A Sham Engagement (The Mismatched Lovers #1)

Chapter Eight

O nce more out in the street, Jack halted beside a lamp post, one hand out for its support, and the scruffy man who’d been leaning on it hurried away, pulling his matelot hat down over his eyes. He’d been expecting Louise to only be annoyed, because he’d always imagined their little affair to be nothing more than a casual dalliance. It certainly had been on his part, as had all his affairs, since… He shook his head, to clear it of thoughts of his past. Her reaction suggested she might have seen it otherwise.

Without wishing to, he’d hurt her and those tears had been real. He’d been so anxious not to hurt a girl he didn’t know, he’d not even considered how his mistress might feel to be cast aside. And cast her aside was what he’d done, callously as though she didn’t matter to him. The thought that other men might have done the same in her past troubled him. Was he just as bad as they’d been? Too late now though.

“Matches, milord?” A waif of a girl with a small, pinched face broke in upon his self-flagellating thoughts, edging closer to him with her tray of matches. Her mousy hair hung in rats’ tails, and gray eyes gazed at him from shadowed sockets. She looked in need of more than just a penny for a few matches. The image of another child leapt into his head. A clean child with plump cheeks and freckles on his nose. There, but for the grace of God…

He fished in his pocket for loose change and came up with a crown. If he gave her that, would she even be able to spend it? Would someone steal it from her or accuse her of having stolen it herself? What he needed was smaller coins, and what she needed was food. On the opposite side of the street a man in a dirty apron had set up a pie stand. Just a barrow really, but it had “hot pies” written on the side of it, and their appetizing aroma wafted across the traffic. Something should be done to help this child, despite the urgency of his visit to Miss Wetherby’s parents. “Wait here,” Jack said.

Dodging a few carriages and the plentiful horse droppings that decorated the cobbles, Jack made it to the other side of the street and approached the man. “Two pies please.” A few moments later, having left a rather discontented pie seller who’d had to give up most of his change in return for the crown, he was back beside the match girl, who stood just where he’d left her, eyes round with awe as she saw him returning holding two pies.

He held one out to her. “Careful. It’s hot.”

She took it in a far-too-thin hand, the skin almost translucent over the bones, eyes wide with awe. “Fank you… milord.”

Well swept steps rose behind them past a basement’s railed area to a splendid front door. The house of one of Louise’s well-to-do neighbors. Sweeping his coat tails out of the way, Jack sat down and indicated for the child to do so too. With as much delicacy as a duchess taking her seat at a dinner party, the child sat a few feet away from him and began to eat the pie. He watched her in silence until she’d finished. As she licked the last of the crumbs from her fingers, a resounding burp escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes brimming with embarrassment and even a hint of mischief. A hint that within that sorry exterior lurked a real, fun-loving child. Someone must have taught her manners at some point. A mother, perhaps.

Smiling, Jack held out the other pie.

“Don’tcher want it, milord?” Her voice had gained in volume, perhaps strengthened by the consumption of the pie and the suspicion that he meant her no harm.

He shook his head, although in truth, the pie’s alluring scent had him salivating. He hadn’t eaten his breakfast, after all. “I bought it for you.”

She took the pie. “I’ll save it fer later, if that’s all the same wi’ you.” And it vanished into a fold in her clothing.

Jack reached into his pocket for the change he’d received from the pie man. He found two shillings and handed them to her. “Here, take this and buy your mother, or your family some food.”

“I ain’t got no fam’ly.”

He sighed. He didn’t really have time for this, as his aim this morning had been to call on Sir Nicholas, and Miss Wetherby, of course, and settle the conditions of the betrothal. He’d already been made late thanks to his visit to Lady Raby. Things seemed to be conspiring to get in his way. But his conscience wouldn’t allow him to ignore this child. “No mother?”

“No.”

“No father?”

She shook her head.

