accomplished, but he would die before Roth laid a hand on her and he wished to always be there
if he ever tried to.
As Rad turned to his nemesis and the dismaying brown eyes turned back to him and his
companion with an arrogant grin, the lad bulked up the courage to smile amiably at the face, his
temper again threatening to choke him.
“Roth Parnell. How does this day find you?”
“Quite lighthearted, Rad, quite lighthearted!” was the sudden reply which thundered
about the room and startled his two newcomers. Then he became contrite, glancing at Anne and
grinning, betraying his dragon-like teeth. “Miss Falkman, is it?” he inquired of her. Not waiting
for an answer, he looked at Rad. “Mind if I meet this gorgeous young lady?”
Taken aback by this piece of abruptness Rad nodded, speechless, whereupon Roth Parnell
slowly climbed upon his feet, fixing his eyes on Anne. She had experienced uneasy emotions too
at the ways of this man. He was unlike any of the other men she had met, and anxiety took this
opportunity to flow back into her heart. Beside her she could feel Rad’s protectiveness of her, but
even that was not soothing. A peculiar fancy suggested that she had come upon this man before
and her knees quivered a bit at this heinous idea. In spite of all of this, though, she remained tied
in her spot, for the excitement to meet someone new fought to defeat fear.
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Resuming a standing position in the fashion of a shaken being mounting to his feet after
his planet’s catastrophe and continuing to gaze at his subject, Roth’s mouth stretched further
with the extending of his back until both were equal in length, yet his gaze did not falter.
Forgetting this odd stance, Anne’s happiness washed away all of her fears now as she
smiled sweetly, dipped another curtsy at the man, and murmured her signature, “What a pleasure
to meet you, sir.”
The tight gaze persisted. Had it gone on for longer than five minutes Rad might had been
seriously concerned, but thankfully within this period the pig finally opened his lips, melting his
smile into only a tiny smirk. He uttered his part with a most corrupt indulgence, the syllables
rolling off of his tongue.
“Oh, no, Miss Anne. The joy is mine to be able to see the loveliest lady in all of
England.”
Fully mobile now, he lifted his hand to swipe up her cool, pale one. He pressed his mouth
fervently upon it, his eyes never sliding away from their place. Shocked, Anne could only widen
her eyes at him. As obliged as she was for the kiss, it did not escape her sight that there was a
perverse air that drifted about it, but then she realized than she had been recognized and fawned
over and that was the vital affair to her. Her eyes sparkled contentedly over the man who
crouched just to brush his lips against her skin, concealing all effects of disgust. The girl was as
rapturous as a filly brought out into a lush meadow at the birth of spring.
Rad was not in the possession of any pocket watch at the moment, but his hand craved for
one as the sense of Anne’s protector strengthened with each moment that still painted the picture
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of Roth’s filth-ridden mouth upon the back of her hand. He wondered why the fool’s antics had
to be so lengthy, and why such a sinful message behind them? Rad was positive that Roth was
not to be trusted at all and he was sure that he would know nothing but relief when Anne and he
were safely away from this crowd.
Another five minutes was likely to have passed with this action of Roth’s as well, but
finally he released the child’s hand and went back to his seat, avoiding Rad’s glaring. The
muscles around Rad’s eyes relaxed mildly. He took Anne’s hand firmly in his own, making
certain that Roth could see.
“Thank you, Roth,” he grumbled brusquely. “Good day to you.”
Bidding them farewell with a small wave, Roth flipped his body back to his friends and
their boring conversations. Rad grabbed Anne’s arm and led her away from the dismal corner.
His morality whispered that he should apologize to her, but for some reason he could not.
Invalid, for the girl fought her own confused state.
As her guardian had rescued her from the corner, she had sensed the fracturing of
oblivion as the rude means of the man she had greeted leaked through the pores of her skin. The
kiss was not the only object that had done this. Once her fears had been cleared upon spending a
couple of moments with the new man she had felt triumphant, but now the anxieties were
coming back. The man, this Roth Parnell, had inevitably frightened her and she was not certain
the reason to this. He had been so enigmatic and bizarre.
The last thing I am going to do is tell Rad how I feel. I don’t care how uneasy I feel or
how concerned he becomes. I must forget about all of it and look forward to meeting the next
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person.
Anxiety was not done with its merriment, however. As the gentleman and lady trotted
toward one of the last tables on their route, Anne came to realize that it was this table that had
stood near the middle-aged woman whom she had spied earlier. She halted. A cold sweat broke
out onto her face.
(The moonlight shed its beams upon the many shops and stores along the streets, but not
on the arrival of this. Seven, no, eight harlots threw their voices high against the crisp night air,
and not without the accompanying shouts of the few men whom they held captive. Their white
breasts were almost entirely exposed, the hair on their heads disheveled into thorn bushes. Each
two harlots shared one man, and with him they also shared their shackles and wild scents of beer,
perfume, and witchcraft. They were the devil’s wives.
Beholding all of this, shaking with horror at such a sight was an orphaned girl child who
stood behind the wall of a nearby shop, her ribs aching for sustenance against her six-year old
body...)
“Anne, dearest? Are you ready to meet your new tutor?”
Observing reality once more the shaken child faced her caretaker again, her brow knit in
confusion.
“Excuse me?”
“Anne, we are about to meet your new tutor. Is everything all right?” Rad squinted
humorously at her, but his angry mind knew that Roth was probably the reason for any disorder
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that the girl might be undergoing. He reveled in the thought of marching back to the swine and
delivering onto him a swollen jaw.
