Chapter Seventeen

“‘How hard it is in some cases to be believed!’

‘And how impossible in others!’”

—JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Flynn called at Berkeley Square one Sunday afternoon, intending to invite the ladies—Daisy in particular—for a drive, but when Featherby opened the door he held up a finger saying, “Miss Daisy’s in the front drawing room with a . . . a person. Someone she knew, from before.” The way he said “person” and “before” spoke volumes. He gave Flynn a meaningful look.

“Someone from the brothel, you mean?”

Featherby nodded, looking relieved that Flynn knew about the brothel. “The Abbess herself, I think. I didn’t like to leave Miss Daisy alone with her, but she insisted.”

“Does she need me?”

“Not at the moment, but she might. Best to just listen.” The two men tiptoed to where the drawing room door stood slightly ajar. Flynn glanced at Featherby with a raised brow. No accident that that door wasn’t properly closed.

Featherby shrugged, as if to say How else could I keep an eye on things?

Flynn bent his year to the door and listened.

“Yeah, I know I owe you,” Daisy was saying. “You picked me up and took me in when I needed it—I know all that, and I’m grateful. But gawd knows I’ve paid you back for it a hundred times over—I worked for years for you for no pay—just a tip every now and then from one of the gentlemen.”

There was a muttered response that Flynn didn’t catch. He and Featherby edged closer.

Daisy continued, “And I’d still be workin’ for you if you hadn’t gone off and left me—and all the other girls—in your bloody son’s evil hands.”

“I couldn’t help that,” the other woman said. “He was my son, and—”

“And a vicious bloody thug wiv women—and don’t try to kid me that you never knew it because you and I both know you never let him near your girls while you was running the brothel!”

Flynn wished he could see. He must have made some kind of frustrated noise, because Featherby silently indicated the slight gap between the door and the hinge. Flynn pressed his eye to the gap.

He couldn’t see Daisy, but he had a good view of the Abbess. She was a raddled dame of sixty or more, elaborately dressed in a low-cut dress of satin and lace, her face and well-displayed bosom powdered and rouged. Her hair was elaborately curled and dyed a garish yellow, augmented with clusters of false curls.

“But what else could I do? He was my s—”

“You coulda warned us, coulda said you wanted to retire and was gunna hand everything over to Mort. Coulda given us a choice.” Flynn wished he could see Daisy’s face.

She stormed on, “But no, you ups and disappeared and the first we know of it there was locks on all the doors and we was prisoners. And Mort’s bringin’ in all the nasty customers—the ones who like hurtin’ girls—and then he’s kidnappin’ girls and buyin’ them off ships because he can’t get nobody to work for him.”

“I didn’t know nothing about that,” the woman whined. “And I’m that sorry, Daise. But I don’t want to talk about the past. I miss you something terrible.” She gave Daisy a pitiful look that sat uneasily on her well-painted, rather hard features.

Daisy snorted. “In a pig’s eye, you do!” There was a short silence, then she continued in a quieter voice, “You were the closest thing I had to a mother, Mrs. B.—you know that? When I was little, I used to pretend you were me mother. I thought I’d live with you all me life and look after you in your old age, like a good daughter does.” Her voice hardened. “But then you left me with Mort, and he was lining me up for a customer who had a fancy to beat up a little crippled maidservant, so I don’t reckon I owe you nothing at all.”

“But you are like a daughter—”

“Don’t give me that! I coulda been a daughter to you but, like me real mother, you threw me away. And I reckon she might have been desperate, but you sure as hell weren’t.”

The helpless look faded from Mrs. B.’s face, and there was the face of a tough old Abbess who’d spent a lifetime running a brothel in the rough end of London.

“So, you reckon you belong here, do you?” she sneered. “With your posh old dame and your la-di-da friends. Does the old lady know you’re just pretendin’ to be her long-lost niece? What’ll she say when she finds out you’re no relation, a bastard brat from the stews, a brothel-raised skivvy who’s spent her life at the beck and call of whores? And you can’t even read or write.”

“Lady Beatrice knows all about me.” Daisy’s voice sounded calm, but Flynn knew better. His girl was all stirred up, and no wonder. “I never did tell lies, you oughta know that. And I can read and write now. Me sisters taught me.”

