The Chocolate Debutante (12 page)

Jealousy was new to Susan, but that was exactly what she felt—raging, blind jealousy. Harriet had returned her pin money to her, so she had more than enough to take a hack. She changed into one of her plainest gowns and bonnets. Then she hung over the banisters, waiting until the hall below was empty of servants, for she knew they had strict instructions that she must never leave the house alone.

She moved slowly and quietly down the stairs, took a quick look around, and let herself out. Berkeley Square was quiet, society resting before the pleasures of the evening. She saw a hack entering the square, hailed it, and asked to be driven to Plum Lane.

Verity Palfrey sat with a complacent smile on her face while her maid dressed her hair for the opera. She was determined to go even though she knew she would be snubbed. She had achieved much that day. When Sir Thomas had come straight to her from Harriet, exclaiming over Susan’s engagement, instead of being happy that the girl was no longer any threat, her fury against her mounted. That Susan should ruin her and then go on to become engaged to a young, rich, and eligible man was too much. She appeared to accept the news with languid boredom, but the minute Sir Thomas had left, she went quickly to work. She already had a spy among the servants in Harriet’s household, a young maid who arrived after Sir Thomas’s visit with the report that Harriet was lying down after bathing. Verity asked the girl if she could pass a note to Susan, but the girl had become terrified and suggested that someone should give the note to John. He took a walk around the square every afternoon.

After she had gone, Verity made her plans. She owned an empty property in Plum Lane. During the years she had squirreled away enough money to buy cheap property when it came on the market.

She summoned her two footmen and told them hurriedly what they must do. She knew both her footmen had prison records and for that reason were prepared to work for her for practically no money at all. Although her late husband had left her a wealthy widow and she had no need, for example, to accept money or property from Lord Dangerfield, she was greedy and always wanted more.

She gave them their instructions and a description of Susan. They were to hire a closed carriage. When the girl appeared at Plum Lane, they were to seize her and hold her inside until dark. Then they were to take her to the center of the Rookeries, that notorious network of slums off Holborn, throw her out of the carriage, and leave her to her fate.

One footman protested. “She’ll never come out of there alive or she’ll be sold into prostitution.”

“Exactly,” said Verity. “Now, go about your business.”

Harriet was awakened by her agitated maid, Lucy, three hours after she had fallen asleep. “I cannot find Miss Susan anywhere,” gasped the maid.

“My dear Lucy, she is probably hiding in some cupboard, sleeping off the effects of that great box of chocolates Mr. Courtney brought her.”

“That’s the strange thing, ma’am. The box is still in the drawing room, and she has eaten only two of them.”

Somehow this little fact began to alarm Harriet. She got out of bed, put on a wrapper, called the servants, and everyone began to search the house.

Susan was nowhere to be found.

John, the footman, felt he would die of sheer guilt. He longed to tell his mistress about that mysterious note but was frightened to do so in case he lost his job. And then, as he searched with the others, he saw the crumpled note lying on the floor behind the writing desk in the drawing room and handed it to Harriet.

Harriet read it with a sinking heart. “How is it that Miss Susan was given this note of hand without anyone informing me?”

But the servants looked at each other in bewilderment, except John, who stared at the floor.

“I must find her,” said Harriet. Her thoughts flew to Lord Dangerfield. Not for a moment did she think he had any part in this. All she knew at that moment was that he was tall and strong and had offered his help.

“I will get dressed,” she said. “John, you must go to the opera house. You will find Lord Dangerfield there. I hope you find him there. Tell him I need his help.”

Glad to do something, John ran off.

Verity Palfrey saw across the opera house the way a footman bent over the earl and how he started to his feet and left his box immediately. Had Harriet summoned him? Verity muttered to her maid, “What is the time?”

The maid took a watch like a turnip out of her reticule. “Nine-thirty, ma’am.” Verity gave a catlike smile and settled back in her chair.

Susan alighted from the hack and paid the driver. She was standing staring up at the house, when a man came up behind her. Something hard was shoved in her back. “Do not scream or cry out or I will shoot you,” a voice grated in her ear. “Go into the house.”

Numb with shock and fear, Susan walked up the worn, shallow steps. The door was opened by another man and she was thrust inside.

“What is happening?” she cried. “Why are you doing this?”

She was pushed into a small, bare room and the door was locked behind her. She heard one man saying to the other, “Now, all we have to do is wait until dark.” He raised his voice. “If you scream or cry out, we will kill you.”

There was one hard chair in the room. Susan sat down on it and clutched her trembling knees. From outside filtered the roar of the city traffic as carriages plowed up and down Ludgate Hill at the end of Plum Lane. She went to the window and tried it, but it was nailed shut. She thought briefly of hurling the chair against the glass, but the glass might not break, and even if it did, there might not be time to make her escape before they came bursting into the room.

She longed for Charles. But how would he know where she was? And who could have done this to her? And what had they planned for her?

Some almost animal instinct told her she must not cry. She must remain calm and watch and wait for a chance of escape. She said her prayers, thought of Charles, thought of her resolute aunt, and forced herself to be calm.

Shadows lengthened along the room, and then it was dark. The door opened and she saw her captors. One had a gun trained on her and another a candle in a flat stick. They were both tall and had the cold, impassive faces of upper servants. They did not look like thugs or villains.

Susan had taken off her bonnet, and her golden hair gleamed in the candlelight. She stretched out her hands in a gesture of appeal. “Do not harm me,” she said.

One man looked at the other and said, “Should we do this? We could turn her loose here and no one would know.”

