by Alexa Aston
He smiled at the thought of setting Lady Abigail on Lydia. Nothing escaped that sharp woman’s attention. She would see through Lydia’s tricks in a heartbeat. He would happily pay good money to see the inevitable set down.
“Does something amuse you, my dear Winter?”
Lydia’s expression was as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth – for the benefit of Aunt Harriet, no doubt. Julian determined to be distant and polite.
“I am only pleased to be close to our destination, Miss Stonely.”
And, indeed, they were close. Outside, he could hear the sound of other carriages approaching the coaching inn. The clattering of wheels, the clopping of hoofs, the shouts of coachmen, ostlers, grooms, and outriders – all grew louder.
The noise roused Margaret from a half-doze. It also enlivened Aunt Harriet.
“I think you’re being terribly disagreeable, Julian,” the matron tutted. “The family has a perfectly good townhouse of its own; there’s no need to impose yourself on your friends.”
“Indeed, I believe you’re quite in the right, my dear Mrs. Erskin,” Lydia chimed in with exaggerated deference. A twinkle in her eye told Julian she found the whole thing quite amusing. “Why won’t you listen to your aunt, Winter?”
“I have business to conduct over the next few days and it is much more convenient for me to stay with Viscount Carmarthan,” he explained. “Besides, I’m sure you ladies have preparations you wish to make before the ball.”
“But Julian,” said Margaret, now joining the conversation, “you know London so well and we don’t. We were counting on you to be our escort.”
Julian allowed his smile to broaden. “You won’t be left stranded, Cousin. I have arranged for Lady Abigail to introduce you to the most fashionable modistes. She will open doors that I cannot.”
His words hit the mark with his aunt and cousin. All three women had been introduced to Lady Abigail, Allie’s godmother, once before at a soiree at Stannum House. Margaret let out a little squeal of delight while Harriet sat up straighter and preened, clearly pleased to have come to the notice of such a personage.
Lydia, however, regarded him with open speculation, a light color to her cheeks suggesting she was pleased by the arrangement, but suspected his motives.
God help the man who decided to pursue this fickle creature.
Their carriage lurched to a stop. A coachman opened the door and Julian breathed in deeply. The cold, dank air coming up from the river carried the smells of smoke, horse urine, and rancid cooking, yet the mixture was more of a perfume to him than the scent of gardenia.
His traveling companions did not think so. Aunt Harriet put a handkerchief to her nose. Margaret brought the hood of her cloak further over her head. Lydia wrinkled her nose just slightly as though such unpleasantness was beneath her notice.
Julian disembarked, aiding his aunt to climb down first. Lydia was the last to step out of the coach and tried to retain hold of his hand even after her feet were firmly on the ground.
“Come along,” Margaret called. “It’s cold out here, and I want something to eat before we go on!”
Julian was in no hurry to join them. He remained outside, refusing to let the cold chill him. He breathed in deep. The smell was rank, but it was still preferable to Lydia’s perfume.
Hansom cabs waiting to pick up fares crowded the streets outside the inn. He pulled out his pocket watch. The lamplight revealed it to be a little after eight o’clock. They had made good time, all things considered.
After sending a messenger to the family townhouse to arrange the transport of the ladies and their luggage, and another to Viscount Carmarthan, there was little reason to stay outside other than his reluctance to be inside.
He flexed his leg. It was stiffening up in the chill. He watched beggars, prostitutes and pickpockets ply their trades around the bustle of a busy hostelry. There were deals being done by more or less honest folk; traders picking over the first of the wares before the markets opened in the morning.
He had no idea why he noticed the boy. The child was nothing more than an urchin, dodging in and out around the legs of those who milled about.
No one seemed to be chasing him and yet he moved with purpose.
Unfortunately, he also seemed heedless for his own safety. The lad drew nearer. He stopped a moment and looked down at what he held in his hand. Julian caught a glimpse of it, too, before the boy closed his fingers tightly around it again. A shiny silver coin. Now the youngster’s intent was clear. He was looking for a meal for himself.
The child dashed out just as coach and four approached. One of the horses reared. Somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed. The boy stopped and looked back at her, ignoring the very real danger before him.
Without thinking, Julian surged forward, ignoring his aching knee, and scooped the lad up in his arms. He bent over to take the brunt of what was to come.
Thanks to good timing and the coachman’s skills, he felt only a brush from the horse’s front hooves as he tucked his head and rolled both himself and the lad from danger. The tumble onto the hard cobblestones would no doubt leave a bruise or two but things could certainly have been a whole lot worse.
Rising to a squat, Julian examined the boy. He was about four years of age. The lad regarded him with wide eyes but he seemed unhurt.
“Lucas!”
The boy turned at the sound of his name.
Julian rose to his feet and suppressed a groan.
Yes, there are most certainly bruises.
A well-dressed young woman pushed her way through the crowd. Behind him, the coachman shared some particularly choice words. The woman raised her head toward the driver, coach lamps illuminating her finely proportioned features. She was older than Julian originally thought, closer to his age than Margaret’s.
She bore the censure without comment. The coachman, having said his piece, drove on, muttering under his breath.
