If He's Tempted

by Hannah Howell

  “So he was not hurt?”

  “Nay, but he was very scared. I fear he also wondered why you had not come to get him. I told him it was just because you did not know where he was and needed time to hunt for him. He also knows that his own mother sold him, for she made no secret of it. She told him that he took all of your love from her and she would not abide it anymore.”

  “That is what she screamed at me,” he whispered. “What could I have done? I love my boy. Of course, I love my boy, but I still loved my wife despite how troubled she had become. I confess, that love had dimmed as she was such a trial at times, so angry, so jealous, so temperamental, that it wore on me. This, what she did to my son, well, I think that ended what was left of my love for her. Mayhap she saw that and that is why she killed herself.”

  “One can never guess the reasons someone does such a thing. Do not carry the weight of it. It was the illness in her mind. If your son had not become the center of her delusions, something or someone else would have.” She heard someone approaching and smiled at him. “We have the boy, m’lord. In hunting for some missing boys of our own, we stumbled upon your Henry. I but hesitated to tell you straight out for I was not completely sure why your wife had sold him.”

  “Of course. I would never have brought him back into a house with her in it. Not after what she had done.”

  “I am sure of that now, m’lord. I but needed that assurance for I could not send a child back into danger.”

  “I understand.”

  The door opened and the marquis leapt to his feet. Little Henry walked in and stopped to stare at his father. Olympia could see the child’s unease, his gaze darting around the room as if to be certain his father was alone.

  “You found me, Papa?” Henry asked as he slowly stepped toward the marquis. “Does Mother know you found me?”

  “Your mother will never hurt you again, Henry.” The marquis walked over to his son and crouched down in front of the boy, touching Henry’s curls with a shaking hand. “Your mother had a sickness, son, and that made her do bad things. It took her from us in mind and then in body. It is just you and me now.”

  “I was afraid, Papa,” Henry cried and threw himself into his father’s arms. “I was waiting for you to find me but you did not come.”

  “I was hunting for you, son. I would have found you. We must be glad and thank God that Lady Wherlocke and Lord Fieldgate found you before you came to much harm.”

  He set Henry back on his feet, stood up but kept a hand on the boy, and looked at Olympia. “I can never thank you enough. Not for finding him, saving him, and not for being ready to keep him safe even from me if necessary.”

  Henry slowly released his tight grip on his father’s leg and looked at the food on the table. “Scones and clotted cream. May I have one?”

  Pleased with the diversion, for the man’s heartfelt gratitude, the tears in his eyes, made her a little uncomfortable, Olympia smiled at the boy. Henry had his father now and, in his child’s mind, all would be right again. There would be wounds that needed healing but she could see the love between the two and knew that would be what would slowly ease the child’s lingering fear and hurt.

  “Only if your Papa says you may,” she said.

  It did not surprise her when, after one pleading look from the boy, the marquis nodded. As Henry clambered up on the chair next to her and helped himself to a scone and a lot of the clotted cream, the marquis retook his seat. She made sure the marquis had a fresh cup of coffee and waited for what he would say. It was easy to see by the way his expression grew serious and a little stern, that the man wanted more information. Olympia glanced at Brant as he sat down and he nodded, silently agreeing that there should be no secrets kept even though it would mean revealing his mother’s part in it all.

  “Who was the woman who planned to hold him for a reward?” he asked.

  “My mother,” said Brant and shrugged when the marquis stared at him in surprise. “She likes money and has no qualms about how she obtains it.”

  “She had to know that I would have paid but also that Henry is too young to have kept silent about her part in it. Once that was known she would be destroyed in society.”

  “Very true.” He nodded when the marquis frowned in thought for a moment and then paled. “I fear my mother is not well. Lady Wherlocke believes she is ill or just missing that part of one which tells you something is wrong and that you should not do it.”

  “And what do you plan to do about her?”

  “Destroy her.”

  Although the marquis nodded in agreement, Olympia watched Brant. She could see the cold determination in him but had to wonder how this would affect him. His deadliest enemy was his own mother. Could he, when it came to it, do what needed to be done to end her threat to him and innocents like the children and young women she so blithely sold to the flesh peddlers? And if he could, how would he be once it was all over? She shook aside the thoughts, knowing there would be no answer until it was ended. All she could do was pray that he came out of it all with heart and mind not too badly scarred.

  “She has been telling some rather horrific tales about you,” the marquis said to Brant. “Although I go out into society very little, even I heard the whispers. I wondered but I could not actually bring myself to believe them as it seemed too great a change in a man who had never before been the subject of such tales. She was making sure that what she said was spread far and wide.”

  “I know. All doors are closed to me now. It is making it very difficult to get what is needed to end her malicious games.”

  “No doors are closed to me.”

  Olympia joined Brant in staring at the marquis who just smiled and then sipped his coffee, making a soft noise of appreciation for the brew Enid was so skilled with. “But, are you not in mourning?”

  “I should be.” He sighed. “But, when she told me what she had done, as I said, the last vestiges of what had made me shock society by marrying her, died a swift death. The fact that she ended her own life,” he added in a soft voice, “will be enough to excuse me for not mourning her.”

