Saving Sarah

by Gail Ranstrom

  A dog barked and Sadie pressed herself against the wall below him as if that would make her invisible. He grinned. She really was amusing. Looking down on her from his position on the eaves above, she had the look of dilettante, as if she were a child or some society maid playing at investigation.

  The little prostitute was an enigma. She had a Mayfair accent, court manners, uncommon beauty and the self-assurance of those born to money if not power. She had quite obviously been brought up for finer things than prostitution. What misfortune had befallen her to bring her so low? A wastrel father? A mother in the trade? A lover’s abandonment? Starving babies to feed?

  Whatever it was, he could not put her out of his mind. He was a man, after all, with all the baseness that implied. His hunger—all the greater for his denial—had awakened with the sound of Sadie’s single laugh in the King’s Head Tavern.

  So there it was. Sadie’s appeal. She might be a liar and a thief. She might sell her body to strangers. But her laughter was genuine, her teasing fearless and her spirit untouchable. He suspected she would not fake pleasure, not laugh at unfunny jokes, never say things she did not mean in order to earn more money and never pretend affection she did not feel. If he bought her favors, he would only be renting her body, and he would want all of her. Most especially the parts that could not be bought—her loyalty, her fidelity, her…love?

  She rounded a corner and her silent grace took his breath away. He wanted her. Wanted her with a deep, aching urgency that he could not rationalize. My God. To have felt something so real and touching after all this time! To have experienced again that elusive thing called “hope”! It was almost more than he could bear.

  And he must never let it happen again. But how?

  Perhaps he could start by not interfering in Sadie’s business once he discovered her game. He would not give her advice, nor would he attempt to save her from the consequences of her profession. She could make her own decisions, determine her own future. Yes, he’d stand aside and allow Sadie Hunt to make her own mistakes. Maybe he would be one of them.

  Once again Sadie stopped, moving closer to the buildings. Ah, there it was! The guilty glance over the shoulder. She had not looked before, and she was not likely to look again any time soon. It was time to make his move.

  Sarah peeked around the corner, praying she would catch some glimpse of her quarry. Light from an open doorway formed a soft yellow glow in the fog, then went dark as the door closed. A glance over her shoulder revealed she was quite alone. She could wait, hoping Sticky Joe would catch up, or she could try to find which doorway Whitlock had gone through.

  The memory of Araminta and her brothers passed quickly through her mind and the decision was made. Her boots made no noise as she pressed close to the buildings and tiptoed farther down the street.

  The district was notorious for opium dens and brothels, and while Sarah had little idea what went on in such places, she was certain there must be conversation, words and money exchanged.

  The fog behind her thickened. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She sensed movement and instinctively knew that she was in imminent danger. She braced to turn.

  A hand clamped over her mouth and an arm snaked around her waist. The grip around both was unbreakable. She was lifted off her feet and dragged backward into a recessed doorway, kicking and flailing against her attacker.

  “Shh, Sadie,” a voice whispered. “If you do not want the local thugs down on us, keep quiet. Can you do that?”

  She nodded, going weak in the knees with relief. That voice! That deep, warm, raspy voice. It could only be one person. He dropped his hand to her shoulder and turned her about. She narrowed her eyes and hissed at him. “Mr. Travis, you are fortunate you are not unconscious along the riverbank. Sticky Joe is right behind me, protecting my back.”

  The man shook his head grimly. “Not so, Miss Hunt. I intercepted him half a mile back and sent him packing.”

  “He would never leave me unprotected,” she denied.

  “He did not,” Ethan Travis said. “ I have been at your back since then.”

  “That is not possible. I would have known it.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and Sarah was forced to acknowledge the evidence—Ethan Travis stood before her, dark and taunting, and Joe was nowhere to be found. The man was good at this!

  “What are you up to, Miss Hunt?” he asked. His tone was arrogant, as if he had a right to know her personal business.

