by Gaelen Foley
“Aye, why don’t you go make yer money on yer back?” yelled his companion. “Why hawk oranges when you can get more sellin‘ your pretty peaches!”
They roared like drunken Huns at their own hilarity.
“Shut up, you cretins!” she belted back in a rough-and-tumble tone that would have shocked her girls at Mrs. Hall’s. But really, rudeness was all that got through to such low, vulgar creatures. They interpreted good manners as weakness or cowardice—and it was imperative in her circumstances not to show fear.
“You don’t belong out here, Miss Prissy. Just a matter o‘ time till you’re some rich man’s ladybird.”
“I am a gentleman’s daughter!”
“Aye, you look like it in those rags.”
They guffawed and she glanced around in belated, ladylike embarrassment just in time to see little Tommy, the street sweep, nearly get run over by a hackney coach. His brother, Andrew, yanked him back by the scruff of the neck in the nick of time. Gasping at the close call, Bel stifled her exasperation.
“Andy! Tommy!” she called.
“Hallo, Miss Bel!” The roguish, underfed pair waved.
She beckoned them over. They nearly plunged out under the wheels of a dray cart, and when they reached her side of the street safely she scolded them to be more careful, then gave them each a few pennies and an orange. With a troubled countenance, she watched the two ragged youngsters scramble back to their post, Tommy peeling his orange while Andrew plied all his merry charm trying to persuade a passing gentleman in a top hat to let him sweep the crossing before him.
She had thought her lot was bad until she discovered these children. They were an inspiration to her, with their high hearts and happy-go-lucky spirits in spite of the hellish conditions they endured. The streets were crawling with them—homeless, shoeless, half-naked, and starved. She had only become aware of the true, horrifying scale of the problem one frigid night in January, when snow had covered London in the greatest blizzard in memory. While the rich had held a winter festival on the frozen Thames, she had gone looking for Andrew and Tommy with the intent of bringing them into her single-room lodgings in a ramshackle City tenement, at least to give them a roof over their heads. Searching everywhere, she had been at last directed by a surly girl to a dark building that looked like a deserted warehouse. Upon stepping inside, she had raised her lantern and beheld a mass of shivering children huddled together. There must have been seventy of them.
This was a flash house, Andrew had explained when she found him there. The youngster hadn’t needed to tell her what her adult reason instantly grasped—here, the boys were apprenticed as thieves, the girls as prostitutes. It had been the most shocking and horrible moment of her twenty-three years. Never in all her days as a refined country gentlewoman of Oxfordshire had she ever imagined such a nightmare.
The worst part of it was how little she could do to help. She didn’t have the arrogance to tell them not to steal when they were starving. The greater crime was the heartless penal code that would hang any child over seven for a theft of five paltry shillings. All she could do besides lend a hand at the relief societies was to give the little wretches affection, mind them as best she could, and nag them to go to church.
She saw Tommy drop a piece of his orange on the ground and quickly pick it up, brush it off with his grubby fingers, and pop it into his mouth. She heaved a sigh and turned away just as a flashy, all-too-familiar phaeton turned the corner and began rolling toward her.
Her face paled. Her empty stomach clenched and made a knot. She quickly bent down and heaved her basket up into her arms as the thunder of the horses’ hooves grew louder.
God, please don’t let him see me.
As she strained with the basket and began hurrying away, the sleek phaeton slowed to a halt alongside her, traces jingling. She clamped her jaw, realizing it would gratify her tormentor too much if she fled. Better to stand and hold her ground, unpleasant as their long war was. Turning slowly, she braced herself for battle as the flamboyantly dressed Sir Dolph Breckinridge leaped down from his equipage, his requisite cheroot dangling from the side of his mouth.
Abandoning his phaeton to his groom—who had a black eye—he swaggered toward her. He was tall, tanned, and sinewy, with short-cropped sandy hair. Grinning, the glowing-tipped cheroot clamped between his wolfish white teeth, he was the very picture of what she had taught her girls at Mrs. Hall’s to fear as A Nasty Man.
