Of Noble Birth (31 page)

Still, she drifted into a
dreamless sleep almost as soon as she lay down.

In what seemed like
seconds, a gentle hand woke her. “I ‘ave to go now,” Mariah said.
“Ye’ve been sleepin’ for an ‘our. That ought to ‘elp. I’m sorry I
can’t do more.”

“An hour!” Alexandra
scrambled to her feet even though her body still felt like she’d
been thrown from a horse. “You let me sleep an hour? And you’ve
been working that entire time?”

“Aye, but I ‘ave to go
now. I’ll be back in the mornin’.”

“Wait.” Alexandra clutched
the other woman’s arm. “I’ll do the same for you sometime. I
promise.”

“I’m sure ye will.” Mariah
studied her, then lowered her voice. “Ye know, ye seem like a good
lass. I ‘ate to see ye get into trouble, so let me give ye a piece
of advice. Stay away from Gunther, if ye can.”

“Why?” she asked in
surprise. But Mariah pulled away, leaving Alexandra to stare after
her as she walked out onto the rain-spattered docks.

* * *

A man with a wet newspaper
under his arm hurried down the street several blocks from Dr.
Watts’s residence. The hour was so late and the weather so poor
that he was the only person Nathaniel had seen in two hours of
searching for Alexandra.

“Excuse me, sir.”
Nathaniel nudged his horse forward.

The man turned, obviously
surprised at being stopped in the middle of a downpour.

“Have you seen a lone
young woman with blond hair and green eyes around these parts
tonight?”

The man scowled as the
wind blew rain into his face. “No,” he shouted above the inclement
weather, then ducked his head and rushed away.

Nathaniel sighed. He was
wasting his time. He’d never find Alexandra by rambling about
without some clue to tell him where to look. Unfortunately, the
dress shops on Tutty’s list were long closed, and he had no way of
determining the identities of the owner or manager of each one,
though he wouldn’t have hesitated to raise them from their beds if
he could.

He sat in the downpour,
blinking rain out of his eyes, a solitary figure. As much as he
hated to give up, there was nothing he could do except return to
the doctor’s and pray for better luck in the morning.

* * *

Alexandra was exhausted.
She’d worked for nearly thirty-six hours with little sleep, and now
she could only lay her head back on the cushioned seat of the
pony-chaise as a chill wind whipped at the strands of hair straying
from her bonnet. Occasionally drops of rain fell onto her cheeks
from the black night overhead, but she didn’t bother to wipe them
away. She was oblivious to the weather, and almost everything else,
until a coughing spell seized her. Then she sat up, her eyes
blinking in bewilderment. It was so cold, and she’d had nothing to
eat but the spot of tea Gunther had pressed on her
earlier.

“Where are we?” she
asked.

Her new boss sat at her
side, driving. “You’re not well,” he told her. “I’m taking you
home, where there is someone to care for you. Don’t worry, it’s
only another street or two.”

It seemed as though they’d
been traveling for hours. “But you said you’d take me back to Dr.
Watts’s,” Alexandra protested, pulling her shawl more tightly about
herself. She shivered. Her fingers were like ice, yet her face felt
flushed.

“A hot bowl of soup, and
you’ll be good as new. Believe me, I’ve got just the thing,” he
said.

* * *

The rain began to fall
more heavily, disturbing Alexandra’s sleep. Soaked to the skin, she
wished for a heavy wool cloak to replace Mrs. Turtle’s knitted
shawl. Then she realized that the chaise was no longer moving.
Where was she?

Raising her head to look
about, she saw that she was alone in a filthy street outside a
tall, rickety building made of wood. It leaned sadly to one side as
tattered drapes escaped from an open window on the second story to
slap against the pane overhead. A light silhouetted the figures of
a man and a woman in the same room. The male form clasped the woman
from behind and tossed her onto a bed, and their laughter rippled
down with the rain.

