Heirs of Acadia - 02 - The Innocent Libertine (2 page)

“Well, well, well. What have we here?”

Nora’s face actually brightened at the voice, which was infuriating in itself. And the way she greeted him was far too much to bear. “Reverend Aimes! What a delightful surprise.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

Abigail refused to acknowledge the newcomer. “He’s not a reverend yet, Nora. Don’t provoke the man.”

Derrick Aimes was a thickset man who affected a fighter’s stance when irate. Such as now. “Did I not say that you lambs should never venture down here alone?”

Abigail had no choice but to greet him. “Forgive me, Mr. Aimes. I was not aware you had been appointed the new sheriff of Soho.”

Derrick, as usual, traveled with three of his mates. They all grinned at her response. She knew most by name. Derrick Aimes was well known by those close to William Wilberforce. Derrick and his band of Soho believers were perfect examples of how far Wilberforce’s influence reached. Though a master politician and leader of the national opposition, Wilberforce had the uncanny ability to draw support from all levels of society. At Wilberforce’s request, Derrick Aimes organized efforts among a number of London’s wealthier churches to help the poor and the infirm. Abigail and her family attended one such church. Her parents, however, assumed Abigail’s only connection to Derrick and his work was in the protected confines of their Audley Street church.

Derrick replied, “I have no need of earthly authority to protect innocent lambs such as yourselves.”

“Have I not implored you never to call me that?”

“Lambs I said and lambs I meant. Why you insist upon venturing down these ways, tempting someone to wield the slaughtering knife, is beyond me.”

“Don’t talk like that; it frightens Nora,” Abigail responded.

“As it’s intended to.” She saw his eyes widen as he realized where they had been standing. “Don’t tell me you were headed down Blind Man’s Alley.”

Abigail was about to deny it when she spotted Nora’s hand-wringing assent. “And if we were?”

“Did you not hear of the stabbing there just last week?”

“Forgive me, I really must go,” Nora spoke, her voice unsteady, as she turned away.

“Nora, please.”

“No, Abigail. The reverend is correct in what he says. We don’t know what we’re facing down here.”

“This is no place for two young ladies such as yourselves, out wandering after dark and alone.” Derrick Aimes snorted his derision. “I can scarcely believe your good families know what you’re about.”

Abigail drew her friend to one side. “You can’t possibly intend to desert me, Nora,” she whispered softly.

“No, Abigail. I want you to come with me.”

“But we’ve only just arrived!”

“Abigail, you are my dearest friend. I want you to attend me at my wedding. Come away from here. Mr. Aimes is right. We don’t belong.”

The man called to them from farther down the lane, “Listen to your friend, Miss Aldridge. Go back to your world of thoroughfares and carriages and silk-lined drawing rooms.”

“I was not addressing you, Mr. Aimes.” She turned her back to him. “Nora, we’ve done this dozens of times before.”

“And every time I’ve felt we were doing something wrong.”

“Wrong to spread the Gospel in a world of darkness?”

“Wrong to do anything of which we fear to tell our parents.”

Nora was leaving her, Abigail realized. There was nothing she could do to change her mind. No matter that her best friend had never stood up to her in such a fashion before. Abigail felt a painful wrenching inside. “Or at least so your Tyler says?”

“Tyler has every right to speak his mind, Abigail.” Nora’s voice was filled with hollow sadness. “Now come along.”

“Oh, give me the pamphlets.”

“Abigail, please, you can’t possibly mean to stay here alone and—”

Abigail plucked the leaflets from her friend’s hands. “I suppose you’re going to report all this to Tyler and your parents.”

“You know I won’t. Why should I wish for you to be in more trouble than you already are?”

“But I’m not in any trouble, am I, Nora?”

“Let’s hope and pray it remains so.” Without another word, Nora turned and walked away. Back toward the well-lit West End boulevards. Back to safety and the world they knew. Back to her Tyler Brock.

Derrick Aimes had moved back toward the two and now watched Abigail with open-mouthed astonishment. “You don’t mean to tell me you’re staying!”

“I most certainly am.” If only she could make her eyes stop stinging so. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have these leaflets—”

“You’re not going anywhere in Soho alone.”

“Oh, and I suppose you intend to stop me?”

