When She Was Wicked Read Free Page A

flexed beneath his jacket.
    Miss Starling snapped her out of her reverie. “We’ll need to see bolts of French pink muslin, green silk, blue satin, and peach sarsenet, as well as swansdown and scalloped lace.” Anabelle had started for the back room, rather hoping all the items were not intended for the same dress, when Miss Starling added, “And bring us a fresh pot of tea, Miss Honeycut.”
    “Honey
cote
.” In a shop teeming with women, there was no mistaking the duke’s commanding voice.
    Anabelle halted. She imagined that Miss Starling’s glorious peacock tail had lost a feather or two.
    “I beg your pardon?” the debutante asked.
    “Her name,” said the duke. “It’s Miss Honeycote.”
    With that, he jammed his hat on his head, turned on his heel, and quit the shop.
    A few hours later, Anabelle tiptoed into the foyer of the townhouse where she lived and gently shut the front door behind her. Their landlady’s quarters were beyond the door to the right, which, fortunately, was closed. The tantalizing aroma of baking bread wafted from the shared kitchen to her left, but Anabelle didn’t linger. She quickly started up the long narrow staircase leading to the small suite of rooms that she, Daphne, and Mama rented, treading lightly on the second step, which had an unfortunate tendency to creak. She’d made it halfway up the staircase when Mrs. Bowman’s door sprang open.
    “Miss Honeycote!” Their landlady was a kindly, stoop-shouldered widow with gray hair so thin her scalp peeked through. She craned her neck around the doorway and smiled. “Ah, I’m glad to see you have an afternoon off. How is your mother?”
    Anabelle slowly turned and descended the stairs, full of dread. “About the same, I’m afraid.” But then, persons with consumption did not usually improve. She swallowed past the knot in her throat. “Breathless all the time, and a fever in the evenings, but Daphne and I are hopeful that the medicine Dr. Conwell prescribed will help.”
    Mrs. Bowman nodded soberly, waved for Anabelle tofollow her, and shuffled to the kitchen. “Take some bread and stew for her—and for you and your sister, too.” Her gaze flicked to Anabelle’s waist, and she frowned. “You won’t be able to properly care for your mother if you don’t eat.”
    “You’re very kind, Mrs. Bowman. Thank you.”
    The elderly woman sighed heavily. “I’m fond of you and your sister and mother… but luv, your rent was due three days ago.”
    Anabelle had known this was coming, but heat crept up her neck anyway. Her landlady needed the money as desperately as they did. “I’m sorry I don’t have it just yet.” She’d stopped during the walk home and spent her last shilling on paper for the demand note she planned to write to the Duke of Huntford. “I can pay you…” She quickly worked through the plan in her head. “… on Saturday evening after I return from the shop.”
    Mrs. Bowman patted Anabelle’s shoulder in the same reassuring way Mama once had, before illness had plunged her into her frightening torpor. “You’ll pay me when you can.” She pressed her thin lips together and handed Anabelle a pot and a loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth.
    The smells of garlic, gravy, and yeast made her suddenly light-headed, as though her body had just now remembered that it had missed a few meals. “Someday I shall repay you for all you’ve done for us.”
    The old woman smiled, but disbelief clouded her eyes. “Give your mother and sister my best,” she said and retreated into her rooms.
    Anabelle shook off her melancholy and ascended the stairs, buoyed at the thought of presenting Mama and Daphne with a tasty dinner. Even Mama, who’d mostlypicked at her food of late, wouldn’t be able to resist the hearty stew.
    She pushed open the door but didn’t call out, in case Mama was sleeping. After unloading the items she carried onto the table beneath the room’s only window, she looked around the small parlor.