  “Me? What are you up to, Mr. Travis? Why have you been following me for the past few days?”

  His voice lowered dangerously. “I have not been following you before tonight, Miss Hunt. All the same, you do turn up wherever I go these days. I suspect you are the problem.”

  “I am tending my own business, which is more than I can say for you. From the moment I met you, you have been breathing down my neck. Desist, Mr. Travis. Attend to your own affairs and leave me to mine.”

  He studied her through the fog-laden air. “What, precisely, is your business?”

  His unwavering regard sent her mind darting for a logical defense. She would have to come up with a likely story. Mr. Renquist! Yes. She had first run afoul of Travis at the King’s Head Tavern the night she’d met with Mr. Renquist. A story began to take shape, but she would have to think quickly.

  “Ah, I…I do not exactly have…well, as you know, I have not been hugely successful at, um—”

  “Prostitution?” he supplied.

  “Exactly.” She gave thanks that she did not blush easily, even though she could feel the humiliation to her core. “Nor have I done particularly well at thieving.”

  “Not even second-rate,” he agreed.

  “But, when all is said and done, a girl must earn a living,” she murmured, shuffling her feet pathetically. “And that is why I have been practicing my following.”

  “Your ‘following’?” he repeated. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You know. Following. Dicken and Joe put me in the way of Mr. Renquist, who has said that he would hire me if I could perfect a needed skill. I thought perhaps I could follow people. Most likely women. I could follow them where Bow Street runners could not go. Mr. Renquist said that would be a useful skill if I can become good enough to remain undetected.”

  “Then you were practicing your ‘following’ when I thought you were trying to pick that man’s pocket?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “And last night? Were you thieving or following?”

  She cast about for an explanation for her presence behind the tavern. “I…I still must earn a living whilst I learn new skills.”

  “So you were trying to steal the horses from the livery?”

  “Horses? That is a little ambitious, Mr. Travis. Horse. One horse.” Why couldn’t she resist the temptation to tease him?

  “Hmm,” he said, looking unconvinced.

  “I suppose you are going to advise me to stick to prostitution and send me on my way?”

  “No, Miss Hunt, I am not going to give you advice, nor will I interfere with anything you might choose to do.”

  “You just did, sir, when you dragged me from that door. Why should you care who I follow, whose pocket I pick or whose business I solicit?”

  “I make it my business to know all that goes on in my district. I want to know what the activity is, Miss Hunt, not direct it.”

  She nodded. “Ah, yes. The Demon of Alsatia. If you do not know about it, how can you profit from it. Logical.”

  “I do not—” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Be on your way, Miss Hunt. Go practice your ‘following’ elsewhere.”

  She couldn’t leave. She had to follow Mr. Whitlock. But how could she defy such a direct order? If she could not shake him, perhaps she could enlist him.

  “Sir? You were outstanding. I neither knew you had taken Sticky Joe’s place, nor that you were anywhere close behind me. Could I convince you—that is, would you teach me?”

  “Teach
you?” The blank look on his seductively handsome face was comical.

  “To follow,” she explained. That ought to send him packing. The last thing the Demon of Alsatia would want was to be saddled with a thieving, lying prostitute in search of a profession. He would not be able to run fast enough. And he would keep running every time he saw her. She smiled brightly in anticipation of his refusal.

  A slightly bemused expression clouded his eyes, as if he were looking inward for the answer. The pause drew out interminably. A muscle in his left jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed with caution.

  Which was worse, Ethan wondered, continuing to run into this persistent little baggage on a regular basis, and when it was least convenient, or having her where he could keep an eye on her? There were pitfalls and advantages to both.

  One of the pitfalls was that his fingers burned to tuck a chestnut tendril back under her cap and touch the soft pink of her cheek. Bloody Hell! Next he’d be waxing poetical on the bottomless depths of her violet eyes, or the lush fullness of her lips, and the clean lilac scent of her skin.

