Page 16 of West End Earl
She ignored the poking branches as she shoved through the shrubbery and fell through to the other side with all the grace of an aggressive jack-in-the-box. The scene before her didn’t fully register before her mouth moved. “That’s quite enough. You’re done.”
Roxbury had the audacity to laugh, as if shagging a debutante in a hedgerow was just another average Tuesday for him. Emma shrieked, covering her face and leaving her bodice around her waist.
Phee rubbed at the dull ache behind her eyes. This was bad. Very bad. “Lady Emma, please cover a different body part. Your face is the least of your worries right now.”
With frantic movements, Emma tugged her dress into place, refusing to meet Phee’s gaze.
Roxbury casually buttoned the placket on the front of his trousers and smoothed his waistcoat. “We were done anyway, weren’t we, Emma? Just saying our goodbyes.”
The blighter.
“Don’t tell my brother,” Emma hissed when Phee led her away with a firm grip on her elbow.
Cal would absolutely lose his mind, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? You can’t ask me to lie. In fact, you should tell him yourself.”
Emma dug in her heels, drawing them to a halt in the middle of the gravel path. “You needn’t lie. Not really. Just don’t tell him the truth.”
“What am I supposed to say? That I found you watching the cascade?” Phee rolled her eyes. She’d never been so young and convinced of her ability to control the world.
Emma bounced onto her tiptoes with a happy noise. “That would be grand. Thank you so much, Mr. Hardwick!”
“I didn’t—” Phee turned her head, right as Emma kissed her cheek in flirtatious thanks. In a slow-motion slide, Emma’s lips brushed Phee’s cheek, then landed directly on her lips. They both froze. Before stepping away, Phee noted softness, warmth, and a dozen other sensations—all of them foreign. None of them particularly welcome.
Without a word, they turned and headed toward the dinner boxes. It was an accidental kiss from a girl who’d thought she’d gotten her way. No more.
The orchestra grew louder when they left the treed paths. A few yards from their table, Emma grabbed Phee’s hand. “If you tell my brother what you saw, I’ll tell him you kissed me. Don’t think I won’t.”
“What? That’s not even close to what happened—” But Emma charged ahead, chattering in her bubbly way to their dining companions about the marvelous cascade. “Son of a bitch.”
Chapter Six
To hear Calvin and his set describe it, Shoreditch housed criminal masterminds, petty thieves, and the lowest dregs of society. While those kinds of people absolutely lived in her neighborhood, similar personalities lived in Mayfair. They just wore better coats in Grosvenor Square. Or in Emma’s case, petticoats.
The nerve of the girl, trying to strong-arm Phee into lying for her.
In reality, the residents of Phee’s neighborhood were like her—desperately trying to survive and play the hand dealt to them. Obviously, Phee’s circumstances were more favorable than most. With connections to thetonand secondhand clothes to appear respectable, she had a more comfortable life than others.
But who knew when that tenuous connection to the aristocracy would disappear? Cal had hired her on a whim and could fire her as easily. Sure, they’d become friends. And no, Calvin wasn’t a fickle man. But eventually, something would happen—like Emma convincing him dear old Adam kissed his unwilling sister—and who knew what her income or circumstances would be then. That meager nest egg of squirreled-away pay and pawned silver buttons meant security. Independence.
So she did her best to live within the means allotted by Uncle Milton. Referring to those asmeanswas a bit of an overstatement. In actuality, she suspected his severe restriction of funds under the guise of a living allowance was his way of trying to keep her—or rather, Adam—home and under his thumb. As ploys went, that one hadn’t worked so well.
The hackney pulled to a stop. “King Street. Cart’s blocking the road, so you’ll get out here, lad.”
The cramped buildings piled one on top of another, and the lack of streetlamps didn’t make her neighborhood look inviting. As the temperatures increased in June, so did the danger in these tight streets. Only a fool would lounge about on street corners in the dead of winter. Now the underbelly came out to play.
A warning ripple of unease slithered along her spine. She shook it off. Such a ninny. The door to her lodgings stood only four buildings away. Besides, the landlady, Mrs. Carver, appreciated that Adam Hardwick paid his rent on time, so she ran interference when the local lads were on the prowl for new marks. Almost two years living on this street, and she’d had only minor encounters with the riffraff. Phee kept her nose out of everyone’s business and avoided trouble.
The local crime syndicate, led by Joseph Merceron, didn’t care for peons like her. Merceron craved bigger fish to fry—like lords who rode around in fancy carriages. And Cal wondered why his friend Adam refused to accept rides home in a carriage with the shiny Carlyle crest on the door. No, sir, hacks were good enough for her. Yet another thing Cal didn’t understand about the world outside Mayfair. He was at ease beyond Mayfair, but he lacked the street sense to truly blend in elsewhere.
Phee dug in her pocket for the fare before hopping from the hackney, then tipped her hat at the coachman’s mumbled thanks. A breeze whistled along the street, blowing air redolent of hot refuse and cabbage soup. Sidestepping to avoid a puddle with unknown but likely foul contents turned out to be a wasted effort. The same hack she’d just left rumbled by, hitting the puddle and splashing the water—and God only knew what else—onto her trousers.
“Blast.” She shook her foot, attempting to leave the water on the street rather than her evening shoes. Thankfully, the doorway to her building was only a few yards ahead. Changing clothes as soon as possible was vital in order to salvage these trousers prior to the nasty water setting in.
Before she could reach the door, a cudgel behind her knees brought Phee to the cobblestones, followed by a blow to her head that made the light in her sight flicker.
Shaking off the blow with a pained groan, Phee attempted to rise. It had been years since she’d taken a hit like that in school. Those scuffles had been more about establishing the hierarchy than true intent to harm. The two situations were truly incomparable.
Her attackers outnumbered her. Hands reached into pockets, tearing seams. Buttons gave way to greedy fingers, grabbing all the money she’d carried for the night out—which thankfully wasn’t much.
