Sophia James – Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector (страница 9)

‘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.

‘Can you tell us of the crest, its design or anything on it that caught your eye?’ Jasper had asked this question and Lottie waited for the answer.

‘There was a helmet and stripes of red and gold, I think. I only saw it briefly, mind, and so it might have been something else.’

‘Thank you.’ Jasper passed over more coins to Twigg and stood, helping Charlotte up as he did so. ‘If there is any news of the girl, could you send me word here? You would be well remunerated.’

A card was placed on the table.

‘Of course, Mr King. I shall make certain that you know of it.’

Outside Lottie lifted her skirts slightly to step across the drain, pleased that they were leaving the place as she breathed in deeply, the smoke of the tavern a thickness in her throat.

A minute later they were inside the King carriage and as the door closed behind them Lottie let out a sigh of part-relief.

‘Thank you for accompanying me. I could never have managed that alone.’

‘I am glad I could be of help, Miss Fairclough, and if I hear anything at all from Twigg I will be in touch.’

‘You do not think the man in the carriage will hurt her?’

She did not like his lack of answer.

‘It is a disaster,’ she continued as her imagination raced. ‘These awful things happen all about us and we can only watch them unfold until there is nothing left to do. People simply disappear and never come back. Young girls. Good girls. Girls who have no one there to watch over them and make certain they are safe.’

Dread consumed her. Harriet was not the first girl to be lost into the world of prostitution and would not be the last either. Lottie felt hopelessly unprepared and impossibly adrift in her anxiety.

She pulled Jasper’s handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her nose, pleased that at least for the past half an hour she had not suffered another coughing fit. She wondered if she should give it back to him or if she should take it home to be laundered. She decided on the second option and tucked it again into her cloak.

She could not think of one other person who would have helped her as this man just had. Oh, granted, he had castigated her for the actions she had planned to take, but he had also supported her need to find Harriet when he realised that he could not stop her and ventured without further complaint into places that were foreign and difficult. It had been his coin that had greased the wheels for information without a doubt.

‘I shall pay you back,’ she suddenly uttered.

‘For what?’ His eyes were upon her, sliced in puzzlement.

‘The payments for information. I cannot expect you to take the burden of that.’

He laughed. ‘I assure you, Miss Fairclough, that I can afford it.’

At that she blushed because, conversely, he knew that she could not. The day was running down now into the evening, the night-time darkness coming in early at this time of the year, and she felt a desolation that was all-consuming.

Would she ever see Jasper King again or would he disappear to the far-off places that were the domain of a successful civil engineer and be lost to her altogether?

The visage of the beautiful blonde woman came to mind. She knew he was not married, but did he have someone who he was fond of waiting for him at home, some mistress of the same ilk as the ones who had gazed at him with longing at the afternoon’s charity event?

He would hardly be running to Charlotte’s side again after all this. Still, she could not give up the hope of it entirely.

‘I shall be at the Foundation for another week before I leave to join my mother and sister. If anything were to come up that concerned Harriet White’s whereabouts, I would be most eager to know of it.’

‘You shall be the first person I inform, Miss Fairclough.’

‘Thank you, Mr King.’

The formality was back, as was the distance.

Already her street was in view and the brick walls of the Foundation could be seen. Another minute and he would be gone.

Impulsively she took his hand in hers, surprised by the warmth of it.

‘I should like to say that I am most grateful and that without your help, Mr King, I doubt I would have achieved anything at all.’

‘It is music to my ears to be hearing such a turnaround,’ he replied, his mouth twitching.

‘My family would probably say that, too,’ she returned, and knew it to be true.

Mama would like Jasper King. He was strong and determined and his own man. There were secrets there, she supposed, his leg for one and why he had not married.

She had heard once he was engaged to be wed and wondered what had happened to that relationship. She remembered Silas saying Jasper’s father had been sick for a very long time as well and that father and son were close.

All snippets of Jasper’s life were fascinating and she wished she knew more. None the less, she had survived today finding out that her brother was still alive and that Harriet White had been carried out of Old Pye Street in a crested carriage which was a clue that could be followed up to find her. She hadn’t had a coughing fit for at least an hour and the tightness in her chest that had begun this morning was starting to loosen.

All in all, it had been an unsettling day and almost every emotion she had experienced had something to do with the enigmatic Mr Jasper King. She felt uncertain as to what she felt about him and resolved to leave the letter she had written of her sister’s need for a husband in her pocket and see how the rest of it played out. Jasper King did not seem like a man who might be persuaded to do anything he did not want to and the thought of him falling at the feet of her beautiful sister and offering marriage was not at this moment as appealing as it once had been.

When the carriage pulled up in front of the Foundation and he opened the door she saw that he was saying goodbye without coming in. Then he called the driver on.

In another moment he was gone altogether.

His sister Meghan arrived at his town house an hour later and her face was full of questions.

‘Who on earth was she, Jasper? I have met her before, I know it, and she said she’s from the Fairclough Foundation, but I cannot quite place her face.’

He knew who she spoke of but played along, not particularly wanting the advice he knew she would be doling out next.

‘Miss Susan Seymour. She was a friend of Verity Chambers.’

‘Not her.’

His sister swiped at his arm and finished her drink, dropping herself on the sofa opposite his chair and holding her glass out for another.

‘The one with the wild curls and the golden eyes. The interesting one.’

‘Miss Charlotte Fairclough.’

‘Oh, my, of course. I met her a year or more ago at some event and she charmed everyone there. Isn’t she just so very beautiful?’

Jasper got up to cross to the drinks cabinet, wincing as his leg caught.

‘It’s sore? Your leg? I have told you again and again to go back to the doctor. I am sure after all this time medical science has moved along and, who knows, there could be a cure for your problems.’

At least talk of his leg had diverted his sister from extolling the charms of Charlotte Fairclough though he knew also that state of affairs would not last for long.

‘I’m fine, Meghan.’

‘No, Jasper, you are not, but you were always stubborn and have become even more so with age. How on earth did you meet Miss Fairclough?’

‘I know her brother Silas—you may remember we took him on as an apprentice some years ago—but today was the first time I have spoken with her.’

‘That ghastly Susan Seymour was so rude, wasn’t she? As rude as Verity Chambers could be at times, in my opinion, and God knows you should have been thrilled to be untangled from her wiles. I know I was certainly pleased to hear of it despite your feelings for her.’

Jasper smiled at his sister’s loyalty. At the time he had been heartbroken and very sick. A collapse of spirit and body had been a hard thing to recover from. Now he agreed with his sister. A marriage between Verity and himself would never have worked but that thought, too, had been a long time in coming.

‘I worry about you, Jasper. I worry that you are too alone, too isolated and too hardened to see that truth. If Papa was here—’

He didn’t let her finish. ‘Well, he isn’t.’

‘He wanted to die in the end. Did you know that?’

This was new.

‘After your accident, when you could not care for him and I came up, he said that four years was long enough for you to be his nursemaid. He wanted you to travel to all those places you’d dreamed about and instead…’ She stopped. ‘Instead you were glued to his side providing all the care that I could not because he would not leave Liverpool and come to London.’

‘It wasn’t quite that simple, Meg, and you know it.’