The Dollar Prince's Wife. Paula Marshall
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immediately recognised. ‘Damme, she nearly bit my finger off.’
It was Sir Ratcliffe Heneage, in a state which might have surprised those who only knew him in the salons of Mayfair. He was barefooted and wearing trousers and a shirt open to the waist. Unbuttoned, was perhaps the best description of him, Cobie thought. He decided to run a little interference.
‘Oh, Sir Ratcliffe, there y’are. Wondered where you’d got to.’ His hiccup at the end of this was particularly artistic.
‘Damn that, man,’ exclaimed Sir Ratcliffe, ‘Did anyone leave while you were here?’
Cobie swayed, thought for a moment, leaned forward and grabbed Sir Ratcliffe by the collar of his shirt, stifling the desire to strangle the beast before him. He had no doubts at all about what had been going on in one of Madame’s discreet attic rooms, and wondered how much the bankrupt swine before him had paid for the use of the girl-child cowering on top of the wardrobe above the three of them.
‘Just saw a girl go by, old fellow, through the door there, running like a hare. I got lost in the backstairs, don’t you know.’
He finished with Sir Ratcliffe, and turned his drunken gaze on Hoskyns. ‘Help me to find my way out. Left m’hat with the doorkeeper. Don’ want to catch cold.’
He knew that he was risking having Hoskyns take him at his word, and that he might show him out through the main entrance—which would mean leaving the abused child behind on top of the wardrobe.
The risk had been worth taking, however, for Sir Ratcliffe roared, ‘Find your own way out, Grant. Hoskyns, go after the little bitch. She can’t have got very far. And you, Grant, get Madame to call you a cab.’
He turned on his heel to make his way back up the stairs to whatever hell-hole he had come from, where the special and curious tastes of depraved gentlemen were catered for. Hoskyns, shrugging his shoulders and mentally damning the demanding nature of the powerful in his world, did what Sir Ratcliffe bid him.
Cobie heaved a great sigh and straightened up when he found himself alone again. He turned towards the wardrobe, called up softly to the waiting child, ‘Little ’un, put out a hand, and I’ll try to get you down and away from here.’
It took some manoeuvring before she was beside him in the hall again; it was much harder to get her safely to the ground than it had been to throw her up.
Once down, the child seized his hand and covered it with kisses. ‘Oh, thankee, mister, thankee, for saving me.’
‘Not saved yet,’ said Cobie shortly. ‘Thank me when you are. We can’t leave by the easiest way, we might meet Hoskyns coming back. Now, how strong are you?’
‘As strong as you want me to be, mister,’ she said fervently. ‘Only, I ain’t got nowhere to go, that’s all. It were me stepdad what sold me to this place.’
Cobie, wondering what further disgraceful revelations the night held for him, threw back his cape, and asked, ‘If I lifted you up, and sat you with your legs around my waist and your arms around my chest and your head on it, and I arranged my cape around us like so, could you stay there, quiet like a mouse, while I walk us both out of this miserable pigsty?’
She nodded vigorously, and as speedily as he could, he hid her beneath the voluminous folds of his cape. She clutched him in a grip as strong as death. He was grateful that he wasn’t wearing his usual overcoat, but had decided to play the dandy on his first night alone, out on the town.
Finding the way back to the entrance wasn’t difficult. He made idle chat with the gorgon, and left her a large tip so that she might contemptuously think him yet one more American visitor with more money than sense.
He used his good left hand to take his top hat and scarf, keeping his right hand and arm inside the cloak to steady the girl, once again grateful to the fate which had made him ambidextrous. This time his unusual skill was not going to save his own life, but might save that of the child he was carrying.
Cobie could feel her breathing, and she had been right when she had told him that she would be as strong as he wanted. Her grip continued vice-like, and he walked indolently along, apparently unencumbered. He was grateful that Madame’s doorkeepers were tired and incurious, only too glad to get rid of him now that he had finished spending his money with them.
Once outside and walking along the Haymarket, still a sea of light although it was now well past midnight, he continued to carry the girl beneath his cloak. He dare not let her down, for a man of fashion walking along with an oddly-dressed girl-child at one in the morning would be sure to attract unwanted attention, even in the Haymarket.
Particularly in the Haymarket, where he knew that all the vices in a vicious city were available for those who had the money to pay for them.
He paused and thought for a moment. The Salvation Army, of course. Susanna was one of a group of society women who were involved in helping the poor and unfortunate. She had once told him that the Salvation Army had shelters where the wretched might find succour, even in central London.
He had been mildly interested, he remembered. Susanna had mentioned that there was one not far from Piccadilly. He made sure that the child was still firmly gripping him and set off to find it.
Chapter Two
A t the shelter, which had originally been a small church hall, the Salvation Army was giving tea and comfort to a group of derelicts. They included a battered tramp, and a prostitute who had been brutally beaten by one of her clients and had staggered in to the Sally Ann’s Haymarket refuge for help just before Cobie walked in.
He was so unlike their usual customer that everyone stared at him and his physical and sartorial splendours. The man who was busy bandaging the tart’s wounds, and the two young women who were looking after the tea were as bemused by him as the down and outs whom they were tending.
For the moment he kept the child hidden beneath his cloak.
‘I am told that you save souls—and bodies—here,’ he drawled, looking around him. ‘I need your help and I see that I was told aright.’
‘That is true,’ said the Captain, walking forward. A middle-aged man of undistinguished face and figure, he had been seated at a desk at the back of the hall, writing in a ledger. ‘What may we do for you? We are always ready to help a soul in need.’
‘Oh, your help is not required for me, sir. At least, not this time. In fact I fear that I may be unsaveable at any time. But I do need advice of the most delicate nature, and if there is a room where we may speak privately, I should be grateful if we might retire there.’
The Captain looked at Cobie, at his easy air of authority, his aura of wealth and power. What advice could he possibly be in need of?
‘Very well. Come this way, please.’ So saying, he led the way into a small room off the main hall.
‘Now, what may I do for you?’
Cobie smiled—and unfurled his cloak.
‘I repeat, not for me, sir. It is this poor child for whom I need your assistance. You understand that there are few places where I may take her without suspicion falling on me.’
By now the little girl in her tawdry and unsuitable finery was fully revealed. She slid gratefully down Cobie’s long length to sit on the floor.
‘Coo-er, mister, that were hard work, that were.’
‘You see now why I asked for somewhere a little more private, Captain,’ Cobie said. ‘This is not a pretty story, and neither of us would welcome publicity—even though it is a mission of mercy on which we are engaged.’
The Captain nodded. He offered the little girl a chair, but he and Cobie remained standing.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘Tell me your story—although I think that I can imagine the gist of it.’
‘The trade in children