“Don’t come near me with that thing,” she warned.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered—today it amused him to obey her.
He tossed the cheroot carelessly onto the pavement and crushed it under one of his expensive champagne-polished boots, then stalked her slowly—just as he had for the past eight months. Since the early autumn of last year, Sir Dolph had been utterly, destructively obsessed with her. She had no idea why. Perhaps it was merely his nature to fix upon one object until he had captured or destroyed it. She only knew one thing for certain: Everything that had befallen her was his fault.
With a cold expression she turned away and walked on, carrying her basket of oranges. She could smell him coming after her. He always wore too much cologne.
“Going somewhere, my heart?”
Bel merely sent him a withering glare and turned to the passersby. “Oranges, here!”
His dashing smile widened, revealing his chipped tooth, the result of one of his countless brawls, as was his off-center nose.
Dolph was proud of his battle scars. Possessed of no sense of decorum whatsoever, he was wont to start pulling off his clothes at the slightest provocation in order to give anyone he met the chance to stand in awe of his illustrious scars. He was especially proud of the one that slanted across his muscled chest where a bear had once swiped him during a hunting trip in the Alps. Bel had seen the scar, God knew. He had shown it to her the first night they’d met, to her astonished humiliation, considering that they had been at a Hunt Ball. She only wished the bear had been more determined.
Dolph rubbed his hands together and feigned a shiver. “Chilly out here today. Bet you’re hungry.”
“Oranges! Sweet oranges, here, fresh from sunny Italy!”
“It’s your last chance to change your mind about going to Brighton with me. I leave tomorrow. There will be other ladies present, if that’s your concern.” He waited, but she continued to ignore him. “The Regent’s mistress is giving a rout at the farmhouse by the shore. Me and my friends are invited—”
“Oranges, a penny apiece!”
He growled in exasperation. “Of all the women in the world that I could have, doesn’t it mean anything to you that you’re the one I pick?”
“If you’re going to come and bother me every day, you could at least buy an orange.”
“A penny, right? Sorry, I don’t carry such small change,” he said with a short laugh. “Oranges give me hives and besides, why should I help you? You are a naughty thing, always running away from me. How much longer do you plan to put me off?”
“Until it works,” she muttered, carrying her basket down the street.
Following her, Dolph laughed with gusto. His groom led the phaeton’s team after them, following them down the street at a respectful distance.
Bel looked away in desperation, longing to catch a glimpse in the crowd of a scarlet uniform and then to see her darling, wayward Mick Braden marching toward her, come home from the war. Why, he was Captain Mick Braden now since his gallantry on the fields of France, she thought with a rush of pride in the cocksure young officer from her tiny home village of Kelmscot—the man she had more or less planned on marrying since she was sixteen.
“Bel, sweet, you’re a noble quarry, but it’s time to give up the game. You’ve proved yourself as resourceful as you’re stubborn, as clever as you are fair. Every move I’ve made, you’ve countered with admirable spirit. I applaud you. Now, for God’s sake, stop this nonsense and come home with me. You’re disgracing yourself.”
&n
bsp; “It is honest work,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Oranges, here!”
“Do you doubt my affection?”
“Affection?” She turned to him and set down her basket so harshly the oranges rolled about. “Look what you’ve done to me and my father. When you care for someone, you don’t ruin their life!”
“I took that life away from you so I could give you a better one! I’m going to make you a countess, you thankless chit.”
“I don’t want to be a countess, Dolph. I only want you to leave me alone.”
“Oh, I’m so sick of you and your airs,” he sneered, grasping her arm. “You are mine. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Let go of me this instant.”
His grip tightened with raw power. “Nothing is going to stop me from winning you in time, Bel. Can’t you see? My actions prove my love.”
“Your actions prove you are selfish beyond imagining.”
His eyes narrowed to angry slashes. “Be fair—”
“Fair?” she cried as he released her arm. She jerked back. “You had my poor father thrown in the Fleet. You got me fired from the finishing school. We lost our house!”
