Shanghai Sparrow by Gaie Sebold Page B

posh with it.
    She bit down on her anger. Fury’d get her nothing but trouble – Grey-Coat had, at the moment, all the cards.
    He smelled of clean linens and soap. He might be slightly-built, but he was strong, and had looked as though he could run – she already knew he could move swiftly and unobtrusively. He was a nice-looking cove, if you went for that sort of thing, with that pale gold skin and those grey eyes. Oh, and he looked familiar... no, that was wrong. Not familiar like she knew him, but familiar in some undefinable way.
    Fear swelled into her throat; she swallowed it back and tried to think. Grey-Coat was smart, and wanted her for something badly enough to grab her in broad daylight, in front of a witness, but without arresting her. Why?
    You’re too curious, Evvie.
    Maybe, Ginny. But I want to know why he’s so all-fired interested in me.
    She relaxed her stance a little. He didn’t let go.
    The clergyman disappeared in the direction of the Tunbridge Wells train, casting a suspicious glance over his shoulder. “So much for the church,” Eveline said. “Abandoning a girl that way. Shameful, I call it. You could be the devil himself for all he knows. All I know, too. What do you want, mister?”
    “I have a proposal for you.”
    “That’s very flattering of you, sir, but I don’t think we should suit,” she said.
    “I suggest you stop attempting to display your cleverness, Miss Duchen, and listen.” He leaned closer, and whispered in her ear. “That is, if you wish to have a future that does not involve the steerage section of a dying hulk. It is possible you might survive the journey; a number of convicts do, though I believe about one in three die. Even should the ship prove seaworthy, the chances of disease are high. As, indeed, are the chances of rape. Should you survive, the fate of young women in the colonies is seldom a pleasant one. I know you are no Drury Lane vestal – it is to your credit that you have, at least, avoided that profession – but women being very scarce in the colonies, it is unlikely you would have a choice in the matter.”
    Eveline knew plenty of whores; Sal was only one of them, and Sal only did it when she couldn’t make enough with her stitching. There’d been poor Millie Stephens, younger than Eveline, already rotting and crazed with the pox. She’d tried to drown herself in the river, and been hauled out, only to end up in Cross Bones graveyard a bare few weeks later. The thought of that, and in a country so far from anything she’d ever known, with no chance of ever coming home... “What do you want with me, then?”
    “Come with me,” he said, beginning to walk, shifting his grip so it was less painful but no less firm.
    “Where?”
    “To my carriage, to begin with.”
    “I don’t think I should be getting into carriages with men. That sort of thing can stain one’s reputation.”
    The look he gave her was utterly without humour. “You are a very lucky young woman, Miss Duchen. I am about to offer you the chance at a better life. Strive to appreciate that.”
    She wondered, briefly, if he was after a mistress – then dismissed the thought immediately. A fancy cove like him could afford a lot fancier than Evvie Duchen. And he didn’t strike her as the type, unlike the clergyman. He looked at her and handled her as though she were a parcel – or an untrained dog.
    But he wanted something from her. And that was a good place to have a mark – if they didn’t want something, you’d no lever. If this was a long game, he’d have to get up early in the morning to play Eveline Duchen. “All right then, guv’nor,” she said, now all East-End-and-a-lump-of-coal. “Lead the way, why don’tcha?”
     
     
    H E LED HER to a horse-drawn carriage, plain as homespun, even a little shabby, though the horse looked glossy and well-fed. She was glad it was not a steam-hansom; with their hard-latching doors and disconcerting speed, they were a lot harder to