Wilson, Gayle

by Anne's Perfect Husband

  "I would welcome your opinion of the ball gown," she said. "If you are sure you won't find such an errand a dead bore."

  "Italian sopranos are a dead bore. The beautiful Miss Darlington, attired in a new gown, will be a delight."

  "You should give Mr. Travener lessons. His turn of phrase is not nearly so pretty as that."

  "Fewer mustached Portuguese grandmothers to charm in his background, I suspect. He doesn't have the practice I've had. I shall see you at three."

  He turned and disappeared from the doorway, and suddenly the morning parlor seemed very empty. Anne picked up her pen again, dipping the point into the ink and carefully wiping off the excess. And then her hand hesitated before she applied it to the paper.

  After a moment, she laid the pen back on the desk and picked up the letter she had begun. In it she had begged her former headmistress to write to her guardian and request that Anne be allowed to return to Fenton School.

  She held it before her, reading the despairing phrases. Then she rose and carried the letter to the fire. Bending, she slipped it into the flames, watching the paper smoke and curl and finally blacken, obliterating her words.

  When they were all gone, she stood, laying her forehead tiredly against the mantel a moment before she turned to survey the sunlit room. She would spend the rest of her life at Fenton Hall and only a few short weeks in the company of the man she loved. And she had found that, despite the outcome, she was unwilling to give up even a single day of them.

  Impulsive, romantic, and very, very foolish.

  ***

  The ball gown had exceeded even her fantasies. Ian, despite his vaunted experience with Portuguese grandmothers, seemed to have been rendered momentarily speechless. By the dress or by the sight of her in it? she wondered. In either case, his admiration was very satisfying and had been salve for her battered heart.

  She had preceded him to the door of the shop after they were done with the fitting. When she reached it, she realized that Ian had not followed her, but was still engaged with the modiste. Making arrangement for payment, she supposed, or for having the dress delivered.

  The air in the shop was heated and close, almost oppressive. Without thinking too much about the propriety of her action, she opened the door and stepped through it into the street without waiting for her guardian's escort.

  The coachman had been instructed to walk the horses while they were inside, and there was no sign of the earl's carriage. She leaned forward to peer along the street in the opposite direction and became aware that something unusual was occurring a little farther along the sidewalk.

  There was enough commotion that a crowd had gathered to watch. Judging by their clothing, Anne realized that the people, mostly men, who made up that knot of spectators were not patrons of the neighboring shops. Actually, they appeared to be more like the roughs who frequented the area of London near the wharves than shoppers for this exclusive district.

  Anne looked up and down the street again, searching for the reassuring sight of the approaching coach. There was nothing there. Actually, there was very little traffic at all.

  She turned, glancing through the glass of the shop's door behind her. Ian and the dressmaker were still conversing. Her guardian didn't even seem to be aware that she had stepped outside.

  Just as she had decided that doing so had not been a very wise decision, she heard the scream of a child. High-pitched and distinct, given her background, the cry left no doubt in Anne's mind about her identification of its source.

  She looked in the direction from which it had come, realizing that it seemed to originate from the place where the group of ruffians she had noticed earlier were gathered. She had already taken a step in that direction when she heard another scream, this one seeming more despairing than the last. And then another, following in quick succession.

  Without stopping to think of her own safety, Anne began to run toward those increasingly frantic shrieks. When she was near enough to peer between the close-packed bodies of the crowd she could see that a man was beating a small boy. The leather strop he was using rose and fell with terrifying regularity and produced a scream from the child each time it landed.

  His arm firmly held by the man who was beating him, the little boy was trying to squirm out of the way of the descending lash, desperately dodging away from its blows. His fruitless attempts at evasion seemed to enrage his captor and delight the watchers. They urged the child's tormentor on with catcalls and suggestions.

  Furious, Anne began to push her way through the outer fringes of the circle. The element of surprise apparently worked to her advantage because the men parted to let her through, until at last she reached the center. She grabbed at the piece of leather, catching it with her gloved hand just as it was about to crack down again against the boy's narrow back.

  The man holding the other end of it looked up, his expression incredulous. It was obvious he hadn't expected any interference with what he was doing, especially not from a gentlewoman.

  "That's enough," Anne said, jerking the strap in an attempt to pull it out of his hand.

  Despite his shock, the man refused to release it. Instead he turned it once more about his wrist, making his hold more secure.

  "Leave off," he said, his face red and contorted with anger, either at the boy or at Anne's intervention on his behalf.

  "You cannot beat a child on a public street," Anne said.

  "'A course I can. 'E's my boy. I beats him when I pleases." Contempt was strong in his voice.

  "Whatever your son has done..." Anne began.

  The crowd hooted, as did the man, who seemed not so much amused at her error, but mocking of it. Roughly using the thin arm he held, he pulled the child around to face Anne. "Does this 'ere scoundrel look like he might be my son?"

  It was hard to tell who the child looked like. His skin was blackened with soot, which seemed ground into its very pores. His features were twisted as he grimaced with pain at the unnatural angle at which his arm was being held. His face was topped with a stock of badly cropped hair, so darkened by the ash of his profession that it was impossible now to tell its original color.

