Today's Reading
Leeds, May 1825
The clamour of people at the market rose in her ears. Women shopping, servants on errands. All pressing around the stall to buy apples just arrived from the country. The first of autumn, green, blushed with red. Plump. Filling.
She could feel the hunger rippling through her belly. Nothing to eat since yesterday, and that had been the scrapings of a pie that someone had tossed away on Briggate. Stretching, she reached between the bodies. Touched the fruit. Cool, firm, smooth. She took a breath, grabbed it and pulled her hand back before anyone could catch her.
Darted away, holding the apple close to her chest. She wouldn't starve today. The first thing she'd ever stolen. Three days out here and she knew she'd need to learn if she was going to stay alive.
Before she could move any further, the hand came down hard on her shoulder—
Jane woke. She couldn't breathe. She was still caught, twisting, trying to fight free. Slowly, very, very slowly, she began to realize she was in her own bed, with the room, the house, safety, around her. She was safe. Gasping, gulping down air. Not eight years old, thrown out by her mother, fresh on the streets and terrified but determined to survive. Those days had long passed.
She was grown, she had a home, a proper home, with Mrs Shields.
Jane sat up and placed a hand over her heart. It fluttered and raced like a captured bird. Her face was clammy with sweat. Fear. She took quiet, shallow breaths, keeping still as her body grew calmer. A drink from the glass on the table.
That made three times in less than two weeks the bad dreams had come to torment her. Different on each occasion, but every one of them took her back to the time she lived on the streets.
In one she was fighting a man, knowing inside that killing him was the only way she'd stay alive. In another she'd been cutting a purse and trying to run, too terrified even to look around.
She'd left that life years before. Both that and the one that came after it, working for Simon Westow, the thief-taker. He'd valued her skills, the way she could follow without being seen, become the invisible girl who was deadly when it was necessary.
Jane had made good money with him. Then, finally, she'd needed to shed that skin. She found Simon a replacement, someone better at the work than she could ever be, promised she'd help if he ever needed it, and walked away.
No backward glance. No longing, only relief. She was content in her life now. She'd saved ample from her share of Simon's fees, enough to last her for years. In Mrs Shields, she had someone who needed her.
Jane had believed she was free. Looking to the future. But the past was coming back to try and claim her.
CHAPTER ONE
Leeds, Tuesday, May 24, 1825
Still early in the morning, but the sun was already warm, the way it had been for almost two weeks now, as if summer had arrived early. The machines were busy in the factories and mills, filling the air with noise as their chimneys belched smoke into the sky.
Simon Westow stood by the coffee cart on Briggate, listening to the gossip, most of it about the Moot Hall up the street. The old building had finally been demolished the week before, a teetering wreck that had needed to come down for years.
Now it was no more than a day or two until Middle Row, the shops and workshops that had stood behind the Hall in the centre of the street, would become a pile of rubble, too.
The voices were a murmur, a background to the welcome warmth on his face. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sally begin to move. She was the girl who worked for him, the one who'd taken over from Jane. Young, somewhere close to twelve years old but learning quickly; another survivor of the streets with the skills and speed a thief-taker's trade required.
Most mornings she followed him, keeping her distance, but always ready. Twice since the start of the year, men had tried to attack him; that came with the job. Sally had taken it on herself to be his bodyguard.
...
