Buch lesen: «Duchess For A Day»

One

London, Wednesday June 26, 1895

Newgate Prison

6:00 p.m. British Summertime

At shortly after the hour, a stern-faced turnkey dropped a ladder down from his perch high atop the catwalk. He turned and handed a frightened Claire Orwell down that ladder and into the infamous prison’s crowded Common Cell.

Claire’s presence caused an immediate stir. The criminals snapped to attention. Bloodshot eyes popped open and clung to the blond, willowy young woman.

“Meet yer ’ospitable mates.” The gruff turnkey gave a nasty grin as the curious crowded closer. “Street thieves. Pickpockets. Footpads. Shoplifters. And whores. You’ll fit right in, eh?”

The turnkey kicked a sleeping derelict out of the way. The bony, sweat-soaked felon groaned, rolled over, belched loudly, then fell back to snoring. Sickened by the pungent scent of stale vomit emanating from the prostrate creature, Claire made a face of disgust.

The turnkey laughed again. “Not to fret. T’aint nothin’ ye won’t get used to, Queenie.”

Claire felt her stomach roll.

“’ere, dearie, sit by me.” This from a diseased-looking woman with brittle, dyed-black hair and grimy clothes.

The woman yanked her soiled skirts up around bruised thighs and batted her matted eyelashes. Claire shuddered as the others hooted and whistled, obviously enjoying the look of repugnance on her face.

A chill skipped up her spine. “I beg you, sir, allow me to speak to a barrister at once. You cannot imprison me before I’ve even been accused. A cell at police headquarters if you must, but don’t leave me down here. I’ve done nothing wrong. I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“Aye, that’s what they all say,” was his curt reply. He adjusted his black uniform coat with its two rows of brass buttons, shoved his billed cap forward on his broad forehead and, none too gently, propelled Claire forward. “A few nights down here, Miss Sticky Fingers, and you’ll think twice ’fore ye go stealin’ from yer betters again.”

Claire said nothing more. It was no use. He wouldn’t listen. No one would listen. She had spent the whole long day fruitlessly attempting to persuade the authorities that she had done nothing wrong. Now the terrible thought struck her that no one would know she was imprisoned here save the vengeful, titled knave who had lied to put her here.

Claire had to let someone know what had happened. Surely even prisoners were allowed to send messages, to have visitors, to retain counsel.

She firmly set her jaw as the turnkey, roughly gripping her upper arm, thrust her on through the motley horde of criminals lying about in clumps on the dirty dungeon floor. All were watching her every move, muttering, making lewd gestures and grinning slyly. Claire artfully dodged dirty hands reaching out to grab at her long, flowing skirts. She made eye contact with no one.

Newgate was everything she’d heard it was.

And more.

A filthy hellhole into which the very dregs of humanity had been cast and forgotten. A dank, putrid place filled with scum and riffraff and dangerous criminals of both sexes. A dungeon where the only light came from small, dirty windows high above the catwalk.

Shadows were deepening with the close of the day. Claire anxiously looked about for a place to sit apart from the other prisoners. There was no such place.

“Make yerself at ’ome,” said the turnkey, finally releasing Claire’s arm.

Claire frowned and exhaled heavily. Then she squared her slender shoulders. With single-minded determination, she made her slow, sure way toward the cell’s western perimeter where fewer prisoners were gathered. The turnkey followed close on her heels.

Claire heard the big warder behind her say, “Move it, Green Tooth. We ’ave a new guest checkin’ into our luxurious ’ohel. Scoot yer bony arse over and give the little lady some room to breathe.”

Claire glanced down at the poor creature he had addressed. A stick-thin, graying, stringy-haired old crone who was badly in need of dental work and a fresh suit of clothing. The woman’s thin face was wrinkled and dirty, her teeth rotted and blackened, but her eyes were bright and amazingly alert.

The old woman known to the criminal class as Green Tooth hurriedly moved out of the way. But she didn’t take her eyes off the new female prisoner.

