Shayla Black Read online

  Maddie’s mind whirled as she tried to fight down the terror. “She loves to be outside.”

  With a nod, Brock suggested, “Perhaps Mr. Chiltam took her out for a bit of air. You look in front of the building. I’ll check the stairs and halls here.”

  “Check the water closet as well.”

  At Brock’s nod, Maddie scrambled down the stairs to her task, heart pounding. She prayed all the while that Aimee had not gone far, that she was safe.

  Outside, the bright spring sun assaulted her eyes, momentarily blinding her. Alarm biting into her gut, Maddie shielded her eyes from the glare with an unsteady hand at her brow and scanned the massive building’s walk, the tiny scrap of grass that served as decoration. She saw her horse and a sidewalk full of busy bankers beginning to leave their jobs for the day.

  But she did not see Aimee.

  Hoping Brock had better luck, Maddie turned back to the building, only to find him emerging alone. His grave expression sent Maddie’s fear spiraling.

  “Any sign of Mr. Chiltam, either?” She heard her own voice tremble.

  “No,” he admitted. “Though I cannot imagine where he would have taken her or even if he would have done such a thing.”

  Fear clawed deep lesions into her composure. Sweet heaven! Where could Aimee be? Terrible things could happen to an innocent child in a city as big and depraved as London. What if she was not with Brock’s secretary? What if they could not find her?

  The tears must have belied her panic. “We will find her, Maddie,” Brock assured. “I promise.”

  “But sh-she’s so alone and so vulnerable. Aimee lives in a fairytale world. She trusts ev-everyone. She will be so afraid.” Fear trickled in a cold, relentless stream through her veins. “I’ve heard the terrible things that happen to children in this city. Oh God! They are sold into workhouses, into prostitution—”

  “Maddie, don’t think of that now. Concentrate on finding her,” Brock commanded, his words softened by his firm touch.

  “I’m all she has,” Maddie sobbed, feeling as if her insides were being torn to shreds. “She’s all I have. Please...”

  Tears overtook her. Fear and despair vied to control her. Each took its own merciless chunk from her composure and peace.

  Brock wiped the tears from her face with calloused thumbs and cupped her cheeks in his large hands. “I know, but you must stay calm. It is the only way we can help her.”

  Maddie gave him a shaky nod, but the sharp edge of panic cut her composure again and again. For Aimee’s sake, she took a deep breath and tried to think rationally.

  “Look around you. Try to guess which way she might have gone.”

  Shaking, terrified, she shot him a distraught glare. “If I knew, I would be running after her now!”

  He caressed her shoulder in soothing strokes. “I know you’re frightened. Just look around you; try to imagine what Aimee might do.”

  Tears blurring her vision, Maddie looked up and down Prince’s Street. Think! Think of your little girl!

  Directly across afforded her only a side view of the huge cavern that was The Bank of England. Aimee would not be interested in that. Behind her lay Cheapside, but that way was dark with tall buildings and trees. Out of fear alone, she doubted Aimee would go there. But directly across the street, a statue of Wellington stood proudly, adorned with singing, red-breasted birds. Yes, that might have caught her fancy.

  However, the little girl was nowhere near the monument, just bankers and barristers with starched shirts and indifferent faces heading home.

  With dawning horror, Maddie realized the road fanned out into four lanes beyond that. Throgmorton lay in a northeasterly direction that could lead her to the mean streets of Spitalfields. Cornhill stood almost directly east, winding its way to the hellish depths of Whitechapel. Lombard Street wandered southeasterly before heading back to Whitechapel as well. King William Street slashed south, toward London Bridge and the Thames.

  No! Sweet Aimee was only four years old, lost in a giant city with which she was totally unfamiliar. Anything could happen to her. Anything at all!

  “Maddie?” Brock prompted at her side.

  Knowing she had to be strong, she swiped at her new tears. As she did, she noticed the birds—robins, from the looks of them—on Wellington’s statue take flight, their soft wings guiding them low to the ground. She watched as they followed an invisible path down Cornhill Lane. Maddie sent a prayer upward that her hunch was right.

  “Follow the birds.”

