It was a universal truth that when the world was dark, it was time to rest.
A light shined in my eyes. The sleep I desperately sought on the lumpy cot was stolen again. The smell of sulfur, the horrible rotten egg smell came from a plaster preparation to someone two cots away. Twenty beds in this forsaken place.
“Ma’am, if you can’t tell me your name, I’ll have to remand you to custodial care.”
This man and his minions had stripped me of my clothes like I was a ragamuffin. The ring, the band that left a light circle about my finger was ripped from my hand. I was lucky to have a chemise on my shaking limbs.
The fool pried at one eyelid and waved the candle again. “Who are you? Answer me.”
How was I supposed to respond to such a rude request? I told him and everyone who’d listen: I didn’t know. A hundred times I said this and sobbed until my throat was raw. A hundred and one utterances wouldn’t make it different.
No one listened.
All was gone.
Nothing rattled in my head but the sharpest sense of loss.
My arm bent beneath me, under my bosom like a bad habit. I should be holding something close, something precious, something mine.
Gone.
I was angry and wanted to sleep.
The tall man tossed up his hands. “I give up. She’s gone mute.”
His footsteps echoed like I was trapped in a bottle. The hospital door opened. Light crept in, blinding me, hiding the shadowy faces, the men making decisions.
Didn’t care anymore. Ol’ Jancros. The thieves. The thieves took everything.
“Are you sure she’s Jemina St. Maur?” the physician asked.
A mumbled voice answered him.
“She’s in shock. We can’t put her out, not like this.”
“Doesn’t matter. Bedlam.” Those words were clear. The Ol’ Jancros were set to send me away. The name didn’t sound like home. Nothing did.
“That place is for the lunatics, sir. She’s just come from a wreck. She’s lost everything. She needs more time to grieve.”
Footsteps. Footsteps echoed. Outside of this room, it all disappeared. I was left with people more hurt than me. Some died. I heard the gasps. That I remembered.
I needed to be gone.
Where? I was too angry to choose. A nap would make things clearer. If I could close my eyes, I could make it all go away.
The old man returned and shined that awful light one more time. “This is your last chance. Who are you? Defend yourself or you’ll be sent to Bedlam. You don’t want to go there. It will take a miracle to get out.”
Raising up on my elbow, I stared him down, through his smudged spectacles and breath of rancid coffee. “I lost everything. Does it matter?”
The old prune frowned and wrote something on paper.
Turning away, I balled up into my ratty blanket. No more answering questions when no one would answer mine.
I’d lost everything, everyone who mattered. I’d rather be a lunatic than to live without ’em.
The blue and purple flowers of the ironwood tree he’d pinned to his waistcoat had flattened and almost lost their scent. P. Daniel Thackery stood on the docks, awaiting his turn. Dozens of people were ahead of him hoping to talk with an officer of the HMS Belvidera. He’d already lost four hours holding his place in the slow, snaking line.
Daniel traced the buds of the lignum vitae—as these flowers were called in Jamaica—from stem to stamens; he kept breathing, kept sampling the concentrated honeyed fragrance. It lulled the dull panic stirring in his chest.
Phoebe had to be alive.
Looking up in Portsmouth’s cloud-filled sky, he wondered how much time he had before the rain fell upon the throngs of people coming for news of the lost ship, the Minerva.
More left the line.
Daniel took a few steps forward. He could clearly see the officer—a lieutenant, by the braiding on his onyx jacket—mouthing words that made the hearers weep. That wouldn’t be him, sent away with nothing, no dreams, no proxy bride from Jamaica.
The salty breeze stole one of Daniel’s petals. Like a purple feather, it fluttered, the air carrying it to the edge of the dock. It hung there, teetering.
Closing his eyes, he remembered the jig he’d done this morn preening in front of his dressing mirror. A pile of discarded waistcoats sat at his ankles—lavender, indigo, purple. He’d driven his valet ragged going in and out Daniel’s legendary closet to bring him the different hues and different buttons—from brass to silver to pearl wanting to match the lignum vitae, Phoebe’s favorite.
