Teresa Medeiros (24 page)

A month of searching had yielded nothing. Claire Scarborough had vanished into London’s merciless jaws without a trace.

Neatly trimmed lawns and iron gates drifted past the carriage. Portland Square was a world away from the slums he had haunted through the long night. He had spent it as he had a dozen others—combing the narrow streets, shoving his way through taverns and gin mills, growling questions at anyone who would listen. Even the motliest of scoundrels gave him wide berth. Perhaps there was something to be said for the reliable web of society gossip. News of the wild-eyed duke had filtered down even to their ranks.

He sighed, almost wishing for Chalmers’s dapper form to steady him. But he had sent his chief agent with an efficient army of detectives to search the orphanages and cottages in the countryside around London.

The carriage turned a corner and clip-clopped down a cobblestone drive. Justin’s spirits plunged further, as they did every time he saw his father’s house. No, his house, he
reminded himself ruefully. Grymwilde was a veritable Gothic nightmare of pitched roofs, gables, and bay windows. A crenellated tower perched like a clumsy growth on one side. The house’s only symmetry had been achieved by planting two leering gargoyles on matching turrets at each end of the roof. Justin swore under his breath, cursing Mortimer Connor, the first Duke of Winthrop, who had been so enamored of his newly bought title that he had built this vulgar monstrosity as a monument to his own bad taste.

Climbing down from the carriage, he commanded the droopy-eyed coachman to get some sleep. He slipped through the front door, thankful for the sleeping peace of the house.

His mother was more concerned with throwing a ball to introduce him to the eligible ladies of her acquaintance than with his vain search for his partner’s child. His three sisters had all married vapid men who had promptly taken up residence at Grymwilde and had no discernible occupations other than wandering the house with the most current copy of the
Times
tucked under their arms. Justin was starved for privacy. He missed his simple hut and his native friends who had known when to speak and when to be silent.

Most of all he missed Emily. He missed her dimpled smile, the warmth of her golden skin beneath his palms, the intoxicating taste of her lips.

A hard ache curled deep inside of him. He peeled off his gloves and tossed them on a lacquered table, meeting his reflection in the mirrored panel above. He had avoided mirrors in the last few weeks, and now he remembered why. His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, his hair wild as if raked too many times by desperate fingers. Against the incongruity of his finely cut evening clothes, he looked every inch the crazed savage half of society believed him to be.

He touched his cheek. His tan was fading as rapidly as
his hopes. His seven years on the North Island were melting before his eyes like a forgotten dream, unbearably sweet in its poignancy. Only the daily letters he scribbled to Emily kept him sane. He posted them half mad with panic and frustration, knowing it might take weeks, even months, for them to reach her.

Would she wait for him? he wondered. Or would the greedy sea take her back to punish him for being fool enough to leave her?

He shoved away from the table, too tired to do anything but stumble up the stairs and fall into the dubious comfort of his cold, lonely bed.

Chapter 16
 

E
mily’s fingertips brushed something smooth and cold. She stretched out her hand. The object rolled just out of her reach. She swore softly under her breath and craned her neck to peer over the edge of the cart. An apple, fat, shiny, and red, taunted her from its perch, making her mouth water and her stomach snarl.

The vendor swung away from the cart to hand a sack to a gentleman in a tall beaver hat. Emily lunged, crooking her fingernails into claws to snag the tender skin of the apple.

The vendor would have been none the wiser if her shawl hadn’t caught on the handle of the cart. As she broke into a run, the cart tipped, spilling apples in a stream of scarlet into the dirty snow.

“Thief!” the vendor bellowed. “Come back ’ere, ya bloody brat! Constable!”

She didn’t dare look behind her. She could already hear running feet, confused shouts, and the all-too-familiar
shrill of a constable’s whistle. The thin soles of her boots slapped the snow as she sped down the narrow sidewalk, shoving her way through the crowds. A gray-haired matron screamed and dropped an armful of packages. Three grimy urchins joined in the chase, dogging her heels until they became bored.