  “That and the fact that you are a young marquis who is now without a wife,” drawled Brant.

  “True, although no matter whom I might meet, I believe I have had enough of marriage for a while. Also, it will take awhile for the news of her death to reach society as the people at Understone Hill are loyal and suicide is something so scandalous they will attempt to keep it a great secret. I am not worried that I will shock society too much if I wander through a few salons and ballrooms for a little while.”

  “Thank you,” said Brant. “We need all the information we can get to bring her reign to an end.”

  “Do you try to make her fall from grace as quiet a one as possible?”

  “For the sake of my younger siblings, yes. They should not be punished for what she has done. But, I also know that could be impossible. It will not stop me.” He looked at where Olympia gently bathed clotted cream from Henry’s face with a napkin she had dampened in the finger bowl. “I cannot allow it to matter for she cannot keep doing the evil things she has been doing. Too many are being hurt.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  When the marquis and Henry were gone, Olympia moved to sit next to Brant and kissed his cheek. “It may be good to have his help.”

  “It will be. The scandal about his wife will break soon no matter how loyal his people are, but I do not believe society will care much that he is not following a proper mourning period. He married so far beneath him that they did not recognize his wife anyway. I suspect many will believe the woman deserves no mourning.”

  “Sad but true.”

  “You are afraid I will falter when it comes time to bring my mother down.” He kissed her when she looked guilty. “I will not, Olympia. I will not say that it will not trouble me when it is done, but I cannot allow this to continue. I failed by not ending her reign after what she did to Faith and I will not fail again. All I can h
ope for is that I can do it without locking her in Bedlam or having her hanged.”

  And that, she thought, was a sad truth she could not argue away.

  Chapter 11

  Idly wondering if she needed more sweets for the small tribe of children she now housed, Olympia hesitated outside the shop, decided she had enough, and then began the short walk back to the Warren. She hoped no one had seen her slip out for there would be lectures about walking out alone to endure if someone had. She knew a lady should not go anywhere alone but she was not some virginal miss who needed protection just to keep the slurs of gossip-mongers destroying her good name and it was still day, as well as only a short walk away from her home. Despite that stern talk, however, she began to feel both guilty and nervous about being out alone. Olympia prayed it was not some forewarning and quickened her step.

  After three days of hard work, her house was not as full as it had been. One by one the children who could not or would not be returned home were being placed with her family but she still housed six boys, one girl who was close to being a woman, her four boys from the stews, and her two nephews living with her. The ones rescued from Dobbin House would need a lot of help no matter how good the situation they were placed into was. They had been born into the dark, dangerous slums of the city and had an acceptance, even an expectation, of the cruelty of life that the children of the more prosperous would never have, but they were still badly bruised in mind and spirit. She wanted to take everyone who had sent the children into that hell to be beaten until the skin hung in shreds from their bodies and she would like to see even worse done to the ones who had paid to make use of those poor children.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, fighting to clear the haze of anger from her mind. Just as she began to feel calmer she heard the sound of a cat. Olympia peered down the heavily shadowed alley between two aging buildings when a repetition of the noise told her it was not a cat but a kitten. Good sense and a creeping sense of foreboding, but good sense crumbled rapidly beneath the sounds made by a small animal in distress.

  Cautiously, she entered the alley. The moment she was fully within its confines, she paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the near dark surrounding her. The first thing she saw clearly was a tiny yellow ball of fur hanging by its back legs from a hook high up on the side of the building to her right. It was frantically trying to free its back legs from the rope that bound them, the other end of the tether tied to the hook in the wall. Appalled by the cruelty of such a thing, she hurried toward the kitten.

  Olympia was just trying to figure out how to reach the end of the rope the kitten hung from when two men rushed her from out of the deep shadows a few feet farther down the alley. She held her folded parasol out like a sword but it did not cause the men to hesitate in their advance on her for too long. Olympia began to use it as a club next, swinging it hard against any part of the men’s bodies she could reach. All the while she kept them at a distance, she attempted to back her way out of the trap they had set for her.

  A small misstep ended her escape. The heel of her boot hit a slick cobblestone causing her to stumble. It was enough to allow one of the men to grab her and the other to deliver a blow to the side of her head. Instead, just as the swing of his fist would have landed on her, she turned her head and caught a hard blow on the side of her face. Olympia had to fight hard not to give in to the searing pain of the blow. The force of it had pushed her hard against the man who had grabbed her and he stumbled, releasing her. She forced all her fear and outrage over the men attempting to hurt her and, as they tried to get hold of her again, she showed them that she could fight almost as well as any man. She also fought dirty.

  “Bitch!” the taller of the two men yelled when she poked him in the eyes and he released her to cover his now streaming eyes with his hands. “She done blinded me!”

  “Shut your gob, Will!” ordered the slightly shorter, more muscular man. “Ye will be drawing all eyes our way with all that noise ye are making.”

