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And she knew he knew that Tom had not come in again, that there was no one to see her home.
Ned looked at her with eyes that made no pretence as to the man he was, with eyes that made her resolutions weaken.
‘Emma!’ Nancy’s voice bellowed.
‘It is not your duty to see me home.’
‘It is not,’ he agreed.
As their gazes held in a strange contest of wills, they both knew it was already decided. Ned Stratham was not going to let her take her chances with a kitchen knife through the Whitechapel streets tonight.
‘Get yourself over here, Emma!’ Nancy sounded as if she were losing what little patience she possessed.
Ned did walk her home. And he did kiss her. And she gave up pretending to herself that she did not want it or him.
* * *
He came to the Red Lion every night after that, even when Tom had returned. And every night he walked her home. And every night he kissed her.
* * *
Ned tumbled the token over his fingers and leaned his spine back against the old lichen-stained stone seat. St Olave’s church clock chimed ten. Down the hill at the London Docks the early shift had started five hours ago.
The sky was a cloudless blue. The worn stone was warm beneath his thighs. His hat sat on the bench by his side and he could feel a breeze stir through his hair. His usual perch. His usual view.
His thoughts drifted to the previous night and Emma de Lisle. Two weeks of walking with her and he could not get her out of his head. Not those dark eyes or that sharp mind. She could hold her own with him. She had her secrets as much as he. A lady’s maid who had no wish to discuss her dismissal or her background. She was proud and determined and resourceful. There weren’t many women in Whitechapel like her. There weren’t any women like her. Not that he had known across a lifetime and he had seen about as much of Whitechapel as it was possible to see.
Life had not worn her down or sapped her energy. She had a confidence and a bearing about her comparable with those who came from a lifetime of wealth. She had learnt well from her mistress. A woman like Emma de Lisle would be an asset to any man in any walk of life; it was a thought that grew stronger with the passing days.
And he wanted her. Ned, who did not give in to wants and desires. He wanted her with a passion. And he was spending his nights and too many of his days imagining what it would be like to unlace that tight red dress from her body, to bare her and lay her down on his bed. Ned suppressed the thoughts. He was focused. He was disciplined. He kept to the plan. It was what had brought him this far.
The plan had never involved a woman like her. The plan had been for someone quite different. But she was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a clammy day. She was Whitechapel, the same as him, but with vision that encompassed a bigger view. She had tasted the world on the other side of London. He had a feeling she would understand what it was he was doing, an instinct that she would feel the same about it as he did. And part of being successful was knowing when to be stubborn and stick to the letter of the plan and when to be flexible.
His gaze shifted.
The old vinegar manufactory across the road lay derelict. Pigeons and seagulls vied for supremacy on the hole-ridden roof. Weeds grew from the crumbling walls.
Tower Hill lay at his back. And above his head the canopy of green splayed beech leaves provided a dapple shelter. He could hear the breeze brush through the leaves, a whisper beside the noises that carried up the hill from the London Docks; the rhythmic strike of hammers, the creak and thud of crates being moved and dropped, the squeak of hoists and clatter of chains, the clopping of work horses and rumbling of carts.
A man might live a lifetime and never meet a woman like Emma de Lisle.
Ned’s fingers toyed with the ivory token as he watched the men moving about in the dockyard below, men he had known all of his life, men who were friends, or at least had been not so very long ago, unloading the docked ship.
Footsteps drew his attention. He glanced up the street and recognised the woman immediately, despite the fact she was not wearing the figure-hugging red dress, but a respectable sprig muslin and green shawl, and a faded straw bonnet with a green ribbon hid her hair and most of her face. Emma de Lisle; as if summoned by the vision in his head. She faltered when she saw him as if contemplating turning back and walking away.
He slipped the token into his waistcoat pocket and got to his feet.
She resumed her progress. Paused just before she reached him, keeping a respectable distance between them.
‘Ned.’
Last night’s passion whispered and wound between them.
He gave a nod of acknowledgement.
Once, many years ago, he had seen a honeycomb dripping rich and sweet with golden honey. In this clear, pure daylight her eyes were the same colour, not dark and mysterious as in the Red Lion.
Their gazes held for a moment, the echoes of last night rippling like a returning tide.
‘It seems that destiny has set you in my path again, Ned Stratham. Or I, in yours.’
‘And who are we to argue with destiny?’
They looked at one another for the first time in daylight.
The road she was walking led from only one place. ‘You have come from the dockyard.’
‘My father works there. I was delivering him some bread and cheese.’
‘He has a considerate daughter.’
