Finally, she persuaded him. “Have faith in me, my Lord.” She squeezed Lord Silverton’s wrist. “Now, you go and request to see Dorcas, and I’ll wait in the street until I get a sign of which room you’re in before I head on around to the servant’s entrance.”
When, ten minutes later, Kitty saw the sash window go up on the second room on the east side, she hurried off to do her part.
Despite her cavalier words of earlier, she was afraid. However, that was nothing compared with her terror when the door to the kitchen was opened, and a young tweeny let her into its surprising warmth. An enormous fire was burning while two small boys sat on either end of a spit, turning it to ensure the even roasting of several chickens and a pig.
“Where is Mrs. Montgomery?” she asked. The girl, who looked to be only about twelve or thirteen, pointed upstairs. Her face was pinched and dirty, and she looked a cowed, overworked young thing. “In ‘er room, restin’. Yer can’t see ‘er.”
Kitty put her head close to her ear. “Can you keep a secret?” she whispered, slipping a coin into the child’s hand.
With a gasp, the girl dropped the coin into the pocket of her hessian apron, nodding furiously.
“It’s not really Mrs. Montgomery I want to see; it’s Dorcas. I need to get a message to her that her ma is proper poorly. Mrs. Montgomery won’t let her go, I understand that. I only want to tell Dorcas what she should know.”
The girl bit her lip and didn’t move, but Kitty was prepared for intractability. She suspected the tight rein Mrs. Montgomery would keep over her employees.
She patted the girl’s shoulder. “Mrs. Montgomery would be very angry if she knew you’d let anyone inside, or told them that sort of information, wouldn’t she?”
The girl nodded.
“But you’d want to know if your ma was poorly, wouldn’t you? In fact, you’d be heartbroken if you heard the news after it was too late. That’s all I want to do. Tell Dorcas. She can stay right where she is, and I’ll leave, and no one will be the wiser. I tell you what.” Kitty fished around in her reticule and pulled out her hand, brandishing another coin. “I’d give this to you when I return, only I’m afraid I might have to leave another way in order to avoid being seen by Mrs. Montgomery, so I’ll give it to you now because I trust you. Now, where did you say Dorcas entertains?”
Within a minute, Kitty was hurrying up the back steps, armed with the necessary information. She had a good sense of direction, so it wasn’t a difficulty locating the room.
Thrusting it open triumphantly, she gasped in horror as she found herself face-to-face with a couple in the throes of fornicating on a large four-poster bed.
“What the deuce!” came the angry cry of the black-haired gentleman, whose dark glower was enough to send Kitty back the way she’d come like a cannonball.
Her heart was hammering, but she could not lose courage. She was more circumspect the next time she quietly turned the doorknob. To her relief, when she put one eye to the crack, it was to see Silverton raising his eyebrows at Kitty as he faced a slender, brown-haired girl. Certainly too slender to be Dorcas, thought Kitty with disappointment. But then the girl spoke, her soft Welsh accent making it quite clear that her old friend had lost a great deal of weight—and much more besides —in the few weeks since Kitty had last seen her.
“Jest leave me be, m’lord,” Dorcas was saying on a sob, hunched over with her hands over her face. She was being half supported by the dresser against the wall while Lord Silverton towered over her, his expression concerned and patient. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere wiv yer or anyone else. Damned is wot I am.”
Silverton spoke softly, and Kitty was struck by his kindness as he tilted the girl’s chin with his forefinger. “Please just agree to see Kitty once, at least, Dorcas. She’s been so worried for you. She knows you’re here, and she wants to help you.”
“Ain’t no one can ‘elp me now,” Dorcas said sadly. “I’m destined for ’ell, whereva I go. I’ve always bin the sort to land in trouble, but it don’t get much worse than this. No, I won’t bring shame ter Miss Kitty. Not now she’s a famous actress, an all.”
“It’s not your shame; it’s the shame of those who have ill-used you, Dorcas,” Silverton tried to explain. “Mrs. Montgomery tricked you, and then you were ill-used by all the...men who frequent this place. You’re not the one who is shamed. They are.”
“It’s true!” Kitty cried, rushing into the room and taking Dorcas into a hug. “Oh Dorcas, you must come with us.”
Dorcas’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, and she gasped, returning Kitty’s hug with energy, before dropping her hands and shaking her head. “No, miss, ain’t no way I can go. I jest told ‘is Lordship why not. ‘Sides, ‘ow can I jest walk through that door? I’m always unda guard, ain’t neva allowed ter leave this place.”
“What if I said I needed you?” Kitty tried her most appealing voice. “You’d come if I needed you, wouldn’t you?”
Dorcas looked uncertain, so Kitty pressed her advantage. “I’m all alone, Kitty, and the only person I consider my true friend is you.”
“Oh miss, if only it were possible!” Dorcas wailed, close to tears. “But yer know it jest ain’t.”
“Do you never leave this place?”
“Never...’cept on Monday mornin’s when I go ter the apothecary ter get the necessaries fer Mrs. Montgomery. An’ then there’s always someone wiv me.”
“The apothecary around the corner? Since you will not come with me now, Dorcas, I shall try again. On Mo
nday,” Kitty said firmly, indicating to Lord Silverton that he should depart ahead of her, for what she had to say was between ladies only. “And if anyone was asking, I came here on the pretext of getting a message to you that your ma was poorly, but don’t be concerned for it’s not the truth.”
“I’m dead to ma, or might as well be, so it makes no diff’rence, miss.” Dorcas’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Now go. Please. I ‘ave ‘nuvver gennulman to see. Thankfully it ain’t that awful Lord Debenham wot sparks terror in me chest. I ‘eard Mrs. Montgomery singin’ me praises to ‘im, but he only likes ter see Daisy.”
“Lord Debenham comes here?” Kitty gasped, as she was struck by memories of her recent encounter with his wife. Her half-sister, though she hated to acknowledge this, even to herself. “Why, he’s married!”