Page 83 of The Heiress's Daughter
The hackney cab turned and suddenly it was almost as if they’d passed into another country, passing from wide, fairly respectable-looking streets into a maze of streets that became ever narrower and dirtier. The carriage rattled over the cobbles, slowing for handcarts and people and the occasional dog. The buildings here were ancient and mean, squashed crookedly together as if they’d grown there over the centuries, which she supposed they had.
They were not far from the river: Clarissa could smell it. It was not all she could smell; there was also the odor of human refuse and rotting garbage that lay in gutters and piled in corners where rats nosed through it, unperturbed by the presence of people.
She shivered.
It was a sunny day, but the buildings were so close together and the streets and alleyways so narrow that sunlight barely touched the people on the ground. They were thin and ragged looking and somehow hard-faced—or was it hardship she could see reflected in their faces? She could see several cripples—returned soldiers by the look of them, begging in the street. Scrawny children clad in rags ran about in screaming flocks like wild creatures.
And this was where Zoë had lived as a child? Where her young mother had come after fleeing the Terror in France. From some aristocratic mansion or castle to this? However had she managed?
The carriage slowed, and Lord Randall unbuttoned his smart greatcoat and shrugged it off. Clarissa blinked at what he was wearing underneath—shabby, stainedbuckskins and an old, scuffed pair of boots, a coat that was loose and somewhat faded, and a neckcloth tied in a simple knot, instead of his usual sophisticated style.
Catching her look, he said, “It doesn’t do to stand out in this part of London.”
Judging from the people she could see from the carriage, he would fit right in. Now she understood the choice of the run-down carriage.
The carriage came to a halt in front of a crooked alleyway, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. “It’s down there, guv’nor,” the driver said.
Lord Randall picked up a steel-headed cane that had been sitting unnoticed in the corner of the carriage, and turned to Clarissa. “My man will stay with you and Betty. The driver is in my employ as well, but don’t leave the cab.” Before she had a chance to respond he kissed her swiftly and jumped lightly down onto the street.
She watched through the cab window as he approached person after person, showing them the drawing of Zoë—to no avail. They had only a street name, so Zoë could be in any one of these ramshackle buildings. Or in none of them.
He approached an old woman sitting on a step and smoking a pipe. Scraggly white elf-locks poked out from under a rag tied around her head. He showed her the portrait, and like all the others, she glanced at it, shrugged and shook her head.
Lord Randall moved on, but as Clarissa watched, the old woman watched him go, then took the pipe out of her mouth, replaced it with two fingers and emitted a shrill whistle. An urchin came running. She said something to him, and he nodded.
Intrigued, Clarissa watched as the boy disappeared through the shadowed doorway behind her. What had the old woman told him?
Minutes passed. Clarissa kept watching. Then the boy peered out of the doorway, looked cautiously around andbeckoned to someone inside. A slender figure appeared wearing a shabby hooded cloak, a small bundle clutched to her chest. She darted out into the laneway and Clarissa gasped. She couldn’t see the girl’s face, but she recognized the way she moved.
In seconds she’d flung herself out of the hackney cab and was running down the street in pursuit. “Zoë!” she cried. “Zoë!”
The figure darted down a skinny walkway.
“Zoë, stop!” yelled Clarissa, following. The figure paused and looked around. “Zoë! It’s me, Clarissa.”
Zoë glared at her. “What are you doing here, Clarissa? Don’t you know it’s dangerous—”
Reaching her, Clarissa flung her arms around Zoë. “If it’s dangerous for me, it’s dangerous for you. How could you leave us like that? I’ve been so worried—we all have. Don’t you know we love you? Come home with me now, please.”
Zoë shook her head adamantly. “I’m no good for you, Clarissa. I don’t fit into your fancy world, and I never will.”
“Do you think I care about that? I care aboutyou!” Clarissa hugged her sister again.
“But society people—”
“Pooh to society people!”
“Miss,” Betty said in a low voice. “Miss, behind you.”
Clarissa glanced impatiently around and saw half a dozen rough-looking men closing in around them.
One of them smiled at her with a mouthful of yellow, rotting teeth, his eyes running over her in a way that made her feel dirty. “Look’t the pretty birds in their fine feathers. They’ll fetch a good price for us, eh, lads?”
Clarissa looked frantically around for help—where were the men Lord Randall had hired? But the hackney cab was around several corners and out of sight.
Zoë stepped forward, shoving Clarissa behind her. “Leave us be, Jake,” she said.
He snorted. “You don’t belong here anymore, girlie.”
