His Wayward Bride (Romance of the Turf Book 3) Page 7

  Irene had never been particularly biddable. Only under certain circumstances was she sweet. But she was loyal and bright and resourceful and true, and he was absolutely mad about her.

  So he told her the truth. “I don’t see you as others do because you’re not like anyone else. Who else un-picks picked pockets? I saw that, and I wanted to know more. And I still do.” He smiled. “Always will.”

  She tried to smile back.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “You don’t have to smile for me. I’m telling you how I feel. That doesn’t put any obligation on you.”

  Briskly, he added, “How is Mrs. Brodie going to protect you in the future? What may I do?” He wished he didn’t have to ask. He wished he knew the answers already.

  Irene took a deep breath, settling herself. “Mrs. Brodie promised to take more students that aren’t white. She’ll look for them specially—within and outside of England—so there’s more than one brown face in each classroom. One of my aunt Mellie’s daughters might even gain a spot. I’d love to see my cousins educated here.”

  The longing in Irene’s voice was unmistakable, but Jonah didn’t know whether it was for family or for education.

  “What of teachers?” he asked. “Will she find other black teachers?”

  “Maybe. Maybe even teachers too. That would be good.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “God. It’s time for dinner, but I can’t walk downstairs into that refectory right now. I can’t smile as if I’m perfectly fine.”

  He nodded. “What do you want to do? Walk outside instead?”

  “Walk? To the devil with that. I want to run. Scream. Fight.” Lifting her hands, she flexed them into fists. “Yes, I want to fight.”

  “All right. Shall I sneak you into Gentleman Jackson’s or find a brawl on the street?”

  She smiled, slow and feline. “Neither. I’ll show you.”

  And again she led him through winding corridors, up stairs, and through doorways. They passed through a ballroom, all shining parquet and stretching windows. Around the sides of the room, mats and padding were stacked. More than dancing lessons took place in here.

  Curious, Jonah followed Irene through a final doorway into a small chamber off the ballroom. Probably constructed as a retiring room, it was equipped for sparring, with hanging bags of sand and weighted pulleys and shelves of knuckle wraps and padded gloves. The room was close, smelling of old leather and oil.

  Without a word to Jonah, Irene wrapped her fists with the speed of an expert. “Stand back,” she told him and let a fist fly into a suspended bag of sand the size of a man’s torso. Its chain creaked from the force of her blow.

  Jonah whistled, admiring, but she didn’t seem to notice. Methodically, she battered the bag of sand—throwing deliberate punches with one deceptively slim arm, then the other.

  For a few minutes, he watched her. Watched the anger ebb from her face, replaced by determination. Watched tension replaced by calm. Frustration by action.

  How badly London needed this school, where women could punch the devil out of a bag of sand. The world was lucky they hadn’t turned their fists outward instead, to those who said they were less than, those who pinned down their lives until they were glassed in and suffering.

  “May I join you?” he asked before he even realized he wanted to.

  “Of course.” She didn’t break rhythm as she spoke. A bead of perspiration trickled down her temple; small curls escaped her neat bun.

  So he wrapped his fists as she had and hung a bag a few feet away. With the first blow of his fist, the smaller bag swung in a crazed circle. When it returned, he let fly again. It was satisfying to move, to pound something, to push his body until his lungs drew deep and his biceps burned—then to hit again and again, knowing the only one to limit him was himself.

  He didn’t realize Irene had stopped and was watching him until she asked, “What are you angry about?”

  Blows rained on the sandbag. He wanted a thunderstorm. “I wish every girl could come to a school like this. I wish I’d had a school where I was told I was good enough, just as I was, and allowed to learn instead of being beaten and harassed.”

  She was silent for a moment. “You want to put purses back into pockets too.”

  Sweat trickled onto his brow as he dropped his fists to his sides. “I want to tear the world apart, Irene. I want to tear apart the whole damned world.”

  “I’ll tear it apart with you.” Closing the distance between them, she rose to her toes and pressed her lips to his. It was less a gesture of passion than a vow, and he returned the pressure, hard and furious. His hands were clumsy as he embraced her. Stay.

