apparent peace for his reply. And indeed, she was no longer sweating. Her stomach had settled. Committing to a Cheat was like going off a cliff: the first step was hard; the rest was merely waiting.
Seconds passed, the silence grew profound. One could hear the ticking of two pocket watches, a gurgle from someone’s gut, and the holding of breath.
Clarissa permitted one of her eyebrows to rise in a gracious question, but said nothing. Her hands remained loosely clasped, her breasts rose and fell in a slow, even rhythm.
/>
The sudden creak of wood nearly startled a twitch out of her, as The Bishop sat back, dropping one elbow over the throne’s arm and resting a foot on his knee. He’d been a big man, once, and was still a physical presence in the room despite his eight decades. The cold rage that greeted her entrance had faded, to be replaced by an expression of interest, even (was it possible?) amusement. For the first time since walking into the room, Clarissa became aware that her lungs were drawing in air.
“So if you’re not here to pay what your father owes,” the old man asked, “what’s your game?”
She smiled—not as triumph, but an acknowledgement that they had entered the next stage of business.
“As I told this gentleman”—she nodded towards the ginger-haired Demander, sitting to The Bishop’s left—“Mr…‘Smith,’ I believe, whom you sent to speak with me last October, I neither know where my father is, nor do I have the resources to pay off his debt to you…directly.” She let him listen to that last word for a moment before she continued. “As you may have noticed, I have fallen on hard times. In my current condition, I find myself vulnerable to all the obstacles life sets before a woman, and more. Not the least of those being that as an independent…agent, as it were, I would be setting myself up in some degree of competition with you.
“Therefore, I should like to make a business proposition: my skills, which are considerable, in exchange for one of your employees as a partner. I would give you a percentage of my takings. In return, you would offer me your protection among your associates here in London.”
The amusement on his face was clearer now, although it contained more than a little cruelty. “There’s lots of houses need cats, Miss Hudson. Some men like a touch of what you got at the moment.”