Page 27

“W elcome home,” Andrew said to Langford and Lilly when they received him in their drawing room several days after they’d returned to London.

He kissed Lilly on the cheek. “You look lovely. Married life agrees with you.” He looked at Langford and smirked.

“Even if you married this reprobate.” He collapsed into a chair across from the settee they occupied.

“How kind of you to insult me in my own home,” Langford said with an easy chuckle. “So tell me, what brings you here today?”

He toyed with his hat in his hands as nervous energy flowed through his body, making it hard to be still. “No reason. Can’t I welcome my friends back from their honeymoon?”

“No other reason?” Langford’s brows rose.

Sighing, Andrew threw his hat on the empty chair next to him. “I was hoping Emmeline would be here.” Lilly and Langford shared a look that had his heart lodging inside his throat. Deuced uncomfortable.

“You just missed her,” Lilly said with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

He flung up his hands. “Don’t be.” He was trying to be patient and understanding by giving Emmeline the time she needed.

But after the first night they’d made love, a part of himself had joined with her, and now he wasn’t whole without her.

It was damn hard to function with a piece of yourself missing.

“Give her time to work through... what is troubling her,” Lilly said.

“I’m trying,” he said. “Never mind about me, how was the honeymoon?”

They exchanged a look of love. As unhappy as he was with his situation, it was good to see Langford and Lilly happy.

They deserved it after all they went through.

It no longer mattered that Lilly had been married young to Langford’s uncle, the previous Earl of Langford.

Or that when he’d passed a year later, Langford and Lilly had clashed during their first meeting, despising one another immediately.

Thankfully, their animosity toward each other hadn’t lasted long as the forces of nature took over, and they had fallen in love.

Truthfully, he’d never seen his friend happier or more content.

“Rome was crowded but amazing. I could envision all the gladiators fighting in the Colosseum. Too bad we didn’t live back then. We would’ve been fierce gladiators,” Langford said.

“I think I’ll pass on being a gladiator. You do realize they all died eventually. Either in battle, run over by chariots, or mauled and eaten by tigers. And don’t forget by the whim of the emperor’s thumb.” He paused. “Those men and women were also slaves.”

“I get your point.” Langford chuckled. “Anyway, Venice was beautiful.”

“It was my favorite place we visited. So romantic,” Lilly said.

“So I’ve heard,” Andrew remarked. “Will you both join me in my box at the Covent Garden Theatre tomorrow night?”

“Yes,” Lilly and Langford said at once.

*

Emmeline was glad Lilly and Langford had returned to London. She could spend time with Lilly, and hopefully, Lilly could help her solve her issues with Andrew. When it came to him, she couldn’t think or see clearly.

She had purposely arrived early for tea that afternoon because she suspected that Andrew would also visit them, and she couldn’t face him yet after crying all over him several days ago.

She was in the drawing room, with windows facing the street, when he’d arrived on horseback.

Panicking, she hurried down the hall to the library and snuck out the door when he was inside with Langford and Lilly.

Fortunately, it had been a dry day, and she had walked.

No carriage had been parked out front, which might have given her away.

She did not feel up to attending the Weston Musicale that evening, so she stayed home. This turned out to be fortunate, as a note from the duchess arrived asking if she could go to St. Giles. There was an emergency. Mitchel would come within half an hour to pick her and Lady Morton up.

Dressed in a drab, brown dress and matching cloak, she waited in the hall for Mitchel. When she heard the coach arrive, she told Harrison she shouldn’t be too late and not to wait up. Regardless, she knew he wouldn’t retire until she’d returned home safely.

“Evening, Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” Mitchel said from atop the box, the reins to the matching four in his hands.

“Good evening, Mitchel,” said Emmeline as Flynn folded down the stairs and held out his hand to assist her into the coach. “Thank you, Flynn.”

She found Lady Morton inside and sat beside her, noticing two large carpet bags on the opposite seat. “Have you any information?” The duchess’s note had been brief. Sometimes, she explained their assignment, and other times she did not.

“Yes. A young widow by the name of Melody Abbott was beaten by her landlord. The duchess sent Doctor Smith to tend to her. She wants us to take her and her baby to Amelia House. It wasn’t the first time he attacked her, and her neighbor and friend reached out to the duchess.

