A hand gripped her arm. “You are my sister’s child. That is all that matters to me.”
Pain made a hard knot in Madelina’s throat. She should have told her aunt. Who could she count on, if not Aunt Aubrey? Only William and, if he knew the truth, perhaps not even him, though she didn’t care to believe that. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she whispered.
“I understand, girl.” Her aunt’s hand dropped back to the raptor topping her cane. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I could love you no less and hate him no more.”
“Are we leaving London, then?” Earlier, Madelina had railed against the idea. Now, she welcomed the respite. Her aunt was correct. Madelina wasn’t ready yet. She was a disaster as Little Hook. Yes, she could fight well, but she felt less and less confident about who she should fight, except for Miss White…and she’d let Miss White escape her.
If they left London, maybe the memory of Mister Mclintock’s touch would fade, for she’d never know peace if it did not.
“Leave London?”
The derision in Aunt Aubrey’s voice brought Madelina’s head up.
“Under duress?” Aunt Aubrey continued. “Because of a threat? Blackmail? Never.”
“But earlier you sai—”
“That was before you received that letter.” Her aunt wore a nearly gleeful expression. “If someone wishes for you to go that badly, the only thing for it is to stay. I thought you were being ineffectual, but you’ve obviously ruffled some feathers. We’ve shaken the tree. Now we must discover what sort of bird flies out.”
“But who could have sent the letter?” Madelina gestured to the fireplace, where their only clue, such as it had been, swirled in the warm eddies, a dusting of ash. “Only the woman who gasped that night could possibly know the truth of my birth.”
“And you saw nothing of her? Heard nothing, other than a gasp?”
Madelina shook her head. No matter how many times that horrible night replayed in her mind, she could dredge up nothing about the woman who’d been with her father. Madelina simply had not seen her.
Aunt Aubrey braced both hands on her cane, her lined face folded in thought. “The note comes now because of your work as Little Hook. Someone else must know your secrets. Both of them.”
“No one knows I am Little Hook.” Except Jasper Mclintock…who was sure to confide in Miss White. Madelina swallowed down bile. That explained who might know she was Little Hook, but who would know of her heritage? If the woman who’d gasped had told anyone…. “Who would she tell, that woman?”
“She would tell Madam Dequenne,” Aunt Aubrey said with surety.
“Then? It was nearly a dozen years ago. Miss White can’t have more than thirty years. She couldn’t have been a well-established madam back then.” And Madelina had heard Aunt Aubrey refer to Miss White as the madam’s creature. Not the madam, but one of her girls.
“There is always a Madam Dequenne.”
Understanding flashed sharp in Madelina’s mind. “So, the name is hereditary. Miss White is not the first Madam Dequenne.”
Indecision flickered in her aunt’s features, there, then gone.
Only years of knowing that face permitted Madelina to read it. “What are you not telling me?” When her aunt didn’t answer, Madelina squared her shoulders. “I told you my secret.”
Aunt Aubrey pursed her lips.
Madelina waited.
A moment passed before her aunt offered, “Once, I thought Clementine was the means by which I would, singlehandedly, unravel and destroy Madam Dequenne.”
“Singlehandedly?”
Her aunt grimaced. “I thought I was ready. Well trained enough. Inexperienced, but smart enough. I wanted to impress my superiors so they would send me on more glamorous assignments, out of London. Out of England.”
“What happened?” Madelina whispered, unnerved by the way her aunt’s youthful surety mirrored her own.
“I gained Clementine’s trust. Turned her. The madam had taken her as a babe from one of her women. She had a concoction she made them drink, you see, that kept them from quickening with child, but one of the girls managed to stay pregnant and then hide the babe for a time. I don’t know what Dequenne did to the girl, but she kept Clementine and raised her to the trade. Clementine knew everything about the business and about Dequenne.” Her aunt fell silent.
Fascinated, Madelina pressed, “What went wrong?”
Aunt Aubrey thumped the tip of her cane hard against the floor. “Clementine backed out. She told Dequenne everything and then, to prove her loyalty, she shot me. She must have been about fourteen at the time.”
