Mother frowned. “Yes, I am the countess. My husband is the Earl of Tiptree. Who are you?”
The woman reared up, her eyes sparking. “Who am I? Who am I?” Her voice ricocheted off the stone steps leading up to street level, and it seemed everyone in a wide radius stopped to hear. “I’m the woman who kept your husband satisfied and happy for twenty years before he abandoned me. I’m the woman who bore Joseph Tiptree, the earl himself, a daughter only to see him turn his back on us and put us out on the street—that’s who I am.” Her hands came up, bare fingers curled like claws, and fisted at her temples, as if her outrage consumed her.
Charlotte inhaled icy air that froze her lungs. The woman swayed, and people drew back, as if getting too close might contaminate them. Mother stood rooted to the spot, the color draining from her face.
A whirl of questions roared through Charlotte’s mind. Was this woman telling the truth? Her father had kept a mistress? Or was she a lunatic, raving nonsense? But the woman had known her father’s name. His name and his title. Of course she could’ve learned them from anywhere. Was she only looking to force money from the Tiptrees? Or was she being honest?
“Aye, that’s right.” The woman spun around to glare, spitting the words to the onlookers. “Back away. Act like I’m not good enough to wipe your shoes.”
“Madam, this is neither the time nor the place.” Mr. Bosworth frowned at her, his side-whiskers bristling.
“When is the time then? Joe dumped me in the street, after I was loyal to him for years. Turned me out of the house he kept me in. He won’t see me. He won’t return my letters. And now Pippa, our daughter, is forced to make her own way.” Her body quivered as a gasp went up from the onlookers and many heads bent to whisper behind their gloves. “After he promised me he’d take care of us forever. That he’d see Pippa had a good life. I’m trapped in St. Giles trying to keep body and soul together, and my daughter is … has become …” She covered her face for a moment, but then her chin rose. “I just wanted you to know what kind of man you are married to. You have everything you need, and your daughter here will never have to worry about having food or warmth or a roof over her head, thanks to her father. But my girl, his second daughter, is forced to sell herself, something I vowed she would never have to do—” A sob cut off her voice.
“Verona, let’s go.” Mrs. Bosworth grabbed Mother’s arm. She looked the woman over, her eyes sharp enough to draw blood. “Whoever you are, get away from us. You’re no better than you should be and have no one to blame for your circumstances but yourself. Accosting your betters in public like this. Go back to the rookery, where you belong.”
Mrs. Bosworth hustled Mother up the steps to the street, but Charlotte didn’t follow. Instead she yanked off her muff, tucking it under her arm, and peeled off her gloves. Dudley hovered nearby, shifting his weight, too much of a gentleman to leave without Charlotte but clearly uneasy.
“Here, take these.” Charlotte held the gloves out to the woman. “What’s your name?”
The woman studied her skeptically. Her cold-reddened hand trembled as she took the woolen gloves from Charlotte’s fingers. “You look like your father. Same coloring.” She stuck her hands into the gloves. Did she think Charlotte would snatch them back? “My name is Amelia Cashel. Former mistress of the Earl of Tiptree.” She almost sneered, her words bitter and hurt.
“Charlotte, come here at once.” Mother’s voice shot down the steps.
“Please, you say you have a daughter? How old is she?” Charlotte dug in her reticule and pulled out her entire savings, meager as it was, forcing down any remorse for the library subscription she had hoped to purchase.
“Her name’s Pippa, and she’s nineteen.”
Pressing the coins into the woman’s hand, Charlotte nodded. Her mind raced but felt stunned into immobility at the same time as she hurried up the steps, Dudley coming along behind like a faithful hound.
She had a sister.
“Charlotte Tiptree, this might be the most foolish thing you’ve done in your entire life,” she whispered to herself as she hurried down the street, head bent, lugging a basket that bumped against her thigh with every step.
Ice coated the gutters and glazed the cobbles, and she had to watch her step lest she fall. The darkness didn’t help. She’d left behind the lighted braziers and streetlamps a few blocks ago. “At least you can be thankful that the moon is nearly full.” Though the moonlight seemed to do little good. The stars were mere pinpricks, and the buildings created shadows deep enough for a horde of miscreants to shelter in.
Having given every cent in her purse to that woman, Charlotte had none for hiring a coach, and her father had taken the carriage out tonight. She was forced to walk. It might be less than two miles from Mayfair to St. Giles in distance, but it was leagues in social standing and safety. Block by block along the Tottenham Court Road, the houses dwindled in size, the side streets narrowed, and her tension increased.
Her hands ached with cold. She hoped her gloves were even now warming Amelia Cashel’s hands … or Pippa’s. Charlotte had no second pair, and she couldn’t carry the basket and use her muff, so cold hands it was.
She’d never been to one of London’s rookeries, much less one as extensive as St. Giles. If she wasn’t wont to snaffle her father’s newspapers and read them in secret, she wouldn’t even know what a rookery was, much less where to find one. According to the broadsheets, the rookeries teemed with villains and ne’er-do-wells, women of low morals and men of evil intent.
Which made tonight’s gambit seem foolish indeed as she bumped along, head bent, trying to keep a grip on both her imagination and her courage lest the one get out of control and the other flee entirely.
As Charlotte saw it, she had two major obstacles: finding Amelia Cashel’s residence in a warren of tenements and squatters’ flats, and getting back to Mayfair safely. All without her parents any the wiser.
If her mother knew where her daughter was and what she was doing, she’d grab Charlotte by the cloak and drag her to Aunt Philomena’s on foot, bouncing her every step of the way.
Dinner tonight had been a nightmare. Her mother had sat as still as a Roman statue. Father presided over the meal as if nothing untoward had occurred. Had Mother even told him? He’d surely find out soon enough, London gossip being what it was. Charlotte toyed with her food, her mind consumed with the knowledge that her father was a philanderer and liar and that she had a sister. Well, a half sister, but a sibling nonetheless.
Pippa.
Pippa Cashel. Nineteen years old. Which made her two years or so younger than Charlotte. All her life she’d wished for, prayed for, longed for a sibling, a sister, someone to share things with, to talk with, to laugh with. She knew her parents were disappointed that they had been unable to produce more children, in particular a son, but Charlotte shared that disappointment.
She had grown up lonely, and a sister would have banished loneliness.
Charlotte glanced at her father. He looked the same as always, perfectly barbered, impeccably if plainly clothed, his features sharp, his coloring, as Amelia Cashel had said, fairish like her own. She glanced around the dining room, taking in the papered walls, high ceiling, single candelabra on the table, but high overhead a chandelier that could be lit when company came over and her father wanted to impress. A fire in the coal stove had warmed the room, and the food, while plain, had been plentiful.