Wayward One

by Lorelie Brown

  Dedication

  For everyone who’s helped me as I learn to speak “Self.” The world is brighter with your support.

  Chapter One

  To any acceptable bastion of etiquette, running through the streets of London strayed significantly outside the bounds of propriety for gently reared women. As a result, Sera Miller merely walked. Quickly. At a pace that stitched faint pain up through her ribs.

  Despite the fact that the sun was more than an hour from dropping below the horizon, thick fog draped London in early twilight. The haze dimmed the edges of Mayfair, from the tall town houses to the carriages that clattered down the narrow streets.

  And she was alone.

  Sera shifted a small stack of purchases higher in her arms and stepped to a speedier pace. She couldn’t manage much more with her full skirts and heavy petticoats, but she wouldn’t have broken into a run even if she could. One attracted notice when one ran. Though her life had been quiet and staid for the past ten years, she remembered that lesson well.

  Turning the corner eased her worries. Less than four houses before she’d be back in the safety of the Waywroth Academy.

  The man seemed to come out of nowhere.

  Her nose smashed directly into an expanse of linen and fine wool. She squeaked with surprise. The collision sent packages flying. A white box tied with twine slid into the base of a wrought-iron fence. A brown paper-wrapped bundle tumbled six inches past the man’s laced leather shoes.

  “Oh drat,” she murmured.

  “My apologies.” He doffed his hat and sketched something near a bow. It was more a dip of his head and curl of his shoulders. Wide, thick shoulders, undisguised by the impeccably cut suit spread over them.

  Sera gulped and raised her gaze to his face. Harsh was the first word that came to mind. He was by no means a pretty man. Blond hair brushed back from a broad forehead. Brackets framed a wide mouth under a bold nose. His eyes were set barely too close together, but even that flaw couldn’t diminish their brilliant, pale blue—like the sea, but only if it had iced over. A wrinkle knotted his brows together, as if he worried a lot.

  Sera could certainly sympathize with that.

  She smiled. “Your apology is accepted. I’m certain it was my fault anyhow. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  The dove gray of his hat nearly blended into the dimming sky as he donned it again. “Ah, see that is the problem. The world is supposed to watch out for lovely ladies, not the other way around.”

  The tips of her ears burned hot. She’d been flirted with before, usually when accompanying her friends to their parties. Those pleasant occurrences hadn’t lasted long after her lack of dowry became understood. Never before had such flirtations come from a man to whom she hadn’t even been introduced—and never quite so boldly.

  Her gaze dropped to the sidewalk, and she stooped to pick up the box of pastries. Hopefully they weren’t ruined. Victoria so loved the lemon tarts.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said. “That was forward of me, wasn’t it?” He stooped as well, picking up the smaller package.

  She risked another look. The slight pout of his mouth seemed genuinely rueful. “It’s quite all right, sir. It’s only…”

  “That you don’t know me at all.”

  She smiled with relief as he shouldered the burden of bluntness.

  They stood as one. How strange this all was. She’d never formed such easy acquaintance with anyone in her life. Even Lottie and Victoria had required weeks to prod her out of her shell, though that should hardly count as she’d been freshly escaped from her previous life. If anything, she ought to be a little frightened. His accent betrayed a hint of rough origins, though it was obvious he went to pains to hide the truth.

  “I ask your pardon if that’s at all rude,” she felt obligated to say. Somehow he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Not at all. Shouldn’t you have a maid with you? To protect you from forward compliments from strange men, of course.” The sparkle in his eyes took any sting from the words. The smile was all the more beautiful for appearing so unusual. If Sera had to guess, she’d have said he wasn’t a man who smiled often.

  But he did so for her.

  Embarrassment pinched at her cheeks, along with a heady surge of power. She’d love to be able to stand longer and simply…chat. Unfortunately that was entirely beyond the bonds of propriety. Unlike Lottie, she was never one to poke at them.