“Sisters my foot!” Mrs. B. snorted. “I never realized you was such a fool, Daisy. I dunno what their game is, but they’ll use you while it suits them—you’re a good little dressmaker, I’ll give you that. But a hint of scandal and they’ll drop you like a hotcake.”

“No, you’re the one who dropped me when I was no more use to you. And now you’ve found something out about me—maybe that I got a shop now—and so you’re back, sniffin’ around for what you can get.”

Mrs. B. shrugged. “I keep me ear to the ground.”

“No, you keep your nose in the gutter, where it’s always been.”

Mrs. B leaned forward and made a performance of looking Daisy up and down. She snorted. “So you reckon you’re some kind of lady now, do you, Daisy Smith—born in the gutter, raised in a gutter, crippled and ignorant?” Her voice dripped scorn.

Flynn’s fists were clenched. He’d never yet harmed a woman, but he could happily strangle this one.

“Wake up to yerself, girl! You’ll never make any kind of lady. Come back to your own kind, where you belong.”

“I belong here.”

“Pshaw! Aping the toffs like a little dressed-up monkey is more like it.” She shook her head, setting the false yellow curls bouncing. “You ain’t no gentry-mort and you never will be. Lady Muck and her friends must be havin’ a right laugh at you behind their elegant gloves, watchin’ you trying to ape your betters, hobblin’ along behind them, always trying to keep up. Take you to dances, do they?” And she laughed, a cruel laugh.

He couldn’t see Daisy’s face, but he knew her well enough to know that the picture the vicious old harpy was painting would be cutting very close to the bone. In some areas his Daisy was wonderfully confident, but in social matters . . .

He was about to burst in and send the old witch packing, but a hand gripped him by the arm, long nails digging into him. He turned, ready to shake Featherby’s grip off, and froze. He and Featherby weren’t the only ones listening at the door.

He opened his mouth to say something but Lady Beatrice smacked him with her lorgnette and shook her head, then silently waved him out of the way so she could hear better. Her eyes were cold and glittering.

*   *   *

Daisy bristled at Mrs. B.’s words. Lady Beatrice might be trying to turn Daisy into a lady—against all the odds—but she wasn’t laughing at her. And neither were her friends. At that thought something shifted inside her and the hackles raised by Mrs. B.’s taunts settled.

“She ain’t laughing,” Daisy said calmly. “She loves me and I love her. And I love me sisters and they love me too.”

Mrs. B. opened her mouth to scoff, but Daisy continued, “And I’ve learned from Lady Beatrice that being a lady isn’t about being born in a big fancy house with a silver spoon in your mouth, or talking like a toff, or even acting posh. It’s about how you treat other people, being careful of their feelings, and about having self-respect. And being kind.”

“Pshaw!”

Daisy lifted her chin. “I might’ve been gutter-born and gutter-bred, but the gutter ain’t goin’ to tell me who I am. I’m Daisy Chance now. I’ve been given a chance to make something better of meself—and by God I’m going to take it!”

“Brava, my dear gel! And so you shall!” Lady Beatrice swept into the room, clapping. And oh, gawd, Flynn was with her. How much had he heard?

Lady Beatrice raised her lorgnette and raked it slowly over Mrs. B. who’d stood up when she entered. “And who might this be?”

Daisy knew at once she’d been listening at the door.

“Lady Beatrice, this is Mrs. B., my former . . . employer.”

Lady Beatrice curled her lip. “The brrrrothel keeper?” She raised her lorgnette again and peered at the other woman in much the same way as she might inspect a rather nasty insect.

Shock battled with awe on Mrs. B.’s face—she’d probably never met a real titled lady before, and she hadn’t believed Daisy that Lady Bea knew. “Yes I am, yer ladyship, well I was, but I—”

“You may be seated.” Lady Beatrice gestured for Daisy to sit on the chaise longue. Flynn sat beside her. She gave Daisy a look as if to say sit and don’t say a word then turned back to Mrs. B. “You were saying?”

“I was going to say, yer ladyship—very gracious of you, an’ I’m sorry to bother you—but young Daisy ’ere owes me.”

A finely plucked and pencilled brow rose disdainfully. “She does?” Lady Beatrice turned to Daisy. “Is this correct, my dear? Do you owe this”—she grimaced distastefully—“this person money?”