Climbing unsteadily to the
ground, Alexandra clung to the side of the pony-chaise, feeling as
though she might faint. All the strength was gone from her legs,
but she forced herself to move. She had to find her way to Dr.
Watts’s.

“Wait!”

Before she’d traveled more
than three steps, the door to the teetering house opened. A girl
came bounding down the front steps, despite wearing a full skirt,
and skidded to a halt in front of her. “Going somewhere?” she
asked, her eyes gleaming.

The most remarkable thing
about this stranger, besides a broken front tooth, was a lovely
feather boa that rested above a revealing bodice.

“I’m afraid I’m lost,”
Alexandra admitted, wondering just what kind of woman dressed as
this girl did. “Could you perhaps direct me to a
constable?”

The girl whistled through
her teeth, proving that she could put the broken one to good use.
“I doubt there’s a constable who dares to walk these parts. I’ve
never seen one, anyhow.”

Gunther came out of the
house and descended the steps, his face dark with the shadow of
night and his usual thick, black whiskers. “Maggie, go inside. Her
room is ready now. I’ll handle it from here.”

“Can’t I help her settle
in?” Maggie pleaded. “We’re friends already.”

Gunther scowled but
acquiesced. “Very well. You can take her up.” He turned to
Alexandra. “I’m going to see a friend of mine while you get some
sleep. We’ll talk later.”

“I’m afraid there’s been
some kind of misunderstanding,” Alexandra said. “I can’t stay here.
My friends are expecting me.” She glanced from Gunther to the girl
he had called Maggie. “I don’t know what you were thinking,
but—”

“Nonsense.” Gunther took
her by the elbow and began to pull her toward the house. “You’re
only exhausted. I know the place don’t look like much, but Maggie’s
happy here. Right, Mag?”

Medium brown curls bounced
as Maggie nodded.

“You just need some rest.
There’s a lot to be done come morning. I have a big order to get
out, and I need you to be ready.”

Something told Alexandra
Gunther was lying about: the order, but she was too ill to figure
out why. She felt her legs give way and saw the ground rushing up
to meet her only seconds before Gunther caught her in an iron
grip.

“Watch out,” she heard him
say to Maggie. “I’ll have to carry her in.”

She felt him swing her up
into his arms, then heard him grunt while climbing the stairs. His
breath came in heavy gasps by the time they entered the decrepit
house.

Alexandra opened her eyes
just long enough to see several female faces gaping at her. She
heard the creak of a stair, smelled rotten food and sweat and
bodies, and soon found herself lying on a large, rumpled bed in the
middle of a room containing a washbasin and an overstuffed bureau.
The walls, covered with purple lilac paper, were smudged with dirt
and dulled by the years. A heavy shade covered one small
window.

Time seemed to pass in an
erratic fashion. Alexandra didn’t know if it had been minutes since
the ride in the pony-chaise or hours, but she was grateful for the
fire that raged at one end of the room.

Managing to climb off the
bed, she crawled toward its warmth, anxious to dispel the terrible
chill in her bones. She was so cold, not just on the outside, but
deep within as well.

Glancing back, she cringed
to see the bed she had been sleeping in and guessed it had been
months since the linens were changed. Even in the flickering
firelight she could see the brown stains of God knew
what.

But she couldn’t worry
about that. Not now. She stretched her fingers toward the
flames.

“There’s our new lass.” A
large woman with carrot-colored hair burst into the room, carrying
a lamp. Freckles covered her face and arms and the good deal of
bosom revealed by her low décolletage.

“I’m Caroline,” she
announced. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you sooner, but I
was rather... indisposed.” She laughed gaily as she set the lamp on
the dresser. “I suppose Maggie took care of you all right. But now
we must get those wet clothes off before you catch a
chill.”

Alexandra wanted to tell
her that it was far too late for that; she was already freezing.
But her tongue was too thick and heavy to obey her will.

Caroline rummaged through
the chest, withdrew a flimsy red nightdress and wrapper, and began
to dress Alexandra as though she were a doll.

