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Page 2 of The Earl’s Gamble (The Lovers’ Arch: Later in Life)

2

Rose

R ose cradled her tender hands together, careful not to let them touch. At least her skirt was black. She wouldn’t have to worry about bloodstains drawing attention to her on the way home.

An exhausted sigh gusted from her chest. A childhood bout of polio had permanently weakened her left leg, meaning she relied on a cane to move about, but the agony in her hands complicated the journey further.

The workhouse’s matron had her picking oakum for a fortnight before she agreed to allow Rose out on day leave. The workhouse is not a prison for the poor , the matron often said, but you are here to work in exchange for food and shelter.

And the punishment for being too poor, ill, or old to provide for oneself was being worked to the bone.

A few years ago, Rose had never envisioned going into a workhouse . A bout of polio as a child meant that she walked with a cane, yes, but she’d had a respectable job as a seamstress since she was eleven. Her employment had been steady on account of her stellar skills, and she’d been proud of what she’d achieved. Her husband, Cecil, had worked at the dockyard as a shipbuilder. They’d lived a few doors down from her brother, Archie. None of them were wealthy, but they were content.

Rose didn’t realise just how precarious it all was, back then. She had no idea how close she was to being utterly destitute. Cecil’s death in an accident at the shipyard disabused her of that naivety. Her income alone wasn’t enough to pay the rent, so she’d downsized, renting a room from a nice older gentleman near the alterations shop in which she worked.

She didn’t live in the lap of luxury, but she got by. She still had control over her life, and control was something she needed .

Indeed, Rose thought she was getting back on her metaphorical feet—before the worst month of her life occurred. Archie died. She lost her job. She couldn’t get another one in time to pay her rent, and the nice older gentleman turfed her out on the street.

Trying to regain that control, she’d sold her remaining possessions and lodged in an inn for a few weeks, attempting to acquire another job. Employers only had to look at her cane before they turned her away, never mind the fact that she’d worked as a seamstress for twenty-five years.

The little inheritance she received from Archie bought her a few weeks, but it didn’t take long for the money to run out.

And then the only place to go was the workhouse.

Today was the first time she’d left it in months. The workhouse wasn’t a prison, true, but inmates weren’t free to go about their business as they pleased. They were inmates, and they were there to work. Exceptions could be made for sick family visits or job interviews, but interviews were hard to come by when one was in the workhouse. And people who had family would likely never enter the workhouse in the first place.

Workhouse inmates were society’s dregs, sinking to its forgotten depths in a never-ending cycle of misery, of what-ifs.

What if she never caught polio as a little girl? What if Cecil never went to work that day? What if Archie never enlisted when he did? What if she’d moved in with Archie when he’d asked? His flat was the size of a postage stamp, but she supposed they could have made it work. Instead, she’d foolishly insisted on being independent .

Today, though, wasn’t about her regrets. It was about Archie.

A tear slid down her cheek. They weren’t something she was prone to, tears, but then Archie had always been different. She’d always spent Archie’s birthday with him, but now she never would again. If his body had not been lost, she would have gone to France to visit his graveside. If his body had not been lost, and I was not destitute. That fact infuriated her. She wasn’t one to lie down and accept her fate. She’d done everything to avoid the workhouse—and yet she’d ended up there anyway.

Instead of France, she came to where she and Archie had spent so much of their childhood, where she felt closest to him: the garden behind the Lovers’ Arch. Their father was their sole parent, but he worked long hours at the dockyard—meaning they were left to their own devices more often than not.

How old had they been when they found this place? Six? Seven?

A watery smile crossed her face when she remembered Archie teaching her to read on this very bench, how to swim in the pond, and later how to fish in it. Not that they’d caught much.

Soon, the memories had her openly weeping, until tears collected along her jawline in a great swarm, all waiting to see which droplet would fall first. Wincing, Rose struggled to pull her handkerchief from her pocket.

The rustling of fallen leaves drifted around her, mingling with the scratch of the willow’s long branches against the bench—until movement in the corner of her eye had her head whipping to the side.

She jolted backwards as a dark figure pierced the shelter of the willow tree, striking fear into her heart.

Except the man that arrived didn’t look particularly fearsome. If anything, he was rather handsome. His salt-and-pepper hair would have been respectable, but for the curled leaf lodged in the wavy locks. “My apologies, miss,” he began, his voice some notes deeper than she would have expected, but every bit as rich—just like his clothing. A dark tweed suit, expertly tailored to his brawny build. A toff, then. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Rose shook her head, far more used to being referred to as madam rather than the more juvenile miss . It was a novel experience these days, when she was closer to forty than thirty. “Not at all,” she lied, before realising she likely resembled a fox cornered by a hound. “Well,” she admitted, in response to his raised eyebrow, “perhaps a small amount.”

