Chapter Ten
Amelie watched the fading light as the carriage rattled through the outskirts of London and felt her heart sinking.
She had hoped she would get to see her two little sisters and brother this afternoon, but she had underestimated how long it would take them to get back to the city.
The roads had been dry and passable, but because of the good weather there were lots of people out and about, and she had lost count of the number of times they had needed to slow to a crawl whilst waiting for a cart or congestion ahead.
‘You are anxious to get to our destination,’ Lord Beescroft said, putting aside the papers he had been working on.
They had travelled mostly in silence, but Amelie had found it to be companionable nonetheless.
The Duke had brought much to occupy himself, swapping every half-hour between making notes in a little leather-bound notebook to reading a book to going through his correspondence.
Amelie wondered if he had brought all of this so he would not have to talk to her but, even if that was true, as usual she could not fault his manners.
Every so often he looked up from his book or bundle of papers and enquired about her comfort.
He asked her if she needed a stop or refreshment and, only once he was satisfied she was comfortable, did he bend his head and resume whatever he had been doing.
‘I had hoped to see my sisters and brother this evening, but by the time we return to Grosvenor Square and then I make my way across London I think it will be too late.’
He took a gold pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted it, frowning slightly.
‘The journey has taken longer than expected. Although I daresay if we go straight to the house where they are staying you would have at least a few minutes with them before they go to bed.’
Amelie felt a surge of hope. ‘Would you not mind?’
‘I have my papers to keep me occupied and I can always go for a short walk to stretch my legs.’
It took all her self-control not to launch herself across the carriage and embrace him. ‘Thank you; it would be a great kindness.’
Lord Beescroft rapped on the roof of the carriage, waiting for it to slow to a stop before asking Amelie for the address and relaying it to the driver. As he settled himself back onto the seat, he was frowning slightly.
‘That is not the most reputable area of London,’ he said quietly as the carriage started to move again.
‘I know. Mrs Creedy is all I can afford. She charges a fair rate. When I looked at a similar set-up in a better location, it cost three times as much, and I would only have had the funds for one of the children.’
‘Do you go here alone on a Sunday to visit your sisters and brother?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you walk from the house in Grosvenor Square?’
She nodded.
His frown deepened. ‘Please tell me you do not take the route through the Rookery at St Giles.’
‘There is no other way. Mrs Creedy lives on the very edge of St Giles, but the far side. To go around would take too long.’
‘Do you have no regard for your safety?’ The words exploded out of him and Amelie sat back in surprise. ‘That place is a den of thieves and cutthroats. You take your life in your hands every time you pass through.’
‘You exaggerate. It is a slum, nothing more, occupied by people who have hardly anything in this world and are forced to live in terrible conditions.’
‘People who have nothing to lose commit crimes they might not otherwise contemplate. You cannot walk that way.’
Amelie gestured to her plain grey dress. She was hardly a good target for thieves. ‘I have nothing worth stealing.’
‘Except the money you take to Mrs Creedy each week.’
She felt a pang of nausea at the thought of the fees for her brother and sisters’ lodgings being taken from her. Mrs Creedy had made it clear she was not a charity. If the money owed was not paid promptly, then she would have no qualms about sending Marie, Harriet and Charles onto the streets.
‘I hide that inside my clothes.’
Lord Beescroft groaned. ‘Giving them all the more reason to search you, to touch you.’
‘I have four hours free on a Sunday afternoon. If I were to walk all the way around the periphery of St Giles on the way there and back, I would spend so little time actually with my sisters and my brother that it would hardly be worth it.’
‘But you would be alive.’
She sighed in frustration. It was the sort of comment she might have made when she’d been living her comfortable, safe life in Kent.
She wasn’t angry—how could she be? Lord Beescroft was only thinking of her safety—but he did not understand.
Her life was hardly her own any more. She did not resent the work that kept her busy from early in the morning until late at night, but she did feel the lack of freedom.
The only time she was free to do anything she pleased was for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.
