CHAPTER ONE
LONDON, 1792
Most young ladies spent the morning before their court presentation preoccupied with their dress.
Henrietta Wardley-Hines was engaged in a kidnapping.
Rescue, she reminded herself as the carriage moved down Clifford Street, the clip of the horses’ hooves muffled by the early morning fog. This was a rescue. And a test of her worthiness to enter the exalted ranks of the Minerva Society.
A test she was determined not to fail.
Only the night soil men and milkmaids were abroad at this hour, and they stepped aside for the smart phaeton and its stylish passenger. While Henrietta had dressed plainly for their covert operation, Lady Bessington’s picture hat and her enormous muff of coppery fox fur proclaimed her an expensive lady likely returning home after a night of entertainments. A woman engaged in dashing activities, perhaps, but nothing nefarious.
Henrietta could afford to be neither dashing nor nefarious, given all that hinged on the success of the looming court presentation, etc.
But their abductee had agreed to be carried away. Perhaps that would excuse them before the magistrate if the girl’s master called the constable.
“I don’t see her,” Henrietta whispered, peering down the empty alley as her groom, riding the lead horse, turned into the mist-enclosed mews. “You don’t suppose she changed her mind?”
“She’ll come.” Lady Bess stayed tucked beneath the calash hood pulled down against the chilly air. “I informed his lordship that I could find Nancy the service he requests. He’s quite eager for it to be performed.”
Henrietta’s stomach turned, not alone from the ammonia scent of horse leavings and cesspools that lay behind the row of expensive town houses.
She agreed with her whole heart with the objects of the Minerva Society, dedicated to improving the lot of women of all ranks and means. But there were somanywho needed assistance. So many a woman who, by wile or force or sheer bad luck, had been left with children she couldn’t support, debts she couldn’t repay, dreams she couldn’t rebuild.
While so many men went along their way, unrepentant of the lies they told or the innocent hearts they’d broken.
A cold droplet worked its way down the collar of Henrietta’s worn riding habit. Busy London, waking behind the looming fog, suddenly felt immense and lonely, a world apart from the quiet estate where she’d been born and raised.
“We’re not returning Nancy to him, are we?” she asked.
Lady Bess gave a serene smile. “Not unless she wishes, and I very much doubt she will.”
James slowed the glossy pair and grumbled from beneath the turned-up collar of his greatcoat. “Cavey business, Miss Hetty, gettin’ in the way o’ swells.”
“Let me down here, James, and mind you don’t spatter Lady Bess with mud.”
“As if I would!” James retorted. “Fine steppers your Titans are, but gentle as lambs. Sir Jasper chose a cracking come-out gift.”
Henrietta’s heels smacked on the cobbles as she jumped down, and she whisked aside her wide hem before it fell in the muck. She wondered what her father would make of the use to which she was putting his extravagant gift.
She stood with the line drawn clear before her, and because she was the calculating sort, she knew full well what lay on either side.
Plain Henrietta Wardley-Hines, a northern mill owner’s daughter, could racket about London attending debates and writing petitions and enjoying as much freedom as her family would allow, which admittedly was a great deal.
Henrietta Wardley-Hines, daughter of the newly knighted Sir Jasper, would have sharper eyes upon her once she made her curtsy to the Queen. She would enjoy a wider reach for her business interests and greater support for her causes, or so she hoped. But she would carry the weight of that rank and its dignities.
If she withdrew now, she could remain safe and above reproach. She would be accepted, mostly unobjectionable. The girls would grow up unshadowed, or only a little shadowed, by their eccentric half-sister, and neither Charley, nor Clarinda, would have grounds on which to lament or disapprove her behavior.
If she withdrew now, she might not lose Lady Bess’s friendship, but her ladyship would certainly not sponsor Henrietta’s invitation to the Minerva Society.
And she would still be Henrietta, inheriting the stubbornness of both her parents, unable to look away from injustice if shecould right it. Meddling, Charley called it. Henrietta rather preferred to think of the Society and its patronesses as a formidable force for good. Precisely what Henrietta Wardley-Hines wished to be in the world.
She rapped on the bright blue door of the carriage house.
Her knock echoed down the narrow alley, along with the stamp of hooves as James turned the horses. But no one threw up the sash of a window to shout “Fire! Murder! Thief!”
The door cracked open, and a young woman in a drab muslin frock and large mob cap slipped through. “Nancy?”