“I most certainly do.” He blocked her path with his muscular presence. Derrick Aimes had been many things before seeing the light, as he put it. He had spent almost two years touring the countryside as a prizefighter known as the Soho Smasher, taking on all comers for the contents of a small leather purse. His legend still lived on within these noisome alleys and lanes, part of the lore that enveloped London’s red-light district. Once he had gone nineteen rounds with Slammin’ Jack Crouch, a boxer of infamous strength with fists like anvil hammers. But Derrick had left all that behind, and he presently was within a year of completing his ministerial studies. He worked and lived out of the church on Soho Square, and he had a way about him that made even the roughest highwayman sit and listen to the Gospel message. “You’d best be turning around and heading home, missy.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll be escorting you out to where it’s safe again.”

“Fine. Then I’ll simply wait until you’ve passed and return to my duties.”

“Duty, is it?” Derrick took another step closer. “Why ever do you insist upon coming down here? It can’t be the Lord’s calling.”

Abigail decided she had heard enough. “Never you mind. It’s not your approval that I’m after here tonight. It’s being a light in the darkness.”

To her surprise, Derrick’s massive shoulders slumped in defeat. “If I let you come with us, will you promise to stay close and not wander?”

Abigail wished she did not feel such relief at his reluctant invitation. But in truth the dark cobblestone lane with its rancid puddles and strange screeching laughter frightened her utterly. Nora was no longer there to support her. She had never felt quite so forlorn as now. Had Derrick and his merry band not been observing, she most certainly would have followed Nora back to home and safety. As it were, being allowed to accompany those whom she could trust meant a very great deal indeed. “Yes, all right. Agreed.”

“Jack, stick close to the lady, will you?”

“A finer task I’ve never been offered.” He was the oldest of the bunch and bore the seamy face of a very hard life. He respectfully doffed his tattered hat and gave an awkward bow. “At least not in the Lord’s service.”

“Hello, dear Jack.” Abigail knew the man from earlier forays and liked him well enough. “Will you entertain me with stories of your ill-spent youth as we walk?”

“We’re not here for idle chatter,” Derrick admonished. “Or have you already forgotten your duty, as you call it?” Before Abigail could respond, he stomped away.

But once they were well underway and handing out Gospel leaflets to all who passed, Derrick sidled up alongside Abigail. “Straight up, now. Why is it that you venture down Soho way?”

She countered with a question of her own. “Does the Soho Square Church now claim all this territory as its own?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“Are you so successful at turning the dark tide that you do not need help?”

“That’s not what I’m about and well you know it.” He gestured at her form. “Just look at you. Fancy silk dress, hair all nice as you please, smelling of some scent what cost more than any of these folks are like to see in a month of hard labor.”

“The dress is linen and old,” Abigail defended. “And the only thing I smell of is soap.”

But Derrick was not to be put off so easily. “You’re good at reaching out to folks, I’ll give you that. But you don’t belong in these parts. Don’t look at me that way. You know it as well as I do.” He tucked a folded page into the pocket of a passing gentleman, one doing his best to ignore them entirely. The man started to protest, then took one good look at Derrick’s form and hurried away. Derrick went on, “All I’m asking is why you come at all.”

“You sound as bad as Tyler Brock.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

“Is that a proper sort of answer to a proper sort of question?”

Abigail sighed. The truth was simple. Life at home bored her to distraction. She felt coddled and imprisoned. It mattered little that her cell was lined with striped wallpaper and that sunlight spilled over the high elms of Grosvenor Square. Nor that her parents loved her and wished for her the best that life could bring. They sought to protect her. She had heard that word so often she could scream.
Protect
. It sounded so nice in their mouths. They only wished to protect her from what she could not understand. How on earth was she to learn about life so long as she was trapped within these bonds of silk and velvet?

“Miss Abigail?”

Derrick said he wanted the truth. The truth was she yearned for adventure and she yearned to do good. To be a missionary in the darkest depths of Africa would satisfy both longings. She yearned to set out upon the high seas. She yearned, oh, how she yearned!

“Well, if that question is so difficult, answer me this. Why do you dress for these occasions as you would for the admiral’s table?”