An orphan. Another waif he could help. Damn Miss Wetherby and her family. What was more important? Settling a betrothal or saving a child from starvation on the streets? He should take the time to help this waif and the Wetherbys would have to put up with him being late. Her stick-like limbs wrung his heart, and her gray eyes, devoid of hope, didn’t help. He kept his voice as gentle as he could, despite his fury that a child so young could be left to fend for herself. But apart from the streets, what else was there for her other than the workhouse? “What’s your name, child?”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Josie.”

“Just Josie? No surname?”

She shook her head. “I fink I had one once, but I don’t recommember rightly. No one calls me anyfin but Josie now.” She thought for a moment. “Or mostly jus’ ‘girl’, when they wants me.”

“Well, Josie, can you tell me where you sleep at nights, then? Does someone other than your mother take care of you? Perhaps an older sister?” Surely someone had her under their wing and he could class her as “looked after.” She could only be eight at the most, hardly any older than…

“I ain’t got no one. I finds meself a corner, outta the way. There’s dange’rous people about at nights. But I’m real good at hidin’.”

A corner. A child sleeping in a cold corner in February in these inadequate rags, hoping not to be discovered by the scum who roamed the streets under cover of the darkness. He knew all too well what sort of men peopled the back streets at night. Seeing street children dead from the cold, or dead from other things, had started all this for him. That and…

He shook himself. He wasn’t about to let this child become one of their number, not when he had the means at his disposal to save her. “Will you trust me, Josie, when I say that I mean you no harm?” There were plenty of men, even gentlemen, about, who would take advantage of an orphan like her for their own pleasure, and he had no idea whether she’d been subject to their attentions.

The gray eyes gazed up at him. “You bought me a pie. I trusts you.” Perhaps she was innocent of such attentions still. She was very small. Savable.

The longing to warn her not to trust men who bought her things arose, but he pushed it away. It would only scare her off, and where he was taking her would be her salvation. He stood up and held out his hand. “Then come with me, and I’ll take you somewhere warm to sleep tonight and where you will be looked after. You won’t need your tray of matches. I know a house where a kind lady looks after children who don’t have their mothers anymore. She’ll give you warm clothes and food and a bed to sleep in.”

He’d already decided not to tell her how she would be taught to read and write and reckon, and then trained for a proper employment in millinery, or as a housemaid. Good employment for a girl like her. Honest employment. Blinding her with what the future could hold might frighten her off. But it was all work she could have no hope of attaining if he abandoned her to her fate.

The little girl, eyes full of touching faith, scrambled to her feet and slipped her tiny cold hand into his large warm one. An odd couple, drawing the glances of passersby, they set off down the street together.

The redoubtable Mrs. Sharpe kept a house that Jack paid the rent on, or rather two houses, for Jack had taken the one next door when necessity had arisen and had a door knocked between the two. They were located in Betterton Street, which lay somewhere around the rather indeterminate junction between the houses of London’s middle class bankers, shopkeepers and businessmen, and the slum area of St Giles that crowded so close behind the homes of the better off.

Numbers 23 and 24 lay halfway along a narrow street of terraced houses, each in possession of a paved yard, with outside water closets, rather than gardens at the back, and with neighbors Jack knew to be respectable shopkeepers and clerks. Not far away from the tenements and rookeries of St Giles that many of the children he’d installed there had escaped from. As had Mrs. Sharpe herself, whose own rescue from her bully of a husband, an out and out villain, he’d effected some years since.

He’d chosen Betterton Street for its quiet neighborhood and lack of interest for the sort of people these children had escaped. And he’d chosen Mrs. Sharpe, thanks to fate, for her motherly demeanor and sensible outlook on life. Plenty of orphanages existed, not least the workhouse, where children were poorly fed and badly treated, mainly due to the corruption of those that ran them, but this was not one of them.

Mrs. Sharpe, whom Jack would have trusted with his own life, had raised seven of her own children, two of whom continued to live with her, acting as surrogate big sisters to the orphans in their parent’s charge. All three of the Sharpes treated the children with kindness and understanding, and the necessary firmness that would transform Jack’s rescued waifs into useful members of society.

