Disenchanted & Co., Part 1: Her Ladyship's Curse

  At Pike Street I got off and walked to an alley between a boardinghouse and a dressmaker’s shop.

  The alley was famous for one thing: it was the lowest point in the city. It also had flooded every year during the storm season until one Mrs. Carina Eagle had purchased the boardinghouse and hired a road crew to dig trenches on either side for drainage pipes. As for the boardinghouse, where no one ever boarded for longer than a night, it still bore the sign Mrs. Holcomb’s Rooms to Let, but everyone knew it as the Eagle’s Nest.

  I stopped in front of a bruiser in a pilled tweed coat who had one shoulder propped against the corner. He was reading over a short sheet without much interest and rubbing a flat, milky-white stone between his broad thumb and the stump of his first finger.

  I waited politely until he finished reading and looked up at me. “Morning, Wrecker.”

  “Miss Kit.” He touched the brim of his cap. “She’s not up yet. Late night, she had, what with all of ’em sailors what come into port yesterday.”

  Wrecker had been sent over to Toriana on work-release from Sydney a few years back after serving ten years in the quarries for kneecapping the wrong chap. He’d finished out his debt to the Crown and now lived as a freedman. Had Rina not hired him, he might have kept at the work he knew best. Luckily protecting her and her gels required Wreck to commit far fewer felonies.

  “No worries, I’ll bring her a cup.”

  Knowing my long-standing relationship with his mistress, he nodded and let me pass.

  At the other end of the alley was the back of the boardinghouse, a red door, and a bright brass bell. After I tugged on the pull, a narrow eye-slot appeared in the door.

  “Miss Kittredge to see Mrs. Eagle.”

  The door opened, and a fellow almost as huge as Wrecker inspected me. He was new, which meant his predecessor was either dead or in prison. “Selling or buying?” The way he ogled my body from the neck down made it clear he hoped I was selling.

  “Neither,” I said firmly. “I’m a friend.”

  He pouted a little. “Her’s still abed.”

  “So I’ve been told.” I went past him and made my way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Eagle’s cook stood cracking eggs into a large mixpot with one hand and flipping rashers with the other.

  “Morning, Almira.” I asked, nipping a piece of bacon from a platter and dodging a swat from her spatula. “Have you sent up her tea?”

  “Why would I? She left word that she’s not to be disturbed before noon.” Almira nodded toward the kettle. “If I were you, I’d drop in a pinch of willowbark.”

  I winced. “Rough trade last night?”

  “Mariners in for their first shore leave since the Skirmish.” She pulled a whisk from her apron pocket and began beating the eggs. “Randy boys, the lot of them.”

  I made up a tray and took it to the back stairs, where I carried it up one flight to the mistress’s chambers. Walking into Mrs. Eagle’s private sanctuary was like crossing the threshold of a dark church: a cool rush of shadows and incense-scented air. I made my way to the cart carefully, and after depositing the tray, I lit the wall lamp and turned to the bed.

  “For the love of Jesu,” a muffled voice said from beneath a mound of golden silk puffs. “Piss off.”

  I poured and carried a cup of tea over to the mound. “You know this is why your mother wanted you to be a nun.”

  “Too hard on the knees.” A small head of tousled blond hair appeared, and a slender hand took the cup from me. “What do you want, and sweet Mary, don’t say anything that involves my bum in motion, or I’ll thump you.”

  “As ever-tempted as I am by your charms”—I sat down on the edge of the mound—“I came for a gown.”

  She waved a hand toward her armoire of indecently beautiful negligees as she guzzled the tea. “Take whatever you want and be gone with you.”

  “Not that sort of gown.”

  She pushed a handful of hair out of her eyes to give me an irate squint. “You said you were through working the Hill.”

  “Special exception, just this one time,” I promised. “Someone’s taken the cut direct to a new and nasty level.”

  She yawned. “How nasty?”

  “Slicing hateful words into her skin while she sleeps.” I touched a whisker burn on her cheek. “Does that sound like anyone you’ve thrown out lately?”

