A Christmas mission…

…with the scarred and brooding gentleman!

Part of Secrets of a Victorian Household. Working in her family’s charity foundation for destitute women, caring but impulsive Miss Lottie Fairclough is desperately trying to find a missing woman. She’s roped in family acquaintance Mr. Jasper King to help her, having been equally impressed and annoyed when he rescued her from perilous danger. As she gets to know the injured entrepreneur, it seems he needs her just as much…

SOPHIA JAMES lives in Chelsea Bay, on Auckland New Zealand’s North Shore, with her husband who is an artist. She has a degree in English and History from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed by reading Georgette Heyer in the holidays at her grandmother’s house. Sophia enjoys getting feedback at facebook.com/sophiajamesauthor.

Also by Sophia James

Gentlemen of Honour miniseries

A Night of Secret Surrender

A Proposition for the Comte

The Cinderella Countess

Secrets of a Victorian Household collection

Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector by Sophia James

And look out for the next books

Miss Amelia’s Mistletoe Marquess by Jenni Fletcher

Mr Fairclough’s Inherited Bride by Georgie Lee

Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath

Coming soon

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Miss Lottie’s Christmas Protector

Sophia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08950-0

MISS LOTTIE’S CHRISTMAS PROTECTOR

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Thank you Jenni Fletcher, Georgie Lee

and Virginia Heath, for making this series such an easy

and fun one to write together. You were all generous

with your replies and accommodating of any changes.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

In the shadow of Westminster Abbey lay an area known as the Irish Rookery—a place of narrow streets, rundown buildings and hopelessness.

This area, once a sanctuary offered to debtors and criminals by the monks from the abbey, was by 1842 the haunt of the displaced Irish, who lived in a festering labyrinth of dark and impenetrable streets full of desperation and vice.

However, social philanthropy and charity-based movements were on the rise in Victorian England, as Christian duty encouraged acts to save the souls of those mired in poverty.

The Fairclough Foundation was one such organisation and it lay in Howick Place, just on the edge of Old Pye Street, the Perkins Rents, Great Peter’s Road and St Anne’s Street—home to some of the worst slums in all of London.

Chapter One

Late November 1842—Westminster, London

Gilbert Griffiths, a man who was scared of his own shadow, had offered for her sister.

These words echoed through Lottie in sheer horror and growing apprehension. If Amelia accepted the overzealous and pedantic curate as a husband she would shrivel, piece by little piece, until nothing of joy and hope were left.

Charlotte Lilian Alexandra Fairclough could see the same guarded truth in Millie’s eyes and she shook her head hard, unleashing wild brown curls in the process.

‘You cannot love him, Millie? He is fussy and boring and impossible.’

Amelia smiled in the way that was purely her own, dutiful yet strained, a happy expression plastered steadfastly over conflict. ‘He has a modest income as well as a small property and would be able to keep the wolf from our door. Did you think of that?’

‘So you would sacrifice yourself for the greater good? Your life? Your for ever? There has to be a time when your selflessness has a limit, Millie. This is that time. I cannot let you do it. Not for me or for Mama.’

Her sister dug her heels in further. ‘You cannot stop me, Lottie, and if I wait much longer we will all be thrown out of our house into penury. If that happens, you would be begging for me to marry him.’

‘I never would. We can sell the furniture and go north. There must be enough to start elsewhere if we are frugal and besides we have…skills.’

‘What skills?’

‘I can sew. You can do bookkeeping and Mama can manage the rest. If we are lucky, someone far better might come along and offer for one of us and then…’ She petered out. No eligible suitor had presented themselves in years. It was a groundless hope.

‘And what of the vulnerable and desperate women in the Rookery who depend upon us here at the Fairclough Foundation? What would happen to them should I simply be selfish and refuse an offer of marriage that is not completely repulsive to me?’

‘If it isn’t, then it should be.’ Lottie backtracked when she saw her sister’s hurt and understood her worry about those they helped. ‘Well, at least promise me that you will wait until we have a letter from Silas, telling us of all the riches he has made in America.’

The mention of their brother’s absence brought a bruising sadness to Amelia’s green eyes.

‘He is lost, Lottie. I cannot feel him.’

As twins Amelia and Silas had always been close, so close that Lottie had felt the odd one out in the family, the twins’ sense of knowing where and how the other was was the bane of her early childhood. They had won every game of marbles, and hoop and stick, and hide-and-go-seek, the language they’d invented between them shutting her out. Often she had come across them whispering secrets and the feeling of being alone and unwanted had soon led her into trouble.

Charlotte Fairclough, the rebellious, opinionated and impulsive younger sister. The one who did not quite fit into the family structure of good deeds, fine thoughts and parsimonious self-sacrificing. Mama and Papa, Millie and Silas. In the pairings around her Lottie had had difficulty finding her place.

‘I think Silas is on his way home to England even as we speak. I think he wants to surprise us.’ She tried to place assurance into her words though at this moment she was feeling far from such faith.

‘I think you have an imagination that is over-fertile and impossibly optimistic, Lottie, but then I suppose you always did.’

Mama chose that moment to bundle into the room, her arms full of fabric and her dark wavy hair coming a little loose from the pins that held up the thickness of it. ‘I have just found this in one of the trunks your father brought from his family house years ago. I had forgotten about it completely, but it shall be perfect for us to make gowns with for Lady Alexandra’s party in a fortnight.’ Her eyes were wide with delight and Lottie thought for the thousandth time how beautiful her mother was even at the grand old age of forty-five.

