Page 24 of Her Heart's Rightful Earl
“I understand.”
Arabella blinked back a wetness that had impulsively sprung to her eyes. She felt grateful that Alexander was looking at the ground and did not see.
She stole that moment to look upon him, unobserved. The broad slope of his muscular shoulders, the thick shiny hair on his bowed head. She wanted so much to go to him but held herself firm.
“How shall I be of help?” Arabella asked, and Alexander returned his gaze to her face in earnest.
“Thomas and I have particular conversations to launch and research to carry out amongst ourselves, but I will meet you here again in three nights’ time, and hopefully then we will have a plan. I am so grateful to you, Arabella–” Alexander extended his hand to demonstrate his thanks, but Arabella merely looked down upon it and then back up into his face.
“I will see you in three nights,” she responded coldly. “Good night, Alexander.”
Arabella forced herself to look away from him, turn, and stride in the opposite direction, back towards the grand house.
“Good night, Arabella,” she heard him softly say, and the wistfulness in his voice caused her to close her eyes and blink back the tears.
Chapter 8
Alexander bowed his head as he passed a couple of women mudlarking in the shallows of the River Thames. They were up to their knees in the dirty brown water, and he noted their hands were red raw with cold, despite it being a spring morning, with the promise of light sunshine cresting on the horizon.
He repressed a shudder as he imagined how freezing that water would be during the depths of winter, when they would still be obliged to hunt out treasures washed up by the tide, because the potential to find something of value was their only chance of putting food on the table for their family.
Alexander had always been aware of his privilege, but no more so than these past few years working the land, having been forced to leave behind his wealth. Even then, he had a comfortable, small room in a smart house to return to in the evenings, so he was by no means experiencing the poverty these poor women had inflicted upon them.
They delved their hands into the water, churning up repulsive-smelling mud, but paused to stare at him as he walked along the towpath. He considered it was rare for them to see a gentleman taking a stroll along the river as early as sunrise.
Although, he countered, he was not dressed formally—he wanted to blend in as an unremarkable worker, so he wore corduroy trousers, an off-white coarse linen shirt, and a brown flat cap. A ragged wool waistcoat completed the look, but Alexander was very conscious of his gait and how he had been raised to walk with the grace of a gentleman.
He wondered if this set him apart, and in response, slumped his posture and dipped his head to obscure his face from the mud larkers’ curiosity.
He saw the dilapidated warehouse up ahead that Thomas had described, and the reeking smell of fish as he approached the door suggested it was once used to gut and package up fish caught in the river, ready to be shipped out for sale.
Alexander pushed the door open a little and peered inside. Thomas was already there, in the vast, dusty, cavernous space, waiting.
“Good morning, Alexander,” he greeted his friend with a smile. He appeared more relaxed in this setting, where it was less likely Alexander would be seen and recognized.
“Morning, Thomas, though I might query the ‘good’ in it …” Alexander responded.
“Did not you sleep well in Whitechapel?”
“It is nearly impossible to sleep in such a place. Each moment that passes, I am grateful intruders have not accessed my room and ransacked it!”
“On the bright side, at least you have very little to pillage!” Thomas teased, and Alexander appreciated the light-hearted banter. “Here, I brought you a little breakfast …”
Thomas handed Alexander a paper bag, and upon opening it, Alexander found an apple, a ginger cake, and a gooseberry tart. He inhaled with delight.
“Oh, you excellent friend!” He tucked in immediately, suddenly aware of how ravenous he had become.
“You do not know Captain Morrison?” Thomas cocked an eyebrow.
“We have yet to meet,” Alexander confirmed through a mouthful of flaky pastry.
“As I thought. The man is highly accomplished at investigation. I employed his services as soon as you returned, and hecommunicated that he already has developments of which to inform us.”
“I very much look forward to hearing his findings!”
“He is … quite a character, I hear it said,” Thomas intimated. ‘But if ever there were a man to uncover the antagonist in a murder, it is he.”
“He is a former soldier, you say?”
