Widow in White

Chapter Twelve: Among the Ashes

Laura poked the fire and shivered. The wood she had found in the stable was damp, and smouldered rather than burned, and the kitchen was large and open, full of stony, frozen surfaces and drafts. It was hard to keep warm down here. She'd found an old set of footman's livery in the attic and a pair of boots under the stairs, and put them on over her dress and slippers, but even then her fingers were blue and her toes numb. She didn't dare light a fire upstairs, where the rooms were smaller and easier to heat, for she feared someone would see the glow through the shutters and investigate the cause. She doubted her father would think to look for her here, in the shut-up house in Southwark that had once belonged to her mother, but she didn't want to risk being arrested for trespassing either.

The fire let out a  jet of smoke with a hiss and died to a faint glow under the blackened wood. Laura curled her feet, in their clumsy servant's boots, up beneath her skirts, and reached in the pocket of the footman's coat for the over-greasy pie she'd bought from a street hawker an hour ago. She was beginning to get used to greasy street food. It was a far cry from the delicate meats and puddings of her father's French chef, but her appetite, sharpened by hunger, made the greasy pies or glutinous pea soup or pungent fried eels somehow tastier than the richest turtle soup.

She nibbled at the crust, which was burned, and wondered what to do next. Her money was running out. She'd sold her father's hunter to a carter before the London toll-gate, but he'd only given her five crowns for it, and she was spending sixpence a day on food. And even then, she had to find a more permanent situation than skulking in the basement of an abandoned house. She had friends in London who might help her, with money or with finding a position somewhere, but somehow she shuddered at the thought of asking them. She didn't want to be in anyone's debt. And she dreaded meeting their eyes — Lady Hunstall's, Mr Percival's, Miss Dalrymple's, and scores of others from over the years. They would know her now for what she was: a liar, a slut, and the nearest thing to a murderer she could be, without having struck Richard herself.

The pie had gone cold and soggy in her hands. She forced her thoughts away from Richard and Fordham. It was the only way she could keep breathing, to pretend neither of them had ever existed and it had not happened. Tomorrow, she thought firmly, I'll knock on doors and ask for a job, anything, anything at all. She forced herself to bite into her soggy pie, tasting nothing.

Mid-chew, she heard a pane of glass shatter from somewhere at the back of the house. She froze. Had it been next door, or in the street? But no, a voice said something, too distant to decipher. They were in the hallway of the ground floor above her. The floorboards creaked as they moved.

Laura got silently, swiftly to her feet, throwing the rest of the pie on the ashes of the dead fire. She could not leave without being seen. She'd been going in and out by the French doors in the dining room, which had a catch that could be toggled from the outside with a thin stick. The heavy footsteps above began to descend the hallway stairs. Panic rising, Laura darted into the pantry, shutting the door behind her. Even as she did so, she heard the kitchen door open.

"Room's empty, Sir."

"Wait." Footsteps, sharp on stone, came into the room. "The ashes are smoking. She's been here. Not long ago either."

Laura's heart pounded. She recognized the voice but could not place it. She looked desperately around the pantry for a hiding place. There was nothing but empty shelves, all the way up to the ceiling. And a rusty bread knife, lying abandoned on the lowest of them.

In the other room, the scullery door opened and shut. Laura grabbed the knife and held it shakingly out in front of her. If it was her father's servants—

Light streamed into the room as the door was yanked open. Laura brandished the knife at the man. He jumped back and raised his hands defensively.

"George, help me!"