‘Not really. He worked late last night and started early this morning.’
But she had worked late last night, too, and no doubt started early this morning. A shadow that moved across her eyes and a little line of worry etched between them. ‘Delivering his breakfast is the least I can do. He has a quarter-hour break at—’
‘Half past nine,’ he finished.
She lifted her eyebrows in unspoken question.
‘I used to work on the docks.’
‘And now?’
‘And now, I do not. Cards and chest,’ he said.
She laughed and the relaxed fascination he felt for her grew stronger.
‘Five o’clock start. Your father will be done by four.’
‘If only.’ She frowned again at the mention of her father. Twice in five minutes; Ned had never seen her look worried, even on the night when she had thought herself alone facing the two sailors in the alleyway. ‘He is on a double shift in the warehouse.’
‘Good money, but tiring.’
‘Very tiring.’ She glanced down the hill at the dockyard with sombre eyes. ‘It is hard work for a man of his age who is not used to manual labour.’
‘What did he do before manual labour?’
She gave no obvious sign or reaction, only stood still as a statue, but her stillness betrayed that she had not meant to let the fact slip.
Her gaze remained on the dockyard. ‘Not manual labour,’ she said in a parody of his answer to her earlier question. She glanced round at him then, still and calm, but in her eyes were both defence and challenge. Her smile was sudden and warm, deflecting almost. ‘I worry over my father, that is all. The work is hard and he is not a young man.’
‘I still know a few folk in the dockyard. I could have a word. See if there are any easier jobs going.’
The silence was like the quiet rustle of silk in the air.
‘You would do that?’
‘There might be nothing, but I’ll ask.’ But there would be something. He would make sure of it. ‘If you wish.’
He could see what she was thinking.
‘No strings attached,’ he clarified.
Emma’s eyes studied his. Looking at him, really looking at him, like no woman had ever looked before. As if she could see through his skin to his heart, to his very soul, to everything that he was. ‘I wish it very much,’ she said.
He gave a nod.
There was a pause before she said, ‘My father is an educated man. He can read and write and is proficient with arithmetic and mathematics, indeed, anything to do with numbers.’
‘A man with book learning.’
She nodded. ‘Although I’m not sure if that would be of any use in a dockyard.’
‘You would be surprised.’
They stood in silence, both watching the dockworkers unloading the ship, yet her attention was as much on him as his was on her.
‘Whatever you do for a living, Ned, whatever illicit activity you might be involved in...if you can help my father...’
‘You think I’m a rogue...’ He raised his brow. ‘Do I look a rogue?’
Her gaze dropped pointedly to the front of his shirt before coming back up to his face. It lingered on his scarred eyebrow before finally moving to his eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
‘My Mayfair shirt.’
‘And the eyebrow,’ she added.
‘What’s wrong with the eyebrow?’
‘It does give you a certain roguish appearance.’
He smiled at that.
And she did, too.
‘And if I am a rogue?’
She glanced away, gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders. ‘It would not affect how I judge you.’
‘How do you judge me, Emma?’
She slid a sideways glance at him. ‘Cards and chest, Ned.’
He laughed.
‘I should go and leave you to your contemplation.’
They looked at one another, the smile still in her sunlit eyes.
‘Join me,’ he said, yielding for once in his life to impulse. His eyes dared hers to accept.
He saw her gaze move to his scarred eyebrow again, almost caressingly.
He crooked it in a deliberate wicked gesture.
She smiled. ‘Very well, but for a few moments only.’ She smoothed her skirt to take a seat on the bench.
He sat down by her side.
A bee droned. From the branches overhead a blackbird sang.
Emma’s eyes moved from the dockyards to the derelict factory, then over the worn and pitted surface of the road mosaicked with flattened manure, and all the way along to the midden heap at its far end.
‘Why here?’ she asked.
‘I grew up here. It reminds me of my childhood.’
‘A tough neighbourhood.’
‘Not for the faint of heart,’ he said. ‘Children are not children for long round here.’
‘Indeed, they are not.’
There was a small silence while they both mused on that. And then let it go, eased by the peace of the morning and the place.
‘It is a beautiful view,’ she said.
Ned glanced round at her, wondering whether she was being ironic. ‘Men in gainful employment are always a beautiful sight,’ he said gravely.
‘I was not thinking in those terms.’ She smiled. ‘It reminds me of a Canaletto painting.’ Her eyes moved to the old manufactory. ‘It has the same ruined glory as some of his buildings. The same shade of stone.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen a Canaletto painting.’
‘I think you would like them.’
‘I think maybe I would.’
