An Unwilling Earl

by Sharon Cullen

  She scoffed. “Hardly.”

  “Miss Morris simply walked away and never came back?” He hardly blamed the girl if she’d been forced to live with this woman.

  “I don’t know what happened to her, Mr. Baker. That is why I am here to hire you.”

  “You cannot hire me when my services are not for sale.”

  She pressed her lips together, and deep lines gathered around them. “Name your price.”

  She was truly something, wasn’t she? To people like her, people like him always had a price.

  “Why me?” he asked. “Surely, a woman with a strong constitution like yourself would have done your research, and you would know that this type of work is not what I do.”

  “I have done my research, and you came highly recommended from Sir John Lewis.”

  Jacob paused. Sir John Lewis was a meticulous barrister, well respected, with a fine reputation in the law community. Jacob had worked with him on several cases, and he felt a touch of warmth that Lewis would recommend him for anything. But how in the world did Lewis know this woman?

  “He was an acquaintance of my late husband’s,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “He said you would be the best person to help me.”

  Jacob didn’t want to turn down anything that had John Lewis’s name attached to it, but he felt uneasy about this woman.

  “What do you think happened to Miss Morris?” he asked, glancing at the sketch again.

  Those eyes.

  “I don’t know.”

  He thought of the women pulled from the Thames, sans head and hands.

  “There have been…” He cleared his throat. “Some unfortunate events these past few weeks. Women found—”

  “The dead women. I know what you’re speaking of. And you think my niece could be a victim?”

  He’d been reluctant to broach the subject for fear of frightening her. He should not have been. This woman had to be made from steel. Or she was curiously without any compassion or feeling, for her question indicated interest, not concern or horror.

  “There is that possibility,” he said softly, with a strange pang that such a beautiful girl’s life could be so brutally snuffed out.

  “If I thought that I wouldn’t be sitting here, would I, Mr. Baker?”

  He looked at her, surprised at her cold tone.

  “I suppose not, Lady Morris.”

  “So, you will help me?”

  He glanced at the drawing again.

  What happened to Charlotte Morris? A lover? A lover’s spat? An argument with the hard, cold woman sitting before him?

  But he pushed all of that from his mind. Even if he wanted to take this case he couldn’t. He had the earldom’s books to go over, the widow and her daughter to meet. He had so much to learn about his new life that taking this on would not be fair to Lady Morris nor Miss Morris.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Morris, but I can’t take this on. Finding people is not my specialty. You should hire a professional.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, and he bit back a smile. Did she think that she could change his mind just by glaring at him? Did she think that she could walk into his office, his home, and dictate his actions? Tell him what to do? Demand he be her servant?

  He suppressed a shudder at the thought of working for her, but a bit of remorse lodged next to the anxiety of his new life. He really would have liked to have had the opportunity to find Miss Morris, even if it was just to get the chance to meet her and see those eyes in real life.

  He stood and looked down on Lady Morris until she had no choice but to stand as well, else things become awkward. She lifted her pointy chin as she rose.

  “I will leave the drawing and pray you change your mind,” she said. “You know where to find me.”

  Actually, he didn’t know where to find her, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Instead he nodded.

  Jacob listened to her make her way through the entryway and out the front door. He stepped to the window and watched through the rain streaming down the outside glass, the wavy form of the tall, thin woman as she hurried through the rain, umbrella nearly useless, and climbed into a waiting carriage.

  He waited until the carriage pulled away before turning back to his desk and looking down into the eyes of Miss Charlotte Morris.

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte kept her fingers firmly folded around the remaining bit of the coin that the kind gentleman had given her a few days before. She had been frugal with her sudden windfall, choosing to spend it wisely on food for her and Suzette. But she was down to the last of it, and tonight would be the final night they ate like royalty. Not that royalty ate greasy meat pies from street vendors.

  She looked around furtively, afraid every tramp, every pickpocket and thief she passed knew she had money in her pocket.

  The nice gentleman who had rescued her from the horse’s hooves had given it to her like it had been nothing to him. But it was everything to her.

  She’d not had money of her own since her beloved papa died four years ago. The man’s generosity represented far more than just money in her pocket. It was food when she had been starving. It was kindness in the face of hostility. It was compassion when she’d experienced far too much cruelty.

  A hot meal, he had said. The words had struck a chord in her, and she’d wanted to cry but hadn’t dared. Not in front of him.

  She’d been hurrying across the street when her foot had caught on a loose cobblestone and down she’d gone, startling the horse she’d been trying to dodge. She’d thought that was it. Her life was over. And the thought hadn’t been nearly as horrible as one would think. It had been a bit of a relief to know that all of her worries would cease.

  But the handsome gentleman had yanked her up by her arm. The horse’s hooves had come down with a loud clatter, and she had not been under them. To her horror she’d been sprawled on top of her rescuer. She’d jumped up as fast as she could. Hopefully, he had not realized that his hands were touching bound breasts. Good Lord, but that would have been very, very bad.

  Still clutching the last of her coin, Charlotte slipped down an alley, mind alert, looking for trouble lurking in the shadows. It was getting on to nightfall, and she wanted to be in her lodgings before the sun fully set, but first she wanted to buy a meat pie. Her last meat pie.

