Olivia Twist Read online

  But she would do what needed done. As she always had.

  Violet made her disapproval of the match clear, but true love simply did not exist outside of fairy tales and her friend’s ridiculous gothic novels. The Grimwigs’ wealth would bring her security, allow her to support her uncle, and, she hoped, subsidize her charitable mission.

  Olivia paused to open a massive armoire, but only finding stacks of fresh linens, continued down the hallway.

  Last month while in the garden at the Drewforths’ ball, Max had snuck a kiss. His lips were warm and gentle, pleasant. But it had left Olivia questioning why other girls compared the kisses of one gentleman to another. How different could they possibly be? Unbidden, the image of ice-blue eyes and a slow smirk filled her mind.

  “Ouch! Blast it—” Olivia clamped her mouth closed, her heart racing as she grabbed her smarting foot and glanced up and down the hall. Still alone, she searched the floor for her assailant and found a squat frog balanced on the edge of the carpet runner. Cursing her own clumsiness, she moved to step around the doorstop, when a metallic glint caught her eye. She bent and plucked up the tiny statue for further examination. Hefting it in her hand, she noted the weight and the tarnished spots in the creases where the polish had missed. A triumphant grin spread across Olivia’s face. Solid silver.

  The idiotic trinket would bring a fair amount of coin at market. “No one shall miss you, my little darling,” Olivia whispered as she slipped the amphibian into the pocket of her skirt, its added weight pulling the fabric taunt.

  She turned to go back to the party when slow footsteps, so light she almost didn’t hear them, signaled someone approaching. Keeping her gaze glued to the landing at the top of the stairs, she backed up then reached behind her to turn the nearest doorknob, but it wouldn’t move. Her pulse galloping ahead of her, she tiptoed to the next door, finding it locked as well.

  The footsteps continued, and a tall shadow stretched across the landing. Olivia turned and ran. A stream of weak light indicated a cracked door near the end of the hallway. She raced toward it, and without thought slipped inside. Pushing the door to, she leaned against the wall and let out a long breath, willing her heartbeat to slow. The light of a single lamp on the bureau illuminated burgundy bed coverings, dark leather furniture, and the implements of a pipe spread on a low table by the window. Mr. Platt’s bedchamber. If anyone found her there, she didn’t dare contemplate the consequences.

  At the Wolfbergs’ party the previous week, she’d nearly been caught nipping chinaware from the kitchens. The butler had walked in on her the moment she’d plucked the gold-rimmed saucer from its velvet-lined drawer. As luck would have it, one of the maids approached and, in a ringing voice, Olivia demanded to know where she could purchase the dishware for her uncle’s household—as if they could actually afford such finery. After being informed that the china had been passed down in the Wolfberg family for generations, the butler had taken Olivia’s arm and escorted her back to the party.

  If the servant had arrived a second later, he would have witnessed Olivia slipping the saucer into the custom-made pocket of her skirt—and her mission at every extravagant, overdone soiree would have screeched to a tragic end.

  The footsteps grew closer. Olivia pressed her back into the wall and sucked in her chest, as if not breathing would somehow make her invisible. The footfalls paused right outside the door, followed by an odd scrape and click. Her hands gripped the wall like talons, and she peeked around the edge of the door, just as a dark-haired gentleman with broad shoulders slipped into the next room.

  Mr. MacCarron? She jerked her head back into the room. What could he possibly be doing in the Platt family wing?

  Olivia pressed against the wall and clutched the locket resting beneath the neckline of her dress, worrying the smooth metal against the fabric, an unconscious habit that brought her comfort. Like a word on the tip of her tongue, she could almost grasp what eluded her about Jack MacCarron. Before she could contemplate further, a muted banging made her jump, and the exposed skin of her upper arm scraped against the wooden chair rail at her back. She wrapped her gloved fingers around her stinging flesh as another muffled thump from the next room drew her attention to the connecting door. Of course! Mr. and Mrs. Platt would have adjoining bedrooms.

  On her tiptoes, she crossed the room and turned the knob slowly. Careful not to make a sound, she eased the door open a crack. Silence.