“And you can have it all back—just like that!” He snapped his leather-gloved fingers, staring lecherously at her. “Just surrender. Say you’ll be my wife. You can’t win this one, Bel. It’s not as though my offer is improper— anymore,” he added with a slight sulk.
“You are supposed to marry Lord Coldfell’s daughter.”
“What would I do with a feebleminded deaf-mute for a wife? I daresay I deserve better than that.”
“Dolph, that is unkind. You know I am engaged to Captain Braden,” she said, stretching the truth just a bit, because their long understanding wasn’t an actual, formal betrothal.
“Braden! Don’t say that name to me. He is nothing! He’s probably dead.”
“He’s alive. I saw the list in the Times after Toulouse.”
“Then where is he, Bel? Where is your hero? In Paris? Celebrating King Louie’s return with the French whores? Because I don’t see him here, if he loves you so much.”
“He’s coming,” she said with far more conviction than she felt.
“Good, because I can’t wait to meet the chap and thrash him. You’re not marrying him.”
“Well, I’m not marrying you. I know too well what you are.” With her basket tucked under her arm, she lifted her chin and walked on.
“Oh, you are a proud wench,” he said with a quick, dangerous sneer, but he schooled it to a taut, angry smile. “Very well. You still refuse to submit to me. Not today. Not yet. But soon.”
“Never. You are wasting your time.”
“Sweet, foolish, beautiful Miss Hamilton.” His gaze moved possessively over her body. “You claim to know my nature. Don’t you see that the more you run away, the more lusty I grow for the chase?”
She took a backward step, gripping an orange, half prepared to hurl it at him to drive him off.
With a gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his lips, Dolph took out another cheroot. “Until next time, sweet. I’ll be in Brighton for several weeks, but rest assured, I will be back.” He lit the cheroot, blew the smoke at her, then turned and climbed back up into his phaeton. With a roar, he whipped his cowering horses into an instantaneous gallop.
Flinching at the crack of leather, she stood at bay until his fancy phaeton had rolled away. The two costermongers across the way shouted mocking names at her that she was learning to dread with a whole new understanding. She ignored them, swallowed hard, and glanced down the street, praying to catch a glimpse of a smart red uniform, but there was still no sign of her rescuer yet.
After she had sold the rest of her oranges, it was time for her daily visit to Papa at the Fleet, where he had been incarcerated since Christmas for a debt of a little over three thousand pounds. The walk to the hulking, redbrick prison on Faringdon Street was long and chilly, and with every step, Bel fretted over the holes in her kid half boots. She dreamed as she walked of the snug, cozy, rose-covered cottage where she had lived in Kelmscot, a quaint village on the Thames a few miles outside Oxford.
Her father was a gentleman scholar and admittedly a bit of an eccentric. Alfred Hamilton liked nothing better than to while away his days poring over the ancient illuminated manuscripts that were his passion, or haunting nearby Oxford University’s awe-inspiring Bodleian Library. Papa and she had lived a quiet, placid life that moved at the stately pace of the river, but then Dolph had come along and bullied their creditors into prosecuting her father for his unpaid debts. Papa had always been absentminded about such things. Bel tried to mind financial matters in their household, but, like a guilty child, her father had concealed from her just how seriously he had compromised the family finances with his uncontrollable fervor for snatching up any illuminated manuscripts that crossed his path. Ergo, he soon landed in the Fleet.
Moving hastily to London to be near him, Bel had found work at Mrs. Hall’s posh finishing school in the hopes of mitigating their troubles, but then Dolph had contrived to have her dismissed. He had wanted her helpless and bereft of resources so she would have no choice but to turn to him for help. She shook her head to herself as she walked. That she would never do.
As the Fleet’s huge, arched entrance came into sight between the towering walls of the prison yard, she grew nervous and began mentally rehearsing her plea to the warden to extend her just a fortnight’s credit, at which time she could pay her father’s chamber fees in full.
