Page 14 of Her Rake Fiancé

“Then why don’t I read it to you?”

This was just like with Thorne’s men, Jane knew, as she started reading. In the beginning, she had brought them lunch and sat near them reading her book as she waited for them to finish. After some days, Atticus had asked her what she was reading. In reply, she’d read the page from Robinson Crusoe out loud. It was amazing to see five grown, dangerous men gawk at her, hanging on her every word.

It became a ritual. Every day, she’d bring them lunch and read to them while they ate. Then some of them, including Reuben, had asked her to teach them to read and write, which she did in the evenings.

As much as the men had enjoyed her reading, it had become a necessary time for her, too, filling the aching, devastating loneliness of her days in Whitechapel, where she’d known no one except for her brother and her new maid.

Twenty minutes must have passed when there was an urgent slap of shoes against the muddy ground outside. Hercules jumped to his feet and barked, wriggling his tail weakly. The door swung open, and Peter ran in.

Hercules stopped barking and stuck his nose into the boy’s hands. Hercules knew and loved all the local children.

“Miss Grant!” Peter yelled, panting. “Please, come!” Jane jumped to her feet. “It’s Alfie!”

Jane rushed to the door, her heart drumming. “What happened?” she asked.

She was surprised and gratified that Peter had chosen to come to her despite the class’s earlier desertion.

“He pickpocketed down Barton’s Lane and got caught. The man’s got ’im by the ear and threatens to bring ’im to justice!”

Cold spread through Jane’s limbs.

“Show the way!” she cried.

She ran, following Peter, with Hercules and Lily at her heels. They hurried through the backyard of Elysium and into Petticoat Street with its rows of brick town houses with soot-streaked faces and a busy marketplace in the midst of the large street. Women draped in faded and mended shawls looked for the next bargain, often holding a baby in their arms or with one or two little ones trailing behind. The voices of hawkers rose above the din, advertising everything from fresh fish to used clothing.

Jane turned left with the next intersection and into the net of narrow, twisting alleyways and dilapidated buildings with broken windows and doors hanging crookedly on their hinges. Crumbling brick tenements, their walls stained by the passage of time and the grime of the city, loomed over the shadowy lanes. Laundry hung from lines strung between buildings, flapping like tattered ghosts in the wind, while accumulating refuse stank in the corners.

As Jane hurried forward, street urchins darted out of her way, their dirty, ragged clothes poor protection against the chill in the air. Men, their faces lined with exhaustion and hard labor, trudged through the streets, their worn boots slurping against the dirt-packed mud.

When Jane and the children finally arrived, a small crowd had gathered in a circle on the muddy street. In the middle, a furious, red-faced man in his forties held Alfie by the ear and yelled right into his face as the boy wriggled and yelped in pain.

Jane elbowed her way through the gathered onlookers and, trying to catch her breath through lungs that felt like they were about to burst, said, “Please, sir, let him go!”

The man stopped yelling and turned his red face to her. His bulging eyes were yellowish, with red veins and milky-brown irises.

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Jane panted. “Please.”

“Oh, he knew precisely what he was doing,” the man growled. “One’s hand does not accidentally slip into someone’s pocket and grab on to a purse.”

The man was dressed poorly, but not as poorly as people who lived in this neighborhood. He wore a simple brown waistcoat that had already seen some years of use, old-fashioned breeches with fading, thinning fabric—signs of rigorous and repetitive washing. He could not easily afford to lose the money Alfie had tried to steal.

Still, she couldn’t let him punish Alfie for the life that he had been born to and a skill he had learned as a means to survive.

“True,” said Jane, “but he was hungry, weren’t you, Alfie?”

“Yes, Miss Grant!” wailed Alfie. “I waaaas!”

Tears filled his big eyes, leaving clear lines down his dirty cheeks. Her stomach twisted for the boy. Only eight years old. She couldn’t let his life be over, especially not when she’d just gotten the opportunity to help him, to turn his life around.

“He’s a pupil at my school,” she said to the man. “He’s learning to read and write and do math so that he doesn’t have to do this. Please, sir, let this one go! Just this once.”

Hercules barked at the man, who scowled at the dog, his lip curling. Jane leaned down and held Hercules by his collar. He wasn’t helping at all. “Sit, Hercules!” she commanded. “Quiet.”

Hercules, clearly tense and unhappy, obeyed, plunking his arse onto the ground, but kept up a low warning growl, baring his teeth.

“If I let the boy go,” said the man angrily, “he will not learn his lesson. Neither will any of the rascals.”

The crowd thickened around them—exhausted, puffy, weathered faces with dark circles under their eyes, broken teeth, and dirty fingernails. Their filthy, ragged clothes may have been passed down to them, already worn thin, or taken off the shoulders of dead men. This was East End London, where people lived in rookeries—crooked houses with broken windows, leaking roofs, and sinking stairwells. It was common for several people to sleep in one bed. Some folks rented beds instead of rooms, and there were several beds in one room. She had even heard of a woman who rented a bed that was already rented to someone else and two strangers had to share it.