But then Lottie’s heart fell. Lady Alexandra Malverly was her father’s cousin and both the daughter of a duke and the wife of a viscount. Many of the guests at the Christmas party would be well off and odious and they would also have a keen sense of the Fairclough family’s lower social standing.

Likely sensing the disenchantment in her daughters, her mother carried on.

‘I know you are not as thrilled about the invitation as I am, but it is important for us to make an effort, for who knows which handsome unmarried man might make an appearance this year? We could definitely do with the hope of it.’

Millie blushed and Lottie frowned.

‘I know you do not particularly enjoy venturing to see Alexandra, but she has always been kind to me and I like her company. Besides, it is only for a few weeks and the celebration of the Christmas season will lighten things up.’

Privately Lottie thought it would also mean Lady Alexandra would drink more, but for Mama’s sake she rallied. Papa had been dead for almost ten years and her mother still talked about him as if he had died only yesterday. A love match. A perfect union. Two halves of a whole. Exactly the thing that Millie would never be allowed to experience should she marry the son of the local vicar, Mr Gilbert Griffiths.

Yet as she stood there a new thought began to form. A startlingly dangerous plan that made her heart race. Could she risk it? Would it work? The ghost of her father sat there, too, in the room beside her. Henry Fairclough, the fourth son of an earl, would never have allowed his older daughter to make such a compromise. No, Papa would have fought for something shining and wonderful, Lottie knew this completely.

Well, she would, too, but in her own manner. The last time she could remember her sister being excited in the company of a man was eight years ago after a ball in which Amelia had been asked to dance by the mysterious Mr Jasper King. Lottie remembered seeing him through the banisters from the upstairs landing when he had come to pay his regards to her sister the day after. Although Lottie had only been very young at the time, she’d nevertheless understood that she was in the company of a man who had presence. He was tall and dark headed and more than handsome, but it was his certainty and his confidence that she had been struck by the most.

When he had looked up and caught her eyes he’d smiled. To her eternal shame, Lottie had lived off that particular moment for years afterwards. A Prince Charming who had come to rescue them with love and who looked just as she had imagined one would.

But Millie failed to persist with him and Mr King had disappeared from their lives, vague references coming only from Silas, who revered the ground the older engineer stood on. Her brother had worked for the Kings as an apprentice in London for a time before being seconded to their main office in Liverpool, so the ties between Jasper and her family had pretty much been broken, then.

Lottie did know Jasper had a sister who lived on the other side of the city and she had heard a rumour that he would attend a charity Christmas event in London with her in just over a week’s time. Even though she knew Amelia was the one who deserved him, she hadn’t broken the habit of listening for snippets of information about the man.

The strands of the chance of happiness for her family had begun to unravel and disconnect and just when all seemed to be lost she saw a way of threading them back together again. Could she find Mr Jasper King and lead him in the direction of her sister?

The daring of the escapade worried her a little bit, but Nanny Beth had always said great deeds were usually wrought at great risk. Lottie couldn’t remember why Nanny would have had reason to say this, but she had certainly shared it with Lottie many a time before she had passed away at the age of sixty-eight.

Just the thought of such sage advice made her feel better about her whole idea.

‘You look like the cat who has the cream, Lottie.’ Her mother made this observation and Millie glanced over and frowned.

‘What new crazy scheme are you dreaming up now, Lottie? Remember how the last one turned out when you decided to help Mrs Wilson claim her right to be the main character in last year’s Christmas pageant at the Foundation?’

‘Well, how was I to know she would suffer such dreadful stage fright and nearly put the whole show in jeopardy?’

‘It was lucky Mama knew all the words and that there was a second plan in place that we could revert to.’

A second plan? Well, that was a thought. If by chance she should fail in her intention of dangling the charms of her sister under the nose of Mr Jasper King, she could at least plead she was there to ask if he had any news of her brother.

The day brightened considerably.

‘This is your colour, Lottie, for it will bring out the gold in your eyes.’ Her mother held the tawny silk before her and Lottie stood still. Unlike Millie, she had never been that interested in fashion and had no true opinion as to what suited her and what didn’t. ‘I will use the same pattern I found last year with the high neck and wide sleeves. A new dress for each of us will take no time at all and will be so good for one’s confidence.’

Lottie looked up at that. She would need confidence to pull this plan off and if this dress gave her an added edge then she was all for it.

‘I will help you cut the fabric, Mama. Let me just find my glasses and my pins.’

Chapter Two

Early December 1842

Jasper King lay in bed at his town house on the west side of Arlington Street in Piccadilly overlooking Green Park and watched the smoke rings from his cheroot rise towards the high ceiling and its ornate centre rosette.

He’d moved into this house because he’d felt he needed a base and after years in Liverpool he’d wanted to come home to the city he’d lived in as a child and finally rest for a while. His father would have approved, he thought, smiling as he remembered the man who had brought his children up almost singlehandedly after the death of his wife. Arlene Susan King. His mother. He had not known her so his memories were only from stiff etchings, the sepia images giving little away as to the true nature of the woman. She had always felt like a stranger.

