The Dollar Prince's Wife. Paula Marshall

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 being neither new nor rare, I am sure that you can. I believe that some years ago the Salvation Army found itself in trouble when it tried to reveal the facts to a disbelieving world.’

      ‘That is so,’ agreed the Captain, surprised a little by the knowledge of the arrogant and handsome young man before him—even more surprised to find that he had seen fit to rescue a child from the slums. ‘You are referring to the Stead case, I take it, sir, when those who were trying to save exploited children were sent to prison and those who exploited them escaped punishment. You are saying that you have knowledge of something similar?’

      ‘Oh, come.’ Cobie’s voice was as satiric as he could make it. ‘You are not about to pretend that, living and working where you do, near to the Haymarket, you are unaware of what goes on—’

      He was rudely interrupted by the little girl standing up and tugging at his hand, ‘I’m hungry, mister.’

      To the Captain’s further surprise the young dandy before him went down on one knee, took a large handkerchief from an inner pocket of his immaculately cut jacket, and carefully began to clean the child’s face.

      ‘So you must be,’ he told her gently. ‘Do you think we could ask this gentleman to find you something to eat while he and I talk about what to do with you?’

      She nodded, and then suddenly grasped his hand again. She kissed it, gasping, ‘Oh, Gawd, mister, you won’t send me back, will you? Let me eat in here. I feel safe wiv you.’

      ‘No, I won’t send you back, I promise. I’ll find somewhere safe for you to go.’

      He stood up again, and thought, My God, and now the rage is making me rescue slum children, when all I want is a night’s sleep!

      He said brusquely to the Captain, ‘You can feed her?’

      The Captain went to the door, and called to one of the women, who presently came in with a bowl of soup and a buttered bread roll.

      ‘What’s your name, little girl?’ she asked the child, who took the bowl from her and began drinking greedily from it without using the spoon.

      ‘Lizzie,’ she said, ‘Lizzie Steele,’ and then, to Cobie, ‘What’s yours, mister?’

      Cobie began to laugh, stopped, and asked her gravely, bending his bright head a little, ‘What would you like it to be?’

      He felt, rather than saw, the Captain look sharply at him. Lizzie, slurping the last drops of the soup, said through them, ‘Ain’t yer got a name, then?’

      ‘Not really,’ Cobie told her, which was, in a way, the truth. He had no intention of letting anyone at the shelter know who he really was. Caution was his middle name, although many who knew him would have been surprised to learn that.

      Now that the СКАЧАТЬ