The Scandalous Widow by Erica Monroe

Author:Erica Monroe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: 0
Published: 2018-04-23T18:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

It goes without saying that People of Quality do not go further than Oxford Street. St. Giles is home to no one but the worst of criminals, and no one who is respectable would dare traverse with such ilk.

-Whispers from Lady X, May 1814

St. Giles Rookery, West End, London

Rivaled only by nearby Seven Dials, St. Giles was the worst of the West End, largely comprised of dram joints, flash panneys, and pawn shops. Chipped cobblestones marked fetid streets too narrow, too clogged with rubbish and feculence for even the most daring of hack drivers to steer through. Tumbledown tenements teemed with poor immigrants, Yiddish and Gaelic spliced together to form a discordant din, as voices drifted from the broken windows. Filth and pestilence clung to everything; the vile aroma only abated after several baths with lye, and denizens had neither access to large quantities of hot water nor money for soap.

Overall, the residents of St. Giles fit into three categories: those who had come to England with only the clothes on their backs and thus could not afford to live elsewhere; those who required the anonymity afforded by an overcrowded stew no one wanted to visit; and those who delighted in the many criminal opportunities presented by having so many thieves’ dens naught more than a stone’s throw away from each other.

It was the third group of people that interested Gabriel the most. As a Runner, he depended upon a network of thieves, receivers of stolen goods, tavern-keepers, and madams who were all willing to trade secrets for blunt. Though some Members of Parliament claimed associating with criminals bred corruption within the ranks of Westminster’s elite police force, the information gained through these sources outweighed the risks.

Usually.

Tonight, with Jemma on his arm, Gabriel reconsidered the value in these contacts he’d so carefully cultivated over the years. Every minute spent in the dank, winding alleys made his stomach twist and turn with concern for her safety. They’d visited several public houses already to no success.

He had to give Jemma credit, though.

Her hand rested gently on the sleeve of his coat, and every once in a while she’d squeeze his arm, as if she knew he needed the physical reassurance she was safe beside him.

She let him do all the talking, her face a blank slate. He knew she was watching for any sign of falsehood, in that frighteningly accurate way she had of reading people’s unconscious tells. After each stop, they conferred, and she confirmed his suspicions: either nobody knew about the buttons, or they weren’t willing to talk to him about them in front of her.

They had one last place to go. Mrs. Jennings’s dolly shop was deep in the heart of the stews. He hated taking her there—there was little redeeming about the shops on Church Lane. They ranged from objectionable to vaguely illegal to downright dangerous. Mrs. Jennings fit somewhere in the second category, but any points she won from cooperating with Bow Street were negated by

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