London, 1866
Rachael O’Leary’s teeth chattered painfully as she pressed against the
driving snow decking London in a foot-high blanket of dense white.
Wondering why it was taking forever to reach the corner of Knightsbridge,
she looked up and discovered she’d inadvertently traveled in the dark into a closed-end mews.
“This cannot be happening.”
Her heavy portmanteau slipped from her frozen fingers and landed with
a soft thud in the middle of the dark, deserted roadway. As she collapsed
onto it, her brain screamed, Get up before you freeze! but her legs would
have no part in it. Her heart agreed with her legs.
No one would grieve if she were found frozen here come morning,
certainly not her last employer who’d discharged her without a reference
and only a few shillings to her name.
Since being tossed out of the Viscount’s stately mansion four days ago,
Rachael had spent her few coins on a shoddy tavern room as she applied for
every governess position posted in the London Times only to have door
after door slammed in her face.
Now, with her purse and pockets empty and her limbs numb, she questioned her wisdom in believing—clinging to the
fragile hope—that the tavern keeper would have taken pity on her and
allowed her to stay on. The hope had only gotten her lost.
And despite her current state, she still couldn’t bring herself to regret
hauling the Viscount’s wretched son by the ear down two flights of stairs
after she’d awoken Monday and found half her hair gone.
Nor could she understand why the viscount hadn’t sided with her when she’d brought his coddled boy before him.
Fresh tears spilled then froze half way down Rachael’s wind-blistered
cheeks.
Her poor hair.
Her once waist-length auburn tresses had been the only thing about her
person she’d thought the least attractive, but now they were gone, and all because she’d made a vengeful eleven-year-old study.
She’d wept as she cut her remaining strands in the hopes of appearing
presentable before going on her interviews, only to learn the Viscount hadmade good his threat; he’d made sure her undeserved reputation as a child abuser had arrived before her.
A dog barked, startling her out of her reverie. As she spun toward the
sound, the snow accumulating on her hunched shoulders landed with a soft
thud in her lap.
Relieved to find no dog, that the street was still empty, she brushed the snow from her coat with painful fingers and noticed that her footprints had already been obliterated by the storm. A sob shook her.
She’d done nothing wrong. Nothing, at least, to warranted dying a beggar’s death on a deserted street.
She’d worked hard to become a well-schooled governess, to keep from
living her mother’s hopeless charwoman life. To have her first position lost because of one spoiled child made her so furious she wanted to scream into the hushed night, into the amber glow generated by sulfur-laden coal burning in hearths all around her.
Hearths she’d kill to cuddle before.
Putting her back to the buffeting wind, she studied the stately houses
sending rectangular splashes of lamplight across the snowdrifts.
The homes appeared so comfy with their glowing windows and puffy white clouds rising from multiple chimney pots.
All looked so inviting except for one.
So where was that family on this miserable night? At the theater or
with friends? She’d lay odds they were warm and well fed wherever they
were.
And if they were only away for the evening, why hadn’t the staff
swept the stairs and kept a few fires burning to keep the house warm?
Her heart stuttered. Why, indeed.
She looked both ways along the quiet street then came to her feet.
Holding her head high, hoping to appear as if she belonged--instead of
appearing desperate, which she most certainly felt--she strode toward the
townhouse with the snowdrift pressing against its portal.
Standing before the windowless black door, she looked over her
shoulder once again.
Seeing no one, she cautiously climbed the four granite
steps fronting 446 Hanover Mews.
She raised the tarnished lion’s head doorknocker and let it fall.
When no one came to the door after a second knock, she leaned over the
ice-encased wrought-iron railing and peered into the left hand window.
Alopposite railing, peered into the right hand window, and found the same.
Her heart began to race.
The townhouse had been closed for the winter.
Dare she seek shelter within? Could she, even if she dared?
Rachael blinked away the snowflakes caught on her lashes to again
study the empty street. Hunching against the wind, she buried her numb
hands under her armpits and decided she most certainly would dare if she
wanted to survive.
After all, it would only be for one night, until the storm passed. And logic dictated that the owner would, should he ever learn of her escapade, be most pleased to discover he’d inadvertently saved the life of one very desperate lass. Wouldn’t he? Yes. Definitely. Of course he would.
Heart thudding, she hurried back to her portmanteau-—now a white
lump in the middle of the roadway--picked it up, and counted the homes.
Her refuge for the night was the sixth in the row.
After finding the carriage drive, she discovered a locked gate and a
chest-high brick wall protecting the rear of 446. She peered over the wall.
The garden within was blanketed in unmarred white; the windows of the
townhouse were as black as coal.
Muttering, “In for a penny, in for a
pound,” she hefted her portmanteau and tossed it over the brick wall. She
then tried to lever herself onto the wall but her frozen limbs balked.
Realizing she’d have to vault, she backed the width of the ally, took a deep
breath, and then ran at the wall as fast as her stiff legs would allow.
To her monumental relief she rose, but at the top, her hands slipped on the ice and she toppled over the brick wall, landing in an ice-caked, overgrown
rosebush.
Cursing, she wrenched out of its thorny embrace and stumbled to
her feet. Seeing she’d missed landing on a stone bench by only a foot,
Rachael shuddered like a wet dog. Good Lord, she could have fractured a
leg.
She brushed the stinging snow out from under her collar, then crossed
the long, narrow garden and knocked on the townhouse’s rear door. When
no one answered, she tried opening it. Finding it secure, she moved to the
rear windows, only to find all those solidly locked.
Knowing but not believing she was about to commit a deportation
crime, she looked about the garden for something to break a windowpane
and spotted a black square on the foundation.
The coal chute!
She trudged over to it. Bending low, she pulled on the embossed cast
iron covering. As it yawned open, it screeched like a strangling cat and her
heart nearly stopped.
She scanned the neighboring houses. When fire-poker wielding
housemen failed to materialize she heaved a sigh and thanked the saints.
She then peered into the black abyss.
Could she fit? There was only one way to find out. Throw something as
wide as her shoulders into the sooty hole.
Squinting against the snow, she examined the garden. There were
several snow-shrouded statues, but all appeared too heavy to lift. With a
resigned sigh, she picked up her portmanteau. If it got stuck, so be it.
Without shelter she’d likely be dead come morning anyway.
Heart pounding, hands shaking, she shoved her portmanteau into the
opening, then listened as everything she owned in the world slid into the
unknown and then landed with a thud.
A second later the tinkle of shifting
coal drifted back up.
“Thank God.” The chute was at least two feet wide all the way down.
Rachael quickly shrugged out of her coat. With fumbling fingers, she
untied her bustle and petticoat ribbons and let the layers of flannel fall about
her ankles—-there was, after all, no point in asking to get stuck.
She then took a deep breath and followed her portmanteau, feet first, into the unknown.
Her heart fluttered in panic, her brain called her every kind of fool as
she swooshed through solid blackness. Suddenly only air surrounded her.
She yelped and then landed flat on her back with a bone-jarring thump.
My God, I’ve done it!
Not gracefully and certainly not legally, but she had shelter for the
night.
Assured she was still in one piece—-by no small miracle--she struggled
to her feet, the coal shifted, and she toppled onto her portmanteau.
Enveloped by total blackness, Rachael cursed, grabbed the handle, and
crawled forward, in search of a door. When her hand hit a wooden wall, she
struggled to her feet. Five steps later she found a head high, three-quarter
door.
Finding no inside latch, she reached up, encountered a wall of cobwebs.
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