Page 1 of The Secret Word (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #10)

I f the lady had let go of her reticule, Christopher Satterthwaite might never have met her.

A sensible person would have let Dasher Baggins take off with the scrap of lace and whatever was inside it.

A sensible person would not have made a fuss in a street like this, where the law-abiding denizens knew better than to stand in the way of a villain, and where the villains would swarm like sharks at the hint of a victim.

A sensible person would not be on Bleak Street to begin with, not looking like a sweet and expensive confection in laces and silks, and certainly not screeching at the top of her voice, hanging on to her reticule for dear life, and beating the thief around his ears with her parasol.

Chris, who was mostly law-abiding, knew better than to interfere, but he couldn’t help himself. He closed the distance between himself and the little tableau—outraged maiden beats off cheeky rascal—in a fast walk, designed not to attract more attention than he could help.

“Let go, Dash,” he told the boy. “She’s with me.”

“Aw, Fingers,” Dasher whined. “Don’t know what she’s got in there, but it must be worf somefing, way she hangs on.”

“My mother’s miniature, and you shan’t have it,” said the lady, who held her parasol ready but had at least stopped using it to beat Dash with. The poor lad should stick to mud larking. He was not a good thief.

“Get lost, Dash,” Chris told him, and flipped him a farthing.

Dash let go of the reticule to catch the coin, and then demonstrated the reason for his nickname, dashing off through the crowd.

“You should have held him while I called a constable,” proclaimed the lady.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss, but constables don’t come down here,” Chris replied.

Up until now, he had been speaking street cant, or just far enough above it that Dash was comfortable, but now he changed accent and vocabulary to talk to the lady in a way to which she would respond.

A cut above hers, in fact, for her vowels were not quite as nasal nor her consonants as crisp as Chris’s grandfather’s.

“It is too dangerous,” he elaborated. “Too many villains.”

The lady huffed with displeasure, setting the ruffles on her bodice quivering. “One would think there would be fewer criminals if the constables did come down here.”

“Or fewer constables,” Chris argued.

She blinked at him as she absorbed the point, then huffed again. “I should not be here. I must have got turned around. Can you direct me to Meadow Court?”

“You do not want to go to Meadow Court,” Chris told her. If Bleak Street did not eat her up and spit her out, Meadow Court would swallow her whole. And there’d be no spitting her out, either.

The lady’s huff was more of a snort. “I decidedly do, sir,” she insisted.

“Shall I tell you what will happen if you make it as far as Meadow Court?” Chris asked.

It was a rhetorical question. “First, you shall be robbed of everything you have, including the clothes you stand up in. Then one of two things will happen to your naked person, depending on whether you fall into the hands of an organized gang or just a mob of the hopeless.”

He fell silent and watched to see how she would react. Not as expected. Her eyes widened—they were a lovely shade of blue. Her cheeks paled. So far, quite predictable. But then she pressed her coral-pink lips together and gave a sharp nod, as if she had presented herself with a compelling argument.

“Nonetheless, sir, I have an errand in Meadow Court that will not wait.”

“An organized mob will sell you to a brothel, where they will auction your virginity then put you to work servicing their clients until you drink yourself to death or die of an unspeakable disease,” Chris told her.

She paled still further. Not such an innocent that she did not know what he meant, then. Or perhaps she was just responding to his earnest tone. “Nonetheless,” she repeated, but her voice shook.

“A casual mob will not bother with the brothel,” he continued, determined to make her change her mind.

“And you will die of what they do to you.” He could not bear to describe it further, did not even want to think of her intimately assaulted by one brute after another, screaming for help that never came, dying in agony of body and soul.

“Nonetheless.” It was little more than a whisper, and she was so pale he thought she might faint.

“Why?” he asked. “What is so important that you are willing to die for it—die, most likely, without accomplishing it?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, considering.

“I have no reason to believe you, sir,” she said.

“All I know about you is that you belong so well to this street, in which you say everyone is a villain, that thieves do your bidding. Ama—My friend would not have written asking me to come to Meadow Square if it was as dangerous as you say.”

“I said the place had too many villains,” Chris pointed out. “Not that I am one. As it happens, I am not, but you have a point. We do not know one another. Please allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed. “I am Christopher Satterthwaite. And you are…?”

She curtseyed in response to his bow, “Clementine Wright.”

“Miss Wright, I cannot know what your friend had in mind—you are sure it was in her hand? But have you considered she might have been threatened or tricked?”

“Why?” Miss Wright’s asked. “Why would someone bother?”

Chris had recognized her name and he knew the answer to that. Wright was a common enough name, but combined with Clementine? She was the coal heiress, beyond a doubt, and her father was one of the richest mine owners in the United Kingdom.

Something about the way Miss Wright was not quite meeting his eyes hinted that she, too, knew the most likely reason criminals would attack her.

“Option three,” he replied. “You must have thought of it yourself, Miss Wright. I would have mentioned it before, had we been introduced earlier. Option three is ransom, though that doesn’t mean that other criminal groups will not prefer option one or option two.”

Oh-oh. He had grown up in places like this, and knew better than to allow her undoubted charms to keep him from scanning the street, looking for danger. But despite that, he’d been distracted.