  “What?” He frowned, face belying confusion. Then he saw them too, flying in a seemingly fluent ribbon of red breast feathers not far above their heads. “Oh, she would like that.”

  “Yes.” Maddie nodded, hope stirring. Caution made her hesitate. “Do you think there have been others?”

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Chiltam as he arrived upon the scene from the other side of the street, his brown hair blowing in the wind. “I’ve seen small groups of birds behave in such a fashion for the past week or two. Is something amiss?”

  Brock turned a look of such fury on Mr. Chiltam that the small man took a step back. “Aimee is not with you?”

  “No, sir. She is not.” Chiltam looked confused.

  Maddie’s last hope died and another slash of fear tore through her at the secretary’s words. Dear God, Aimee was truly alone in the descending London night.

  “You left her, damn you! She is missing now.”

  Chiltam pushed his glasses up on his nose in a clearly nervous gesture. “S-she asked to... relieve herself, so I took her down the hall, to the water closet. She said she could find her way back to the office, so I walked across the street to the bank to deliver some papers—”

  “Imbecile!” Brock’s face was the picture of contempt. “Look for her now. Don’t stop until you find her.”

  Brock’s secretary mumbled something, shot a look Maddie’s way but could not quite meet her eyes. Chiltam then headed off in the direction of the river, down King William Street.

  Maddie felt the tears threaten her again. She should have left Aimee at home with Aunt Edith instead of listening to her daughter’s begging to accompany her. She should not have left her alone with a stranger, not even for two minutes. But Mr. Chiltam had seemed so intelligent, and her conversation had been all too inappropriate for Aimee’s ears...

  Excuses, all of them. Not one would bring Aimee back.

  “Come with me,” Brock urged. “We will find her.”

  Stomach twisted tighter than a sailor’s knot, she nodded and followed Brock down Cornhill Lane.

  They walked briskly in the descending dusk, brushing past hurried people. Maddie anxiously scanned the crowd, looking at every face. Brock stopped other bankers who crossed their path to ask if they had seen a wandering girl with swinging blond braids.

  Every man’s answer was no.

  The sky became gray, tinged with the vibrant oranges of dusk. Maddie’s panic escalated. She spoke to a hearty butcher, a withered baker, a crone selling flowers. She asked them all if they’d seen Aimee. None had noticed any child more than another today.

  Dark would be upon them soon. As the continued east, the alleys in this part of town seemed limitless—and dangerous. Aimee might have wandered down one, into trouble. She would be cold soon, scared and hungry. The thought her daughter might really be lost to her made her break down. Hot tears burned her cheeks as Maddie shouted Aimee’s name. The taste of salt and fear invaded her mouth mercilessly.

  Still Maddie trudged forward. The scent of sewage began to assault her nose. As Maddie continued calling for her daughter, a pack of alley cats meowed about her legs for a morsel. Even in the approaching dark, she could see the streets no longer had the shine of prosperity. She stumbled on a man sleeping at the edge of the street, clutching a bottle in his lax fist.

  Was Aimee lost here?

  Brock was at her side instantly, a supporting arm about her shoulder. “Maddie, I know this is hard. Be strong. I promise
that I won’t rest until we find her.”

  She looked up into his solemn green eyes, his strong face. Even through her panic, she realized he truly meant that promise.

  “I won’t give up. I can’t,” she whispered.

  A hack rushed by, horses’ hooves resounding like thunder on the dirt street. It barely missed the people hustling about. Another coach followed minutes later, equally heedless of the choking dust it sent flying or of the surrounding humanity. Mercy, they were so careless! What if one of them hit Aimee? She closed her eyes as fear chewed at her stomach.

  Suddenly, Brock took her by the hand, led her forward, and called with her for Aimee.

  Within minutes, the streets became narrower still. Here in Whitechapel, the stench of hunger and desperation permeated the air. Buildings with little rooms stacked on top of one another seemed to glare with meanness, as did the unwashed people around her. Aimee was at their mercy, and Maddie feared for her baby.

  Cutthroats, pickpockets, and pimps prowled the streets. Laughter and drunken singing spilled from seedy pubs. In the alley, a swaying man urinated against an abandoned building.

