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CHAPTER ONE

Three of them were thieves (a silver candlestick, a half dozen handkerchiefs, a wheel of cheese, respectively), another one was a forger, and the fifth one had stabbed her husband in the leg. Alexandra was the only one wearing a gold shot-silk ball gown, which was probably why the others had circled her like wolves around a lame deer when she'd been brought into the cell.

The matrons had taken her hairpins from her lest she decide to impale someone with them—this notion had never once occurred to her in her life, but was apparently often taken at Newgate—and this left Alexandra with only one defense. She was going to have to charm them.

She'd leaned forward and confided conspiratorially, to Agnes, the husband stabber, "I've a wonderful receipt for getting bloodstains out of your clothes. Lemon juice and kerosene."

Two hours later they were all cozily clustered about her like guests at a dinner party. She had learned their first names, their alleged crimes, and three verses of "The Ballad of Colin Eversea," a bawdy song in which the word "cock" liberally featured. No doubt because so many things rhymed with it.

Alexandra's crime was the group favorite because they all thought she was making it up.

Because the light in the prison ranged from sludgy gray to sludgy pitch, it was difficult to know how many hours had passed since she'd been brought in—perhaps twenty-four?—but she hadn't closed her eyes since she'd arrived. Her neck felt sticky; her loosely knotted hair sat heavily on her nape. She was certain the entirety of her person was coated with an invisible layer of filth, which hung in the atmosphere the way fog hung over London. All of her senses were excruciatingly heightened, which was both necessary and a pity, as the smell was an unholy potpourri of human effluence, and the cacophony (sobs, curse words, bitter arguments, shrieks, snores, farts) was ceaseless.

Straw had been strewn on the floor, as this was where they were meant to sleep. If it was good enough for cows, apparently it was good enough for them. There wasn't enough room for mattresses.

She understood viscerally now why people spoke of "the fibers of their being." For the first time she was acutely aware of hers, and they were all perilously stretched.

The warden—whose appearance was usually heralded by a jingle of keys and shouted invective and obscene suggestions from all the women locked in the cells—had just installed a new prisoner in their cell and departed. That made seven of them now crammed into the space.

"Bunty," she announced. This was apparently the new prisoner's name. "I clouted me employer in the head."

"Alexandra stole an entire carriage," Agnes proudly informed the newcomer, essentially declaring her allegiance. "Horses and all. A carriage belonging to a duke." She elbowed Alexa whimsically and winked.

Bunty assessed Alexandra through unimpressed, narrowed dark eyes. " Cooorrrr, Alexandra, is it? Ain't ye a rascal, then." The words were flatly ironic. She flexed hands the size of pitchforks. " They'll 'ang ye for stealin' a carriage."

Everyone had, in fact, already pointed this out to Alexandra.

"Thankfully, I did not steal a carriage, so there will be no hanging," Alexandra replied lightly. Her mouth had gone sandy; her voice was hoarse. "It was all a silly misunderstanding."

"Doesn't she talk pretty? Misunderstandin'," Agnes imitated loftily, and everyone laughed, including Alexandra, because she wasn't a fool.

"Never ye mind, lass. Ye've a wee skinny neck, and t'will snap like a twig when they yank the noose." Lizzy, the cheese thief, gave Alexandra's thigh a reassuring pat. "Ye'll doubtless not feel a thing."

She was absurdly touched. She knew this was what passed for kindness here. "Thank you, Lizzy."

Lizzy normally stole handkerchiefs and watch fobs. She had given Alexandra a lot of advice on how to do both (men are easily distractible idiots; "when in doubt, show 'em yer teats" is what it boiled down to, she claimed) and even a pantomime demonstration. She'd stolen a wheel of cheese because she was pregnant and therefore always ravenous, and she'd gotten caught trying to smuggle it out of a shop under her dress.