Read Online Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] by The Impostor - Free Book Online Page B

existed.
    Her room was a bare pallet in a corner of the attic, one much colder than the Trapp attic. The master of the house, Mr. Wadsworth, was a skinflint of the highest order and only allowed a single fire at a time—in whichever room of the house was occupied by him, naturally.
    Rose’s dinner was often nothing but a crust, and she was worked from before dawn to long after the sun set.
    Clara didn’t learn all that in one night, of course. That first encounter was merely the inspiration for a permanent bargain with the willing Rose. Clara “paid” Rose to let her take her place once a week or so, thus overcoming the girl’s unwillingness to take charity, and in return Clara had the priceless opportunity to view the underbelly of “good” Society.
    She’d tried to draw her brother-in-law’s attention to the problems that Rose faced, hoping to get her hired away from Mr. Wadsworth, but Oswald Trapp had only patted her head and chuckled that she ought not to think about such unfortunate things, for he surely never allowed himself to.
    So Clara had taken her cause to the
London Sun
, submitting her first scathing drawing of Mr. Wadsworth under the facetious nom de plume Sir Thorogood.
    The cartoon had been printed immediately, as had every one succeeding it. Eventually it had occurred to Clara to ask for payment.
    She’d donned a servant’s simple dress and had hand-carried the next packet of drawings to the news-sheet herself, along with a note from Sir Thorogood naming his fee. She’d thought perhaps there would then be a process of bargaining down, since she doubted that the drawings were terribly valuable.
    Instead, Gerald Braithwaite had paid without protest and had sent a note back stating that if Sir Thorogoodwas of a mind to do so, the paper would be happy to buy the drawings in greater quantity, enough to print one every other day.
    Now, as she watched a much-improved Rose enjoying her chocolate and cakes, it occurred to Clara that she had almost realized her dream. Under her bed there was a box brimming with banknotes, someday to be enough to live on comfortably, if not luxuriously, for the rest of her life.
    It was an intimidating goal, one that she often despaired of reaching. Then she would remember the people that she had helped with her investigations, such as the children in the orphanage that Lord Mosely had been systematically cheating. And dear Rose, who would be the first person she would hire should she ever reach her goal.
    “Well, I must be getting to work,” she said cheerily. “I’ll be late, so do sleep here where it’s warm. I’ll wake you when I come back.”
    Rose nodded. “Yes, miss. I thanks you for the seed cakes.”
    “Nonsense, you’ve earned them. I could never do my job without your help.” Clara rose and squeezed her way through the gap. “Keep the candle, I do fine in the dark,” she called through the hole, then fitted the plank back into place.
    At the far end of Wadsworth’s attic was the trunk where Clara hid her costume. She dressed by the faint gleam of light that came from the street lamps of the square through the large window in the eaves.
    Thankfully, the window was far too grimy to see through, she thought. Then she laughed at herself.
    The attic was four floors up. There would scarcely be anyone out there to see!
    Dalton found himself clinging to the highest ledge of Wadsworth’s house, grinning fiercely at the night and thinking that this was much more the thing. This was what he had wanted when he’d stepped down from the Royal Four—this feeling of being completely alive.
    Around him, the quiet square slumbered but for a few lighted windows, and the incoming fog turned those into blurred rectangles of gold. He could likely dance a reel on the rooftops and no one would ever spot him.
    Swiftly he crept along the ledge. There was a large square of glass panels set into the first slant of roof. The center panel would open, he’d noted from the