  Her stomach grumbled so loud that the rats scurrying ahead of her surely heard it. Since coming to the rookery she’d experienced hunger such as she’d never known. Her aunt had certainly been a miser when it came to food, but Charlotte and her cousin, Edmund, had never truly starved, even though she may have thought they were, at the time.

  While watching for danger, Charlotte let her thoughts wander to the man who’d saved her life. He was maybe in his mid-twenties. Possibly thirty, but no older than that. With kind brown eyes and chestnut hair. At least from what she could tell from beneath his top hat. He had been dressed conservatively, in almost all black. She could tell by the cut of his clothes that he was prepared to spend some money on his attire but did not want to stand out.

  He was probably a businessman—a very successful businessman.

  He had smiled readily, and his eyes had held a look of concern. Not many were concerned with the plight of people like her.

  People like her…

  She shook her head and hurried through the warren of narrow streets and alleys that made up the rookery.

  The place stank of unwashed bodies, rotting corpses, and general deprivation. It was so disgustingly filthy that even the sun didn’t touch this part of the city.

  She stepped over a few animal carcasses, mainly dogs, cats, and rodents. Children darted in front and behind her, some not even clothed on this chilly spring day.

  Charlotte was a different person here. She had a swagger to her walk that warned people to keep a distance. She pulled her hat lower over her forehead and made no eye contact with anyone. She’d learned the hard way how to survive in the rookery.

  When she�
�d first ventured into London’s dirtiest, most dangerous streets, she’d been a wide-eyed girl, naive of the danger that awaited her. Oh, she’d known the rookery was a dangerous place, but danger had been a nebulous thought, not real.

  It had become real very quickly. She’d not been here more than half an hour before she’d been robbed of her shoes. Men had eyed her hungrily, and she’d desperately wanted to run back out, but she’d already lost her way. There’d been nowhere to go but deeper into the terror.

  She’d lodged in the first place she’d come to and had been surprised to discover that not only would she not get her own room, but she wouldn’t get her own bed, either. She’d lain awake the entire night, fighting tears, debating whether fear of her aunt’s home and her evil cousin was better than wondering if she was going to wake up the next morning.

  She’d thought she’d been ready, but she’d been woefully ill prepared for the sheer depravity and desperation of the people who existed in the rookeries. For this was not a place one lived. This was a place where one existed.

  Before escaping her aunt’s home, Charlotte had nicked Martha’s best candlesticks and pawned them for a price that was far less than what they were worth, but she hadn’t dared try the better pawn shops. She’d thought she could survive with that money. She’d thought wrong.

  It was sheer luck that had landed her, literally, at the feet of Suzette, her actress roommate who had taken Charlotte in and taught her the ways of the rookery. Her first task had been to cut off all of Charlotte’s beautiful blond hair. From the theater, she’d procured clothes that had been headed for the dust bins and transformed Charlotte from a somewhat well-off miss to a rascally lad with a swagger to his walk.

  Charlotte had no doubt that Suzette had saved her life. However, Suzette didn’t do anything out of the goodness of her heart. She was a tough girl, not much older than Charlotte in years, but far older in experience. They had an agreement. Suzette would keep Charlotte safe, and Charlotte would pay their rent.

  She popped out a few streets down from where the horse and carriage incident had happened and purchased the largest meat pie available from the closest vendor. Now the trick was getting her dinner home before a two-legged or four-legged predator discovered she possessed it.

  After a few more twists and turns and a frightening encounter with a hungry dog, she ran up the rickety steps of the boarding house and flung open the door to their room.

  Calling it a “room” would be a kindness. It was smaller than her aunt’s kitchen pantry, but she and Suzette called it theirs, and that was all that mattered. Thanks to the funds from the candlesticks, they were able to pay their rent on time, every Sunday, and because of that they weren’t hassled by the landlord.

  “Guess what I have?” Charlotte said as she slammed the door closed behind her. Someone stomped on the floor above them, and Charlotte looked up at the water-stained ceiling. “Apologies,” she called out in a sing-song voice.

  Suzette rolled her eyes. “Why’re you apologizing? They swive like banshees and argue like washwomen.”

  Charlotte’s cheeks heated in a blush, still unaccustomed to Suzette’s vulgar language. Aunt Martha would be appalled. She would call Suzette a whore, but then, Aunt Martha called most women whores.

  “What do you have, pet?” Suzette asked from her seat at their table, the only furniture in the room besides the rotten, straw-filled sleeping pallets that Charlotte had to climb over to get to the table and chairs.

  Charlotte produced the meat pie like she was a magician, waving her other hand toward it. “Meat pie!”

  Suzette clapped her hands together in excitement. “We are living like queens this week!”

  Charlotte grabbed the two utensils they owned, wiped them off on her dirty trousers, and handed one to Suzette.

  Suzette knew all about the dashing stranger who had rescued Charlotte from near death. She’d made Charlotte tell the story every night since then until it had become almost like a fairy tale. A knight in shining armor rescuing the damsel in distress. Except he hadn’t known she was a damsel.

