All she had to do was discover precisely how.
“Gracechurch Street, miss,” Andrew called down to her from his perch next to the hackney driver. In a thrice he had the door open and the steps down, his hand extended to help her out onto the pavement before the house she had rented upon her return to London a year ago. As her booted foot touched the pavement and she glanced up at the parlor window where one of the house’s residents sat reading she gasped as a notion,thenotion, struck her like a bolt of lightning.
“Of course!” she nearly shouted and hurried up the steps to the door of the house.
“Miss?” Andrew inquired as he paid the hackney driver from the small leather purse Frederick gave him every morning to take care of Cordelia’s expenses.
“Nothing, Andrew.” She knocked on the door and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ll send someone to fetch you from the Half Moon when I’m ready to return home. Give your sister and her husband my best.” She waved him off to the tavern his brother-in-law and sister ran only a little further down Gracechurch Street.
“Have you heard from our Polly?” Tall Mary snatched the door open and started the conversation without preamble or pretense at civility. Cordelia admired her greatly. Mary had been on the game since she was twelve. During the last year she’d left the streets, learned to read, and kept a nice flock of chickens in the back garden of the house which provided her and her fellow ladies with eggs for their own use and a considerable number to sell at market.
“I came to ask you if you had heard anything.” Cordelia removed her bonnet and gloves and placed them on the hall table in the foyer of the simple, but clean and decent house. “Parlor?” she indicated the door to the right.
“Aye. Our Sal is fetching the tea. The others are waiting for you.”
Cordelia noticed at once the small fire in the hearth. Nearly June, summer was upon them, yet the older houses in this part of London were known to carry a chill even in the warmest weather. She did not doubt these ladies, who had spent a great deal of their lives from earliest childhood living and working on the streets of The Dials, carried the cold in their very bones. She took the chair farthest from the fireplace.
“In good looks this morning, miss,” Short Mary said as she made room for Tall Mary next to her on the serviceable brocade settee. The room was well-furnished with mismatched upholstered chairs, two settees, various tables, and even a pair of oak commodes on either side of the front windows. Even the carpets, though a bit worn, were decent Aubusson. Most of the pieces, upstairs and down, had come from the attic at Cordelia’s family’s townhouse. What Frederick didn’t know would not hurt him and the things in the attic had not been used in years.
“Who died?” Bess asked as she moved a table into the middle of the group for Sally Mills to place the heavy tray she carried into the room.
“What?” Cordelia glanced down at her clothes. “Oh, the black. I went somewhere I didn’t care to be seen. Now, how long has Polly been missing?”
“She ain’t missing, miss. She sent a note round.” Sally handed Cordelia a cup of tea. Cordelia took a long sip. For a woman who had not had tea leaves to brew until she moved in to the Gracechurch Street house, Sally brewed a divine cup and no mistakes about it. Then again, after her encounter with Lord Whitcombe, perhaps tea was just what Cordelia needed to steady her nerves and clear her mind.
“What note?” she asked. “When did she send a note?”
Sally pulled a piece of expensive parchment from her bodice. Cordelia took the note and perused the words and the writing with care. The handwriting, scrawled and uneven, appeared to be that of Polly O’Hara.
Off to seaside with me gentleman friend.
Back next week.
Polly
“I didn’t know Polly had a gentleman friend.” Cordelia folded the note and tucked it into the pocket of her dress. “Who is he? Have any of you met him?” She waited for the others to sip their tea and stare at each other for several minutes. “Well?” Silence. She sighed. “I don’t care if you have gentleman callers so long as they don’t stay the night and there’s no money involved. That’s why you are here, to make certain the men in your lives know you are worth more than money.”
“She said he were a friend of that toff doctor what took care of her,” Short Mary said.
“Did she tell you his name?” Cordelia tried to shake off the prickling sensation at the back of her neck.
“No,” they all murmured.
“He come for her in his carriage five nights past,” Tall Mary said. “He come in the dark of night, miss. Bit strange if you ask me.”
“I agree,” Cordelia said softly. She took another sip of her tea and returned her cup to the table in their midst. “Is young Abel still with you?”
“Oh, aye, miss,” Bess said. “He’s never had a place so good as our kitchen. He’s a good lad. Runs errands. Builds up the fires.” Abel, far too mature for his nine years, had attached himself to Bess at some point and when she came to live with the others he had taken up a position as their pot boy and lad of all work.
“Very good. I want all of you to come up with a list of people Polly might have seen or spoken with about this gentleman and this trip to the seaside. Send Abel out and about to ask these people for any information they have. They’ll be more likely to speak to him than they will to you since you’ve left the game.”
“You’re a clever one, ain’t you miss?” Tall Mary declared.
“I try. We will give him a few days to gather information. By then Polly should be back from her trip. If she is not, we’ll take further steps. Agreed?”
Each of the ladies nodded or voiced their consent. Cordelia sat quietly, her hands in her lap. The idea that had come to her as she’d entered the house suddenly seemed more daring than she’d ever dreamed. Lord Whitcombe would expect an answer. She’d formed her reply in an instant. Then she’d kissed him.
“Miss?” Short Mary leaned over and waved a hand before her face. ‘You’ve got a man on your mind and no mistake. Best tell us before Sally sends Abel out to ask where you went this morning that you don’t want naught to know.”