He’d forgotten how far it was though. His own long legs were up to the journey, but it soon became obvious that Josie’s malnourished ones were not. By the time he arrived in Betterton Street he was carrying a rather malodorous little bundle clasped to his chest and attracting further curious stares from respectable passersby. The sort who would cross to the opposite side of the road rather than look at a child in need like Josie.

Whenever Jack thought of how blind most people were to the suffering of a large proportion of London’s population, he felt as though his blood might boil. What he’d set up in Betterton Street, although it remained on a small scale, went a little way to assuage his conscience about the opulent lifestyle he’d had the luck to be born into.

On his knock, the door was opened by Lucy Sharpe, the youngest of Mrs. Sharpe’s brood, a sturdy, apple-cheeked girl of twelve. Seeing Jack, she smiled and bobbed a creditable curtsy, something her mother had made sure all her young charges could do. “Milord Jack.”

Jack deposited Josie on her feet once more and took hold of her hand again, lest her presentation at such a splendid house frighten her into flight. A wise move. She hung back, trying to hide herself behind his legs.

“As you can see, I’ve brought you a new sister.” He bent to the child. “Josie, this is Miss Lucy Sharpe. She’s one of the kind ladies who will be looking after you here.”

Josie peeked at Lucy, who smiled back at her with her usual open bonhomie. “Hello, Josie. You’re a very lucky girl that Lord Jack found you.”

Jack glanced at his fob watch. “I’m afraid I can’t stop, Lucy. Will you apologize to your mother for me. I’m rather late for an appointment already. I happened upon little Josie selling matches in Upper Wimpole Street and just couldn’t leave her there. Not in this cold weather. She’s had a hot pie already and has another tucked somewhere about her, but she’d benefit from a bath, a delouse and some clean clothes. I’ll leave her in your tender hands if I may.”

Josie clung onto his hand. “I ain’t goin’ wiv her.”

Jack bent again. She was so tiny. Perhaps younger than he’d at first thought. A lot shorter than…

He smiled at her. “You will be quite safe here, Josie. The lady who runs this house for me, Mrs. Sharpe, is the kindest lady you could imagine. Lucy is her youngest daughter. She has seven children of her own, but only the two youngest live here with her. You’ll like them very much as they’re just as kind as their mother.”

Lucy held out her own plump, well-fed hand. “Come along, take my hand and come inside with me, Josie, and let’s get you warm. You look perished to death nearly out here on the step. There’s a warm stove in the kitchen with the kettle ready to sing on it.”

Josie looked up at Jack. If he wasn’t already running so late for his call on the Wetherbys, he’d have stayed, taken her inside, introduced her to Mrs. Sharpe himself, but he didn’t have time. “I have to leave you here, I’m afraid.” He smiled again, guilt at abandoning her looming large. “However, I don’t do any of the care here myself. I leave that to Mrs. Sharpe and Lucy, and her older sister. Mrs. Sharpe will be like a mother to you, I promise, just as she is the other children here. Right now, you need to go with Lucy.”

Josie tentatively released his hand and slid hers into Lucy’s outstretched one.

Jack stepped back.

Lucy drew Josie to her, slipping a supportive arm around her shoulders. “Brave girl.”

Jack took another step back.

Josie’s head swiveled and, chin on shoulder, she stared back at him. Accusingly. Poor little mite. She only had his word that this was a good place in which he was leaving her. Perhaps she’d heard tales of what happened to little girls who went off hand in hand with strange gentlemen. “I will return tomorrow to see you.” A rash promise, with all he had to do, but it would be good to sit with Mrs. Sharpe in her tiny front room and hear how her little charges were doing. At least one of them had recently left to go into service as a housemaid, and he’d like to hear how she was getting along. He lifted his hand. “Until tomorrow.”

Lucy closed the door and he was left standing on the street, a further sensation of guilt at having abandoned the child too soon settling in his heart. But he couldn’t stand here all day. He had a marriage contract to go over and a fiancée to pay a call on. He turned on his heel and almost fell over a man just passing on the pavement. A man with a sailor’s hat pulled forward over his eyes and a hunch to his shoulders as he hurried away, leaving a trail of pipe smoke behind him.