  She pulled back, looking him in the eye. “Come on a mission with me,” she offered. “I want you to understand why this life is important to me.”

  As if he didn’t know that from every punch, every piece of art, every student. But there was only one answer to give. “When shall we go?”

  “This Saturday.” She knocked her gloved fist into his. “Dress well. I’ll meet you at your house in midafternoon.”

  Chapter Seven

  By the time Jonah returned to the town house, Irene’s latest rescue had already arrived. Jonah found him in the kitchen, a little boy with tangled hair and threadbare clothing, settled at the long servants’ table with a heel of buttered bread and a mug of milk.

  “Young Eli’s second piece,” Mrs. Green, the cook, confided in Jonah. “Looks as if he hasn’t eaten in a week, poor mite. Said he’d business with you and the missus, so I let him stay.”

  A trim, businesslike woman of about fifty years, Mrs. Green’s blue eyes were kind in her weathered face. Jonah suspected Eli would be offered as much bread as his belly could hold.

  “Apparently, Mrs. Chandler offered the boy a job,” Jonah said. “Can you use him in the kitchen?”

  Green looked about the space, clean and bustling with well-choreographed kitchen maids chopping and peeling. “Maybe he could be an errand boy,” she said with some doubt.

  This clearly meant No, but I’ll find something if I must.

  “I’ll speak to the boy,” Jonah replied. “Perhaps he has some skill we could make use of.”

  As Mrs. Green returned to some complicated task with a fowl and a blend of herbs, Jonah slid onto the bench to face Eli across the servants’ table. “I’m told you met my wife earlier. A lady in a dark red dress. She’s lovely, isn’t she?”

  Eli crammed a bite in his mouth and nodded. “Fee faid I could haff a fov or a filling.”

  Jonah interpreted this as an offer of a job or a shilling, filtered through half-chewed bread. “Which will it be, then?” He placed a shilling on the table, sliding it before Eli. “Here’s the money, if you’d like to take it.”

  Eli’s eyes were fixed on the coin. He swallowed mightily. “I could just have the shilling and go?”

  “You could. If that’s what you want.” Jonah left the coin in place, allowing the boy a moment to ponder. “Any of that bread and butter for me, Mrs. Green?”

  “You’ll spoil your good dinner!” The cook shook her head, but nevertheless called to a kitchen maid, who brought over a plate for Jonah. The bread was still warm and soft from the oven, and he tore off a bite with gusto.

  He’d always liked kitchens. They were full of good smells and a fascinating whirl of activity. It occurred to him now that the whirl of activity was punishingly hard work and that the reason he and Eli had the table to themselves was because everyone else was busy with a task.

  In Newmarket, at the stud farm, Jonah would be busy too. He needed more to do with his days in London.

  He needed to take on a few burdens from Irene, just as he’d promised he would. To start, he’d go to Bow Street and hire an investigator to look into this child’s situation. Was he truly an orphan? Was he being mistreated? Would anyone worry if he left his post?

  So Jonah asked, “What’s your family name, Eli?”

  The child gulped milk, then w
iped at his mouth with a grubby sleeve. “I’m always called Street Sweeper.”

  “That’s not your family name. Do you remember what people called your mum? Mrs.…”

  “Oh! Mrs. Button. It were a nice name.”

  “Then you are Eli Button. It is a nice name,” Jonah agreed. “And how old are you?”

  “I’m s’posed to say I’m four so I seem tiny and pitiful.” The child was clearly parroting. “But I’m really six.”

  So young to be on his own. “Will anyone be looking for you if you don’t return to sweeping the street?”

  “Nah.” The sound was all brave bluster, but sorrow flashed over the peaked face. “No one.”

  “Then if you would like to stay here, you could become an errand boy or work in the stable.”

  “A stable? With horses?” The child looked apprehensive.

  “A few, yes. Are you comfortable with them? They’re big creatures. One of them is fifteen hands. That means he’s five feet tall at the withers.” When Eli looked blank, Jonah explained, “That’s the base of the horse’s neck. The point between its shoulders.”

