Where Serpents Sleep by C. S. Harris EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: C. S. Harris
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
MONDAY, 4 MAY 1812
The girl stared out the window, one hand sliding up and down her shawlcovered arm in a ceaseless, uneasy motion. Outside, a thick fog leached the
light from the dying day and muffled the sounds of the surrounding city.
“You don’t like the fog, do you?” Hero Jarvis asked, watching her.
They sat together in a pool of golden light thrown by the lamp on the
plain tea table where Hero had laid out her notebook, pen and ink, and the
standard list of questions she’d drawn up to ask. The girl jerked her gaze
back to Hero’s face. This one was older than some of the other prostitutes
Hero had interviewed, but still young, her face still smooth, her skin clear,
her green eyes sharp with intelligence. She said her name was Rose Jones,
although in Hero’s experience women in this business seldom gave their
true names.
“Who does like fog?” said Rose. “You can never tell what’s out there.”
The girl’s accent was disconcerting: pure Mayfair, without a trace of
Cockney or any country inflection. Studying the girl’s fine bone structure
and graceful bearing, Hero knew a flicker of interest mingled with
something both more personal and less admirable that she didn’t care to
examine too closely. How had this girl—surely no more than eighteen or
nineteen years old and so obviously gently born and bred—ended up here,
at the Magdalene House, a refuge run by the Society of Friends for women
who wished to leave prostitution?
Reaching for her pen, Hero dipped the tip into her inkwell and asked,
“How long have you been in the business?”
A bitter smile touched Rose’s lips. “You mean, how long have I been a
whore? Less than a year.”
It was said to shock. But Hero Jarvis was not the kind of woman who
shocked easily. At twenty-five years of age, she considered herself immune
to the excesses of sensibility that afflicted so many of her sex. She simply
nodded and went on to her next question. “What sort of work did you do
before?”
“Before? I didn’t do anything before.”
“You lived with your family?”
Rose tipped her head to one side, her gaze assessing the other woman in a
way Hero did not like. “Why are you here, asking us these questions?”
Hero cleared her throat. “I’m researching a theory.”
“What theory?”
“It is my belief that most women enter prostitution not because of some
innate moral weakness but out of economic necessity.”
A quiver of emotion crossed Rose’s face, her voice coming out harsh.
“What do you know about it? A woman like you?”
Hero set aside her pen and met Rose’s gaze without flinching. “Are we so
different?”
Rose didn’t answer. In the silence that followed, Hero could hear the
voices of the other women drifting up from downstairs, the clink of cutlery,
a quick burst of laughter.
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