The whistle sounded again, closer this time. She plunged into the busy street, darting between a hansom cab and an omnibus, narrowly missing the flailing hooves of the startled horses. A driver’s jeering curse rang in her ears.

She rounded a corner into a narrow alley, then threw herself into a doorway and waited, her chest heaving as the slam of running feet passed and subsided. Without waiting to get her breath back, she sank to a crouch on the filthy stoop and dug her teeth into the crunchy apple. She knew she was behaving like a piglet, but she was beyond caring. Her empty stomach knotted around the food. The core dropped from her fingers. She hugged herself as a sharp cramp seized her.

It passed as quickly as it had come, leaving her shivering in its aftermath. The overhanging roofs above blocked even the meager winter sunlight. She pulled her threadbare shawl tight around her shoulders, fearing all the stolen apples in the world couldn’t fill the yawning void inside her.

She squared her chin, determined to rally her flagging spirits. What did she have to whine and moan about? It had finally stopped snowing and she was free at last after being crammed in a steamer cabin for the past month with five other women, most of whom had never discovered the pleasures of daily bathing. It had taken the last of the money from the sale of her father’s watch to book passage from Australia to England, but she was no longer reliant on the fickle charity of Amelia Winters. She was her own mistress now and London was hers.

She shoved herself to her feet and made her way toward
the street, stepping gingerly over a snoring drunk clutching a gin bottle. Her robbery had already been forgotten, replaced by the fresh scandal of a skinny ragamuffin caught stealing a gentleman’s purse.

She wandered the streets, wondering how the city could have grown so much smaller and danker while she was away. Horse-drawn vehicles thronged the roadway, churning the snow into black slush. No one took any notice of her. She was just one of a sea of faces in this vast slum.

Before she realized it, she’d turned down a finer street with freshly salted cobblestones and broad sidewalks flanked by shops. Gas lamps flickered in shop windows, illuminating shining displays of goods nestled in fresh boughs of pine and holly. She paused at the window of a toy shop to watch a mechanical St. Nicholas beat a tiny green drum.

As she turned away, she came face-to-face with her own image tacked to a lamppost. A sigh caught in her throat. Was this one photograph to haunt her forever? She pulled down the notice, her hands trembling more in shock than cold. The sketch was a very good one, obviously done by a professional from her father’s old tintype. Her eyes widened at the staggering amount of the reward. She hadn’t a halfpenny to her name and she was worth more than any notorious criminal stalking the London alleys.

Two words seemed to leap out of the elaborate script—lost child.

She leaned her forehead against the cold lamppost, no longer able to fight the despair. More lost than Justin could ever know, she thought. Her hatred for him had sustained her for years. Now that it was gone, she felt nothing. Nothing at all but a desperate yearning for warmth. He had shed his sunlight across her soul, then slammed the door, leaving her cold and alone. Would he return to New Zealand, seeking the woman he had known
only as Emily Scarlet? By taking the coward’s way out, she would never have to know if he didn’t.

“Move along, girlie. We don’t need your kind scaring the customers away.” A fat shopkeeper shooed at her with his apron.

Emily gave him such an evil look that he began to bellow for a constable. She broke into a run, feeling as if she might run forever and never get anywhere. She had no intention of trading one kind of cell for another, although the jail might be warmer than the park had been last night. Dusk was nearing and the temperature was plunging rapidly. Warm tears blurred her vision.

She never saw the soft, immovable object in her path until she slammed into it. She went sprawling. A torrent of packages rained down on her head.

She glared upward, rubbing her brow and preparing to unleash a string of curses on the hapless shopper.

“Gor blimey, if it ain’t Emily Claire Scarborough, as I live an’ breathe!”

“Tansy?” Emily whispered in awe. She clambered to her feet, shoving boxes off her lap.

