Chasing Eliza Read Online Free

be fit for purpose by the time I’m through
with you. It’s either them or me, or the streets. Take your
pick.”
    Eliza swallowed against the lump in her throat and wondered
if she was going to lose the contents of her nearly empty stomach
all over his boots. It would serve him
right if she did . She thought to herself
as she stared at him blankly. His orders given, Bernard clearly
considered the subject dropped and returned to work, disappearing
down into the cellar with a grunt.
    In the
silence of the room, Eliza fought to choke down a sob and took a
moment to steady her nerves.
    That was
it then, she had no choice now. She had to leave but where could
she go? Jemima had vanished and was God only knew where. Her father
was dead and without the pay Bernard owed her, she had no money to
live off. She simply could not leave until she had the wages that
were rightly hers.
    But to
get hold of the money from Bernard’s desk, she needed to remain at
the tap until it had closed, then she could leave in the night
without risk of being caught. Given the part of the city the tap
was located in, it was incredibly risky for any woman to be out on
the streets but she really had no other choice.
    Unfortunately that left her with a problem of how to get
through the rest of the evening without meeting the clients Bernard
intended to send up. She simply was not going to become one of
Bernard’s working girls. She had not been paid anything since her
arrival; the food she had been given was meagre at best and the
work endless and exhausting. But the girls upstairs were in an even
worse position.
    Her
thoughts briefly turned to the man in the corner of the tap room
but she immediately dismissed the possibility of seeking his help.
He could be working for Scraggan, and couldn’t be trusted. If he
wasn’t one of Scraggan’s cohorts, he was clearly gentry and he
wanted Jemima, not her. No matter how handsomely menacing he was,
she couldn’t expect a stranger to step in and help her.
    She
staggered out of the room, her eyes blank with horror as the
reality of her current predicament dawned on her. Having issued his
orders, Bernard clearly wasn’t expecting her to go back to serving
in the tap room – it was enough to buy her the time to collect her
few meagre belongings. She was lost in thought, trying to figure
out how to get out of the tavern without being seen preferably
before Bernard sent up her first ‘client’, and didn’t notice the
man dressed in black move silently into the room she had just left
and quietly close the door.
    Edwards
temper burned. It had taken every ounce of self control he
possessed to stand back and allow the events in the office to
unfold. A surge of unfamiliar masculine possessiveness had swept
through him as he had watched the big man maul Eliza. The hand that
had grabbed at her breast was enough for Edward who himself had
slammed the door with more force than was necessary.
    He had
stood in the protection of the shadows and watched Eliza take
advantage of the respite she had been given and was intensely proud
of her for her fortitude and quick thinking in kneeing the man.
Edward himself could think of a lot worse things to do to him. The
look of horror on her face as she left the room increased his
unfamiliar protectiveness towards her. While he had breath in his
body, Eliza was not going to be whoring herself, especially to the
patrons at this hell-hole.
    With a
glint of retribution in his eye, Edward carefully closed the door
and waited for the lecherous Bernard to reappear.
     
    Desperation clawed at her as she stumbled upstairs, shaken
and terrified. She ignored the catcalls and lewd suggestions from
the tap room’s occupants that followed her and quickly slammed the
door to her room behind her, blocking out the mocking laughter.
Unfortunately it didn’t have a lock – Bernard refused to allow
them, so she knew the risks were still very real.
    Her
stomach quivered in fear as she frantically