Vanity was a dangerous luxury for a wealthy man who’d built his fortune from careful investments. Yet, a man valuing a good tailor wanted to look perfect. It wasn’t every day one met their wife.
All his plans couldn’t be lost because of the sea.
Another couple wept and departed from the lieutenant.
Daniel looked away, down to his dusty boots. The gloss his man-of-all-work, Marc Anthon, put on them seemed wasteful now.
“The cursed sea did it!” An old man stormed away. He was right to blame it.
The sea ferried folks near and far. Yet, it had been forced to swallow the souls beaten by war, killed by piracy, or discarded by the slave trade.
Perhaps that’s why the water revolted. Every so often it became violent like a drunk, punching at anything—innocent or guilty.
Why else would the Minerva, a peaceful ship porting innocent passengers go down?
“Phoebe Dunn is alive. She’s alive.”
He repeated this like a chant and clasped the flowers—a love token inspired from the letters they’d exchanged over a courtship of eighteen months. At times, she’d send two at a time. Daniel devoured each.
Dragging his feet with the forward movement of the crowd, he hoped to God when it was his turn, he’d receive a miracle.
He opened his greatcoat. He’d grown miserably warm witnessing a woman, fifteen or twenty people ahead, sob. Blinking, he couldn’t look away, until he jabbed his palm with his dulled cravat pin. The prick hurt but drew no blood. Bottle it all—all the disappointments, the despair, all the pain.
That was his motto since age six. Sorrow changed nothing. It didn’t repair his mother’s heart, didn’t bury a wayward father. It definitely didn’t restore the Minerva to the harbor.
White sails should billow and flap, anchored to its strong mainmast. The ship couldn’t be a smashed derelict hull left adrift until the HMS Belvidera floated by and picked up the pieces.
His new bride—the darling woman who’d won his cautious, hesitant heart—should walk down the gangplank with the surprise she said she’d bring tucked under her arm. She should be where the lieutenant stood, searching for Daniel, a man with wilted lignum vitae.
Her eyes—he’d discover if they were the deepest brown, the color of harvest wheat, or darker like the leather spines of his trusty law books.
Anything would be beautiful.
He merely needed to see her, alive.
Twelve people stood between him and answers.
A man lunged at the lieutenant. “Someone will pay,” he said before sailors dragged him away.
Someone would pay. Daniel.
He always did, but this time, it was his fault.
Hadn’t his desperation to be with Phoebe made him insist she come to England now during the island’s wet season? The British were to impose a blockade. Once in place, the Royal Navy wouldn’t allow any crossings. They did this to halt American aggressions in this War of 1812.
An old woman stumbled into Daniel.
He stooped and helped her up. Tears flooded her sunken cheeks. “My daughter, sir. My poor girl is lost.”
He reached into his coat and handed her his handkerchief, one of his treasures with initials embroidered in silver thread.
She shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s too fancy for me.” She started to walk away but turned back. “There’s two survivors, sir. Just two. Hope you’re lucky. My daughter . . . she’s at the bottom of the sea. I can’t get to her.”
Those bottled-up feelings of hopelessness he’d tried to suppress doubled, ripping at his heart, pressing upon his lungs. He took his lignum vitae and handed them to her. “It’s not much, but maybe you can honor your daughter with these flowers.”
Sobbing anew, the old woman took them and walked to the edge of the dock. Her head dipped in prayer. Then she cast his sentimental offering into the water.
Six people ahead, a burly man cussed worse than a sailor. “That was my only son.”
He spit at the officer, then disappeared into the crowd.
The antics didn’t bother Daniel, not as much as the old woman standing alone.
In court, when the judge hammered his dark judgments, the wailing of spectators in the gallery of the Old Bailey became riotous. Daniel was immune to the sound.
But not to the look of a woman in pain.