Surely this statuesque creature could not be her Tansy. A feathered hat perched jauntily on her nest of ebony curls. A dress of yellow satin sculpted her ample curves in scandalous relief, then tapered to scalloped ruffles piled high over a bustle. But surely no one else could possess eyes as big and blue as Dresden saucers.

“Tansy?” she repeated, her voice rising to a squeak.

“Oh, Em!”

All of her doubts flew away as Tansy threw her arms around her, enveloping her in a perfumed embrace. Time melted and suddenly they were just two frightened little girls clinging to each other in a lonely attic.

Emily drew back, still clutching Tansy’s arms, loath to relinquish her familiar warmth. “What happened to you? Did you inherit a fortune? Rob a bank? Finally snare a rich gentleman for a husband?”

Tansy cocked her head, preening with guileless abandon. “Not yet, but I might very soon. I’m workin’ fer Mrs. Rose now.”

Emily frowned as the name struck a discordant note in her memory. “Mrs. Rose? She must pay you very well indeed. Are you her personal maid?”

“She don’t pay me at all. It’s ’er gentlemen callers that pays me.”

Emily felt her mouth fall open in shock. Tansy gently pushed her chin up with the tip of her finger. Her finger was now smooth without a hint of a callus.

Emily swallowed hard. “You’re working at a bordello?”

“That I am. Most of the gentlemen are very kind with gentle hands an’ open purses. They luvs me, they do. They all tell me so. I’m one o’ their favorites.”

“I don’t understand. What happened to Miss Winters?”

Tansy’s full lips tightened in a pout. “She tossed me out, she did, after yer guardian plucked er nerves. Ya should ’ave been there. ’E tore into the old ’ag right and proper.”

Emily’s throat tightened. “You saw him?”

“Lordy, did I! And ain’t ’e the prettiest fellow I ever did see!”

“Yes,” Emily admitted softly. “He is that.”

“Some of my gentlemen friends say es rough and dangerous like, but I knows better. Gave me money, ’e did. Told me if I ever needed ’elp to march straight to Grymwilde Mansion in Portland Square an’ ask for ’im. If I ’adn’t been set on provin’ I could stand on me own two feet, I might ’ave done it, too.”

For a dazed moment Emily’s pain was so intense she couldn’t see straight. She barely felt Tansy’s gentle touch on her arm.

“Where’ve ya been, girl? Why’d ya go and run off like that without tellin’ me?”

“I didn’t run off. Barney and Doreen carted me off on some mad scheme of Miss Winters’s.”

Tansy’s full lips tightened. “I knew them bloomin’ buggers was up to no good. I shoulda told that nice gentleman when ’e came lookin’ fer ya. ’E’d ’ave cooked both their skinny gooses.”

“No!” Besieged by sudden panic, Emily gripped her arm. “You must swear to me that if your paths should cross again, you won’t tell him you saw me. He mustn’t know I’m in London.”

“What is it, Em? Are ya in some sort of trouble? ’E’s a good man. I know ’e’d lend a ’elpin’ ’and if ya’d let ’im.”

Emily pressed her eyes shut, trying to banish the memory of Justin’s graceful tan hands against her skin. When she opened them, they burned like raw flames. “He can’t help me now. I’ve done something terrible. And if he finds out, he’ll despise me forever.”

“Come now, dearie. What could be that terrible?”

Falling in love with Justin. Making him fall in love with her while lying to him with every breath. Emily just shook her head, unable to choke a reply past the icy lump in her throat.

Tansy’s blue eyes were painfully earnest. “Why don’t ya come with me, then? Mrs. Rose’d be glad to ’ave ya and those fine gentlemen would gobble a pretty thing like you right up! You’d be able to earn yer own money right and proper with good honest work. You’d never ’ave to rely on anyone’s charity again.”

Emily almost shivered to hear her own thoughts echoed so clearly. For one shocking instant she was tempted. But the thought of a stranger’s hands touching her the way Justin’s had filled her with revulsion.

“I’m sorry, Tansy. I’m glad you’re happy, but I simply can’t.”