Once he was out on the street, he reeled his way toward another few whistled bars of “Parson Hollis,” staving off the instinct to run. When he made it to the end of the street, Blythe's small face peeked around the corner of a public-house and he went to join her.
"Are you all right? What's happening? Are you hurt, did you find..." Thomas’ voice trailed off as he stared in shock.
Blythe looked hale and hearty, thank the gods, but he hadn't been expecting the four girls behind her. They seemed to range in age from ten to sixteen. The tallest one held the two youngest close to her body, while the fourth girl, a dark red birthmark on her face, stood with her shoulders squared and a rock in each hand, as if she was ready to batter him to the ground the moment he offered her or her friends harm. The fear on their faces made his heart wrench.
"Well, I can see that you've been busy."
Blythe grinned. "So have you. Come on. We need to find a hack to hire so we can get these girls someplace safe."
* * *
In the end, it took less time than Thomas had feared. Constables wouldn't go down into the Dials, but coachmen could not afford to be so picky. The public houses had standing agreements with the hacks, and in less than twenty minutes, all six of them were loaded into a coach that smelled rather unfortunately of old pork and turnips. However, there were stiff baize curtains to draw over the small windows, and though it was dark, everyone breathed a sigh of relief to be safely out of sight.
Thomas decided to wait until he was alone with Blythe for the story. In the darkness, he could hear more than one girl sniffle, and he wondered what they had gone through.
"The people we're taking you to are very good," Blythe assured the girls. "They'll take care of you, feed you, and make sure that you find some kind of safe harbor."
"We have heard that before," said the oldest girl. Thomas was surprised to hear a trace of a Russian accent in her voice. "That is what they tell me when I come here as maid. Then, I am locked in chains, and I never see the light."
Chains? A hot rill of anger ran down Thomas’ spine.
"I know you have. And if you want to leave, if you have people you can get back to, I will do everything I can to get you there," Blythe told her.
The girl's head dropped. "There is no one."
Blythe reached over to squeeze the Russian girl's hand. "Believe me, this is not the first time I've heard that. My friends are Quakers, and they will help you. I don't know what form that help might take for each of you specifically, but you need never be locked up in a cellar and chained again."
The girl with the birthmark, Rose, reached for the Russian girl's other hand. "Maybe we can all go live with my ma. Miss, you said she was safe and living well?"
"I did, though I don't know much. She's in service in a house up north, but she says the people she's with are very kind. Perhaps something might be worked out; we shall explore all the options."
The Abeggs were not ready for them this time, but there was only a second of surprise before the girls were ushered inside and the lady of the house, a woman as gray and kind as her husband, led them to the kitchen to give them some food.
"And how is Honey?"
Thomas turned around to find Blythe speaking quietly with Mr. Abegg.
"Frightened and angry many days. She is learning the extent of what was taken from her, and she has some very dark moments. She is strong, however, and I believe she will come through the storm to a harbor."
"Please let her know she can write me, and I will always respond, Mr. Abegg. Thank you for taking in these girls."
Back out on the street, Blythe took Thomas’ hand as if they had been doing it for years.
"Feels like we've been here before," Thomas commented.
She smiled. "Well, why tamper with a perfect situation? Are you going to walk me all the way home since you sent away the hack?"
"We've hours before dawn yet. I was thinking we could get some food. I don't know about you but housebreaking and the liberation of slaves always leaves me feeling fair famished.”
"Where in the world are we going to get food at this hour?"
Thomas grinned.
* * *
The Glass Palace had the sort of reputation as a place where London gentlemen took their country friends when said friends wanted to see some excitement without danger. Thomas had outgrown the place years ago, and he'd never come back at all if they didn't have one of the best roast beef sandwiches he'd ever eaten.
In a small private room at the back of the gambling hell, Thomas and Blythe sat at a table that was barely bigger than a large atlas, the remnants of two large sandwiches between them. Thomas was impressed by how much Blythe had managed to put away before she gave up.
"It's so good, I just want another bite. But I'm afraid if I do, something inside me will pop."
"That's normal. Give it a few minutes, and maybe your belly will settle down enough for you to have a little more."
"It's just so good. Why do they have food this good here, where only the gentlemen can get at it? I've never had anything this good at a ladies' luncheon."
"I'm sure I couldn't tell you, Blythe."
Thomas leaned back in his chair. Blythe’s hair was too fiercely pinned in place to dare come down, but tendrils escaped to frame her pretty face. Her gray dress was rumpled, and an unlikely smudge of mustard high on her cheek made her utterly adorable. She looked as if she were being held up by the power of the Glass Palace's roast beef sandwich alone. She looked beautiful.
"You're staring."
"I am."
"I feel as if I should tell you to stop it."
"But you're not going to?"
"I'm too tired to do anything besides hope I can have more of this sandwich. And I still have to think about getting home before it gets light out."
