Page 126 of Seduced

“I’ve had no breakfast,” she said pettishly.

“McSwine’s culinary magic awaits you.”

A wave of nausea caused her to swallow rapidly. Hewasamused, the evil bastard!

She stayed away from him on the short voyage to London. Mr. Baines sailed theFlying Dragonso that Savage could look after Count de Barras’s family.

Tony felt seasick and she remembered the Bay of Biscay. She also remembered Adam Savage’s clandestine activities along the French coast. Why had it never occurred to her that he was risking his life to help people?

When she arrived back at Curzon Street, Roz took her to task for her sly behavior. “I see you’ve had a rapid recovery from your homesickness!”

Tony inwardly groaned. She was definitely suffering from some kind of sickness.

“Why did you go sneaking off to Edenwood? I’ll tell you why, Antonia. I believe you’ve formed an infatuation for your guardian. It’s a good thing Mr. Savage packed you straight back home. What you need is a husband. Someone with a firm hand and strict morals who will put a stop to all this racketing about. I shall speak with Mr. Savage about it.”

“I’m sorry, Grandmother, to have caused you worry,” she said contritely, but on the inside she wanted to shout and scream and throw a big, stinking tantrum. When she was in the sanctuary of her room she walked a direct path to her commode, took out her washbowl and was violently sick. She dipped the end of a towel into her water jug, then wiped her face. Her eyes met those reflected in her dressing-table mirror. Could she possibly be with child?

Part of her immediately denied it, but another part of her knew it was more than a possibility. Roz’s words still rang in her ears. “What you need is a husband.” Antonia began to laugh. “What I need is a husband. I shall speak with Mr. Savage about it,” she told the girl in the mirror. But the girl in the mirror wasn’t laughing. Her face was tragic. Silvery tears traced their path down her cheeks.

The next morning nausea again assailed her before she even opened her eyes. The thing that triggered it was the smell of bacon wafting up from the kitchen. Antonia was well versed in the signs of pregnancy. Whenever women gathered for a social function it was ever a prime topic of conversation. Within the hour, however, she felt right as rain and was most grateful that the telltale affliction disappeared as quickly as it came.

Roz was off for an open carriage ride in the park with a gentleman caller. Before she left she extracted a promise from Antonia to attend Almack’s on Wednesday evening. Frances Jersey was a walking encyclopedia on eligible bachelors.

Tony prowled about the sitting room like a caged animal. Needing an outlet for her terrifying thoughts, she ran upstairs for her journal. She went back to the sitting room, sat down at the secretaire, and opened the diary. Instead of writing, she made the mistake of reading. God in Heaven, she had poured her heart out onto these pages. Adam Savage knew without a doubt that she was hopelessly in love with him. How humiliating! She flung the small journal across the room.

When Tony heard the doorbell, her heart sank. She was in no condition to face anyone. When Mr. Burke came to announce the caller she would tell him she would see no one. It wasn’t Mr. Burke, however, who entered the room, it was Adam Savage.

Conflicting emotions raged within her. She was torn between banishing him from her life forever and running into his arms. She did neither. She was distracted by the way he was dressed. He wore a shabby coat with no shirt beneath it. He was unshaven, his boots had seen better days, and he twisted a cloth cap in his hands.

“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,” she said whimsically. She did not feel whimsical.

“Tony, I want you to come with me. Wear your bother’s things. Nothing fancy, an old riding jacket will do.”

She wanted to laugh in his face. Here he was, larger than life, issuing his orders. He had not the slightest doubt that she would obey him without question. She searched his face. His eyes as always compelled her to do his bidding.

When she came downstairs she caught her breath as he came close to tower above her. When he touched her, she jumped as if she had been burned. Savage quickly gathered her lovely hair into a knot and pulled the cap over it.

He had a carriage waiting. She sat quietly as it turned into the Strand and headed toward the city. She didn’t question him. She knew he must have his reasons. Adam Savage wasn’t like other people. He lived by his own rules.

The carriage halted at London Bridge. They alighted and the carriage departed. They walked across the bridge to the far side of the river and suddenly they were in another world.

“You once asked me where I lived when I was a lad. I’ll show you,” he said cheerfully. The buildings were dilapidated. There were no houses, only hovels. Dirty, stinking, overcrowded slums. Row after row of these novels like rotting teeth were inhabited by men, women, and children dressed in rags.

The gutters ran with sewage. A mangy dog fought two large rats for a piece of offal. Tony clamped her teeth together to keep her gorge from rising. She saw that all the women and children were barefoot. Only the men wore shabby boots.

Businesses thrived. The people might be raggy and dirty, but they were not idle. At street level and down stone steps at cellar level were shops or holes-in-the-wall that passed for shops. They offered everything from gin to barley water, from fish heads to sheep’s heads, from lice-ridden wigs to dead men’s boots.

The very air was dank, the cobbles wet and slimy this close to the Thames.

“When the tide rises, most of these places are flooded,” Adam pointed out.

“I had no idea it was like this on the far side of the river.”

“Oh, it’s not just this side,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll show you Whitechapel.”

The narrow streets and alleys were every bit as squalid and filthy. Every corner housed a boozer, every boozer had a collection of drabs standing about outside in their tattered finery.

“Poverty isn’t always the result of idleness. The poor are paid starvation wages.”

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