As she told her story, tears had begun to drip down her cheeks. Wiping them away, she sucked in deep, uneven breaths, obviously battling to regain her composure.
His heart aching for the youth and innocence and position in life that had been stolen from her, Christopher had to restrain himself from taking her in his arms. If they hadn’t been in a public park, he would have.
Disordered thoughts and emotions tumbled through his mind as he watched her struggle for control. Fury at the man whose weakness had forced his daughter into sacrificing herself for the family. Contempt for the unbending rules of Society that punished a woman without possibility of redemption for any lapse, whether or not she was responsible for it. The anguish of a man who’d dedicated his professional life to righting wrongs and knew there was nothing he could do to right this one. A sense of shame that, had he not recently taken it into his head to marry, believing Ellie a courtesan who had chosen that profession, he too might have done her the insult of offering carte blanche.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he murmured, as, with one last shuddering breath, she lifted her face to him.
Swiping away two final tears, she said, ‘No, I’m sorry. I thought I was done long ago with weeping over what cannot be mended. I suppose this unexpected glimpse into a vanished past got past my guard.’ She frowned. ‘My time would be better spent figuring out about what I mean to do about that glimpse.’
‘Do about it?’ he echoed. ‘Why need you do anything?’
‘There could only be one reason for my sister to be in London. She must be—eighteen now! I should have foreseen that, at some point, she might be given a Season. Only recall how strong an impression was made on you, seeing me and my sister in close proximity. Should anyone else see us and note the resemblance, it could ruin Sophie’s debut before it even begins. I shall have to avoid the fashionable shopping areas until the Season is over.’
‘You mean to avoid buying essentials until the family that abandoned you departs from the metropolis?’ he asked, furious on her behalf that she would be so concerned for the welfare of relations who had treated her with callous neglect. ‘Why should you further deprive yourself for their benefit?’
‘None of what happened was Sophie’s fault. Indeed, she was devoted to me.’ Her gaze lost its focus, as if she were looking back through the years. ‘What an enchanting child she was! And what a strikingly attractive young woman she’s grown to be. I’d rather starve than do something that would ruin her chances to make a respectable marriage.’
Before he could remonstrate, she waved a hand. ‘But there’s no need to turn this into a melodrama. Though I should avoid areas where the ton shops, most of my purchases nowadays involve coal or candles or victuals. A young lady embarked on her first Season is hardly likely to frequent establishments that sell those. And if for some reason I should need a new gown or bonnet, I’m sure your mother would be happy to find one for me.’
‘Mama never needs much excuse to look for gowns and bonnets,’ Christopher agreed.
‘Very well, Sophie is in London, but I should be able to stay out of her path.’ She gave her head a little nod, as if finished coming to terms with the shocking development. ‘I think I’m ready to proceed back to Hans Place.’
But as she tried to rise, she swayed, then sank back on to the bench. ‘I seem unaccountably dizzy. Perhaps I should rest a bit longer.’
‘Little wonder, after such a shock! The Gloucester Coffee House is just down the street. With all the coach traffic coming and going, they always have freshly made victuals. Why don’t I get us a flagon of wine and a meat pasty? Some sustenance will revive you.’
She looked up at him gratefully. ‘Thank you. That sounds very appealing.’
‘Very good. You rest here; I’ll be back in a trice.’
With that, after another concerned glance at Ellie, Christopher strode off in the direction of the Gloucester.
CHAPTER FOUR
His mind still on Ellie and her shocking revelations, his hands full with a flagon of wine and the meat pasty, Christopher had just exited the Gloucester when some sixth sense alerted him. Stopping abruptly, he turned to see a ragged urchin attempting to slip one thin hand into his jacket pocket, where the change from his purchases jingled.
The urchin pulled his hand free and scuttled backward. Before he could take to his heels, a furious Christopher jammed the pasty into the hand with the flagon and grabbed his arm.
The child struggled, trying to pull away from him. ‘Didn’t mean you no harm, guvn’r! I was jest moseying by. You leave go of me now, woncha?’
