Page 1 of The Duke's Unclaimed Bride
CHAPTER 1
“Catch her!”
Edith’s teacup paused halfway to her lips when she heard the commotion.
Before the sudden chaos, she had been engrossed in a delightful conversation about some of the art on display. Hyde Park, which had been blissfully warm in spring and filled with the polite conversations of the ton’s art enthusiasts, was suddenly chaotic.
A flash of gray sped past a small group of ladies who screeched in surprise. Seconds later, a man barreled past them, startling them once more.
Edith stood up, leaving her tea behind, and followed the commotion.
“She went that way!” the man shouted as they ran past paintings in gilded frames.
Edith’s silk shoes left a trail of small indents on the ground as she followed the shouting. She clutched the skirt of her dress when she saw the entrance to the statue exhibit.
The gray flash they had been chasing collided with one of the statues. Guests gasped as it tottered precariously. For a moment, it looked as if it might be safe. But then, gravity played a cruel joke, pulling the statue toward the ground.
A loudcrashechoed through the park as the sculpture shattered on impact.
Guests gasped and cried out. A handful of matrons clutched their pearls. Gentlemen stood in front of ladies to protect them. Ladies fanned themselves to keep from fainting.
White shards scattered across the ground and came to a crumbling stop at the feet of Lord Harrington, the event’s host, who froze in his deep yellow waistcoat as he surveyed the damage. His thin lips twisted into a snarl, and he stormed forward with his hands clenched into fists.
“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted as nearby gentlemen captured the cause of the bedlam.
“M-My Lord, it is a child,” one man stuttered.
“And look at the ruin she’s made of this sculpture!”
Edith’s gaze landed on the little girl the men had in their grasp. She appeared young, perhaps five, with chestnut hair that refused to stay in its braids and wide, frightened brown eyes. Her tiny face was smudged with dirt and grime, and there was a small bruise on her temple.
What struck Edith most was how small she looked, even for her age. Her clothes, although they might have more accurately been called rags, hung loosely on her body.
The little girl struggled to break free from her captors. She looked up at Edith, desperation etched on her face, mutely reaching out to her for help.
Edith shivered at the sight.
She looks so much like the children I try to help at the orphanages.
A wave of dread hit her. The ton was not kind to such children, whom they saw as inferior. She had experienced their naked scorn when her parents died and then once again when her husband passed away.
I cannot let the same fate befall this little girl.
“Let me go!” the girl cried out as she wriggled, trying to free herself from the grip of the two gentlemen who held her fast.
“Do you know how much that statue was worth?” Lord Harrington barked.
“If you don’t let me go?—”
“We are so sorry, My Lord,” a man panted as he came upon the scene.
“This little guttersnipe has been causing us no end of problems,” another man spat.
Edith frowned at the derogatory term.
The first man had dark, greasy hair, made worse by the sweat from running. His clothes, designed to evoke authority, were ill-fitting and wrinkled. The second man was a tall, reedy thing, with cruel gray eyes and a baton at his side.
Had that baton caused the bruise on the girl’s temple, or had it been his fist?