It meant errands were often neglected and, because she spent all her time running backwards and forwards across London to see her family, she had no time whatsoever to herself.
‘For me the risk is worth it,’ she said, holding the Duke’s eye.
‘From now on you will use my carriage for the visits.’
Amelie snorted and shook her head. ‘That is not a viable solution. You cannot give a housemaid access to your carriage, horses and driver. Your whole household would explode into gossip and everyone would think something inappropriate was going on.’
‘I will not have you murdered as you walk through St Giles.’ There was anguish in his eyes and Amelie paused, trying to work out what it meant.
It was hardly believable, but they had become closer these last few weeks.
The walks along the river, the evenings spent in one another’s company, had all led to a companionship that Amelie realised she would be sad to lose.
She softened slightly. ‘You cannot lend me your carriage, but I will take care with where I am walking.’
‘If someone attacked you…’ He left the sentence hanging, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head.
‘I promise to be careful.’ She sighed. ‘But my life is not the sheltered idyll that it once was. This is the world I live in now and I have to adapt. I do not know what my future holds, but before I secured the position in your household there was the very real possibility that we might all end up on the streets somewhere like St Giles, slowly starving as we looked for work.’
Lord Beescroft reached across the carriage and took her hand, and Amelie felt a wonderful rush of anticipation that she quickly tried to push away.
‘I do not want that for you,’ he said.
‘I do not want that either. That is why it is important my reputation is unblemished and there is no hint of scandal which would force Mrs Potter, as the one in charge of the day to day running of your household, to recommend you dismiss me.’
For a long moment he looked at her with eyes filled with a mix of frustration and desire, and then he let her hand slip from his and sat back on his seat.
‘Very well,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘I will not insist you use my carriage for your visits. I admit it would be difficult to explain away.’
Amelie nodded, feeling her heart lift as she recognised the narrow streets they were driving through.
They were drawing close and that meant soon she would be able to gather Marie, Harriet and Charles in her arms and tell them how much had missed them.
She worried that her long absence had been difficult for them, but her increased wages meant she would hopefully be able to pay the fees needed to send Marie and Harriet to school soon.
Marie, the eldest of her sisters, could read and write, but Harriet was not confident with her letters and Amelie hated the idea that she would not be able to master this basic skill because there was no one to teach her and no money for school.
‘Which one is it?’ Lord Beescroft asked as they drew to a stop outside a row of terraced houses. The homes were all squashed together with tiny frontages opening directly onto the road.
‘The third from the end. Mrs Creedy has the upstairs rooms.’
The Duke raised his eyebrows. The houses were small enough as it was; no doubt he was wondering how a widow managed to fit three children comfortably into the space available.
‘I will wait here for you.’
‘I can walk back to Grosvenor Square afterwards, if you wish to return home,’ Amelie said.
‘When we have just argued about your safety in the daytime? No, I shall wait here.’
Amelie nodded. She had hoped to slip away for an errand after seeing her sisters and brother, but there would be no chance of that with Lord Beescroft waiting outside.
Without another word, Amelie alighted from the carriage and hurried along the street, pausing at the door to Mrs Creedy’s house.
She knocked, waiting for a moment before it was answered and she was directed up the stairs.
There was a depressing smell of stewed vegetables as she ascended the stairs and, as always happened when she arrived at the widow’s house, Amelie felt terrible guilt that at the end of the visit she would leave her kinsfolk to live.
This was their reality now, ripped from their beautiful childhood home to live with a stranger in these awful couple of rooms in London.
They had no say in the matter, no influence over what happened to them.
Pushing the thought from her mind, Amelie knocked at the door, smiling broadly when Harriet opened it. Her middle sister had grown in the four weeks since she had last seen her, but she still had the same messy dark-blonde hair and the same wide green eyes.
‘Amelie!’ she cried, throwing herself forward into her sister’s arms.
Amelie felt the tears prick her own eyes at the affection. Harriet held on to her tightly, burying her face in Amelie’s dress and squeezing her around the waist.