‘I’ll be leaving you with the nearest magistrate!’ he snapped back. But the arm twisting in his grasp was so thin, the huge eyes looking up at him under a worn cap so frightened and desperate, Christopher realised there was no way he could turn this child in—to be jailed, transported or hanged.
They were already attracting the notice of passers-by, several patrons of the Gloucester emerging to gawk.
‘Aye, take ’em to the magistrate straight away!’ one cried.
‘Too many thieving scum like him about, preying on their betters,’ said another.
‘You hang on to ’em. We’ll get the landlord to send his boy for the magistrate,’ said a third.
He’d better make away with the child before someone did just that. ‘Thank you, good friends, but I’d rather handle this myself,’ Christopher told them as, tightening his grip on the lad, he dragged him off towards Green Park.
‘Wh-what you meanin’ to do with me?’ the child cried, still twisting to break free.
‘Not call the magistrate—yet. But someone else may, if you don’t stop yelling and fighting me.’
Apparently realising the truth of that, the boy ceased his struggling and began matching his shorter stride to Christopher’s longer one. Perhaps, Christopher thought, he recognised they were headed to the park and figured he’d have a better chance of getting away once they reached it.
He held his tongue, too, remaining silent as Christopher led him towards the bench where Ellie rested. She spotted them as he turned into the park, and watched with puzzled curiosity as he approached with the child in tow.
‘That’s quite a meat pasty you’ve brought me,’ she said as they halted before her.
‘Yes, seems they are serving up a new variety in the vicinity of the Gloucester.’
As he spoke, the child suddenly yanked at his arm and twisted. Had Christopher not been expecting another attempt at escape, the lad might have broken free.
‘Lemme go!’ he shrieked, the pitch of his voice going ever higher as he struggled against Christopher’s hold. ‘You’re thinkin’ to murder me and leave me corpse in them bushes! I didn’t do ye no harm!’
‘Hush, now, nobody’s going to be murdered. Although I might have to go back on that promise if you don’t stop your caterwauling,’ Christopher retorted. As the boy continued yanking away, the much-jostled meat pasty mashed against the wine flagon finally broke apart, one piece falling to the ground. ‘Now you’ve ruined the lady’s meat pie,’ he added in exasperation.
‘So’s you will be turnin’ me in?’ the lad said in a quieter voice. Two tears tracked down his cheeks, leaving light trails through the grime. ‘Kin I have that bit on the ground afore you does?’
Christopher had scarcely begun to nod before the child fell to his knees and grabbed the scrap, stuffing it into his mouth without even attempting to brush off the dirt. While he and Ellie looked on, aghast, he rubbed a grimy thumb carefully over the grass, popping out a few more crumbs he plucked up carefully and devoured.
Ellie’s troubled gaze met his over the child’s head, and he knew he wouldn’t be turning the starving lad over to the law. But what was he to do with him?
Feed him, first. ‘Here, have the rest,’ he said gruffly,
easing his grip on the remaining piece of pasty so the boy could pry it free. After a frozen moment, as if not sure he’d heard Christopher correctly, he tore the meat pie from Christopher’s fist and stuffed it whole into his mouth.
‘Thankee, sir, that be right kind,’ the child said when he’d swallowed the last morsel. ‘Guess I’m ready for you to take me in. Might be safer in Newgate, at that.’
A long lock of hair fell from under the lad’s battered hat as he straightened. Christopher glanced over at Ellie, who was studying the child intently, her gaze examining him from hat to tattered shirt, patched jacket and shabby, too-large trousers, to the thin legs and bare feet.
She leaned forward, grasped the child under his arms, and lifted him on to the bench beside her. ‘Heavens, you scarcely weigh anything at all! Why don’t we start with you telling us your name, Miss…?’
Panic flitting across her face before she turned it into a look of bravado, the child wrapped her arms around her chest in a telling gesture. ‘Don’t know whatcha mean, ma’am. It’s Joe. Joe’s me name.’