His hand stung. The pin this time drew blood.
Three in line.
Daniel wrapped his handkerchief about his palm. He fretted smearing the ink on the marriage license displaying his whole hideous name, Peregrine Daniel Thackery, and that of Phoebe Monroe Dunn.
Lord in heaven this can’t be all he’ll have of her. He couldn’t be a widower, without memories of being married.
“Step forward,” the lieutenant said.
Daniel’s turn.
He braced like he waited for the jurymen’s verdict.
The lieutenant, with his rumpled bicorne, a half-moon-shaped hat, stared at him with a frown hinting of disgust. “Who are you here for?”
“Phoebe Dunn.” His voice warbled a little but boomed upon her surname.
“Unaccounted for, but—” The man harrumphed. “Well, with the boat coming from Jamaica, I reckon we found her.”
“Reckon?”
“Well, she’s not in the capacity to say.”
Daniel’s heart pounded a double rhythm—his Phoebe was alive, but hurt?
“Is she injured? Incapacitated? Mute?” Was that Phoebe’s surprise, that he’d be the only one to ramble on about their days?
Didn’t matter.
He wouldn’t love her any less. Nothing could stop the true communion of souls.
The commander put his hands on Daniel, patting his shoulder. “Now calm down, boy. You wouldn’t expect her to be able to answer.”
Ignoring the condescension, Daniel stepped back. Frankly he was used to it, and demanding his earned respect as one of the king’s barristers would change nothing. “Where is Phoebe Dunn?”
“I’ll bring her to you. She has to belong to you. No one else colored has come.”
Daniel buttoned his lips. Ends justified the means. He wasn’t here for a fight but for Phoebe.
The lieutenant waved, and one of his reefers brought forward a bundle. The sailor shoved a beautiful Black baby into Daniel’s arms. “Here’s your Phoebe Dunn.”
The child, a year or more old, latched on to his waistcoat, grabbing a pearl button.
He didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t his bride.
“Did anyone else survive?”
“Just a woman. She was taken away by her family. Very bad shape.” The lieutenant folded up his papers with all the passengers’ names. “The gown the infant wore when we plucked her out of the sea was expensive. Should’ve known a fancy gent like you’d show.”
Daniel was Phoebe’s family here, but this baby wasn’t his bride. “If I hadn’t arrived, what would happen to her?”
“We’d give this baby to a dockworker or to one of your people working the brothels. The hospital and orphanages don’t want the Black ones. Glad you arrived. Saved me work. Next.”
Shaking, angry, cheated, Daniel left the line, but he held the little girl tightly to his chest. He couldn’t hand her back, not to this lieutenant who’d be careless or evil with an infant.
His man, Mr. Anthon, his newest employee, jumped down from his carriage. “Sir, where’s the missus?”
Daniel’s throat closed as he shook his head. He couldn’t say Phoebe was dead.
“Oh no, Mr. Thackery. They’re not keeping her! They can’t treat you like this. Let’s—”
“Mr. Anthon, please. Normally I appreciate your outbursts. Not now. We must leave.” Daniel hated chastising the spirited young fellow, but they needed to be away.
Daniel coughed; everything ached. “The door, Mr. Anthon.”
The young man looked deflated but held it open. “Yes, sir. Where to?”
“To my aunt. I think she and her women should’ve returned from Bath. My aunt . . . she’ll know what to do.”
His footman peeked at the child who still clutched Daniel’s buttons. “She’s mighty attached, sir. Suppose your legal work never ends?”
Anthon’s deep brown eyes narrowed; his dark hand clutched the mantle he proudly starched. “Let’s hope, your aunt, Lady Shrewsbury, will solve this little one’s problem. Nothing has changed for abandoned Blackamoors since you or I were young.”
It hadn’t.
Didn’t Daniel see that every day in court? It was only when he personally aided others, much like his beloved aunt, did things change.
He shifted the babe in his arms and watched Anthon adjust the horse’s reins.