  Turn. Run! her mind hissed. But she didn’t. She stayed. She had to know.

  Opening the door, she peered inside. The bedroom was dark save for the muted glow from the open window.

  Standing stock still, she trained all her senses on the room. A flash of light left black spots dancing before her eyes, and then she heard a low curse. What on earth was he doing in there? Easing open the door a bit more, she leaned forward until she spied a dark form hunched near the foot of the bed. Heart racing, she stepped inside.

  As if pulled by an unseen force, Olivia took another step and another. A cloud shifted outside and a beam of moonlight painted the curve of his stubble-covered jaw and strong nose. Bent over a metal box beside an open hole in the floor, he maneuvered the tools in his hands with quick, deft movements. And that niggling that she’d experienced the moment he’d smiled at her reared up and screamed the answer into her mind.

  The floorboard creaked under her heel and she froze, her breath seizing in her chest. The man looked up and their eyes met for a moment that stretched into an eternity, and she knew she was right. “Dodger?”

  His shocked expression turned fierce, and he sprang from his crouch like a big cat she’d seen once at the Regent’s Park zoo. Faster than she could have thought possible, he grasped her arms and pushed her up against the wall. “Where the devil did you hear that name?” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  Olivia blinked. The thin scar on his right cheekbone, the vein that pulsed in his throat when he was angry, the outline of dark lashes around light eyes—Dodger. She longed to confess, “It’s me, your erstwhile friend, Ollie.” But he’d never believe she was his long-lost chum—the orphan boy he’d taken under his wing some nine years past.

  “I asked you a question,” he growled. The solid weight of his body pressed closer, forcing her to tilt her chin to meet his violent gaze.

  The tiny hairs on her arms rose, sparking the survival instincts from her youth. Never back down. Stiffening her posture, she spat, “Whyever would I answer such a great brute?”

  His eyes widened and she pushed against his hard chest. Seemingly caught off guard, he stepped back. Olivia inched toward the door. “I thought you were Dozer … er, Mr. Dozer, the footman.” She arched an eyebrow and slid her mouth up on one side, allowing him to come to his own conclusions regarding why she would seek out a footman in a dark bedroom. He frowned.

  Olivia walked backward, quickly. “But I can see I was mistaken. My apologies.” She dipped her head in a respectful nod. She’d seen too much, and she wasn’t about to stick around to find out what the grown-up Dodger … er … Jack—whatever his blasted name was now—would do to keep her mouth shut.

  “Wait.” His voice deep and commanding, Jack took a long stride forward. Olivia turned on her heel and fled out the door and down the hall as fast as her feet would carry her. When she reached the staircase, she dared a glance over her shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t followed. She attempted to descend the stairs at a respectable pace, her mind whirling with memories. After escaping the workhouse, her prospects had been slim.

  Olivia had slept curled up in a field, been chased by soot-covered chimney sweeps across Blackfriars Bridge, and hadn’t eaten for days. She’d never felt more alone in her life. So when a little old woman had promised her lodging and the easiest work she’d ever do, Olivia had been ready to follow the woman anywhere. But a boy with a ragged top hat, wide smile, and grubby cheeks had looped an arm around her shoulders and steered her away, informing her that sort of work would le
ad to an early grave. “I’m Jack, better known among me mates as the Artful Dodger.”

  Then he’d invited her to be the master of her own fate.

  She’d followed him off the crowded street of Cheapside through a maze of sewers, rickety walkways, and a cockroach-infested apartment building, before they’d emerged in a massive third-story attic filled with mismatched furniture where children laughed and played games while sausages smoked on the fire. If life got any better than that, she didn’t know how. In comparison to the toil-eat-sleep schedule of the workhouse, the bone-numbing cold, the beatings, and the rats—God save me from nibbling, stinking rats—Dodger’s gang of ragamuffins were a revelation.

  Fagin, the old kidsman, had taken one look at Ollie’s face, proclaimed her the perfect angelic distraction, and without an inkling of her true gender, presented her with a pristine, blue sailor’s suit as a welcome to the crew.

