To Love and Protect Read Online Free PDF Page A

kindness when she returned.   Clarissa walked up to the barred window.   A rotund man with a pudgy nose sat on the other side of the bars.   Poor man , Clarissa thought, it is almost as if he works in a prison.
    “Can I help you, miss?” the man asked, a jovial note to his voice despite his surroundings.
    “Yes, sir.   I need to purchase passage to Liverpool.”
    “Liverpool?   That’s quite a distance for a woman to be traveling alone.”
    “Yes, sir.   My father lives there and has become quite ill,” she lied.
    “Poor thing.”   He quoted her a price, gave her a voucher, then informed her as to when the coach would be leaving.   “I hope your father is better when you arrive.”
    “Thank you.   May I wait here until time to leave?”
    “Certainly.”
    Clarissa took up a seat on the bench next to the station.   She kept her head bent low, but continuously looked around her for any signs of recognition from those bustling around her.   Very rarely would a member of the ton be seen in this part of London, but she kept a watchful eye out just the same.   A street vendor hawked meat pies down the way.   Clarissa’s stomach growled noisily.   She left Gertie’s this morning without eating anything, nor did she eat much last night.   Now, she found herself starving as the smell wafted her way.
    She stood and walked to the vendor.   Clarissa purchased a meat pie and ate it where she stood.   Her stomach satisfied, she passed the time waiting for the mail coach by watching the people on the street.   These were everyday laborers.   Although they worked their lives away, they seemed so much happier than most of the people she knew.   Yes, they went home exhausted at the end of the day, but they were not living their life on a stage, an act being constantly judged with no intermission.   Surely that made them happier than she.
    The sound of clopping horses’ hooves echoed off the buildings that lined the street.   Clarissa picked up her bags and turned to the mail coach station, but came to an abrupt halt when she saw the crest on the door of the coach.   Her father’s coach!   She looked around quickly, searching for a hiding place.   The carriage swayed as a man with sandy blonde hair, a fair complexion, and dressed in the finest clothes stepped out onto the street.
    “Franklin,” Clarissa whispered.   She watched in horror, frozen to the cobbles where she stood.   He approached the man she had just purchased her voucher from.   “Dear Lord,” she whispered softly.   Clarissa spun around, but could still see what happened behind her courtesy of the storefront window that she vacantly gazed into.   She watched as money passed hands, and the man nodded to the bench where she had been sitting.
    Clarissa watched Franklin turn in a slow circle as he studied the area.   He started across the street, but a lumbering wagon halted his progress.   He continued on after it passed.   Clarissa’s heart pounded heavily in her chest.   She moved toward the opening of a dark alley.   The alley was certainly dangerous, but she much preferred facing the dangers that lurked there to her step-uncle.   She never should have gone back by the house to check if word had arrived overnight.   With so many new staff members hired by Lorraine, she could not be sure whom to trust.
    She entered the darkness and put her bags down.   She peeked out of the opening, searching the street for him.   He was nowhere to be found.   The carriage still sat in front of the coaching station.   He couldn’t have just disappeared , she thought frantically.   She heard the crunch of footsteps behind her.   Before she could turn around, a firm hand clamped over her mouth.
    ***
    “Why would she hie off on her own like that?” Gertrude moaned softly and not for the first time.   Both she and Justin were looking frantically out the windows on each side of the carriage hoping for a glimpse of her.
    “Because she