  “Chastity had a biter last month. Horrid man. I had Wrecker relieve him of his front teeth before showing him out.” She sat up and held out her cup. “More.”

  I poured her tea and waited as my friend gradually roused. Without her jewels and cosmetics, Carina Eagle looked too young to be let out on her own. She had been, once upon a time, long before she had become the queen of backstreet brothels.

  We’d found each other, Rina and I, drawn together as fellow outcasts in a society that wanted nothing to do with either of us. I’d had it a bit easier, coming to Rumsen as a penniless, nameless waif who’d had as much chance at being respectable as a hemp picker had of residing on the Hill.

  Rina’s family had been merchant class, indecently successful, and had employed their hard-earned riches in hopes of marrying her off to better. The hard-fisted gambler they’d snagged had strung them along while gaming away her bride price. When the bleeding sod had wagered Rina’s maiden night in a card game, and lost, she’d been forced to pay the debt. The morning after, the vicious bastard had refused to marry her, claiming publicly that she was bespoiled goods, which conveniently canceled his financial and social obligations to her family. Rina had been ruined, of course, and turned out onto the streets.

  I’d met Rina shortly after that, when she’d still been green enough to let herself be cornered. Stopping the brute I found beating her half to death in a back alley had required only a brick to the back of the head; the real task had been convincing her to come home with me so I could fix her up. She’d stayed with me for a few days, but as soon as she was mostly healed she left and went back on the stroll.

  Since then I’d tried to persuade her to give up the business, but the money had always been too good, and the trade too steady. Because Rina was young, beautiful, and posh enough to attract a better sort, she’d quickly built a list of generous regulars. They’d funded the purchase of her house of ill repute, which in turn provided shelter and protection for the lost gels my friend regularly plucked from the streets. For those too young to know what they were about, Rina even found decent employment. Her success had made her notorious, but Rina took great pleasure in being the most scandalous female in Rumsen—and still banked more money in one month than I did in a year.

  My friend finally emerged from her bed and tottered to the lamps to light a few more. The old, threadbare flannel gown she wore made me stifle a chuckle—it bore no resemblance to the lacy, gauzy negligees she wore when entertaining her clients.

  “All right.” Rina fell into an armchair and propped her brow against her hand. “Tell me who it is.”

  “Nolan Walsh’s wife.”

  “Lady Diana.” She exhaled heavily. “You’ve picked yourself a right one there. She’d be the eldest spawn of one of the Landau brothers.”

  I thought through all the scandals I knew that involved Landaus. “The one who gambled, or the one who drank?”

  “The investor. Lost everything in mine speculation.” She winced. “William or Wilson or something like that. In any case, he tugged the old school tie, sold her off. Pretty little thing, but no spine at all. You know she cried at the wedding?”

  Rina faithfully attended every society wedding open to the public, always arriving heavily veiled and dressed in widow’s weeds. She claimed it was to drum up trade, as virginal brides always sent their newly wed husbands looking for satisfaction elsewhere, but I knew better. Rina had a passion for watching ceremonies and rituals, the grander the better. In a strange way, they seemed to comfort her.

  “Would Walsh have a hand in this?” Men who secretly abused their wives disgusted me, but there was alwa
ys a possibility that the banker had acquired a taste for hurting women or perhaps had his sights set on a third wife.

  “Doubtful. He shows her off too much. He’d never rip up a brand-new waistcoat and then wear it after.” Rina smothered a yawn. “My money’s on the son.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Diseased. Sent home from Oxford after a bad case of the drips.” She said it with a strumpet’s satisfied relish. “Married five years now, but no children.”

  I sat back. Since he only otherwise had two daughters . . . “Oh. So that’s why he married her.”

  “And why he took her so young,” Rina agreed. “Walsh has a good twenty, thirty more years on this earth. Plenty of time to do the deed and then some. But why are you taking this job, Kit? You know how it will end.”

  “She thinks she’s been cursed,” I said softly.

  Rina hmphed. “If anyone’s under an evil spell, it’s you.” She stood and stretched. “When do you call on her?”

