‘We’d be delighted to—Ellie,’ Emma replied. ‘How do you find the girls?’
‘Some find me, having heard murmurs about the school on the streets. I also maintain contacts with various houses, whose proprietresses I knew in my former…position. Sometimes, the girls I take in are daughters of working girls who don’t want to follow that life. More often, they are orphans with nowhere to go but the streets.’
‘There are few enough choices for girls, even honest ones who wish to go into service,’ Olivia said. ‘I imagine it’s almost impossible to escape a life on the streets—and eventual prostitution—when you have no resources at all.’
‘Very difficult,’ Ellie agreed.
‘What sort of training do you provide?’ Sara asked.
‘All the girls are taught basic reading, writing and simple maths. The rest of their day is devoted to mastering practical skills that will lead to future employment—needlework, cleaning tasks, cooking. Our goal is enable them to become honest, hard-working members of society, protected by their skills and experience from the threat of ending up back on the streets—or in the brothels.’
‘What inspiring work! How can we help?’ Emma asked.
‘Monetary contributions are always welcome. But if you wished to become personally involved, I would be happy to have you visit the school itself. Having genteel ladies describe to the students the duties domestic servants perform in an aristocratic household, stressing the skills that would impress a housekeeper interviewing them for a position, or make them valuable to their mistress after they are hired, would be very helpful.’
The three friends exchanged another look and a mutual nod. ‘We can certainly pledge to do that,’ Emma said. ‘Perhaps during our visits, we can find other ways to be useful.’
‘I would very much appreciate it,’ Ellie said. ‘But now, I must return to the school.’
‘I’m afraid I am due elsewhere soon as well,’ Lady Maggie said as the ladies all rose. ‘No time for letter writing today! But I will see you Tuesday morning, as usual?’
‘Of course,’ Olivia said. ‘We look forward to it.’
After bidding the others goodbye, the friends descended the front steps to await the hackney a footman had summoned.
‘What obstacles Ellie Lattimar has overcome,’ Olivia said.
‘Temperance told me her father virtually sold her to an older lord to pay off his debts,’ Emma confided.
‘Much as I sometimes feel…unappreciated, at least Mama cared enough to delegate my aunt to look after me,’ Sara said.
‘Imagine, being cast out at sixteen all alone, with nothing to protect you or secure your future but your own wits and determination,’ Olivia said, shaking her head in awe.
Emma seized both her friends’ hands and pressed them. ‘Thank heavens, whatever happens, we will always have each other, no matter how scandalously unconventional we become.’
The hackney arrived and they set off, planning where they would meet at the various upcoming social engagements as they dropped off first Sara in Upper Brook Street and then Olivia at Hanover Square.
After seeing her last friend to her door, Emma descended the stairs back to the street. No reason now to delay returning home—and facing the inevitable, and inevitably unpleasant, encounter with her mother.
Halting in mid-step, Emma surveyed the position of the sun. It was still mid-afternoon, she calculated. Her mother would only now be rising from her bed to drink her morning chocolate—and learn of her exasperating daughter’s latest folly. She probably had another hour or so before she would add tardiness to the tally of faults her mother would bring against her.
Deciding on the moment, she waved away the hackney and set off walking.
A short distance away, having consumed a restorative beefsteak and ale at his club and won a few guineas at cards, Lord Theo descended the steps to St James’s Street in a contemplative mood. The afternoon being mild and sunny, he elected to walk while he thought about the best way to end the liaison with Lady Belinda without having to endure an explosion of tears, pleading, excuses and recriminations.
Dismissing the lady face-to-face might be kinder, but was almost guaranteed to set off the unpleasant encounter he wished to avoid. After his pointed escort of her, unwilling, back to her husband’s box, his coldly furious demeanour sufficient to convince even that volatile lady that he would not tolerate protest, she must know he was at least considering ending their association. Hopefully she wasn’t so confident of her beauty and allure that a bland note and a handsome parting gift would come as a shock.
Resolved to follow that course, he halted his perambulations around Mayfair and walked northwards up Bond Street, intending to get a hackney and go to Rundell and Bridges. He’d just turned on to Oxford Street when, to his surprise, he spotted a well-dressed female walking at a brisk pace in front of him. From her speed and determined gait, he was able even at a distance to identify the lady as Miss Emma Henley.
The happy chance of meeting her twice in one day set him smiling. But even as he picked up his pace to close the distance between them, caution warned that, despite his own and the lady’s disinclination towards marriage, it probably would not be prudent to be seen walking with her outside the park or shopping areas where he might reasonably have encountered her by chance.
He’d halted to heed the voice of self-preservation when he suddenly realised that, once again, Miss Henley appeared to be quite alone. She was on foot, so there couldn’t be a groom trotting somewhere behind her. Concerned, he surreptitiously began walking after her.
After a few more minutes spent trailing her, he had to conclude that there wasn’t a slower-paced maid or a dawdling footman following her, either.
For another few minutes, he debated the wisdom of approaching her. But concern for her safety soon outweighed the possible complication of having to come up with some glib excuse to explain away his presence to any member of society who might chance to spy him escorting her, unchaperoned, so far from her home.
The scene he observed as he drew closer justified that concern. A fat, red-faced fellow in a bulging waistcoat was loitering some distance ahead of Miss Henley, openly gawking as she approached. The man’s blatant scrutiny was definitely making her uneasy, for her pace had slowed and she was darting occasional, surreptitious glances at the man.
Indeed, so preoccupied was she with Greasy Waistcoat that Theo was able to draw quite near with her still unaware of his presence.
‘What, escaped your traces again, Miss Henley?’
Gasping, she whirled to face him. ‘Lord Theo!’ she cried, the alarm in her voice fading as she recognised him. ‘You gave me such a start!’
‘As you did me. I’ve followed for a few streets, enough to confirm, to my astonishment, that you are, in fact, walking without any escort at all. Outriding your groom in the park is one thing. Whatever are you doing in this part of town, bereft of footmen or even a maid to attend you?’
‘Shop girls and housemaids walk everywhere in London without anyone to attend them,’ she responded, aggravation and a touch of defiance in her tone.
‘Shop girls and housemaids are not dressed in a gown of fine silk topped by a fur-trimmed pelisse. In some streets in