“No, I bloody do not! She’s a bloomin’ bloodsucker, out for what she can get.”

“A blood. Sucker,” Lady Beatrice repeated. “You don’t mean she’s trying to blackmail you, do you, Daisy dear? Because that would surely be a crime, would it not?” She gave Mrs. B. a smile as innocent as a newborn lamb.

“I ain’t tryin’ to blackmail nobody,” Mrs. B said hurriedly. “And if you thought that Daisy, well, ye’re mistaken. Good heavens, a body tries to talk about old times and you call ’em a bloodsucker. Young people today, me lady—so quick to misjudge.”

She eyed Lady Beatrice shrewdly. Daisy caught the look. The cunning old bitch hadn’t missed the Daisy dear. “The thing is, yer ladyship, by rights, young Daisy here belongs to me.”

“I bloody do not!” Daisy flashed, ready to jump up and argue. Flynn’s hand found hers and squeezed. She glanced at him, read the message in his eyes and subsided—reluctantly, because she didn’t like the way Mrs. B. was trying to wrap Lady Bea around her finger.

“Oh dear me, does she really?” Lady Beatrice said distressfully, giving an imitation of as fluffy an old dame as ever trod the boards. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of theft. Are you sure she belongs to you, Mrs., er, Bee?”

Daisy shifted restlessly. What the hell was the old lady playing at? It almost looked like she was ready to hand Daisy over.

Mrs. B. sensed it, too. She leaned forward and in a confiding tone said, “She does indeed, yer ladyship. I picked her up out of the gutters when she was just a nipper. Paid good money for her, I did.”

“I see.” Lady Beatrice nodded thoughtfully. “And do you have a receipt?”

Mrs. B. looked a little taken aback by the matter-of-fact response. “Um. Er . . . Yes, yes, I do. Not on me, of course.”

“But you can produce such a document—viz, that you purchased one Daisy Smith—”

“—viz?”

“—however many years ago.”

“Twelve years ago, maybe fifteen, me lady. I disremember the exact date—but yes, I can produce a paper sayin’ that she’s mine, all legal and proper.” Mrs. B. gave Daisy a sly look. She’d get one forged in an instant.

“Excellent. We shall need it as evidence.”

Mrs. B. frowned. “Evidence?”

Lady Beatrice nodded. “For the court case.”

“Court case? Let’s not be so hasty, me lady. I don’t want no court ca—”

“Oh, but it must go to court.” Lady Beatrice smiled. “You cannot be hanged without a trial, you know.”

“Hanged?” It came out as a squawk. “What do you mean, hanged?”

“Slavery is against the law, my good woman—and what a misnomer that is! But I can’t very well call you you ghastly harridan—though on second thoughts—”

“I ain’t got no slaves!”

Both finely plucked and pencilled brows rose. “You just claimed to have bought and paid for my niece, Daisy. And that is slavery.”

“No, no, me lady, you don’t understand. It’s just an expression, just a—”

“You rang, my lady?” Featherby intoned from the door. Daisy blinked. No one had rung anything.

“Ah, Featherby, just the man we need. This person claims to have purchased my niece, Daisy.”

Featherby gave a start of artistic horror. “Surely not, my lady! Why that would be slavery, which is a hanging offense, I believe!” Daisy pressed her lips firmly together, fighting a smile. Featherby had been listening at the door too.

Mrs. B. clutched her throat. “No, no—it’s all a misunderstanding, an ’orrible misunders—”

“Unless, of course, it was when Miss Daisy was a mere child,” Featherby added, as if in afterthought. He paused and looked at Mrs. B. who seized on the excuse thankfully.

“Yes, yes, she were a child, not quite ten, weren’t you Daisy, me love?”

“In which case,” Featherby continued smoothly, “to the charge of slavery would be added the procurement of a child for immoral purposes—also a hanging offense.”

“No! I never—Daisy, tell him I never—” But Daisy had stuffed her fist in her mouth and with her face pressed against Flynn’s shoulder, couldn’t say a word.

“Can a person be hanged twice, Featherby?” Lady Beatrice asked.

“Not as far as I know, milady—once usually does the trick. The hangman is very efficient, I believe.”