The young man was a street urchin turned pickpocket who Daniel reformed. He had a feeling, with encouragement, this footman would become one of his most faithful servants.
It struck him, Mr. Anthon’s wisdom, deep in his soul. Daniel had found a way to honor Phoebe.
“Head to Finchely instead. I think I know what to do.”
“Very good, sir. We can send for Shrewsbury later.”
Much later, after Daniel had everything done to protect Phoebe’s surprise.
He settled into the carriage and looked at this sweet girl’s eyes.
They were open and very brown like wheat.
“Phoebe loves you. I can tell. So I must love you too.”
The little thing reached up and knocked his spectacles and clamped a hold of his nose, the wide, flat thing he used to sniff out baked treats.
Eighteen months courting Phoebe and no word of this girl.
How could she not talk about her daughter? How could she not tell him he’d be a stepfather?
The baby puckered and drooled but didn’t cry. He took a small piece of bread from his picnic basket and put it to her tongue. The child gulped, but except for a swallow, she uttered no sound.
His wife, like all women, had her reasons for her secret. That felt better than thinking Phoebe couldn’t trust him to love her and another man’s child.
As an officer of the court, he’d investigate to see if there wasn’t a brokenhearted family looking for this little one, but as the lieutenant said, no other Blackamoor showed. This child had to be Phoebe’s girl.
Looking at the way the babe trusted him eased the pain tightening about his chest. He hadn’t lost all. He still had something. He had hope.
“I like my surprise, Mrs. Thackery.” His voice had become a wet throaty whisper. “I’ll raise this child, our . . . Hope. Yes, Hope, to be wonderful.”
With both fists clasping his buttons, the wee girl drifted to sleep in his arms.
It was a universal truth that a widow in need of saving had lost the man and the means to be rescued. In my case, it was up to me to save me.
Miserable.
Miserable was such an ordinary word. It didn’t convey enough feeling, not the highs and lows of the moment. I was miserable because my elbow throbbed. Banging it on the chimney of our last mission left a gash, very black and blue and bloody. Shouldn’t I be better with all the practice the Widow’s Grace’s secret gambits afforded? I suspected I might’ve always had a problem with heights. I don’t remember.
Miserable.
Miserable because the roasted pheasant served for dinner was dry. The bird on my Wedgwood plate deserved a better way to die. The lack of a decent sauce added to the cruelty. Our hostess, Lady Bodonel, should have more charity if she insisted on throwing weekly dinners, that I and her daughter-in-law, Patience, must attend. My dearest friend, the new Duchess of Repington, was in demand, but I mustn’t let Her Grace suffer an overdone bird alone. Maybe I was a cook once. I don’t recall.
Miserable.
My new fancy slippers were stiff and tight. I’d begged off from dancing all night, but the gossip about my being the heiress of the Season made everyone—well, almost everyone—try for my hand. Other than a legal paper with plenty of zeros, I didn’t know why I had this twenty thousand pounds, or if it was deserved. I couldn’t say.
Miserable because he looked at me, then turned away. Daniel Thackery, the only man not to ask for my hand, sat across the table chatting with Lady Shrewsbury, his aunt.
What was he telling her? What was his complaint this time?
The handsome man, always short in his speech unless offering corrections, stared at me again, or at the bandages wrapping my bruises. The doctor’s stitches couldn’t be hidden by my lacy tan sleeves.
Fumbling with his dancing gloves, white linen with cherry-red threads at the cuff, my barrister frowned again. Such a waste for his smooth lips. I’d draw them well, if I sketched people. Though I was good with charcoal and paper, I don’t think I was an artist.
Thackery hated when anyone working with his aunt hurt themselves. And we weren’t supposed to mention it to him. He wanted less and less to do with Lady Shrewsbury’s operations. It made him fussy.