‘Short for Josephine, perhaps?’
‘A girl? Are you sure?’ Christopher murmured to Ellie.
‘I suspected when I saw the hair. But I knew for certain when I lifted her, and felt those. Look closer.’
Doing as instructed, Christopher discovered what Ellie had spotted—the slight swell of budding breasts beneath the shirt as it rose and fell at the child’s rapid, frightened breaths, along with hands and legs too slender and shapely to be a boy’s. ‘By Heaven, I believe you’re right!’
‘Are you wearing boy’s clothing for protection?’ Ellie asked her. ‘And how did you come to be in this part of the city—alone? It’s well-known the beadles at the Pantheon Bazaar don’t allow beggars to linger—and establishments like the Pulteney and the Gloucester keep a sharp watch out for pickpockets. Besides which, pickpockets generally operate in groups.’
When the girl remained stubbornly silent, Ellie gave Christopher a rueful look. ‘It appears I may have found another candidate for my school.’
To their surprise, at that pronouncement, the girl leapt up and would have raced off, had Christopher not collared her again. ‘Lemme go!’ she shrieked. ‘I ain’t going to no school like that. I’d die first! Was it Gentleman Bob what sent you to the Gloucester?’ she cried, looking accusingly at Christopher. ‘And I thought you was a nob!’
‘Hush, now,’ Ellie soothed. ‘He is a nob, and he has no connection with Gentleman Bob. Nor is the school I run anything like the Schools of Venus operated by Sister Mary or Mrs Pritchard.’
Finding herself unable to break free, the child subsided with a whimper. ‘Please, ma’am, lemme go!’ she pleaded, looking up at Ellie. ‘Me mum’d turn over in her grave if I was to become such.’
Seeing what must be a look of incomprehension on Christopher’s face, Ellie turned to him. ‘Gentleman Bob is the underworld boss who runs the gangs of pickpockets that infest the West End. He also sponsors some of the bawdy houses that specialise in very young girls.’ Disgust coloured her voice. ‘Establishments sometimes known as “Schools of Venus”.’
Turning back to the girl, she said, ‘Did you belong to one of Gentleman Bob’s gangs? And struck out on your own when you got old enough that he thought you’d be more profitable to him in one of the “schools”?’
The girl stood silently for a moment. Finally, brushing the lock of hair from her face again, she said, ‘Me and me brother Joe worked with one of his thieving gangs. Until Joe died last month, and the Gentleman started looking at me funny. Then one day, he run his hands over me chest and…and started rubbing me, there.’ She gestured towards her small breasts. ‘His eyes started glowing, like, while he done it, and he said it were time for me to go to Sister Mary’s. That night, I changed into me brother’s clothes and run off. I came here ’cause, like you say, he keeps his teams away from the fancy hotels and shops hereabouts, on account of the watchers, so I thought I’d be safer. But it’s harder to thieve, too, and the pot boys at the Gloucester kept running me off.’ She heaved a deep sigh. ‘If you ain’t from the Gentleman, fixing to snatch me back, what are you going to do with me?’
Ellie held out her hand, and after some hesitation, the girl gave her hers. ‘My name is Ellie Parmenter,’ she said, shaking it. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss…?’
‘Artis. Artis Gorden. After me da’ went away—he were in the army in India—me mum took in washing, mostly for the theatre folks around Covent Garden. She took my name from one of them theatre signs. Joe was seven and I was six when she died, and we joined up with the Gentleman. Been there ever since.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Artis. And this is Mr Lattimar, a good friend, who is also a Member of Parliament.’
‘Cor!’ the girl breathed. ‘And I tried to pinch your coppers! You coulda had me transported!’
‘As if I would do that to a starving child,’ Christopher murmured, moved with both compassion and outrage for a plight that was all too heartbreakingly common.
