Page 41 of From Duke Till Dawn
Guilt swamped him. He’d been given everything in life, and she’d had nothing. No home. No food. No stability. He swallowed hard and glanced out the window, struggling for composure.
“What of Hughes?” he asked.
A faint smile tilted the corners of her mouth. “I was fifteen, grubby as a pebble, with a robust trade in silk handkerchiefs and lace torn from ladies’ cuffs. He’d been in the swindling game for decades, but his latest scheme needed a girl to pose as his daughter. I hadpotential.”
Alex frowned. “Potential for what?”
“Dishonesty. Nobody cried better tears or pulled on heartstrings with greater ability.” She said this almost proudly. “So he cleaned me up, got me tutors to speak like a lady, and seamstresses to dress me fine. Some people go to dame schools, but Martin Hughes taught me to read, write, and lie.”
“A criminal’s education,” Alex noted, though he couldn’t muster much heat in his words.
“A useful one.” She smoothed a hand down her skirts. “We were together for almost ten years, traveling as father and daughter, running swindles in coaching inns across England. I had plenty to eat, my own bed, and clean clothing. It was a good life.” She spoke fondly, her eyes bright.
The things she spoke of were the bare minimum for happiness, and yet it seemed that to her, it was as though she’d been given all the treasure in the kingdom.
Remorse haunted him. Why hadn’t he known? He donated to charities, but he should do more. He should haveknown, somehow, of her suffering—though it would have been impossible for a duke’s heir to know about oneparticular vagrantgirl—and helped. But he’d done nothing, secure of his place in the world.
Her eyes dimmed and the lightness in her voice faded. “I thought Martin was happy, too. But seven years ago he left me at a coaching inn, telling me I was on my own. It was the first time I’d been alone in a long while. Didn’t know what I was going to do.”
He tried to protect himself against the picture that made. It pulled on him too deeply, demanding that he feel things that frightened him. The stony ramparts he’d built around himself cracked, making him vulnerable. Making himcare.“You were frightened?”
“I...” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. “I was. I’d already seen how nasty London was for a young girl. Nothing could be worse. But I learned new ways to survive.”
“The widow story.” Alex fought against his impulse to comfort her, though it hounded him.She betrayed me,he reminded himself over and over, like a chant protecting him from a curse. “The same you used to gull me.”
She glanced at him. He only stared back, refusing to let her see the hurt that still throbbed, and taking shelter in his stoicism. “I made a life for myself.”
He reached for the righteous anger that kept him safe from further hurt. “Preying on others. Telling falsehoods for the prospect of money. Seducing men to line your pockets. Not much of a life.”
“Better than what Southwark had to offer,” she answered.
He couldn’t dispute that.
“I don’t know how Martin found me, but he did. I got a letter from him two months ago, summoning me to London.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Like a long-lost daughter, I came running back. I didn’t think he’d abandon me again.” Her hands curled into knots. “I should have known. I should have expected it. Swindlers are loyal only to themselves.”
“Including you.”
“Especiallyme.” She tilted her chin up defiantly. This was said without a trace of self-pity. It was stated as fact. She was alone in the world, with nothing and no one to make certain she was safe and well.
Their paths could not have been more different. “You are the heir to a dukedom,” his father had said to him when he couldn’t have been more than nine. “You want for nothing. But never forget, privilege comes with responsibility. The livelihood and welfare of hundreds of people will depend on you. Your votes in parliament will shape many more lives. You must be dependable, trustworthy, and virtuous. Secure.”
“Yes, Father,” Alex had answered, awed by the weight he would have to shoulder.
She’d had no one guiding her. No concerned parent. Only Martin Hughes, shaping her to be a pawn in his game.
“What of work,” he pressed Cassandra now. “Honestwork?”
She shook her head. “There aren’t many routes open to girls from South London. I could have been a seamstress, going blind as I labored over hems. Or I could have traveled north, to work at a cotton mill—and contracted lung sicknesses from breathing in the fluff. Even then, I’d be making a pittance. Starvation is noble,” she concluded, “but I’m not ready to die.”
She hadn’t given in to despair. She had not allowed herself to be ground up by the machine of the world. There was a kind of bravery there. An audacity that was almost admirable. He didn’t know how to feel—respect for her warred with his need to be virtuously angry. The net of emotion between them grew more complex, more tangled.
The fortifications of justifiable outrage weakened the longer he was in her company and the more he knew of her history. He had always worked hard in parliament for the rights and welfare of the poor. But never before had he come face-to-face with someone’s lived experience.
They sat opposite each other in his beautifully sprung, magnificently appointed carriage. It was the kind of vehicle hardly anyone could afford. How many mouths could be fed on the cost of this carriage alone? How many girls and women clinging to life on the margins could find safety for a fraction of the vehicle’s price?
He wondered what he would have done, had he been in Cassandra’s place, or how he’d find a means of survival.
He honestly didn’t know. Could he continue to armor himself in disdain, when she’d had the courage to survive in brutal circumstances? Was it possible to heap contempt upon her, when it was very likely he would have done the same to stay alive?
