Page 66 of Miss Delightful
“To get drunk?”
“We’ve outgrown that phase, though Powell, being of Dissenting stock, was never prone to excessive imbibing. Goddard, thanks to his French mama’s influence, prefers a small portion of good-quality libation to inebriation. He owns vineyards, and his champagne will be the centerpiece of our wedding breakfast. Tell me more about Michael.”
Alasdhair was prone to making passing references to the wedding ceremony, to the solicitors’ efforts to draft the settlements, and other evidence of the upcoming nuptials. Dorcas did not know if he was tempting her to cry off, or adjusting mentally to the fact that he was soon to marry.
“Michael is a paragon. Handsome, witty, kind, pragmatic. One of those people who always knows the right thing to say, the right gesture, though it might not be precisely what etiquette would advise.”
“He hugs old ladies?”
“Of course, and when he speaks to children, he kneels down to address them at eye level. My father had the same habit before his knees began bothering him. Michael recalls the dates of other people’s bereavements and writes to Papa annually on the anniversary of my mother’s passing.”
“Then Michael sounds insufferable as a brother, though suited to his calling. Did he never stray as a lad? Never test the limits of propriety?”
“As a lad, of course, but he’s no longer a lad. He is truly Papa’s pride and joy.” Not for anything would Dorcas taint that joy with the truth.
Alasdhair bent a little closer. “You are trying to tell me that I must not expect too much of your time while your brother is underfoot being such a paragon. I must bear up manfully despite a crushing weight of loneliness, secure in the knowledge that my stoicism will be rewarded.”
Dorcas resisted the urge to lean against him. “I am trying to tell you not to abandon me when Michael arrives. Papa will expect me to be much in evidence, ready to entertain the callers who will throng the vicarage when Michael is gracing us with his presence. Papa will expect all the best recipes at supper, fresh flowers in the parlor daily. The bishop might be inveigled to dine at our humble table, and the vicarage must show to good advantage without being ostentatious.”
“Parade dress, military band, and full honors. Tedious as hell. We could elope.”
Alasdhair was in absolute earnest. He was always in absolute earnest, and Dorcas treasured that about him. “Lead me not into temptation, sir.”
“A bit late for that, my love.” How pleased he sounded, how bashful and delighted.
“We led each other, and it was a consummation, not temptation.”
A woman stood under the overhang of a less than pristine awning above the door of what purported to be a dry goods emporium. She watched Alasdhair warily, as the women in jail had watched Dorcas the first time she’d spent the night with them. The lady was young, gaunt, and underdressed for the elements.
“You have that all sorted in your mind?” Alasdhair mused. “Under Scottish law, we’d be considered married by now. We expressed a resolve to wed, then acted on that resolve.”
“We are not in Scotland.” And that was a blooming pity. “Does that woman know you?”
Alasdhair’s gaze followed the direction of Dorcas’s nod. “If Aurora Feeney is abroad at this hour, something’s amiss. Excuse me.”
He slipped his arm from Dorcas’s, though she wanted to call after him that he need not spare her sensibilities. She waited, some yards off, studying the neighborhood. The one-legged beggar sat at his usual spot, though today he had a rough blanket over his lap. His usual straight-ahead stare was replaced by blatant interest in Alasdhair’s exchange with the fair—shivering—Aurora.
Alasdhair passed the lady his sandwiches and a few coins, then peeled off his gloves and gave her those as well. Another man might have stolen a peek at Aurora’s semi-exposed treasures, but Alasdhair’s gaze was on her face, and when he spoke to her, he did not touch her.
The conversation was brief. The lady scurried off, already opening the bag of sandwiches.
“She’ll pawn your gloves,” Dorcas said as she and Alasdhair resumed walking. “That was very kind of you.”
“Very stupid of me,” Alasdhair replied. “I talked her sister into returning to the village before Christmas, but Aurora refused to go. Some dashing blade promised to set her up, to treat her like a princess. The handsome prince has decamped for the shires, and Aurora has no older sister to look out for her.”
“Let me guess,” Dorcas said. “The sisters came to London because they sought employment in service, the village having no jobs. They had no characters, no experience, no training, and their speech was as provincial as their mannerisms. They arrived in Town over the summer, when all the best families leave, but when the farming communities are between planting and harvest, and travel is easiest. The jails are full of such women, as are the brothels.”
Alasdhair walked along beside Dorcas until they reached the next corner. “I wish you did not know those things. I wish life had shown you a path strewn with rose petals, but because you see clearly, and don’t lie to yourself about what’s before your eyes, I can trust you to take on the challenge of marriage to such a one as I.”
What was she to say to that? “I wanted to give her my scarf, except that this scarf is a gift from you, and had I approached, she would have likely run away. Do-gooders are a plague upon the working women of London.”
“By the time I leave for Scotland in spring, I have usually lost all hope of doing anybody any good. Aurora hasn’t heard from her sister since I put her on that stage coach in December. Clearly, Aurora’s prospects are deteriorating, and if she’s lucky, she will perish from cold or starvation before disease can inflict a worse fate upon her.”
And that very reasoning—why prolong the suffering of the doomed?—was used to cloak smug indifference behind a façade of pious resignation. Better that these women starve in obscurity than try to make a life through initiative and determination.
“Today,” Dorcas said, “Aurora will eat. This week, she will not be turned out from her lodgings. Right now, she has proof that life is not entirely hopeless. Until the good Christians and upright politicians of the realm have a better solution, that is a candle lit against the darkness that would swallow her whole.”
“You’re thinking of Melanie.”