Doubt gnawed her as she trudged toward the huge front doors. Realistically, she knew the chances were slim that any plea of hers would move the lumbering, scar-faced man. The Lord Himself writhing on the cross probably could not have moved the warden of the Fleet, who had been hardened, she’d heard, by years of overseeing prisons in the convict colony of New South Wales. He had even managed women’s prisons, it was said, so she expected no chivalrous treatment based on her status as a Lady of Quality.
The various jailers and guards knew her from her daily visits. One of them conducted her through the long, rectangular lobby. As they neared the warden’s office, she heard his deep, rough voice through the open door as he matter-of-factly abused one of his subordinates, citing codes and regulations like a true petty tyrant. She trembled at the thought of having to throw herself on the mercy of such a man.
As the guard led her past the office, the warden’s colorless eyes, devoid of emotion, flicked to her. He was standing behind his desk, a big, square, brawny man with skin as weathered and tanned as a saddle. He had a whitish-pink scar that scored his brow and cheek and ran all the way down to his jaw. A ponderous ring of keys hung by the pistol and bludgeon at his belt. He nodded to her as she passed, then she could feel his gaze following her.
She shuddered as the guard led her up to her father’s cell, though she knew the way herself by now. Arriving before the solid wood door, she wearily gave the guard the necessary coin. He pocketed it with a greasy smile, then turned the key and admitted her.
When she walked in, she found her father, Alfred Hamilton—dreamer, violin player, medieval scholar—in a state of absorption, poring over one of the rare and precious manuscripts that had landed him in debtor’s prison. His round spectacles were perched on his nose. His snow white hair, wild and woolly, stuck out in all directions from under his beloved velvet fez.
“Hello?” she called in amusement.
At her greeting, he looked up in surprise, startled back into the present century. Then his lined, rosy-cheeked face broke out in a wreath of smiles, as though he had not just seen her yesterday and the day before that.
“What light through yonder window breaks? Why, it’s Lindabel!”
“Oh, Papa.” She strode in and hugged him. He had called her Lindabel since she was knee high and it was typical of him, since he seemed to do everything backwards. He sat down on his stool again. She stood beside him and affectionately patted his shoulder. “How are they treatin
g you today? Have you had your dinner?”
“Yes, a mutton stew. I fear I shall turn Irish with all the mutton I eat,” he exclaimed, clapping his thigh as he chuckled. “How I should love a good English steak. Ah, beef stew and a clutch of dinner rolls like you used to make—heaven!”
“Well, if turning Irish is the extent of your woes, I’m glad. You seem in good spirits.”
“Always, my dear, always, though not everyone around here can say the same. Why, just this afternoon, I went down into the courtyard and saw so many long faces that I took my violin and entertained the whole block with airs from the North country. Soon some even took to cutting a reel. I don’t mind telling you I received a rousing ovation!”
“Well done!” she said, laughing. She knew old Alfred had charmed most of the guards and all the other prisoners with his buoyant, gentle nature, his violin playing, and his tales of ancient chivalry, of dragons and knights and maidens fair, all of which helped to while away the hours of endless ennui for those imprisoned here.
For now, he had the stronger prisoners and some of the kinder guards looking out for him, but the Fleet was no gentleman’s club, and her gentlemanly father had never been exposed to such a place before. With such thoughts weighing almost constantly on her mind, her laughter ebbed away.
He lowered his spectacles on his nose and peered at her. “Now, now, I know that look. You mustn’t worry over me, little damsel. The clouds will part. They always do. You just look after yourself and your young charges. Teaching is the noblest profession in the civilized world. Mind you, after your silly debutantes have finished their proper posture and walking lessons, tell them it never killed any young lady to remove the book from off the top of her head and open it for a change. Just like I taught you.”
“Yes, Papa.” She looked away.
Her father was a hopeless optimist, but surely he would not be so cheerful if she had not kept the truth from him. Determined not to worry him, she had been keeping up appearances, putting on a brave face. She had not told him of her unjust dismissal from Mrs. Hall’s.