Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector

Not her finest hour, Lottie thought with a sadness, and wished with every piece of her heart that she could have started this afternoon all over again.

She was nowhere in the room. She had gone. After looking round the front parlour and failing to find her, Jasper strode to the entrance where an elderly servant was waiting to dispense coats and hats.

‘Did Miss Fairclough leave?’

‘The young lady with the curls?’ The man waited as Jasper nodded. ‘She did indeed, sir, a good ten minutes ago now. But it seems to me that she hailed no carriage, setting out to walk instead.’ His eyes strayed to the window. ‘In this weather the young lady’s journey will be a cold one.’

Anger tightened his chest. Miss Charlotte Fairclough would walk all the way from here to Howick Place on one edge of the Irish Rookery in this weather? It was a decent distance and the journey would take her through many of the less salubrious parts of the city. Asking for his coat and hat, he put them on and walked outside, gesturing to the driver of his waiting carriage. The icy crunch of freezing snow beneath his boots worried him.

Five minutes later he found her walking down St Anne’s Street. She was coughing again, he could see that by the way she was hunched in with her body shaking. Did the younger Fairclough have no sense whatsoever? Leaning out of the window, he instructed his man to pull in just ahead of her, glad to see that she came to a standstill when he got out and was waiting patiently as he approached her.

‘Do you wish to be struck down with pneumonia, Miss Fairclough?’ He looked pointedly up at the sky. The snow had turned into sleeted rain now, driving in from the north with force.

Her head shook, the curls dripping like sodden rat tails where they fell beneath the hat she now wore.

‘I d-do n-not.’

She was shaking so hard she could barely get her words out, and the fury that he had felt when first seeing her trudging homewards doubled.

‘Get into my carriage. I shall take you home.’

She did as he ordered, sitting down primly and folding her cloak tighter in around her, though as he followed her in his damn leg gave way and he almost toppled into her lap, saving himself from doing so at the very last moment.

The talkative Miss Fairclough seemed to have disappeared altogether. This version was a far quieter one, watching him with those whisky eyes of hers in a careful and cautious manner.

‘The forecast is for heavier snow and the temperatures are plummeting. I doubt your brother would be pleased to see you traipsing in this part of London town alone and in such weather.’

The mention of Silas brought her glance to his. ‘You are right, Mr King. It was foolish.’

‘Surely someone should have accompanied you today. A maid? Your mother?’

‘My mother, Lilian, is in the country at a Christmas party of Lady Alexandra Malverly’s and my sister has journeyed with her.’

‘But you were not invited?’

The same slight blush he had noticed when talking with her before resurfaced.

‘I was sick.’

‘Which is even more of a reason to be warm indoors.’

The heat in the conveyance seemed to have aggravated her illness and he waited again for a moment until she stopped coughing, her hands winding into the material of her skirt and bunching it into tight folds. She looked like a small wet angel blown in by the winter chills, her hair all loose and her cheeks weather reddened. As he took in the curves of her body beneath the folds of her cloak, he glanced away. His right leg ached and his meeting with Susan Seymour sat firmly in his mind.

Miss Verity Chambers had broken off their engagement summarily after knowing the extent of an injury she could not abide. A note had arrived from her, the physician delivering it to his bedside along with the morphine. The shock had almost killed him.

God. He shifted his leg towards the carriage door, the altered angle helping ease the pain. He could walk again at least and the broken nerves did not jump into trauma with as much regularity as they had before.

But he was still a damaged man, inside and out—a man who could destroy Miss Charlotte Fairclough with all her joy and natural exuberance just by being who he was.

Leaning forward, he threaded his fingers together. He would drop her off at the Foundation and leave. He would also write to her brother and let him know the family circumstances for he could not believe that the honourable young man he had once known well would leave them all so very much in need. He also wondered if they would accept an interim loan in the meantime from him, but did not know quite how to phrase such an offer without it sounding like charity.