She was so caught up in her internal longings that she spoke without conscious thought. “It is the only way my parents would allow me to escape for an evening.”

“And where do they think you are this night?”

“At a Drury Lane concert with Nora and her family.”

Derrick flashed her a hard look but kept his tone level. “So you lie to your kith and kin and still claim to do the Lord’s work?”

“I didn’t lie. Well, not precisely. I . . . I allowed them to think thusly.”

“A falsehood by any other name is still an abomination, lass.” It was Derrick’s turn to sigh. “What would happen if I went and addressed my concerns to your father directly?”

Abigail froze. “You wouldn’t!”

Derrick scuffed the toe of his boot across the rough stones. “Perhaps I should. But it’s not my nature to meddle in others’ homes and affairs.”

She felt weak with relief. Her father would be mortified. And her mother would be so disappointed. There would be further restrictions, holding her fast in their protective embrace until she utterly choked with despair. “Please don’t,” she said weakly.

“I should,” Derrick repeated. “But I’ll hold hard so long as you do one thing for me.”

“Which is?”

“Never walk Soho’s streets alone again. Always come first to the church. Always venture out with a group of us who’ve earned the hard knocks and know what’s what.”

“Very well.”

“Just you wait, lass, I’m not done. You’re claiming to want to help in the manner of Wilberforce’s teachings. Well, then. I want you to become involved in a group we’re setting up to minister to orphans. There’s crowds of them roaming east of Oxford Street. We’re looking for volunteers. Which you just did.”

“Of course I’ll help.” A thought flashed so brilliantly it shone from her face. “But I’ll need to change into a less formal gown at the church.”

To her surprise, Derrick laughed aloud. “Are you that eager to leave behind what most of this lot would give their right arms to possess?”

“I am. So terribly much.”

“Very well. But I’ll be writing a letter to your father, all very formal, just letting him know where his daughter is occupied.”

He won’t like it, Abigail wanted to say. But she refrained. Because she could see Derrick was ready for argument, and she did not wish to quarrel. In truth, with Nora gone she needed new friends. She felt a stab of renewed sorrow over how her dearest ally had left her. “Thank you, Reverend Aimes.”

He smiled at her. “Ah, lass. When you look at a man like that, you could melt stone.”

“What—what do you mean?”

Without answering he turned to his grinning companions. “All right, brethren. It’s back to the harvest we go.”

Chapter 2

The dowager countess Lillian Houghton sat in the alcove serving as her dressing room and gave her face a critical examination. It never ceased to astonish her how all that she had endured remained hidden from view. At age thirty-three she was the mother of a fifteen-year-old boy, now happily settled in as a boarder at Eton. She was the widow of Grantlyn Houghton, fifth lord of Wantage and former equerry to His Royal Highness, now King George IV. She was heir not to the count’s fortune, as most assumed, but rather to his enormous debts. Further, she was chased by the most dire scandal she could have imagined and was being blackmailed by a vile creature. She risked losing everything, including her reputation. She lived night and day with terrors so vast she could scarcely name them.

Yet even the most careful study of the face in the mirror revealed no hint of her woes. She remained untouched by time’s hand or the ravages of ill fortune.

The upstairs maid knocked upon her open door. “Excuse me, mum, but you wanted to know the moment the gentleman arrived. I just spied his carriage pulling up in front.”

“Thank you, Tilly. Please show him into the front parlor.”

“Shall I be serving him anything? Tea, perhaps?”

“Most certainly not.”

“Excuse me, mum, but what if he asks?”

“You will pretend to have heard nothing, you will take his coat, you will shut the door, and you will not reenter the room except upon my command. He is to receive nothing in this house, do you hear me? Nothing.” Her tone said even more than her words. The maid curtsied and fled.

Lillian took a step back from the mirror and critically reviewed her entire form. She wore a dress of pale blue that perfectly matched her eyes. Some said her eyes were her finest feature, being large and round and clear as a young maiden’s. They were framed by an unlined face, separated by a faultless nose, and bordered by a shining mass of dark curls. Her figure was as fine as her features, her hands as dainty as her feet, her lips a perfect cupid’s bow. At her last visit to Court, one of the prince’s consorts had bowed low over her hand and described her as the finest example of English beauty alive today.