One Penny Surprise (Saved By Desire 1) (2 page)

“Well, this is the park,” she muttered beneath her breath. She hadn’t thought to bring Clarence’s timepiece with her so was unable to check what the time really was. Having slept little last night, she had been awake when dawn had started to break over the rooftops. Determined to get this over with while she still had the nerve, she had left the hovel early enough to give herself time to reach the meeting place even if she took the long route to get there. As a result, she suspected she had arrived early, and the person she had yet to meet was not even there yet.

“Where is the river?”

She had never been to this particular park before and had no idea whether it actually ran through the park at all. The paths to the left and the right of her all looked the same and seemed to disappear into trees that led to nothing but more trees and yet more paths. She couldn’t hear the telltale trickle of water, but there must be a river around somewhere because the note said ‘the river in the park’. Although the name of the park wasn’t mentioned on the note, this was the only park for miles around so it had to be the right one.

“Well,” she whispered with a glance from the left path to the right. “If I go to the right and don’t find it then I will have to turn around and take the path to the left.” She studied the paths and tried to memorise the layout of the trees in case she got lost. Unfortunately, one row of trees was starting to look very much like another, and she doubted it would be of any use to her when she needed to find the way home. “Everything looks the same,” she groused, aware that it was going to take a miracle if she could even find her way out of the park at all assuming she managed to find the man she needed to give the bag to.

Although it was still early, the sound of carts, dogs barking, and booted feet on cobbles in the distance began to grow steadily louder the more she walked along her next chosen path. London was waking up, and she was getting closer to the edge of the park and the bustling streets. She shivered again and quickened her pace because she was eager not to be alone, or cold, anymore. While she knew she should go back and try to find the river to make the meeting, the desperate need to see another living soul was just too great to ignore.

“Clarence should be doing this,” she sighed despondently as she slowed her pace until she came to a complete stop.

In reality, if she was completely honest with herself, she knew this last-ditch attempt to win her father’s favour was a complete waste of time and had to wonder why she had even bothered to try. It had been a long time since Clarence had been a guardian figure; a guiding light she could look up to and turn to for words of wisdom or sage advice. Of late, he had been so surly and offensive that she could hardly talk to him at all. When he did speak to her he made his disgust of her clear in many ways. Not only that but he had indicated on more than one occasion that she was nothing more than a burden to him and he would be glad to be rid of her, even though she did most of the chores and was more of a housekeeper to him than a daughter. Over the years their relationship had become so fragile that they often exchanged harsh words and were barely civil when they were together. Poppy had, of late, taken to spending as much time in the kitchen away from him as she could, mainly because it was one of the rooms in the house he deemed to be beneath him. She knew he would leave her alone in there, and he did, until he wanted something.

Theirs had long since ceased to be a father and daughter relationship, and had turned into more of a master and housekeeper one that Poppy hated, but had no option to endure until the opportunity arose that allowed her to head off on her own.

“Well that opportunity is here now,” she snorted as she strained hard to listen for the sound of trickling water. She thought she had heard it for a moment there, but couldn’t be entirely sure. “As soon as this bag is handed over, or what is left of it, I am going and you can stay,” she growled with a glint of unladylike steeliness in her gaze. 

As far as she was concerned, Clarence had made a complete hash of his life, and had seemingly taken to trying to ruin hers too. It was his latest exploits had driven them out of their comfortable house in Cumbria, to the seedy streets of London.

“I have had enough of making excuses for you, Clarence,” she declared miserably.

It felt as though all she had done for the last several months was try to find excuses for his awful behaviour. She had turned a blind eye to him coming home at all hours of the night, more often than not drunk. She had ignored the waning bank balance that was never refurbished with even a solitary copper and was now so perilously close to being completely empty that she wasn’t sure where the money was going to come from to purchase the coaching tickets for their return to Cumbria if they handed all over their money over. She had been unceremoniously dragged into dealing with the huge debts he had run up gambling, but as far as she was concerned, this was the last straw.

She had some money secreted away. There was enough to purchase herself a ticket back to Cumbria and buy the odd meal or two along the way without making a dent in the larger sum she had set aside to purchase accommodation while she found suitable employment once there. She didn’t have enough to buy a ticket for Clarence as well, or feed and accommodate them both even if she was inclined to remain with him, which she wasn’t now.

Until she could find some way of raising the sticky issue of leaving without incurring his wrath like she usually did, she had to allow their dire circumstances to dawn on the dratted man and hope that he would throw her out. She knew that if she told him she was going to leave he would demand to know how she intended to fund herself. The last thing she could do was tell him she had money put aside. If she did that, she had little doubt that he would bully her into handing it all over, and would then promptly spend it on his excesses. More and more of late she had been the one left to worry about where the food was coming from; how the butcher was going to get paid; and how they were going to survive the foreseeable future. Clarence, meantime, spent more and more of his time in his cups, oblivious to the world. He didn’t seem to care what happened to either of them today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or even next year.

When he had arrived home the week before last, in his cups yet worried to the point of hysteria, Poppy had been horrified to learn that he had spent the night gambling as well as drinking. Unfamiliar with poker, he had quickly gambled away the family home and now owed someone a considerable amount of money too. She had been shocked to learn the amount Clarence now owed, but had been even more stunned to learn that they had to repay the creditor in London of all places.

“We have to go to Peter,” Clarence had insisted at the time.

“Your cousin hates you,” Poppy had immediately countered. At that moment she could fully appreciate why.

“Yes, but I am not going to be the one to ask him. I wouldn’t ask that great buffoon for anything. You, however, will.” The calculating look in Clarence’s eye had warned her he knew exactly what he was doing, and that worried her.