Glancing out of the window, Jasper took in a breath and tried not to be mesmerised by the scent of lavender and lemon that was not quite submerged under the heavier odour of soaking wet wool.

He was scowling again, the laughing man she had warmed to at the charity event completely swallowed up by this ill-tempered one admonishing her at every turn.

It was still a few minutes at least until they reached Howick Place and Lottie wished she might have refused this ride altogether.

The trouble was, there was something about him that she felt a connection to, a connection that she had understood eight years before sitting at the top of the stairs and spying upon him as he had come calling upon her sister.

He limped badly. She had noticed this as he had led her into the carriage a few moments before and once she was inside she saw his hand drop to his right thigh and rest there. For support? For balance? Lottie had thought he was going to fall for a second when he had first joined her in the conveyance, but he’d recovered his equilibrium just in time to sit, heavily, eyes flaring in pain and anger as he’d looked away.

His rigid control was worrying for he was a man so unlike the memory of her gentle and loving father that for a moment she felt bewildered by her notice of him.

‘I am sorry to have been a nuisance to you, Mr King.’

She wanted to also add that he could let her out now but, in the light of the worsening weather, did not quite feel up to plodding the rest of her way home.

The tears filling her eyes surprised her. She seldom cried. Perhaps it was a mixture of relief over the knowledge of her brother’s recent letter and of the day’s convoluted happenings. Taking in a deep breath, she tried to temper her reaction and ended up with another fit of coughing.

Goodness, was she really much sicker than she thought and could she be spreading it to him even as she sat there?

When he handed over a clean white handkerchief she was surprised.

‘Nothing is ever as bad as you might think it, Miss Fairclough.’

It was monogrammed with his initials and pressed into such starched precise folds she hardly dared unravel it.

‘Thank you.’

He nodded, waiting until she had blown her nose before speaking again.

‘This weather will improve tomorrow.’

She had the distinct feeling that he was filling in the awkward gaps and giving her time to recover. He certainly had not mentioned her tears and for that Lottie was relieved. She sought to find some conversational small talk of her own.

‘The blonde woman with her hand on your arm at the charity event looked very beautiful.’

He did not answer.

‘Your sister looks kind, too.’

‘She is.’

‘I seldom go to these large affairs in town because they are always rather daunting. Mama is the one who more usually attends them, but she cancelled her invitation because she was going to the Malverlys’ instead. She enjoys Lady Malverly’s happy disposition, I suppose, because it is a welcome change from all the never-ending problems at the Foundation.’

At that he frowned.

‘Is Mr Septimus Clarke still there as the General Manager? I remember him as a man who had been there for a very long time.’

‘No, he retired last year and Mr Jerome Edwards has taken over his position.’

‘A new employee, then?’

‘But one who comes well recommended. He will be pleased to hear of Silas’s return, no doubt, so if there was any chance of seeing my brother’s letter, Mr King, I would like to show it to him. It might set his mind to rest regarding the funds.’

‘Of course. I shall have the correspondence delivered to you, Miss Fairclough.’

So formal. The chill of distance was back. She wished Jasper might laugh again or at least smile, but mostly she wished he might touch her as he had when he’d helped her into the carriage.

There it was again, that ridiculous sense of notice of him which had no place at all in her life. He was rich, beautiful and well connected and he had numerous women clambering after him. He was also a man who, at this moment, looked at if he was desperate to escape the cloying closeness of the conveyance and her company in particular.

People found her odd. Lottie knew that they did. She was too rebellious and independent and did not have the charitable patience of Millie or the overreaching goodness of her mother. She’d do anything to protect the women they helped, but sometimes, like Silas, she wanted more.

More of a life and an opportunity to see other places and meet other people. More of a chance to read and discover and know things that she knew she now did not.

The Foundation was finally in sight, at least, but as she waited for the carriage to slow in front of it she saw Jasper King focus on something that was happening to one side.