  “Was he handsome?” Suzette had asked that first night after Charlotte’s encounter with the gentleman.

  “Very.”

  “Ooooh. Do tell.”

  Charlotte had tried to describe her hero as best she could, but she didn’t have a way with words like Suzette did, so it didn’t quite paint the picture that was in her mind. “He looked kind.”

  Suzette had rolled her eyes. “What did he look like?”

  “Well, he was tall, with chestnut hair and brown, no…whiskey-colored eyes that crinkled at the corners like he smiled a lot. He was very concerned if I was hurt.”

  “Did he know you were a tib?”

  Charlotte had shaken her head and stared at a crack in the table, thinking about the way she had been sprawled on top of him, his muscles digging into her curves. She prayed that he had not realized she was female.

  “You know,” Suzette said as she dug into her half of the meat pie, “you should go back to where you saw him. There’s that gentleman’s club there. Bootles? Bartlets?”

  “Brooks,” Charlotte said softly.

  Suzette pointed her fork at Charlotte. “Brooks. That’s right. Maybe he’s a member. Ooh. Wouldn’t that be grand? He’d be a rich toff, then.”

  “And he’d want nothing to do with a lowly lad like me.”

  “But we both know you’re not a lowly lad at all.” A gleam of curiosity filled her eyes. “You’re not lowly or a lad.”

  Since they’d met, Suzette had been trying to get Charlotte’s story out of her, but it hadn’t worked. And it wasn’t going to work now. Charlotte had no intention of telling anyone where she’d come from and why she’d left.

  “And why would I stalk the poor man in front of Brooks?” Charlotte asked.

  Suzette shrugged. “Who knows what can happen?”

  Charlotte dismissed the thought, but a seed had embedded itself in her psyche. It wouldn’t hurt anyone to just get a glimpse of him again. To satisfy her curiosity.

  Suzette said softly, “I heard they found another one.”

  Charlotte’s full stomach churned, and the greasy meat pie heaved.

  “Another one?”

  “Took her from the Thames like they did the others. No head. No hands neither.”

  Charlotte swallowed her meat pie back down, wishing she hadn’t eaten so much so fast.

  “How many does this make?” she asked.

  Suzette shrugged, her too-large sleeve slipping down her shoulder. She yanked it back up. “Four, I think.”

  Four women dead. Charlotte tried not to think about the girls, but it was always there, in the back of her mind, poking at her, making her feel guilty.

  “They say they’re all working gals,” Suzette said. There was a resigned look in her eyes that Charlotte didn’t like.

  Suzette pushed herself away from the table and groaned. “I’m not going to be able to get into my costume for the show tonight. We keep eating like that, we’ll be fat.”

  Charlotte grabbed Suzette’s hand, and the girl paused, their gazes locking.

  “Be careful out there,” Charlotte said. Suzette worked at the theater, which meant she was gone most of the night, arriving home in the early hours when one part of the city was just beginning to awaken, and another part was just beginning to go to bed.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Suzette said with what seemed like forced lightness. “No one would want a used-up girl like me.” She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her worried eyes.

  Charlotte let go of her hand. “Just be careful. Have someone walk you home if you can.”

  Suzette huffed out a laugh. “Right, then. Will do, love.”

  Suzette left to go to the theater, groaning about her overstuffed stomach, but thanking Charlotte for sharing her wealth as she closed the door behind her. There was no lock on the door, and at night Charlotte barred it with a rickety chair as soon as Suzette left.
Tonight, she was especially jumpy.

  It was the thought of the four dead women. Sightless, glassy eyes staring at her in accusation and condemnation. Like it was her fault.

  She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and sat at the lone window, a luxury in this part of the city, and looked up at the darkening sky. There were no visible stars from here, blotted out as they were by the hundreds of belching chimneys. But she remembered what they looked like from out in the country where she’d lived with her papa.

  However, the stars could not rid her of the thought of those four women, their accusing eyes staring at her from their graves.

  It’s your fault, they seemed to say to her.

  All your fault.

  Chapter Four

  Two days after her discussion with Suzette, Charlotte lounged inside the doorway of the apothecary, shoulders slouched, hands in her empty pockets. She was across from the spot where she had almost been trampled by the horse, trying to pretend that she wasn’t looking for him. Damn Suzette for putting the idea into her head and damn herself for wanting to see him one more time.

  Why?

  Why are you torturing yourself, you foolish girl? You’re in hiding, dressed like a vagrant lad. He’ll never give you a second look.

  But he’d been so nice. He’d been a stranger who hadn’t overlooked her or walked a wide circle around her. He’d seen her as a person. And he’d been concerned for her as a fellow human being.

  She had far more important things to do than moon over a man—like make a decision once and for all on what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She’d been putting it off, telling herself she was far too busy simply trying to survive, but really that was all a lie. She didn’t want to think about her future because it frightened her.

  “Move on. Come on now. Get going.” A constable in his tall blue hat pointed his truncheon at her, coming short of poking her with it.

  Charlotte scurried just far enough away to placate the constable but close enough that she wouldn’t miss him.

  If he walked this way again. She was so foolish for wanting to see him.