  "I bought 'im. Bought 'im fair and square, and then 'e up and runned away. I got a legal right to beat 'im for that."

  He probably did, Anne realized. She wasn't sure about the letter of the law regarding the punishment of apprentices, but young children were forced to backbreaking labor in factories and mines all over England. And chimney sweeps like this poor boy undoubtedly had the very worst of those conditions.

  '"E burns me," the boy said, speaking directly to Anne. His blue eyes, the only part of him that had not been affected by his covering of soot, looked up into hers hopefully.

  "Burns you?" she repeated, not perfectly sure she had understood the words, given the thick dialect in which he spoke.

  "Burns me feet to make me climb the shafts," he said.

  Anne's stomach churned. She glanced down involuntarily. The child's feet, as filthy as his hands, arms and face, were bare. Even so, she realized she had no desire to see evidence of his claim. The image his words had produced, of the sweep applying a torch to the soles of those little bare feet to make the boy shinny farther up a narrow flue, was quite vivid enough without any demonstration.

  "And is burning a child also legal?" she asked furiously, turning back to his master.

  She could tell by the way the man's eyes skated away from hers that he wasn't any surer of the parameters of the law governing child labor than she was. However accepted by the general populace was the practice the child had just described, it might not be equally condoned by a magistrate.

  Pressing her advantage, Anne dropped the strop and took hold of the boy's arm instead. Surprised, either by her boldness or by the fact that such a finely dressed lady was foolishly willing to ruin her kid gloves by contact with the child, the master didn't resist as she pulled the boy away from him.

  "Save me, miss," the child begged aga
in, emboldened enough by her defense to lock his filthy hands in the material of Anne's skirt. '"E'll beat me something fierce, 'e will," he said, looking fearfully over his shoulder at his master. '"E liked to 'a killed me the last time I runned away. 'E will kill me now for sure."

  "As soon as I gets my 'ands on you," the man threatened, reaching for the child.

  Anne backed away, putting her hand on the back of the boy's head and holding him against her protectively.

  "What's going on here?" asked a deep voice at her elbow.

  Anne turned to find her guardian standing beside her. He looked solidly masculine and incredibly competent to deal with the child's wizened master and even with the spectators to what had turned into a near spectacle.

  "He was beating this boy," she said. "I think because he had run away. We have to take him with us."

  "Don't let 'im kill me," the boy wailed.

  "No one will hurt you," Anne said. "I promise you that."

  No matter what Ian said she should do, she knew she could never give the boy back to his master to be beaten again. Not even if that was the law. It seemed, however, that the master had suddenly decided he wasn't willing to wait and see whether Ian agreed with her or not. He grabbed the boy's arm, just above the elbow, and attempted to drag him away.

  "Don't no boy run from Bob Thackett. I bought this one fair and square and paid more than 'is scurvy hide is worth. I got the 'prentice papers to prove it."

  The child clung so tightly to Anne's skirt that she, too, was pulled forward. Quickly Ian stepped between them, breaking the man's hold on the boy's arm and pushing him away. He then positioned himself between Anne, to whom the sobbing child was still clinging, and the sweep.

  Infuriated, the man tried to reach around Ian and take hold of the child again. There were any number of men who had served under Major The Honorable Ian Sinclair who could have told the sweep what a dangerous move that would be. Unfortunately for the boy's master, none of them were at hand.

  As he reached for the boy, Ian's fingers closed around the lapels of the rough coat he wore. He held the smaller man away from him at arms' length.

  "Leave him alone," he warned, his voice loud enough to carry above the hooting encouragement of the spectators.

  "He's my property," the sweep said, twisting and turning as he tried to free himself from those iron fingers wrapped in the material of his coat.

  "That's a matter for the magistrates to decide. As are any injuries they might find on the boy's body."

  The sweep ceased to struggle, apparently considering the merits of that implied threat. And then his eyes narrowed, seeming to consider as well the caliber of the man who had made it. Since Ian was taller by more than half a foot, he had to look up to make that assessment.

  "I got a right to discipline a runaway," he said sullenly. "And no nob need tell me I can't, magistrates or not."

  Apparently assuming that his speech would put an end to Ian's objections, he again tried to reach around the ex-major to grasp the boy. Anne stepped back to avoid his hand. The child pushed her even farther back as he attempted to burrow into the perceived safety of her skirt.

  It was only then that she realized the sweep's followers had surrounded her and Ian while their attention had been focused on the master. One of the other men, bolder than the rest, grabbed at the boy. Anne turned her back on him, pulling the boy around with her.

  As she did, her eyes searched the street, wondering that no one had come to help them. The few shoppers who were about, several of whom had stopped to watch the confrontation, seemed paralyzed by amazement. Although gangs of Mohocks occasionally preyed on those foolish enough to venture unprotected into certain unsavory areas of London at night, it was almost unheard of for people of their class to be accosted in broad open daylight. Especially in this neighborhood.

  "Ian," she warned.

  He didn't turn to look at her, but he took a step back, putting the child between them again. "Stay close," he ordered.