Had he been watching, he would have run as soon as the first of the three men arrived at the mouth of the alley that led to Meadow Court. Now that three of them were gathered, he would be hard pushed to make it out of Bleak Street. He certainly could not manage it with Miss Wright in tow.

There was really only one option. “Miss Wright, there is someone I would like you to meet. Step this way, please.” He offered her his arm.

She put both of hers behind her back. “I do not think so, Mr. Satterthwaite. If that is your name. You keep telling me not to trust anyone and then insist I can trust you.”

They were coming. All three of the Brown brothers, and behind them, the rest of the gang. Cautiously, for this was on the borders of Ramping Billy O’Hara’s territory, and he’d not take kindly to the Brown brothers trespassing.

Chris sighed and pointed. “See those men, Miss Wright?”

She caught sight of Basher Brown’s grin and let out a squeak of dismay. Wise girl! She moved closer to Chris.

“This way,” Chris told her. He took her hand, and led her at a run up Bleak Street. To her credit, she ran like a deer, but the Brown gang was in full pursuit behind, and everyone else was turning away, pretending that they saw nothing.

There’d be no help in Bleak Street, but if they could get down Snitch’s Alley and into Palmist Court, and if the back door to Fortune’s Fool was open, and if the doorkeeper would let him bring Clementine inside, they might come out of this with their skins.

There’d be a price to pay, of course. Ramping Billy had to have his due. But at least Miss Wright would be alive.

*

Clem hated it when men told her she couldn’t do something, but she had to admit that Mr. Satterthwaite had a point.

She’d known as soon as she turned into Bleak Street that she shouldn’t have come.

Not alone, anyway. But if she had asked one of the footmen who trailed her when she left the house through the usual exits, they would have told her father, and she would have been locked up for a month.

Besides, one of the footmen might be the cause of the problem—if it was not her father. She leaned toward thinking it was her father, or why would her former maid Amanda not tell her? Had Amanda been part of a plot to kidnap her? Clem could not discount the possibility.

Or there was no such plot, and Mr. Satterthwaite’s first two options were in play. She could certainly believe that the men chasing them would sell her into a brothel if there were a few pounds to be made, but she still wasn’t sure she was any safer with Mr. Satterthwaite.

Certainly, he looked and talked like a gentleman, but since the beginning of the Season, Clem had learned how unreliable surface impressions could be. That he was tall and handsome, with mesmerizing grey eyes, did not mean that he could be trusted.

Especially when he tugged her sideways and led her down a malodorous alley so narrow the buildings that lined the sides nearly met overhead, so they were running into deep shadows.

Anyone could reach out from the few doors, but nobody did.

The men behind them were whooping with glee, as if they knew Mr. Satterthwaite had led her down a dead end. Was he in league with them?

They broke out of the shadows into a patch of sunlight.

A small courtyard between buildings, no more salubrious than the alley behind them.

She had worn her best walking shoes for this expedition, thank goodness, for she did not want to think about what might have seeped through less sturdy footwear.

Mr. Satterthwaite looked over his shoulder, then pulled her toward a short flight of stairs. He leapt up them and hammered on the door at the top. “It’s Satterthwaite,” he shouted. “Let me in!”

The men chasing them came bursting out of the alley, one after the other. Mr. Satterthwaite abandoned his knocking and shouting. “Get behind me, Miss Wright. I’ll try to buy us some time.” He produced a knife from somewhere.

The men stopped their slow advance across the courtyard.

“Gi’e ’er to us, Fingers,” shouted one of them.

“Come here and I’ll fillet you, Basher,” Mr. Satterthwaite shouted back.

Then the door behind Clem opened, and Clem was pushed sideways to make way as a whole troop of large, sturdy men emerged. They were easily as big and as mean as the pursuers.

Former pursuers. Basher and his gang reacted instantly to the new players, turning and running. In moments, they had disappeared down the alley with the men from the door behind them.

A man spoke from the doorway. “Mr. O’Hara requests a moment of your time, Mr. Satterthwaite—and company.”

Clem stared at him. He looked and sounded like a first-class butler, such as could be found in any house in Mayfair.

“This way, Miss…?” he said, stepping to one side and indicating the passage behind him with a subtle wave of the hand.

“Miss Clementine Wright,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.

The butler acknowledged the introduction with a slight inclination of the head. “This way, Miss Wright,” he said.

Clem went where she was told. She could see no other choice, but was somewhat comforted by the implied respectability of a first-class butler. Which was silly, really. For presumably a butler might be a villain, or employed by a villain, as much as any other man.

The passage ended in a small hall that had three doors and a flight of steps. The butler took the opportunity to step past Clem and take the lead up the stairs.

“After you,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, but then he leaned in close. “Let me do the talking. I will get you out of here, Miss Wright.”

That didn’t make Clem feel better. Clearly, Mr. Satterthwaite thought they had leapt from the frying pan into the fire.

Six flights up, the butler opened a door from the plain stairwell into a sumptuous passage that would not have been out of place in one of the grandest homes in Mayfair.

They walked on plush carpet, past fine side tables gleaming with polish and supporting statuettes, lamps, and other objets d’art .

Landscapes in gilt frames lined both walls, the gaps between disclosing flocked wallpaper with a rich botanical theme.

Where on earth had Mr. Satterthwaite brought her?