He shook off such melancholy, his thoughts returning to the day at hand. His elder sister Meghan had said she would meet him after two in the afternoon at a Christmas party she had helped organise so he still had a few hours to use up in the meantime. As a man who had been busy for so many years with the engineering firm his father had started, and all its demands, this was an unparalleled indolence, but for once he allowed the sheer silence of living to wash across him as he simply sat and did nothing.

Three years ago at this time he had hit rock bottom, the laudanum calling him home.

Stretching his right leg, he winced. The pain was still there, but the hurt had diluted into the known. He was no longer as whole as he once had been, but the shock had receded somewhat and a sort of resigned acceptance had followed.

Drawing again on his cheroot, he enjoyed the earthy mellow taste of tobacco. He’d have liked a brandy along with it, but had made it his purpose to rise above multiple vices with a dedicated resolve and he seldom gave in to any craving now without a fight. The opium and morphine had long gone and for that he was glad, but he still remembered the hell of a job he’d had to get off it as if it were yesterday.

Three hours until he saw his sister. The contrast between what he was doing and thinking here and now and all the expectations required for later amused him. For so long he’d been a hidden person and the thought of attending a gathering of those with the sole devotion to do good works made him tense. He was far from being a saint.

Lifting up the thin book on his lap, he let it slip to the floor, its spine flattening open on the parquet. A Journal of a Voyage Round the World.

Jasper wondered why he read such things, given he had never been to the far-flung destinations Captain James Cook had been wont to in his tiny boat and was hardly likely to, but something inside sought the incredible drama of lives lived to the very edge.

He wanted a release from himself and he reasoned worlds far from his own reality might almost give him that. It was comforting reading about men who risked everything for the pursuit of something far greater than themselves. Men who pushed the boundaries and reaped the results.

The clock on the mantel boomed out the hour of eleven and he watched the minute hand move around the numbers below it. A second. A minute. An hour. A day. A year. A decade. A lifetime.

Lists reassured him because they signified control. One followed the next. In order. In sequence. He could recite all the components of endless directories he’d memorised with ease and often did so.

Was this the beginning of the slide down into despondency? Like his father? That thought worried him and he leaned back against numerous carefully positioned pillows and breathed out.

Even his slumber now held an unchanged and precise structure and he longed to return to the time when he could’ve slept anywhere. The time when release came simply with the closing of one’s eyes.

So many damned years ago. When he was fit and whole. He grimaced as his foot lost its purchase on the sheets and his injured leg jolted.

A doctor’s visit was in order again. He knew it. The metal was still in his thigh, scraping against bone and moving in ways that his body recognised as dangerous. Sometimes he almost wished that which was foreign inside him might just enter into his bloodstream and that would be the end of it. A physician had told him such a catastrophe was eminently possible and the horror he’d once felt at such a warning was waning.

Pushing back the covers, he sat on the side of the bed. He needed to shave and have his hair cut. He needed to lighten up. He needed to live again as though every day might be his last, but Christmas was coming soon and the whole idea of such an enforced joviality made him tired.

Meghan had had a baby earlier in the year and she wanted him to be more of a part of her family life in order to get to know his niece, Sarah. She was worried for him. He could tell that she was.

Just thinking about baby Sarah made him smile. She was fat and hairless and the rings of flesh around all the parts of her body transformed her into a tiny Buddha just waiting for her chance to rule. He’d never thought about children much until meeting her and she had stolen his heart at the very first sight of her toothless smile.

He’d bought a doll’s house to give her at Christmas and he’d had small figurines of their family made by a craftsman in Liverpool. His own image had surprised him for in porcelain he looked a lot more gregarious than he felt he ever did in real life. He hoped his sister would like the present for she’d seemed exhausted lately, the chaotic household all about her adding to her fatigue.

He should be more thankful of the silence in his town house, for a few hours in the company of his sister and her offspring usually saw him scrambling back to Piccadilly in relief. The bank drafts he’d arranged each month for Meghan had brought a little escape for her from the constant worry of financial hardship and although Jasper would have liked to have donated more, his sister’s husband, Stephen Gibson, was a proud man and had refused the offer. Instead, Jasper had set up a further trust fund for his niece and given Meghan the rights of withdrawal from it.

A knock at his door had him turning and his valet, Hutton, walked in.

‘I’ve clothes for your outing, sir, and would recommend you take the thicker wool coat. It’s cold today.’

‘Almost snowing.’ A quick observation out of the window showed purple clouds on the horizon that were trailing quickly south.

‘Your sister sent a note just to reiterate that she will meet you at the address she told you of. She hopes you will not be late.’

‘Thank you, Hutton.’

‘Very well, sir.’ The man hesitated. ‘There is another matter, sir. A letter arrived a moment ago and the delivery boy asked if you could see to it straight away.’

Hutton proceeded to place a lilac envelope sealed with wax of the same colour in Jasper’s hand. A feminine missive. He recognised the handwriting on the front and his heart sank. Verity Chambers was becoming increasingly forward with her actions in contacting him and he would need to deal with her firmly. However, he could not quite face doing so today.

Balling up the missive, he aimed for the rubbish bin on one side of the room and the small paper flew over in an arc and landed neatly in.

‘Well done, sir.’

He smiled. ‘That will be all for now.’