He bit out a laugh, but then his humour vanished. “I say, are you quite all right?” The man pulled a neatly folded square of fabric from his pocket with enviable ease. Silk—as a seamstress, she knew it when she saw it. He held it out to her in his gloved hands. “Would you like a handkerchief?”

Once again, she shook her head. The man was definitely a toff, but at least he was polite. “I have one, but thank you.” Rose was afraid she’d open one of the cuts on her hand and bleed on it; it wasn’t like she could offer to replace it . “You are more than welcome to sit, though.” Rose’s smile was more of a grimace.

It wasn’t as if she owned the bench. She didn’t own anything anymore.

A flicker of concern crossed his face, but he obeyed. The aged bench creaked as he sat, his broad figure taking up considerably more space than hers. A clink sounded—glass connecting with metal, and she realised its origin as he sat a truly filthy bottle in his lap, right against his shiny watch chain.

Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he cleared his throat. “I’m not a sot, I assure you.”

Rose’s soft, polite laugh travelled across the pond’s still surface. “I’m sure.” Sots didn’t look like this man. He was far too put together—but then the rich were famous for their excess .

“No, you’re not,” he shot back, quick as a whip. An amused smirk curved his lips, but there was a sadness lurking there. “But I assure you, I don’t make a habit of consuming cognac on park benches.”

She frowned, her curiosity rising. “Why cognac?”

The man’s broad chest rose as he inhaled, letting his spine fall back against the seat. “A very dear friend won it in the war.” His black leather gloves creaked as he cradled the bottle. “He was kind enough to give it to me for my birthday. It was…” He swallowed, clearing his throat once again. “It was to be our celebratory drink once the war was won.”

Her interest grew the more he spoke, flickers of recognition building within her. Hadn’t Archie spoken of winning a bottle of cognac a couple of years ago? He’d given it to his captain, hadn’t he? The toff he’d served with. Surely it couldn’t be this man? “You…you must be very close.”

“We were,” the man confirmed. “I loved him like a brother. He, uh, he passed away before the end of the war.”

Rose blinked. It couldn’t be. “Do you mind me asking what his name was?”

He scrubbed his thumb over the bottle’s dried mud, seemingly deep in thought. “Archie.”

“Archie Finch ?”

The man’s focus jumped to her. “How do you know that?”

“He wrote to me of it,” Rose attempted a smile. “I’m Rose, his—”

“Sister,” he finished for her, smiling brightly. “He spoke of you so often.”

“Were you the captain he spoke of?”

He nodded, as though she’d returned a treasured memory to his keeping. “I was. Captain Collins, but please call me Griff.”

Thank the lord he’d said his name, because she had no idea. “Griff,” she repeated softly. A demurer woman than she would have refused, but it was nice to think she was on a first-name basis with a captain . “It’s an honour to meet you at last.”

“And you, Miss Finch.”

Technically she was Mrs Lambert now, but Rose wasn’t going to correct him. Cecil had long since passed away. Her name ceased to matter beyond the workhouse doors.

Just like the rest of me, a voice somewhere inside her whispered—a voice she always tried to ignore .

Even that thought couldn’t extinguish the bittersweet ache in her heart. Archie still matters though, and here is the proof. He’d had such an impact on the captain’s life that the man had come to Hyde Park with the sole purpose of remembering him—with the unopen bottle of cognac in tow to boot.

She had been distraught at the loss of her brother, but for the first time she had someone who understood that grief. All she’d received previously was a letter from the War Office to confirm his death.

“When Archie was on leave,” she began, breathing life into her brother’s memory for the first time in months, “he spoke of you often. The places you’d visited or the things you’d done. Like winning the cognac or being billeted in a chicken run.”

And if she remembered rightly, Archie had written about the captain waking up in chicken mess, not that she was going to include that detail.

Griff’s eyes lit from within as a bark of laughter filled the garden around them. He scratched the back of his thick black hair, chuckling to himself. “I’d forgotten that. Christ, what a nightmare that morning was. We may have been at war—and god knows we faced our share of horrors—but we had our moments, Archie and I. He was always one for mischief. ”

“Yes, he was,” Rose murmured softly, a faint smile lifting her face. “Thank you for coming here today.” Thank you for letting me know that there’s at least one person out there that gives a damn about Archie .

Griff sent her a wink, but his expression was steeped in a loss just as potent as her own. “Couldn’t miss the old boy’s birthday now, could I?”

