Page 6 of My Fair Lord

Florence gaped and Alfie shrugged.

“It’s how it goes. Come on, miss. Looking for hats, are you? American, aren’t you? My mam was from America. Her mam had been a slave, she had, but my mam was born free and you don’t do that no more. I’d like to go there one day. Save up my passage and start a whole new life in the new world. I’ll be a millionaire by the time I’m twenty.”

Florence looked at the lad. He was thin and his skin had an unhealthy hue. Florence wouldn’t put money on him making it to twenty, never mind making his fortune. She bade him goodbye with a shilling as a tip which he seemed happy with and he skipped off whistling.

She walked into Lewis’ and discovered the two Lady Griggs still deep in discussion with a milliner’s assistant. Her absence had not been noticed and it appeared her reputation was still intact.

ChapterTwo

After two hours taking a nap in the room above the pub, followed by a bowl of scouse, Ned felt sufficiently refreshed and was convinced the coast would be clear. He borrowed a razor from the landlord, shaved himself, and had a cursory wash. He left a couple of shillings at the bar for Alfie’s gin and cautiously left the pub.

He saw no one he recognised as he took the short walk along the waterfront. The pavements in front of the buildings that lined each dock were full of men – and the occasional woman – hoping for work. They clamoured at the gates of warehouses and shipping offices, calling for the opportunity for work the following morning. So many people desperate to make enough to buy bread. Most of them would be disappointed. Despite Ned’s earlier assessment of slave wages, there were many who had no choice but to take the pittance offered.

He wove his way through the crowds, glad that he did not have to join them. He was by no means a rich man, but he wasn’t poor. He didn’t want to contemplate a future where he might be. He dropped his head in case either of the men he was avoiding were in the crowds. The interesting Miss Wakechild thought she had spotted one but the bewhiskered man that she had fixed her attention on had been completely innocent as far as Ned was aware, and she had missed the real pursuers. Still, she would never know that she had been wrong. Letting her feel clever hadn’t done any harm unless she encountered the man at some point and accused him of something.

The director of the White Line Lumber Transportation Company would not normally see a visitor who turned up without an appointment to the office in the Huskisson Building, especially when it was nearing four o’clock.

“I’m afraid it will be completely impossible for you to see Mr Van Hoon,” the overly pomaded clerk at the desk told him.

“This says you’re wrong,” Ned said as he held out a card bearing his initials. “Please take it up.”

He felt a great deal of satisfaction when the clerk returned bearing Ned’s card and sporting an awed expression less than ten minutes later.

“Mr Van Hoon will see you shortly. Please come with me.”

Ned knew the way to the office; however, to spare the young man any further loss of dignity, he immediately fell in behind and allowed himself to be led to the spacious and elegantly decorated office on the fourth floor of the building.

“Thank you, Robbins, I’ll take it from here,” announced Marius Van Hoon himself. Robbins backed out of the room, giving Ned another awed look.

Van Hoon leapt from the chair behind his cluttered desk as soon as the door was shut.

“Good afternoon, Blake. Did you get it?”

No niceties. Barely even a civilised greeting. Ned put his temper in check. It was a measure of how anxious the older man was to hear Ned’s news that his usually faultless manners had been forgotten.

Ned nodded. “I’ve got it.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and once inside the inside pocket, his hand dipped into another pocket, cleverly concealed within a double lining. From this, he retrieved a small package wrapped in a handkerchief, the sort that the pretty Miss Wakechild might to use to dab her eyes when reading a sentimental novel.

On second thought, he couldn’t imagine the forthright young woman he had encountered earlier in the afternoon reading sentimental novels. She would no doubt view them as frivolous. She would possibly devour some improving tracts, or of course the works of Conan Doyle. His thoughts strayed idly back to their adventure through the streets and he smiled at the memory of her determined expression. Right now, she would probably be back with her companions, unable to mask her boredom while they sighed at hats. A pity. He’d have liked to have spent more time in her company.

Van Hoon gave a discreet but deliberate cough and Ned returned to the present matter. He tossed the handkerchief and its contents towards Van Hoon, who snatched it out of the air, reminding Ned of the way his mother’s footstool-shaped chihuahua used to devour a treat tossed from a hand. Van Hoon unfolded the handkerchief and held up the ring it contained.

“Lord be praised,” he said, turning it over from hand to hand. His shoulders dropped a full six inches. “I thank you, my boy. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Oh I’m sure you would have worked something out,” Ned said modestly. “I think this way was probably the most discreet and efficient, however. Fortunately, the fools who I was playing against didn’t realise the value of what they had beyond the monetary.”

They both gazed at the ring in Van Hoon’s palm: two pearls set diagonally from each other in a twisted band of gold. The same ring was conspicuous on Van Hoon’s finger in the large portrait done in oils that hung over the mantelpiece.

Van Hoon’s son had staked it in a game of Brag and lost it. The boy was twenty-six; a couple of years younger than Ned himself. Despite an education at an excellent school where he had mingled with the sons of the aristocracy and businessmen alike, he had failed to pick up any sense of refinement or class. Even if he couldn’t confine his whoring to discreet establishments, he really should have learned by that age not to frequent cheap brothels wearing very expensive and very distinctive heirlooms. The scandal, if it had become known, would have been extremely damaging. It was only Ned’s skill at gambling, combined with a little sleight of hand, that meant he had been able to win it back from the pimp in the brothel.

Van Hoon unlocked the drawer of his desk and put the ring in a small box, then locked it again. He smiled up at Ned.

“Now, how about a whisky?”

“Gladly. Only the good stuff, mind,” Ned said. “I had to drink enough gut rot to get those scoundrels drunk enough that they didn’t notice I played a ten of spades twice.”

“Old Midleton from County Cork. I never drink anything but the good stuff,” Van Hoon announced. He paused in the process of taking the stopper out of a decanter. “I hope you weren’t caused too much trouble?”