“What are you looking at, old woman?” Claire snapped, hoping to assert a firm authority and clearly demonstrate a lack of fear she didn’t feel. “Stop staring! Keep away from me. I mean it.”

The old harridan sank back into the shadows against the wall. But she continued to covertly stare at Claire.

Claire released a slow, shallow breath.

She turned about and sat down. She leaned against the wall, raised her knees, and wrapped her arms around them. She let her head fall back and rest against the rough brick. Warily, she looked around the teeming, reeking hellhole.

The prisoners were continuing to ogle and point and whisper. Claire felt goose bumps pop up on her arms and the fine hair rise at her nape. She was in a squalid pit surrounded by the dregs of humanity and darkness would soon fall.

She lifted her eyes to the catwalk above.

The burly turnkey who had escorted her down into the pit stood clutching the railing, looking down on the prisoners. A younger warder walked patrol around the catwalk.

Claire was relieved to see them there. They or their replacements would be on patrol throughout the evening, making certain there was no trouble. They wouldn’t allow any real mischief to take place. She would be safe enough.

As darkness settled over the city of London the only light in the Common Cell of Newgate prison were the wall torches flickering on redbrick walls blackened by years of soot.

Claire didn’t move as the others roused to eat the evening meal. While the ravenous prisoners tore at the stale bread and wolfed down the watery soup with loud slurping gusto, Claire made a face and closed her eyes. The smells and the sounds continued to assault her senses, but she didn’t have to look at the human slime.

“Best ’ave a spot ’o yer soup,” came Green Tooth’s voice from out of the shadows.

Claire opened her eyes and her head snapped around. She glared at the dirty old woman. “I am not hungry. Stop bothering me.”

Green Tooth lifted her own tin bowl and took a long final drink of the watery soup. She set the empty bowl down, wiped her mouth on a dirty sleeve, and informed Claire, “Need to keep yer strength up if you’ve any ’opes of stayin’ alive down ’ere.”

“I won’t be staying long,” Claire stated firmly. “I’m innocent and I—”

“’Course ye are,” said the old crone, interrupting. “Ain’t we all. Not a guilty soul in ’ere. Not a one.”

“Yes, well, I am innocent and I’ll be out of here by morning.”

“Not bloody likely,” said Green Tooth. “Innocent or no, it’ll be weeks, p’rhaps months ’fore any court ’ears yer case.”

“No, it will not,” Claire said, dismissing her. “Now kindly stop bothering me.”

Green Tooth said, “I’m tryin’ to ’elp ye.”

“I need no help,” Claire said. “Not another word out of you, do you hear!”

Green Tooth fell silent, but she continued to carefully study Claire. She couldn’t take her eyes off her. There was something hauntingly familiar about this young woman. That hair, the porcelain skin, those vivid violet eyes, the graceful curve of her throat. Surely a direct link to someone from the past. The name she couldn’t quite bring to bear. She searched her memory.

Could she be? No, too young. But blood told…The daughter. She had to be the daughter.

Eyes closed, Claire sat on the hard stone floor and silently lectured herself. She couldn’t let this hideous turn of events best her. She had to be strong and resourceful. She had to keep her wits about her and figure a way out of this terrible predicament. She was, she knew, in serious trouble.

Who would take her word over that of Lord Wardley Nardees?

No one.

She faced this outrageous charge on her own. All alone.

It wasn’t the first time Claire had been alone. She was used to it. Had been used to it since losing both parents when she was a girl of eighteen. Shortly after their deaths she had accepted the proposal of an old family friend. Dear, stalwart, solicitous Keith Orwell. He would have gladly taken care of her for the rest of her life, but tragedy soon struck again.

Only four years after they’d wed, her kindhearted husband had died suddenly of apoplexy and she was widowed at age twenty-two. Orwell had left no money, so there’d been little time to grieve his passing. Claire had had to immediately find a way to support herself.

Well educated, she had promptly become governess to a fine family’s two well-behaved boys. She’d spent five pleasant years in their employ ending with her young wards leaving for boarding school. She was then chosen to be governess to the wealthy Lord Wardley Nardees’s three unruly children.