  “Huh.” Eli tipped the mug up, catching the last drops of milk, then looked into its empty depths regretfully. “I only know what comes out of ’em. Not what they act like if they’re not shi—”

  “Come to the stable with me and meet them,” Jonah broke in, mindful of all the listening servants around. “Then you can decide.”

  The boy looked at the shilling on the table, then at Jonah. “I might want to leave.”

  Jonah looked at the shilling too. It winked mischievously in a slant of sunlight—the coin Irene had picked from his pocket, then returned.

  She’d invited him on a mission with her. Saturday, five days from now. Would it pull them together more closely, or prove that they belonged apart?

  Impulsively, Jonah slid the coin closer to the boy. “Take it. Keep it. Whatever you decide, the coin’s yours.”

  Wariness turned to furtive delight, and Eli slipped the coin into a pocket of his worn trousers. “Show me the horses, guv.”

  “Mr. Chandler.” Jonah tried to sound stern. He really knew nothing about children. The last he’d been around, besides his sister Hannah’s drooling baby son, was Hannah herself, four years his junior.

  And Laurie, he supposed, though he’d hardly seen the boy since Saturday.

  Jonah finished his own bread and butter, then shoved back from the servants’ table. “Come on, then, Eli.” He led the boy up the steps from the house’s basement kitchen to the rear yard, through the back gate to face the neat red-brick mews.

  The grooms and coachman lived above the ground floor in small rooms beside the hayloft. On the ground floor, carriages were kept, and horses waited comfortably in their stalls.

  The first partition to come to their eyes was the area in which carriages were stored. Jonah was pleased to note that the landau had been cleaned after dropping Susanna Baird at her place of work. It must be nearly time to fetch her, for a groom carried tack in from the adjoining room—followed by Laurie and the deerhound, Mouse.

  “Hullo,” Jonah greeted the older boy. “I didn’t realize you were out here.” He introduced the two children, explaining, “Eli might work with the horses, if he’s inclined.”

  “Lucky you.” Laurie sounded sincere. “You’ll get to be around the carriages all the time. Have you seen how carriage steps work? They can fold up flat. It’s so clever.”

  As Mouse sniffed Eli’s hands, then nosed at Jonah’s coat pockets, Eli looked up at Laurie. “You look like Mrs. Chandler.”

  “Of course I do. She’s my sister,” Laurie replied patiently. “Do you want to pet the dog?”

  So calmly, Laurie had accepted the upset of his life and the appearance of new people in it. Jonah wondered whether the stoutness was an act for his mother’s benefit, to spare Susanna Baird the worry of further upheaval. What a kind child Laurie was.

  Did he have friends in his former street? Since he and his mother had moved, he’d been left alone most of the time. What would he do with the two months remaining before the fall term at Harton? Jonah would have to find him some project.

  Jonah would have to find himself a project, for that matter, as he had little to do but find a sister he didn’t know how to find. Maybe he could hire a Bow Street Runner to investigate that too. Irene had the drawing of Anne Jones and had promised to investigate, but she was still teaching and had much else to do.

  “—three carriages,” Laurie was saying. “A curricle and a chaise and a landau. They shine with gloss, and the wheel spokes are painted, and…what’s wrong? Don’t you like carriages?”

  “I don’t know.” Eli looked glazed, staring at the vehicles. “Sometimes they roll right over my broom. Sometimes they look like they ’ud crush me.”

  “That’s not the carriage’s fault,” Laurie scoffed. “That’s because of a bad driver.”

  “Very true,” Jonah agreed. “A carriage can only go where it is driven. Laurie, Eli was about to meet the horses. Would you like to come too?”

  “All right. C’mon, Mouse.” Laurie fell into step with Jonah, Mouse and Eli trailing behind as they walked along the ground floor to the stalls.

  Jonah always felt a sense of peace seeing horses in place, their narrow heads and dark, curious eyes peering over their stall doors. They smelled of warm beast and sweet hay and grassy manure.

  “They’re big, aren’t they?” Eli hung back.

  “They are, but they’re tame,” Laurie reassured him.

  “These are, but you should still treat them gently,” said Jonah. “Horses don’t understand all the words you speak. They understand the look in your eye. The tone of your voice. The way you move. It’s a lot harder to fool a horse than it is to fool a person.”

