Dreaming of You Read Online Free Page B

want to talk about himself.”
    “Is there anything you could tell me about him?” She sipped her tea and watched the factotum hopefully.
    “He’s not easy to describe. Derek Craven is by far the most complicated individual I’ve ever met. He is capable of kindness, but…” Worthy drank some brandy and contemplated the rich amber depths in the glass. “I’m afraid that all too often Mr. Craven reveals himself as a man of ruined potential. He comes from a world more savage than you could begin to comprehend, Miss Fielding. All he knows about his mother was that she was a prostitute who worked at Tiger Bay, a dockland street where sailors and criminals go to be serviced. She gave birth to him in a drainpipe and abandoned him there. Some of the other harlots took pity on the infant and sheltered him for the first part of his life in local brothels and flash houses.”
    “Oh, Mr. Worthy,” Sara said in a strangled voice. “How dreadful for a child to be exposed to such things.”
    “He began to work at five or six years of age as a climbing boy for a chimney sweep. When he became too old to climb, he resorted to begging, thievery, dock labor…There is a period of a few years which he will not speak of at all, as if it never existed. I don’t know what he did at that time…nor do I wish to know. Somehow in the midst of it all he gained a rudimentary understanding of letters and numbers. By his teens he had educated himself enough to become a Newmarket bookmaker. According to him, it was at that time that he conceived the idea of operating his own gambling club someday.”
    “What remarkable ambition for a boy with such origins.”
    Worthy nodded. “It would have been an extraordinary achievement for him to build a small den in the city. Instead, he dreamed of creating a club so exclusive that the most powerful men in the world would clamor to be allowed membership.”
    “And that’s precisely what he’s done,” she marveled.
    “Yes. He was born without a shilling to his name…” Worthy paused. “He was born without a name, as a matter of fact. Now he is wealthier than most of the gentry that patronizes his club. No one is really aware of how much Mr. Craven owns. Landed estates, houses, streets lined with rent-paying shops and tenants, private art collections, yachts, race-horses…it’s astounding. And he keeps track of every farthing.”
    “What is his goal? What does he ultimately want?”
    Worthy smiled faintly. “I can tell you in a word. More. He’s never satisfied.” Seeing that she had finished her tea, he inquired if she wanted another cup.
    Sara shook her head. The brandy, the firelight, andWorthy’s calm voice had all combined to make her drowsy. “I must leave now.”
    “I’ll have a carriage brought around.”
    “No, no, the Goodmans live a short distance from here. I shall go on foot.”
    “Nonsense,” the factotum interrupted firmly. “It is ill-advised for a lady to go anywhere on foot, especially at this time of night. What happened to Mr. Craven is an example of the dangers that could befall you.” They both stood up. Worthy was about to say something else, but his words died away, and he stared at her oddly. Most of Sara’s hair had fallen from its pins to her shoulders, the red glow of firelight dancing over the chestnut waves. There was something oddly moving about her quaint, old-fashioned prettiness, which would easily be passed over in this day when more exotic beauty was preferred.
    “There’s something almost otherworldly about you…” Worthy murmured, quite forgetting himself. “It has been too long since I’ve seen such innocence in a woman’s face.”
    “Innocent?” Sara shook her head and laughed. “Oh, Mr. Worthy, I know all about vice and sin—”
    “But you’ve been untouched by it.”
    Sara chewed her lip pensively. “Nothing ever seems to happen in Greenwood Corners,” she admitted, “I’m always writing about the things other people do.