  His warning ended in a high-pitched squeal as Olympia rammed her knee into his groin. He stumbled back and she turned, intending to flee, only to be grabbed firmly from behind by the man whose eyes she had jabbed her fingers into. He could obviously still see well enough.

  “Thought you said she was a lady,” the man said, panting as he fought to keep a thrashing Olympia from escaping his grasp. “Ye said m’lady told ye that. Go kill the baroness, she said. Baroness?” His laughter was full of a bitter repudiation of the truth, that this woman trying her best to hurt him was no lady. “She near to took out my eyes, and done tried to push your cullions right up into your throat. She be no lady.”

  “Shaddup!” Will staggered over to her and raised his hand to hit her again. “M’lady wants her dead. Says she be trouble and she wants the trouble stopped.” He pulled his fist back again. “Says her son must be alone.” He smiled darkly at Olympia. “So ye, m’lady, must go.”

  Winded and a little dazed, Olympia stared at that filthy fist aimed for her face. The man holding her had too firm a grip on her for her to break it no matter how hard she tried. He even kept his head pressed against the side of hers so that she could not give him a sound blow in the face with the back of her head. She was helpless and she hated it.

  Just as she drew a deep breath intending to scream for help, something she suspected would do her little good, there was the distinct sound of wood making hard contact with a person’s flesh. She had heard enough fights to guess what had been struck was someone’s head. The man preparing to strike her jerked, a look of utter shock on his face as he slowly fell to his knees where he swayed back and forth for a moment before falling on his face. Behind him stood Abel with a stout club in his hands and a savage look of satisfaction on his face.

  Olympia tried to struggle free of the man still holding her only to hear two more blows strike flesh and, chillingly, the sounds of bones breaking. Her captor screamed and fell to the ground, releasing her to grab at his legs as he fell. She lost her balance and landed on her hands and knees. One quick glance at her captor who was writhing and moaning on the ground near her was enough to tell her that at least one of his legs was broken. Daniel stepped into view and hit the man on the head, stopping the man’s noise and sending him into unconsciousness.

  “Lady O,” said David as he tossed aside the club he had clearly hit the man’s other leg with, and crouched by her side. “Are you hurt bad?”

  “Nay, not badly,” she replied as she accepted his help to get back on her feet. “The kitten?”

  “Kitten?” David looked around and, after a careful search of the alley, finally saw the little animal where it hung. “Ah, poor thing. A lure, eh?”

  “Aye. Need to get it down.”

  Every part of her hurt for each time the men had grabbed her they had not done so gently, but she moved back to where the kitten hung, still conscious but no longer fighting, and trembling in a way that broke her heart. The side of her head throbbed badly enough to make her stomach churn, but she could not leave the animal where it was. What chilled her to the bone was the proof that someone had taken the time to learn enough about her to know she had such a weakness. Olympia vowed to herself that she would remember that and consider the implications of it later.

  With the aid of the boys, she collected her shawl from the ground and wrapped the kitten up in it as David, with the help of Abel, untied the end of the rope secured on the hook. Daniel cautiously untied the kitten’s legs. Olympia collected her bag, had the boys pick up her scattered packages, and forced herself to begin the walk back to the Warren.

  “We should call a carriage,” said Abel, hooking his arm through hers to help steady her.

  “Nay, it is not far,” said Olympia.

  “Or get someone from Bow Street to come and pick up that scum what tried to hurt you,” said David, quickly stepping up on her other side.

  “We can do that later.” When she saw the Warren come into view she heartily wi
shed she had the strength to run to the safety it promised her.

  She knew she was a mess and was staggering more than walking. That was undoubtedly drawing the attention of everyone they passed. The three boys helping her were sure to catch everyone’s attention as well as they were not the sort of boys a woman of breeding would have anything to do with. There would be gossip from this misadventure but she was too sore to care. Then again, she thought as the boys helped her into the house, she was a Wherlocke and gossip about them never truly faded away.

  “Ollie!”

  She scowled at Enid who was rushing to her side even as a rushing noise began to fill her head. “Do not call me that.” A moment later, as both Pawl and Enid reached her side, Olympia knew she was about to collapse. “Kitten,” she managed to say just before the blackness crowding into her mind took her under.

  Olympia could hear people whispering. She did not want to open her eyes to see who it was, however. Her head hurt and she was certain that opening her eyes would only add to the pain she was in. Confusion settled in as she realized she was in a bed and, by the feel of it, had been stripped of her clothes and put into a nightdress. Then she slowly began to remember what had happened to her. Pushing back a wave of fear, she cautiously opened her eyes and was relieved to find herself in her own bed with only Enid and her nephews at her bedside.

  “Kitten?” she asked as Artemis moved to help her drink some cider.

  “It is fine,” said Enid and she set the tiny kitten down on the bed. “I washed it.”

  Olympia stared at the small animal. It was a soft golden color and had dark gold eyes. Its fur was all fluffed out from its bath and it still trembled. She was wondering how someone could possibly have discovered that she had a large tender spot for animals when the kitten began to scramble toward her. A moment later it curled itself up in the curve where her neck met her shoulder. Although it still trembled a little, it began to purr.