“Well, lookee here. Glory be ta God, and ain’t ye a fine-lookin’ creature ta see so early in the mornin’? And rigged out just loik a Lunnon gennelmun with it all, ain’t ye?”
Morgan turned about slowly to see a small, slight woman well past her youth—and most definitely years beyond any lingering hint of beauty she might ever have possessed—standing just behind him, a large bundle of freshly cut, still damp rushes tucked beneath her left arm.
He removed his curly-brimmed beaver and swept the woman an elegant leg, the distasteful aroma of unwashed female flesh assaulting his nostrils. “Good day, madam,” he said politely as he straightened, suppressing an urge to take out his scented handkerchief and press it to his nostrils. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Marquis of Clayton, here to see the person in charge of this charming institution.”
The small woman cackled—like an ancient hen with a sore throat, Morgan thought—then smiled, exposing her sad lack of teeth. She had some, for certain, but they were stuck into her gums at irregular intervals, as if she had stood at some distance while Mother Nature tossed them at her one by one, and she’d had to open her mouth to catch them as best she could.
“Mrs. Rivers? And what would ye be wantin’ with the likes of her, boyo? Drunk as a wheelbarrow the besom is, and has been ever since the quarter’s funds showed up here a fortnight ago, don’t ye know. Bring yerself back next month, when she’s murdered all the gin and can see ye straight. She’s always been one fer a well-turned leg.”
“I’m afraid my business can’t wait that long,” Morgan said as the woman moved to brush past him as if he—and his impressive title—didn’t exist. She was the rudest individual he had ever met—and yet she intrigued him. She had a look of cunning intelligence about her, well hidden by the grime on her face, but still noticeable.
He decided to give it another try. He’d use the name his uncle had not given him, a name he already knew. “I’ve come with a mission—to locate a child, a young lady by now, I suppose. Her name is Caroline. Blond hair, or at least it was when she was little. She would be about eighteen.”
The woman stopped abruptly, looking back at him slyly across one bony shoulder. “And is that a fact, boyo? And what, I’m askin’, would a fine upstandin’ gentrymort like yerself be doin’ pokin’ about for Caroline? Plenty of willin’ bodies at the Spotted Pony—iffen ye don’t mind a dose of the clap. Go there, why don’t ye? I’m past such tumblin’s now, even with a pretty un like yerself.”
Until the woman spoke the name aloud as if familiar with it, Morgan had been willing to believe that his uncle’s story was just as he had presented it—a fairy tale meant to send his nephew off to chase his own tail. Until this very moment he had refused to believe there was a grain of truth in James Blakely’s words, or a single reason to hope that he, Morgan Blakely, had at last found a fitting instrument of revenge against his enemy.
“Surely you jest. You are the very picture of feminine beauty. What’s your name, madam?” he asked now, extracting a single gold piece from his pocket and offering it to her.
“And that’s a golden tongue ye have, don’t ye, boyo? My name is Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan, seein’ as how ye asked so nice like, but I’ve been Peaches since m’salad days in Dublin and then in Piccadilly.” The woman smiled, then quickly snatched the coin from his fingers, biting on it to ascertain whether or not it was real before stuffing it inside the low bodice of her filthy gown. “M’cronies dubbed me with the name ’cause I was so good at stealin’ sweet things from the stalls. I was the best—once. But that’s a long time past, and best forgotten.”
Her smile vanished as she leveled narrowed eyes at Morgan. “Now take yerself off, pretty boy. I ain’t got nothin’ more ta say. Just like I told that other fella all those years back—a mean-lookin’ mort with a smile that wide, but that still couldn’t hide the old divil what was peekin’ out between his two eyes—there ain’t no Caroline here. Not no more.”
Morgan shook his head, disgusted with himself that he should feel so discouraged. He should have known. “She’s dead, then?”
Peaches cocked her head to one side, blowing a greasy lock of graying red hair out of her eyes. “And did ye hear that from me? Ye got a mind what leaps ahead fast as a horse can trot. Mayhap she is, boyo, and mayhap she ain’t. It depends, don’t ye know. What would the loiks of ye be wantin’ with Caroline Monday anyhows?”
“Caroline Monday?” Morgan repeated the name questioningly. “Then this particular orphan we’re speaking of has a surname—a last name? Perhaps she isn’t the one I’m seeking after all.”
Peaches snorted. “Don’t know a lot, do ye, boyo? It’s me what named her Monday. That’s the day I found the creature on the doorstep, just like I find so many of ’em, cryin’ her little heart out fer her ma. She told me her other name all by herself,” she continued, smiling reminiscently. “No higher than m’knee, she was, but she told me her name plain. Just afore she bit m’hand as I was offerin’ it ta her. The divil’s own rogue, she was, and no mistake. Then she caught the fever, like so many of them do, and I wouldna gived a plugged pennypiece fer her. But she didn’t cock up her toes, not that un, even if she was poorly for ever so long. Too stubborn ta know she should be dyin’, I said then ta anyone who’d listen, and I say it again now. Too simple mean stubborn by half! Think she was the bloody queen o’ England herself!”
Morgan was elated by this information, but he deliberately tamped down his enthusiasm, saying only, “Yet you told me, as you told this other man you spoke of, that Miss Caroline is gone.”
Peaches allowed the bundle of rushes to fall to the ground. “Miss Caroline, is it, now? And don’t that sound grand fer a foundlin’ brat?” She peered at him again, as if assessing him for flaws. “Now I’m thinkin’ mayhap it’s time some more of your worship’s lovely gold passed over Miss Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan’s palm?”
“Perhaps,” Morgan replied tightly, and then for the first time spoke aloud of the memory his uncle’s patently false, contrived confession had brought crashing to the forefront of his mind. “Or perhaps it’s time I rode to the village to summon the constable, so that you can tell him that Mary Magdalene O’Hanlan is a member of the gang of nefarious and long-sought kidnappers of one Lady Caroline Wilburton, daughter of the earl and countess of Witham, who were cruelly murdered on a roadway not thirty miles from here some fifteen years ago?”
Peaches plunked herself down atop the bundle of rushes, her skinny calves sticking out from beneath the hem of her gown. “The divil you say, boyo,” she responded as she looked up at him, her voice tinged with wondrous awe but not a trace of fear or guilt. “And would ye be knowin’ if there’s a reward in the offin’ for the safe return of this poor little darlin’? After all is said and done, it’s me what kept her little heart beatin’—what with m’lovin’ good care of the tot, don’t ye know.”
Morgan knew he could either dole out a coin for each piece of information or shorten the process by some minutes by acknowledging how important the woman’s answers were to him. Deciding to leave subterfuge for another day and for someone less sharp than Peaches O’Hanlan, he pulled a small leather purse from his pocket and dropped it in the Irishwoman’s lap. “Where is she?”
The purse followed the gold coin before Peaches answered him. “That’s what I like, boyo—a fella who comes right to the heart of the thing. She’s not here, nor has she been in this stinkin’ hole fer this year or more. But I knows where she be, and it’s more than a good ride from here. Ye’ll be needin’ me ta get ta her, don’t ye know. Needin’ me to point her out ta ye, ta get her ta trust ye. And it’s the only real mither she’s ever known or remembered since the fever struck that I am, the only one she loves. I’m her dearest Peaches, that’s what I am.”
“How commendable of you. You’ll be well rewarded if you continue to cooperate. That purse is only a pittance, one that could be trebled. Gather whatever belongings you have and meet me outside these gates in an hour. I’ll