Promise Me Tomorrow (4 page)

“Everyone’s waiting in the sitting room,” Winny went on.

Marianne nodded, her heart sinking even lower. She knew that everyone had been excited about their first foray into the upper reaches of Society, and she hated to face them with her failure. They would be kind, of course; they always were. It was only with these outcasts that she had found kindness. But their very kindness made her feel even worse about letting them down.

She went down the hall into the sitting room, with Winny following her. They were indeed all there. Rory Kiernan, whom they all affectionately called “Da” because he was the oldest among them, was sitting on the couch with his wife, Betsy. Betsy was an expert at cards and at separating the flats from their money, and Da was one of the premiere pickpockets of London, but they were largely retired now. They were the parents of Della, the improbably dark-haired middle-aged woman who was sitting in a chair beside them, and who now sprang to her feet at Marianne’s entrance.

“Marianne!” Della grinned from ear to ear and opened her arms wide to embrace Marianne. She was a short, plump woman with twinkling brown eyes and an infectious laugh, and it was clear that she had been a beauty in her day. She was the closest thing to a mother that Marianne had known. It was she and her husband, Harrison, the short, wiry man beside her, who had rescued Marianne when she came to London over nine years ago.

Marianne had been Mary Chilton then, not quite nineteen years old, frightened and alone—and pregnant. Working as a maid in the Quartermaine household, she had caught the eye of the eldest son, Daniel, when he had been sent down from Oxford. To pass the time, Daniel had first flirted with her, then wooed her with seductive words and sweet promises. Naively, she had thought that he loved her, and for a brief time she had been very happy. But when his words of love did not prevail upon her to come to his bed, he had taken her by force. Crushed and heartbroken, Marianne had gone to the housekeeper, who had told her that she had best keep quiet about the matter or she would only stir up trouble for herself. Daniel would be returning to Oxford soon, the housekeeper reminded her, and in the meantime, she would keep Marianne at work in the kitchen, where she would not have to run into him.

Before long, Marianne had realized that she was pregnant. She wrote to Daniel, putting aside her pride for the sake of her unborn child, and begged him for help, but he never replied. When she began to show, Lady Quartermaine had ordered the housekeeper to dismiss her. Marianne had been unable to get work at any other house in the area. No one wanted a servant with licentious ways. Finally, she had gone to London, hoping that in that impersonal city she would find some job where her pregnancy would not matter. Winny had given her every penny that she had saved, but Marianne could not find work in London, either, and it was not long before all of Winny’s meager savings were gone.

Desperate and hungry, she had stolen some fruit from a vendor’s stall. She had not been very good at it, and the vendor saw her take it and began to chase her. Della and Harrison, who had been watching the scene unfold, saved her. Harrison neatly tripped the vendor, then helped him up with a great many apologies, insisting on brushing off his clothes and explaining at great length how the accident had come to happen. Della, in the meantime, took Marianne by the arm and whisked her away. She had taken her to their home, a set of rooms in a less fashionable part of town, and had given her supper. Marianne, overwhelmed by her kindness, had collapsed into sobs and told Della her story.

Della’s heart had ached for the poor girl, alone in the world, with no family to help her and nowhere to go, no way to make a living. She knew that the workhouse was the only option left to Marianne, and that was a fate that Della would not have wished on anyone. So, with no fuss, she and Harrison had taken Marianne in.

Marianne knew that they had helped her more than she could ever repay, and she would have done anything for them. When she found out that Della and Harrison were thieves by trade, she had revised her moral standards. Whatever she had been taught in the orphanage about right and wrong, she knew that Della and her husband were good people, whereas the supposedly virtuous Lady Quartermaine and the matron at St. Anselm’s were at heart wicked.

