“An honest job, I said.” Bertie piled more stockings in the valise and opened the drawer to add the picture of her mother. Her mother smiled up at her from the framed photo with all the warmth Bertie remembered.
“Doing what?” Gerry demanded
“Looking after children, if you must know.” Bertie added hair ribbons, a brush, and a few toiletries, and closed up the soft case.
“Eh?” Gerry stared. “What do you know about looking after children?”
“I’ve looked after you all this time, haven’t I?” Bertie gave him a warning look. “They’re a good family, so you stay away from them.”
Gerry’s bloodshot eyes opened wider as he tripped after her to the front room. It was cold in here—her father hadn’t started a fire or put on a kettle for tea. Sighing, Bertie detoured to the kitchen to poke the kindling in the stove and throw in a few lit matches. She emptied the tea kettle, rinsed it by pumping water into the sink, filled it, and set it on to boil. She put tea into the teapot, but pouring would have to be up to her father.
“You get a nice hot cup inside you, and you’ll feel better,” Bertie said, returning to the front room. “And have another sleep after that.”
Gerry watched Bertie pulling on her gloves again, then he looked at the valise, and everything came together for him.
“Where the devil do you think you’re going?”
Really, he could rival Andrew for noise. “I told ya. I have a job. I have to go back.”
“Back where?” Gerry seized her by the arm. “You put away that valise and make me breakfast. Do you hear me? Then you’re going down the pub to fetch me some beer.”
Bertie drew a breath and summoned her courage. A half hour back here, and already her stay in Sinclair McBride’s house was fading like a dream. She needed to hold on to that dream, to get away from this place. She thought about Sinclair’s gray eyes, which could turn warm in an instant, and the rumble of his Scottish voice that filled a room. She wanted to hear that voice again. Many times more, before she was done.
“I can’t,” Bertie said. “I’ve got a proper job now. For real wages.”
“You don’t unless I say you have,” her father said with a snarl.
Bertie jerked away, picked up the case, and marched toward the door. Her dad came after her. Gerry could be clumsy and slow after a night of gin, but today she was unlucky. He got between her and the door.
“You running away from me to be some man’s fancy piece?” Gerry seized her arm again, and this time his grip bit down hard. “The hell you are. You start my breakfast, or I’ll beat you black and blue.”“No, you’ll let me go!”
Gerry was strong, always had been. But Bertie had learned, long ago, that if she fought back, and fought hard, she could usually get away. She would run off and hide in her sanctuary until her father calmed down and got into one of his good moods. Wasn’t no one more generous than Bertie’s dad when he was feeling good. Problem was, she could never be sure when he’d be in a sunny temper, and his good mood always wore off.
“Need any help, miss?” a gravelly voice asked.
The duke’s coachman had opened the door—he was a big, brawny man with broad shoulders, a flat face, and giant hands. He looked like a prizefighter and had a powerful voice to match.
“Is this him?” Gerry asked. “Your fancy man?”
Bertie rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a wild imagination, you have.”
The coachman peeled Gerry away from her. He didn’t jerk or punch, he just pulled Bertie’s father back with one large hand on his shoulder, and Gerry had no choice but to move.
Bertie gave the coachman a grateful look. “Go easy on him, all right? He’s always in a bad way after he’s had too much gin.”
The prizefighter bent his thick neck in a nod but continued to hold her father in place with the strength of a stolid bull.
“Bertie-girl,” Gerry yelled as Bertie slipped around them and out the door. He sounded pathetic and lost, as he usually did when coming off a hangover. “You can’t leave me. Who’s gonna look after me?”
Bertie glanced back from the stairwell. Her father peered at her around the coachman’s large arm, his face stark with fear. He really was a hopeless old sot, when it came down to it.
“I’ll send Mrs. Lang to look in on you. You know you like her.” Mrs. Lang was a publican’s widow and worked as a barmaid at Bertie’s dad’s local. She was one of the few people who could handle Gerry Frasier and his moods.
Bertie made herself turn and head down the stairs, resolutely shutting off the sight of her father and the sound of his pleas.
A street lad was holding the horses when Bertie came out, and interested neighbors had come out to watch. Franklin helped Bertie into the coach under their stares, both curious and belligerent.
Not many minutes later, the coachman emerged from the house, not looking any the worse for wear. Bertie asked if he could stop the coach at the pub down the lane, and he nodded in his taciturn way and climbed to his perch.
Bertie settled into the seat as Franklin slammed the door, and hugged her valise to her, her fingers cold in her gloves. The ducal coach crunched forward through the squalid streets of her childhood, taking her away.
The house filled up with people before Sinclair could stop them. He studied the crowd from the double doorway of his ground-floor drawing room, wondering what the devil all of them were doing in London. English society was supposed to be off in the country shooting things or preparing for a country Christmas, but both his front and back parlors, the large doors open between them, were stuffed full of guests.