When she looked over she was horrified to see Mrs Rosa O’Brian hurrying towards them, very under-dressed for a freezing London day. She stopped as Lottie banged her knuckles against the window and opened the carriage door.

‘Oh, thank the Lord you are still here, Miss Lottie. I had a feeling you may have gone to the country with Miss Millie and your mother for the Christmas party. I remembered you speaking of it.’

When they alighted Lottie realised Jasper was there, too, right beside her, his large frame sheltering her from the freezing wind. Rosa was now weeping, highly distressed by something. Lottie could never remember her being quite so hysterical.

‘It’s Harriet White. She is missing and I think I might know exactly where she is.’ Her Irish brogue was strong, but Lottie had spent a good amount of time in her company to easily understand what she was saying.

‘Missing?’ It took her a few seconds to place this word into some sort of order and her heart lurched.

Rosa nodded and as she burst into louder sobs Jasper King looked away. Perhaps he had had enough of crying women today, Lottie thought. Perhaps he was at the very end of his tether with feminine histrionics. She half-expected him to simply return to his carriage, call the driver on and disappear. But he did not. Instead he stood there in the wind without even reaching for his hat.

‘Where do you think she is?’ Lottie asked this of Rosa gently, trying to understand exactly what ‘missing’ meant.

‘Old Pye Street is where she is and you know what happens there?’

A further distressed howl followed these words and, looking at Jasper, Lottie saw his puzzlement. With little option but to explain she did.

‘It is an area quite close that is renowned for its prostitution. It is not a good place for a young woman to be at all, for there are people there who would take advantage of innocence.’

Probably the females of his acquaintance didn’t know of such debauchery, let alone mention it. But Lottie had been brought up alongside the women and children the Foundation helped and things such as these were a known entity in everybody’s life. Good and evil co-existed simultaneously and it was only a short step from respectability and righteousness into disaster and ruin should circumstances conspire against one.

A man like Mr Jasper King might have little grasp of the precariousness of living at the bottom with his grander upbringing and his wider social circles. Rosa’s face, for example, was marked with scars from a relationship that had soured in her early twenties. She looked nothing like the woman Lottie had noticed holding on to Jasper’s arm at the charity event they had just been to. In truth, when Lottie had first set eyes upon Rosa’s visage even she had been shocked.

And yet Mr King did not move away. Rather he questioned Rosa more closely.

‘What brings you to think this woman—Harriet White was it?…’ he waited till Rosa nodded ‘…that she might be in this particular place?’

‘Mr Wilkes, who works at the laundry, said as much, sir. He said there had been whispers of it and that he would not be surprised because Harriet is the sort of girl who might be persuaded to…’ She stopped and blushed.

‘I see.’ When Jasper said this his words were tight and Lottie hurried in herself.

‘Then we must go there right now, Rosa. We must go and ask Frank Wilkes exactly what it was he heard and try to find out where she is. Harriet is a special friend of mine, you see,’ she added, turning to Jasper King. ‘She came to the Foundation as a young girl and we grew up together, and although she sometimes can be a little wild we shared a lot of the same dreams. If anything has happened to her…’ She could not finish the obvious and swallowed. ‘I have to help her.’

Grabbing her reticule from the carriage floor, she positioned her hat more firmly on her head, but Mr King stopped her as she took the first step away.

‘Where do you think you are going? To the laundry? To do what?’ He did not sound happy as he loomed above her.

‘To try to find out what has happened, of course.’

‘Alone? You are going to go there alone? Have you no sense? What happens when the pimp hears of your questions and the brothel owner is affronted? What then? These men are not honourable adversaries—they are hardened criminals and you would be no match at all for them.’

‘So I am supposed to just leave it at that. Allow Harriet to be used and then discarded? Allow her to simply throw her young life away?’

‘How old is she?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘Twenty-two.’

