Page 6 of An Unwilling Earl
She shook her head and hurried through the warren of narrow streets and alleys that made up the rookery.
The place stank of unwashed bodies, rotting corpses, and general deprivation. It was so disgustingly filthy that even the sun didn’t touch this part of the city.
She stepped over a few animal carcasses, mainly dogs, cats, and rodents. Children darted in front and behind her, some not even clothed on this chilly spring day.
Charlotte was a different person here. She had a swagger to her walk that warned people to keep a distance. She pulled her hat lower over her forehead and made no eye contact with anyone. She’d learned the hard way how to survive in the rookery.
When she’d first ventured into London’s dirtiest, most dangerous streets, she’d been a wide-eyed girl, naive of the danger that awaited her. Oh, she’d known the rookery was a dangerous place, but danger had been a nebulous thought, not real.
It had become real very quickly. She’d not been here more than half an hour before she’d been robbed of her shoes. Men had eyed her hungrily, and she’d desperately wanted to run back out, but she’d already lost her way. There’d been nowhere to go but deeper into the terror.
She’d lodged in the first place she’d come to and had been surprised to discover that not only would she not get her own room, but she wouldn’t get her own bed, either. She’d lain awake the entire night, fighting tears, debating whether fear of her aunt’s home and her evil cousin was better than wondering if she was going to wake up the next morning.
She’d thought she’d been ready, but she’d been woefully ill prepared for the sheer depravity and desperation of the people who existed in the rookeries. For this was not a place onelived. This was a place where oneexisted.
Before escaping her aunt’s home, Charlotte had nicked Martha’s best candlesticks and pawned them for a price that was far less than what they were worth, but she hadn’t dared try the better pawn shops. She’d thought she could survive with that money. She’d thought wrong.
It was sheer luck that had landed her, literally, at the feet of Suzette, her actress roommate who had taken Charlotte in and taught her the ways of the rookery. Her first task had been to cut off all of Charlotte’s beautiful blond hair. From the theater, she’d procured clothes that had been headed for the dust bins and transformed Charlotte from a somewhat well-off miss to a rascally lad with a swagger to his walk.
Charlotte had no doubt that Suzette had saved her life. However, Suzette didn’t do anything out of the goodness of her heart. She was a tough girl, not much older than Charlotte in years, but far older in experience. They had an agreement. Suzette would keep Charlotte safe, and Charlotte would pay their rent.
She popped out a few streets down from where the horse and carriage incident had happened and purchased the largest meat pie available from the closest vendor. Now the trick was getting her dinner home before a two-legged or four-legged predator discovered she possessed it.
After a few more twists and turns and a frightening encounter with a hungry dog, she ran up the rickety steps of the boarding house and flung open the door to their room.
Calling it a “room” would be a kindness. It was smaller than her aunt’s kitchen pantry, but she and Suzette called it theirs, and that was all that mattered. Thanks to the funds from the candlesticks, they were able to pay their rent on time, every Sunday, and because of that they weren’t hassled by the landlord.
“Guess what I have?” Charlotte said as she slammed the door closed behind her. Someone stomped on the floor above them, and Charlotte looked up at the water-stained ceiling. “Apologies,” she called out in a sing-song voice.
Suzette rolled her eyes. “Why’re you apologizing? They swive like banshees and argue like washwomen.”
Charlotte’s cheeks heated in a blush, still unaccustomed to Suzette’s vulgar language. Aunt Martha would be appalled. She would call Suzette a whore, but then, Aunt Martha called most women whores.
“What do you have, pet?” Suzette asked from her seat at their table, the only furniture in the room besides the rotten, straw-filled sleeping pallets that Charlotte had to climb over to get to the table and chairs.
Charlotte produced the meat pie like she was a magician, waving her other hand toward it. “Meat pie!”
Suzette clapped her hands together in excitement. “We are living like queens this week!”
Charlotte grabbed the two utensils they owned, wiped them off on her dirty trousers, and handed one to Suzette.
Suzette knew all about the dashing stranger who had rescued Charlotte from near death. She’d made Charlotte tell the story every night since then until it had become almost like a fairy tale. A knight in shining armor rescuing the damsel in distress. Except he hadn’t known she was a damsel.
“Was he handsome?” Suzette had asked that first night after Charlotte’s encounter with the gentleman.
“Very.”
“Ooooh. Do tell.”
Charlotte had tried to describe her hero as best she could, but she didn’t have a way with words like Suzette did, so it didn’t quite paint the picture that was in her mind. “He looked kind.”
Suzette had rolled her eyes. “What did helooklike?”
“Well, he was tall, with chestnut hair and brown, no…whiskey-colored eyes that crinkled at the corners like he smiled a lot. He was very concerned if I was hurt.”
“Did he know you were atib?”
Charlotte had shaken her head and stared at a crack in the table, thinking about the way she had been sprawled on top of him, his muscles digging into her curves. She prayed that he had not realized she was female.