  “I did. But sadly she took ill. I sent her home.”

  “Shouldn’t you have turned for home at the same time?” The worried line drew his brows together once more. “London’s not a safe place for a lady alone.”

  “I had only one more stop. And I thank you for your concern, but I’m almost home.” She waved to the manor house behind him. Three stories tall, the Waywroth Academy was a stronghold of white pillars and gleaming windows. The largest building within sight, it overlooked the street with a watchful eye, much like its headmistress did the pupils inside.

  “Ah, I see. Well then, don’t let me keep you.” He proffered the small brown bundle, but somewhere in the tumult the end had been ripped open. A single cheroot wiggled out, as if trying to escape. Lottie wanted them, though Sera had no idea why. She only held them and didn’t actually smoke. She liked to be scandalous. The man raised his eyebrows. His mouth tucked into a funny half-tilted smile. “I find myself doubtful that these are for you.”

  Her cheeks burned so hot she must be carnation red. “They’re not,” she agreed.

  But there was something else…

  She tilted her head, peering at him a little more closely. As if she could truly subject him to any more scrutiny than the surreptitious fascination she’d indulged for the last minutes. “Do I know you, sir?”

  His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. Shadows darkened his eyes from ice to twilight-touched clouds. “No, I’m afraid you don’t.”

  “Are you sure? Perhaps we met at Lady Cavanaugh’s ball last month?” Now it was her turn to be forward. She wanted desperately to ask his name, but that was absolutely not done. It wasn’t as if anyone milled around available to do the niceties. “I am half convinced.”

  “Trust me, miss. I’d be shocked if I should ever have forgotten the name of such a pretty lady.”

  “You’re incorrigible, aren’t you?”

  “I have been told that a time or two.” He sketched his little near-bow again. “But please, don’t allow me to keep you any longer. It grows dark, and you should be indoors before the streets become even more unsafe for a woman of quality.”

  A woman of quality. Such a joke. She clung so desperately to the standards, afraid she’d be found out. At least she had passing strangers fooled.

  “Thank you for your chivalry, kind sir.”

  “It was nothing.”

  Still she hesitated a beat too long. It wasn’t often that she stood at the center of such good-natured attention. She did it to herself, clinging to walls and slipping around the edges of the society she felt so little a part of, but that didn’t mean she was never lonely.

  Eventually, she had to step away. The gate to the academy swung open silently. She schooled her steps into a fraction of the hurry that had prompted her rush home. Leaving the scene of her most enjoyable experience in years prompted a strange reluctance. At the top of the marble steps, she could no longer resist.

  She looked back.

  The man still stood on the walkway, one hand curled loosely around a metal spike at the top of the waist-high fence. The intensity in his gaze as he watched her should have been frightening from a perfect stranger.

  It was exhilarating.

  Her heart chugged as fast as an express train. Beneath the tight strictures of her corset, Sera’s insides tingled. S
he shook off her excitement as a footman opened the academy’s door.

  She’d likely never see him again.

  Fletcher Thomas suppressed a rush of sweet power and satisfaction that Seraphina remembered him, even the slightest bit. Despite that, he had to push it away. Two years remained before he’d be prepared to collect her.

  Hell, she’d be frightened to realize that he knew her name, let alone that he knew everything about her.

  To Seraphina Miller, he was only a memory for the time being.

  With the metal of the wrought-iron fence smooth under his fingers, he watched her disappear into the grand boarding school. Something about her slight figure compelled notice. She was slender, but he’d been an expert at female figures since he was a lad watching his father’s women. Her curves weren’t all bustles and strategically placed ruffles. She’d be just a handful enough.

  Right before she was about to disappear behind the fancy doors of her school, her glance over one shoulder rewarded him with a hot rush of satisfaction. Her lush mouth parted and her dark eyes widened with confusion.

  He walked away with a new lift in his heels.

  She’d think about him for a little while at least, if only as a strange man who’d been a shade improper on the street.