Mrs. B. moaned. “But I never—you ask Daisy, she’ll tell you. I never made her—”

Lady Beatrice raised her lorgnette. “You were the proprietress of a brothel at the time, were you not? An Abbess, I believe they call it.”

“Well, yeah, I was, but—”

Featherby shrugged magnificently. “In which case it would make no difference, milady. Either way she will swing.”

Mrs. B. shook her head, the yellow curls frantic. “No, no, I tell you, it’s all a misund—”

“Featherby, will you fetch William, please,” Lady Beatrice said.

“I’m here, milady.” William stepped into the room. They must all have been out in the hall, listening, Daisy realized.

Mrs. B.’s eyes widened. William was huge, a former boxer, with an oft-broken nose and two cauliflower ears. He looked at Mrs. B. and flexed his enormous hands—incongruous and strangely sinister in their white footman’s gloves. “So you reckon you bought and paid for our Daisy, do yer, missus? Then I reckon you and me are going to take a little walk together.” He gave her a mirthless smile. “Down to Bow Street.”

“No no no!” Mrs. B. leaped to her feet and looked around wildly. “It’s all a mistake. I never seen that girl in me life—me eyes ain’t what they used to be.” She peered at Daisy. “Is that dark hair? No, my girl was a redhead—pure ginger. Miss Chance? Never heard of her. I was looking for a Miss Smith but seems I was misinformed—sorry to have troubled—melady—” She bobbed a hasty curtsey and scuttled from the room like a hen in a hailstorm.

“Show her out, Featherby,” Lady Beatrice began, but the front door slammed even as she spoke. There was a short silence.

Lady Beatrice dusted off her hands. “A rout, I believe. Featherby, champagne if you please—and five glasses. You and William were splendid. Daisy dear, you may remove your fist from your mouth now—not at all ladylike, my dear, though a reasonable tactic under the circumstances.”

And then the laughter started.

*   *   *

“Did she really buy you when you were a child?” Flynn asked the following evening. He and Daisy lay in bed in their little attic room, watching a storm approaching on the horizon. It was the first chance they’d had to talk privately. They’d just finished making love.

Daisy nodded. There was still a part of her that couldn’t stop wondering why, why Mrs. B. had left her behind like a worn-out pair of old shoes. She’d wanted to hear that Mort had insisted, that someone had forced Mrs. B. to abandon Daisy. She’d wanted to be given a reason.

Which was stupid. There was no reason. Daisy hadn’t mattered to Mrs. B. at all—that was obvious. Daisy was the one who cared—not Mrs. B.

It was always the same.

“From your parents?”

“Nah, I told you, I’m a foundling. I was . . .” She hesitated. Best to spit it all out now. “She bought me from a child brothel.”

“A what?” He sat up on one elbow and stared at her.

“It’s all right, I was never touched.” She grimaced. “As soon as they took me inside I knew what sort of place it was.” She saw his expression and added, “When you grow up like me, you learn about such places young, and I wasn’t goin’ to have none of it. They locked me in a room, but I escaped up the chimney—lucky it was summer—and got onto the roof. I was climbing down when I slipped and landed on the cobblestones, splat! at Mrs. B.’s feet. Broke me leg and all.”

“She was the—”

“No, she wasn’t the one. To do her credit, Mrs. B. was always dead against usin’ young ’uns in brothels.”

Flynn made a skeptical sound.

“No, it’s true. I know what you thought of her, and you’re not wrong. She’s a hard woman, selfish and ruthless, and tough as old boots, but she’s not all bad, and she was good to me back then. She picked me up and took me home, never mind the mess I was in—”

“Mess?”

“I broke me leg remember? Mrs. B. paid the brothel owner a shilling—”

“A shilling?” he echoed indignantly. He wasn’t sure whether he was insulted by the small sum or outraged that she was sold at all. A bit of both, he supposed.

Daisy shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t worth nothing to him with a broken leg, and it pays to keep in good with your neighbors. She got a bloke to set me leg and bandage it up—even gave me some laudanum for the pain—’orrible stuff it was too. And then she put me on a bench in the corner of the kitchen, handed me a needle, thread and a pile of mending and set me to work. I sat there and sewed until me leg healed.”

Only it didn’t heal, not properly, Flynn knew.

