Chapter Twenty-Six
“Where are you going?” Benjamin looked up at her from the bed, the soft morning light filtering over his handsome face, still half asleep.
“I have an interview today. Mary Kaur works in a stall in Covent Garden, and she only has time to speak after the morning rush while the lunch pies are baking.
“I am coming with you.” He flipped the covers off his legs before she could protest.
“No, you have things to do, I am sure. Besides, I don’t know how to get people to talk if there is someone else around.
Especially you. You will scare her witless.
” Charlotte tried to fasten the sides of her bodice again.
The gorgeous dress was still immaculate, despite having lain on the floor all night, but she needed to go home and change into less conspicuous garments.
“I do not like you going out on your own. It is not safe.” He batted her hands away and helped her finish fastening the clasps, still fully nude.
“It will be the middle of the morning. And besides, I will be careful. I always am.” He scowled at her, and she scowled back before breaking into a smile. “I have been doing this since long before I met you. I can hold my own.”
“You do not have to.”
It was a casual comment. One he threw out as he turned and rummaged for a new set of clothes, pulling them on with casual haste.
They were not his usual gentlemanly attire, but the rough-spun wool still suited him—as everything did.
For a moment, she could see him clearly in another life.
The most handsome farmer in his little village.
But then he looked up at her perusal and gave her his devilish grin, and he could be no one but her underworld king.
“Come along, we will stop by your house so you can gather what you need.”
∞∞∞
Benjamin surveyed the corner, where sellers hawked their wares to passing workers, and pickpockets darted in and out of the crowd like fishing birds, plucking their catch with surgical precision before returning to their nests.
He gave Charlotte some space, standing close enough to hear, but not so close as to unnerve the young woman whose dark face was covered in flour and sweat from an already long morning spent before the oven.
“Why did your family come to London?” Charlotte kept her voice subdued, making her cultured accent less noticeable.
With her heavy grey work dress and her tightly fastened bonnet, she could be any passing worker—one with an education, but certainly not a lady. The transformation was impressive, and Benjamin had to grudgingly admit she knew what she was doing.
“We fled Palashi when the East India Company attacked. My aunts and uncles were all killed.” The young woman spoke with a thick, lyrical accent, some of her words blending into an almost French pronunciation.
“Five hundred people were killed. We were lucky to make it out. My mother knew a friend who had married a Frenchman and moved to Europe. We followed her. But my father and sister died in France when a fever came through the town we stayed in. My mother brought us here.”
Charlotte just nodded, allowing the woman to speak.
“We lived in a flat near here, the four of us packed in with three other families.” Benjamin well knew the arrangement.
“We were, all of us, young. But we found work. Until my brother fell in with a bad crowd. He was stealing. It is not good, but it kept us fed. One day, a man came and knocked on our door. He dragged Rabin out and beat him. He was only fourteen. My mother cried for two days. Then, one of the boys he ran with came by. He was older and said he knew where he could get Rabin help. His arm had been broken, and we could not afford a doctor.”
Benjamin continued to scan the street, but he felt the story tugging at the back of his mind.
“The boy and I brought Rabin to a back door in St James’s.
I had never been that far west before, but he knew where we were going.
Inside, there was a cook who brought a doctor down, and they set Rabin’s arm.
My brother did not scream, but I saw the tears on his face.
Afterward, a man came down. He was dressed in fine clothes, but he spoke to everyone in the kitchens as if they were his friends.
He said Rabin should stop stealing and come work for him.
I was scared. You hear of the work they make young boys do.
But I was wrong. He was a good man. I never got to thank him for saving my brother. ”
Benjamin was frozen in place. He knew the story.
When he turned to see why the woman had stopped talking, he saw that both Mary and Charlotte were staring at him. A moment passed, then he gave the woman a nod. He could do no more. He did not want thanks.
As if in silent agreement, both women returned to the story.
Charlotte asked questions about Mary’s work.
How she’d found the job, and whether it was enough for her to support her family.
Then she asked strange, irrelevant questions: what Mary missed from her home in Bengal, what she dreamed of doing with her life.
And Mary had an answer for all of them. Despite the hard life she had lived, the young woman was surprisingly full of hope.
“Thank you so much, Mary. Thank you for sharing your story with me.” Benjamin watched as she pushed a coin into the woman’s hand.
“Thank you, Miss Charlotte, for listening.” She turned, and Benjamin thought she would duck back into the shop where the ovens were pumping out heat, but she paused, facing him. “And thank you, Mr. Scarsdale.” She gave him a bow and disappeared beyond the shop window.
Charlotte joined him again, quiet for a moment. “Your reputation is not as black as it seems.” Charlotte smirked up at him as they walked side-by-side back through the streets of Covent Garden.
“I do not know what you are talking about.” Benjamin kept his eyes ahead, warning off potential thieves with merely a look.
“It is okay. You do not have to be embarrassed on my account. But I think you are far less feared than adored out here.”
“And how would you know?” He felt surly in the face of her teasing, which only seemed to delight her more.
“I have heard tales of you far before our fated meeting, Mr. Scarsdale.”
That intrigued him. What had she heard? Had he lived up to her expectations? Or had she been disappointed when she met the man behind the myth? He fought to let none of his curiosity show.
“You would be surprised how eager people are to whisper about the legend of Scarsdale. A mythic being that may bless you or curse you, but only on the merit of your soul.”
Benjamin scoffed at that. “And how am I to know what is in the depths of a fishmonger’s soul?”
“You know everyone’s secrets. That is a window into their soul.”
He glanced down at her, their gazes catching. “Not for everyone.”
Her warm brown eyes searched his, as if she, in fact, was the one who could peer into his soul. “Grumble all you want, Mr. Scarsdale. I think you might have a beautiful soul, after all.”
The words robbed him blind, and it was all he could do to navigate them back to the main road and call a hackney.