"The Household" by Stacey Halls

An audio book set in Charles Dickens' time. Angela, the youngest of 6 children, inherited £500,000. For a decade she's been hounded by a solitor, William Dunne, who's just coming out of prison again. She has police protection - a bodyguard sometimes.

2 girls, about to be released from a house for fallen women, are invited to join a new establishment funded by Angela. Dickens interviews them - he's on the board. Urania cottage is no bigger than a family house. 10 girls are planned to stay. Mrs Holdsworth runs it. She thinks the girls (who won't be allowed out) will be bored. Her son Frank is a policeman. The girls are not allowed to talk about their past. They're given music lessons. One of them absconds, but Frank finds her and brings her back. One of the girls in the house dies suddenly - pregnancy complications. Polly's parents aggressively try to get Polly out, against her will.

Martha wants to go to Australia, but first wants to find out what happened to her sister Emily. Martha learns that Mrs Holdsworth's son and grandchildren died in a house fire. Josephine leaves to live with Anne at Anne's sister's - free if they look after the 5 children. After a while they move out. Josephine starts picking pockets and whoring to get rent money. Her relationship with Anne is fading. She goes to stay with Mrs T. Her job is collect money - from tenants?

Angela fears that Dunne has a compromising letter from her to Charles (her best friend, a Duke old enough to be her grand father). She suggests to Charles a marriage of convenience. He rejects her.

Martha elopes with the chaplain (who's much older than her). Angela sacks Mrs Holdsworth, who says the job's too hard for one person. It's discovered by Angela that the chaplain's an imposter - Dunne! Martha's puzzled that her husband has letters sent between Angela and Dunne.

Josephine, who has a scarred face, finds where Emily is - a brothel where a girl's virginity is put up for auction. She and Frank try to get her out. There's violence.

A note at the end mentions that Dicken was involved with such a project for a decade. There's a Martha in "David Copperfield".