Tucking his cane under his arm, Jack set off to retrace his steps back to the more salubrious areas of London that were his usual haunt.

Elenora and Augusta, along with Mama, Aunt Penelope and Cousin Petunia, were seated in the drawing room of the house in Arlington Street when Frances came hurrying in, face flushed with excitement, to inform them that Lord Broxbourne had just arrived to call on Papa.

“Hemmings has taken him into the study,” Frances blurted out, her eyes alight with excitement. “I was watching from the top of the stairs.” She giggled. “He looks very handsome but positively ancient, almost as old as Papa. But I can vouch for him having an excellent head of hair—no bald spot to be seen.”

“Good heavens! He isn’t as old as Papa, is he?” Augusta asked, setting down the needlepoint she’d been doing, eyes wide with surprise. “Tell me he isn’t.” Then she seemed to think better of her outburst. “Although an older husband would be good for Ellie, as you’ve always said, Mama.”

“Augusta!” Mama frowned at her. “You don’t ask questions like that. Your papa is not old and nor is Lord Broxbourne.”

Elenora, who had only been pretending to sew, as it was one of her least favorite of ladylike activities, also laid her sewing aside. With relief. “I have to say that he is indeed quite old, for at his ears,” she touched the side of her face, “I noticed he already has a few gray hairs.”

“I’m sure I could never marry someone as old as that, title or no title,” Petunia said, prim faced. Her attitude to Elenora had changed since the announcement of the engagement.

Everyone ignored her.

Mama shot Elenora a frown and indicated the spare chair near the long window to her youngest daughter. “Sit down, Frances, if you are staying, and get out your sewing. We must make an industrious picture when your papa brings him in here to see Elenora.”

Elenora patted the seat on the sofa beside her, and Frances went to take the space.

Mama’s imperious raise of the hand stopped her. “Not that one, child. Elenora must have a seat available beside her for her betrothed.”

Elenora bit her lip. Drat it. Mama knew all the moves required of courting. She was going to have to sit beside Lord Broxbourne—or rather, he was going to have to sit beside her—because nowhere else remained for him. A little smile tickled her lips, quickly controlled, at the thought of the discomfort he was about to suffer at the hands of her family. Because suffer he would. And, if she could, she would enjoy it.

Augusta picked up her needlepoint again, eager, as always, to oblige Mama. No doubt she was crowing inside at the thought of so swift a marriage for Elenora, as that could only mean her own debut in society must be soon. Elenora frowned. Probably her impatient younger sister would have had her marry anyone, just to get her out of the way. Even some white-haired old cit.

“I believe Lord Broxbourne has a tidy fortune and a sizeable estate in Wiltshire,” Aunt Penelope, whose husband had been parsimonious and who, since his death and her acquisition of his fortune, had become something of a spendthrift, remarked. She made it her business to know the worth of every member of the Ton, something Elenora suspected Mama had been exploiting in her list making of prospective bridegrooms.

“Of course he has,” Petunia muttered into her sewing. “I bet Elenora snared him on purpose.”

Aunt Penelope shot her daughter a quelling glare, which Petunia ignored, glowering over her sewing as though it had offended her.

Mama, who was embroidering a handkerchief she’d already labelled as being part of Elenora’s bridal trousseau, smiled in satisfaction. “He is everything one could want in a husband for a daughter with the looks Elenora has been blessed with. Rich, titled, and devilishly handsome.” Her cheeks flushed as though she might herself be finding Lord Broxbourne attractive. A bit of a change from last night.

Elenora’s brow furrowed. What? A self-centered, middle-aged rake in possession of a notorious mistress? That was what Mama had been dreaming of for her? A man who couldn’t give two hoots for anyone but himself? Although, it had to be admitted, his actions were going to be a great help to her in staving off any suitors Mama might have been likely to thrust under her nose. He probably felt he was benefitting more than her, though, or he wouldn’t have done it.

“Is he very handsome, Frannie? Did you manage to see?” Augusta put in. “I quizzed Ellie on his looks, but she said she was sure she didn’t know and beauty was in the eye of the beholder. So boring of her and so typical.”

