Captain Corcoran's Hoyden Bride. Annie Burrows

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      Somebody, no, two somebodies took her by one elbow each, and hustled her across the hall and into a small parlour. They removed her wet cloak, her undone bonnet sliding from the back of her head in the process. And then they lowered her gently on to an armchair in front of a crackling fire. Again, she leaned forwards, burying her face in her hands to counteract the horrible feeling that she was about to faint.

      ‘Get some hot tea in here!’ she heard Mr Jago bark, swiftly followed by the sound of feet running to do his bidding. ‘And some cake!’ She heard another set of feet pounding from the room.

      Eventually, the lurching, swimmy sensations settled sufficiently for Aimée to feel able to raise her head. Mr. Jago and the wall-eyed man who had held the umbrella over her were watching her with some anxiety.

      ‘I will be fine now,’ she murmured, attempting a smile through lips that still felt strangely numb.

      ‘Yes, you heard her,’ Mr Jago said, starting as though coming to himself. ‘And the sight of your ugly mug is not going to help her get better. Be about your business!’

      ‘Looks like a puff of wind would blow her away,’ she heard the man mutter as he left the room.

      ‘Aye, far too scrawny …’ she heard another man, who had apparently been lurking just outside the door, agreeing.

      And then there was just Mr Jago, assessing her slender frame with those keen blue eyes.

      As if she was not nervous enough, that comment, coupled with Mr Jago’s assessing look, sent a new fear clutching at her belly.

      ‘I am far stronger than I look,’ she declared. ‘Truly, you need have no fear that I am not fit for work!’

      Indeed, she did not know what had come over her. She could only assume that the strain she had been under recently had taken a deeper toll on her health than she had realised.

      She knew she had lost quite a bit of weight. To begin with, she had felt too sickened by what her father had done to feel like eating anything. And then flitting from one cheap lodging house to another, whilst racking her brains for a permanent solution to her dire predicament, had done nothing to counteract her total loss of appetite.

      And the people she’d been obliged to approach, in the end—people nobody in their right mind would trust! She had not been sure they had not double-crossed her until she’d boarded the stage, and it was actually leaving London.

      ‘I am just tired,’ she pleaded with Mr Jago. ‘It was such a long journey …’ And it had begun not the day before, in the coaching yard of the Bull and Mouth, but on the night she’d had to flee from the lodgings she shared with her father. When she had to finally accept she needed to thrust aside any last remnants of obligation she felt towards the man who had sired her.

      For he clearly felt none towards her!

      To her relief, Mr Jago’s expression softened.

      ‘You must rest, then, until you have recovered,’ he said. ‘Do not worry about your position. It is yours. Quite secure.’

      The door opened, and the burly man who had taken her trunk upstairs came in with a large tray, which he slapped down on a little side table at Aimée’s elbow, making the cups rattle in their saucers. Mr Jago shot him a dark look, which the man ignored with an insouciance that immediately raised him in her estimation.

      Once she had drunk two cups of hot sweet tea and consumed a large slice of rich fruitcake, Mr Jago led her up the stairs to a charming little bedroom on the first floor. On the hearthrug, before yet another blazing fire, stood a bath, already filled with steaming, rose-scented water.

      ‘You will feel much better for getting out of those wet clothes and having a warm bath,’ said СКАЧАТЬ