Chapter Seven #4
“Dunsmore. Or Purvine, perhaps?” St. George’s eyes sparked knowingly and he accented the “Pure” in Purvine in such a way that raised the hairs on the back of Wolf’s neck.
He could not leave Petra to such jackals.
His father had raised him to be a man of action, to take what he wanted when he came to a decision.
Wolf offered no retort as St. George turned his attention back to the path ahead, a glimmer of triumph manifesting in the distinctly smug smile that now played across his features.
“I suppose that if I needed to convince Mariah to marry me post haste, if there was a pressing reason, then yes, I would have gone to great lengths to secure her hand.”
Although Wolf had already come to a decision, that was the conclusion he needed to hear. He was filled with such a sense of rightness that he did not notice the commotion before them.
“I say,” St. George began as a group of young men shoved at a woman alone before them.
“I bet she’s got a pack of brats at home, those papists breed like rabbits,” one of them jeered.
Wolf caught the petite figure amidst the crowd, a woman in a gray cloak, and without thought, he rushed ahead.
“We can show her what she is missing—”
“I say,” St. George repeated again, raising the end of his walking stick toward the ringleader.
“If you three gentlemen do not turn around and head back to whatever cesspit you were birthed from, you will find yourselves on the wrong end of a good thrashing. Lord Wolfridge and I were both almost sent down from Oxford for fighting.”
Wolf shoved past the tallest man to the woman, who was hunched over. Only then did he see how frayed her gray cloak was. It was not the muted but well-made garment he had seen on Petra in Covent Garden after all. It was not her, after all.
This was confirmed as gray eyes looked up at him as one of the men spit.
“Eye-talian whore.”
St. George backhanded the man and moved from acquaintance to friend in Wolf’s estimation.
The tall man Wolf had shoved aside raised his fist, then paused as he took Wolf and St. George’s clothing in. Wolf could see him mouth the word “Lord Wolfridge,” as though processing that striking a peer of the realm in a public street would not end well for them.
The man spit like his friend, but stayed silent, nodding for the other men to join him in the opposite direction.
“I had them in hand.” The woman’s accented voice also told him that this was not Lady Petra.
She flashed a small, rusted dagger in her palm.
“Still, I must thank you, gentlemen, unless you are going to harass me as well.” The woman, who Wolf identified as being from some region of Italy, eyed both of them warily.
“We are not here to harass you.” Wolf held up his arms in a placating gesture. “But we can pay for a hack for you.”
The young woman’s eyes stayed fixed on him and she exhaled slowly. She was quite pretty behind the grime on her face, though Wolf had not noticed other women since…
Since he had begun this faux courtship with Petra.
“I thank you for your generosity, but what about the next time? Or the time after that? I need to protect myself every day because I cannot walk down the street without…” She gestured angrily toward the departing men.
Wolf watched the woman, struck by something that seemed so obvious.
The ton fretted constantly over the purity and safety of gentlewomen, but all women walked down the street with one eye to their lives, while fellows like he and St. George wandered about town with no fear at all.
The realization left him feeling oddly small.
“You would not understand. Not ever,” she added as she began to turn away.
“Can you at least take the cost of the hackney?” he offered, willing her to allow him any way to make this right, aware that such a small and meaningless gesture would not make it right.
The woman shifted where she stood. “For the sake of my child, yes, I will accept your charity.” She put out her hand, though her mouth stayed in a flat line.
Wolf dropped five shillings, far more than the cost of the hackney, in her palm, eyeing St. George, who matched him. The woman closed her fist and nodded, pulling her hood back over her head, likely necessary to divert any unwanted attention.
“Right decent of you to do that,” St. George remarked as they walked in the opposite direction from the young woman.
“It wasn’t decent, it was—” Wolf abruptly severed his train of thought, finding himself utterly bereft of the vocabulary required to convey the hollow sense of uselessness that now permeated his being. “Women should not have to accept charity to feel safe.”
St. George absorbed this statement. “It seems I am to be frequently humbled today.” He glanced about. “Where are you headed, Wolfridge? I did not bother to ask when we left.”
Having reached Coventry Street, clarity struck him, at last. His feet had been carrying him toward Covent Garden. Yet his encounter with the young woman had shaken him.
What if that had been Petra?
If trapping her was the only way to protect her and to have her, then so be it.