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

want is a night’s sleep!
    He said brusquely to the Captain, ‘You can feed her?’
    The Captain went to the door, and called to one of thewomen, who presently came in with a bowl of soup and a buttered bread roll.
    â€˜What’s your name, little girl?’ she asked the child, who took the bowl from her and began drinking greedily from it without using the spoon.
    â€˜Lizzie,’ she said, ‘Lizzie Steele,’ and then, to Cobie, ‘What’s yours, mister?’
    Cobie began to laugh, stopped, and asked her gravely, bending his bright head a little, ‘What would you like it to be?’
    He felt, rather than saw, the Captain look sharply at him. Lizzie, slurping the last drops of the soup, said through them, ‘Ain’t yer got a name, then?’
    â€˜Not really,’ Cobie told her, which was, in a way, the truth. He had no intention of letting anyone at the shelter know who he really was. Caution was his middle name, although many who knew him would have been surprised to learn that.
    Now that the child was safe the rage had begun to ebb. It was leaving him empty—except for his head, which was beginning to hurt. Soon, he knew, his sight would be affected. But he could not leave until Lizzie’s immediate future was assured.
    She was still watching him, a little puzzled.
    â€˜Everyone has a name, mister,’ she finally offered him.
    â€˜Of sorts,’ Cobie agreed gravely.
    The Captain took a hand. Lizzie, starting on her roll and butter, continued to watch them, or rather to watch Cobie, who seemed to be the magnet which controlled her small universe.
    â€˜I think,’ the Captain said, ‘that we ought to ask my aide, Miss Merrick, to find Lizzie something more suitable for her to wear. You and I must talk while she does so.’
    To Cobie’s amusement Lizzie, pointing at Cobie, chirped, ‘I ain’t goin’ nowhere wivout ’im, and that’s flat.’
    Again the Captain was surprised by his manner towards Lizzie. Cobie spoke to her pleasantly and politely after the fashion in which he would address Violet Kenilworth, Susanna, or the Queen.
    â€˜You’re quite safe here, Miss Steele. You will be well looked after, I’m sure. Nothing bad will happen to you whether I am present or not. You have my word.’ He took her grubby hand and bowed over it.
    Her eyes were still watchful. She had been betrayed too often to believe that he would necessarily keep his word.
    â€˜You promise?’ was all she said.
    â€˜I promise.’ He was still as grave as a hanging judge.
    He was aware that the Captain’s shrewd eyes were on him, trying to fathom him. His whole interest centred on Cobie, not on the child. He had doubtless seen many like her—but few like him, someone apparently unharmed by the world’s wickedness.
    The rage revived for a moment, to die back again. God knew, if no one else did, how near Cobie Grant had once been to dereliction, violation, and death!
    The woman who had brought Lizzie the soup was called in once more, to take away both the empty bowl and the child, with orders to find something respectable for her to wear—after she had been washed.
    Lizzie demurred a little at the notion of being washed, until Cobie said, his voice confidential, ‘Oh, do let them wash you, Miss Steele. I like washing, I assure you, and do it a lot.’
    She stared at his golden splendour for a moment, before saying, ‘Yus, I can see yer do.’ To the woman leading herfrom the room she said, ungraciously, ‘I’ll let yer wash me so long as yer don’t get soap in me eyes!’
    â€˜To be brief,’ Cobie said to the Captain, ‘I stole her from Madame Louise’s and then brought her here because I had heard that you were in the business of saving such lost souls. By good chance she had succeeded in escaping from the man who would have violated her. She owes her safety, if not her