In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) Read Free Page B

their own South African countrymen. As special cruel punishment, those wives and children whose husbands and fathers were still fighting received smaller rations than the others. If the families didn’t starve to death first, then measles, typhoid, and dysentery finished the job.
    There were times when Charles wished he’d lost vision in both eyes to save witnessing the devastation.
    South Africa was the real world, its heat and blood pulsing up through the cracked earth; England was just a flimsy false stage set, populated by those who had no idea what their heroes were capable of. He’d be in the footlights soon himself, playing a role before his curtain dropped.
    Damn, but he was hungry. Not as hungry as the doomed Boer women must have been, but it was best he not dwell on the past anymore. Maximillian Norwich would not care about slaughter and death—there was no such thing in his elevated existence.
His
life was all about his silly heiress and her shiny motorcar, champagne, and caviar.
    Charles stumbled on a bolt of cloth. Blast. In Mrs. Evensong’s rush to remove and improve him yesterday, he’d had left his journals under the floorboards of his room at the boarding house. Mrs. Jarvis had probably lined up a new tenant already—the woman would not let an opportunity go by to make more money, even though he’d paid the rent through to the new year. He wouldn’t miss the grime or smells, but he really would miss his journals.
    His family would understand once they read them.
    He turned to Mrs. Evensong, who was examining a figured maroon waistcoat as though she’d discovered the Holy Grail. What an odd woman she was. “I have to go.”
    She looked up, frowning. It was hard to see her eyes beneath the gray-tinted spectacles, but he’d bet they were shrewd. “Why? Where are you going?”
    “I forgot something at my old lodging. Don’t worry. I’m not going to the corner pub. I gave you my word.”
    “Yes, you did, and I expect you to keep it. Very well, Captain. You’ll return to Mount Street once you’re done?”
    “Of course. I don’t suppose that cook of yours can fix me a sandwich?”
    “We can do much better than that,” Mrs. Evensong said smugly. “Don’t be too long. I’m expecting Miss Stratton to stop by this afternoon.”
    Damn. He really wasn’t ready to meet his “wife.” But if clothes made the man, he was presentable enough. Mr. Smythe helped him into a charcoal tweed overcoat to guard against the wind and handed him a top hat. It had already been decided that his bespoke clothes and extra hats would be monogrammed and inscribed with his new name or initials and ready by tomorrow morning. Mrs. Evensong thought of everything.
    Charles hailed a hansom cab with the money she had advanced him—not quite enough to get in trouble with, but certainly adequate to get to a less desirable part of town and back. His ex-landlady, Mrs. Jarvis, pretended at first not to recognize him, and he had to drop a few of his ill-gotten gains in her grubby hand before she let him into his old room, dogging him like a terrier. Did she think he’d steal the broken curtain rod? She watched as he pulled up a warped floorboard and retrieved the marble pasteboard journals.
    “What are them books?” she asked.
    “My history, Mrs. Jarvis—every battle and wound and woman. It will make for fascinating reading on a cold winter’s night.” He imagined his brothers turning the pages once he was gone, forgiving him a little between his words and the money he would leave them. Tom and Fred would understand. They had to.
    Suddenly the old building shook from an explosion below on the street. Without thinking, Charles tackled Mrs. Jarvis and rolled onto the floor with her, shielding her scrawny body with his.
    “Get your paws off me, you looby,” she shrieked, struggling under him.
    His response had been instinctive. Mortars. Grenades. But there could not be shells falling in the middle of the old neighborhood,