The Dollar Prince's Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

catered for. Hoskyns, shrugging his shoulders and mentally damning the demanding nature of the powerful in his world, did what Sir Ratcliffe bid him.
    Cobie heaved a great sigh and straightened up when he found himself alone again. He turned towards the wardrobe, called up softly to the waiting child, ‘Little ’un, put out a hand, and I’ll try to get you down and away from here.’
    It took some manoeuvring before she was beside him in the hall again; it was much harder to get her safely to the ground than it had been to throw her up.
    Once down, the child seized his hand and covered it with kisses. ‘Oh, thankee, mister, thankee, for saving me.’
    â€˜Not saved yet,’ said Cobie shortly. ‘Thank me when you are. We can’t leave by the easiest way, we might meet Hoskyns coming back. Now, how strong are you?’
    â€˜As strong as you want me to be, mister,’ she said fervently. ‘Only, I ain’t got nowhere to go, that’s all. It were me stepdad what sold me to this place.’
    Cobie, wondering what further disgraceful revelations the night held for him, threw back his cape, and asked, ‘If I lifted you up, and sat you with your legs around my waist and your arms around my chest and your head on it, and I arranged my cape around us like so, could you stay there, quiet like a mouse, while I walk us both out of this miserable pigsty?’
    She nodded vigorously, and as speedily as he could, he hid her beneath the voluminous folds of his cape. She clutched him in a grip as strong as death. He was grateful that he wasn’t wearing his usual overcoat, but had decided to play the dandy on his first night alone, out on the town.
    Finding the way back to the entrance wasn’t difficult. He made idle chat with the gorgon, and left her a large tip so that she might contemptuously think him yet one more American visitor with more money than sense.
    He used his good left hand to take his top hat and scarf, keeping his right hand and arm inside the cloak to steady the girl, once again grateful to the fate which had made him ambidextrous. This time his unusual skill was not going to save his own life, but might save that of the child he was carrying.
    Cobie could feel her breathing, and she had been right when she had told him that she would be as strong as he wanted. Her grip continued vice-like, and he walked indolently along, apparently unencumbered. He was grateful that Madame’s doorkeepers were tired and incurious, only too glad to get rid of him now that he had finished spending his money with them.
    Once outside and walking along the Haymarket, still a sea of light although it was now well past midnight, he continued to carry the girl beneath his cloak. He dare not let her down, for a man of fashion walking along with an oddly-dressed girl-child at one in the morning would be sure to attract unwanted attention, even in the Haymarket.
    Particularly in the Haymarket, where he knew that all the vices in a vicious city were available for those who had the money to pay for them.
    He paused and thought for a moment. The Salvation Army, of course. Susanna was one of a group of society women who were involved in helping the poor and unfortunate. She had once told him that the Salvation Army had shelters where the wretched might find succour, even in central London.
    He had been mildly interested, he remembered. Susanna had mentioned that there was one not far from Piccadilly. He made sure that the child was still firmly gripping him and set off to find it.

Chapter Two
    A t the shelter, which had originally been a small church hall, the Salvation Army was giving tea and comfort to a group of derelicts. They included a battered tramp, and a prostitute who had been brutally beaten by one of her clients and had staggered in to the Sally Ann’s Haymarket refuge for help just before Cobie walked in.
    He was so unlike their usual customer that everyone stared at him and