He’d made a lucky escape from marriage to Miss Chambers three years ago even though at the time he had not thought it. With renewed purpose Jasper opened his book again and went back to his reading.

Lottie wondered momentarily about the wisdom of walking alone across London to a function she had received no official invitation to attend. Her cough had worsened rapidly and there was a wry irony in that. The weather had worsened as well, the snow that had been holding off now falling lightly. Brushing the gathering flakes from her cloak, she bent her head into the wind.

She had exaggerated her small sickness to escape Lady Malverly’s party in the country and pleaded instead to be left at the Fairclough Foundation in the care of her maid until she could join Mama and Amelia in a fortnight’s time. Her family had left two days ago and this morning she was suddenly a lot more ill than she wanted to be, but at least the deception had allowed her plan to be put in place.

The small group of youths came from nowhere on the eastern edge of Great Peter’s Road and surrounded her, leaving her to clutch her reticule to her chest with more force than she meant.

‘Go away, the lot of you.’ It never paid to show any sort of fear, but in truth her heart was beating fast. ‘Go back to where you belong and leave me alone. I have nothing at all that you could want.’

‘Do you not now?’ The largest boy at the front looked her over. ‘Seems to me you are mighty pretty to be alone.’

‘If you touch me, I will hurt you.’

Blackened teeth showed. ‘How did you plan to do that? You are a little on the small side.’

‘The crushing of a foe holds no correlation with the size of one’s muscles. It’s all here, you see, in the head. Give me one moment to lay you out flat on the road or be gone. I have no time to tarry.’

Such confidence seemed to quell a little of the bravado displayed by the group and Lottie pushed her advantage.

‘Well, hurry up. What’s it to be? A fight or the wisdom to retreat?’

‘You ain’t scared, miss?’ A boy from behind the first asked this question, his eyes full of puzzlement.

‘Of course not. I see boys just like you around the Fairclough Foundation on Howick Place, but its seldom one has the temerity to threaten me.’

‘Miss Fairclough?’ Another lanky youth detached himself from the group. ‘It’s you?’

‘Indeed it is.’ She squinted to see his face better, not wanting to extricate her spectacles from the bag which had begun all this nonsense in the first place and draw notice to her possessions. ‘Who are you?’

‘My cousin, Emmeline Fraser, is learning to sew at your school. She loves going there.’

The tone of the group had subtly changed now. It was something to steal from a stranger and quite another thing to do it from a friend.

‘Emmeline’s mother no doubt would be most upset to hear about this awkward meeting then should I find the need to tell her of it.’

The first challenger had stepped back now and the others had followed. She used such indecision to her advantage.

‘Well, I shall bid you all goodbye and I hope next time we see each other it might be in happier circumstances.’

The passageway was opened to her and Lottie stepped through, taking care to lift her skirts over the drain that ran down the middle of the road. The hard anger inside had lessened now, but fright lingered. She really ought to have taken her maid, Claire, with her today as the walk was a reasonable distance and a further fracas was something she did not need.

Smoothing down her golden skirt, she tidied the tendrils of her hair and took in a deep breath.

She could not afford to lose heart if she stood any chance of completing what she had set out to do. Shoving her thick woollen cloak back, she checked to make sure the note she had spent a long time writing last night was still in her pocket. If words failed her at least, she had this to give him. Mr Jasper King. She hoped all this effort would come to something.

After the unsettling meeting with the street youths Lottie wondered if she could still manage to complete her task. Shaking her head hard, she stepped forward. Of course she could. If she were to fail then her sister Millie would marry a man who was overzealous, ridiculous and pedantic to boot and she would be miserable. Lottie could not let that happen.

After walking another quarter of an hour, the streets held a greater cleanliness and beauty and she loosened her guard a little. Great George Street had a different feel from the narrow dank alleyways that sat in the shadows of Westminster Abbey and she was glad to have arrived there.

Jasper King’s sister was called Mrs Gibson, a woman she had met once a few years ago on a committee set up for the Betterment of Women at Risk. Lottie prayed she would remember their association and allow her entrance, but this was just another problem on a day of many. She sniffed and felt red-raw pain sear her throat. She had lost her handkerchief somewhere and had not thought to add a spare to the contents of her reticule.

Her nose was dripping.

Using the back of her hand so as not to stain her dress, she wiped away the moisture, looking up at the house she had finally reached just as the sun came out, its brightness reflecting upon the glass and sending a shaft of light down on the street before her.

Perhaps this was an omen? Perhaps right at this moment Millie was already being courted at the party in the country by a man for whom she could hold a tendre. Lottie frowned even as the thought of what she was doing here had her crossing her heart, such a deception probably the worst idea she had ever concocted.

Lady Alexandra’s parties had always been full of people for whom Lottie held little liking, with their penchant for the chitter-chatter of nonsense and shared gossip. It had been a relief when Mama had agreed to allow her to stay at home in the company of her maid until she was feeling a bit better.

Jasper King held the answer to all their prayers. He might also know where her brother Silas was, for although she hated to admit to worry, it was most definitely there. Seven months without correspondence was an inordinately long time, even for her adventurous sibling.

Two young women in front of her stopped to look around as she took the first step towards the front door. Dressed beautifully, they gave the impression of questioning her presence here, but Lottie was as easily at home with the rich as she was with the poor.