  After ten years of paying for her schooling, it was high time she knew whom she had to thank.

  A less selfish man wouldn’t be bothered by the need to take credit. But then, Fletcher had never in his life claimed to be altruistic.

  If he were, he wouldn’t be headed deep into Whitechapel, intending to shake down a foreman reputed to know which warehouse Fletcher should seize control of. Less than two years from seeing every single one of his goals realized, Fletcher was as committed as ever.

  His father had first taken over the neighborhood nearly twenty years ago, and Fletcher had worked long and hard to keep his criminal inheritance, sacrificing dreams of a good name along the way. He was tired of living on the dark and dirty side of existence. Finagling a partnership in the Earl of Linsley’s railroad consortium would be one of the last puzzle pieces Fletcher required. After that, he had only to claim Seraphina to fit together the perfect life.

  Really, she was better off not remembering him for now. She’d know him soon enough. His impatience reared up in wishing anything different.

  The streets around him had become narrower with every turn into the deep heart of the city. Or perhaps the lower bowels would be a better descriptor. The area was nasty and filthy, filled with the excrement that London tried to rid itself of. Gutters ran brown with waste. No alley was free of trash. Passersby plodded along, stooped and careworn. The ever-present stink only became noticeable when he ventured to the better parts of the city, such as the clean street on which Seraphina lived.

  He hoped she’d forgotten the stench along with any memory of him. That would be proof of his successful ambitions regarding her future.

  Those dark eyes had shone when they sparked with the barest hint of recognition. Her wide cheekbones had shone with the well-fed good health she wouldn’t have enjoyed if she’d stayed in their old neighborhood. A frankly self-serving rush of satisfaction filled him that he’d carved out that chance for her. One day she’d sit at the head of his table, every inch a lady, her dignity reflecting well upon him.

  Only a street over from where Fletcher would meet his breakers, three youngsters tumbled up from a cellar walkway. Two of them were certainly boys, but the gender of the third was harder to discern. He was shorter than the other two. A layer of soot obscured features of a surprisingly fine cast, with a sharp-edged nose and an impishly pointy chin.

  At first Fletcher thought the grease smeared over them and their narrow, underfed faces meant they were factory boys. The calculating sidelong glance the tallest one flickered over him, followed by a subtle hand tip, said otherwise.

  Fletcher held back a sigh as he kept walking. He’d been in their place once. That didn’t mean he was willing to hand over his billfold.

  They kept up their chattering. The tallest boy made a show of walking sideways in order to keep up his stream of patter.

  Fletcher didn’t bother ducking when the child walked right into his stomach. The other two split around him like they were the Red Sea.

  “Your pardon, guv’nor,” the lad said, raising two fingers to his dirty cap.

  “I’m sure,” Fletcher replied. At the same time, he whipped behind himself, catching the hand doing its best to dip into his pocket. He tried to snatch the lad lifting his tailcoat as well, but the urchin got away.

  “Run,” yelled the boy in front. His shout sparked a fluster of activity, before he obeyed his own order.

  The wrist in Fletcher’s grip twisted. Christ, the lad had the bones of a bird.

  A round-faced woman sweeping a stoop screeched, “What are you three about? Leave the gent alone, will you not?”

  Fletcher cast a sardonic look at the woman. Like as not, she was involved in the ring. They wouldn’t be able to work the street often without her noticing. Could be she even served as lookout for when the police bulls came ’round.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I’ve things well in hand.”

  “I see you do.” She leaned on her broom and gave him what was likely supposed to be a seductive smile. The tangle of her teeth wasn’t as big a detriment as their mottled green color. “If there’s anything at all I can be helping you with, sir, you only have to let me know.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Fletcher drawled. The hand in his grip wiggled again. “All right. About with you now.”

  His captive was having none of it, straining against Fletcher’s hold, feet nearly sliding out from under him. “Bloomin’ hell,” the child muttered.

