Her gaze narrowed into appraising slits. “Do I know you, dearie?”
Hortense kept her eyes cast to the floor and shook her head.
Jamie cleared his throat. “This chit isn’t your concern.”
Mrs. Ditch’s gaze lingered. “There ain’t a gel I don’t remember.” She tapped her forefinger to her temple. “I once knew a little Amelie. Took something of mine. She woulda grown to look exactly like you, come to think on it.”
“There is no Amelie in this room,” murmured Hortense, avoiding Mrs. Ditch’s searching gaze. It was her eyes. Their cerulean hue was that striking. Anyone who had met those eyes once would remember them.
“The cousin’s name is Mollie,” Jamie cut in.
“More than one Mollie round here, if you don’t mind me sayin’,” said Mrs. Ditch, her gaze at last straying from Hortense. “Too many, if you ask me. Difficult to keep ’em all fed, as coin bein’ hard to come by.”
She couldn’t have pronounced her message more clearly. Jamie pulled the bag of guineas from his greatcoat. An avaricious light entered the woman’s eyes as he plucked out one coin and plunked it on the desk. “As I said, she was here fourteen years ago.”
“So many Mollies over the years.” The woman flipped the bright coin between forefinger and thumb. “Do you have a last name?”
“Rafferty.”
“Mollie Rafferty,” she repeated. “A name that hangs just on the edge of memory.”
Jamie withdrew another coin. He understood the game. Hortense kept her gaze trained on the floor, but her head had canted to the side ever so slightly. She was taking in every beat of the conversation.
“Ah, sweet memory returns,” cooed Mrs. Ditch. “A beauty of some remark, that Mollie Rafferty.”
“Tell me where she is,” Jamie demanded, his mask of cool, aristocratic indifference slipping, now that they were on the brink of discovery.
Mrs. Ditch gave her head a shake. “You’ll not find her here, milord.”
Impatiently, he flung another guinea on the desk, its thud loud and final. “Where?”
She spread her hands wide. “Where so many of them end up.”
His gut began to churn. He knew what she wasn’t saying. He wished she would out with it so they could get to the how, why, and what.
He managed to catch Hortense’s eye. This wasn’t going to end well, her gaze was telling him. She’d known it all along.
“If you will enlighten me, Mrs. Ditch.” He needed the answer spoken aloud, and it was that need that gave him away. Another coin hit the table, hard.
“The Cross Bones,” said the matron.
“The Cross Bones? Was she taken by pirates?”
This brought a mean smile to the woman’s mouth, but before she could reply, Hortense said, “It’s a burial ground for prostitutes—”
“Prostitutes?” He didn’t bellow. He remained very still, even if his blood shot thunder through his veins.
“—and paupers,” finished Mrs. Ditch. “Not too far from here.”
His stomach plummeted to his feet, and it was as if someone had plugged his ears with cotton. He gave his head a shake, but he couldn’t deny that here it was, the inevitable.
Mollie was buried in a grave with paupers and prostitutes for her eternal company. A sadness, a hopelessness, washed over him, but so, too, did an emotion with more force behind it.Fury.
He’d believed a lie—more than one—and that was why Mollie lay in a pauper’s grave. His gaze narrowed on Mrs. Ditch. “And you’re certain?”
“As can be.” The woman gave an indifferent shrug. “You want to know what killed her?”
At last, they were getting somewhere. He smashed all the remaining guineas on the desk. “Tell me.” There was no mistaking the menace in his words.
