But all this scandal in high life was no concern of Sophie’s, unless it could somehow work to her advantage, which seemed unlikely. She would be a very good companion, discreet and industrious, so that the Marchioness would be entirely satisfied with her work, and very happy with her own wise choice. Until suddenly she wouldn’t be.
Everything was arranged to both women’s satisfaction, and afterwards Sophie left the tall house and disappeared into thedusk. Ladies could not walk unaccompanied about the streets of London, but Sophie was not precisely a lady, or at least not one of the least consequence. She was, or appeared to be, an unremarkable female in a modest bonnet and a simple grey cloak, and nobody paid her the least attention. She walked, and enjoyed the freedom.
The partial freedom. She was always alert, naturally. If men looked at her, she cast down her eyes meekly – not too meekly, just the correct amount of humility – and maintained her pace. She was brisk, purposeful; above all, she was not prey. Meeting anyone’s glance could be dangerous. Being a woman abroad alone could be dangerous. It was a little early for a gentleman to be drunk – no, that was ridiculous, a gentleman could be drunk at any hour. She could not afford to be careless, and was not.
Her route was somewhat circuitous, and if anyone had been following her through the darkening streets – but why should they? – they would soon have found it impossible to keep their eyes upon one nondescript little figure among all the evening bustle of the great, dirty city.
She left the fashionable part of town soon enough, and London changed as she walked eastwards. Oddly for such a respectable-seeming woman, the confidence of her posture seemed to grow when it should have declined. She was in Seven Dials now, the Rookery, a place where the constables would hesitate to go, and certainly would not go alone. But she stepped around piles of noisome refuse and groups of disreputable-looking loiterers as though she had not a worry in the world. People watched her, but did not attempt to accost her. When a drunken costermonger lurched accidentally into her path, the sharp look she sent him made him shrink away, babbling apologies.
At last she reached a low tavern, a boozing ken, the unlikeliest of destinations for an honest woman, and made herway confidently inside. The ancient, panelled room was not well lit, and very crowded, but she passed surely through the haze of pipe-smoke and tallow fumes, and when the patrons saw her they drew apart as best they could to make a path. It was odd that they should show such deference to one so unremarkable and unintimidating in appearance, for some of them, men and women both, had the aspect of creatures out of nightmare. Their persons, their faces, and above all their watchful, glittering eyes, told a disturbing story. Any objective observer with a modest degree of imagination would surely have said that the room looked to be full of robbers, whores and murderers, which indeed it was. But the young woman seemed entirely unconcerned. She slipped behind the bar, saying, ‘Hello, Fred, all well?’
The tapster – a tall, imposing man with the battered features of a former prize-fighter – nodded and let her pass into the inner room, saying, ‘He’s waiting for you,’ as he closed the scarred wooden door behind her.
She threw off her drab cloak and untied her bonnet, setting them down upon a chest beside the fire. There was a man there, seated behind a desk, looking through some papers, and he did not speak, but raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ she said in response to some unspoken query. ‘She gave me the position.’
‘As we knew she would.’
‘Indeed. One of the other candidates, a young woman with excellent references who was expected an hour before me, did not appear, and sent no word to explain why. Lady Wyverne was highly vexed.’
‘Most unaccountable,’ he said calmly.
‘She wasn’t harmed?’ Hard to say if this was truly a question.
Again the mobile eyebrow shot up. ‘Of course not. She is a little better off than she was yesterday, and the next plumsituation that arises will be hers. I have said so.’ This rather odd statement was uttered with supreme confidence. ‘She was… persuaded that to work at Brook Street and, most of all, at Wyverne Hall would not have suited her constitution, and given the nature of the place, this may even be true.’
‘It may not suit mine.’
‘I dare say it won’t. But you can look after yourself.’
‘As you taught me.’
He inclined his head. He was a man past his middle years, and his neutral speech – he used no low cant, just now, nor did he swear – made it difficult to place him, for anyone who didn’t know exactly who and what he was. He didn’t look or sound as though he belonged in this place, which could have been described with perfect accuracy as a notorious den of thieves. Yet this was plainly his private room, and he seemed entirely at home here. He was short, spare of frame, nondescript (this had been useful in the past). His eyes and hair were of no particular colour, and his clothes were as unremarkable as they could be. In a society where status and position were everything, he gave little away. He could have been a tradesman in a small but prosperous way, a middling clerk in some government office, a solicitor in a backwater town. A confidential servant, perhaps, to a gentleman of rank. Yes, that. He projected an air of quiet confidence, and competence. One would instinctively trust such a man.
One would be seriously mistaken.