Yet, there were times, like now, on this third glance, when the all-knowing man didn’t see I’d noticed him until too late. Caught, our gazes tangled like there was no one else in the room, in London, or on the earth. This look, it was as if we enjoyed a juicy secret that was only ours to share.
The tawdry tidbits would make us laugh. He’d offer a rare smile, one that showed the small gap in his teeth that made him look young and human and less jaded.
But we have no such secret. Miserable.
He turned away, and my thoughts scattered. I sipped from my glass of punch. Lady Bodonel’s horrid dinner was crowded, but the regulars—politicians and peers and pretty women—had become more familiar to me.
“You don’t have to eat any more, Jemina,” Patience said. She was at my right in a wonderful gown of peach satin with a ripe orange banding of dyed silk beneath her bosom. “Pretend. Move things about. That’s what His Grace does.”
The duke escaped again, some military thing or Wellington thing or cannon thing. He always had a thing to stay as far from his mother as possible.
My dearest Patience suffered in his stead—the bad food, the bad guests who made sly jokes about her being foreign, and the bad music from showy fortune hunters like Lady Lavinia. The woman clad in gold, I’d heard she searched for husband number four.
Nothing wrong with a woman looking to secure her position, but I hated that she exhibited herself, wiggling on the pianoforte bench in a bodice that barely covered her off-key lungs. That shouldn’t be necessary to gain a man’s attention.
With a hand to her stomach, Patience slid her plate backward an inch. A server in silver dashed to the table and took it.
Her warm-brown heart-shaped face looked so relieved. She leaned toward me. “Lady Shrewsbury says at month’s end she’ll have the informant’s whereabouts. We have time for your arm to mend.”
“Good.” I nodded. “The widow Cultony needs proof. Her trial for theft is weeks away.”
A footman in a cranberry-red mantle came to Thackery with a note. The barrister dropped a glove as he took the paper. His large coal-black eyes loomed behind his spectacles. They blinked fast. He sprang up. “Lady Bodonel, thank you for having me. A pressing matter—”
“No. Sit, you should.”
“No, ma’am, the Lord Mayor requests—”
The lithe blond woman blew a heavy, breathy noise that shifted the peacock feather dangling from her headpiece. “You’ve been elevated. You’re an earl now. The new Lord Ashbrook. When will you give up this work business and assume your place in society?”
The man bit his lip, bowed, and broke for the nearest exit.
Dinner guests fluttered their fans, but the talk was on Mr. Thackery, well the new Earl of Ashbrook.
Patience grasped my hand. “And here I thought His Grace’s mother, the old girl, had become more liberal inviting him. Mr. Thackery is a peer. He’ll be on everyone’s guest list now. Poor man, Lady Shrewsbury says he’s been a hermit since his wife died.”
The pianoforte clanked. Lady Lavinia stretched her fingers and began another song, but her eyes were not on the keys. They were on the barrister’s exit.
Trudging down the hall of Lady Bodonel’s Mayfair home offered the feeling of walls closing in. Daniel reached for his cravat, as if he were being strangled.
What could the Lord Mayor want now? Had Daniel missed something in his aunt’s dealings. Had one of her widows exposed the Widow’s Grace organization? Did the clues lead back to him?
“Daniel, wait.”
The light, imperious tone made him stop midway. Flicking his finger, he motioned to a servant. “Have my carriage brought.”
The fellow nodded and trotted down the gold carpet.
Then Daniel turned to face his aunt. “Yes, Lady Shrewsbury.”
She wrapped her arm about his, surely part affection, part coercion. The woman was a force of nature, like the powerful sea. “Nephew, you haven’t replied to my missives.”
“I’m busy in court. There are clients depending on me.”
“Daniel, you know I need your assistance. My women—”
With a gentle tug, he freed his arm. “I can’t do it anymore. The stakes are too high.”
She crossed her arms about her impeccable silver gown with long sleeves, and he wondered if the silk hid wounds too.
“Now that you’re an earl you wish to back away from the fight?”
