Rushed to the Altar

by Jane Feather

  But it didn’t happen. She climbed in after Francis, pulled the door shut, and the carriage started off immediately. There were no sounds of pursuit, no angry cries. Just Francis’s soft sobbing in the opposite corner of the hackney.

  She reached for him with trembling hands, pulled him across onto her lap, holding him tight, smoothing his ragged, ill-smelling hair, crooning softly as she rocked him.

  After a while his tears ceased and he pushed himself upright, looking at her. “Why didn’t you come before?”

  The accusatory tone made her want to weep herself but she said gently, “I couldn’t, love. I came as quickly as I could. Luke wouldn’t tell me where you were. It took me a long time to find you.”

  He seemed to consider this, chewing his lip, which was already red and sore. “I’m hungry.”

  “Yes, I know. As soon as we get out of the hackney, we’ll find a pieman.” She cradled him against her again, hardly daring to believe that at last she had him safe, and he seemed content now to lie close to her, as the carriage clattered over the cobbles.

  “Where d’you want me to let you down, miss?” The jarvey leaned down from his box and shouted through the window aperture.

  “On Piccadilly . . . where you picked me up.”

  “Right y’are. Comin’ up in a minute.”

  Francis sat up again. “What’s going to happen to Uncle Luke? He’s evil, ’Rissa. Why did he take me to that place and leave me?”

  “We’ll talk about that later, darling.” She lifted him off her lap as the carriage came to a halt.

  The jarvey opened the door for her and lifted Francis out, holding him for a moment in the air. “Poor little mite, what ’appened to ’im then? He’s just skin an’ bone.”

  Clarissa bit back a sharp retort. The man had been kind, and without knowing he was at her back she would have had much less courage on Dundee Street. She smiled instead. “I know, but he’ll be all right now. Thanks in no small part to you.” She handed him a gold sovereign.

  He bit it, nodded, and touched his forelock. “Good luck to ye, then, ma’am. An’ to the little lad. He needs to put some flesh on ’im.”

  “I intend to see to that immediately.” Clarissa took Francis’s hand. “We’re going in search of a pieman.”

  “That’ll set you up good an’ proper, laddie,” the driver said, patting the boy’s bony shoulder before climbing back onto his box. He clicked his tongue and the hackney moved off down Piccadilly.

  The streets were relatively quiet, as befitted a Sunday, but Clarissa steered them across Piccadilly into Green Park, where they found a man selling pasties and a milkmaid tending two cows, her yoked wooden pails filled to the brim. She bought a pasty and a cup of milk for Francis and watched as he devoured them both. Then she had the cup refilled and watched him drain that, before gently guiding him into the trees in search of a private spot where they could talk. They found a bench under the bare branches of a copper beech.

  “I’m still hungry,” he complained.

  “Yes, and you shall have a proper dinner very soon. But now I have to explain some things to you.”

  Francis perched on the bench, shivering in his thin shirt. “What happened to your clothes?” Clarissa asked, wrapping him in her cloak.

  “Don’t know. That Bertha took ’em off me an’ gave me these instead. They smell,” he added with a wrinkled nose. “They always did.”

  “Well, we’ll find you some decent clothes soon enough.” She looked at him, trying to think of how best to start . . . where to start, indeed. “We have to hide from Luke, Francis, you understand that.”

  He nodded vigorously. “I told you, he’s evil.”

  “Yes, he is, and as soon as he knows you’re gone, he will be looking for you . . . for us both. Now, I have found us a place to stay where he will never think to look. But you have to be clever, Francis. As clever as I know you can be.”

  Francis watched his sister intently, listening. He was no longer famished and was warm enough now to concentrate. Some of his old spirit that had not been extinguished by the hardships of the last weeks was returning. His sister was telling him that he would live with her in a house near here. It was owned by a gentleman, but he would not know the gentleman, might not even meet him, and if he did he was to bow and disappear quickly.

  “Who is the gentleman?”

  “He’s the Earl of Blackwater, darling.”