“You don’t look well,
love,” she commented, chafing Alexandra’s hands to warm them as a
nanny might do for her ward. “We’d better get something hot down
you. Gunther tells me you’ve had nothing but a cup of tea all day,
and that will certainly never do. You’ll lose what precious few
curves you have in no time.”

Alexandra was too weary to
understand why Caroline, or whatever her name was, should be
talking about curves. The woman’s voice was gentle, and at that
moment, kindness was all that mattered. Alexandra needed a friend,
someone to care for her, as she felt so incapable of caring for
herself.

“Perhaps Drake will have
to wait until morning to take a look at you,” she commented. “You
couldn’t cross the channel like this.”

“What?”

“Just get in bed. I’ll
bring you something to eat.”

The feel of the place was
all wrong, the smells revolting. Gunther had led her to believe he
was doing her a favor, but she was beginning to suspect him of
putting something in the tea he had given her earlier. She had to
leave, find her way back, except that she didn’t have the strength
to stand, let alone propel herself to the door. Her eyelids soon
grew so heavy, she couldn’t lift them any longer, and she let them
close, welcoming the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

“Wake up. There’s someone
who wants to see you.”

An insistent hand jiggled
Alexandra awake. She blinked several times before a face came into
focus. It was Caroline, the woman she had met before.

“Alexandra, lass, can you
hear me? You’ve got your first bite.”

“Bite?” She had dyspepsia,
maybe. She didn’t know anything about a bite. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” she said, her words sounding as slurred and
unnatural as she felt.

“You don’t want Gunther to
come after you. Come on, we have to get you ready.”

Slowly Alexandra’s
faculties began to return. She still felt terribly ill-equipped to
do anything difficult, like stand or walk, but she could think two
coherent thoughts in a row. And she had recognized
Caroline.

“Caroline?”

The woman smiled. “Aye,
it’s me.”

“What is it I’m supposed
to do?”

Caroline turned away and
began to ransack the drawers of the bureau. She tossed a burgundy
corset on the floor, mumbling to herself, “I’ve never seen a man
who could refuse that.”

“What are you talking
about?” With no more strength to hold herself up, Alexandra slumped
back onto the floor where she’d been lying in a heap. She wouldn’t
have gotten back in the bed, even if she could have dragged herself
across the room. “It’s still dark yet. Gunther said I could sleep
here until morning. Surely any sewing can wait that
long.”

Caroline chuckled and
turned to face her, hands on her hips. “Sewing! My, you are an
innocent. No one sleeps here at night, my precious, or any other
time they have a paying customer. And you just got your
first.”

Lifting her head off her
arms, Alexandra gazed at the sheer lacy corset Caroline shoved
toward her. “My first what?”

“Paying customer. Put this
on. There’s a gentleman downstairs who’s had too much to drink, and
he grows impatient. Believe me, things will go much smoother if you
simply hurry and be done with it. The drunk ones can get
violent.”

The things Alexandra had
heard and seen since coming to Gunther’s house had swirled in her
mind like dreams, weaving themselves in and out of her
consciousness. She hadn’t known what was real and what imagined,
but finally they coalesced into something that made some
sense—only, the picture they painted was frightening
indeed.

“You expect me to sell
myself?” she gasped, shoving herself back into a sitting position.
The question was more of an accusation, but instead of getting
defensive, Caroline rolled her eyes.

“I don’t expect nothing.
I’m just telling you how to survive here. It’s Gunther who does the
expecting—and the collecting. Now, unless you want him to give
you
a
few bruises
and maybe a split lip to go with the coming sting to your bottom, I
suggest you get dressed. I don’t know how to tell you any
plainer.”

“You’re saying he’ll beat
me if I refuse? But I never agreed to come here in the first
place!”

Caroline shrugged. “He
doesn’t always ask permission. And you’re here now, aren’t you?
Drake’s coming to take you across the channel in the morning.
You’ll never escape once that happens. You won’t even want to. For
all the rough riding, a brothel is still better than the gutter,
which is where you end up if you leave.”