  “Do you treat them gently?” Eli looked dubious. He didn’t trust that a gesture wouldn’t end in a slap, maybe, or that a calm tone would remain so.

  So, for the sake of every living creature within and outside of the stalls, Jonah kept his distance. He made his movements small and his voice low as he talked about horses.

  “Always,” he said. “We must always treat them well, because they work for us. They carry us on their backs and pull our carriages. We owe them good food and warmth and safety.” After a pause, he added, “Everyone at this house deserves that. Person or animal.”

  As Eli mulled this over, Laurie added, “All the horses have names. That bay is Commonwealth. This one’s Scintilla. Jake is the gray one. He’s playful, and he likes radishes.”

  “Horses don’t play. That’s silly,” said the younger boy.

  The child’s protective shell was beginning to crack, Jonah thought. “You see them working when you’re sweeping the streets. When they’re done working, some horses do like to play. They all act different, as people do. Some are friendly and some are shy. Some are worried. And this fellow’s playful.”

  Jake swiveled his ears as if he were trying to follow the conversation. What are you talking about?

  Laurie stroked the gelding’s soft muzzle. “Do you have any radishes for Jake, Uncle Jonah?”

  Uncle Jonah. Laurie hadn’t called him that before, and he enjoyed the sound of it. “I don’t, but Jake also likes his ears scratched.”

  “Scratching a horse’s ears!” Eli laughed, moving close enough—almost—to touch Jake’s curious head. “He’s like a big puppy!”

  “We have one of those too.” Laurie nodded at Mouse, now curled up and dozy on the floor near the warmth of the horses.

  Jonah smiled. “She’s a deerhound. Probably someone’s expensive pet. I’ll keep an ear to the ground in case anyone is looking for her.”

  He wouldn’t listen too hard, though. Already, Mouse seemed at home with them.

  Then Jonah added, “Laurie, take Eli into the kitchen for a bath, will you? Eli, now that you’ve seen the kitchen and the stable block, think about whether you’d like to stay. We could use help in either.”
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br />   “Here’ll be good,” said Eli. “In your fancy stable. I’m a right treat at sweeping up horsesh—”

  “Thank you, Eli,” Jonah cut him off. “That’ll be fine. You can lodge on the floor above with the coachman and grooms.”

  As Laurie hustled Eli back toward the house, Jonah gave Jake a scratch behind the ears. The gelding blinked slowly, with the infinite contentment of an animal that knew only the present moment.

  “You’re awfully comfortable,” Jonah muttered. Jake flicked his ears, then shoved his head forward as if to say, Less talking, more scratching.

  This, at least, was familiar—meeting a horse’s whims. Much else about London was strange to him.

  At the stud farm in Newmarket, the passage of seasons defined the year. Mares growing big with foal, then birthing their spindle-legged babies. Grass greening in spring and drying thin for the winter. Summer fruit and autumn gourds.

  In London, every season was coal-smoky and humid, with people jostling one another at all sides. And Mouse, underfoot, liked to orbit and sniff, then curl up nearby and doze. Deerhounds were apparently either excited or asleep.

  Yet Jonah was beginning to like London, and he hadn’t expected to like it. And it wasn’t only because of Irene. Here, he was a part of something with people. At the stud farm, he could easily get caught up in horses’ needs and forget why he spent his life raising and training them. This was the reason: so that well-mannered animals would do their jobs, whether pulling a carriage or racing their heart out. People and horses needed each other.

  Jonah had grown used to having only horses in his life. Here…here, he had people too. It was strange.

  It was good.

  Laurie, back from the kitchen, interrupted this reverie with a wave. “They’re heating the water for Eli to have a bath in the scullery. He doesn’t want one, but I told him he had to have one so he’d be as clean as the horses. Can we—may we look at the carriages?”

  Before Jonah could reply, Laurie had rushed back to the side of the coachman. Grizzled old Hargreaves handed Laurie a polishing cloth. As Jonah watched, Laurie swept the cloth over the landau’s lacquered wood in careful circles. He took correction from the coachman, asking questions constantly about how the vehicle handled and was cared for.