  With a single good yank Fletcher brought him facing forward and knocked him lightly under the chin to get a better look at the elfin features. Still as dirty as he’d appeared on first glance, the lad wore a mulish cast to his mouth now.

  “So you are a boy.”

  His eyes went wide with affront. “My name’s William. I’m no blower.”

  Fletcher gave his arm a shake. “Watch how you speak around the lady.”

  The woman with the broom tittered but went back to at least pretending to be about her duties.

  “I’ll give you this,” Fletcher said. “You’re not a half-bad tooler.”

  The boy only pouted to the point that the pink inside of his lip showed. “I’m the best fine wirer in our crew. I can pick a dozen pockets a day and no one’s the wiser.”

  Fletcher raised a brow. “Until me.”

  “Until you, you bloody swell.”

  “Tell me, do you like buzzing?”

  William turned a gobsmacked look at him. “Gor, why shouldn’t I? I make twice what I could in a factory, and that’s even after the cut. With no risk of me fingers being smashed to glory land.”

  With a chuckle, Fletcher lifted the wrist he still held prisoner. “Are you sure of that? How old are you, William?”

  “Eleven,” he answered, full of unearned pride though he looked about as scrawny as a seven-year-old. Seraphina might still be as frighteningly slim as this boy if Fletcher hadn’t sent her off to school. When she’d stood by her mother’s pauper grave, her arms had been as slender as broom straws.

  “Any parents for me to rat you to?”

  William laughed, a sound as bitter as a drink from the Thames. “My parents been gone more than five years now.” Under the dirt and soot, his face went pale. His chin lifted so high, it seemed he might break his neck. “What are you to be doing with me? I ain’t afraid to wear the broad arrow. Go ahead and call the pigs.”

  “I don’t truck much with police. How would you like a job?”

  William’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I don’t fall that way, no matter what the pay.”

  Fletcher bit back the sour revulsion that brought bile up his throat. He’d practically been this boy once—certain that everyone around him was out to
dab him, and entirely hopeless. Seraphina had saved him, simply by the trust she’d placed in him. So young, she hadn’t realized what a poor choice she’d made.

  Though it had taken more than a decade, he’d eventually reward her for that trust. He would hand her the world she deserved. He had only to win over the Earl of Linsley and everything would be ready.

  “Nothing like that,” he said. “I’ve a gaming house down by the docks. We need a working boy.”

  “And what’ll I be doing there?”

  “You’ll sweep floors, wash glasses and occasionally run bets. But it comes with a clean cot to sleep in and three hot ones a day. You keep your eyes open, learn something, and I may put you on the tables one day.”

  Something wistful darkened the boy’s countenance. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t, or don’t want to?”

  The kid yanked at his arm, and this time Fletcher let go. “I bloomin’ said can’t, didn’t I? That’s what I mean. If I run out, my kidsman’ll assume I played him the crooked cross. He’ll track me and beat me ’til I can’t walk, just to send a message to the other boys.”

  “Don’t duck out,” Fletcher ordered. “Tell him you’ve an offer and that I’ll pay a bond if I have to. But I don’t think it’s likely.”

  “You don’t think it’s likely,” William mocked, dropping his voice to an artificial baritone. “And why ever not? You royalty or some such?”

  “The only sort of royalty I am is Whitechapel offal.” Fletcher smiled. He’d worked long and hard to keep control of his father’s empire. Occasionally it came in handy. “The name’s Fletcher Thomas.”

  “Bloomin’ hell,” the chavy breathed. “The boss of Whitechapel is offering me a position?”

  “You’ll work for everything you get.”

  William practically danced from foot to foot in excitement. “I promise you I’m a right don. You gonna give me a chance to move up in the ranks? As I get older, I mean?”

  God help the boy, he probably would, along with every mean and dirty thing that meant. He’d only ever been able to hold one thing precious above the muck.