Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(44)

Silence picked her up and kissed the top of her head. In the last seven months, Mary Darling’s hair had grown in thick and inky black, a mass of corkscrew curls.

She set the baby on her lap and showed her the letter. “Now who do you suppose it’s from?” she asked as she carefully lifted the seal.

“Is it Captain Hollingbrook?” Nell asked. Overhead came a thump and then what sounded like a stampede of oxen across the floor. The children were supposed to be doing their afternoon reading under the supervision of the maids, but somehow the daily event often turned into a melee.

Silence sighed and turned her gaze to the letter. “Yes, it’s from William.”

“You’ll be glad of that, I’m sure, ma’am.”

“Oh, yes,” Silence murmured absently.

She deftly kept the paper from Mary Darling’s interested fingers as she read. William wrote about the Finch and its cargo, a storm they’d weathered, and a fight among the ensigns.

“Have a bit of patty-cake,” Nell said to Mary Darling, and handed her some of the biscuit dough.

A seabird the men had shot and the sighting of a French ship… Silence skimmed down the page, following the neat handwriting of her husband, coming finally to his signature—William H. Hollingbrook. She stared blankly at the page, before she began over again, reading more slowly, searching. But she knew already—there were no jokes they shared between just the two of them, no endearments, no expressions of wanting to come home or missing her. In fact, the letter could’ve been written to anyone.

“Is he well?” Nell asked.

“Well enough.” Silence glanced up and noticed that Mary Darling was carefully breaking off bits of the biscuit dough and placing them in her mouth to chew with a thoughtful expression. “No, sweetheart. ’Tisn’t good not cooked.”

Nell smiled at the baby. “She thinks it is.”

“Won’t it make her sick?” Silence asked worriedly.

Nell shrugged. “It’s mostly flour and water.”

“Still…”

Silence began to unwrap the baby’s fingers from the sticky dough. Mary Darling naturally didn’t think this a good idea and voiced her protests loudly.

Someone knocked on the front door.

“Shall I see who it is?” Nell asked over the baby’s cries.

“I’ll get it,” Silence said. She scooped up the baby and swung her around. “Who do you suppose it is? The king or queen? Or perhaps just the baker’s boy?”

Mary Darling giggled, distracted from the loss of her dough. Silence set the baby on her hip and went to the door. She pulled it open and looked out. On the step was a handkerchief knotted neatly. Silence glanced at it and then quickly searched the street. A woman was washing her step across the way, two men walked side by side trundling wheelbarrows, and several lads argued over a small terrier dog. No one seemed to be paying her any mind.

Silence bent and picked up the handkerchief. The knot was loose and came easily undone, even using only one hand. Inside the handkerchief was a handful of raspberries, perfectly ripe, perfectly unblemished.

“Gah!” Mary Darling cried, and grabbed two, stuffing them into her mouth.

A small scrap of paper was revealed now, and Silence plucked it out from under the berries. One word was written on it.

Darling.

Silence glanced back at the street as Mary Darling snagged three more berries. It was the oddest thing—no one looked in her direction, yet she felt as if watching eyes were upon her. She shivered and reached for the door, beginning to shut it.

A shout came from up the street, and four men trotted around the corner. Between them they held a ragged elderly woman who struggled in their grasp.

“Let me go, yer buggers!” she shrieked. “I ’aven’t done it, I tells ye.”

“Dear God,” Nell said quietly from behind Silence.

Silence looked at the maidservant and back to the street. People were peering out of windows and doors, coming to see what the commotion was about.

“Stand back!” one of the men cried. He waved a thick cudgel over his head.

A stream of filthy wastewater poured from one of the houses, narrowly missing the group. The four men trotted faster.

“Informers,” Nell spat. “Poor woman. They’ll have her up before the magistrates for selling gin and collect a nice reward in return.”

“What will happen to her?” Silence abhorred what drinking gin did to the people in St. Giles, but at the same time she knew that most who sold it were simply trying to make enough money to feed and house themselves.

“Prison. Maybe worse. Depends if she can pay for witnesses or not.” Nell shook her head. “Come inside, ma’am.”