Inherited as the Gentleman's Bride
Автор
Carol Arens
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HarlequinPrologue
‘I left Dollie on the park bench,’ Elizabeth said, tugging on her aunt’s sleeve.
When she got no response, she looked up at her uncle and told him the same.
Why had they brought her to London if all they wanted to do was speak to other grown-ups? They chatted happily with two people Elizabeth did not even know and all the while Dollie was abandoned on the bench where she might be snatched away by another child.
Elizabeth could see the bench from where she stood. At eight years old she was capable of fetching her doll by herself.
‘I am going to get Dollie,’ she said, but because they were so caught up in speaking to the strangers, she doubted her aunt or uncle heard her.
Hurrying towards the bench, she felt a little scared. She was not used to so many people and all of them strangers. Back home at the farm there were only neighbours. She had never really met anyone she had not known all her life.
But she was a brave girl, so when the crowds closed around her she did not hesitate to run along the path towards poor Dollie, all alone on the bench and her rag legs dangling off the edge.
Snatching the doll up, she gave a great sigh of relief. She would be back with Auntie and Uncle before they even knew she had ventured away on her own. But then, glancing about, all she saw was the path crowded with people. She turned in a circle. Whichever way she looked she saw skirts and trousers shifting and blocking her view of where she had been.
But, oh, my...where had she been? Had she come from this way or that? Clutching Dollie to her heart, she walked the way she thought was right, calling for Aunt Mary and Uncle James. Conversations went on above her head and no one paid her any mind.
At first, that was. And then a big, heavy hand clamped down upon her shoulder.
‘Uncle James!’ In her profound relief she nearly dropped Dollie.
But then she looked up and it was not Uncle James, but a stranger.
‘Come with me, little girl. I know where your uncle is, and I will take you to him.’
She might have been only eight years old and never met a proper stranger before, but something told her this one was not to be trusted, that he was not a gentleman with a child’s best interests at heart.
It could be the sight of his beak-like nose or his missing teeth that made her distrust him. But he was also missing several buttons on his coat and an odd smell came from his stained shirt.
Staring up, she knew she must run from him, he was a bad man and he did not know her uncle at all. She tried to scream, but her voice made no sound. But she was brave, and she was eight, so she nodded to make the ugly fellow think she was going with him.
When his fingers relaxed a tiny bit, she yanked out of his hold and dashed away. She ran as hard and as fast as she could, then turned down a quiet, narrow alley. There were barrels stacked near a wall, so she ducked behind them, huddled into herself and shivered. Heavy footsteps ran past her hiding place.
‘Hey, you!’ someone shouted. ‘What are you about?’
Everything was quiet for a long time after that. But still, she did not dare to even breathe. The kidnapper might come back and find her. And the man who had shouted at her pursuer might be just as wicked.
She waited, waited and waited, shivering and weeping because she was convinced she was so lost that she was never going to see her aunt and uncle again.
They would think she disappeared, just like her father had. She did not remember her father or her mother. She had been a baby when Mother died and Father vanished a few days later.
Aunt Mary and Uncle James would think she’d simply puffed away the same way as her father had.
She had overheard Aunt Mary speaking to Uncle James about Father one day when they did not realise that she could hear them. Father had been gone for so long and they thought it was time to stop hoping he would return, to accept what the constable had told Aunt Mary years ago, that the man who had been found in the Thames a week after Father disappeared was probably him...but of course no one could be sure.
Even though she did not know her papa, she’d cried and cried when she heard that. Even if he had not fallen in the river, something scary had happened to him.
The alley started to grow dark with evening coming on. Fog crept along the cobbles, making everything look milky. Things that had been solid and ordinary now looked vaporous...and creepy.
Perhaps this was how Papa had disappeared? Perhaps a fog had swallowed him? If it had, where had it taken him? To the river maybe.
Hugging Dollie tight, she wiped her eyes. Perhaps she ought to come out from her hiding place and ask for help. But, no. It was now fully dark and there might be other bad men creeping around. She shivered, wondering if, just like Father, no one would ever know what had happened to her and Dollie, either.
There was a lamppost shinning at the end of the alley. It sent a bit of light to the awful dark, which ought to be a comfort. But in the fog it only looked ghostly...as if the spirits of the disappeared wandered in the mist. Perhaps Papa was in the mist...
She had to clamp her hand over her mouth because, all of a sudden, footsteps sounded on the cobbles, heading her way. The long, watery shadow of a man, or an evil spirit, was cast on the brick wall behind her. The shadow shifted and swayed just over her head.
It moaned. She was certain it did. Oh, it had to be a spirit because how was a man to cast a shadow in the fog?
Her heart was beating too hard...her breathing came in gasps and was far too loud. The creature was bound to hear her. Any instant she would be joining her father in the mist. The thought might be a comfort except that she would not know her papa, even coming face to face with him. Encountering anyone in the fog was too terrifying to consider for even half a second. And yet terrifying images would not let go of her.
Then she heard other footsteps in the ally. A woman laughed in an odd way and then the shadow faded away. As far as she could tell whatever had cast it was walking away with the woman.
Elizabeth started to shake, whether, in relief that the shadow had not been supernatural, or from the cold—she did not know which. Even shivering, she reminded herself she was safe now. Morning would come and her uncle and aunt would find her.
And then she heard a noise...the skitter-scatter of tiny feet. Peeking out from behind the barrels, she saw rats darting across the cobbles. Fog hid and then revealed them. It was impossible to judge how many there were. Dozens, perhaps, and now three of the dirty beasts were exploring the hem of her dress. She threw her doll at them.
To her complete horror, one of them bit Dollie’s apron and dragged her off. Four more went after Dollie, their eyes catching the milky lamplight and making them glow red.
She ought to go after her doll, but she was too scared to do anything but watch across the alley while the rats nibbled Dollie’s pretty blue-satin shoes. Perhaps...oh, dear, even her thoughts were shivering...but perhaps this was how Father had disappeared...devoured by rats...
