Viscount Vagabond by Loretta Chase Page A

you don’t know where Monsieur Francois’s shop is?” she asked in desperation. “A hairdresser? I was told he would buy my hair—and I do need the money.”
    The boy frowned as he studied her drab bonnet. “Oh, you mean ‘at wig man. Won’t do you no good. Gone to do a wedding. I got”—he bent to stick one grimy finger into a shoe a full size too large for his foot—“tuppence. What SHE give me to go away and not Aggerate her. We could get a meat pie.”
    Catherine needed a moment to understand that the scruffy child was offering to share his worldly wealth with her. When she did grasp his import, she was touched almost to tears. “Oh, dear, how very generous of you, but one pie will scarcely feed a strong, growing boy like yourself.”
    “Oh, SHE’ll give me suffink arter she’s done Aggeratin’ herself. I knows a place,” he added with a conspiratorial wink that required the cooperation of all the muscles of his face and made him look like a goblin. “Pies as big as my head.”
    “Come along,” the urchin said impatiently, as his invited guest hesitated. “Ain’t you hungry?”
    Catherine was very hungry and she could not remember when she had ever felt so desolate. She gazed down at the round face and smiled ruefully.
    “Yes,” she said. “I am very hungry.”
    The boy nodded, satisfied, then took her by the hand to lead her to the establishment where one might find a meat pie as big as his head.
    While they ate he grew more confiding. He introduced himself as Jemmy, and explained that Missus had taken him in after his mother’s death—the modiste being, Catherine guessed, a charitable soul who had some employment for the child which might keep him from the rookeries and flash houses with which he appeared to be appallingly familiar.
    Jemmy ran his mistress’s errands and swept the floors, but was primarily left to educate and amuse himself, which he did by wandering about the city streets.
    Even as she wondered at this unchild-like existence, Catherine found herself confiding her own tale, reduced to the essentials of stolen reticule and absent friend.
    At this the lad shook his head and looked as wise as it is possible for a boy of eight or nine years to do. He told her that she must be a “green ‘un” not to keep better watch on her belongings.
    “Yes,” Catherine ruefully agreed. “I fear I am very green indeed.”
    “Why, ‘em knucklers and buzmen ken fence a handkercher easier wot you ken wipe yer nose. Wonder is you still got yer box ‘n’ all.”
    Catherine glanced at the bandbox beside her and considered. If a handkerchief was of such value to these persons Jemmy spoke of, surely she must have something she could pawn for her coach fare. While she meditated, she could not help but note the longing with which her young host eyed a large fruit pastry being served to a fat gentleman at the next table.
    She opened the bandbox and rummaged in it. “I wonder, Jemmy,’’ she said finally, holding up a peach-coloured ribbon, “whether this would buy us one of those pastries.”
    The boy’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’d say, Miss—” Then he subdued himself. “But you hadn’t orter.”
    “Oh, yes I ought. You take this ribbon to your cook friend and ask if she will accept it in trade.”
    The boy dashed off with his treasure to the shop’s owner, whereupon a discussion ensued, nothing of which Catherine could hear over the loud voices and clatter about her. When she saw the cook look questioningly at her, Miss Pelliston responded with a smile and a nod. The cook shrugged, turned away briefly, then presented Jemmy with a plate upon which reposed two plump, mouth-watering fruit tarts.
    “She says,” Jemmy explained as he deposited the feast upon the rough table, “as she’ll only hold it some ‘til you can pay her.”
    Jemmy’s companion tasted only a bit of her dessert before declaring she was too full to enjoy it. She insisted that he not let it go to waste. As he