The fact that he carried coin had probably shocked the boy speechless. English gentlemen were above matters as trivial as money, pockets righteously empty of filthy lucre. And judging by his cousin’s papers, so, too, were their bank accounts. A thorough gentleman to the end, the late Fourth Viscount St. Alban.
Jake glanced about his surroundings before resuming his westward trek. He hadn’t the faintest clue as to his whereabouts, except that he should keep heading toward St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was definitely still in the East End, judging by the putrid smells pouring in from every direction: over from the filthy river, up from the filthy sidewalk, down from filthy chamber pots. Filth was the common thread that linked one slum to every other slum around the world.
He breathed it in, let it coat his nostrils. The air smelled real and like home. He’d never lived in a slum, but it wasn’t a stretch to say close quarters on a ship at full capacity often resembled one.
Here in the East End, surrounded by cutthroats, thieves, venders, beggars, and whores, he was able to experience that wildness of life missing from the tame drawing rooms of Mayfair and St. James. He was a duck out of water in those rooms.
And Mina?
His body tensed, ready for battle, as the buzz of theton’s scrutiny, their speculation, their unkind titters returned to him. In her fourteen years on this earth, what a large amount of tumult Mina had endured. From the very beginning . . .
A face appeared in Jake’s mind’s eye: a clammy, labor exhausted face, the light fading fast from it, content in death at the promise she’d exacted from him. “Protect her, Jakob . . . she’ll have only you . . .”—Her weak grip on his arm had taken on an unexpected tenacity—“only you can do it . . . for Minako, my little Mina.”
Familiar pain spiked through him, and Jake banished the anguished face to the past where it belonged. His focus sharpened on the present.
The narrow London view was still gray, still filthy, and ever crowded as the morning progressed. He glanced at his pocket watch and picked up the clip of his stride. He didn’t want to be late for his appointment with yet another girls’ school.
He’d already interviewed three candidates with no luck. Mina needed more than piano lessons, drawing lessons, French lessons, and tea pouring lessons. Her brain tended toward natural philosophy and mathematics. The writings of Sir Isaac Newton excited her in a way that the newest dance step might for other girls.
The problem was that he had yet to find a school willing to teach to Mina’s intellect, and he resisted the idea of private instructors. She must form relationships with her peers if she was to have a chance of entering Society with a measure of success.
What was the name of the school Lady Olivia was connected to? The Progressive School for Young Ladies and something or another?
It mattered not, for he wouldn’t be pursuing that particular school. He needed to stay as far away as possible from the scandal-prone and, therefore, unmarriageable Lady Olivia Montfort.
Marriage. That was another way he would ensure Mina’s success. A stepmother of impeccable reputation and lineage would provide invaluable connections and assistance in the endeavor. He needed a partner in a wife. Whether or not she made him feel interested, engaged, and alive was of little consequence.
He shook his head, as if he could as easily shake Lady Olivia loose, and made to cross a street when a carriage whizzed past, splashing water fetid with street grime onto his boots. He snapped to. He would be run over and killed, if he wasn’t careful. A quick left-to-right glance confirmed the intersection was clear, and he jogged across uneven cobblestones until his feet hit sidewalk once again.
A voice called out, “Hey, guv, ye ain’t passin’ by without tastin’ one ‘a tha misses’ buns, are ye?”
Jake half-turned to find a rotund man coated in a fine dusting of flour belligerently eyeing him up and down. The man was a caricature of a baker come to life. “What have you there?” he asked, approaching the open window with the man’s substantial belly hanging out of it.
“We got yer stickies,” the baker said in a sheepish tone, clearly not anticipating Jake’s interest in his wares. He craned his head back and shouted, “Fanny! You got yer hot crosses out?”
“Out in two if a minute,” came Fanny’s shouted reply.
“Oh, come on, woman. Got a real gent’ulman customer ‘ere.” The baker pulled a beleaguered face as if to say,Ain’t it like a woman.
“A what?” The woman rounded the corner from the back of the shop and stopped dead in her tracks, straightening her apron as she puffed out her low-slung chest. “Oh, a real gent’ulman is right, I say.” She smiled what Jake would have called a toothy grin, if she hadn’t been missing her two front teeth. “Ne’er seen tha likes o’ ye ‘round here. New to tha area?”
“Something like that,” he said, his lips ticking up to the side.
Fanny sucked in a deep breath, further enhancing her breasts. In a whispery voice, she asked, “Wha’ canna git’cha?”
“A single sticky?”
“I can git’cha more ‘n that, guv.”
“Awright, Fanny, to tha back wi’ ye.” The baker shooed Fanny away, but not before she flashed Jake one last toothless smile. The baker shook his head in mournful fashion. “Sorry ‘bout that, guv. She gits like that ‘round yer lot. Mem’ries o’ days spent ‘round the street corner, if ya catch me drift.”
Jake set a coin on the window ledge. “Will this do?”
“And then some if ye can wait for a few hot crosses,” the baker said, pocketing the coin and shoving a sticky bun into Jake’s hand. “Tha missus won’t mind seein’ the front o’ ye agin, tha’s one thin’ for sure!”
The baker’s parting words were lost to Jake’s retreating back, the entirety of his attention now fixed on the not insubstantial task of managing the sticky bun. True to its name, it right and truly stuck to his fingers, a bit on the lapel of his dove gray overcoat, a drop on the top of his right boot. As soon as he was out of sight of the baker’s storefront, he tossed the thing into an alley and appraised fingers shiny with caramelized sugar.
Well, there was nothing else for it: he began licking. He had no intention of sticking to everything he touched all day. By the time he reached his third finger, he was distracted by the sensation of sugar-coated fingers in a way he hadn’t been since he was a tot in leading strings.