2
His name was Nate Smith – that was what he said, and nobody was inclined to argue – and he was a thief. A prince of thieves. If you stole something, especially something valuable, in London and didn’t give him his share, you’d be looking over your shoulder, and while you were looking over your shoulder you might trip and break your neck. It had happened. And why would you be so foolish? Nate Smith could make things disappear. Things, and people. But if you helped him, he’d help you. He could be very helpful, and fair, by his lights.
He’d helped the girl who was now Sophie Delavallois. It could be said that he’d created her. Unlike everyone else, he knew where she came from, what she’d been before, and he hadn’t told a soul. This seemed almost incredible in such a dog-eat-dog world, but it was true.
A lesser man might have seen a short-term, obvious profit in a penniless, friendless and very pretty girl who could claim descent from various kings of France, and who had the manners to match. An auction could have been arranged. Several auctions, human ingenuity being what it was. Maidenhead wasa valuable asset, and only a fool would imagine that it could be sold only once.
This sort of thing went on all the time, and Nate Smith had no bone to pick with anyone who chose to make their living in that particular way. He wasn’t sentimental. Flesh was a commodity like any other. But it had seemed to him to be a waste of potential, in this instance. He’d seen something in the girl when he’d met her. She’d been destitute, alone, bereaved and dazed with grief, but she hadn’t given in to despair, and he’d been aware of a spark of something in her that gave him pause. If he’d made the obvious arrangement eight years ago, as he easily might have done, if he’d sold her on to some madam or other, the girl wouldn’t be convincing anyone she was of royal blood by now, he thought as he looked at her. He’d always enjoyed looking at her. She still held on to her youth, and he was glad to see it. Of course, she might have made a go of whoring – some rare women did – and spent her days riding in a fine carriage down Bond Street and her nights as some great lord’s particular favourite, but more likely she’d be walking the streets of Covent Garden and painting her face an inch thick to hide the pox sores. Or dead in a gutter: wasteful.
He could, he supposed, have found other women who could pass as upper servants (though not a fraction as well as she did) and find their way into the most exclusive houses in the country. He’d done similar things before, when the stakes were lower, when it was just a matter of a doxy taking a few shillings to leave a door or a window open and looking the other way. This was different. The thing about thieves and criminals and their strumpets – and he was aware of the irony of this – was that you couldn’t trust the bastards. His reputation, won in blood, though not his blood, ought to ensure he’d never be double-crossed again. Normally this would be the case. But when it came to very valuable things, to extreme temptation, people were so stupid.They could lose their heads. And Lord Wyverne had an awful lot of valuable things – a fortune, a king’s ransom. Nate Smith wanted all of it. Sophie – best to think of her as Sophie now – just wanted one particularly precious trinket. Her fair share.
It wasn’t as though he’d trained her just for this particular caper. She’d earned her keep a thousand times over. She could empty a pocket like nobody he’d ever seen, though she’d started at it late. She could pick a lock as easy as winking. She could pass as a lady, or as a tavern wench, since she’d been both. She could read and write, in several languages. She could draw you up a letter that looked as though the old Queen had had the scriving of it, or any lord or banker you could name, which was surprisingly useful.
She could stab a man who attempted to lay rough hands on her, if it came to that, and be a hundred yards away before anybody noticed, including the victim; she didn’t care for that side of the business, but she’d done it. Who’d suspect her, with her pale, little face and big, dark eyes? She could go anywhere, and do anything, from Carlton House to a Charley’s shelter. She could be anybody, from a duchess to a foul-mouthed doxy, a Frenchwoman, an Italian. She was fearless, quick, bold and clever. A woman after his own heart, if he’d had such a thing. And he was supposed to have sold such an exceptional woman into the life of a lightskirt – an expensive baggage and then, almost inevitably as time wore her down, a cheap one? Madness. He’d made her, and she was his creature. And together they would pull off the greatest, most audacious theft of the new century. It wouldn’t be long now, if she could hold her nerve. He trusted her – as far as he trusted anybody, which was to say, not completely. Never that.
3
Sophie took up her new situation the next morning, and carried her modest possessions to Brook Street in a hackney. The previous companion had already left, it seemed, and her services were required immediately. And a day after that, Sophie travelled to Buckinghamshire with Lady Wyverne’s upper servants, who were civil enough to her throughout the tedious journey but engaged her in little conversation and asked her no personal questions, which suited her perfectly. They didn’t seem a particularly cheerful group of people, nor did they appear eager to reach their destination – but that was no concern of hers.
As the only newcomer, she found it hard to restrain herself from leaning forward and staring as the heavy coach passed through tall gateposts topped with dragons – wyverns, she supposed – and made its way down a long, long carriage drive and across an ornamental bridge. It rumbled slowly up a rise and then the house – the palace, it was nothing less – came into view. She could not repress a gasp at the sheer size of it, the height of the soaring stone columns and the length of the curving frontage– and some of her companions chuckled a little at her reaction. ‘You’ll get used to it, miss,’ one of them said drily.
