His Wicked Sins (14 page)

surface calm. Someone was stirring up old venom, poking at things best left buried. Who?

Why?

"You know nothing about that, hmm, but you
do
know something about Briar's little

missing maid. You say she
was
no whore. Interesting choice of words and tense…"

Richard's gaze grew sharp. "So she is dead, is she, Griff? She
is
dead."

Tossing some coins on the table, Griffin rose and stood staring down at Richard, his

once boon companion.

"She is dead," he said softly, his blood running cold as a winter stream.

She was dead. They both knew it.

Just as the two missing teachers had been dead, and the whore at Covent Garden, and

the barmaid in Stepney, and so many others in between.

Turning away, Griffin strode from the Red Bull with the sound of Richard's dark

laughter biting at his back.

* * *

Page 52 of 103

He hummed as he worked, running his fingers through Sarah's long blond hair.

Yesterday, he had made a liniment: an ounce of vinegar, an ounce of powdered

stavesacre, a half ounce each of honey and sulfur, and two ounces of oil, all in a mix. He

had rubbed the treatment along her scalp and the roots of her hair, taking care to work it in

well.

His mother had used this recipe. Repeated it again and again to rid the hair of vermin.

She had sworn that he and his brother were crawling with vermin. He had never seen a

one. Not on his own head and not on his brother's. But he'd quickly learned not to gainsay

her when she was in a mood, or she would beat them both until they were bruised and

bloody.

Once, she had said he might not see them, but they were there, crawling on him, in his

hair, in his ears.

More than once, in a frenzy, she had scraped his scalp with a dry blade, her movements

jerky and unsure. She had drawn blood, and then the knife grew slick and red, while he

and his brother sobbed and pleaded.

He shuddered at the memory.

Again, he ran his fingers through Sarah's hair. Shiny and glossy from the oil. He wanted

it soft and pretty.

With a frown, he wondered if the liniment had done its work yet, if the vermin were

destroyed. He could not recall the length of time required. It had been so long ago.

His frown deepened.

Surely a full day was long enough. Leaning close, he peered at her hair. He saw no

vermin, no nits, no crawling things.

Bright gold. So pretty. Her hair was almost perfect.

He raised his head, stared out the window. His preference ran to lush curls, thick, coiled

ringlets that gleamed like moonlight.

Sarah's hair was a shade too dark, and the curl was missing. Nonetheless, she would do.

She would most certainly do.

Lifting the pitcher, he turned his attention back to his task and poured water into the

basin before him, immersing all that lovely hair. The water was cool on his hands. He

closed his eyes, ran the strands through his fingers, worked a lather with a cake of soap,

allowing himself to savor the tactile pleasure.

After a time, he opened his eyes, set the soap aside, rinsed her hair, once, twice. He

wanted no residue to dull the color.

With a smile, he added a splash of vinegar. The pungent scent wafted up to tickle his

nose. His mother had always said that a splash of vinegar brought out the fairest lights of

her hair.

He wanted that for Sarah, wanted to draw out the fairest lights.

When he was done, he squeezed out the water and stared at the long tresses. Wet as it

was, Sarah's hair looked dark, almost brown. Dry, it would be soft gold once more.

He sighed. He
did
regret the lack of curl. Her hair was so straight, he wondered how it

had ever held a pin.

With a final twist, he wrung out the last drops of water, wrapped the length in a large

HIS WICKED SINS

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square of linen, and pressed until the cloth dampened.

An evening breeze carried through the open window, fanning across his face. It was less

than perfect weather, cloudy and damp, though it had cleared a little since he had been in

Northallerton earlier in the day. He thought that with the breeze, it would take her hair less

than an hour to dry.

Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, he set aside the damp linen, crossed the room,

and stood by the window, looking out. There was nothing to see but trees. A veritable sea

of them.

He pushed the window wide, breathed deep. The scent of fall was in the air. With a grin

he turned to the nail he'd hammered in the wooden window frame and hung Sarah's

severed scalp to dry, watching as the damp strands of her hair danced in the wind.