‘Good morning.’ Her voice was as friendly as she could make it. ‘My goodness, can you believe that it is only a few weeks until Christmas and so very much to do.’

‘That is exactly what we were just saying, wasn’t it, Rachael? The year just passes by so quickly and suddenly it is the Season of Hard Work again.’ The taller woman looked far more agreeable now, holding the door open for Lottie to follow them. Without an invitation in hand she hurried up behind them and continued the conversation, smiling at the stern-looking servant who stood back from the front door and was seeing to cloaks and hats.

‘Thank you.’ With relief, she accompanied the others into a salon to the right side of the entrance, accepting a glass of white wine from another servant who stood with a silver tray filled with drinks.

The wine fortified her and made her feel warm again, the alcohol bolstering up both courage and anticipation. She knew no one at all, the two women she had spoken to having disappeared off into the far corners of the large salon. Still, she did not falter, looking around with hope as she came inside the room. He had to be here somewhere—Mr King with his velvet eyes and his beautiful smile—but she could not see him, the chatter in the crowd growing with each passing moment as more people arrived. How much did a person change in eight years? She prayed that she would recognise him.

She should put her spectacles on, she knew that, but some sort of personal vanity stopped her from retrieving them from her reticule. ‘Best foot forward’ resounded in her brain and she smiled as yet another of Nanny Beth’s sayings was remembered.

Thank goodness for her new gown, she thought, and as a wave of missing her mother and sister assailed her she moved on into the back salon proper.

Here the crush was worse than in the front room and, spying a window seat to one side, she made for it and sat. This would be a good vantage point, slightly elevated and comfortable. Her nose had begun to run again and she wiped the end of it with her hand, turning the wet palm into her skirt after she had done so and smiling vapidly.

‘Act as if you were born to be a queen,’ Nanny Beth used to say when they were children making their annual sojourn to the country and to another Malverly party. If there was anyone with a life that had been more difficult or more broad than her surrogate grandmother’s, Lottie had yet to meet them and so any advice was always heeded.

Lifting her chin, she did not waver and when she caught her image in the glass to her left she thought even her normally wayward hair was obeying Nanny’s long-ago command. The day spiralled in on her and she closed her eyes for a moment to savour the success of her plan.

‘Please Lord, let this work. Please let Mr Jasper King be here among the melee and please let him listen.’

Jasper stood at the top of the landing and looked around. His sister was here somewhere; all the good works she was involved in culminating in this Christmas charity event. Even as he thought this he found Meghan chatting to this person and laughing with that one.

Civil engineering, the family company, King Enterprises, and the great pressure of work that came with it had made him too busy for all this. He couldn’t remember coming anywhere near the social scene much, even before injuring his leg, and he was pleased to see a footman conveying wine.

Good wine, he amended a moment later, and, returning his glass, procured another of the same ilk. Fortified, he could probably do a better job here and he knew his sister would spend a good hour with him afterwards dissecting all the conversations they’d had.

A voice from the past made him turn and there before him stood Miss Susan Seymour, a friend of Verity Chambers, the woman he’d imagined himself to be deeply in love with three years ago before his whole world had fallen to pieces.

‘My God, is it you? Mr King? Verity said you were back in London. You do know that she has been trying to get in touch with you, don’t you?’ Susan Seymour was cut from the same cloth as Verity Chambers, her alabaster skin flawless and her eyes blue. Both had been beautiful women and Susan still was. The light caught the blonde tints in her hair and her high-necked bodice was particularly flattering. ‘I cannot quite believe you are back in London in person. You always seemed so immured in the north.’

She moved closer. ‘You knew Verity married Mr Johnny Alworthy a month after she left you, but did you also know that he died just over a year ago in an accident?’

The news was unexpected. ‘I am sorry. I had not heard that.’

‘Oh, it was not the tragedy you might think it,’ Susan Seymour returned, her voice low and husky. ‘As soon as she was married I think she wished she wasn’t. She was always so eminently sensible, but her love affair with Alworthy dissipated all that in a moment and was something I could never understand. Personally, I do not think she can now, either.’

The shocking truth of that statement left him marooned, as did Susan Seymour’s hand resting on his arm. The wine quickly drunk was also doing its bit to make him feel dislocated and all he hoped for was that his sister might come looking for him and interrupt.

‘It was her mistake to say goodbye to you, of course, and God knows why she did so?’ She let that question slide as he failed to answer. ‘Verity has not been happy since, so I can only surmise that being young has its pitfalls and they were ones she just could not have possibly predicted.’ This was said with intensity as her fingers squeezed his arm. Her eyes were full of question.

Jasper refused to be drawn into explanation. ‘Well, now we are all older and much wiser. Thank God.’

‘Older, perhaps, but you’ve created quite a stir here today. I have been hearing your name right across the room.’

‘My sister is one of the sponsors—’ he said, but Susan Seymour interrupted him, eyes alive in interest.

‘I do not think it is your sister the women are interested in. You have built up King Enterprises to be a powerful and well-known company, your influence in all areas of business a common topic of people’s conversation. It is you they wish to know better, Jasper, a man they admire.’

The use of his Christian name and such overt flirtation had him stepping back. ‘When you do see Mrs Alworthy, please tell her that I send my regards, but I am not planning on staying in London for long.’

‘Then that is a shame and I know she will be sorry for it. As will I.’

