Free The Devil She Knows by Diane Whiteside Page A

questions put to us. It is not our duty to make up statements from whole cloth.”
    â€œYour absence from the proceedings will be noted,” Portia pointed out gently and started to wind the watch. “It will probably cause considerable gossip in his lordship’s circles and may darken his lordship’s mood, something I don’t want you to suffer.”
    â€œWe all know you’ve taken the brunt of that upon yourself whenever possible, your ladyship!” little Maisie burst out, startling the entire group by a housemaid’s temerity in interrupting such an august gathering.
    â€œIf you’ll pardon me for speaking so frankly,” she added, dipping her head. Jenkins, the under-groom, gently nudged her and she grabbed his elbow like a lifebelt. “But you’ve always been kind to all of us, learned our names, made our schedules easy as pie whenever possible.” Maisie’s eyes shone with tears and sincerity under her pleated cap. “It wouldn’t be right to make you bear the full burden now.”
    â€œHis lordship has already made it clear he expects his staff to testify according to whatever script he writes, including the details of the adultery committed by any staff member with your ladyship.” Winfield’s voice dripped poison for all its quiet, astonishing in a butler with thirty years service under the same family.
    â€œThere will be a divorce and St. Arles must have witnesses to my so-called adultery.” Portia forced her voice around the knot in her throat. Duty, honor—all virtue demanded a price. Hadn’t Gareth taught her that? “If you do not speak, his lordship will be forced to hire a correspondent, paid to swear he’d committed adultery with me—”
    â€œNo true man—” Jenkins muttered under his breath but Maisie kicked him hard in the shins.
    â€œPlus witnesses to this adultery,” Portia finished. “Spending money for what he must certainly consider disloyalty will anger him greatly. Are you and the other servants certain you wish to do this?”
    â€œMy lady, you have always been a most true and faithful mistress. We will keep faith with you by becoming very slow-witted when asked about you. And forgetful,” Mrs. Russell proclaimed firmly. “Certainly we would never speak a lie.”
    â€œEven if that means being turned off and being sent to live with the lowest of the low in Spitalfields,” Winfield added.
    â€œAll of us who know you, both here in town and at St. Arles Castle, have sworn to it,” completed Maisie and Jenkins.
    The four of them stood shoulder to shoulder facing her, like knights of old ready to ride into battle. Their plan might just work.
    â€œOh my dear friends, how much you’ve lifted my heart.” How few friends she had left, except for her family. Gareth was lost to her since her wedding, since nobody spoke to her of him.
    She fastened the exquisite bit of jewelry around her neck.
    â€œWhile I’m sure it would never come to Spitalfields for you, I’ll always be willing to do anything I can for all of you.” It was the very least she could do for them.

Chapter Eleven
    London, November 1885
    L ight sliced across Portia’s eyes, sharp and fast as an executioner’s axe after the holding room’s darkness. She flinched and her gloved hand lost its deathly tight grip on the banister. Her foot slipped on the narrow tread. An agonizingly long moment later, her heel finally thudded onto another stair’s ragged wooden edge.
    A splinter cracked and broke off underneath. A chill breeze teased her skirts and petticoats then tried to slither up her wobbling ankles to terrorize her legs and her heart. Twenty feet below, a pair of gaslights buzzed before the door to one of London’s most notorious prisons.
    But she wasn’t a criminal and her freedom lay ahead, no matter how high the price. Besides, she was damned—what