“But I hate for you to . . . to think ill of me.”

The matron gave a dry laugh. “Oh, my girl. You are new to this.”

“I am. Entirely.”

Setting down the quill and closing the ledger, the matron asked, “Was it force?”

“Pardon?” Evangeline asked, uncomprehending.

“Did a man force himself on you?”

“Oh. No. No.”

“It was love then, was it?” Sighing, the matron shook her head. “You’re learning the hard way, Miss Stokes, that there’s no man you can count on. No woman neither. The sooner you understand that, the better off you’ll be.”

She crossed the room and opened a cupboard, from which she pulled out two pieces of brown sackcloth, a wooden spoon, and a tin cup. After wrapping the spoon and cup in the cloth, she tied the bundle with twine, making a loop to hang from Evangeline’s bound hands. Then she took the candlestick from the desk and a ring of keys from a drawer and motioned for her to follow. “Here,” she said when they were in the hallway, “take this,” and handed her the glowing candle, which Evangeline held awkwardly, spilling hot wax on her thumbs, while the matron fastened the locks. The candle smelled strongly of tallow. Mutton fat, meaty and greasy. She recognized it from visits to poor parishioners with her father.

They made their way down the corridor, past the hissing lights, and descended the stairs. At the main entrance the matron turned left into an open courtyard. Evangeline followed her across the damp cobbles in the dark, trying not to slip, listening to the moaning of the harlots. She wanted to lift her skirts, but the handcuffs made it impossible. Her wet skirts slapped against her bare ankles. The candle illuminated only a few feet in front of them, the path behind swallowed by darkness. As they approached the other side of the courtyard, the cries grew louder.

Evangeline must have made a noise herself, a self-pitying whimper, perhaps, because the matron glanced over her shoulder and said, “You’ll get used to it.”

Down another flight of stairs, through a short corridor. The matron stopped in front of a black iron door with a cross-hatched grate in the top half and handed Evangeline the candle again. Selecting a key from the ring, she inserted it into three separate locks before opening the door into a dark hallway.

Evangeline paused, gagging at the foul odor. It evoked a long-ago memory: the killing room of the butcher shop in Tunbridge Wells, which she’d only entered once and vowed never to set foot in again. She couldn’t see the women in the cells, but she could hear them, muttering and groaning. The plaintive wail of an infant, coughing that sounded like a barking dog.

“Come along now,” the matron said.

Only the feeble glow from the candle lit their way down a narrow passageway, lined with cells on one side. There was a tap-tap-tapping as they passed, sticks against the iron grating on cell doors. Fingers touched Evangeline’s hair, grasped at her apron. She cried out and veered to the right, knocking her shoulder against the stone wall.