"This place keeps hacks in business. There will be one outside when we need it. We have plenty of time."
"Time to do what?"
"What in the hell are you doing, Blythe?"
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, without turning her head. "I suppose you're speaking more of the housebreaking and less of the wanting to eat more sandwich."
"Well, if it were actually housebreaking, I would understand it. Maybe not condone it, though depending on who it was from, I might. But you're coming down to the London stews to... what? Help those who can't help themselves? Free every single abused woman from shackles?"
"Would it be so bad if I were? These women are in need, Thomas. Some of them might actually be dead if I wasn't—"
"You're not doing this out of the goodness of your heart."
Blythe shrugged. "It would be a better story if I was, wouldn't it? Missionary by day, the avenger of hurt women by night. I seem to have fallen into the business of helping those who can't help themselves, but that is not why I started."
"So, why did you start?"
"I assumed being a Martin, you might have guessed."
"Not yet, anyway."
"I was bored. I was so, so bored. When I was a little girl, all I wanted to do was have adventures. I played at pirates and explorers and big game hunters with the other children, and then they... just stopped. They were happy to do what their parents had done before them and to never go beyond the confines of the village. I couldn't stand that."
"So, you became a missionary?"
"Not exactly. I've never felt a calling or wanted to spread the word of God to the savage places of the world. I figure those places have gotten along just fine without me, so why change a good thing?"
"Wise."
"But the old missionary lady who lived in our village, she had been to the most amazing places. She never married or had a family, but she went to Peru, Shanghai, and Australia. She had shelves full of these beautiful and strange things she had brought back from her travels, and every month, it seemed, she would receive a pack of letters from the most exotic lands."
"Sounds like she led a full life.”
<
br /> "It was more than that, although I think just about anyone would be lucky enough to have as many wonderful experiences as she had. She often said that if arthritis hadn't gotten into her hip and her feet, she would be seeing the world still."
"And that's what you want?"
"Yes. From the time I was young, what I wanted most was to have an adventure. It was true when my parents were alive, and it was true even after I moved in with the Carrows after they died. Well-brought-up young women do not have adventures."
"That must have been a letdown for you."
Despite her exhaustion and full belly, Blythe lifted her chin and gave him a rather severe look.
"It was a letdown until I figured out how I could do it myself. I could be a missionary, and then no one would stop me. They might not be happy about letting a girl explore her world, but when she puts on drab clothing and says very earnestly that she is doing it for piety's sake, they stop asking so much."
"So, you came up with a disguise that let you have the life you wanted. And no one has ever caught you."
She hesitated. "Not until you showed up."
A world of meaning laced that comment, and Thomas couldn't stop himself from reaching over and taking her hand. For a moment, it seemed as if she would surely pull away, but then she squeezed his fingers gently.
“Blythe.”
“Yes, Thomas?”
“I'm afraid I am going to have to kiss you now.”
She looked startled, but she maintained that deep composure she always had. “I see. I am not going to stop you.”
Thomas laughed at her primness and leaned in. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck, which felt warmer than usual, as if she were fevered, and her eyes fluttered closed as he came close. God, he had never felt like this before, and the need to kiss her laced through him like a poison.
She was still at first as he kissed her, but when she parted her lips and her little tongue came out to brush against his, Thomas felt his body shudder with a burning, shattering need for her. Somehow, he tugged her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist as they kissed and kissed.
She must have felt the way his body responded to her. She gasped a little, shifting, which only made things worse, but she didn't pull away. Thomas was intoxicated by her closeness, by how warm and sweet and lovely she was. She tasted like heaven and roast beef, and he grinned into the kiss.
“God, you're beautiful, Blythe.”
His words seemed to break the spell, and she pulled away from him. For a moment, she looked like a woman who might not say no if he urged her on, but then she shook out her skirts and pulled on her missionary look again, albeit she was a rather rumpled missionary.
“Thank you. But I think we'd better leave things there, don't you?”
Thomas sighed. “You're probably right. I just don't agree with you at all.”
* * *
11
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CHAPTER
ELEVEN
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In the hack Thomas hired to send her home, Blythe couldn't calm her mind from the events of the past few hours. She thought of the girls and what they had endured and of Rose finally being reunited with her mother.
More and more, however, her thoughts were overlaid with what she was feeling for Thomas and what a disaster that was proving to be. She had always understood that if she was going to get the life she craved, she had to make sure men stayed out of it. Missionary wives were still subservient to their husbands, and a husband, in general, could end her adventures with a single word.
Even worse, Thomas was a Martin, and she knew what that meant. The ancestral feud between the Martins and the Carrows was the stuff of legend, with roots extending so far into the past that no one was quite sure what had really happened. The feud was no longer actually bloody, which was a good thing, but she had Carrow blood running in her veins, and she shivered to think of what Tristan or even kind Ned would think about what she was doing. If they had seen the last part of the evening, they might have called him out.