“For such an old man, very, I suppose…” Frances said, her head tilted to one side like a little brown bird’s. “Tall, well-made, and wearing the most highly polished boots I’ve ever seen. And such a well-cut coat.” Frances was a keen follower of fashion, both for young ladies and for gentlemen, or at least as keen as she could be living in Hampshire. Being brought to London with her two older sisters had almost given her a fainting fit from delight.

“He’s not so old as all that,” Elenora put in, a trifle stung that her supposed future husband was being compared to Papa, who really was old.

“I believe Viscount Broxbourne is thirty-eight years old,” Aunt Penelope said. Another of her obsessions was keeping account of the age of everyone who was anyone. She knew the birthdays of all her friends and acquaintances and a lot more people besides.

Augusta wrinkled her nose. “So indeed quite old then.”

“Twice Ellie’s age,” Frances added.

“Ancient,” Petunia put in, stabbing her needle into her sewing.

“I’m surprised you can divide thirty-eight by two so successfully,” Elenora snapped at her sister, still a little miffed. Thirty-eight did sound quite old though, even she had to admit it. But only to herself, not her sisters.

“Get on with your sewing, girls,” Mama said. “I want his lordship to see what quiet, well-behaved girls I have.”

Augusta sniggered. “If you wanted him to think that, you shouldn’t have let him offer for Ellie. She’s the least quiet and well-behaved of all your children.”

Mama’s chest swelled like that of an angry hen. “Be quiet, Augusta, unless you have something nice to say. I will not have you saying things like that about your sister. When Lord Broxbourne arrives, both you girls are to remain silent. Have I not told you often enough that children should be seen but not heard?”

Augusta dropped her gaze to her sewing. “Yes, Mama.” But she was not contrite.

“Am I to remain silent too?” Elenora asked.

Mama opened her mouth to make what looked as though might have been a tart reply, but the opening of the drawing room door cut her off. Papa came in, a little red in the face and nose, followed by Lord Broxbourne.

Elenora took a good look at her betrothed, having managed to forget his precise appearance overnight, trying to see him through the eyes of her two silent sisters. Yes, he was no longer in the first flush of his youth, like Jolyon and Matthew, but he had about him an air of maturity that wasn’t displeasing. Tall, lean, broad-shouldered, well-dressed, and even rather handsome. Well, very handsome in a devilish way, as had been mentioned earlier. For just a moment, she forgot that theirs was a pretend engagement and she wasn’t weighing him up as a prospective husband, and almost thought she liked the looks of him. But that was far too silly for words.

Lord Broxbourne made an elegant bow to Mama and Aunt Penelope. “Lady Wetherby, Lady Dandridge, how charming you ladies look, and how industriously occupied you and your charming daughters are.” Mama’s plan had worked. Just for a moment, Elenora remembered how well he’d effected the repair on her gown and wondered how he’d learned to sew so well. That skill seemed very much at odds with being a rake.

He turned to Elenora and made another bow. “Miss Wetherby, what an… exquisite gown.” A twinkle of mischief shone in his eyes.

Elenora bit her lip trying not to chuckle, as she was still wearing the old, dove-gray gown she’d insisted on donning earlier, while Augusta and Frances both had on the new ones Aunt Penelope had bought for them.

She got herself under control in time. “Lord Broxbourne, what an unexpected pleasure.” She held out her hand, conscious of the expectant, if slightly envious, gazes of Petunia and her sisters, who’d abandoned all pretense at sewing. Broxbourne took her hand in his, bent over it and bestowed a kiss upon it. No one had ever kissed her hand before and before she could steel herself to control her reaction, heat had swarmed up her cheeks.

“Do pray sit down,” Mama said, indicating the space beside Elenora. It looked like Papa would be standing up.

Lord Broxbourne, ever obedient, sat down next to Elenora and turned to face her. “Your father and I have just been sorting out the details of our engagement, Miss Wetherby. I think you would like to know that I have requested a long engagement so that you and I can get to know one another before our nuptials.”