  He was still holding the sweep at arms' length, but the ruffians who had followed the man on his quest to recapture and punish his apprentice had begun to crowd ever nearer, forcing any other pedestrians back. And that had happened with a swiftness that took Anne by surprise.

  "Someone call the magistrates," Ian called toward the bewildered bystanders.

  He had had to raise his voice to carry above the cries of the boy, who pled with heartbreaking sobs for Anne to save him from his master's whip and torch. The voices of the sweep's fellows joined in the growing cacophony, urging him to reclaim his rightful property and not to let any nob come between him and his livelihood. In the hubbub Anne doubted anyone had heard Ian's command.

  Their coachman would soon realize what was going on, she told herself, but as yet there was no sign of him. And then, as she looked over the crowd for any indication that a rescue attempt was underway, one of the sweep's supporters began to pull at her arm again.

  She wrenched her elbow free, stepping forward toward Ian. Suddenly there was a rush of bodies from the front, shoving Ian into her. She staggered back, the boy still clinging to her skirt like a monkey. He or someone else stepped on the hem of her dress, tearing a portion of her skirt from the bodice.

  Just as it seemed she might go down and be trampled, a strong hand grasped her elbow, holding her upright until she had regained her balance. She looked up into a pair of furious hazel eyes. Ian wrapped one arm around her waist, supporting her.

  With the other he began to lay about him with his cane, using it like a saber in battle, slashing at the men who milled around them, trying to drive them back. Instead they continued to press nearer, shouting and grabbing at the screaming boy. And above it all, Anne could hear the whistle Ian's stick made as it rose and fell, and even the occasional sound of it striking something.

  And he was finally seeing some success, she realized. The close-packed bodies began to give, driven back by the fury with which Ian was wielding his cane.

  Then something struck Ian's chest. It splattered against her cheek, and automatically Anne ducked her head, turning it into the protection of his shoulder. His arm around her waist, Ian lifted her bodily, dragging her off the curb and out into the street, still using his cane to fight off their attackers so that they could escape.

  At some point, although she had not been aware of when it had occurred, the child had lost his grip on her skirts and disappeared into the swirling madness. As soon as she realized he was gone, she lifted her head and looked back over Ian's shoulder, trying for a glimpse of the boy amidst the chaos. He seemed to have vanished, although she could see his master at the forefront of the mob, continuing to press his claim.

  Another missile landed with a splat on Ian's back. A pungent smell permeated the air around them. Only then did Anne realize that someone was throwing rotten eggs at them. Shielding her face with one hand, she looked up at Ian, seeking reassurance or instruction.

  The handsome, familiar features were rigid. His jaw was set, lips flattened and white, as he propelled her, even supporting part of her weight, along the street. This was a man she didn't know, she realized. He was a stern-faced stranger who had been created by the violence that had erupted around them.

  Suddenly, Ian stumbled, catching his dragging foot on one of the uneven cobblestones. He fell onto one knee, inadvertently pulling her down with him. Her fall was cushioned by his body, but his had not been. Even from that position, one knee and one hand on the ground, Ian raised the cane as the sweep and his screaming cohorts came rushing after them, like wolves surrounding a downed sheep.

  "Run," Ian commanded, releasing his hold on her. "Do it now," he ordered when she hesitated.

  Knees trembling, Anne rose in response to the sharpness of that command. Instead of running, however, she put both hands around his upper arm, the one that wasn't raised defensively in preparation for the mob's approach. She pulled, urging him to his feet.

  "Go, damn it," he demanded, watching the en
emy.

  "Not without you," she said stubbornly.

  She wouldn't. No matter what happened to her, she wasn't going to leave him on his knees and at their mercy.

  "Damn you." The words were uttered under his breath, but the tone of them was vehement. Heartfelt.

  As he said them, however, his eyes lifted to meet hers. And seeing the determination within them perhaps, Ian lowered the cane, using it and her support to push himself to his feet. By that time, the howling sweep and his cohorts were on them.

  One of them struck Ian with his fist, sending him into her. She braced herself to bear his weight, and he quickly regained his balance, charging the throng, cane slashing. This time, however, his attackers had taken time to arm themselves.

  They had grabbed anything they could get their hands on to use as weapons. One held a buggy whip, no doubt snatched from a driver whose vehicle had been blocked by the melee. Another had ripped a length of board loose from somewhere. And far too many of the blows they aimed at the man who was defending her, Anne realized, were hitting their target.

  Ian retreated even as he fought, keeping her behind him and pushing her backwards as he moved, ever vigilant to the next feint, the next blow. She had time to wonder how long he could keep it up, and then he stumbled once more.

  He didn't go down this time, thank God. The mob was too close to allow her time to get him to his feet if he fell again.

  However, they were being driven inexorably toward the buildings on the opposite side of the narrow street. Deliberately driven? she wondered. Because when they reached it, a matter of only seconds now, considering the fury of the mob, further retreat would be cut off.

  "Go," Ian ordered again, reading the situation as she had.

  As he turned to hurl the single syllable over his shoulder, he was struck in the chest by that length of wood. He stumbled a step or two, trying not to go down. He didn't, but his backward momentum pushed her into the brick wall at her back.