  “A shilling for ye. And the missus can watch,” called a painted woman from above.

  Shocked, Maddie glanced up at the open window of a brothel, into the face of a very young whore.

  Kindness had little value here. She feared a little girl’s life had even less. Maddie wanted to believe these people were too engaged to bother hurting a lost child...but feared her thinking was wishful.

  “You’re shaking.” Brock softened his hard features. “Ignore them.”

  “I’m terrified,” she confessed.

  “I know. I’m here.” He wound his arm about her as they moved on.

  After half an hour, Maddie feared they had taken a wrong path, that Aimee had not followed the birds. But luck finally struck when Brock stopped a young seamstress hurrying home.

  “Aye, I saw ‘er, not ten minutes ago. She was cryin’ and callin’ for her mama. Asked her wot was wrong, I did,” said the needle woman. “The lass pure ran off.”

  “Which way did she go?” Maddie pleaded.

  The woman pointed a bony finger straight ahead.

  Brock pressed a coin into the woman’s hand. Maddie thanked her through her tears.

  She and Brock began to run, shouting Aimee’s name. But Maddie became aware of the small streets and alleys again, any of which Aimee might have turned down. They slowed again, checking every dirty crevice. Holding her breath against the awful stench, ignoring the prostitutes conducting business, she called Aimee’s name over and over.

  No answer.

  The last of the vivid colors left the sky as night fell, blanketing the land in black.

  Desperation and denial clawed at Maddie. God, let her baby be safe!

  As they wandered into the heart of Whitechapel, a little girl with a grubby face and lank brown hair passed them, a mismatched batch of candle scraps displayed on a tray suspended by a rope about her little neck.

  “Guv!” she called excitedly to Brock. “Be ye wantin’ more candles?”

  More candles?

  Brock squinted, then recognition dawned. Maddie could not imagine where on earth he would have met the child.

  He knelt at the girl’s feet and took her thin shoulders in his hands. “Molly, I’ve no need for candles tonight, but I need help. Very badly.”

  The young girl nodded solemnly, as if she understood the urgency. Brock explained the situation. “Can you help us find this little girl? I’ll pay you twenty sovereigns if you bring her back to us.”

  Molly’s eyes threatened to come loose from their sockets. “Cor, twenty— What does she look like?”

  Brock gave Molly a brief description of height and hair color, with Maddie interspersing details of her eye color, her voice.

  “She’s wearing a pink woolen dress and black boots,” Maddie added. “Her name is Aimee. She’ll be crying and scared.”

  Molly bowed her head to lift the rope from about her slight neck and dropped her tray of candles in the street. “I’ll round up me friends. We’ll find ‘er right and tight.”

  As Maddie watched Molly scamper off, she prayed the Whitechapel girl could live up to that promise.

  Thinking of the alternative was too frightening.

  For the next two terrifying hours, Maddie and Brock searched the grungy streets of London’s East End. Up busy Whitechapel Road polluted with sewage and vice, down less-traveled Leman Street filled with gin houses and thugs who appeared as if they might kill anyone for a coin.

  Maddie called for Aimee in raw desperation until her throat ached. When her voice grew weak, Brock took over. Maddie could not help but be grateful.

  He stayed at her side without complaint, shouting for the daughter he did not know was his. His voice carried farther, true. But his help meant more. He’d taken control of the situation, enlisting the help of others who knew these dingy streets, children who might think more like Aimee. For once, she even had the twenty sovereigns to pay Molly and her friends should they prove successful, thanks to the sale of the pearls Brock had given her.

  The fearful part of Maddie wanted to blame him for this debacle, but she could not. The look on his face, the strain evident in his frown, the tracks of his fingers through the thick strands of his coffee-colored hair, more than demonstrated his worry.

  For that alone, she welcomed him at her side.

  “How are you?” he turned to her. The very touch of his hands upon her shoulders, gentle, guiding, resonating with concern. He was in this hell with her, beside her every step of the way.

