Della’s heart had ached for the poor girl, alone in the world, with no family to help her and nowhere to go, no way to make a living. She knew that the workhouse was the only option left to Marianne, and that was a fate that Della would not have wished on anyone. So, with no fuss, she and Harrison had taken Marianne in.
Marianne knew that they had helped her more than she could ever repay, and she would have done anything for them. When she found out that Della and Harrison were thieves by trade, she had revised her moral standards. Whatever she had been taught in the orphanage about right and wrong, she knew that Della and her husband were good people, whereas the supposedly virtuous Lady Quartermaine and the matron at St. Anselm’s were at heart wicked.
Della and Harrison were not common thieves. Harrison was an “upper-story” man, skilled at picking locks, opening safes and breaking into houses without disturbing the occupants. One of the reasons for his success was the work of his partner Della. She spoke and acted like one of the gentry. Her mother, Betsy, had run a gaming hall much of Della’s life, and she had taught Della to speak and act genteelly, preparing her for the same sort of life that Betsy had led. After Della met Harrison, they had realized that if she moved among the wealthier classes, she could determine the layout of a house and the location of its valuables, and then Harrison could far more easily get in and out of the house and lighten its occupants of some of the burden of their wealth.
Marianne stayed with the two of them all through her pregnancy and for several months after the baby, Rosalind, was born. She could not help feeling that she was a burden to them, but she also could not see how she was going to support herself and her daughter, as well as raise the child. The only occupation she knew was being a maid, and she knew that no one would hire her if she had a child with her. But there was no way she could give Rosalind up.
Harrison had come up with the solution to their problem. Marianne, he pointed out, could do the same job as Della. She already spoke rather better than most of her peers, and she carried herself with a natural grace. He and Della, he pointed out, could train her in all the finer points of manners and speech. Dressed like a lady, she would be stunning, and her beauty and youth would help them obtain entré into finer houses—an idea that he expressed with a great deal of tact and circumlocution, until finally Della had chuckled and told him that she was well aware that Marianne outshone her. Indeed, Marianne outshone any woman she knew. Motherhood—and an adequate diet—had made Marianne even more beautiful, giving her skin a luminous glow and adding more curves to her slender body.
Marianne had felt some qualms about entering the world of thieves, but she had suppressed them. She would do anything Della and Harrison asked of her, and, besides, she had a mother’s fierce instinct to take care of her child. She was determined to make enough money to give her daughter an easier and better life than she had had. So she had entered into lessons with Della, and they had discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that she picked up the correct speech and manners of the upper class with ease. She was, Harrison declared, a natural, and by the time Rosalind was a year old, Marianne had adopted the name Marianne Cotterwood, making herself a respectable widow, and was making calls with Della.
It was an easy enough job, as long as one had a quick wit and good nerves, both of which Marianne possessed. In order to pass among the wealthy, one had to dress well, so she had a supply of beautiful clothes. She ate well. She had a great deal of time to spend with her daughter, and when she was not there, Della or Betsy was happy to take care of the little girl. Marianne was also good at what she did. She had a quick eye and a good memory, and without appearing to study a house, she could quickly spot the best entrances and exits, as well as the most expensive and most portable valuables, and carry all the information in her head to give to Harrison. Della readily admitted that Marianne was better than she at what she did, and Della soon slipped into a happy semiretirement, going along with Marianne only when they thought a chaperone was a social imperative.
Marianne had been scouting for Harrison for eight years now, and their fortunes had been steadily increasing all that time. They were able now to rent a fair-size home in a good neighborhood, as well as hire Winny as housekeeper and cook, and two maids to help her. Their “family” had also grown. First, Da and Betsy, growing too old for the Game, had moved in with them. Then Harrison and Della had taken in a stray adolescent who had been scratching out a living as a pickpocket, working for a hard fellow who ran a ring of youthful pickpockets, giving them a place to sleep and some food to eat and taking most of their profits in return. Piers was twenty-two years old now, and Harrison had turned him into a skilled upper-story man.
Now Della hugged Marianne and pulled her toward a chair. “Sit and tell us all about it. Was it terribly grand?”
“The grandest party I’ve ever seen,” Marianne replied honestly. She looked around at the eager faces watching her, from Betsy’s wrinkled, powdered visage to Piers’ freckled, snub-nosed one.
“I knew it!” Betsy let out a hoot of laughter. “His father used to come to my gaming house, and he was always flush in the pockets—at least when he came in the door. Drunk as a wheelbarrow, of course, but, still, a real blue blood.”
“Well, I don’t know the color of his blood, but I’d say the son is flush in the pockets, as well. The problem is…” She hesitated, glancing around at them, then sighed. “Oh, the devil! The truth is, I made a dreadful mull of it.”
“Don’t be daft,” Piers said, dismissing her words with a wave of his hand. “You always think you did something wrong.”
“He’s right. I am sure you did wonderfully,” Della agreed.
“No.” Marianne shook her head, and tears sprang unexpectedly to her eyes. She blinked them away and went on. “It wasn’t just something I did wrong. It was everything. I was discovered.”
The room fell silent. Marianne dropped her eyes, unable to look at the others.
Finally Harrison started to speak, then had to stop and clear his throat. “Wh-what? How could you have been discovered? You’re sitting right here. They couldn’t have—”
“He did not turn me in. But he saw what I did. He accused me. Oh, how could I have been so careless? I didn’t see him at all!”
“But who—I don’t understand.” Harrison came forward. “Who saw you?”
“Lord Lambeth. He had been looking at me earlier. But I didn’t see him as I left the ballroom. I went up and down the corridor looking for the study because I presumed the safe would be there—although I did see some excellent silver pieces in one of the drawing rooms. Anyway, I found a smoking room finally, and I began to hunt around the walls, looking for a safe. Then he appeared.”
Della drew a sharp breath. “Oh, no. What did he say?”
“He thought I was about to try to open the safe. Of course I told him that he had misinterpreted the scene, that I was simply straightening the picture, but he didn’t believe it. He was sure I was a thief. He had followed me out of the ballroom, you see, and had seen me looking into all the rooms up and down the hallway, and searching behind the pictures for a safe. He knew I was lying.”
“But he didn’t say anything to anyone? He didn’t betray you to Lord Batterslee?”
Marianne shook her head. “No. It was very odd. He was—well, he seemed rather amused by the thought that I was a thief. A most peculiar man. When Lord Batterslee came into the study and found us, Lord Lambeth did not say a word about what I had been doing.”
“Thank heavens!” Della replied heartfeltly.
“Yes,”