  “But how d’you know him, ’Rissa? He’s a lord.”

  “Yes, and so was your grandfather.” Clarissa immediately regretted that. The last thing she needed was for Francis to behave like an earl’s grandson. She took a deep breath and started again.

  Francis listened. “I was a chimney sweep?” He interrupted the narrative with a tiny squawk of laughter that warmed his sister’s heart even as it accentuated the need to impress upon him the gravity of the situation.

  “You almost were,” she said. “You have to understand one thing, Francis. Luke must not find you again. You have to keep quiet about who you are, who I am, about everything to do with the family. Do you understand that?”

  Francis nodded, serious now. “If he finds me I’ll go back to that place. I’m not going back to that place.” He kicked his legs thoughtfully. “Per’aps I should be dumb, pretend I can’t speak. That would work, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would,” Clarissa agreed with a smile. “But I doubt you could keep it up for long, and once you drop the act it’ll cause more questions.”

  “I suppose so. I might accidentally speak, almost without knowing it, an’ then everyone would wonder.”

  “They would.” She stood up, holding out her hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

  As they walked she told him about Sally and Mistress Newby. “And there’s a boy called Sammy who does the rough work in the house. You’ll need to help out a bit, love. It might seem strange at first, but just imagine it’s like helping Silas with the tack in the stables. If you do as you’re asked cheerfully, and don’t make a fuss about anything, we’ll brush through this somehow.”

  A niggling little voice told her she was probably being overly optimistic about her brother’s ability to turn himself into something he wasn’t, but she would be on the lookout and forestall as much as she could. And if the worst came to the worst, then they would have to leave and find somewhere buried in the country where she could keep him hidden until she gained her majority.

  “Here we are.” She stopped outside the house. “I’ll have to take back the cloak for a moment, love.” She slung it around her shoulders and took a step to the door, then stopped, realizing for the first time that she didn’t have a key to the door. That would have to be remedied, unless, of course, the privilege of keys to this house was not as a matter of course accorded to temporary occupants. If that was so, Jasper would have to make an exception in her case. She banged the lion’s-head knocker.

  Sally opened the door almost immediately. She opened her mouth on a greeting, but the words didn’t come. She stared at Clarissa’s companion. Francis stood holding his sister’s hand tightly, and dropped his eyes, squirming closer to Clarissa, trying to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

  Clarissa stepped into the hall, bringing Francis up beside her. “Sally, this is a lad I found on the street. He says his name’s Frank. He was being abused most horribly by his master because he wouldn’t go up the chimneys. I thought perhaps we could use him to help out Sammy.”

  Sally looked at the boy, eyebrows raised. “A bit scrawny, isn’t he?”

  “He won’t be, once we fatten him up.”

  “Please, ma’am, I’m hungry,” Francis murmured, gazing up with liquid brown eyes. “Me belly’s rattlin’ somefink awful.”

  Sally’s face softened. “Well, we can fix that easily enough. Looks like he could do with a bath, though.”

  “Yes, in my chamber, Sally. Then he won’t be in Mistress Newby’s way in the kitchen. Could we find him some fresh clothes though? Th
e rags he’s wearing wouldn’t keep out a summer breeze.”

  Sally regarded him with her head on one side. “I’ve a little brother about his size. Maybe me mam could spare his second-best suit.”

  “Oh, I’d be happy to pay for a new suit for your brother.” Clarissa began to wonder how much longer she would be able to survive without the earl’s promised allowance. “Just so that we can get this boy warm and respectable again quickly.”

  “I’ll fetch up the bath first, ma’am, then I’ll run over to me mam’s. It won’t take but an hour an’ his lordship’s not expected before dinner.”

  “Then do it, Sally. Come along, Frank.” She hustled him up the stairs and into her own chamber. “That was quick thinking, love. Can you talk like that all the time?”

  “Course,” he said somewhat scornfully. “Just like the lads in the stables at home, an’ just like they all talked in that horrible place.”

