Queen of Diamonds Read Online Free PDF Page B

resonated in her mind. She thought she might have known a boy named Andy or Endy at the orphanage, and surely there would have been a Jack or a John.
    She never had a pony. Molly wanted her to learn to ride, like a lady, but Queenie was afraid of horses, so never had. As for Dolly, she had disintegrated ages ago, and Queenie supposed half the girls in England named their toys Dolly.
    Then the man at the desk half fell off his chair. He declared interviews over for the day and rushed through the rear door, where Queenie could see a dark-haired man with a crooked nose sitting behind another desk.
    Queenie left.
    She tried again the next week, after a fruitless sennight of seeking a position with an established modiste in London. No one wanted her dress designs or her sewing skills, except for positions that paid little for long hours in deplorable conditions.
    This time she thought she spotted Ize near the club, but what business could he have there? She was unlucky again, for the interviewing office was closing for the day. A more forceful woman might have insisted that her information was important, that Captain Endicott would be relieved to hear her, but she supposed every one of the claimants to the heiress’s place said the same thing. She raised her veil to stare at the portrait again, before going.
    A few days later, Mrs. Pettigrew looked up from her morning chocolate and her newspaper and said, “Now isn’t that strange. We were just talking about that Cap’n Jack and his club, and now they had a fire there last night. No one was hurt, thank goodness. They think it might have been a disgruntled gambler who set it on purpose.”
    Queenie thought it was Ize, giving warning to her or to Captain Endicott. Gracious, now she was bringing more trouble to that poor family, when she only wanted to give them an end to their search and sorrow. She thought about sending a letter, but she felt that would be cruel, not being there to answer their questions, not taking responsibility for her unwitting complicity in their grief.
    She tried to call at the gaming parlor one more time, dressed in one of her colored gowns, with a veiled pink bonnet instead of the mourning black, in case Ize was watching. She paused outside the door to read a new broadsheet that was posted there, one Ize had not managed to tear down. This time the reward for information was higher, and more detailed. Now they were looking for a young woman of about nineteen, once known as Lady Charlotte Endicott, or Lottie, now possibly identified as Queenie.
    Great heavens, they were looking for her, naming her by name. Only that was not her name, nor was Charlotte or Lottie. She was nobody, a criminal through no fault of her own. She owed the Endicott family a debt beyond measure, but how could she hope to repay it from jail, if Ize did not kill her first if he suspected her intentions? Or he could cause more trouble at The Red and the Black, or Carde House in Grosvenor Square. She had the hackney coachman drive her past that mansion, while she debated what to do. The elegant town house was under renovation, and did not look the least familiar to her. How could it, when she was naught but an orphan?
    The Pettigrews were bound to see the new reward notice—and Valerie was constantly in need of money. Then too, some of the dressmakers where Queenie had applied for a position were bound to recall her distinctive name. She would be hunted down, turned in, arrested, if Ize did not get to her first.
    She had to leave. To go—where? She had funds, and she had ambitions. The war was over, and France was once again becoming the fashion capital of Europe. The dressmakers there were couturiers, not seamstresses and modistes who copied images from illustrations in magazines. Men were the designers in France, setting the styles for women everywhere. Queenie decided she would apprentice herself to one or another. Her French was impeccable, by her tutor’s