Page 56 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
Charlotte sneaked her head out from Bess’ skirts, sniffing. “It’s only that I love her very much, My Lord.” She sighed.
Bess pressed her lips together, feeling her heart surge against her ribcage. The children were falling into their after-dinner routine of dancing, singing, laughing louder than they ordinarily were allowed to on the street. Bess knew it was time to duck out of there, to leave Lady Margaret and the other workers to the task of clean-up. Still, several children scampered forward to grip Lord Linfield’s hand and swing on it. They giggled, lost in the feeling of excitement Lord Linfield offered them. Newness. A fresh perspective. A tall, broad-shouldered man—one that, perhaps, filled the “hole” their fathers had left, after they’d been killed.
Which led to Lady Elizabeth’s next mission.
She had to make Lord Linfield understand.
And she had to do it as soon as possible.
“Are you ready?” she whispered, her voice cutting through the chaos to find Lord Linfield’s ears.
He nodded, although his eyes glittered with hesitation. It was clear he wanted to remain with the children. But he leaned down, giving as many individual goodbyes as he could. In the meantime, Bess knelt and dropped a kiss on Charlotte’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon, my darling,” she offered. She blinked once in an attempt to rid the image of Charlotte’s face crumpling at her absence. It was remarkably difficult, finding reasons to leave them. Bess had always felt that way.
Chapter 24
Nathaniel struggled to leave the homeless shelter. It seemed that every which way he turned, he found another child squeezing at his coat jacket, tugging at him. Their eyes were far too big for their hollowed out faces, and each seemed to have endless amounts of humanity and excitement and soul. He dropped his hand across many of their shoulders, giving them partial if not full hugs. “When will you come back, Lord Linfield?” another little girl asked, sounding more sure of his new position in her life than many members of Parliament felt about his potential seat.
“Very soon, darling,” he told her, and he was surprised to feel that he meant it—totally, completely. He hadn’t a clue where his life was going, yet he made up his mind, at that moment, to begin volunteering at that shelter, and perhaps others. He didn’t want to do it for the votes it would inevitably give him, nor did he wish to commit such time in order to spend more time with Lady Elizabeth (although, of course, that was an added benefit).
He wanted to do it for the humanity of it. He wanted to do it to hold people up. He realised, with a strange jolt in his stomach, that he’d spent the majority of his life lost in the woods—either metaphorically or physically. He’d been hunkered away from the world, trying to make sense of his own mind, rather than assisting those most in need.
It disgusted him that he hadn’t tried.
Finally, he followed Lady Elizabeth out onto the streets. Peter scampered up behind them, narrowly missing being pulled back into the chaos. From steps down the road, the three of them could hear the wild yelps of the children, all of them tittering about the arrival of their new guest and “friend.”
“My goodness, Lady Elizabeth,” Nathaniel said, after they’d marched a bit down the road. “I am simply speechless.”
Nathaniel couldn’t get a read on Lady Elizabeth’s response. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, parted her lips. Her eyes shimmered as if she was trying to keep back tears. He couldn’t imagine what the tears would be for.
Lord Linfield was grateful that Peter walked just behind them, muttering to himself, not paying attention to the wild attraction that sizzled out from Lord Linfield’s heart.
“I’m glad you showed me,” he continued, his voice lowering. “As you probably know, it can become very easy to just—fall away in whatever world you’ve created for yourself at your estate.”
“I know that all too well,” Lady Elizabeth offered. She tore her eyes back towards him. They almost burned with meaning. “You know I was part of Society. You know that I had all the money you could ever hope to have.”
Nathaniel balked for a moment, nearly stumbling over his own feet. He paused, turned his eyes to the ground. A carriage clunked along in front of them, causing them to pause. Nathaniel’s hand accidentally grazed Bess’s upper arm. She shifted away from him, although he sensed (perhaps incorrectly) that she craved his touch, just as much as he wanted to touch her.
How ridiculous it was that he actually had those thoughts buzzing around his head. They meant nothing. They couldn’t.
The carriage eased aside, giving them space to keep going. Nathaniel swallowed hard before taking a step into the cobblestones, which crumpled off into the mud around them.
“I remember Everett saying that he danced with you. I regret never seeing you at one of these affairs.” He paused for a moment. “I feel certain that I would have asked you to dance.”
Lady Elizabeth blushed. But immediately she seemed to shake the emotion off. “It’s impossible to know that for certain, Lord Linfield,” she said. “And I’ll ask you not to say something so foolish like that again.”
They continued to walk through the wretched neighbourhood. Nathaniel recognised the horrific smells, the swirling pits of mud, the angry-looking people as sights that Elizabeth surely saw each and every day. He couldn’t understand quite what had happened in the days since Lady Elizabeth had been a debutante. Clearly, her path had been far different than the other, tittering, anxious girls at his various Society balls.
Of course, he could never compare them. She was far and away better than any of them.
“Those children back there,” she began, her voice lowering. “And Peter. We all have something in common.”
“What’s that?” Nathaniel asked. His voice caught in his throat.
There was a heavy pause between them. Nathaniel could almost feel Lady Elizabeth actively collecting and organising her thoughts. “Well, they’ve all lost at least one or both parents, as have I,” she continued. “Although, with them, their parents were killed due to punishment for non-violent crimes. They committed acts that, in general, didn’t hurt anyone beyond their pocketbooks. And yet they were murdered.”
Lord Linfield now recognised where the course of the day was taking him. His throat felt raw.
“And thusly, their children are out on the streets, completely abandoned. And you know what? The state itself doesn’t care at all. They care only that they took action against thieves, not recognising that they’ve created a system in which those thieves will constantly be created, grow up, and then be murdered. Again and again and again. Those children back there, they haven’t known a day of love in years. That was the point of the shelter. To try to create that love, to lend as much of it as I could. But I know it can never replace the love they might have received from their parents. And I know that many of them are learning to steal and rob and thieve out on the streets, as they get older, because there isn’t another option. That’s simply what they do; it’s what their mentors do. It’s the only true option they have to survive. And do you know what will happen to them? When they’re inevitably caught and proven guilty of their crimes? Do you?”