  “Good, well try not to let it slip except when you’re alone with me. Let’s get you out of those filthy clothes.”

  It was hard not to weep at the sight of her little brother’s half-starved body, where grime was ingrained into every crease and fold. Francis splashed happily in the hip bath and didn’t object even when his sister pulled a fine-tooth comb through his hair, looking for lice. Amazingly she didn’t find any. Once bathed and swamped in her chamber robe, sitting beside her fire, he ate a bowl of bread and milk, a plate of coddled eggs and toasted bread, and a thick slice of fruitcake. Mistress Newby had responded to the tale of the rescued chimney sweep with motherly concern, and after one look at the child in the bath had professed herself disgusted and disappeared to her kitchen to set about the process of remedying the situation.

  Clarissa, curled in her chair by the fire, felt the last strains of the terror that had accompanied her ever since she had learned of her little brother’s fate slide away from her as she watched him eat, watched his cheeks almost visibly plump out under the effects of good food and warmth. She would never let him be taken from her again. Luke would have to kill her first. It occurred to her that that was probably not beyond his capabilities, but she found she could almost smile at the thought.

  This was the scene that met Jasper’s eyes when he entered his mistress’s bedchamber at three o’clock. He was already put out by the lack of ceremony that had greeted his early arrival. Neither Clarissa nor Sally had come down to his cheerful hail from the hall and he’d been left to make his own way upstairs. There was no sign of Clarissa in the drawing room, where he’d expected to find her, fresh and eager, dressed to please him.

  Instead this. His eyebrows crawled into his scalp. There was a small child wrapped in a chamber robe, sitting by the fire consuming an enormous piece of fruitcake, a milk mustache adorning his upper lip. And Clarissa, the earl’s mistress, was ensconced cozily in the chair opposite, watching the boy with a possessive fondness that made the hairs on Jasper’s neck prickle.

  “What the devil is this?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Clarissa jumped, her eyes darting to the clock on the mantel. “Oh, my lord . . . Jasper . . . I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

  “No,” he agreed aridly. “So it would seem. Who’s this?”

  Francis, from the folds of his sister’s chamber robe, regarded the new arrival with wide-eyed curiosity and a hint of anxiety. The man didn’t seem very happy to see him.

  “He’s just a child I found on the street.” Clarissa uncurled herself from the chair and stood up, feeling that she would be more in control of the situation on her feet. “He’d run away from his master, a chimney sweep who had abused him most dreadfully. Poor little thing is afraid to go up the chimney because of the rats . . . I couldn’t leave him to that man’s fists. For heaven’s sake, he’s only a child. He can’t stand up for himself. He’s half-starved into the bargain. Look how thin he is.”

  Jasper frowned at this impassioned speech. “That may be so, but you can’t take a legal apprentice from his master.”

  This struck Clarissa as as heartless as it was absurd. “Maybe you couldn’t, my lord, but I most certainly can,” she declared. “Anyway, how can you know it was a legal apprenticeship? I’ve heard these chimney sweeps just take children off the streets, anywhere they find them. I’m sure that’s what happened to Frank.”

  Jasper shook his head. “What do you intend doing with him?”

  “Feed him up, for a start. Stand up, Frank.” She took his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Just look at how thin he is, Jasper.” She unwrapped the folds of the chamber robe. Francis shivered as the air hit his naked body, but he made no sound, gazing stoically at the earl, keeping his skinny arms at his sides. It seemed important that this man feel sorry for him.

  Jasper’s frown deepened. It was no surprise to him that children in this state of neglect were loose in the city, but the actual reality of a child so thin you could count every rib and knob of his spine did shake his equanimity somewhat. He shook his head again. “For God’s sake, wrap him up, before he catches his death.”

  Clarissa did so and installed him in the chair again. He curled up in the swaddling robe and resumed his consumption of fruitcake. “Sally’s gone to fetch him some clothes, her brother’s second-best suit.”

  “I see. I can assume then that my entire household is involved in the care and nurturing of this pathetic scrap of humanity?”