But... perhaps Thomas wouldn't be so bad?
She couldn't stop the tide of warm sensations she got whenever she thought about him. Certainly, this past evening's expedition would have been an outright disaster if he hadn't been there.
Blythe had been dead certain she was going to get caught when she heard the noise of someone rising from their bed above. She would be caught and exposed, possibly even arrested, and the girls would have been moved to a hiding place until the coast was clear. Then they would have been in an even worse situation with even less chance of escape, if Thomas hadn't stepped in.
As the hack rumbled through the still-dark streets, it occurred to Blythe that what Thomas had done with the man keeping the girls was in some ways very similar to what she had been doing for years. He played a part, he distracted, and he made sure to get what he wanted, no matter what someone else thought of him.
Was it a Martin trait, she wondered, or was it something unique to Thomas?
He's like me. A slight blush came to her cheeks. She pushed the thought away hard, because not only was that thinking silly, it was downright dangerous. Thomas could do what he liked because he was the son of a peer—wealthy, independent, loved, and tolerated by a Society that might tut at his fun but, in general, saw him as someone to admire and emulate. What she had, she had only because she was determined and willing to risk it all rather than live a dull life where she could predict every moment from the birth of her first child to her death. Thomas had acted for less than a quarter of an hour. She had to keep up this act every moment someone could see her.
No, it was ridiculous to think of Thomas Martin being anything to her at all. Now that he understood her, they probably weren't going to see each other again, and she had to be all right with it. It had been amazing having a partner for this evening, but it had been a limited engagement at best.
The hack dropped her off at the mouth of the alley that ran behind the houses off Grosvenor Square. It was still dark, but she could hear the servants beginning to move and start their day's work. Blythe was so tired she could almost fall over, and the worst part was that at eleven, she had a brunch to take with a ladies' aid society. Perhaps, if she went inside and went right to sleep, she might look a little less dead for the meeting...
Blythe had stolen one of the spare keys for the servants' entrance years ago. She'd used it since she came to live in London without anyone being the wiser. That was why, when she saw Tristan waiting for her at the still-empty kitchen table, her breath caught in her throat.
"What the hell have you been doing?" Tristan growled.
* * *
Seated in Tristan’s library again, Blythe did her best to keep her eyes downcast and her shoulders hunched, apparently humble. Tristan had dragged her into the library after she'd tried to stutter out an explanation, and then he had locked the door behind them.
Her mind raced, wondering how he had caught her out, what he was going to do, and most importantly, how she should play this off.
"Tristan, I know how this must look..."
"Do you? Do you know what it looks like when I realize you are not sleeping in your bed the way I assumed you were? Do you know what it feels like to realize that someone you have lived with since you were thirteen has been playing you for a fool?"
Blythe flinched, looking down at the floor. She might have thought many things about Tristan, but he was no fool, and underneath Tristan's anger was a thread of real hurt and confusion in his voice.
She almost told him the truth. He was her cousin, and she had grown up with him. Years ago, when they'd been visiting relatives in the country, he had saved her from drowning. He'd always been there for her, him and Ned both. They'd comforted her and loved her like a sister when she’d had no comfort in the world after her parents died.
/>
For a single moment, Blythe thought he might understand what she was going through, why she did the things she did.
"What in the hell were you doing in Seven Dials?"
Blythe's jaw dropped open, and she stared at him. Something dark and remorseless lit her cousin's eyes, and if she did not know him so well, she would have been afraid. Hell, perhaps she should be afraid, because this Tristan bore very little resemblance to the boy she had grown up with.
"How did you know I was in Seven Dials?"
Belatedly, it occurred to her that perhaps she should have lied, but she had a feeling that Tristan would have been even more enraged if he'd caught her lying.
"I didn't like that you were so defenseless when Amory showed up in our alley, so I had Eckerts keep an eye on you when you were out of the house."
"The... the groom? You had one of the grooms watching me when I was out and about?"
"I thought I was protecting you, and apparently, it was warranted! One of the carriage horses needed to be watched for colic last night, and he saw you leave through the back. He followed you, and he only returned when he realized you were heading into Seven Dials. Blythe, a grown man was too afraid to venture into that neighborhood, and yet you entered as if it were home. That's what he told me." Tristan paused. "Is it true?"
Blythe was still reeling from the fact that her cousin had had her followed as if she was a straying woman in a cheap novel. "You had the groom follow me? Tristan, why would you?"
"Apparently, it was necessary! Otherwise, I would never have found out that my cousin, my ward, is going into the worst slums London has to offer."
"It doesn't matter! You can't just hire a man to watch my every movement!"
The Marquess' Angel_Hart and Arrow_A Regency Romance Book Page 8