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Chapter 8

Burndale, Yorkshire, September 6, 1828

B
eth found that the routine of Burndale Academy varied little from day to day. First off

were prayers and hymns in the largest schoolroom, with Miss Browne playing the piano in

accompaniment.

Hymns read and done with, the girls whispered and giggled as they marched into the

refectory, a great, long room that spanned the entire depth of the building. Narrow tables

were neatly placed throughout, with low benches alongside and stout stools at either end.

The room was lit by large windows along one side, with an enormous hearth on the other.

No fire burned there now, for the morning—Beth's third at Burndale—had dawned mild

and bright. Still, Beth thought she would be glad of the hearth's warmth during the cold

winter to come.

In groups that were arranged by age, the pupils went each to her assigned table, and the

teachers sat at the head and the foot. Each teacher was expected to sit at a different table

each day.

Ignorant of that rule, Beth had mistaken her place on the second morning, going to the

exact seat that she had taken on the first.

That, it seemed, was not the Burndale way.

She had felt her cheeks heat as Miss Browne stood over her, tapping her foot against the

ground, heavy arms folded across the ample shelf of her bosom. For a moment, Beth had

imagined herself the wayward pupil, caught in Miss Browne's displeasure.

She had not enjoyed the experience.

Wiser today, Beth made her way to a different table, the one in the far corner. As she

passed a small group of teachers, Miss Doyle, Miss Hughes, and Mademoiselle Martine,

she heard snippets of their whispered conversation.

"…missing since her morning off…"

"They'll find her. Find her dead, mind you…"

"…thinking Sarah Ashton ran off with a man…"

"I heard she has guinea-gold hair like the others…" As Beth approached, they broke off,

looked away, their faces drawn, their expressions wary.

Miss Doyle looked back, and her gaze slid to Beth's, narrowed, expectant. Beth had the

sensation that there was something they were keeping from her, while at the same time

they wanted her to overhear it. They wanted her to wonder. To ponder. To be afraid.

The thought made her shiver.

Turning away, she guided her charges onto the benches, encouraging both promptness

and decorum.

Steam rose from great kettles that were set on the tables, and the smell of porridge

flavored the air. Plain fare, but well-prepared, generously ladled into bowls and passed out

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amongst the girls. Inhaling the scent of the porridge, Beth recalled the pallid gentleman

from the coach—the one who had left the stage in Grantham, but whom she had thought

she caught sight of as the coach passed through Northallerton—and his horrid stories of

beatings and starvation. As she watched the girls take their places, she felt very glad that

his morbid insinuations had proven far from the truth. There were no hungry bellies here,

no bruised and beaten children.

"Silence!" The cry, loud enough to be heard over the general commotion, was

accompanied by much double hand-clapping. "To your places!"

Finally, all were settled and the bowls passed round to each place. Miss Percy led grace,

after which a buzz of conversation hovered in the room, ricocheting off the walls and

growing in volume by the moment.

A maid brought tea to the teachers, and the girls drank water poured from a pitcher set

in the center of the table. There was one cup for each side of the table, and they passed it

from girl to girl, refilling as necessary.

Turning her attention to her meal, Beth sampled a spoonful of porridge, and another,

before realizing that the lively discussion at her table had trailed away to furtive whispers.

She glanced up to see Isobel Fairfax, the pale little girl from the first morning, her dark

hair tumbling about her shoulders, her eyes wide and dreamy. She stood a little to one

side, making no move to join the others at breakfast.

"Good morning, Isobel," Beth said, and smiled.

The child made no reply, but something, perhaps a sharpening of her gaze or a flicker of

recognition, made Beth certain that she acknowledged the greeting.

"She don't talk. Not once since I've been here," said a girl with mud-brown braids and a

plain and open face. "Come on now, Isobel"—the girl, Lucy, patted the bench at her

side—"you may as well sit here, because none of the others will welcome you."

Isobel sidled a step closer, but did not sit.

Beth had the odd notion that the child had come to this table because of her. Though