Free Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II by Padgett Lively Page A

known his mamma.
    Evelyn remembered Fancy’s words when dedicating a new infirmary at one of her transition houses in London.
    “Prostitution kills women every day. It is an almost exclusively feminine consequence of poverty.”
    Billy’s mother had been only one death of many. But years before, Fancy had tried to get her off the streets. The pretty daughter of a respectable country farrier, she had been tempted from her home by the handsome face and empty promises of a junior officer in the militia. In London, she had been passed from one of his friends to another. Too ashamed to go home, she stayed on and plied her trade in an exclusive London brothel. But her demons had led her to gin and, eventually, to the streets.
    It was Fancy’s opinion that the sheltered daughters of the “decent folk” who fell into prostitution were harder to extract from the trade than those who were born into it like herself.
    “I guess it’s the difference between falling from heaven and dragging yourself out of hell,” Fancy had once explained. “They had lost everything, and I had nothing to lose. Their spirits were broken, and mine was hardened.”
    It was Evelyn’s own mother who had given Fancy the opportunity she needed to free herself from the bonds of poverty and the degradation of prostitution. But it was Fancy’s own courage and quick wit that allowed her to take advantage of her good fortune.
    Far from keeping her background a secret, Fancy used her connections with some of London’s most progressive members to fight for the women among whom she had worked. The transition houses weren’t merely places where the prostitutes could find safety and kindness, although they could. They were also schools and training grounds for skills and trades.
    When Fancy discovered that jobs were hard to come by for the newly educated women, her transition houses morphed into businesses that could employ them. Bakeries, laundries, dressmakers, and even art, for some of the women were talented painters and writers. It wasn’t easy. Finding a market for their goods was always a struggle, and many women returned to the often more lucrative business of whoring. But many didn’t, and some even broadened their businesses out into the surrounding communities.
    Fancy would secure small loans from her benefactors for such efforts. One such patroness was Margaret Prime. Her late husband, Geoffrey, had been a close friend of Evelyn’s father. Evelyn didn’t know her well. Margaret on occasion visited her mother, and she was always present at any event connected with the transition houses. Left with four small children and her own vast fortune, Margaret was Fancy’s partner in all endeavors.
    It was this work and this relationship that had kept Fancy in London as they traveled across the ocean to the colonies. She had stood on the pier with their family and friends to bid them good-bye. Uncle Simon and his wife and two daughters, Evelyn’s best friends, Tabitha and Sarah, were grouped together as if for a family portrait. Uncle Cyril, tall and thin, wasted from too much drink and illness, his cynical eyes sad and hooded, stood beside them. Aunt Barbara, her only blood relative, had come. Her good-natured husband, John, and their rambunctious brood of six were also there.
    Yet, it was the sight of Fancy that stayed with Evelyn. She was heavily cloaked against the late winter chill, but Evelyn could still see her eyes large with loss, tendrils of short, dark hair escaping from under her hood. She walked down the length of the pier as the ship pulled out to sea. There she had stood, looking up at the deck and Evelyn’s mother, until she was lost to them in the mist and distance.
    Later that night, Evelyn overheard her parents talking. She had quickly discovered the ability to lurk unseen in the profound darkness of a ship’s deck at sea. The swells were large, but her parents braced easily against the rail. Her father had an arm around her