Della and Harrison were not common thieves. Harrison was an “upper-story” man, skilled at picking locks, opening safes and breaking into houses without disturbing the occupants. One of the reasons for his success was the work of his partner Della. She spoke and acted like one of the gentry. Her mother, Betsy, had run a gaming hall much of Della’s life, and she had taught Della to speak and act genteelly, preparing her for the same sort of life that Betsy had led. After Della met Harrison, they had realized that if she moved among the wealthier classes, she could determine the layout of a house and the location of its valuables, and then Harrison could far more easily get in and out of the house and lighten its occupants of some of the burden of their wealth.

Marianne stayed with the two of them all through her pregnancy and for several months after the baby, Rosalind, was born. She could not help feeling that she was a burden to them, but she also could not see how she was going to support herself and her daughter, as well as raise the child. The only occupation she knew was being a maid, and she knew that no one would hire her if she had a child with her. But there was no way she could give Rosalind up.

Harrison had come up with the solution to their problem. Marianne, he pointed out, could do the same job as Della. She already spoke rather better than most of her peers, and she carried herself with a natural grace. He and Della, he pointed out, could train her in all the finer points of manners and speech. Dressed like a lady, she would be stunning, and her beauty and youth would help them obtain entré into finer houses—an idea that he expressed with a great deal of tact and circumlocution, until finally Della had chuckled and told him that she was well aware that Marianne outshone her. Indeed, Marianne outshone any woman she knew. Motherhood—and an adequate diet—had made Marianne even more beautiful, giving her skin a luminous glow and adding more curves to her slender body.

Marianne had felt some qualms about entering the world of thieves, but she had suppressed them. She would do anything Della and Harrison asked of her, and, besides, she had a mother’s fierce instinct to take care of her child. She was determined to make enough money to give her daughter an easier and better life than she had had. So she had entered into lessons with Della, and they had discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that she picked up the correct speech and manners of the upper class with ease. She was, Harrison declared, a natural, and by the time Rosalind was a year old, Marianne had adopted the name Marianne Cotterwood, making herself a respectable widow, and was making calls with Della.

It was an easy enough job, as long as one had a quick wit and good nerves, both of which Marianne possessed. In order to pass among the wealthy, one had to dress well, so she had a supply of beautiful clothes. She ate well. She had a great deal of time to spend with her daughter, and when she was not there, Della or Betsy was happy to take care of the little girl. Marianne was also good at what she did. She had a quick eye and a good memory, and without appearing to study a house, she could quickly spot the best entrances and exits, as well as the most expensive and most portable valuables, and carry all the information in her head to give to Harrison. Della readily admitted that Marianne was better than she at what she did, and Della soon slipped into a happy semiretirement, going along with Marianne only when they thought a chaperone was a social imperative.

Marianne had been scouting for Harrison for eight years now, and their fortunes had been steadily increasing all that time. They were able now to rent a fair-size home in a good neighborhood, as well as hire Winny as housekeeper and cook, and two maids to help her. Their “family” had also grown. First, Da and Betsy, growing too old for the Game, had moved in with them. Then Harrison and Della had taken in a stray adolescent who had been scratching out a living as a pickpocket, working for a hard fellow who ran a ring of youthful pickpockets, giving them a place to sleep and some food to eat and taking most of their profits in return. Piers was twenty-two years old now, and Harrison had turned him into a skilled upper-story man.

Now Della hugged Marianne and pulled her toward a chair. “Sit and tell us all about it. Was it terribly grand?”

“The grandest party I’ve ever seen,” Marianne replied honestly. She looked around at the eager faces watching her, from Betsy’s wrinkled, powdered visage to Piers’ freckled, snub-nosed one.

“I knew it!” Betsy let out a hoot of laughter. “His father used to come to my gaming house, and he was always flush in the pockets—at least when he came in the door. Drunk as a wheelbarrow, of course, but, still, a real blue blood.”

“Well, I don’t know the color of his blood, but I’d say the son is flush in the pockets, as well. The problem is…” She hesitated, glancing around at them, then sighed. “Oh, the devil! The truth is, I made a dreadful mull of it.”

“Don’t be daft,” Piers said, dismissing her words with a wave of his hand. “You always think you did something wrong.”