With a forced smile Jasper took his leave and walked towards the large windows on one side of the room. Here at least there was space to breathe, for the conversation with Susan Seymour had shocked him.

‘God, help me.’ The words escaped unbidden as he stopped and a woman he had failed to see sitting beside him glanced up and stood.

‘My thoughts exactly, but you at least look like you fit in here.’

‘And you don’t?’

She was petite and well formed, her hair a wild bunch of escaping curls and her irises the colour of old whisky. She also had dimples, deep ones in each cheek.

‘I am only here to meet someone, but unfortunately I cannot see him anywhere.’ As she stated this she craned her neck as though having one final look.

‘Who is it? Perhaps I would know of him?’

‘Mr Jasper King. He is the owner of an engineering company that builds railways and bridges all across England.’ A slight blush covered her cheeks.

The jolt of shock as she mentioned his name came unexpectedly. Jasper was seldom surprised by anyone any more and the feeling took him aback.

‘And who are you?’

‘Miss Charlotte Fairclough. My sister Amelia and our mama and I run the Fairclough Foundation for needy women and their children in Howick Place in Westminster.’

Through the haze of the past Jasper remembered seeing a younger version of this woman huddled against an upstairs banister as he had come to pay his regards to her sister after some ball. Charlotte? She had had another name then and he sought to recollect it. As if she had read his thoughts she continued.

‘But people more often call me Lottie.’

‘I think Charlotte suits you better.’ God, what the hell had made him say that to her, such a personal and familiar declaration? But if she was startled by his words she certainly did not show it.

‘I always thought that, too. For a little while I insisted everyone use my full name but old habits soon crept back in and now hardly anyone uses it. Well, Mama does when she is cross at me, which actually is quite often, but otherwise it is Lottie. Plain and simple.’

The babble of her words was somehow comforting. After the surprise of seeing Susan Seymour and all the undercurrents there, this conversation was easy and different. He leaned back against the wall and decided to stay put for a while. What was it Miss Fairclough wanted of him, though? He could not think of any reason why she would seek him out unless it was something to do with her brother. Before he could be honest and tell her his name she had already gone off on another tangent.

‘Are you married, sir?’

‘I am not.’ He tried to keep the relief from his words.

‘But would you want to be? Married, I mean? One day?’

She was observing him as if she were a scientist and he was an undiscovered species. One which might be the answer to an age-old question. One from whom she could obtain useful information about the state of Holy Matrimony.

‘It would depend on the woman.’ He couldn’t remember in his life a more unusual conversation. Was she in the market for a groom or was it for someone else she asked?

‘But you are not averse to the idea of it?’ She blurted this out. ‘If she was the right one?’

Lord, was she proposing to him? Was this some wild joke that would be exposed in the next moment or two? Had the Fairclough family fallen down on their luck and she saw his fortune as some sort of a solution? Thoughts spun quickly, one on top of another and suddenly he’d had enough. ‘Where the hell is your brother, Miss Fairclough?’

She looked at him blankly. ‘Pardon?’

‘Silas. Why is he not here with you and seeing to your needs?’

‘You know my brother?’

Her eyes were not quite focused on him, he thought then, and wondered momentarily if she could be using some drug to alter perception. But surely not. The Faircloughs were known near and far for their godly works and charitable ways. It was his own appalling past that was colouring such thoughts.

‘I do know him. I employed him once in my engineering firm.’

‘Oh, my goodness.’ She fumbled then for the bag on the floor in front of her, a decent-sized reticule full of belongings. Finally, she extracted some spectacles. He saw they’d been broken, one arm tied on firmly with a piece of string. When she had them in place her eyes widened in shock.

‘It is you.’

‘I am afraid so.’

‘Hell.’

That sounded neither godly nor saintly and everything he believed of Miss Charlotte Fairclough was again turned upside down.

Chapter Three

Jasper King had fallen into her lap, so to speak, and if he had been handsome all those years ago as she’d observed him from her eyrie on the stairs, then now he was breathtaking. No longer a boy but a man, his edges rougher, his eyes darker, the danger that had once been only a slight hint around him now fully formed, hewn into menace. Seasoned. Weathered.

He was beautiful.

Looking around, Lottie could see that almost all the other women in the room had made the same kind of assessment, for eyes everywhere were upon him.

The fluster of her mistake and the splendour of her companion made her blush, a slow rolling redness that would be inescapable against the fairness of her skin. She wished she could have been more urbane, less ruffled. She wished the ground beneath her might have opened and simply swallowed her up, but of course it didn’t and she was forced to cope.

The cough she had been afflicted with suddenly decided at that moment to become unbridled, and one small cough turned into a minute-long hack, sweat beading her body with its growing intensity.

He passed her his own drink, a white wine that was as dry as it was strong. She swallowed the lot, praying to God that her infirmity might cease as tears of exertion ran from the corners of her eyes. Dabbing at them with her fingers, she faced him.

‘I have been ill, but…our family is swiftly running…out of both money and hope…as Silas seems to have vanished…off the very face of the earth.’ These bare bones of stated truth were given succinctly as she laid out her family’s present predicament without embroidering it. She was finding breathing difficult and was struggling to keep another coughing fit at bay. She felt too hot as well…from the blush or from a rising fever? At that particular moment she could not tell which was the culprit. She did not feel up to throwing her sister’s name into the mix, for her confused hope and dread of Jasper falling madly in love with Amelia all over again were at this moment too complex and disjointed to explain properly.