‘Only three years’ difference and you think I should allow you to throw your life away in a senseless and stupid attempt to make it otherwise. This is not the sort of thing you should be getting yourself mixed up with, Miss Fairclough, and if your brother was here he would say the very same thing. Under no circumstances whatsoever should you go to that laundry and especially not by yourself.’

The controlling way Jasper said these words made Lottie stand on her tiptoes and face him directly.

‘You cannot stop me—besides, I have no care for your opinion. Harriet White is my friend and she needs help so I am going whether you like it or not.’

Rosa beside them was crying constantly now, her nose running and her eyes red, and the rain suddenly decided to step up a notch and turn into a downpour.

‘Then get in. Both of you. How far is it to this laundry?’

Lord, Jasper thought, save me from women who have no sense or wisdom. The fact that Charlotte Fairclough would even consider the prospect of going into battle alone infuriated him, but he could not allow the consequences that might follow without making an effort to restrain her.

He would go into Old Pye Street himself to try to find the missing Harriet White and God help anyone who tried to fob him off once he was at his destination.

The scars on the face of the woman opposite pulled at his heartstrings, too, he supposed. Those on his legs were bad enough, but at least they were not on display for the whole entire world to see. Charlotte Fairclough now had her hand entwined through Rosa’s and was patting the top of it in an effort to calm her down, though it did not seem to be doing much good.

Did she not see how small she was, how impossibly delicate? How was it she did not recognise the danger of striking out to right all the injustices in the underbelly of London town? Her curls had fallen out further so that it barely looked as if any hair was left pinned up. She was coughing again, too, and that worried him. Miss Fairclough should be at home tucked up in bed with a hot lemon toddy and some tender loving care. Yet here she was in wet boots that looked as if they had seen better days and a cloak with patches upon the pockets. The rain had made her cold because she was shaking and he noticed she swallowed often in between her coughing fits as if to beat back tears. Or take in air.

She was nothing like anybody else he had ever met. Even Verity Chambers, whom he had once thought perfect, sensible and polite, would not have struck out to help another in the way Charlotte Fairclough had. He grimaced.

How did she do this to him so easily, raise an ire that had been largely indifferent or dormant for years? He swore under his breath and thought with resignation that it was turning into a full-time occupation just trying to keep Silas Fairclough’s stubborn sister safe.

Chapter Four

Frank Wilkes was taciturn and silent on first meeting, but under the pressure of their questions he did open up a little.

‘It were Jack Nisbett who said he’d seen her, Miss Fairclough. He said he had noticed Miss White in Old Pye Street. He said that perhaps she were in one of the upstairs rooms there. When I told Mrs O’Brian what I had discovered she cried and ran out of the place with a stack of laundry to finish by tonight to boot. I am that glad to see her back, mind.’

‘I am sorry, Mr Wilkes.’ Rosa stepped forward and began collecting a large pile of unfolded clothes heaped across a long table. ‘I’ll see to these straight away.’

Charlotte Fairclough, meanwhile, stepped from foot to foot and gave the impression that all she wanted to do now was to run and begin her search. Jasper moved across to stand beside her and took her arm, anchoring her in place. Unexpectedly she allowed him to, waiting as he got a blow-by-blow account of the environs from Wilkes.

Local knowledge was always invaluable, the many years of working in his civil engineering firm attesting to that fact. When he had a good idea of the layout of Old Pye Street he turned to Charlotte.

‘What exactly does this Harriet White look like?’

‘She is tall and thin and she has bright gold hair. Her eyes are brown and she has a birthmark just here.’ Charlotte touched her own chin to one side. ‘It is a mark in the shape of a small circle.’

Such a particular description heartened Jasper. Surely someone would have recognised the girl and could give him information.

‘Right then, you stay here and leave me to it. I will be back within the hour.’ He turned to Frank Wilkes. ‘Is it possible to give Miss Fairclough a cup of tea? She has been coughing badly and it might soothe her throat.’

‘No. I am going with you. I won’t be left here. I need to be helping.’ Her voice was strong and certain.

