The Gentleman Rogue. Margaret McPhee

mystery woman.’

      * * *

      A few hours later, Ned walked alone into the Red Lion Chop-House. Some heads nodded at him, recognising him from the weeks before. Ned felt the usual comfort and ease that sat about the place, felt it as soon as he crossed the parish boundary that divided the East End from the rest of London. The taproom was busy as usual, the tables and rowdy noise of the place spilling out into the alleyway in front. His eyes scanned for Emma, but did not find her.

      The first suspicion stroked when he saw that it was Paulette who came to serve him.

      ‘Your usual, is it?’

      He gave a nod. ‘Emma not in tonight?’

      ‘Thought you might ask that.’ She smiled a saucy knowing look. ‘Emma’s gone. Landed herself some fancy job as a lady’s maid again. An offer she couldn’t refuse apparently, lucky mare. She left a message for you, though. Said to tell you goodbye. That she was real sorry she couldn’t tell you in person. Said she hoped you would understand.’

      He dropped a coin into her hand for passing on the message. ‘Forget the lamb and the porter.’ He didn’t wait.

      There were other chop-houses in Whitechapel. Other serving wenches. But Ned didn’t go to them. Instead he made his way up along Rosemary Lane to Tower Hill and the ancient stone bench beneath the beech trees. And he sat there alone and watched the day shift finish in the docks and the night shift begin. Watched the ships that docked and the ships that sailed. Watched until the sun set in a glorious blaze of fire over the Thames and the daylight faded to dusk and dusk to darkness.

      Had she waited just one week...a single week and how different both their lives would have been.

      Loss and betrayal nagged in his gut. He breathed in the scent of night with the underlying essence of vinegar that always lingered in this place. And he thought of the scent of soap and grilled chops and warm woman.

      He thought of the teasing intelligence in her eyes and the warmth of her smile.

      He thought of the passion between them and the sense that she made his world seem a better place.

      He thought of what might have been, then he let the thoughts go and he crushed the feelings. Emma de Lisle had not waited. And that was that.

      Ned was not a man who allowed himself to be influenced by emotion. He had his destiny. And maybe it was better this way. No distractions, after all.

      He heard the cry of the watch in the distance. Only then did he make his way back across town to the mansion house in Cavendish Square.

      * * *

      Along the Westminster Bridge Road in Lambeth, the evening was fine and warm as Emma and the Dowager Lady Lamerton approached Astley’s Amphitheatre.

      ‘I say, this is really rather exciting,’ her new employer said as they abandoned the carriage to the traffic jam in which it was caught and walked the remaining small distance to the amphitheatre’s entrance.

      ‘It is, indeed.’ It was only Emma’s third day returned to life in London’s high society, albeit at a somewhat lesser level to that she had known, and already she was aware that there was a part of her that had settled so smoothly it was as if she had never been away—and a part that remained in Whitechapel, with her father...and another man.

      She wondered again how her father was managing in his new lodging. Wondered if he was eating. Wondered if Ned Stratham had returned to the Red Lion yet and if Paulette had passed on her message.