  For his own sanity, not to mention his safety, his resolve to leave her be, to not offer advice or guide her decisions, had to stand.

  “At least now everything is beginning to make sense, Miss Hunt. I wondered why Francis Renquist, whose marriage to a French modiste is notoriously happy, would hire a prostitute. He hadn’t. He was conducting a job interview.

  “And why would a prostitute, whose livelihood depended upon attracting customers, wear men’s clothing, and why have I suddenly begun running into you every night? Because, I assume, you have been practicing your ‘following.’”

  She tilted her head to one side and smiled. She looked so eager, so hopeful, and those luscious lips tempted him almost beyond endurance. Good God. He never should have kissed her. Now he could think of nothing else but how soft those lips were, and how they had trembled, actually trembled, beneath his, and the fact that, if he did not help her, she would starve. She could not whore effectively because of her manner and dress; she was a clumsy, inept thief at best; and her “following skills” were more apt to result in disaster than success.

  And anyway, he did not want to think of her dropping those well-tailored trousers in some back alley for a toff who would never appreciate her true value, or some drunken, diseased sod who might bruise that flawless creamy flesh. The mere thought of such a thing set his teeth on edge.

  “Very well, Sadie,” he sighed before he could prevent it.

  Those soft dark eyes widened and the impossibly long lashes blinked several times. “Y-you will?”

  “Yes,” he growled. As an afterthought, he added, “I will expect repayment in kind.”

  “K-kind?” she repeated.

  “Tit for tat.” He smiled.

  “Y-you want me to teach you…?” She retreated until her back was against the door.

  He nearly laughed outright. For a woman who made her living at prostitution, she seemed inordinately concerned that someone might avail themselves of her services. But that wasn’t his meaning. “I may call upon you to use your newly acquired skills for my benefit. I expect you to honor that debt.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed hard. “Oh, of course.”

  “You must swear to follow my directions—quickly and without question. Do not argue. Your life may depend upon it. If you cannot promise that, leave now.”

  “I assume this applies only to those times that we are engaged in following?”

  “Are you arguing with me, Miss Hunt?”

  “Perish the thought,” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching deliciously.

  He nodded, wondering if he had just set some karmic wheel in motion. What would come back to him as a result of his moment of weakness? No matter. It was done now. “Come to the Cheese at noon tomorrow and—”

  “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Holburn?” she gasped. “Noon? No. I cannot. I must practice following at night. Late at night.”

  He paused only a moment. Between himself and five of his men, Harold Whitlock was under observation twenty-four hours a day. He did not have to take the night hours. But if he could combine the two, so much the better. “Can you meet me tomorrow night?”

  “Midnight? The west porch of St. Paul’s?” she suggested.

  He nodded agreement. He’d have one of the others pick up Whitlock’s trail.

  The door next to them opened and a man stumbled out, tripped in the gutter and fell on the cobblestones. His sandy hair fell over his forehead as he tried to push himself up with his hands. A voice from within the house called after him.

  “You no come back till you got blunt! You hear me? Nothing for free!”

  The accent was that of an Asian. As he suspected, the place was an opium den. He glanced askance at his companion. She shook her head, denying that the man in the street was the man she’d been following.

  When the door closed, he whispered, “Who are you following, Miss Hunt?”

  She glanced up at him and blinked as if he had startled her with the question. She glanced away for a moment, then shrugged. “’Twas just a man who happened by when I was ready to begin. I have trailed him several miles.”

  “He did nothing to provoke your chase?”

  “Nothing, sir. I am practicing. Just practicing.”

  Her reassurance strengthened him. If Sadie Hunt simply wanted to follow someone as practice, she could come along with him on the nights that he, and not one of his men, followed Whitlock. The efficiency of his plan cheered him considerably.

  “Miss Hunt, if your quarry has gone in there, he is not likely to come out again before morning. Are you prepared to wait here all night?”