Their landlord is a large burly man who takes what he wants.

In his own twisted way, he has taken a liking to Mrs. Abbott.

Tonight, apparently she fought back. She is in bad shape.

The duchess wishes one of us to stay with her tonight and care for her and the babe. ”

The duchess had recently acquired a large home in Cheapside and had started taking in women and children with nowhere to go.

Or, as in Mrs. Abbott’s case, those who had someone abusing them.

The home was named Amelia House after the duchess’s sister, who had found herself with child.

The father refused to marry her, and disgraced, she had run away.

Her family had tried to find her, and when they finally did, they discovered she had died of dysentery at six months along.

Heartbroken, the duchess had started the Ladies’ Society of Mayfair to help those in need, feeling that if she could keep one pregnant woman in need alive, everything they did would be worth it.

Besides delivering necessities, they were increasingly taking in single mothers with their children living either on the streets or somewhere unsafe.

Through the Society, Emmeline felt as though her life had a purpose.

Spending all her time socializing and being frivolous when there was so much poverty and suffering seemed so pointless.

When she met the Duchess of Greenville and heard about the group, she’d joined the Society immediately.

Lilly also belonged, and hopefully, now that she had returned from her honeymoon, she would continue her work.

Langford refused to let her travel into the rookeries, but there were other things she could do.

As the carriage left the respectable streets of London behind and entered the narrow, dark, and dirty streets of St. Giles, it slowed down.

The streets were clogged with drunks, prostitutes, and thieves.

Even with the coach windows closed, the sounds and stench of the filth pummeled Emmeline’s senses.

They stopped in front of a tenement. Flynn opened the door and lowered the steps, helping each lady exit. Flynn escorted them into the dilapidated building, climbed the creaky sagging stairs to the second floor, and entered number twenty-five.

The candlelit apartment consisted of a tiny room with a sofa, a small hearth in which cooking was done, and a bedroom.

Emmeline, not having the stomach for blood, hesitated a moment before entering the bedroom, where she found the doctor bandaging the small, young mother whose baby slept on the mattress beside her.

“Doctor Smith, I’m Mrs. Fitzpatrick. I believe we’ve met before.”

“Yes. Mrs. Fitzpatrick, I remember.”

Emmeline noticed the mattress took up almost the entire room.

The baby, wrapped in a blue blanket, slept soundly beside her mother and looked about six months old.

Melody appeared to be perhaps eighteen. Her auburn hair was long, tangled, and dirty.

Emmeline wondered how she had come to be in this predicament and whether she was a widow.

Most likely, she had run away from home after finding herself with child and taken on the facade of being a widow.

It was a story that played out time and time again, and Emmeline’s heart squeezed in pain for her.

“Melody.” She approached the side of the bed and took one of the girl’s hands in hers.

“I’m Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and Lady Morton stands in the doorway.

The Duchess of Greenville sent us. If it pleases you, after the doctor has seen to your injuries, we have a safe place for you and your baby to live, and we can take you there now. ”

The young woman’s head turned to look at her; her eyes were swollen half-shut, but Emmeline could see confusion, disbelief, or both in them. “How do I know you aren’t taking me to a brothel and forcing me to...”

“Believe me, that is not what is happening. We belong to the Ladies’ Society of Mayfair. Surely you have heard of us. We come to this area several times a week.” Melody nodded. So she had heard of them. Good. “I promise you will be safe.”

“Thank you.”

Doctor Smith packed up his bag. “I’m finished. If you need me, have Her Grace send for me.” He went out the door so fast Emmeline barely had time to thank him.

“Is there anything here you want to take with you?” she asked the young mother.

Melody looked around the room. “My journal on the nightstand.”

“I will get it.” Emmeline picked up the journal and spoke to Lady Morton. “Please send Flynn in, please.”

Minutes later, Flynn carried the young mother, wrapped in a blanket, down to the carriage while Lady Morton cradled the baby and Emmeline held the journal in her hand.

Then Mitchel drove them to Amelia House.

By now, it was after midnight, and Emmeline covered up a yawn.

She hadn’t been sleeping well and found herself exhausted.