Leslie Lafoy Read Online Free Page B

time.
    The wooden steps squeaked as a large woman in a shockingly red, horribly crushed velvet dress descended with deliberate speed and altogether remarkable agility. “You be Lord Ryland?” she asked, coming to a winded stop right in front of him.
    “I am.”
    Shoving the loose knot of gray hair back onto the top of her head, she said, “I’m Essie.”
    “A pleasure to put a face with the name, madam,” he replied with a slight ever-so-genteel bow. “Would you care to step—”
    “Twenty pounds is what we agreed to,” she interrupted, sticking out her hand. “The money first and then you can have the chit.”
    Caroline watched him reach into the pocket of his coat and hand over a small leather bag. “Please feel free to count it if you would like.”
    Essie did, yanking open the drawstring and pouring the coins into her hand. She plucked one up and bit it before looking over her shoulder and nodding. Two burly men in billed caps instantly filled the doorway. Between them, held firmly by the arms, was a glaring bundle of squirming rags. Simone, no doubt.
    Caroline considered her sister. She was small and rail thin and filthy from head to toe. What she lacked in size, though, she made up for in spirit. Somewhere there was a fishmonger in awe of the depth and breadth of Simone’s vulgar vocabulary. The men marched her down the steps, ignoring her efforts to twist out of their grasp, and planted her between Essie and Lord Ryland.
    Caroline leaned forward, trying—unsuccessfully—to see Simone in the knot of much larger bodies.
    “This is the man that bought you,” she heard Essie say harshly. “Don’t make no problems for him, or you’ll be coming right back here and I ain’t gonna be happy to see you. Understand what I’m telling you?”
    She couldn’t see or hear Simone’s response, but Lord Ryland’s was immediate and swift. He turned with Simone’s upper arm firmly in one hand as he reached out and wrenched open the carriage door with the other. In the next second, Simone’s trouser-clad bottom was on Caroline’s seat and sliding toward her.
    The smell was beyond horrible—a combination of sewage and rotting garbage and heavy smoke. Gaspingwas the instinctive reaction, but most definitely the wrong one. Her stomach heaving, Caroline quickly and quietly expelled the breath and tried not to sag in relief as Simone recovered her balance, scrambled to the far end of the seat, and packed herself into the corner of the carriage.
    Lord Ryland pulled the door closed and barked a command to his driver in the same second. In the next, the carriage shot forward, its sudden momentum making his effort to get onto his own seat a bit less than graceful.
    Simone’s chuckle drew Caroline’s attention back to her. The stench was still strong, but the desperate bravado in the dark eyes peering out through an unruly, greasy mop of black curls was heart-wrenching. As Simone’s gaze darted warily between her and Lord Ryland, Caroline summoned a smile and resolved to do what she could to put the child at ease.
    “Hello,” she said gently. “My name is Caroline. I’m your half-sister.”
    Simone raked the back of her right hand under her nose, sniffed, and announced, “I don’t got no sisters.”
    “I believed the same thing until an hour or so ago,” Caroline offered. “Until Lord Ryland informed me otherwise.”
    Her gaze snapped to the man in the opposite seat and her eyes narrowed. “I ain’t no whore.”
    “You cannot know,” he said dryly, “how very relieved I am to hear that bit of information.”
    “You even look like you wanna touch me, I’ll rip your balls off.”
    He blinked. “Good God.”
    Well, if nothing else, Caroline decided, hiding a wide smile behind her hand,
she
had to look like a highly cultured princess compared to Simone. At his glare, shemanaged to sober enough to ask, “You didn’t explain the true circumstances to dear Essie, did you?”
    His brow inched upward.