Ellie smiled reassuringly at the girl. ‘I used to be in keeping to Lord Summerville—who occasionally joined friends with a taste for that sort of thing on a visit to Sister Mary’s school,’ she explained. ‘During my time with him, I met a lot of girls in the trade. I left the business after Summerville’s death last autumn and started a school for other girls like you, who didn’t want to be pulled into the life. I teach them to read and write and train them for respectable positions as shop girls, seamstresses and housemaids. Would you like to accompany me there? I can offer you a good meal, a bath, and some clean clothes. I promise, no one will harm you and you may leave again straight away if you wish. Though I do hope you will stay.’
Artis stared at Ellie incredulously, as if she didn’t trust what she’d just heard. ‘You’d…take me in? Feed me, learn me my letters, and how to be somethin’ ’sides a pickpocket?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
The girl’s eyes glowed in her thin face. ‘Mum taught me to write my name, and do some sums, but…to read? Do you have books at your school, ma’am, like the ones in the shop windows? With the pretty leather covers and lettering all in gold, looking like treasures waitin’ for someone to open?’
‘Yes, I have books. Primers, for teaching you to read, and leather-bound treasures, too.’
The glow faded a bit as the girl looked down and inspected herself, then looked back up at Ellie, hope and despair warring on her face. ‘Are you sure you want me, ma’am?’
The simple words hit Christopher like a punch to the chest, knocking free a series of devastating images. Escaping his nurse and tracking down his regal father, holding out a treasured rock to the man he’d been told collected treasures, only to have Lord Vraux brush past him without a glance, as if he didn’t exist…being accorded a slight, cold nod on the few occasions the governess was instructed to bring the children down for his inspection…receiving not a single word of farewell from Vraux when he was sent off to Eton.
Do you want me? Could the language contain a more poignant phrase for a love-starved child?
He looked from the girl to see on Ellie’s face the same desolation those words had caused him, and was struck again by her pain.
He, at least, had always known a mother’s love. She had been completely abandoned by all her nearest relations. Cast into a world where ‘do you want me?’ had taken on a wholly different, degrading meaning.
He wished he could wrap his arms around her and hold her until his warmth burned away all memory of that cold-blooded betrayal.
‘Yes, I’m sure I want you,’ Ellie told Artis, gently wiping a tear from the girl’s grimy cheek. ‘I want you very much.’
‘Then…then I’d love to go with you, ma’am! Lemme carry your parcel.’ Looking down at it with an expert eye, Artis said, ‘Cloth from Me
rriman & Company, in the Bazaar? Bet I could find you some jest as good and heaps cheaper in Petticoat Lane! ’Tis where all the dressmakers round Bond Street get the materials what they sell at ten times the price to the grand Society ladies.’
‘Do you know where to get other household provisions?’ Ellie asked. ‘Coal, candles, soap, needles, thread, flour, tea, salt?’
‘Oh, yes, ma’am. And should you need somethin’ lifted, I could do that, too.’ The girl looked over at Christopher. ‘If’n I hadn’t been so tired and weak today, I’da had them coins from your pocket, and you never the wiser.’
Ellie exchanged a wry look with Christopher before saying, ‘Thank you, Artis, but we would have you display your gratitude in more, um, legitimate ways in future.’
As sympathetic as he was to the girl’s plight, at that reminder of her origins, Christopher caught Ellie’s eye to mouth silently, Are you sure?
At her emphatic shake of the head, he shook his. ‘Very well, then. Dean Street it is.’
* * *
To his amusement, during the transit back to Ellie’s school, Artis kept up a steady chatter, asking Ellie what sorts of supplies she might need in future, and naming off a list of establishments at which she could procure the goods at a bargain price. She was still proclaiming her gratitude after their arrival, as Ellie introduced her to Jensen and had Mrs Sanders bear her off with the promise of a meal, a good wash and clean garments.
Leading Christopher into her office, Ellie said, ‘I’m afraid I have only wine, rather than the stronger spirits I promised. But my thanks for your help today is no less sincere.’
Convenient Bride for the Soldier & the Major Meets His Match & Secret Lessons With the Rake (9781488021718) Page 50