  Clarissa’s jade eyes burned, and her voice was frigid. “You can assume, sir, that this household has a degree of human compassion that you so conspicuously lack. Would you throw him back on the street?”

  Jasper held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I didn’t say that, Clarissa. If you want to keep the boy, then do so. I can afford to feed and house him, I suppose, and he should be able to make himself useful. As long as his master doesn’t bring the beadle to the door.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she said sharply. “How could his master even know where he is?”

  “I hope you’re right. And I hope you know what you’re doing. The boy’s probably a thief.”

  “I ain’t,” Francis declared with indignation through a mouthful of cake.

  Jasper quelled him with a look before turning back to Clarissa, who was struggling to master her own indignation. “If things start disappearing you’ll know where to look.”

  “I see,” she said furiously. “Judged and sentenced out of hand. Well, my lord, I beg leave to tell you that I don’t think much of your sense of justice.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Clarissa, be realistic. It stands to reason the only way the child’s survived thus far is by stealing. I’m not blaming him for that, but I am saying that old habits die hard. But on your own head be it.” He turned away and left the chamber, going into the drawing room.

  He poured himself a glass of Madeira and went to the fire, standing with one foot on the andiron, one arm braced against the mantel, as he stared into the flames trying to master his irritation. If he hadn’t just spent the best part of the day in a state of mental turmoil he probably wouldn’t have been so irritated at Clarissa’s philanthropic rescue of a starving waif. In fact, if he weren’t so thoroughly put out already, he probably would have applauded it. But he needed his mistress to himself this evening, and he needed all her attention.

  He’d left her bed in the early hours of the morning, not knowing what course of action to take. The startling revelation that the so-called whore he’d just made love to was as virgin as on the day of her birth had shaken him to his core. But oddly enough not as much as the idea that Clarissa herself thought she could deceive him about something so vitally important. The naïvety of such an idea was laughable. Did she really imagine that an experienced man would not know instantly that he was making love to a virgin? There had been no maidenhead to breach, certainly, but no other man had touched her body in the ways of love, no other man had entered that tight virginal sheath.

  It seemed that everything she had presented to him about herself had be
en a lie. He had become convinced she was not what she seemed, and it had intrigued him, but he hadn’t considered the extent of her deception. And for a few moments he had found himself doubting her passionate response to his lovemaking. Had that also been a lie? But in his heart he knew that she had responded with true passion; no one, however expert a whore, could counterfeit such a response. And whatever else she was, Clarissa Ordway, if indeed that was her name, was no whore. Or hadn’t been until he bought her services. He had already asked himself what had turned a seemingly gently bred young woman into a denizen of a Covent Garden nunnery, and now he couldn’t begin to untangle his confusion. If she wasn’t working for Nan, why was the tough-hearted businesswoman giving her shelter? And what in the name of all that was good lay behind this elaborate charade?

  He had been a poor companion all day, distracted enough to lose two bouts at the fencing salon and to cause his friends in his club to abandon him with good-humored mockery when it was clear he had no interest in either conversation or cards. And he was no nearer now to solving the conundrum.

  Clarissa spoke softly behind him. “I’m sorry to have discommoded you, Jasper. I didn’t think a small child under your roof would upset you so much.”

  He turned away from the fire. She stood by the door, her expression composed, her eyes glowing with only the embers of their earlier angry fire. Her hair hung loose, held back from her face with a band of velvet ribbon. “There’s really no reason for you even to notice him.”

  He took a sip from his glass, regarding her over the lip. “As long as you promise not to fill the house with waifs and strays, I daresay that’s true.” He set down his glass and held out his arms. “Come here.”

  She came readily enough. He grasped her head between his hands, his fingers twisting in the red-gold hair, and he realized as he kissed her that despite his confusion, his irritation, or perhaps because of it, he wanted, no, needed to reassert a sense of exclusive possession. Somehow that sense had been shaken by the child’s presence, by the way Clarissa had been looking at the boy, the atmosphere of easy, settled companionship that surrounded them. Where had it come from?