  That night, the Dodger had offered her a soft pallet under the eaves of the roof, removed from the chaos of the other boys. Her belly full of smoked meat and day-old rolls, she’d grinned dreamily as he’d tucked her in, promising to teach her a trade that would keep her full and protected for the rest of her days.

  When one of the older boys had complained about her prime sleeping spot near the fire, Dodger had punched him sound in the nose, and then pulled his pallet next to hers so that she laid nestled between him and the wall. A few moments later, he’d produced a brightly wrapped piece of candy and handed it to her. “This lot don’t know ’ow good they got it, Ollie.”

  With trembling hands, she’d unwrapped the gold cellophane and popped the confection into her mouth. The buttery-sweet taste had brought tears to her eyes. She’d had candy once in her life, on Christmas the year before her nurse passed on.

  With his head propped on one hand, those canny blue eyes searched hers. “But you do know, don’cha?”

  She’d nodded, swiped at her wet cheeks, and sucked on the sugary goodness melting on her tongue. Dodger had flopped onto his back, one hand behind his head. “Don’t you worry none, kid. After I’ve trained you, you’ll never ’ave a reason to leave our right little nest.”

  He’d turned to face her again, blinking at her wet cheeks. “Lesson one: Friends are just enemies in disguise. Don’t let the others see ya bawlin’. Tha’s a good way to get trounced.”

  That was the day he’d become her champion. Brash, confident, and brave, he’d been all the things Olivia wanted to be.

  Her heart light, she skipped down the rest of the stairs toward the sounds of the dinner party. Against all the odds, that daring, clever boy had fought his way off the streets and into the upper echelon of London society. But if he’d truly left the life behind, whyever would he rob the Platts?

  Olivia paused in the darkened hallway and stroked the silver treasure in her pocket. Why, indeed.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jack donned his old hat and ran a hand over his face as he stepped out the back door of the townhouse he called home. There was only one person in the world for whom Jack would be up and about at this ungodly hour, and she happened to be the woman who’d changed his life. Lois March may look like a half-baked old granny, but when she set her mind to something, not even that cold-hearted bludger, Edward Leeford, could’ve denied her.

  Thoughts of the man who’d terrorized his young life set Jack’s feet moving faster. The scar on his right cheekbone throbbed, as it did every time he thought of Leeford and the beating he’d given Jack when he refused to take a five-year-old boy to steal from the most corrupt whorehouse in the city. At thirteen, Jack had seen it all and had no qualms about robbing the old flesh peddler, but the job required a tiny body. Jack had taken the boy halfway to Seven Dials before he’d been struck by a rare moment of conscience and turned back. Everyone had their limits, even orphan thieves, and Jack had reached his. When he returned empty-handed, Leeford, who was several years Jack’s senior, had beat him so badly that he still bore the scars. And when Jack had stepped in to protect the little one from the same fate, Leeford had pulled a knife.

  Fagin, his old kidsman—the man who’d been like a father to him—hadn’t said a word as Leeford stabbed Jack between the ribs and took the child to complete the job himself. Jack left that day and never looked back, taking half of Fagin’s gang with him.

  He’d heard Leeford had met a tragic end, his story one of Jack’s motivations for finding a new life. Violence begets violence.

  He rolled his shoulders as he turned onto Piccadilly Street, the coarse shirt he reserved for his trips into the city scratchy against his skin. Saints! The old biddy had transformed him into a right dandy.

  Jack had yet to decide if Lois March was his savior or his one-way ticket to Newgate Prison, but regardless, her intimate acquaintance with every well-off family in London—and more importantly, all their most valuable treasures—had led to his current vocation. He almost smiled, recalling how Lois referred to some of society’s most elite families by the jewels they owned. The Platts’ were “the Rubies,” for the exquisite set of ruby earbobs, bracelet, and necklace Mrs. Platt had inherited from her grandmother. Lois viewed them as the perfect mark because she’d only seen the woman wear the jewels once in twenty years. All the same, he’d argued against the crack. Heirlooms were the type of loot that would be missed, and the paste-jeweled bauble he’d left in their safe wouldn’t fool a blind man.