“Lucas.”
The boy came to his senses and hurried into the woman’s waiting arms. Her eyes, dark in a pale complexion, had not yet left Julian’s, and any angry words he might have added to those of the coachman died on his lips.
“Thank you for saving my son,” she said, her voice well-modulated, her accent refined.
“You are his mother?” He couldn’t help a tone of incredulity leaching in his question.
The crowd that had gathered to witness the accident drifted away, leaving only the three of them. And since no one else had claimed the grubby little urchin, Julian supposed the question answered itself.
“Thank you,” the woman repeated. She looked him up and down with a frown.
Julian looked down at himself and realized more than the air stank of horse piss now. He looked back up at the woman.
“I… I am sorry about your clothes. If you would kindly send the bill to—”
“Julian! Oh, Julian! My poor darling!”
Did he grimace at the sound of Lydia’s voice? He must have done so because the lips of the mysterious woman quirked upward before regaining a neutral expression.
“Send it to St. Luke’s Mission, sir. I’ll see you are compensated.”
There was no time to acknowledge the offer beyond a nod before the wave of thick, creamy, gardenia scent enveloped him anew.
“Julian! They said there was an accident!”
He turned at the sound of Harriet’s voice joining that of Lydia’s.
“I’m unhurt, Aunt,” he assured her. “I was just aiding Mrs.…”
He turned back. The woman and child had gone.
Chapter Two
Caroline ushered Lucas away and dared a glance behind her.
The man who saved him – Julian – was surrounded by three women, two of whom looked like relatives.
The other… well, she looked like the man’s mistress.
She even smelled like one
Caroline wrinkled her nose.
Now that was completely uncharitable.
She recognized the thought for what it was – a deflection against her own culpability in losing sight of the child. He’d been at her side one moment and gone the next. He was a strong-willed little boy.
Thank God the gentleman had been swift enough to save him from injury or worse. Caroline’s hand tightened around the boy’s as they crossed the still-busy street away from the coaching inn.
Her claim to being Lucas’s mother fell naturally from her lips before she could give the truth. But their knight in shining armor didn’t believe her. She saw it and heard it – and he was right.
She prayed forgiveness for her half-lie – after all, what harm could it do? The chances of seeing the man again in a city as large as London would be infinitesimal.
Ahead, light still burned in the windows in St. Luke’s Mission’s kitchen. It was still early by the standards of the place. Reverend Alfred Camp and his other workers were doling out hot meals and arranging a cot for the night to those who could not bear a night out of doors in the cold.
She urged Lucas through one of the side doors and closed it behind her. The vicar’s wife, Patricia – Patty to those close to her – spotted them immediately.
Mrs. Camp was a small woman in contrast to her much taller and stickily-built husband, but she had a nervous energy that translated itself into good works for the residents of this borough.
“Ah, there you are!” said the older woman, kindly. “I thought you’d gone to take this little one to bed.”
Caroline was breathless but forced out an explanation. “L… Lucas gave me the slip before we reached the stables a… and nearly got himself run over,”
Despite the warmth of the hall, she suddenly felt cold. Her hands trembled.
Mrs. Camp frowned a moment. She gave her apron over to another and gently led Caroline to a quiet part of the hall. “You’ve had a wee shock, haven’t you? Come sit down here a moment.”
“She be needin’ a spot o’ brandy, she do,” observed O’Toole, one of the Mission’s regulars.
“She might, but there will be no spirits imbibed here.”
“More’s the pity,” the vagrant grumbled.
Despite feeling lightheaded, Caroline could still smile at the exchange. She sat on the bench where Mrs. Camp placed her and pulled Lucas onto her lap.
The boy was quiet, hopefully chastened by his experience. He settled against her chest.
A moment later, a cup of warm milk was placed in her hands. She took a sip and offered the cup to Lucas. The boy shook his head in refusal. Caroline finished the rest, pleased to see her hand now steady as she placed the vessel on the bench beside her.
“Could you send someone out to the inn and ask my driver to come here please?” she asked Mrs. Camp.
O’Toole rose to his feet, his too-large clothes barely hiding a wiry frame. Neither could a full grayish-white beard disguise the man’s sunken cheeks.
“I’ll go for ye, Miss, if it’s good for an extra helpin’ o’ that puddin’.”
“A good reward for a good deed,” Mrs. Camp answered.
O’Toole left, leaving Caroline under the scrutiny of the woman before her.
“You do enough for us already. There’s no need for you to be here every night – especially since you’ve decided to take on the responsibility for this little one,” she said.
“It’s no bother, honestly it’s not. I like helping in a more direct way than simply giving alms.”
“If more folks were half as generous as you, the world would be a much better place, indeed.” The vicar’s wife lowered her voice to avoid being overheard. “You also have responsibilities away from this place that are deserving of your attention, too.”
Caroline squeezed her eyes shut a moment. Mrs. Camp was right.
“I know, but—”
“Enough of your excuses, my dear. You might think we don’t know the full extent of what you do, but the reverend and I do have eyes in our heads.”