  Part of her wanted to tell Brock the truth about Aimee, here and now. But neither were up to the strain of the truth tonight. It would bring questions and confrontation. Finding Aimee was most important at this moment. She could decide the rest tomorrow when—if—they found their daughter.

  “Let’s get you something to eat. You look as if a stiff wind might blow you over.”

  Maddie shook her head. Despite the fact the time neared nine o’clock, she had not felt the slightest rumble of hunger.

  “Eat if you wish. I must keep looking.”

  With a shrug, Maddie broke away from his tender grip and took a handful of steps into the foggy, moonlit night.

  Brock slipped his hand into hers, staying her. “Maddie, these are not streets you should walk alone.”

  She looked up, around her, at the rows of rickety shanties, their dark windows like bruises. She heard a shrill scream in the distance. The crack of a pistol punctured the sound. Grim silence followed.

  Clearly, Brock was right, but she could not worry about her own safety. In fact, Brock’s warning made her hysteria rise again. “I must keep searching. Aimee is out there alone!”

  “Shhh.” He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “We are doing all we can. If you wish to keep looking, we will. I meant my offer of food to distract you from your worry. I’m sorry.”

  Touched by his apology, his very sentiment, Maddie lifted a hand to his face. Stubbles of whiskers darkened his jaw now. He’d wrenched his cravat away hours ago. Dirt stained his crisp white shirt, attained by searching through countless dark and dismal alleys. Maddie could not consider him the enemy at that moment. He’d become an ally who had lent a hand without hesitation.

  “I’m sorry to be cross,” she whispered. “I’m just so frightened. What if I never see her again? How will I live with the worry that she’s hurt or been taken captive by debauched—”

  “Do not think that now,” Brock broke in, covering her mouth with his hand. “We must think our best thoughts, pray often.”

  Then Brock enfolded her in his embrace, strong and unflinching, and brought her close. She felt his heartbeat, drew in the scents of ink, leather, dirt, and man. He comforted her, somehow made her believe he understood.

  Now she could only hope that all would be well.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Guv!” Molly’s little voice
shouted from down the dark road. “We found ‘er!”

  Breath catching, Maddie whirled from the warm haven of Brock’s embrace and looked toward the voice. Her heart pounded when she caught sight of Molly and four of her ragtag friends. In the middle, Aimee hobbled, holding their hands.

  Relief burst inside Maddie in a well of warmth.

  “Mama!” Aimee shouted, tears in her voice.

  Maddie ran to her baby, eyes hot with salty tears. Joy surged, taking hold of her fear-filled heart and unchaining it. Her feet pounded upon the hard-packed dirt as she drew nearer and nearer to her only sweet child.

  As she reached Aimee, Maddie flung herself to her knees and enveloped the girl in a hug. Aimee trembled, cried, as she clasped her little arms about Maddie’s neck and squeezed as if nothing else mattered. Nothing else did.

  For timeless seconds, no one moved, no one said a word. Maddie felt her happy tears mingle with those of her daughter. Their cries punctuated the night’s silence.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Maddie sobbed. “I worried so much. Are you well?”

  She grasped Aimee’s shoulders and pushed back long enough to look at her daughter’s smudged, dirty face. One of the girl’s braids had come loose. She had scrapes on both knees, but to Maddie, the child had never been a more welcome sight.

  “Mama, I got a hurt ankle and I’m hungry.”

  Maddie frowned. “Your ankle? Which one, sweeting?”

  Aimee held out her left foot. Maddie took the ankle in her hands to examine. It did, indeed, appear swollen. Squeezing it earned her a yelp from the girl.

  “We found ‘er in an alley, all curled up with a kitten and given’ ‘erself a proper cry,” said Molly. “Said she tripped and fell trying to dodge an angry bloke on a horse.”

  The fear of what might have been made Maddie’s heart stop for a moment, but she drew Aimee close again, held her dear baby. She relished the fact that once the girl’s ankle healed, all would be right with her.

  “Thank you,” she said to Molly, feeling a resurgence of tears. “Thank you so much for finding her.”

  Molly scratched her head, looking oddly embarrassed. “Me own mum would be worried fer me too, if I was lost. ‘Tweren’t nothin’ to findin’ her.”