  She chewed her lower lip as her forehead creased in concern. “No, Mr. Travis. I must be home before long. But what if he should come out and go elsewhere? How would I ever know it? This ‘following’ business is more complicated than I thought.”

  He fought a smile. “Are you now in search of yet another profession?”

  “No!” She lifted her chin resolutely. “I shall stay until the last vestige of dark.”

  “Please yourself, but I am going home. Tomorrow you must let me know if your prey reappears.”

  He must be mad! Sadie Hunt was trouble, plain and simple.

  Chapter Five

  Music filtered onto the terrace from the Grand Ballroom of the Duke of Beddinham’s palatial London estate, and Sarah glanced toward the French doors to be certain she would not be overheard. She took Lady Annica’s hand in earnest.

  “Mr. Renquist’s men are looking for the children night and day, scouring the alleys and orphanages. We cannot risk losing another opportunity like Araminta’s again.”

  “I agree. We must bring all our resources to bear on this,” Annica said.

  “I’ve been helping search, too. I am haunted by the fear that something awful has happened to Araminta because of my delay.”

  The music grew louder as the French doors opened wider. “My dears, you must not stand in drafts. You will catch your deaths,” an elderly male voice warned from behind them. His grace, Nigel Dunsmore, Third Duke of Beddinham, stood at the French doors with a concerned look on his face.

  The duke was eighty if he was a day. A thin gray ring of hair banded his otherwise bald head. His posture was stooped and he was barely two inches taller than Sarah. His nose and chin were sharp, and curved toward one another, and his skin was pale and thin. His eyes, however, were a bright, clear blue and as lucid as a man in his prime.

  She and Annica dropped proper curtsies. “Your Grace,” they murmured.

  He winked. “I’ve come to collect my dance. That is the only reason I host these damned events, you know. Affords me the opportunity to dance with all the pretty young gels.”

  Sarah gave him a fond smile. Lord Nigel had been one of her father’s closest friends. In his prime, he had been devilishly handsome and a positive wag. The late Duchess of Beddinham had been a very lucky woman, if Sarah was a
ny judge.

  “Annica, do you mind?” she asked, offering her hand to Lord Nigel.

  “Why yes, I do,” she teased as they reentered the ballroom together. “I’ve not had my turn yet.”

  “You are next after Grace Forbush, m’dear,” Lord Nigel promised with a wink. “I am working my way alphabetically backward tonight. Z to A. Variety, y’know. Do not go far. I shall be back for you.”

  The duke led her to the dance floor and into the steps of a waltz. His pace was slower than the other dancers, but his style was flawless.

  “I do love a waltz,” he confided. “In my day, men were not allowed to hold a woman so for any reason. Now I may actually converse and face my partner. Progress is a wonderful thing, is it not?”

  Sarah laughed. “It is indeed, Your Grace.”

  “I have not seen much of you since your father died, m’dear. I hope you are keeping well.”

  She hesitated just a moment before thinking of the most politic thing to say. “My health is excellent, Your Grace.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  The single word reminded her of the disbelief in Mr. Travis’s voice when she had sworn she only meant to steal one horse. Warmth swept through her at the memory, and her pulse accelerated with the knowledge that she would see him again tonight. She missed a step and murmured a soft apology to her partner.

  After a moment, Lord Nigel tried again. “Tell me, Sarah dear, why you are not betrothed by now? You are what? Twenty and two?”

  “Four,” she admitted. A sly suspicion leaped to her mind. “Has Reggie asked you to speak with me, Your Grace?”

  He grinned and Sarah remembered why she had always been so fond of the man. She thought him one of the kindest men she had ever known. “You are too clever by half, m’dear. I tried to tell that young buck it wouldn’t work, but he bade me try.”

  “I cannot think why my unmarried state should concern him so.” Sarah sighed, fighting to keep her anger at bay. “It is not as if our house is too small, or that I eat too much. Papa left me my own estate, so Reggie does not pay my dressmaker or my milliner. What could possibly account for his haste to see me wed?”