Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Helen as your lackey?” Matilda interjected. The Goose made a very fine cobbler. She’d forgotten that.
    “For two weeks,” Mr. Fenwick said. “My needs are modest, Helen knows the neighborhood, and she can use the wage.”
    “You’d
pay
me?”
    Helen’s consternation tore at Matilda’s heart and woke up her distrust. “I cannot condone an arrangement which puts a little girl into
    the direct employ of a man about whom I know next to nothing.” Terrible things happened to children loose on London’s streets. Things Matilda
    could not have comprehended at Helen’s age, things Helen had probably witnessed firsthand.
    Mr. Fenwick put a serving of cobbler down before Matilda. “We are strangers, true. What would you like to know about me, Mrs. Bryce?”
    The second serving he set before Helen, who at least recalled to put her linen back on her lap before she picked up her fork. Matilda tried to impart some
    manners on the rare occasions when Helen came by for a meal, but etiquette stood no chance against a ravenous belly.
    Matilda took a bite of spicy, fruity delight while she considered Mr. Fenwick’s question. The cobbler needed to be a bit warmer and slathered in
    cream to be truly exquisite, but it was very good nonetheless.
    “I want to know that you are honorable,” Matilda said. “You appear without character references, so I don’t see how we’re to
    establish your trustworthiness. I can demand your coin before you set foot in my house, but Helen’s safety is less easily guarded.”
    “I love cobbler,” Helen said. “He doesn’t have to pay me. Just let me eat cobbler every day.”
    “Wee Helen, if I feed you cobbler, how will you buy a new cap when somebody snatches that fine bit of millinery from your head?”
    “I’ll snatch it back.”
    Mr. Fenwick plucked the cap from the girl’s head again, and this time she smiled. “You’re very quick, sir. I could show you how to pick
    pockets, if you like.”
    He plopped the hat down on her head. “Wages, my child. Cash in hand, coin of the realm. That’s how you want to be paid. All else is dross, and
    be mindful of Mrs. Bryce’s example. I’m to pay her first, and when she’s seen my coin, then and only then will I have what I need in
    return.”
    Helen was perilously pretty when she smiled. Better for her if she were homely and pockmarked. In a very few years, her beauty would become a liability,
    unless Matilda could make a parlor maid, or a—
    Inspiration struck. “What if I raised your rent to cover Helen’s services?” Matilda asked. “She’d be answerable to me, but
    available to fetch your horse, tend your boots, and buy your meals?”
    “You’d give her a bed in the attics?” Mr. Fenwick asked as Helen slurped up her cobbler. “Breakfast, laundry services?”
    “Mrs. B can’t do my laundry ’cause these are my only clothes. I stole ’em off a clothesline, and they still fit me.” 
    “She’s determined to get herself hanged,” Matilda muttered. “I try, but her older sister undermines my efforts.”
    Helen’s head came up. “Don’t you say nuffink bad about my Sissy.”
    “If today is any example,” Mr. Fenwick said, “Sissy is no better at crime than you are, and that is a compliment. How much to hire Helen
    as my general factotum?”
    The arrangement was unusual. Little girls didn’t sport about in trousers and work for gentleman lodgers. And yet, those trousers had probably yielded
    Helen more security and well-being than Matilda’s occasional bowl of porridge had.
    Matilda named a sum—a fortune by Helen’s standards, a pittance compared to what many earned in service to a great house.
    “Done,” Mr. Fenwick said, rising. “Helen, you’ll need a name I can call you in public. Hector, I think. It suits you. You will take
    this cobbler to your sister, explain where she can find you for the next two weeks and that you’ll be biding in Mrs. Bryce’s house. You will
    report to my quarters two hours