Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector. Sophia James

      Jasper King’s size was comforting and the limp he was afflicted with gave him an added danger. He was a man who had known battle and pain, yet lived. He gave no impression at all of a nob who was out of his depth as he strode through the crooked pathways crossing the intersecting labyrinths that led into Old Pye Street.

      The place was dank and wet and any daylight was swallowed up by the narrow thinness of the buildings above them, a Stygian stinking gloom all that was left.

      An older woman with a basket attached by straps to her back was the first person he talked to.

      ‘We are looking for a young friend of ours, a girl with blonde hair and a birthmark on her chin. She would be new around here and frightened, perhaps.’

      ‘Whores all look the same, sir. Frightened at first, but resigned before long. The money’s what brings ’em and it ain’t called the Old Pye Street for nothing.’

      ‘So you haven’t seen her?’

      As she shook her head Charlotte began to speak.

      ‘She is a good girl even if she has been foolish and any help would be very welcome.’

      ‘The One Tun public house is five doors down. Perhaps you might look in there for the patrons of many of the places hereabouts are often found drinking in that establishment. You might be able to ask them.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Jasper’s voice was deep and he passed a penny over to the woman whose demeanour changed remarkably as a result.

      ‘Ask for Mr Twigg. Tell him Annie sent you. If anyone has seen her, he will have.’

      Then she was gone, trudging down the alley with her large basket and calling out to those about her to sample the wares.

      ‘It’s a start,’ Charlotte said to Jasper as he took her arm and led her on. ‘I’d forgotten just how easily a coin loosens the tongue.’

      ‘And I have many more of them, Miss Fairclough.’

      She liked his smile and she liked the way his fingers tightened around her wrist. In protection. She’d never have been able to manage this alone despite her telling him the opposite. It wasn’t that every person they passed looked as if they might do them harm, but more the understanding that a woman alone would have been fair game for those with a mind for the sort of activity the road was renowned for. She was thankful beyond words to have him striding along beside her.

      The One Tun pub was wreathed in the mist of tobacco smoke, with a one-legged man just inside the door begging for alms. Jasper laid another penny in the tattered hat and she saw him tip his head in a shared understanding. Then another was in front of them, a heavy man with a reddened face and a receding hairline.

      ‘I’m after Mr Twigg. Annie sent me.’

      Interest passed across his eyes and he led them to a table, signalling for them to sit.

      ‘That’d be me, then, so what’s your business?’

      ‘We are looking for a girl who is new to Old Pye Street. Harriet White. She was taken from the laundry in Horseferry Road and we want her back.’ He gave Harriet’s description and the man pondered it.

      ‘A birthmark, you say, and right here?’

      ‘You’ve seen her, then?’

      ‘Just for a moment, but from memory her name were not Harriet and the last I saw of her were when she went off in a carriage with a fine toff who had a crest painted on the side of it and all.’

      ‘A crest?’ The surprise in Jasper’s voice was plain to hear.

      ‘That happens to the new ones sometimes. The ones who are not spoiled or pockmarked or difficult are picked out by gentlemen who can pay a bit more for hanky-panky elsewhere. Sometimes the girls return, but more often they do not.’

      The danger of it all was horrifying to Lottie. To simply disappear in a conveyance for relations with a man who was neither known nor honourable seemed to her the very height of foolishness. And Harriet had never seemed to be that.

      ‘Can you tell us of the crest, its design or anything on it that caught your eye?’ Jasper had asked this question and Lottie waited for the answer.

      ‘There was a helmet and stripes of red and gold, I think. I only saw it briefly, mind, and so it might have been something else.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Jasper passed over more coins to Twigg and stood, helping Charlotte up as he did so. ‘If there is any news of the girl, could you send me word here? You would be well remunerated.’

      A card was placed on the table.

      ‘Of course, Mr King. I shall make certain that you know of it.’

      Outside Lottie lifted her skirts slightly to step across the drain, pleased that they were leaving the place as she breathed in deeply, the smoke of the tavern a thickness in her throat.

      A minute later they were inside the King carriage and as the door closed behind them Lottie let out a sigh of part-relief.

      ‘Thank you for accompanying me. I could never have managed that alone.’

      ‘I am glad I could be of help, Miss Fairclough, and if I hear anything at all from Twigg I will be in touch.’

      ‘You do not think the man in the carriage will hurt her?’

      She did not like his lack of answer.

      ‘It is a disaster,’ she continued as her imagination raced. ‘These awful things happen all about us and we can only watch them unfold until there is nothing left to do. People simply disappear and never come back. Young girls. Good girls. Girls who have no one there to watch over them and make certain they are safe.’

      Dread consumed her. Harriet was not the first girl to be lost into the world of prostitution and would not be the last either. Lottie felt hopelessly unprepared and impossibly adrift in her anxiety.

      She pulled Jasper’s handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her nose, pleased that at least for the past half an hour she had not suffered another coughing fit. She wondered if she should give it back to him or if she should take it home to be laundered. She decided on the second option and tucked it again into her cloak.

      She could not think of one other person who would have helped her as this man just had. Oh, granted, he had castigated her for the actions she had planned to take, but he had also supported her need to find Harriet when he realised that he could not stop her and ventured without further complaint into places that were foreign and difficult. It had been his coin that had greased the wheels for information without a doubt.

      ‘I shall pay you back,’ she suddenly uttered.

      ‘For what?’ His eyes were upon her, sliced in puzzlement.

      ‘The payments for information. I cannot expect you to take the burden of that.’

      He laughed. ‘I assure you, Miss Fairclough, that I can afford it.’

      At that she blushed because, conversely, he knew that she could not. The day was running down now into the evening, the night-time darkness coming in early at this time of the year, and she felt a desolation that was all-consuming.

      Would she ever see Jasper King again or would he disappear to the far-off places that were the domain of a successful civil engineer and be lost to her altogether?

      The visage of the beautiful blonde woman came to mind. She knew he was not married, but did he have someone who he was fond of waiting for him at home, some mistress of the same ilk as