“He’s right. I am sure you did wonderfully,” Della agreed.

“No.” Marianne shook her head, and tears sprang unexpectedly to her eyes. She blinked them away and went on. “It wasn’t just
something
I did wrong. It was everything. I was discovered.”

The room fell silent. Marianne dropped her eyes, unable to look at the others.

Finally Harrison started to speak, then had to stop and clear his throat. “Wh-what? How could you have been discovered? You’re sitting right here. They couldn’t have—”

“He did not turn me in. But he saw what I did. He accused me. Oh, how could I have been so careless? I didn’t see him at all!”

“But who—I don’t understand.” Harrison came forward. “Who saw you?”

“Lord Lambeth. He had been looking at me earlier. But I didn’t see him as I left the ballroom. I went up and down the corridor looking for the study because I presumed the safe would be there—although I did see some excellent silver pieces in one of the drawing rooms. Anyway, I found a smoking room finally, and I began to hunt around the walls, looking for a safe. Then
he
appeared.”

Della drew a sharp breath. “Oh, no. What did he say?”

“He thought I was about to try to open the safe. Of course I told him that he had misinterpreted the scene, that I was simply straightening the picture, but he didn’t believe it. He was sure I was a thief. He had followed me out of the ballroom, you see, and had seen me looking into all the rooms up and down the hallway, and searching behind the pictures for a safe. He knew I was lying.”

“But he didn’t say anything to anyone? He didn’t betray you to Lord Batterslee?”

Marianne shook her head. “No. It was very odd. He was—well, he seemed rather amused by the thought that I was a thief. A most peculiar man. When Lord Batterslee came into the study and found us, Lord Lambeth did not say a word about what I had been doing.”

“Thank heavens!” Della replied heartfeltly.

“Yes,” Harrison agreed. “But why?”

“Come now, lad.” Da spoke up for the first time. “Don’t tell me me daughter married a nodcock. Just look at the girl.” He winked at Marianne. “Why, any man worth his salt would let such a beauty get away with a little thievery. That’s why Della’s mother was so successful.” He reached over and patted Betsy’s hand, his eyes twinkling. “She was so pleasing to the eye, they scarcely noticed the blunt leaving their pockets.”

Betsy dimpled girlishly. “Go on, you old charmer.”

Harrison ignored his in-laws’ byplay and looked at Marianne. “Is that it, do you think?”

Marianne could feel her cheeks coloring. “Well…I think he was hoping that I would agree to…ah…some sort of arrangement in return for his silence.”

“The blackguard!” Piers growled, jumping to his feet, his boyish face dark with anger. In the excitement of the moment, he forgot his careful work on his accent and plunged back into the cockney of his roots. “I ought to draw ‘is cork. You mean ‘e offered you a carte blanche?”

“Heavens, no. Oh, Piers, do sit down. Don’t get in such a taking. He never really
said
anything. It was just, well…” She hesitated, not wanting to tell them about that kiss. Just the thought of it made her go all strange and melting inside. “It was just a feeling I had. Perhaps I was wrong. Because I told him I would not, yet he still did not tell Lord Batterslee.”

Piers snorted. “I know ‘is type. ‘E—I mean,
he—
just didn’t want to give up his power over you. He’s hoping to wangle his way into your bed, that’s what.”

“That thought occurred to me. But he is bound to see that that is an empty threat. I am afraid that then he
will
tell Lord Batterslee. Harrison, I’m so worried. I fear I have ruined everything for us. What if he tells Lord Batterslee, and he sets a Bow Street Runner on us? Perhaps we ought to try our luck on the Continent for a few months, as you were talking about last year.”

“But what can they prove?” Harrison pointed out reasonably. “You didn’t steal anything. He didn’t even see you trying to steal something. All he saw was you wandering around, looking at things. That’s not proof.”

“They don’t always need proof,” Da put in, his voice tinged with bitterness. “One word from a lord and—” He drew his forefinger across his throat in an ominous gesture.