Poppy had snorted and taken to pacing backward and forward in front of the fire as she tried to figure out a way to get them out of the sticky mess without having to traipse to London to do it, or beg money from their cousin.

“I am not going to do your dirty work for you,” she snapped, inwardly outraged at such a notion.

“Well then, we are out of a home and have no money to feed ourselves with. I have a bit put aside for emergencies.” The shifty look that had swept over his face had warned her she wasn’t going to like what else was to come - and she hadn’t. “I have enough to get us to London. It will have to be cheap, but we can rent somewhere for a month; long enough for you to make the journey to see Peter and secure us the necessary funds to get this house back. Tell him I have been unwell and have no money coming in; or tell him you want to set out on your own. I don’t care what you tell him. We have to get our hands on that cash, and Peter is the one to give it to us.”

Poppy hated to admit it but he was right. She detested the thought of having to go cap in hand to anyone, but had no choice if she wanted to continue to live in the house she had been born and raised in. If there was one consolation throughout all of their troubles it was that if she had to go and beg for money from anyone she would much prefer it to be Peter than anyone else.

“So we go to London and ask Peter for some money,” Poppy repeated thoughtfully. “We don’t need to rent somewhere for a month though. We can stay at a coaching inn overnight. That should be considerably cheaper.”

“No!” Clarence had all but shouted before he slumped back into his chair, clearly regretting his outburst.

Poppy had turned to study him with a frown. Deep in her heart she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her but she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know what it was.

“We will rent a house for a month,” he had persisted.

“But I don’t want to stay in London,” Poppy had protested.

“You will do as I say, girl,” Clarence had snorted disparagingly, and then launched into a tirade of just how ungrateful and spoilt she was.

That had been several days ago now. It had been with great reluctance that she had packed a few meagre belongings into a bag and left the home she loved to set out on a journey that had taken her straight into the very depths of Hell. The hovel was one step above living in the gutter. As far as she was concerned, life couldn’t get any worse.

“It has. You are stuck out in an isolated park at the crack of dawn struggling not to freeze to death,” she sighed with an indignant sniff. “Arrogant oaf,” she whispered, inwardly so coldly furious with her sire that she knew that if there was time she would have gone back to the ramshackle dump they had taken up residence in, hauled him bodily out of bed, and frog-marched him across town, night-rail and all, to make this farcical assignation himself. “I mean, if the creditor wants the money, why didn’t he just come and knock on the door like a normal person? Why all of this subterfuge? He pushed the note under the door so he knows where the house is,” she grumbled, cursing the strangeness of folk.

Lost in thought, she absently wandered from one path into another and kept walking, increasingly oblivious to her surroundings as she contemplated why she was there.

It’s the last time I help you,
she promised Clarence silently.

Her fingers clenched protectively around the rolled up bank notes in her pocket. This relatively small amount of money was her future now, but was it enough? Should she take more out of the bag for herself? She should hand any of it over?

Peter warning that she should use it for herself and not allow Clarence to get his hands on it still rang in her ears. At the time, the harshness in her normally mild-mannered cousin’s instruction had alarmed her. She had nodded her agreement without thinking because she had not wanted to offend him while he was willing to help her. Although she had never asked either Clarence, or Peter outright, she wondered what Clarence had done to her cousin to bring about such acrimony, but then at the moment had enough problems of her own without probing into historic discord. Whatever had gone on between the two of them, deep inside she knew she should heed Peter’s rather ebullient order.

She felt a little guilty that the right amount wasn’t in the bag she was about to hand over to the stranger she was going to meet anyway. At some point Clarence was going to find out and then all Hell will be let loose. He would almost certainly try to bully her into going back to Peter’s for more money, and that was something she was definitely not going to do.

“I need to take the money and run,” she whispered defiantly, echoing Peter’s exact words to her. Still, she kept walking, more out of curiosity than anything else. She wanted to see this creditor and tell them that Clarence wasn’t prepared to pay the cash. With the money in her hand to provide for her, it didn’t matter if she couldn’t go back to the hovel, so long as she had something to rely on.

“Thankfully,” she muttered several minutes later when it quickly became evident that her instincts were right and the narrow, winding river suddenly appeared through the trees a few feet ahead.

The note hadn’t said where ‘by the river’ exactly, so the best thing she could do was pick a spot and wait. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone could miss her. She was a single woman all alone in the middle of a vast and empty park at a time when most civilised people were still tucked up in their beds. Her mystery assignation would be a fine imbecile indeed if he walked right past her.

“Now what?” she whispered as she stared at the mist that hovered over everything. The smog had fallen thickly last night and still lingered hauntingly over the city this morning. It gave the air an almost expectant feel that just heightened her nerves and made her tremble even more.

Willing herself to remain as calm as possible, she clutched her bag tighter and studied the river. Was she standing on the right side of it? The bank opposite was exactly the same. The idiot who had sent the note hadn’t been all that specific about where to meet exactly so, as far as she was concerned, if anyone had the wrong side, the wrong place etc., it was him.

“He can come to me now,” she groused, hoping that nobody was nearby to overhear her talking to herself.

“Give us a penny, missus,” a small voice suddenly demanded from somewhere in the region of her knees.

Poppy cried out in shock and turned to glare down at the owner of the small voice. Her fingers tightened instinctively on the handle of her bag as she studied the grubby street urchin peering up at her. There was something shifty in those small dark eyes, embellished by an unrepentant grin. Alarm bells rang within her and she took a wary step backward. Something was wrong, she just knew it.