A Proper Scandal (Ravensdale Family Book 2) (9 page)

“I’m fine,” Anne protested. She pushed back curls from her face, trying to tame her hair, which had come to life in the London drizzle last evening. She threw her shoulders back, daring him on.

Alex didn’t back down as he walked to the door. “You wouldn’t be here if that were true.”

*

As they ventured downstairs, Minnie was surprised to find others filing out of hallway doors; shadows of people, drawn in dark lines and quiet souls. Laundry hung tented over ropes slung from wall to corner, filtering the little light that poured through the thick bubbled glass of the windows. Beyond one door, a fussing baby woke.

Each steep step was more a challenge than the last with her ankle. She bit back her pain, keeping her focus on Alex and those sturdy shoulders of his. She fought back the flush biting at her cheeks from waking up in his arms. How perfectly right the world seemed then, there in the arms of her Irish pickpocket.

Golden light flooded at the bottom of the stairs, the smell of soot and fish strong in the air. It was a house of dark: dark wood, soot-covered plastered walls, stone. A house cloaked in a damp that sank into Minnie, spurring a shiver down her spine as Alex stopped and turned to face her.

“You’ll be wanting to keep the name Mrs. Marwick unless you want to find yourself marched down to the church today.”

“I’d rather not.”

Alex bit at his lip, his face swollen, one eye sporting a dark purple bruise. “I guess I won’t take offense.”

She tilted her head, fighting back a smile. He was charming, even with that black eye.

“Right, then.” Alex turned, surprising her as he scooped her up in his arms. He raced down the few remaining steps, then made a grand entrance with her into a kitchen. “Smile if you please, and we might secure the attic longer than a night,” he whispered against her ear.

She did, but not because he asked. It had a lot to do with his arms wrapping around her again, of the steady rise and fall of his chest against her body. It had to do with the secret that she’d kept to herself these past hours, of how he walked through the night to her, a welcome sight. She’d wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.

To kiss Alex. What a grand idea, as he’d say.

“Och, what’s the fuss about, Alex?” A robust woman, with hair the color of wheat cut and left under the sun too long, turned, her hands on her hips. “I see you stayed the night again. Invite yourself in, bring a guest. Your Ma would be disappointed in your manners.” The woman removed a kettle from an open fire, setting it down on the stone hearth.

“Now, Mrs. Bowen, that’s no way to meet my new bride.”

The woman waved him off, shuffling over to a well-worn box for a loaf of crusty bread and some salt cod.

Minnie’s stomach soured.

Alex set Minnie down, wrapping his arm around her middle once again. He looked down at her, his eyes full of appreciation and something resembling a lustful curiosity. Did he think of kissing her as well? The girls at Miss Martin’s teased Minnie, calling her a prude, taunting her for never harboring a flame for a boy. While the others had been brought up on the proper social calendar and were well acquainted with other families of the ton, Minnie had been traveling the world with her adopted family. That is, until the twins were born in a Persian palace, nearly killing Clara. With little Cecily so ill, they returned from adventures in the East to settle in London where doctors could oversee her care. And to settle Minnie in finishing school. She never had much chance to develop much of anything for the opposite sex.

“Oh, Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, Alex. You come back sporting a bruise the size of an apple and now you’ve a wife. I know what you’re up to, I do. My Peter, God bless his soul, was like you once. A charmer he was, through and through. You’re too busy running from the Fenians and now you’ve got a wife. You’re a dolt, boy.” She poured a cup of tea, the smell weak, the color much too fair to suggest the leaves were new. “A perfect, charming dolt.”

Alex beamed, then winked to Minnie, nudging his knuckles against her back in a rocking rhythm. She hadn’t bothered with her corset; it was much too big now, so his touch…well, his touch made her entertain things she hadn’t spent much time considering before this moment. Like returning to that attic and going back to sleep in his arms. Like kissing his lips maybe, then that bruise of his. If he liked the idea of kissing her too, would it be wrong?

“I’m Anne, ma’am. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Mrs. Bowen raised her fair brow, wheezing a heartless laugh. “And English. It’s a good thing my Peter is buried well and good. He wouldn’t have one under this roof, let me tell you, Alex Marwick.”

“She’s sympathetic, and a good worker, Mrs. Bowen. I have to get to the docks before I lose out on work, but my wife has a hurt ankle. Do you think you could care for it? Maybe give us the attic to stay in until we find a place of our own?” Alex leaned toward the table in the middle of the room and grabbed a few potato peelings, stuffing them in the pocket of the jacket slung over his shoulders. “And I take it Mr. Davoren has left you alone?”

She clucked at him, her cheeks heating as she took a sip of tea from a mug. “You’ve all the subtly of the devil bursting into a church on a Sunday. Yes, he’s left me alone. But has he left you alone? Look at that face of yours! I want no trouble here, is that understood?”

Minnie stood between the two, her curiosity piqued.

As though he could read her mind, Alex spun to face her. “There’s no trouble, now. I’ll be on my best behavior. Anne will see to that.”

That didn’t sit well with Minnie. Like his hair, that crest ring he wore on his pinky, and now the mention of Fenians—Alex was as much a stranger as last evening.

“Goodbye, darling.” He leaned toward her cheek, but his lips avoided her skin. All the pity for that. Alex stretched, tapping the narrow doorway before pushing out into the early morning.

The sky began to wake, as well as the seagulls. Their cries pierced the sounds of the people upstairs as they moved around and began their day. And Minnie was left alone in the kitchen, leaning on her good foot as Mrs. Bowen quietly poured another cup of tea.

