perform on behalf of the Andromeda Society and it is urgent, else I shouldn’t risk it now, when Hyacinth’s life is finally what it ought to be.
Cassandra Pomfret
Morning of Thursday 18 July
“Bleeding Heart Yard?” Ashmont repeated when Miss Pomfret told him their destination. “Why go there yourself? You could have sent me.”
“All six feet and some of you, in all your ducal glory, sauntering into the place?” she said. “We try to do our work without calling excessive attention to ourselves.”
They were walking along Holborn, a busy, noisy street whose passersby paid them little heed. Miss Pomfret wore a brown dress of simple print whose sleeves were many degrees less swollen than the usual and whose decoration consisted of a fragment of lace about the collar. The hat was austere: no lace, flowers, or bows, except the one tied under her chin. No umbrella today. She’d been delayed setting out from home, she’d told him, and in her hurry to change, she’d forgotten it at Mrs. Roake’s.
“But I dressed as you ordered,” he said. He wore a suit of clothes he used when he needed to travel incognito.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “The weather gods have been kind. Under overcast skies, in what for you is shabby attire, the Greek deity quality dims somewhat. But you don’t carry yourself as you ought. You’re still too much the lord of all you survey.”
“Right. Forgot about that.” He let his shoulders sag and his chin droop and adjusted his stride. “Will this do?”
Another quick, sidelong survey. “Not bad for a duke. All the time you spend at the theater, I suppose, and the hobnobbing with actors—and actresses. That and frequenting low places. But don’t speak.”
“I can alter my accent, you know.”
She shook her head. “You think you can. But they always know. I’ve had to practice with a strict tutor.”
“Keeffe.”
“Who else? Still, women do have an advantage. We’re trained to adapt to others’ wishes, which makes it easier to change our posture and walk. This gives me the freedom to concentrate on my speech. I recommend you keep your mind on not walking as though you own the place, although for all I know, you do.”
“Not in Bleeding Heart Yard, I don’t think.”
They turned into Ely Place.
“You still haven’t told me why we’ve come here,” he said.
“To forestall an eviction,” she said. “I volunteered for Holborn, as I usually do when I’m home. The people who live here aren’t the problem, usually. It’s the property owners, their managers, and their rent collectors. Some are overzealous. Some cheat the tenants, who can’t afford lawyers or don’t know they need one.”
“I see.”
He did, unfortunately, all too clearly. He’d done a great deal of reading in recent days, which had brought troubling discoveries. Now, to learn of people who didn’t know their rights and had no means of obtaining them . . .
“Are you ill, Ashmont? Too much carousing last night?”
He didn’t realize he’d paused and put his hand to his head. He took his hand from his temple and laughed, but he couldn’t laugh off the feeling, as though some weight lay on his skull. “You make my head hurt. And my heart. It’s rather . . .”
Overwhelming. He looked about him at the ancient, soot-darkened buildings looming over them. “It isn’t something I’ve thought about.”
“Neither did I, until I met Mrs. Roake and discovered the club and simple ways to make myself useful.”
You must collect yourself and try, for once in your misbegotten life, to make yourself useful.
She’d said that weeks ago, the cool, clear voice penetrating his haze of drunken misery.
He’d survived that day in Putney, possibly the lowest point of his life, and managed to be somewhat useful. He wanted to be useful, yes, for once in his life. He simply wasn’t used to this, that was all.
“One small part of London,” he said, half to himself. “So many lives inside. Places like this everywhere. Somebody overzealous. Somebody cheating people who can’t protect themselves.”
Not something he’d ever considered. This wasn’t a world he paid attention to. He was uneasy, and he wanted to sit down in a quiet place with a glass of wine and make sense of it. He couldn’t. Not now. Had to carry on. She could.
“It’s better to do something than to do nothing.” She went on walking, and after a moment, he caught up with her.
They were late.
Mrs. Pooley stood on the cobblestones, her few belongings strewn about her. Holding one child by the hand and