Page 79 of One Night with a Rake

Georgette prided herself on her vivid imagination, but even she couldn’t imagine Nathaniel as one of the residents of Whitechapel. He was a man of fastidious habits. She’d never seen him less than splendidly turned out. Even a dash into dirty Lackaday Lane had never left so much as a smudge on his cuffs. How had he borne living in the squalor of Whitechapel for even a day, let alone months?

“What made you finally leave here?”

“Caroline,” he said. “My sister wouldn’t give up on me. She fretted my father into hiring an inquiry agent to find me and bring me, by force if necessary, back to the family country seat.”

“What makes me think force was necessary?”

One corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful grin. “If I hadn’t been the worse for drink he’d have never gotten the drop on me.”

Their carriage rumbled past a waif on the corner selling matches, her cloak whipping around her slight form. The fabric seemed far too thin to keep out the wind whistling down the narrow streets. Georgette hoped matches were all she was selling.

“I haven’t any money with me,” she said woodenly, wishing she could help the child.

“Even if you did, you’d dare not give her any but the smallest coin.”

“Anything more would make her a target for thieves?” Georgette guessed.

“Or her employer,” Nathaniel said. “The children in this neighborhood are little better than slaves to the ones who provide them with goods to sell.”

Georgette’s chest constricted. “I had no idea. Why is nothing done about this?”

“What would you do? Take the children from their families? Each penny they earn helps put bread on the table.”

“Surely the government could—”

“No doubt there are reforms that might help the lot of these poor, but with the Crown racking up debt to build follies at the royals’ country estates, it’s not likely anything more can be spared for Whitechapel.”

The needs were overwhelming, but surely if she were a royal duchess, she might—

“And lest you think once you’re married to Cambridge you can divert some funds in this direction, let me remind you that control of your considerable dowry will lie in your royal husband’s hands,” he said with bitterness. “You’ll be lucky if he gives you pin money.”

“How will we find Mrs. O’Toole?” Georgette asked, mostly because it irritated her that Nate knew the direction her thoughts traveled so well and she didn’t want the conversation to wander back to the duke.

“We ask. Or rather, I ask.” Nathaniel rapped on the ceiling of the carriage and it halted. “Stay here.”

He climbed out of the equipage and stopped the first man who trudged past. After a few moments’ conversation, Nathaniel returned, gave the driver new instructions, and rejoined Georgette.

“Sadie O’Toole has opened a new brothel in the next block over,” he explained as the carriage moved forward. “She’s brought in a fresh stable of girls and is busy refurbishing a former common lodging house. The place has a red door, the fellow said.”

“Would you have said Sadie O’Toole had the means to do all that?” Georgette asked.

“No. When I repaid her for the rest of her lease, it was only a couple pounds. Even her girls’ debts didn’t amount to enough to open a new place. Not even here.” Nate eyed the foot traffic as if he were looking for someone in particular. “Clearly, she has a benefactor of some sort who is supporting her business.”

Someone who can’t satisfy their needs elsewhere. Someone who likes “gasping,” Georgette thought, remembering Madam Bouchard’s ghastly explanation of some of the House of Sirens’s more exotic specialties. Or someone who likes making other people gasp.

Vesta’s death by strangulation was enough like that aberrant behavior to make Georgette wonder if Sadie O’Toole’s mysterious investor and the person responsible for the murders on Lackaday Lane were one and the same.

The carriage stopped halfway down the block from a crumbling brick structure with a red door. The dentils beneath the cornice hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years. Several of them were black and decayed as a diseased mouth. Vibrant cerise curtains hung at the windows on either side of the red door, their bright pink all the more garish in contrast with their shabby surroundings.

Nathaniel made no move to climb out of the carriage.

“Aren’t we going in?” Georgette asked.

“No. We are reconnoitering. Sh!” He pulled the curtains on the carriage closed so no one could see in, but was careful to leave enough of a slit in the velvet for him to see the door clearly.

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to just go in?” Georgette asked. A gentleman in a theatrical black cape rapped on the red door and was admitted. “Other people are.”

“No, it wouldn’t be simpler. For one thing, I don’t know what’s on the other side of the door. I have no idea if I can protect you in there.”