  “Today, for tea. I’m a newfound, poor cousin.” I thought for a minute. “I need something in sprigged muslin, genteel-cut but no sashing. Lace. A very little lace.”

  Already thinking, Rina nodded. “Yellowed or shabby?”

  “Yellowed. I’m a working lass.”

  I followed her into the adjoining room, which was filled with freestanding racks of gowns. Rina had once made a vow never to wear the same gown more than twice, and after making a mutually satisfactory arrangement with her neighbor the spinster dressmaker, she had managed to keep it.

  “I did a garden party play a few years ago,” she said as she sorted through one rack. “Old gent, wanted all of us dressed like debs. Had each of us sit on his lap so he could fondle us while we fed him biscuits and called him Daddums.”

  I hid my revulsion. “I can’t wear white.”

  “No one can, love.” She winked as she extracted one gown, held it up to me, and then exchanged it for another. “If you don’t soon start carrying a shade when you go out, you’ll be as dark as a shaman.” She switched the gown for a third, and nodded. “This will do for tea.”

  I glanced down. “It’s pink.”

  “And?”

  “I despise pink.”

  “It’s baby’s blush, and it makes you look like a proper lass. Turn round.” When I did, she held the yoke of the bodice to my shoulders. “If I snip out the pads, it should fit.” She tugged at the chain around my neck. “Can’t wear this.”

  “I’ll tuck it under.” I only took off my pendant when I bathed, and even then I kept it within reach. I’d promised my mum I always would.

  “Slippers.” She bent to retrieve a pair from a box beneath the gowns and handed them to me.

  “They’re too big.” And even pinker than the gown.

  “Stuff the toes with paper. Satchel.” She found and placed a fringed drawstring reticule on top of the slippers. “Crinoline.”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “Kit.”

  “They itch and they make me sweat,” I told her. “I’d rather go naked.”

  She glared at me. “Then it will have to be three petticoats.” When I opened my mouth she tapped my cheek sharply. “This is not open for discussion, you silly twit. You’re going to the Hill. You know the butler will be counting them before he lets you through the door. Showing up underdressed is as smart as standing in the marketplace and shouting you’ve become an agent for the Crown.”

  “I’d hang myself first.” She was right. “I hate being female.”

  “Well, until you sprout a beard and a cock, there you are.” She patted my shoulder. “Come on, while you’re here I might as well feed you.”

  I left the hateful pink gown and accoutrements in Rina’s bedchamber as she dressed, and then followed her down to the kitchen, where Almira had two steaming plates of eggs, bacon, and fry bread waiting for us.

  “Someone’s worked a charm on poor Liv,” the cook told Rina. “She says she can’t feel her bum.”

  Rina sat down and dug into her food. “That’s because she sits on it too much.”

  “I smacked her bare with a switch meself to test it. Drew blood, but she didn’t even flinch.” Almira glanced at me. “Maybe someone could make herself useful while she’s dawdling here?”

  “My eggs will get cold,” I complained.

  She whisked my plate out from under my fork. “I’ll keep them on the stove.”

  I turned to Rina, who shrugged. “All right, where’s poor Liv?”

  “Purple door, third floor.” The cook beamed at me. “You’re a good lass, Kit.”

  “I’m a deprived lass. I’m a starving lass.” I tromped back up the stairs to the third floor, found Liv’s purple door, and knocked on it. “Liv? It’s Kit, Mrs. Eagle’s friend from uptown. Let me in.”

  I heard breathing, and then two strangled words: “I can’t.”

  I propped a hand against the door frame. “Why not?”

  More breathing, and choking. “Can’t . . . move.”

  I tried the knob, which jammed at first and then opened. Inside I found Liv, wide-eyed and naked on the floorboards. I knelt beside her. “What’s all this, then?”

  “Magic,” she gasped, as if she were having trouble taking in air. “Killing me.”

  I looked her over, reached down, and slapped her face. “Come on. Snap out of it, there’s a good gel.”

  She shook her head wildly, and then her eyes bulged as she gulped in a huge breath.

  “Oh, sweet Jesu.” She panted as if she’d been running for miles. “I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t . . .” She stared at the hand she had lifted to her face and then at me. “How did you do that?”

