Free Vanity by Jane Feather Page B

I trust. I have some things to redeem.”
    “Not at all,” he said politely. “And anywhere else you please. I am quite at your disposal, ma’am.”
    She directed him through the maze of East End streets, admiring his skill and the way he appeared oblivious of the stares and catcalls that greeted such a magnificent equipage in such an area. Ragged children huddled on street corners, beggars paraded their mutilations, coming dangerously close to the phaeton when Lord Rupert was obliged to draw rein for some obstacle in his path. A young woman darted out in front of the horses, clutching a baby to her breast. She raised her haggard eyes in pitiful appeal and thrust out her hand, clawlike, over the side of the carriage as they slowed and swerved to avoid a tribe of mangy, starving dogs in pursuit of a squalling cat.
    Lord Rupert barely looked at her, but he reached into his pocket and tossed her a coin. She fell back, scrabbling as it tumbled to the cobbles. “She’ll only spend it on gin,” he said with a cold indifference that made Octavia wince, although she understood the helplessness that lay behind it.
    “Perhaps,” she said. “But it might make her more patient with the babe.”
    “And when she’s killed herself with gin, what will become of the child?” The same detachment was in his voice, but Octavia had the feeling that it was a mask for his true feelings. She’d learned her own ways of dealing with the horrors that lived and breathed on these streets, and she knew that if one didn’t cultivate a certain detachment, one would be driven mad with the knowledge of one’s own powerlessness.
    She made no answer to the rhetorical question, merely directed him to Quaker Street. He drew up outside the sign of the three golden balls and beckoned an urchin who was standing in the frozen gutter, his bare feet wrapped in a piece of sacking.
    “Can you hold the horses, lad?”
    “I’ll go in on my own,” Octavia protested. “I’m quite accustomed to doing so.”
    Lord Rupert ignored this, merely jumped from the carriage and held up a hand to assist her to alight. The urchin had hold of the leader’s bridle, a grin splitting his filthy face as he contemplated his amazing good fortune.
    Octavia shrugged and stepped down, aware of the curious eyes at windows, their less inhibited neighbors staring openly out of their doors at the extraordinary sight of Mistress Forster’s lodger riding in an elegant carriage in company with an exquisitely dressed gentleman. Her companion opened the door, the bell tinkling merrily. He held it for her, and she stepped into the crowded, dark, and frowsty interior, where thé smell of old clothes and dust and mold dominated.
    “Come fer yer pa’s books, then?” An elderly man, so short his head barely topped the counter, blinked into the dimness. “Thought you wasn’t comin’ to pay yer installment this week. Due yesterday, ye were. Lucky I didn’t sell ’em on ye.”
    “Oh, come on, Jebediah. Who around here would buy Plato’s
Republic
and two volumes of Tacitus?” Octavia said dismissively, reaching into her skirt for the pouch. She extracted several coins and dropped them onto the counter.
    “And two shillin’ interest,” Jebediah said, scooping the coins off the counter. “Due yesterday.”
    “There’s no interest if I redeem them,” Octavia declared. “So don’t try your sharp tricks on me.”
    Jebediah gave her a toothless grin and stared over her shoulder at the tall, elegant figure of her companion. “I see ye’ve got yerself a gennelman friend, then. Quite the gent ’e looks.”
    Octavia flushed angrily. “Fetch me the books, Jebediah.”
    “All right, all right.” He shuffled off in his carpet slippers into the dark recesses of the noisome shop, returning after a minute with three leather-bound, gilt-edged volumes. “Doin’ ye a favor, I am, takin’ these fer good money,” he asserted. “Much good they’d do me if’n ye didn’t come fer