unspectacular alliance just halfway through her first Season. Hero Jarvis was not the type of female to interest herself in such gossip and speculation, but she nevertheless found herself contemplating possible explanations as she followed Lady Sewell’s butler up the stairs to the Sewells’ drawing room.
She discovered Lady Sewell already entertaining visitors. One, a flaxen-haired, plump-faced young woman in pink muslin, Hero recognized as Lady Jane Collins. She sat on a red damask sofa beside a sprightly older woman introduced to Hero as Miss More. Miss More was the well-known author of numerous bestselling tracts on Christian piety, and it soon became obvious to Hero that Lady Sewell, too, was something of an Evangelical.
“We’ve just been discussing this dreadful new poem that has taken the ton by storm,” said Lady Jane, shaking her head and tut-tutting in a way one might expect of a woman thirty years older. “Shocking. Positively shocking.”
Hero glanced at Lady Sewell. Tall and slim, wearing a high-necked crimson gown of figured muslin, she sat in a chair covered in the same red-and-gold-striped silk that hung at the windows. The room was dramatically yet tastefully done. The vibrant palette became its owner, for she was dark of hair and pale of skin, with exquisite high cheekbones and enormous green eyes. Except for the tall, slender nature of her build and those green eyes, there was nothing about this intense, self-contained woman to remind Hero of the frightened Cyprian she had met in Covent Garden.
“Lady Jane is referring to
Hero was torn between her natural tendency for blunt honesty and the need not to alienate Rachel’s sister. Whatever she thought of the absurd posturing of Lord Byron himself, Hero found his poem both lyrically written and profoundly emotionally evocative. She compromised by simply saying, “I have read it, yes.”
“The profane, too, have their place in God’s plan,” intoned Miss More with all the moral authority of a woman who’d spent the last thirty years of her life writing improving religious tracts. “They serve to confirm the truths they mean to oppose.”
“Vice enhancing virtue by contrast?” said Hero drily.
Miss More’s pinched lips stretched into a smile. “Exactly.”
Hero suppressed the urge to shift restlessly in her striped silk chair. She could hardly bring up Rachel with the two Evangelical ladies present. Yet propriety limited Hero’s own visit to fifteen minutes. If they didn’t leave soon—
As if on cue, Miss More and Lady Jane rose to their feet and, after reassuring themselves of Lady Sewell’s plans to attend the next meeting of the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews, took their leave. Hero waited until she heard their footsteps descending the stairs, then said, “I met your sister Rachel the other day.”
Lady Sewell sat very still. “My sister?”
Hero pushed on. “You are very different from each other, are you not?”
Lady Sewell smoothed her skirt over her knee with a hand that was not quite steady. “That’s right. Rachel takes after our mother.”
Hero studied the other woman’s composed features. Either Lady Sewell was an incredibly cold woman, or she had no idea where Hero was going. She said more gently, “You haven’t been told, have you?”
“Been told? Been told what?”
How did you tell a woman her little sister had been murdered? Hero had never been very good at this sort of thing. She said bluntly, “I’m sorry. Rachel is dead.”
Lady Sewell’s mouth sagged open, then closed, the muscles jumping along her tight jaw. “There must be some mistake.”
“I was with her when she died.” Hero leaned forward. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Lady Sewell rose very slowly and walked across the room to stare out the window, one hand clutching into a fist around the striped silk of the curtain at her side. Instead of answering, she said, “You say you were with Rachel when she died. When did this happen?”
“Last Monday. At the Magdalene House.”
Lady Sewell whirled to face her. “At the
“The Magdalene House. It was a refuge for women wishing to leave their life on the streets.”
“I know what it was.” Hero watched as horror and disbelief flickered through those beautiful green eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“Where did you think she’s been all this time?” said Hero. “You knew she wasn’t in Northamptonshire.”
“I’d hoped . . .” Lady Sewell’s voice caught. She swallowed, her throat working convulsively. “You said you were with Rachel. What were you doing at this refuge?”
“I’ve been conducting research for a bill to be introduced to Parliament. I’ve discovered that women tend to enter prostitution for two reasons. For some, it’s quite straightforward; they simply can’t earn enough money to stay alive any other way. The second reason is more complicated. It’s as if for some women life on the streets becomes a form of never-ending penance. It’s as if they see themselves as ruined and give up any hope of ever leading a respectable life.”
Lady Sewell stood stiffly, her chest jerking with each convulsively indrawn breath.
Hero pushed on. “If Rachel needed money or a refuge, surely she could have come to you. Couldn’t she?” When the woman remained silent, Hero said again, “Couldn’t she?”
Lady Sewell reached out one hand to grip the back of a nearby chair.
Hating herself for what she was doing, Hero said, “Why did your sister leave home?”
Lady Sewell swallowed again, then shook her head and said in a hoarse whisper, “I don’t know. She was happy with her betrothal. At least, I thought she was.”