  “I walloped you.” I helped her up from the floor and wrapped her in a robe. “Sit before you fall back down.” When she did, I looked around her room. Aside from the usual female fripperies, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. “What have you been using?”

  “Nothing. I swear. Mistress doesn’t allow it.” Liv huddled in her robe. “Thank God you came, miss. I thought for sure I was going to die.”

  I knelt down beside her bed, lifted the skirt, and looked under it. A small brown box lay among the drifts of dust, and when I pulled it out, Liv saw it and uttered a shriek.

  “It’s just a box.” I tugged open the string and poured the contents into my hand, which turned out to be six polished green stones. “A box of rocks.”

  “No,” Liv whispered. “Someone put them there. Someone bespelled them to kill me. Take them away.” Her voice rose to a screech. “Take them.”

  “They’re rocks, Liv, not magic.” As she shouted more nonsense at me, I went to the window and tossed them out. “There. They’re gone. Stop screaming.”

  Liv staggered to her feet and collapsed against me to give me a trembling hug. “Thank you,” she sobbed. “You saved me life.”

  What was it about me that attracted so many tearful females? “I didn’t do anything.” I set her at arm’s length. “You should go see the physick today, though. You might have picked a bad spider bite or something.”

  She wrenched away and hurried over to her dresser. “I have to leave the city. Right away, before they try again.”

  “Stop by the physick’s first,” I suggested, before I let myself out and returned downstairs.

  Rina had finished her breakfast and drank some juice as she watched me eat mine. “Well?”

  I swallowed a mouthful of bread. “Hysteria, or maybe a spider bite. I found a box of green rocks under her bed. She’s fine.” I glanced at Rina. “She’s also packing her bags. Sorry.”

  “Probably staged it. The lazy tart never could turn more than two johnnies a night.” Rina didn’t seem dismayed. “So much for her numb bum. Thanks, Kit.”

  “My pleasure.” I noticed Almira staring at me. “She’ll be all right. I only gave her a little slap.”

  “Green stones are said to be spellbinders,” the cook said. “That’s rotten magic, Miss Kit.”

  I exchanged
an amused look with Rina. “Is there any other kind?”

  Chapter Three

  I left the Eagle’s Nest with Wrecker in one of Rina’s carris. She insisted on giving me a ride to my flat as repayment for disenchanting poor Liv, but the truth was she despised the city trolleys—“damn cattle carts” according to her—as well as my fondness for riding them.

  “Wrecker can ferry you up the Hill at four,” she advised me. “Have him wait for you, too. Walsh’s so high-necked he won’t bridle a half-dead nag for a poor cousin, not even if you offered to ride it to the glueworks for him.”

  As I waited in the alley for Wrecker to come round, I spotted a gleam of dark green on the cobblestones and picked up one of the rocks I’d tossed out Liv’s window. Idly I tossed it in my hand and then dropped it in my pocket as Wrecker wheeled the carri around the corner.

  Carris came into being out of necessity after the horse plagues of ’66 emptied most of the coach houses in the city. I still remembered the first ones bouncing along the streets, causing women to cower and scream, and men to chase after them. From a distance they had looked a bit like burning, runaway carts, at least until the smoke cleared enough for one to see the grinning fool tonner sitting behind the great wheel.

  In the twenty years since the first carri rolled off the assembly line, much had been done to improve the horseless coaches. The first big, wooden-spoke wheels had been replaced by wider, iron-rimmed rounders coated with a thick pad of gray-brown rubber. The mechs in the Chester factories had also whittled down the carri’s boxy sideboards and clad them in thin, black-painted plates of copper. When the paint wore, it flaked in rows, which exposed red-gold streaks that young turks seemed to like. They would sometimes scrape off long strips to speed the process so they could boast of driving a “streaky.”

  Only the oldest carris still had one flat bench seat in the back and two box perches in the front; these days everyone changed them out for the custom horsehide seats. None of the newer carris used coal burners anymore; the latest were fitted with keroseel steam tanks that didn’t belch black smoke or have to be refilled as often.