“Lovely it was in the kitchen, always warm and plenty of company—and food!—you never seen such food. They made it for the gentlemen, you see. I never went hungry again. And that’s how I learned to sew—I’d never so much as touched a needle before that, but by the time I could walk again, I’d found I didn’t just like sewing, I was good at it. All the girls started bringing me their clothes to fix and to make over as well, so you see, if none of that had happened, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” She smiled and added, “I’m pretty lucky, I reckon.”

“Lucky?” How the hell could she tell a story like that and conclude she was lucky?

She leaned forward and kissed him. “I ended up here, didn’t I? Above me very own shop, with a lovely man in me bed and the best view in the world. I got food in me belly, a home to go to, sisters and an old lady who care about me, and friends—good friends. What more could I want?”

He looked at her sunny, open expression, and couldn’t bring himself to say a word. Her wants were so simple. He wanted so much more. He kissed her instead.

Children didn’t even figure in her consciousness. And why would they, with the experiences she’d had? Abandoned as a wee babe, nobody to care for her, passed around like an unwanted parcel until a raddled old harridan had scooped a broken child from the cobblestones and exploited her for years without pay—and in her ignorance and vulnerability, Daisy had mistaken that for the care of a mother.

His arms tightened around her. He wished she could have met Mam.

*   *   *

“Well, Daisy, you’ll be next!” Jane exclaimed.

“Who me? What?” Daisy jerked upright, startled from a bit of a daze. Or was it a doze? She was right knackered. It was the evening before Jane’s wedding, and the girls were having their last girls’ nursery supper. In the weeks leading up to it she’d been working so hard to get everything perfect, she’d almost fallen asleep.

“Next to what?” she asked again.

“To fall in love and get married of course, silly,” Jane said. “Weren’t you listening?”

“Here, have some toast.” Damaris passed Daisy a slice of hot, perfectly toasted bread.

“It’s you who don’t listen, Jane,” Daisy retorted, buttering the toast. “I ain’t never gettin’ married. How many times have you heard me say so?”

Jane laughed. “Yes, but that’s the way of the Chance sisters.”

Daisy slanted her a skeptical glance. “What way is that then?”

“Our way. See, first there was darling Abby, governessing along, looking after everybody else, certain she’d never even have a chance to get married, let alone have a child of her own.” Jane hugged her sister. “Now look at her—could you get anyone more in love than her and Max? And just look at that lovely expectant mother happy glow.”

Abby laughed, a little embarrassed. “Oh, it’s just the firelight,” she murmured, but it wasn’t. She did glow. Daisy had never seen her look so beautiful. Abby had always been elegant, rather than beautiful, but now . . .

Jane continued, “And then dearest Damaris—who was utterly adamant that she wasn’t ever going to marry. All she wanted was a little cottage and some hens—remember?”

“And I do have my lovely little cottage and hens.” Damaris deftly slid a slice of hot toast onto a plate and passed it to Jane.

“You also have darling Freddy who completely and utterly dotes on you.” Jane laughed as Damaris blushed rosily.

“And then there’s me . . .” Jane heaved a big happy sigh and smiled into the glowing coals of the fire. Her toast sat ignored on her lap. Abby retrieved it and buttered it for her. “I was so determined not to fall in love, to make a practical marriage.”

Jane turned to Daisy. “You told me I’d fall for the most unsuitable man in London, remember? And I did. My darling, darling Zachary . . .” She gave a little wriggle of delight. “So you see, Daisy dearest, it’s your fate. You’ll be next. Chance girls always get what they deserve, and you deserve the best.”

“I’ve got the best,” Daisy said. “The best shop in London. Now eat your toast.”

“Ohh, I’m not hungry,” Jane declared airily. “Not for toast.” Her dreamy look made it clear what she was hungry for, and it wasn’t any kind of food.

“Well, I am.” Abby took the toast she’d buttered for Jane. “It’s dreadful. I’m always hungry and I fall asleep at the most inopportune times.”

“You’re increasing—it’s natural,” Damaris pointed out.

Daisy, who’d opened her mouth to admit that she felt exactly the same lately, closed it. She thought back, doing a calculation in her head. She looked at Abby, sleepy and rounded, fertile and glowing and happy.

Bloody hell.