The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)

The Commission, however, didn’t meet in a respectable private room at the Three Crowns Hotel, or in the front room of the Bell. It met instead on the outskirts of the old town, at a run-down place called the Nag’s Head Hostelry.

Robert arrived ten minutes after the appointed time and drew no eyes at all when he slipped into the room behind a barmaid. She bustled about the room in swift competence, filling the ladies’ cups with what looked like barley water, pouring weak beer for the gentlemen, swiping up the inevitable spills with a wide, dirty towel that hung from her apron strings.

Nobody paid any attention, they were already so intent on their argument.

He made his way to a chair in the back and sat down.

Not only was this particular commission held in an odd location, but the composition was surprising. He’d sat on enough charitable boards to know what to expect—a few wealthy people, who’d been asked for their money and their connections, rather than their knowledge, interspersed with a few professional folks. But here, there was a man he remembered as a doctor. There was Captain Stevens. Miss Pursling, of course, seated next to a wealthy-looking older woman. Those formed the usual sort that made up these charity boards. But across the table, there sat a young woman, maybe Miss Pursling’s age, dressed in a serviceable shirtwaist. Next to her was an older, grizzled man dressed in well-patched tweed. One seat over was a plump woman in a high-necked black wool gown, complete with a round, black collar—the kind of uniform that shouted that she was in service. Half the participants had the look of working people.

That made it like no charity that Robert had ever seen. He leaned forward in interest.

Stevens was shaking his head. “Well,” he muttered, “we’ll worry about that later. Miss Pursling, you have your report on the disinfectant?”

Miss Pursling nodded. Her back was to him, and he could see her curls dip against her neck. They were interesting, those curls of hers, not the fat sausage curls that were carefully constructed by maids with irons. These curls were a masquerade—a little too corkscrewed, too wild. He rather suspected her hair had a natural curl to it, one that no iron could tame into regular twists of hair.

“The board of the Cooperative met last evening.” He had to strain to hear her talk. Her voice was clear, but so quiet. “They agreed to sell the disinfecting solution at their cost—provided that we mention the Cooperative in the handbill. They were eventually convinced that the advertisement was compensation enough.”

A strange way to say it—they were eventually convinced. Another person would have said I convinced them, thus claiming the credit. Robert steepled his fingers.

All he could see of her was the back of her head, the lovely flare of her waist, that small hint of hip before her bustle and crinolines obscured all her natural curves. As she spoke, she turned her head. She was still faced three-quarters away from him. He couldn’t see her eyes—just her cheek and that faint web of a scar. But she was wearing her spectacles and reading from the papers in front of her.

Oh, yes. He’d thought of her in the intervening week. He’d thought of her so much that he was no longer put off by her quiet speech, her downcast eyes. No matter how unlikely it seemed, Miss Pursling had convinced everyone here that she was next to nothing. The truth of her competence seemed an intimate secret between them.

“What’ll be the cost of the solution, then?” one of the working girls asked. Her voice was normal, but next to Miss Pursling’s quiet tones, she sounded almost loud.

“A shilling per bottle. If used sparingly, that amount ought to last a household of six or seven a full month. Miss Peters, is that a reasonable sum to expect of a working family, or must we find a way to further subsidize the cost?” Miss Pursling tilted her head toward the youngest of the working girls.

The other girl bent down to a notebook and flipped through it. “Mm,” she said. “That…should be sufficient.”

“Foolishness,” Stevens interrupted. “It’s all foolishness, as I’ve said—the instructions on disinfection, the solution, the handbills.” He cast a hard look at Miss Pursling. It was a look that said that he’d not taken Robert’s last warning to heart—that he still thought ill of her.

“Surely not all foolishness,” Miss Peters put in. “After all—”

Robert leaned forward.

Stevens slammed his hand on the table. “There’d be no need for disinfection if those infernal monkey workers would just vaccinate their children as required by law.”

The man in patched tweed shot to his feet. “Blast me if I let some vaccinator stick my children with pins made of some disease!”

“My mum, she was inoculated and died the next week!”

The plump woman leaned across the table. “Well, I had my Jess get the vaccine, and he still took sick of the smallpox and lost his sight. Turned out the vaccinator had run out when we came, so he just used spirits and charged the same anyway!”