“Come and have a cuppa,” she said, motioning to a rickety chair across the table. “And why you don’t you tell me who you really are?”

I
t seemed her life was going to be one built on lies.

“I’m Anne Gibbons,” Minnie told Mrs. Bowen confidently. She sat, as her cheeks pinked. She shrugged, stifling a girlish giggle. “Anne Marwick, now ma’am.” Inside, her lies mounted, pressing against her lips, waiting to be spilled like the weak tea Minnie clumsily dripped onto her dress as she took a sip.

She was a girl without a proper home, a girl who had just lost her dream. A girl hopelessly lost in the belly of London’s East End. Alex was right. It was a talent he possessed in spades, the annoying man. It was time for her to return to Burton Hall. She had family there who missed her, and she them.

But if she couldn’t be a ballerina, than who was she supposed to be in this world?

“Mr. Marwick is kind enough. He’s new around these parts, and that’s hard for a boy like him to bow down to the way things are. Why only two weeks past he was dumped on my doorstep, beaten and blacked out. It’s those Fenians. He’s messed with the wrong sorts trying to settle scores that aren’t for him to interfere with.”

A rat scurried by the fireplace, pausing to dig at the ashes scattered across the corner of the hearth. A crusty loaf of bread, an odd gray color, sat a few feet above on the butcher block by the large wash basin stacked with dirty dishes.

Alex had offered once, but it sounded as though he was the one in need of a friend.

“So you’ll imagine my surprise when he suddenly shows up at my door with nothing to his name but a new wife.”

Mrs. Bowen reached for the kettle, pouring herself another cup of tea. A patinated cross fell out from beneath the neckline of her dress, her eyes trained on the ceramic mug as she challenged Minnie.

If she told the truth, then they’d be out on the streets, or worse—truly married. And true, she’d discovered a soft spot for Alex, but she couldn’t be married when she’d come this far on her adventure. No matter she had failed the first time, she’d try again and again until she was met with success.

Minnie set down her tea cup, allowing herself to remember the relief she felt as she curled into Alex’s side the evening before. A smile naturally floated to her lips. “It was a quick romance. He’s a way with words. And you said yourself he’s a kind man. I didn’t stand a chance against his charm.”

Mrs. Bowen grinned, slumping back into her chair. “Well my girl, I’d have to agree with you there. Your husband is a bit of a Romeo, through and through. Why, if I was younger, I’d reckon I’d give you a run at him.”

A strange twist of possession swept over Minnie, clutching at her chest. She forced her smile to stay while inside a storm brewed, one fed on lies and one tiny truth—she’d been charmed by Alex Marwick, even captivated.

*

She’d been charmed sure enough in the beginning. But as another month passed, the attic grew to be an oven, and Alex grew to be a bear in between the days where he could charm a nun into bed with that smile of his. The mattress stuffed with bits and bobs was lumpy, and her ankle still ached as she climbed up and down those steep stairs.

Minnie grew tired of smelling of rotten fish. It sank into her skin, clung to her hair. The crime of it was that she almost grew accustomed to the smell. She missed smelling of roses and her fine dresses. She missed having proper meals with meat instead of only once or twice a month. Between the bread Mrs. Bowen made and the few scraps of potato peelings, Minnie was lucky if she could sink her teeth into something that was fresh and not rotten.

But nearly every time she returned to the attic along the Thames, she lost her resolve to return home.

A week after her arrival at Mrs. Bowen’s, Minnie had searched for a job. She couldn’t be a seamstress, she never took her needlecraft seriously. She applied at an agency who had yet to find her another position after she quit the first one. Minnie didn’t possess the patience needed to be a shop girl. She helped Mrs. Bowen with the laundry until she had quite literally stumbled into a music hall as a summer deluge of rain poured from the skies while she ran errands one afternoon.

The proprietor, one rotund and bald Mr. Simons, laughed at her when she asked if he needed any additional dancers. When he asked if she could pull a pint, she had replied, “With a smile, sir,” even as her eyes remained trained on a few dancers performing the can-can.

She’d been a barmaid since, even a maid when Mr. Simons demanded it. She scrubbed the floors, mended costumes (even if the mending was poor), assisted the dancers, pulled pints, and flirted with the customers. Some days, when she missed Grace and James, it was hard to pretend her life was going according to plan. But pint after pint, she kept her eyes on that stage. One way or another, she’d be up there someday.

Minnie plunged her hands into the filthy water, scrubbing until her black hands went red. She frowned at the scrapes along her knuckles, the way her once-soft hands now included nails that would not scrub entirely clean, the way her skin became rough.

She’d spent the night cleaning up after a rowdy group of gentlemen, avoiding their well-aimed slaps at her bottom, blushing not out of lust but of embarrassment as they eyed her cleavage in the uniform Mr. Simons made all the female workers wear. It was a brilliant eggplant, the dress fine enough, but the cut was too low for Minnie. She felt all legs and arms.

And now on top of fish, she smelled of stale beer and cigars. She expected Mrs. Bowen to march upstairs any night now and toss her out for being a tart. Minnie wouldn’t blame her. She felt cheap as she scrubbed off the rouge on her cheeks and the little she had dabbed on her lips. The beauty mark she had drawn on her cheekbone with kohl refused to budge. It was a phantom mark; another reminder of how she failed to be what was expected of a girl like Minnie Ravensdale.