Claire shuddered now at the recollection of what had happened in the baron’s huge mansion only last night.

She opened her eyes and again looked above. She felt a small degree of comfort in seeing the turnkey continuing to patrol on the catwalk. But as she watched, he suddenly stopped and moved directly to the rope ladder on which she had descended into the bowels of the Common Cell.

Her heart sank when he loudly announced to the prisoners below, “Raisin’ the ladder, ye miserable scabs! Jest ye try and get out ’o the hole in the middle of the night!” He bent and swiftly drew the ladder up out of reach, rung by rung, and Claire saw her only connection with the world above taken away.

No sooner had the ladder been lifted than the turnkey moved around the catwalk extinguishing most of the wall torches. In minutes the Common Cell was cast into deep dark shadows.

She was to spend the long night in this pit at the mercy of dangerous criminals.

Nothing to worry about, she told herself. The turnkey was patrolling again. He would keep a close eye on the dungeon. She should try to relax and get some much needed rest. Tomorrow she would figure a way out of this travesty.

A quarter past midnight.

Claire was wide awake. Unfortunately the lone turnkey was not. He was no longer patrolling. He was snoring, dead to the world, somewhere out of sight above.

As the hour grew later the hellhole began stirring to life after hours of relative quiet. The new activity greatly unnerved Claire. She was not naive. She was fully aware that she had attracted the unwanted attention of the male denizens and the soulless whores. All had cast lascivious glances at her throughout the evening. All were dangerous. All were free to do as they pleased because the sleeping turnkey was not doing his job. She was helpless against them.

Claire’s anxiety grew when a half dozen of the menacing villains began to gravitate steadily closer. She was paralyzed with fear when a big, strapping female squatted down before her, roughly grabbed Claire’s left ankle and dragged her away from the wall.

“Come to me, beauty,” said the woman, a leer on her chubby face.

Claire kicked wildly at her. “Stop!” she cried, her hips and shoulder blades bumping against the stone floor. “Leave me alone, let me be!”

The fat female smiled in mock surrender and, releasing Claire’s ankle, rose to her feet. Claire scrambled to sit up. She held up her hands defensively as her heart pounded in her ears. She frantically looked around for an escape route. Even if she made it past the evil creatures now circling her, she couldn’t get out of this snake pit.

“I’m first,” announced a cadaverous man with open sores on his face and old scabs decorating his ropy forearms. Shoving the obese prostitute out of the way, he began unbuttoning his filthy trousers as he licked his droopy lower lip.

“The ’ell you are!” snapped a tall, thin woman with greasy corkscrew curls and a long nasty scar slashing down her filthy face. She easily shoved the thin man out of her way. Yanking her tattered skirts up past her knobby knees, she stated, “This one’s mine.”

She’d hardly gotten the words out before a big, muscular brute with a sweat-drenched bare chest and unshaven face stepped in, swung a quick right, and knocked the thin whore flat on her back.

“Stay away from me!” Claire warned as the reeking, half-naked man sank to his knees and reached for her.

Claire’s heart stopped.

“You ’eard the lady,” came a low feminine voice from out of the darkness.

Claire blinked as Green Tooth, roused from a fitful slumber by all the commotion, swiftly emerged from the shadows and pressed the tip of a long sharp piece of glass directly against the man’s juggler vein. Firmly clutching the crude weapon by its handle fashioned of used twine, she said quietly, “Move back or get yer throat slit, gov.”

The big man, his calloused hand already clutching at Claire’s shirtwaist bodice, laughed off Green Tooth’s threat. Bent on having the pale, clean beauty, he ripped Claire’s bodice and she screamed.

“Now I will kill ye!” Green Tooth coolly promised. She jabbed the weapon’s sharp tip into his glistening throat and drew blood.

He yelped in pain, released his hold on Claire’s bodice, and rolled away, cursing. Green Tooth stepped directly in front of Claire, thrust the bloody glass weapon forward toward the others and said, “The same goes for the rest of ye. Touch one ’air on ’er ’ead and ye won’t live to see daylight.”