The Gilded Scarab by Anna Butler Read Free Book Online Page B

Arcade. There were no ladies here. Only doxies.
    They gave me faint, flirtatious smiles, holding back their shoulders to make their bosoms more prominent. It was too early for the theater crowd heading for Drury Lane or the Opera House, and they were probably looking to fill the time before their main customers came later. Well, they were out of luck with me. I avoided eye contact where I could. I had other quarry in mind that evening, but it was hard to evade the girls entirely. Indeed, one lay in wait for me as I left the tobacconist, a woman with dark blonde hair and sad brown eyes. She pushed her bosom into my arm and smirked.
    Poor girl. But I couldn’t pretend an interest I didn’t have. “Not tonight, my dear.”
    “Ten shillings to a fine-looking one like you.” The travesty of a bright smile widened. She put both her hands on the arm her bosom had rested against so invitingly. Even in gloves, her fingers trembled with cold. She wasn’t skimpily dressed, like some of the streetwalkers in poorer parts of town, but she must still be cold on the bitter November night, standing around hoping to catch the eye of a customer. This was no weather to ply one’s trade in the streets. “I’d do it for nothing, you’re such a handsome boy! Ten shillings, now. That isn’t too much to ask for an hour of a lady’s company, now is it? Come along, dear! I can show you the nicest time.”
    Lovely patter she had there! Almost tempting. But I smiled, kissed her powdered cheek, and shook my head. “You’re very pretty, but, erm….” I leaned in close and said in her ear, “I rather wish you were your brother, my dear.”
    The doxy stared, then laughed heartily. It was far more genuine than the professional smile she’d greeted me with a few minutes before. “I wish I was too, sir! Well, that’s a disappointment and no mistake. The prettiest ones are not for the likes of me, it seems.” She slipped the two half crowns I gave her into a slim leather bag hanging from her wrist. “The best of luck to you, sir.”
    “And you, pretty one. Keep warm tonight and good hunting.”
    “You too, sir, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
    Well, she was wrong there. But I did know what I wanted. I made my way out onto Garrick Street and went north toward Floral Street.
    They don’t call us Stravaigor for nothing, the House of vagrants and vagabonds. We’re all rovers at heart, content to wander the earth, always seeking new things to see. We have feet that itch from birth, and we spend our lives with our heads up and our eyes open, drinking in the sights and smells around us. Walking Londinium’s streets is a favorite pastime of mine. There is always so much to see and so much happening. All right, I would agree it’s a cliché to say the metropolis never sleeps, but I don’t believe the streets are ever empty. All human life is there. I can only liken it to passing a series of small theaters, in which people come onto the stage and perform their piece before fading back into the shadows.
    The market itself had been long over, of course, by the time I got there. Most of the fruit and vegetable sellers would have been there before dawn, and had long since dispersed around the metropolis. But still there was evidence of the trade everywhere. A sack of turnips, mostly rotted from the smell, stood propped against an alley mouth with a ragged woman bent over it, rooting through to find some sound enough to eat. Perhaps she had once been as pretty and jaded as the girl in the arcade. I parted with another couple of half crowns. No, of course I didn’t want her thanks, poor girl, and I had to scramble to get away from her gratitude. There was a real difference between my sort of genteel hard-up-edness, and literally not having two ha’pennies to rub together. I could spare a little silver.
    I had to dodge around a group of urchins kicking moldy oranges about as if they were footballs and hooting with delight every time