There was little point in arguing. Caroline would only lose. She offered a deflated nod. It was returned with a smile before the older woman returned to her duties in the kitchen.
“Miss… yer carriage has arrived.”
Caroline offered O’Toole a tired smile and struggled to her feet. He took Lucas from her arms and followed her to the black carriage that waited out on the corner, too large to turn around in the narrow laneway.
If the man had wondered what “Miss” was doing entering a private carriage, he was too well-mannered to ask. If she were considered to be some eccentric, then so be it. Only Reverend and Mrs. Camp knew the truth of it.
While O’Toole lay the tired child on the bench, a footman aided her into the carriage. As it pulled away, she saw O’Toole shuffling quickly back to the mission for his good reward.
The vehicle made its way through the market streets of London, even at this hour crowded with traders and shoppers looking to order goods for Christmas. Their journey was not a long one, only five miles to her fashionable address in Mayfair, where she would once more no longer be “Miss”, but rather Lady Caroline Lavene, the widow of Lord Tristan Lavene.
She pulled back the hood of her forest green coat and removed the white cap that covered her auburn hair, massaging her scalp to relieve a niggling headache as she watched over the sleeping boy before her.
Lucas been an answer to a prayer. Her late husband had been an independently wealthy man with no property entailed, and everything had become hers without condition. Tristan left her everything she could wish for – except a child of her own.
Becoming widowed after only five years of marriage had been a shock. She had remained in deep mourning for her husband the whole year after he died following a short illness. After that first twelve months, she was supposed to emerge again, but the world seemed a different place, and she no longer knew her way in it.
It had become all too easy to retreat.
The social whirl on the fringes of the ton had lost its appeal. The obsession with fashion silhouettes and hemlines, or whether blondes or brunettes would be all the rage this Season seemed nothing but frivolous nonsense. Then one year, and another, had slipped by so easily that her thirtieth birthday came and went without acknowledgement.
It was Lucas who brought her back into the world.
She had been driving past St. Luke’s Church one day when she saw the toddler sitting forlornly on the steps. He could be no older than two years of age. Before Caroline knew it, she had ordered her carriage to stop.
There she met the Reverend and Mrs. Camp, the vicar of St. Luke’s and his wife. Neither knew the child, nor anything of his parents. He had simply been abandoned. Well, what could she do other than take the child home with her? Only until inquiries could be made, of course.
After a couple of days, it seemed silly to keep calling him “child”, so Caroline had named him Lucas, after the church.
That had been the beginning of her downfall.
If she had left it at that, actually made inquiries and returned the child to the church if they proved fruitless, then her heart might still be her own. But the longer Lucas remained with her, the more attached to him she became. A few days became a few months, one year became two. And now she loved him as though he were a son of her own body – the only child she would ever have.
And, tonight, she had almost lost him.
The carriage slowed as the horse turned into the drive. Caroline reached for the hanging leather strap to support herself as the vehicle rocked. Lucas had not stirred on the bench opposite. Just as the carriage rolled to a stop under the porte cochere, she reached out and touched his soft warm cheek.
He was the miracle she needed and hadn’t known how to ask for. He helped give her life meaning and purpose, pulling her from the misery and loneliness of her widowhood and introducing her to her second family at St. Luke’s Mission.
The door opened and an old man emerged, rugged up against the cold. Fordyce was her butler of sorts. He took Lucas inside t
he house and followed her up the stairs into the bedroom which was next to hers.
Mrs. Stewart, the nanny, a plump little woman with white hair, waited and rose from her knitting as they entered. She had already laid out the child’s night attire and helped Caroline put Lucas to bed.
Lady Lavene ran a rather unconventional household. As she had no intention of returning to the social whirl, did it matter if a formal table was not kept or if there was conversation and singing while the servants worked? Many of those under her roof were people referred by Reverend Camp, who had fallen on hard times.
In Lucas, she had been given a second chance to live; how could she begrudge another poor soul the same opportunity if she could provide it?
As had become custom, once Lucas had gone to bed, the writing desk in her drawing room was illuminated with candles. Here, she had one more task to complete before retiring herself, one more thing she could do to improve the lot of those who had little.
The Camps knew who she was and much about her, but they did not know about this enterprise for it was still to debut in the public eye. It would do so tomorrow and she expected it would raise eyebrows.
The Argus was not the usual newspaper of the ordinary Londoner. It was the one read by Parliamentarians and those seated in the House of Lords. It was the paper of record for the Beau Monde, a mirror reflecting their lives and interests.
Now it was about to start publishing something a little different in its pages.
She glanced at the sheaf of papers to her right. It had taken all her courage to impose upon the editor the debt he’d owed Lord Tristan and he was reluctant at first when he heard the price. But after a little persistence by Caroline, he agreed to mark a Christmas Advent of a different sort.
Twenty-two days and eleven stories of hardship and hope about men and woman who were too often beneath the notice of those who could give a little to improve the lives of their fellow man.
Each tale she was told came from those who’d found sanctuary at St. Luke’s Mission. Their stories had drawn her from the depths of her own depression, reminding her that, despite her own loss, she had so much to be grateful for.