“She’d know somehow,” said the other one gruffly. “Let’s get it over with. Out, miss.”

She
, thought Susan bewildered.
She?
Some woman was behind this. Who? Not Harriet. Could it be Aunt Harriet? She had a sudden mad idea that her aunt had become weary of her chocolate eating and laziness and had decided to get rid of her.

She was bundled out into a closed carriage, one man driving, the one with the gun beside her in the carriage. She watched where they were going, down Ludgate Hill and so to Holborn, and then the carriage lurched over the broken cobbles and into the maze of the Rookeries and stopped.

“Out!” commanded the man with the gun.

Her only thought was that she was miraculously still alive. She thought they had been moved by her plight and were allowing her to live. She cast one frightened look at her captor, who had swung open the carriage door, and plunged out. The driver whipped up the horses and the carriage lurched crazily off down the narrow mean street.

Susan stood and looked around her. The rotting houses hung over the street, blocking out any light from the sky. The stench was vile. By the light of a brazier nearby, dark figures stood huddled. She was aware of more figures huddled in doorways. It was like being in a nightmare forest surrounded by wild animals.

And then a woman caught her arm and screeched, “Here’s a pretty miss!” Susan wrenched her arm free and started to run. A foot shot out of a doorway and tripped her up and she fell headlong. She twisted around to get up and found she was encircled by people, their faces lit by another brazier, looking like evil faces in hell. The women were grinning, and naked lechery gleamed in the men’s eyes. Now Susan knew why she had been left in the Rookeries.

But finding a desperate courage, she struggled to her feet, her golden curls spilling down to her shoulders. In a quiet voice that was more effective than a scream, she said, “Will no one help me?”

Cackling, laughing, grinning, the horrible smelly crowd moved closer, and their dirty, clawlike hands stretched out toward her.

A procession of carriages moved along Plum Lane. In the lead was Harriet with her maid, two burly grooms, and two footmen. Behind her was Lord Dangerfield in his carriage, with his servants, and behind that came Charles Courtney, who had seen Lord Dangerfield hurrying from the opera after being addressed by one of Harriet’s servants and had followed him and learned of Harriet’s urgent request.

Harriet’s two grooms kicked in the door of the house in which Susan had so lately been held prisoner. Harriet rushed in after them, calling, “Susan!”

“Bring lights,” shouted Lord Dangerfield. Lanterns were lit. In a small room off the dingy hall they found Susan’s bonnet lying on the dusty floorboards.

Harriet numbly picked it up. “Where can she be? Who can have done this?”

Lord Dangerfield gathered her to him and held her close. “Stay here. I and my servants and Charles will ask people in the lane if they saw anything.”

Harriet sank down in the chair on which Susan had waited and buried her face in her hands.

After what seemed an age, Lord Dangerfield returned, his face stern. One man farther down the lane had told Charles Courtney that he had seen a young girl being taken off in a closed carriage by two men. But where the carriage had gone or what had happened to Susan, no one could tell them.

Jack Barnaby was a burglar and therefore among the aristocracy of the criminal classes. He was strolling through the Rookeries, thinking what a fine, warm night it was and how good it was to be alive. He did not notice the smell or the rags or the bundles of human misery lying in the doorways. He had grown up in the Rookeries and the slums were home to him. He was unusual in that he was tall, almost six feet in height, and broad-shouldered. But only the strong grew past childhood in the Rookeries.

He turned one twisting dark corner and stopped short at the tableau in front of him. By the light of a flaming brazier stood a golden girl, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was surrounded by a crowd of men and women. He walked forward in time to hear her clear voice, “Will no one help me?”

He strode forward and thrust his way to the front of the crowd. “Come with me,” he said.

Susan stared up at him. He turned around and started to walk away. It flashed through her mind that he was one person as opposed to this terrifying mob, and so she followed him while the crowd fell back, muttering. Jack Barnaby was greatly feared.

He waited on the corner until she came up to him and then continued on his way. Susan stumbled after him along the smelly lanes and alleys. He would probably make her his doxy, she thought miserably, but at least she would be alive.

He stopped at a low doorway and took out a key. “In here,” he said.

Susan walked in and followed him up a rickety staircase to a door at the top which he kicked open. The room she entered was relatively well furnished.

“Sit down,” he said. Susan took a chair by the empty fireplace, feeling her way through the gloom. He lit a branch of candles, held it up, surveyed her in silence, and slowly shook his head in wonderment.

Then he picked up a squat bottle and held it up. “Gin?”

Susan nodded dumbly. Jack Barnaby was not a savory-looking character. His face was pitted by smallpox, his nose was bent, and his toothless mouth very thin and hard.

He poured her a glass of gin and she tossed it straight back, gasping and spluttering as the fiery liquid worked its way down.

“Why are you here?” he asked, sitting down opposite her and leaning forward and refilling her glass.

“I do not know. I am in the Rookeries, am I not?”

“Yerse, so you’ve heard o’ the Rookeries?”

“Everyone has,” said Susan, repressing a shudder.

“So how come you’re here?”

“I was abducted, I was taken by two men. I am engaged to a Mr. Charles Courtney. I received a note to say that he had a mistress in keeping, and if I went to an address in Plum Lane, I would find out. So I did. And… and two men, one had a gun, forced me inside the house and then, when it was dark, they turned me loose in the Rookeries.”

“It’s a neat way o’ murder,” said Jack with something like admiration in his voice.

“Are… are you going to murder me?”

“No.”

“Are you going to make me your doxy?”

“No, got one.”

“So what are you going to do with me?”