But Mama stretched her hand across the table and laid her hand over Phoebe’s, squeezing gently. “Not to worry,” she said lightly. “I’m certain this Season we will find you the perfect husband. A gentleman who will appreciate you exactly as you are.”
The tines of Phoebe’s fork slipped into a yolk, and the contents eked out in a revolting ooze, like blood draining from a suppurating wound.Widowers, she thought. Was it too much to hope that none had read that wretched column? She swallowed down the queasiness that rose in her throat and dredged up a polite smile.
And hoped with all of her heart that Mama was dead wrong.
∞∞∞
“I need a wife,” Christopher Moore said, to no one in particular, as he stripped himself of his sopping waistcoat and wrung it out with his hands. It smelled like a sewer. No—hesmelled like a sewer.
That, he supposed, was the consequence of taking an unanticipated dip into the Thames. At least the blokes that had put him there hadn’t stuck around long enough to see the job properly accomplished. Possibly they simply hadn’t counted upon the probability that Chris was perfectly capable ofswimming.
Though dawn had broken only a handful of minutes ago, already there were a number of mudlarks whisking about the shore, scurrying to be the first to scavenge whatever treasures the low tide might have revealed. In his younger days, Chris had been one of them, and it had been a nasty bit of business to sift through the refuse on the shore on the off chance that some toff had cast off something valuable, something that might fetch a few pence. Several times he had rifled through the pockets of corpses that had washed in with the tide, nicking what scant coin there was to be had off of the bloated cadavers.
He’d climbed a long way from that miserable existence, if one could even call it that. A life lived in the rookeries and slums of London was hardly a life at all, and far more descended into it than had ever managed to claw their way out. But the stench of it, much like that of the Thames, had the tendency to cling to a body. A certain odor that lingered, making itself evident in the disdainfully twitchy noses of the upper classes.
The sharp light of dawn climbing over the horizon stung his eyes. The sounds of the city rousing began to climb, rending through the stillness with the shrill shouts of street merchants hawking their wares. It would be a long, unpleasant, painful walk back to his residence, given the fact that he doubted he could induce a hack to carry him on the promise of payment. He’d been divested of his coin and other valuables prior to his abrupt admission to the Thames, and he reeked to the devil and back.
Awife. It wasn’t that he wantedone. Need was a different beast entirely from want. But a wife would solve a number of his problems neatly, provided that she were the right sort of woman. She would have to be well-born, respectable. From a decent family, of good reputation, with a pleasant disposition. Of course, a man of his dubious background could not expect a ladyin the truest sense of the word. They were almost to a one secluded away from the riffraff, lest their fragile and delicate constitutions be tainted merely by exposure.
And Chris was, without a doubt, riffraff.
But even riffraff might secure a decent woman; a woman at the fringes of society, whose family might lack the coin to secure a better match. A woman who had been on the marriage mart too long, and whose opportunities were dwindling.
His boots squelched in the muddy bank as he made the arduous climb toward the streets, his cursed knee aching with every damned step, since he’d been relieved of his cane along with his coin and his pocket watch. There—a tug at his pocket. His hand flashed out, seized upon a skinny wrist. “Away wiv you,” he snapped roughly to the towheaded child whose arm he’d grabbed, irritated enough to be taken for a mark that he’d let his natural accent leech into his words.
The child gave an indignant squawk, wrenching futilely at his wrist. “Lemme go!” he screeched shrilly, but whatever help he had hoped to garner from his fellows lurking about the shore was not to materialize; they had scattered like insects at the very first hint of a conflict.
“Choose your victims with more care,” Chris advised, striving to enunciate more clearly. “You’ll be locked up in the clink quick as a blink otherwise.” He gave the youth a hard shake. “And stop that screeching. Ain’t no one listening.” The lad shut up so swiftly that it was nearly comical, squinting through his disheveled, shaggy hair as if sizing Chris up for a fight.
“You a buggerer, then?” the boy asked, firming his jaw.
Chris choked on a startled laugh. “No, and children don’t interest me, either. What’s your name? How old are you?”
Mulishly the boy set his chin and flexed his wrist in Chris’ hold, no doubt considering his options and judging the likelihood of breaking free.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Chris said.
The boy’s wrist relaxed. “Albert,” he said. “I’m fourteen.”
Chris would have bet the entirety of his bank account that both were lies. The boy was twelve at the very most. “You want to earn some honest coin?”
“No.” Another fierce glare. “How come ye look like a gent?”
“Iama gent.” Mostly. More often than not, just lately. At least he could pass for one when he didn’t let his temper get the best of him. “There’s a house not too far from here. Huge white one with columns out front and a door painted blue. It’s just at the edge of a park. Do you know it?”
“Mebbe. What’s it to ye?”
“It’s my house,” Chris said. “Bet you and your little band of thieves have thought about burglarizing it a time or two.” By the stubborn silence, Chris suspected he had guessed right. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s locked up tight, and my staff keeps a close watch. But there’s coin in it for you if you run there quick as you can and have my butler send the carriage for me. His name is Brooks.”
“Ye ain’t gonna turn me over as a thief?”
“What for? You didn’t manage to steal anything.” It came off more mocking than he’d intended. “A sovereign,” he said, “if my carriage is here in the next half hour.” He’d half expected the child to dart off the moment he released his hand, but the promise of the coin had proved itself too tempting. Though the boy skittered back a few steps, still he lingered there on the bank.
“A whole sovereign? Swear?”
It was a fortune to a street urchin. Ready coin was hard enough to come by, and a sovereign, provided it could be secreted away from whoever employed the child, would sustain the boy far better than whatever meager crusts of bread or moldy vegetables he might otherwise be offered.
“A whole sovereign.Ifmy carriage is here in half an hour.Tell Brooks to send a purse with the driver. And some damned towels.” The very last thing he needed was for his carriage to smell like the Thames, too.