‘You will help me by staying out of the way and by being safe.’

But Charlotte shook her head fiercely. ‘If you leave me here, I will simply follow you, Mr King. Two sets of eyes are far better than one and I can identify Harriet no matter what. If she has dyed her hair…’

‘I can look for the birthmark.’

‘Which could be easily covered in make-up. There is no telling what she might look like now, but I would know Harriet anywhere. You, on the other hand, have never met her.’

Such a rationale was persuasive. ‘Should I agree to this you have to give me a promise that you will stay out of the way and if there is any trouble you will run back to my carriage as quick as your legs can carry you.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Hell.’

He was going to let her come and if anything happened because of it he would never forgive himself. Neither would her brother.

Jasper King’s size was comforting and the limp he was afflicted with gave him an added danger. He was a man who had known battle and pain, yet lived. He gave no impression at all of a nob who was out of his depth as he strode through the crooked pathways crossing the intersecting labyrinths that led into Old Pye Street.

The place was dank and wet and any daylight was swallowed up by the narrow thinness of the buildings above them, a Stygian stinking gloom all that was left.

An older woman with a basket attached by straps to her back was the first person he talked to.

‘We are looking for a young friend of ours, a girl with blonde hair and a birthmark on her chin. She would be new around here and frightened, perhaps.’

‘Whores all look the same, sir. Frightened at first, but resigned before long. The money’s what brings ’em and it ain’t called the Old Pye Street for nothing.’

‘So you haven’t seen her?’

As she shook her head Charlotte began to speak.

‘She is a good girl even if she has been foolish and any help would be very welcome.’

‘The One Tun public house is five doors down. Perhaps you might look in there for the patrons of many of the places hereabouts are often found drinking in that establishment. You might be able to ask them.’

‘Thank you.’ Jasper’s voice was deep and he passed a penny over to the woman whose demeanour changed remarkably as a result.

‘Ask for Mr Twigg. Tell him Annie sent you. If anyone has seen her, he will have.’

Then she was gone, trudging down the alley with her large basket and calling out to those about her to sample the wares.

‘It’s a start,’ Charlotte said to Jasper as he took her arm and led her on. ‘I’d forgotten just how easily a coin loosens the tongue.’

‘And I have many more of them, Miss Fairclough.’

She liked his smile and she liked the way his fingers tightened around her wrist. In protection. She’d never have been able to manage this alone despite her telling him the opposite. It wasn’t that every person they passed looked as if they might do them harm, but more the understanding that a woman alone would have been fair game for those with a mind for the sort of activity the road was renowned for. She was thankful beyond words to have him striding along beside her.

The One Tun pub was wreathed in the mist of tobacco smoke, with a one-legged man just inside the door begging for alms. Jasper laid another penny in the tattered hat and she saw him tip his head in a shared understanding. Then another was in front of them, a heavy man with a reddened face and a receding hairline.

‘I’m after Mr Twigg. Annie sent me.’

Interest passed across his eyes and he led them to a table, signalling for them to sit.

‘That’d be me, then, so what’s your business?’

‘We are looking for a girl who is new to Old Pye Street. Harriet White. She was taken from the laundry in Horseferry Road and we want her back.’ He gave Harriet’s description and the man pondered it.

‘A birthmark, you say, and right here?’

‘You’ve seen her, then?’

‘Just for a moment, but from memory her name were not Harriet and the last I saw of her were when she went off in a carriage with a fine toff who had a crest painted on the side of it and all.’

‘A crest?’ The surprise in Jasper’s voice was plain to hear.

‘That happens to the new ones sometimes. The ones who are not spoiled or pockmarked or difficult are picked out by gentlemen who can pay a bit more for hanky-panky elsewhere. Sometimes the girls return, but more often they do not.’

The danger of it all was horrifying to Lottie. To simply disappear in a conveyance for relations with a man who was neither known nor honourable seemed to her the very height of foolishness. And Harriet had never seemed to be that.