Rose’s head turned as the deep, melodic chime of church bells reached her. Most of the noise of the city faded into the aether long before it reached this place in the park, but she was grateful the bells found their way into the garden beyond the Lovers’ Arch.

Six o’clock.

“It’s truly been lovely to meet you, Captain Collins, but I must take my leave. I have a bus to catch at half past six.” It wasn’t actually a bus—she was catching a ride with the workhouse’s coal merchant, but she’d rather not tell him her life story. She picked up her cane, trying to conceal her wince as pain shot through her palms.

“Half six, you say?” Griff’s eyebrow quirked, his attention momentarily jumping to the cane. Puzzled, he glanced at his fob watch. “I’m afraid you’ve missed it, Miss Finch. It’s seven o’clock.”

Her polite smile slid off her face. “Seven?” she gasped, the colour draining from her cheeks. Oh shit. The workhouse closed its door at seven. No one entered, and no one left.

“Would you like a lift?” Griff offered, ignorant of the horrifying realisation crashing over her. “My chauffeur is waiting for me outside the Churchill Arms. We can take you wherever you need to go.”

“That’s…” Rose swallowed, struggling through the sentence. “That’s very kind of you, but I—I don’t think they’ll let me in.” No, they definitely wouldn’t let her in. The matron was crystal clear on not admitting entrance to anyone past a certain time; she didn’t want drunkards in her institution.

Griff lowered his voice, concerned. “Who won’t let you in? ”

“The matron. She—she manages the workhouse.” But there were other workhouses, weren’t there? Perhaps St Marylebone or Paddington or Whitechapel. Rose’s workhouse didn’t have a casual ward, where indigent vagabonds could spend the night in exchange for a morning’s labour, but some of those might have done.

An involuntary shudder passed through her. The casual wards were little more than doss-houses, and men and women were lumped together as often as not. It was a dangerous place to be a woman.

“Do you mean to say you’re in the workhouse ?” Griff choked out, aghast.

Rose almost wilted beneath his outrage. “I’m not indolent,” she swore, lifting her chin to defend herself against any toffish contempt. “I’m a hardworking woman, Captain Collins, I simply—”

He ran a hand through his hair, revealing a few more greying strands closer to his scalp. “Miss Finch, you misunderstand my meaning. I…I thought they’d all been turned into military hospitals. Or closed altogether.”

Some,” she admitted quietly, squaring her shoulders. “But not all.”

Lips pressed together, Griff shook his head in an infinitesimal movement. “How long have you been in the workhouse?”

She gritted her teeth, but in the end chose to tell him the truth. “Since Christmas last year. I lost my job not long after Archie passed. I tried to search for another. Believe me, I tried, bu—”

Griff held his hand up. To her surprise, he wasn’t unsympathetic. His brows pulled down into a wrinkle of compassion. “I believe you, Miss Finch, but I’ve also heard what those places are like—brutal and degrading and squalid.”

She couldn’t correct him; he was right.

“Archie saved my life on more than one occasion. He was my closest friend, and I know he wouldn’t want his only sister living like this.”

Rose looked away from his pity. She knew Archie wouldn’t want this either, but the only good thing about his passing was that he never knew of her shame. It would break his heart.

“Allow me to help you, Miss Finch.” A half-hearted smirk curved his lips. “Not just because Archie will haunt me for the rest of my days if I don’t help you, but because you deserve to be helped.”

“I don’t wish to be a burden,” she muttered quietly.

For whatever reason, that made him smile. “May I ask, did Archie tell you anything about me?”

She cast her memory back, digging through for hints of Griff. “Only of the things you did together in France and the places you went.”

“The chicken runs I slept in,” Griff muttered wryly, a humorous slant to his tone. “Without wanting to be vulgar, Miss Finch, unless your lifestyle emulates that of the Queen of Sheba, you could not possibly be a burden to me.”

So he was as rich as Croesus, in other words.

“It is to my eternal regret that I could not save your brother, but Archie is beyond my help now. You are not. I could not live with myself if I let you go back to a workhouse , Miss Finch. I can help you—for the sake of your brother’s memory, if nothing else.”

She faltered between decisions. If it was any other rich man offering to help her rebuild her life , Rose would assume they had sinister intentions. But then Griff wasn’t just any rich man—he was Archie’s closest friend.

She may not know Griff, but Archie had, and he had nothing but good things to say about him.

What would Archie think?

Immediately, Rose knew the answer. Archie would want her to go with Griff. The knowledge was a balm to seconds of agonising uncertainty. Her brother trusted Griff more than anyone, and that knowledge was enough. It had to be.

“All right,” she whispered, much quieter than she’d intended to. “I’ll come.”