Into The Hall Of Vice. Anabelle Bryant

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СКАЧАТЬ of fabric and frippery is best left to your maid.’ His steely gaze punctuated his dismissal. ‘Be sure to take Nan with you.’ Then, with split interest, he glanced to the letter in hand. ‘Another Poor Bill to contend? This proposed system will distort the free market.’

      She wrinkled her nose, eschewing concerns of Parliament’s business for another reason entirely. Explaining a stop in Charing Cross to her maid would require some inventive storytelling. When her mother died nine years ago, Nan had stepped in to raise her. The line between servant and friend blurred over time and while the woman was not old enough to serve as mother, there were often instances when the maid assumed the role. Still, Gemma had achieved her goal with a modicum of honesty so she would not waste the unexpected boon.

      ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She rose from the chair with energised purpose. ‘Let me inform Rosalind so she may make ready for the park.’

      Mayhap it was the scent of honeysuckle and lavender that jarred loose the tender memory and freed the stifled yearning for kindness, but whatever the cause, Cole woke the next afternoon with a desire to visit Charing Cross. There his makeshift mother lived in a stark flat where, over several past years, she’d housed and protected numerous lost boys, sharing what little she had and wanting nothing in return. As when she’d raised him, the only rules to abide were a strict sense of purpose and honesty in every form, most especially in regard to crime. She kept the lads fed and clothed, taught them the barest education and left each with an indelible understanding of gratitude and kindness to do better by others. It wasn’t until many years later that he understood the sacrifices she made in order to pay rent and purchase necessities.

      Two decades ago Cole was one of these lads.

       Cole.

      He grinned. The remembrance of how he’d chosen his name still held the power to amuse. Shoved from a fancy carriage out onto the street as a tiny lad, his aristocratic father demanded he not return.

       ‘I have no need of a dirty bastard. Your mother should have known that before she left you on my doorstep. Now off with you and forget this day.’

      The stranger, his father, waved his arm as one might shoo away a stray dog. With a forceful push down the extended steps, Cole butted into the side of a merchant’s wagon and watched his father’s fancy carriage roll away, unable to forget the barren fear and utter dejection as he wept for his mother through the night. By morning his emotions had run dry. Determination and pride replaced his previous trepidation. He crawled from beneath the wagon where he’d hidden from rats and predators interested in fresh victims among the overcrowded squalor of St Giles, only to meet with further condemnation and disapproval.

       ‘Git.’ The merchant of the wagon had arrived, his arm raised, a blackened shovel in his meaty fist. ‘Empty your pockets before you go. You won’t steal from Hewitt Coal and you won’t make a home beneath my wagon neither, you little thief.’

      Cole stared at the angry merchant a long minute before he turned and ran, his lungs near bursting from exertion. On that day, a new child was born. Cole Hewitt. He’d chosen the name to forever remind of his self-made promise to overcome his humble beginnings and dismiss all knowledge of the past. When he’d stopped his race against time and regret, he’d dropped to his knees in the dirt and fought tears, motionless and defeated. From that moment on he’d survived day to day, hungry and cold, until a worn pair of boots intersected his path where he’d hidden in the dank corner of an empty alley.

      His life would have become just another dreadful story if Maggie hadn’t scooped him up and offered him shelter. Eventually she taught him his worth and, with that new-found belief, he vowed to become a better person, achieve success and never look back. He would forget his past, wipe it clean from his memory and build a thriving future that had nothing to do with his parents’ rejection.

      He shook his head with pride, unwilling to forage through the despicable memory of his abandonment and the hardships of the years that followed. Today was not that day.

      Dressing with alacrity, he hailed a hackney for the ride to Charing Cross, able to keep the rest of his unpleasant past at bay. Then, after purchasing a bouquet of lilies from a flower cart, he knocked on the door, only to discover no one answered. Where might Maggie-girl be at such an early hour? He pressed his ear to the panel. Not a sound stirred within.

      He called her his makeshift mother, but she was no more than ten years older and, at thirty-seven, she’d made her life’s work to better the lives of the pallid faces lost to the streets. So many abandoned urchins benefited and, with his accumulated wealth from the Underworld, he’d provided most every advantage for her generosity to reach others.

      He eyed the modest house, its wooden porch swept clean of debris, the windows freshly washed. How often had he offered to purchase Maggie a fine townhouse in Mayfair, but she stubbornly refused to leave, dedicated to those less fortunate? Instead he set her up in fine rooms, at least the best this area possessed, and this too was his legacy, an opportunity to make his past a matter of selective remembrance. And in that way, poverty was a blessing. No one asked questions in Charing Cross. It was easier that way.

      Dismissing the familiar reminiscence, he retrieved the brass key from his trouser pocket and turned it in the lock. Inside, he lit the lantern on the hook near the door and placed the bouquet on the kitchen table for Maggie to discover when she returned. He hadn’t eaten and a full stomach would do well to start his day, but instead of nabbing a biscuit from the breadbox, he ventured to the bedroom where he stored a few personal articles in the top drawer of the armoire. He removed the jar of bootblack and adjusted the standing mirror upward so he could see his reflection. Then, with a nimble touch, he worked the black grease through his hair, darkening the golden strands to pitch in less than a heartbeat. He cleaned his hands on a cloth kept there and, with the scarcest vestiges of residue on his fingers, massaged a tinge of colour beneath his eyes, into the hollows of his cheeks, just enough to alter his complexion to ashy and tired, cautious not to appear sickly. He’d kept a day’s growth of whiskers for a scruffy, uncivilised affect. Last, he moistened the gum paste and attached an unkempt moustache, so bushy it appeared almost a beard. A useless pair of spectacles completed his transformation.

      Whistling a cheerful tune, he cleaned up his handiwork, replaced the items and donned a jacket he kept in the hall closet before he locked the door and made to leave. With his initial plans deterred, he would make use of the afternoon with another endeavour.

      He had only one foot off the stoop when an ordinary rented hack pulled to the curb in front of the address. No one ventured far into Charing Cross. Most especially by hackney.

      Some people walked.

      Most people ran.

      Charing Cross was a community of habitual crime. The poverty-stricken population saw no way to survive without repeatedly plundering victims and therefore stole from each other as much as any fool who roamed without protection and wherewithal. While this particular area had elevated to a modicum of respectability in a broad sense, only a few blocks south a semi-derelict warren of dilapidated houses and open sewers rivalled the worst living conditions in all London.

      More than a little intrigued, he watched as a woman disembarked. This was no place for a refined lady. Her intricately stitched gown and wool pelisse tempted his smile to surface as much as the long scarf wrapped around her head, to shadow her face or add allure. One could never tell. She must be gentry, but hadn’t she any sense? Only a fool arrived in the middle of Seven Dials wearing anything that resembled quality. She would draw more attention than had she disembarked in the nude. That same smile broke free. His swindling days were long behind him, still he could spot an easy СКАЧАТЬ