Page 26 of Give Him a Chance

And there had been poor Mrs. Hedges and her young daughter, the cupboards bare, a worn rug on the carpet, and desperate hope in their eyes.

I remain, your respectful servant,

Lucy Chance

It took her but a moment to fold the letter, slip it into the envelope, and tick off the name from her sheet.

Mrs. John Marithorpe (Augusta Smith)

Mr. Charles Hedges

Miss Mildred Sharpe

Just one more, and she could check on her other charge. Mr. Bernard Dixon.

Lucy had known fiery heat would burn through her at the very thought of the man, and so she attempted not to think too much about him at all. The trouble was, he was so very…present.

Oh, he kept out of the way of her family. Her parents had inquired delicately whether or not he had left, and Lucy had been forced to admit that the man mostly kept to his bedchamber.

Which was, in and of itself, odd.

And not because she wanted to see him, Lucy told herself firmly as she pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her, stretched, and wiggled her fingers to put a bit more life into them, and started writing her final letter of the day.

Dear Judge Bonner,

I am writing to you on behalf of a Miss Mildred Sharpe, a woman of Hove, who was been unjustly accused of solicitation that she could not possibly have perpetrated—

No, she did not want to see Mr. Bernard Dixon. Definitely not.

But he intrigued her. There was something about him so…so different from the others.

Lucy had met near a hundred people who had been wrongly accused of a crime they had not committed, and they all had one thing in common.

Dread.

They feared what was to come. They knew that the wrong judge, the wrong jury, a solicitor who did not adequately argue their case, and their lives would never be the same again. They knew it could end for them in a moment, rendering all their hopes obsolete as transportation or worse beckoned them.

But not Mr. Bernard Dixon. The man did not appear to fear anything, and he had been far too cheerful at the prospect of being sent thousands of miles away on a ship with no proper medicine or food to a climate that, from all Lucy had read, was most inhospitable.

And another thing. When he had said—

“There you are.”

Lucy started, not bothering to cover her letters, for the entire family knew what she did—but finding herself staring not into the eyes of her father, mother, or brother…but their unplanned guest.

Dixon.

“Dixon,” she said blankly.

“Lady Lucy,” he said with a grin, inclining his head. “I was looking for the library but appear to have myself turned around.”

The words had slipped out before she could stop them. “What do you want the library for?”

It was perhaps no surprise that Dixon stared in utter confusion. “Why, to breed pigs, of course.”

“‘Breed—breed pigs’?”

He was laughing—he was laughing at her! “To read books, Lady Lucy. What did you think I wanted to do there?”