‘You came back.’
‘Of course I came back, ma petite chérie.’
‘I thought you might have left us,’ Harriet’s voice was muffled, her face still pressed against Amelie.
Amelie smoothed a hand over Harriet’s hair, trying to mask the shock she felt. Her sister was far too thin, her wrists like twigs beneath the worn fabric of her sleeve.
‘Never,’ Amelie whispered, her voice breaking despite herself. ‘I will always come back to you.’
A small cough drew her attention and she looked up to see Marie standing behind her. Harriet’s elder sister tried to appear composed, but there was sadness in her eyes. They were hollowed with shadows and her dress was hanging more loosely than it should.
‘You shouldn’t cry, Harriet,’ Marie said with a kind of brittle pride. ‘Amelie has enough to worry about.’
Amelie reached out her free arm and drew Marie in until the three of them clung together. It took a moment before Marie relaxed into the hug, letting out a long, deep sigh that made Amelie think her little sister was holding the weight of the world on her shoulders.
‘You are both so brave,’ Amelie said, trying to keep the sadness from her voice. ‘You have been looking after each other, haven’t you?’
The two girls nodded silently, Marie pressing her lips together in a thin line. Amelie wanted to press her, to ask what it had really been like these last few weeks, but she was afraid of what might spill out of her sister if she did.
When they had first arrived in London, Amelie had struggled to know what to do with her kinsfolk whilst she looked for work.
At eight, Marie was old enough to be left by herself sometimes, but Harriet was only seven and little Charles five.
She’d not been qualified for any roles that would have allowed her to bring them with her, and the paltry wages of most menial jobs meant she could not afford to rent somewhere for them all together and make sure there was food on the table.
The only option had been to seek out someone like Mrs Creedy—a widow who would take in the children, look after them and feed them whilst Amelie worked.
Every day since they had made the arrangement Amelie had regretted it, but there had been no other options.
‘Where is Charles?’
‘He’s asleep. He hasn’t been well, but I think he’s on the mend now. He’s been sleeping a lot.’ Marie gestured over to the narrow bed in the corner of the room and Amelie felt her heart burn in her chest.
Amelie crossed the cramped room, her gaze falling on her brother curled up on the narrow bed.
His fair hair, so much like their mother’s, was mussed and dull, and when he lifted his head at the sound of her footsteps she caught her breath.
His cheeks were hollowed, his shirt collar too large for his thin neck.
‘Amelie,’ he murmured, a smile lighting his pale face.
She knelt beside him, taking his small hand in hers and pressing it against her lips. ‘Mon trésor,’ she murmured. ‘How I have missed you.’
Charles tried to sit up and she quickly helped him, arranging the thin blanket around his shoulders. ‘I knew you would come back. I told Harriet so.’
‘Of course I am back. I will always come back.’
He looked so frail, so vulnerable, that it was hard to stop the sobs from erupting from her body. Yet she knew she could not let her sisters and brother see how much she was hurting. This was their suffering.
‘Where is Mrs Creedy?’ she asked, looking around the bare room as if the widow might emerge from behind one of the trunks or the other narrow bed.
‘Out,’ Marie said with a shrug. ‘She goes out most evenings. Then comes home smelling of liquor.’
Amelie closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She wanted nothing more than to sweep up her little family and get them out of this place, but she had to be sensible. If she took them from Mrs Creedy’s care she would have to give up her job, and then she would have no way of supporting them.
She wanted to rage—at Mrs Creedy, at the world, at the cruel unfairness that had stolen their parents and their home—but it would do no good. Their father, the man who had lost them everything, had already been properly punished. Hating him would not do anyone any good.
Harriet came and curled up beside her, and a moment later Marie joined them.
For a moment, Amelie closed her eyes and let herself feel the weight of them all pressed against her.
They were her anchor, her reason for working as hard as she did.
She loved coming back to see them yet each visit tore her heart in two knowing, she would have to leave them in this place.