He frowned and pushed dark hair back from his face. His hands were as beautiful as the rest of him. He wore a solid ring of gold on the fourth finger of his right hand with an engraving of sorts etched into it.

‘I had a letter from your brother two months ago. Silas sounded hale and hearty.’

‘Only two months?’ The relief of his words made her feel faint all over again. ‘Then he is not dead. Millie could no longer feel his presence in the world, you see, and as a twin that was a decided worry and even Mama, who is normally so very sensible, had begun to have a haunted look in her eyes and…’ She stopped, taking in breath. ‘I cannot believe it. You are sure it was only two months ago?’

‘I am.’

‘Then why would he have not written to us to let us know where he was, how he was? He must have known our fears?’

‘He sounded busy. He sounded as if he was in the process of finalising a business scheme in Baltimore that he was sure was going to make him a fortune.’

Could it possibly be this easy? Suddenly all Lottie wanted to do was to be the bearer of such good news and send a message promptly to Mama and Millie. They would be as thrilled as she had been and as puzzled probably, too, but Silas’s whole disappearance began to make a certain sense. He’d always struggled with commitment and tying himself down. She imagined him in some far-flung uncivilised colony of the Americas, a long way from anywhere that dealt with post or a port by which mail might have been conveyed.

‘Are you well, Miss Fairclough?’ His words registered amid all her rushing conjectures and she turned back to him.

‘I am indeed, Mr King. Better, in fact, than I have been for a very long while even with the affliction of this cough that has become worse so very quickly. My brother’s disappearance has been weighing on me as if it were a large stone tied on my back, you see, and it’s like that old adage, I expect—the one that says “Worry often gives a small thing a great shadow”.’

This time he laughed out loud and a number of people turned to look at them.

‘I have never heard that before. Where is it from?’

‘It is an ancient Swedish proverb, I think. My Nanny Beth used it.’

‘She is still alive? God, I remember her.’

‘No. She died six years ago. On earth one day and in heaven the next. Silas said it was such a fitting death for one who in life had never wanted a fuss.’

Again he laughed and the darkness in his eyes lifted. That was what was different, Lottie thought, his eyes. Last time she had seen them they had been full only of lightness.

A woman she recognised as Jasper King’s sister was then suddenly at his side and looking at her quizzically.

‘Do I know you? Your face is familiar.’

Lottie held out a hand. ‘I am from the Fairclough Foundation in Howick Place and I knew your brother briefly, once.’

‘Very briefly,’ Jasper added, ‘but our reacquaintance has been most enlightening.’

He did not sound as though he quite believed this and Lottie turned to his sister, trying to cover the awkwardness. Another woman had also joined their small group, a beautiful blonde woman with cornflower-blue eyes and a sweet smile. She looked at Jasper as if she wanted to eat him up and, sensing she was now a little in the way, Lottie smiled.

‘Well, if you will excuse me I shall go and find a drink. I have a cough.’

‘Yes, we all heard.’ The other woman’s words were not kind. ‘I very much hope that you do not spread it around just before Christmas.’

‘And I hold the very same hope.’

Without looking back at the others Lottie threaded her way through the room, making for the door. The news of her brother did not allow even the rudeness of the beautiful woman to penetrate her euphoria and all she wanted to do was to make for home and send word to Mama and Millie about this wonderful new discovery of Silas’s wellbeing.

Alive. Well. Prospering even. Their trials and tribulations would soon be at an end and Amelia would not have to marry the curate after all.

Collecting her hat and heavy cloak, she fastened both upon her person and tilted her head against the growing wind outside. At least it had stopped snowing and a return journey always seemed much quicker.

Digging her hands into her pocket, she felt the long letter that she had written. She had not thought to give it to Jasper King, but at least such an omission gave Amelia the chance to meet him properly at some point and who knew what might come from that.

A cloud made the day darken and she bit at her bottom lip. Amelia was far more beautiful than she was and after this meeting all Jasper King must have comprehended about her was oddness. He was probably laughing with his sister and the beauty right at this moment as he retold the story to the others of her gauche outbursts and of her peculiar manner.

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.

‘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.’

‘Then how was it, Jasper? It seemed to me that he was selfish and you were the one who took the whole brunt of it.’

‘He was sick and forgetting things and you had lost baby after baby and were just about as ill. He wouldn’t have coped somewhere new and you could not have managed with all his needs. Then when I was no longer there—’

His sister did not let him finish. ‘He’d had enough when I came up to stay that last time. He said that he was proud of us. But I’ve told you all that?’

‘Probably.’

Jasper couldn’t remember this, but then he couldn’t remember much about that terrible time. Meghan had arrived in Liverpool just as their father was dying and a matter of months after his own accident. The beginning of the years of hell. The dreams that he’d had across that time still came sometimes and he woke sweating.

‘Will you see her again?’

The constant change in topic was a hallmark of his sister’s conversation.

‘Miss Fairclough? I doubt it. She is very busy at her Foundation, saving lost souls.’

‘Then she should be an expert in saving yours,’ Meghan shot back, ‘and God knows you could do with an angel.’

