Her Secret Lover (Aphrodite's Club 2)

She was tempted to go straight to Lord Appleby’s house and knock on the door, but that could be disastrous if she was captured again. It was best, she’d decided, to lurk about in the square and watch the house for a while. With luck she would see Cecilia coming or going, and be able to waylay her.

The cabdriver was amenable to her plan, after she doubled the fare, so she sat and waited. It was almost an hour before she saw a coach draw up outside the house and glimpsed the fair head of her sister beneath one of her newest and most fashionable bonnets.

Cecilia appeared as lovely as ever, and Antoinette’s heart ached at the thought of all that sweetness and beauty destroyed by one man’s greed.

She had climbed down from the cab and was hurrying forward when someone else stepped from the coach behind Cecilia.

Antoinette recognized him immediately. The well-made jacket and top hat, the cane he used as an affectation, the smirk on his thin lips as he replied to Cecilia’s chatter. Lord Appleby was back, and any chance she had of stealing her sister safely away from his house was dashed.

Hastily she turned around and hurried back to the corner, where the cab was waiting. That was where her legs failed her and she had to lean against the railings of a grand Georgian town house and close her eyes until her head stopped spinning.

Her sister was imprisoned in the monster’s den, just as in one of the rather terrible fairy tales Antoinette had read as a child. Antoinette knew that she could not save her, not without putting her own freedom at risk. And Antoinette could not be captured again, because if she was there’d be no one left to bring Appleby to justice.

Despite her fears for Cecilia, she would have to carry on, and do what she had come to London to do. She would ask the cabbie to take her to the address in Miss Bridewell’s letter, and with any luck the whole nasty business would be over and done with by teatime.

Her decision made, Antoinette opened her eyes and noticed that she was attracting some unwelcome attention from several passersby and a small crossing sweeper. “Tippling at this time o’ day!” one gentleman muttered disapprovingly. Antoinette hastily returned to her cab, and after giving the driver the new address, settled back to prepare herself for the coming confrontation.

Perhaps it would help to reread the details?

Reaching with her gloved fingers inside her bodice, Antoinette withdrew the letter. It was creased and stained with salt water, definitely the worse for wear, but it was as precious as cloth of gold to her eyes.

Miss Bridewell’s writing was comforting, and Antoinette smiled as she found the relevant paragraph, thinking that soon it would all be over.

They rattled over the Thames and into that seedy area of London known as Lambeth. It took the driver a little time to find the address, and they passed back and forth over rough roads and down lanes so narrow that Antoinette wondered whether they would be stuck. But eventually they came to a halt outside a derelict building.

Antoinette gazed up at it in dismay. “This is it?”

“I’m afraid so, miss.”

“The Asylum for Misfortunate Women?”

“Yes, miss.”

“But…what’s happened to it?”

“I dunno. Here, I’ll ask. Just hang on.” The cabbie jumped down and crossed the lane to a woman with a child on her hip and another at her feet. She gave him a suspicious look but seemed to answer his questions willingly enough. When he came back he knew the whole story.

“Burned down, miss, a year ago. All the patients was moved elsewhere, split up like. I can’t rightly tell you where they are now. She don’t know. You’d have to find one of those who ran the place and ask them. Did you want to get out here, miss?” he added dubiously, looking about.

It wasn’t a pleasant area. Apart from the charcoaled remains of the asylum, there were small cottages and dirty-looking dwellings jammed together and facing the street. Over everything hung a pall of smoke and dust, and the stomach-roiling smell of a glue factory.

“No, I don’t think so,” Antoinette said firmly. There was no point in wandering around in the ruins. Her bird had long flown.

“Where would you like to go now then, miss?” the friendly cabdriver asked. “Back to Waterloo Station? You look pretty done in, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

Antoinette thanked him for his concern, hesitating as she made up her mind. There was nothing she would have liked better than to go home and go to bed and sleep for days. But Cecilia was depending on her, and at any moment Appleby might strike. What she needed was help, and the best person to help her was someone who hated Lord Appleby as much as, or more than, she did.

Quite suddenly a name popped into her mind.

“Madame Aphrodite!”

“Beg pardon, miss?”

The woman with the dark flashing eyes who had stormed into Appleby’s house and accused him of trying to ruin her. Surely she’d be interested in joining forces with Antoinette? If not…well, she could only refuse.

It took a little convincing to persuade the cabbie to take a respectable woman like her to Aphrodite’s Club, but once again doubling the fare had the desired effect. Soon they were bowling back over the bridge.

If Aphrodite would help her it would benefit them both, and besides, a high-class brothel was the last place Lord Appleby would look for Antoinette, if he thought she was in London.