Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Rosamunde wasn’t sure how long it was after she started reading again before she felt him standing over her and finished the final two pages of chapter she was engrossed in before lifting her gaze to once again, find her battered brother, standing over her.
“What now?”
“He’s refusing to train me anymore.”
Barely refraining from rolling her eyes, she shrugged. “That’s your problem.”
“Look what he did to me!”
“While you were boxing. It seems you get hit in that activity.”
Lips pinched, Lovell shook his head vehemently. “This was not during boxing. This was when he told me he refused to train me again.”
That didn’t sound like the man she’d gotten to know. At all.
“That has nothing to do with me.” She looked back at her book, then squealed when Lovell yanked it from her and threw it across the room. “What is your problem?”
“You!” He got up in her face, looming over her like their father used to do when he wanted them scared. Lovell grasped her around the neck and squeezed. “He did this to me as well, cut off my air. How does it feel?”
“Lovell!” Her father’s deep voice reverberated through the room.
Her brother, who she’d thought had been getting better about being kind—a mistake obviously—dropped her like she’d burned him and stepped back.
She gasped at the refreshing and much-needed air as it flowed back into her lungs. Breathing hard, she stared at him wide-eyed, unsure who this person was in front of her. The brother who once had looked up to her, then had treated her with indifference and now apparently had no problems snuffing out her life. Fear slithered into her.
Her father was behind them, a slight frown on his face. “Leave us, Lovell.”
Another glare from her brother and he stomped out of the room.
Rosamunde swung her feet to the floor and took her time folding up the blanket she’d had over her legs. Once it sat beside her, she got to her feet, grateful her legs were strong enough to keep her upright.
“We need to talk.”
“Why? I’m only a commodity for you to use. Let’s not pretend you actually care about me or ever did.”
His cheeks pinkened but he didn’t drop her gaze. “Things are difficult for a woman to understand.”
She scoffed. “Sure.” The energy to fight him and push for him to protect her no longer existed.
“Little Bit.”
Deep in her chest where she was still a little girl who craved her father’s love, she melted at the use of her childhood nickname. The desire of that little girl from the past was squashed immediately and ice froze it.
“You lost the right to call me that when you sold me to keep yourself and your wife from debtor’s prison.”
He clenched his jaw. She wasn’t swayed.
“It’s a shame too because I loved you once, more than anyone else in this house, but I wasn’t good enough for you. We’re not family any longer and when you or she repeats this mistake, who are you selling off next time to cover the mistakes you adults made? I don’t care and I have nothing more to say to you.”
She walked out, got her coat and struck off down the street. After a few stops to warm up, she gave in and rented a hack for the rest of the way then climbed out at the house for orphans and cautiously traversed a safe path up the walk to the door.
It opened moments after she knocked. “Miss Fletcher, good to see you again. Come on in.”
Not too much later she sat in the heated kitchen holding a six-month-old baby whose mother had passed away on the streets just that morning. Her darker skin and jet-black hair had Rosamunde thinking the child might be from Indian parents.
“What will happen to her?”
The cook clucked her tongue as she stirred a large pot of gruel for the children. “Hard to say. A lot of people don’t want darker-skin children. If she survives, she’s in for a rough life on the street. Her mother was a worker at Mac’s. Guessing one of the gents got a bit too rough with her and she succumbed to her injuries.”
“Mac’s? What’s that?”
The cook adjusted the scarf around her head before shaking her head. “No place for someone of your ilk. It’s not fit for proper ladies. The scum of the city visit there. Lowborn and ruffians.” She waggled the wooden spoon at Rosamunde. “Neither is this place. You should be at home.”
Sad thing was, this place felt more like home than her house did.
“Where is it? If someone hurt a woman then they need to be talked to.” She couldn’t stand to do nothing when a woman was being abused. Surely her name would give her some safety? She could at least have a chat with the owner and perhaps he would provide for the child, or at least help.