They had always been close, Meghan and himself, her five years on him having the effect of making her almost like a mother. She gave him advice on everything.

‘You need someone you can love, Jasper, someone kind and true and sensible. Someone who can give you children and make up for all those lonely years…’

He stopped her. There were some things that were private between them and this was one of those. Such a thought cut close to the bone and he finished his own drink in one swallow. He wouldn’t have another.

‘I am off back to Liverpool after the Christmas season and won’t be back in London for at least a few months. There is a job in Manchester that is complex.’

Meghan frowned noticeably. ‘I see.’

‘I know that tone. What do you see?’

‘That you do not wish to talk of Miss Charlotte Fairclough with me, which in itself is surprising because it leads me to surmise two things…’ She stopped with a pregnant pause.

‘And what are they?’

‘That the woman is more important to you than you make out she is and that you are running away from anything that might add up to commitment.’

‘Meghan?’

‘Yes, Jasper?’

‘Have another brandy and tell me about Sarah.’

Of all the topics in the world this was the one that always succeeded in shifting Meghan from one thought across to the next.

‘She is almost taking a step—did I tell you that? She was leaning on the big floral chair in my sitting room and I turned away and the next moment I saw her let go and hover there, trying to understand the motion…’

Half an hour later his sister was gone, hurrying back to her house to see the child who was the love of her life. Jasper frowned at the way she almost never mentioned her husband in his company and wondered if things were as rosy with Stephen as she had once painted them. Meghan had her secrets, too, but at least she had a daughter whose very existence lit up her world and for that he was glad.

The rain still fell outside and the fire in the grate was burning bright. He watched the sparks at the back of the chimney flare and die and then reappear elsewhere. He wondered if Charlotte Fairclough was warm enough in the big and draughty Fairclough Foundation building on Howick Place. He remembered it as austere and spartan, any luxury stripped from the place in the overriding need to provide for so many desperate people. The family had had a small abode at the back of the place in the days when he knew Silas, but it had been as humble and sparse as the main building.

God, the woman had got under his skin and that was unusual. He’d never met someone so infuriating and so vulnerable all at the same time.

Verity Chambers had sent yet another note and this one had caught him at a time when he had deigned to open it, their shared hopes from the past spilling out on paper and her own apology at such appalling behaviour.

Once he might have drunk the words like a man does water lost in a desert, but now all he could feel was the hurt, pain and guilt. She had crucified him with her easy deceit and he would never allow anyone to do so again.

The clock in the corner boomed out the hour of seven and far off he could see flashes of lightning, the undulating outline of the distant hills of Surrey showing up. He counted the seconds until the thunder came. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A long way off, then.

He wished for a moment he might have had a dog to sit by the hearth with him, a warm and breathing body that he could love. But his life was too nomadic, too uncertain and he could not abandon an animal like that into the care of his servants for months at a time as he travelled the country. Still, the idea stuck as he imagined a loyal haughty Newfoundland or a finely bred English bloodhound sitting there watching him. It would be well behaved…unlike Miss Fairclough.

Today had been an adventure and the sort of day he would remember for a long time. As he dozed he pictured fine brown curls and golden-brown eyes and he smiled. It had been a while since he had felt this happy.

Hours later Jasper was sweating when he jolted himself awake, his heart beating at twice its normal speed and the cramps in his right leg making him nauseous. He had not had such intense and inescapable dreams for a while now, the blackness all around and the depraved imaginings fuelled by his experiences with laudanum, opium and morphine. He’d spent two years after his accident in the opium dens trying any sort of narcotic that became available to banish the pain in his thigh: lost years, debauched years, years of misery and ruin. He was not proud of such a fall. Sex, violence and excess were the codes of his life until he had fallen into a coma and Meghan had brought him home.

He owed his sister his life. His new life. The life of strict principles and few vices. He hadn’t even been fully present for the last month of his father’s existence much to his eternal regret, the cocktail of drugs taking him away.

He needed water, but couldn’t make himself get up and he did not want to ring for a servant. So he sat there breathing deeply and trying to find a steadiness and a normality.

He couldn’t understand why the dreams were back with such a force.

Fear, perhaps, or the knowledge of some fundamental change within him. His sister’s words were there, too, tangled in honesty, snarling with truth.

‘I worry that you are too alone, too isolated and too hardened…’

He was, but he couldn’t get back, couldn’t make himself care about much of anything.

A knock at the library door ten minutes later found him sitting and he pulled his leg down from the ottoman on which it rested.

His butler, Larkin, stood there with yet another message in his hands.

‘If it is from Miss Verity Chambers, take it away.’

‘It is not, sir. The man who delivered the missive said he came under the instructions of a Mr Twigg from Old Pye Street.’

That had Jasper interested and he held out his hand even as he saw the curiosity of his servant.

‘That will be all.’

The message was simple.

The man you be wanting is Viscount Harcourt. He came in to the pub briefly last evening with a friend of his and I recognised the crest on the carriage and asked after his name.

Jasper did not know the fellow at all, but he was suddenly mindful of an invitation he had received ten or so days ago. A colleague he’d known once, Nigel Payne, was to be married to a girl who was Harcourt’s niece and had asked Jasper to a celebration party in three days’ time. He’d placed the invitation in a drawer, having no intention at all of attending, but now he knew it to be a great opportunity to find out more about Viscount Harcourt.

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