  As Jack turned a corner, he approached a maid from the neighbor’s household carrying a basket of fresh fruit. With a tip of his hat and a grin, he snatched a gleaming apple off the pile.

  “Jack!” The girl—who could not have been more than ten and five—slapped his arm and gave him an evocative smile over her shoulder as she passed. “Stop by later and I’ll make ye a nice tart.”

  Biting into the crisp, sweet fruit, Jack watched the exaggerated sway of the maid’s hips. The girl really should take more care in who she propositioned. An apple in the wrong hands could spoil her forever. And Jack was most definitely the wrong hands for any sort of intimate association. Jack contemplated going back and putting a definitive end to the flirtation, but the weight of the bracelet in his pocket pushed him onward.

  With any luck, the Platts wouldn’t notice the missing piece for a few weeks, and by that time the rotation of guests flowing through their home would make it impossible to implicate him in the theft. Although the rumors circulating about him—like that bloomin’ git, Grimwig, calling him a half-wild ruffian—wouldn’t help his cover. Jack reached around and squeezed the tight muscles at the back of his neck. It rankled to admit, even to himself, that particular rumor to be true. The day he had picked Lois March’s pocket, he’d been an animal of the streets—a leader of many, and a master of nothing. That was the day the Artful Dodger died. And after many, many months of Lois’s patient but vigorous tutoring, the gentleman Jack MacCarron was born.

  Nonetheless, the girl with the autumn-wheat curls and tawny eyes could ruin everything. Had his ears played tricks on him when he heard her whisper the name Dodger? Even so, that didn’t explain why she’d looked at him with the hope of the world in her gaze.

  As he turned onto the Strand, a sausage vendor caught his eye, and the aroma of the spiced, roasted meat caused his mouth to water. Sharp hunger pains—his constant companion and master for the first sixteen years of his life—clenched his stomach. With effort, he pushed away the phantom ache. There wasn’t any part of his past he missed less than that constant, gnawing emptiness.

  An overloaded chicken cart barreled toward him, and he ducked into a shadowed alley. Soon, the smell of food faded away as the undulating reek of the Thames and the stench of human filth overpowered everything else.

  He passed a group of children huddled by the backside of a chimney, tattered clothes hanging from bony shoulders and feet black with filth, their hollow, spectral-like eyes beseeching. Jack dug in his pocket and flipped a handful of shillings in their direction, turning away as they scurried on hands and knees f
ighting over the money.

  But as much as he pushed his feet to move, the sight of a tiny child in his peripheral vision kept him rooted to the spot. Tackled by the others, the boy—no more than five years old—rolled into a ball, his fist clutched tight to his chest as the older children hammered him with fists and feet in an effort to get the coins he clutched to his chest.

  “Give us that, ye little rat!” The largest of the boys landed a jab to the child’s kidney.

  Jack had to admire the little one’s tenacity as he clutched his prize, not making a peep throughout the beating. In two long strides, Jack reached down and grabbed the back of two filthy necks and lifted them into the air, fists still swinging.

  “Leave off!” the child in his right hand screeched.

  Jack turned away from the scuffle and dropped them both to the ground. Towering over the pile of children, he demanded, “Clear out, the lot of you!” When they’d scrabbled back, he helped the now bloodied child to his feet. “You’re a fast little thing, eh?”

  The boy stared up at Jack with defiant blue eyes and nodded.

  Looping his arm around the kid’s frail shoulders, Jack led him away from the group. “Do you know St. Christopher’s in Southwark?”

  “Ye … yes … my lord.”

  The title tightened something in Jack’s chest, cutting off his breath. Kneeling, so that he met the boy’s gaze at eye level, he said, “I am no lord. Do not bow to any man, toff or thief. They’re no better than you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Satisfied with the lift of the boy’s chin, Jack gave him directions to the nunnery behind St. Christopher’s and instructed him to offer his service for room and board. The nuns didn’t take in many orphans, but for one so young, Jack thought sure they’d make an exception. They had for him. “If they want you to peel potatoes, scrub the privy, or polish their shoes, you do it without question, eh?”