He shook his head. “I have to go to the Lord Mayor. He’s never happy with me. He’d speak out against my appointment if not for fear of the Prince Regent’s disapproval.”
“You have favor, Daniel. You need to use it. This is what we planned.”
“What we planned? Or what you planned?”
“Yes, Daniel, I have plans for your life. I saw the promise in you early, and you’ve never disappointed me. You always do what is right. The Widow’s Grace is right.”
He cleaned his spectacles, trying to think of a way to reason with a woman who was like his mother. “It’s not gone unnoticed that widows are winning more cases at the Court of Chancery. Or that my name is on too many documents for inmate release at Bedlam. It’s been linked to suddenly appearing evidence against powerful families. Questions are being asked.”
“They need to question the laws, Daniel. You’re a peer; you can take it up in the House of Lords.”
“I still sleep with one pillow since you told me the Black Duke of Florence was smothered by his cousin.”
“Yes, but Alessandro de’ Medici actually died from a stabbing.”
That technicality was to make Daniel feel better? He took a breath. “I won’t take my seat and become more of a target.”
“You’re being ridiculous, nephew.”
“My horrid uncle rarely took his seat. Perhaps later, when Hope is older and all is more settled, I might, but not now. She needs to know I’ll be home . . . on time.”
Aunt’s sherry eyes popped wide. “My niece? She’s not doing well again?”
“Her nightmares are worse. She wasn’t speaking for so long, and now that she is, she’s screaming from her dreams. She wants me to make it better. I don’t know how other than being at Finchely rocking her. That means I shouldn’t be hauled off to Newgate.”
“That won’t happen. You’re too clever. Daniel, you’re a good father. She’s secure. She’ll be so proud of what you’ve done.”
“Not if I’m disgraced. Not if every aspect of my life is scrutinized and destroyed.”
“You sound as if you have something to hide. What is it, Daniel?”
He did have a secret to keep, but his dear aunt was too busy getting her operatives hurt to be of help. Daniel looked to the doors, hoping Mr. Anthon would come with his carriage.
“Nephew? What is it?”
“Lady Shrewsbury, you haven’t time for my troubles. You need to spend your days finding replacements for your favorites, the Duchess of Repington and Mrs. St. Maur.”
“Those women are very capable, but they haven’t fulfilled the Widow’s Grace promise. They must help other women, fivefold. They will serve a little longer.”
“Oh, they are done. His Grace, the Duke of Repington will stop his wife once he learns of the risks she’s taking. And Mrs. St. Maur, the gentle but loud woman, will be whisked away by a suitor before you get her killed climbing roofs.”
“Killed? You’re exaggerating.”
“Mrs. St. Maur has a nasty gash on her arm.” He took Lady Shrewsbury’s hands in his. “We need to stop. We’ve done enough. You’ve done enough.”
“We’re making headway. Women are getting their rights back.”
“Don’t you understand?” He waited for a servant to walk past, then drew Lady Shrewsbury closer to a hall, one laden with Roman statues that looked like the awful ones the Duke of Repington had at Hamlin Hall.
“Aunt, if it’s learned I’ve looked the other way, allowing widows to engage in burglary . . . all will be lost. My little Hope needs to know her father is coming home.”
“You’re in trouble, Daniel? Has someone made threats? Tell me.”
He bit his lip and bottled up the rage swirling inside. “I can fight my battles. It’s time to move forward. Let the duchess and Mrs. St. Maur and the others go on with their lives. You should too. Retire from your operations. A place in the country with me and Hope.”
“It’s my life’s work, Daniel. Women need women to advocate.”
“Well, I’m not a woman, just an overprotective, fretting nephew. I’m disqualified.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “Think of tamping things down or—”
“Or what?”
She needed to see his concern, his unsaid fears; he looked straight into her eyes.
“Or end the Widow’s Grace outright before someone dies or I have to choose between aiding you and coming home to Hope.”
Not wanting to wait and give his aunt a chance to chan. . .
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