Whew. At least he’d been good to his word. Not that she’d thought that he wouldn’t.

Elenora forced herself to lift her gaze from his mouth to his eyes for a moment. “Thank you, my lord.” How dark they were, and full of something she didn’t quite understand because reading people’s expressions had never come easily to her. She frowned.

“Now girls,” Mama said. “I think it’s time you younger three had a little rest in your rooms.” She rose to her feet. “I’m sure Lord Broxbourne would like a few moments alone with dear Elenora, his betrothed.”

“And I shall go and talk to Cook about dinner this evening,” Aunt Penelope said, standing up in haste.

Elenora glared at Mama. “Are you sure it’s quite proper for me to be alone with Lord Broxbourne?”

Papa opened his mouth.

Mama got in there first. “Of course it is now you’re properly affianced. Just for a few minutes, of course, and perhaps you’d like to take a turn about the garden together? That would be very proper and correct. The garden is not large and wholly in sight of the house at all times.”

In February? Was Mama mad?

Augusta and Frances, looking disappointed, followed their mother and aunt out of the room, Papa trailing after them like a lost puppy. Poor Papa. What say did he have in anything? Petunia was last out of the door, casting an envious gaze at Elenora as she went.

The door closed behind them.

Silence fell.

Elenora regarded her hands and her awful sewing. His had been much better than hers was ever likely to be.

Lord Broxbourne cleared his throat. Was he as nervous as her? “You like sewing?”

Elenora smoothed out her work. “Does it look like I do?” The stitchwork was blotted with blood spots and the stitches were everywhere.

He chuckled. “I know very little about such things, but it does seem to me that perhaps whatever you’re making could do without being dotted with blood.”

She nodded. “I am a very poor hand at sewing. If you were truly going to marry me, you would be sadly disappointed by my lack of useful skills. My mother despairs of me.” A little smile twitched across her face. “Although you have already proved to be an efficient stitcher of tears yourself so cannot be so ignorant as you claim.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps just a little. I daresay you, though, possess other skills that are commendable.”

She dared a peek at him. “Well, if you could count my interest in all things historical as a skill, I suppose so. Mama says it is not at all a feminine attribute. And I am said to be a veritable Valkyrie in the saddle.”

“So you like to ride?”

She nodded. “Not here, of course. Why would anyone wish to ride in Town? I hear Rotten Row is where everyone goes to do so, but it’s in a London park, and when you’re used to the open countryside as I am, that would be a poor substitute.”

He shifted on the sofa, leaning back. “You are very candid.”

“Another of my faults. Mama constantly cautions me not to speak my mind, but I’m afraid I find it very difficult to dissemble.”

“As do I.”

She studied his boots. They were indeed as highly polished as Frances had reported. “You have very shiny boots.”

He laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that was rather attractive. “Do you always say what comes into your mind?”

She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I try so hard not to. It’s another of my faults. Please don’t tell Mama I was rude to you.”

“Of course I won’t. And I’m not in the least offended by your bluntness. I do indeed have shiny boots—courtesy of the boot boy, I imagine, at my establishment. Nothing to do with me. I don’t think my valet stoops to shining boots.”

Relief swept over her.

He stood up. “Your mother suggested you might like to walk in your aunt’s garden and I have a longing to see it myself, despite the time of year. The sun has deigned to come out at last, but it’s a little chill. Do you have a shawl?”

Of course, Mama had seen fit to make sure a thick shawl was on a table in the corner. For this very reason. Lord Broxbourne fetched it and held it up for her. Was she to let him wrap it around her? That felt too intimate a gesture. She took it out of his hands and folded it about her shoulders. “We can go out this way.”

As he held out his arm to her, she hesitated. Somehow, touching him now felt quite different to having him touch her hand or waist while they’d been dancing last night. Now it felt like an imposition. She’d never liked to be touched, and that whole feeling came thundering back. But if she didn’t take his arm, he would think her rude.

Very delicately she set her hand on his coat sleeve. Minimal contact only. And they went out through the double doors into the wintry garden.