“What? No, I’m fine, thank you,” Anne said softly. “It’s just that...are you sure this
woman is my tutor?”
“Absolutely.” Scooping up her hand, Rad stepped the final distance up to the table and
into the midst of the woman and her surrounding company. As soon as she caught a close view
of her feminine head, Anne understood at once that this woman would be nothing like the
dastard ladies of her nightmares and she again felt at ease.
The woman was quite tall and about forty years of age. Her paunchy face was rosy and
her unctuous hair hung down from her shoulders like the strings of a large puppet. Her black
eyes were bright and set deep into her skull and a few blemishes snuggled into her cheeks was
proof of her skin’s poor hygiene. Albeit her face was fat, the rest of her body was of an average
size, but its clothing of a laced corset and black and scarlet skirts did little to achieve beauty for
the unattractive female. No matter, she gave out her hand selflessly to Anne for the girl to shake,
a dressy smile hung on her lips. Exhaling deeply, the girl returned the smile and took her hand in
hers before Rad introduced the women to each other.
“Anne, meet Miss Devonna Ricketts, your new tutor of the subjects of reading, writing,
and arithmetic. Miss Ricketts, Miss Anne Falkman, as I have already wrote to you about.”
“How do you do?” Miss Ricketts warmly greeted. “I hope to be able to cover many topics
in our studies together.”
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Nodding, Anne showed her teeth in her contentment at the prospect of finally learning
something other than survival methods in city gutters.
As Windsor occupied himself with emptying the luggage from the carriage, Rad followed
an engaged Anne down the path to the Bell, which was set into the center of Hertford. As he
trailed behind, he cocked his head at the inn and thought that with its pleasant accommodations
his charge would be filled with daily satisfaction.
“Does it please you, Anne?” he called after her. The child turned around to nod in
exhilaration. Chuckling, he stopped to admire the relic before him, pleased at his own selection.
“It is beautiful.” Windsor came up behind Rad, setting down the luggage at his feet with a
grunt. He gleamed a proud smile at his master. “You made an excellent choice, Mr. Quincy.”
“Well, I wanted to be certain that our new resident was comfortable. That is important to
ensure.”
Carefree once more Anne skipped back down the trail, her skirts flying. Her face shone
like the sun. “No need to worry,” she squealed to Rad. “I honestly don’t believe that living in an
inn is going to be so bad after all.”
At this, the two men frowned. After all? They glimpsed at one another, not willing to
believe that there had been a single moment in which their sweet Anne had been ungrateful for
their services. Wishing for an elaboration on her part, they rounded back to her, but the flighty
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child had already galloped to the hotel’s door and was near to swinging it ajar. Discovering this,
Windsor forgot about the issue and cantered forward to assist her. Rad was agreed to follow, but
as he slowly walked along he could not store away what Anne had said to him, even while
feeling the way that he did about her. Surely love obstructed mainly everything in the mind, but
there almost always remained a fragment of something said or done and the mind of Rad’s had
more than a fragment in this matter. Evidence seemed to be slowly piling up onto itself, and as
Rad went toward the inn his subconscious stung with the smallest needles of confusion and
question.
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5 A New Life
The weeks passed away from the month of July and autumn arrived in the humble town
of Hertford. This did not mean the end of schooling for Anne, since it had been determined by
Rad that because she had acquired such a delayed start in her education as compared to other
highly-bred ladies, she would have to study almost constantly until she was at least sixteen. Only
a few academic breaks were set into the girl’s schedule, these including holiday vacations and a
short leave for Miss Ricketts in the springtime. Anne’s voice had not been considered in this
arrangement of her new life, but she grew to love school so dearly that this would not have
mattered anyway. She also became quite fond of waking up every morning to understand that she
would be seen, loved, and complimented that day no matter how numerous her failings and
mistakes.
No doubt, the most amazing stride that Anne made during this time was adapting to a
plan that had been written for her. All her life she had woken up at varied hours and seldom ever
went to sleep at the same time every night and now, all of a sudden, she was ordered to wake up
every morning no later than eight o’clock on weekdays and seven o’clock on Sundays. Despite
these drastic changes Anne did, besides odds that might have suggested otherwise, find that she
favored a methodical life more than she had ever dreamed was possible. If there was ever to be a
happening in a day that would alter this beloved culture, Anne believed that she would want to
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meet it headlong and as soon as she could with a grand defense. She treasured her pampered,
satisfactory world, and she would always fight to keep it existent.
Every week morning, Anne would open her eyes to the beauteous sunshine that lived to
enlighten her furnished bedroom with its lasting rays with a grin drawn on her thin face, a grin
that could naturally be expected from someone whose entire life had been horrible until a kind
stranger had so gracefully touched it. After dressing herself with one of many dresses that had
been purchased for her she would scurry down to the hotel’s dining room to eat breakfast, which
was still prepared for her by the never-tiring Windsor, and enjoy her meal alongside Rad. This
was when social interaction was fluent, and in her first days at the inn Anne liked this chance to
converse. As the autumn progressed, however, annoyance struck her every day when she thought
of descending to the dining room and speaking to her benefactors while pushing down her food.
This annoyance distributed so throughout her heart that she became less and less willing to sit at
the breakfast table like a helpless animal while the bores talked about subjects that were not in
the least of her interests, subjects that had nothing to do with her. They did often try to engross
her into what they spoke of, but this was so unsuccessful that they soon gave up. After all, they
grew tiresome of her constant pleadings to excuse herself from the table and, as she remarked to
herself, a book that was filled with blank pages. Truly, these feelings of Anne’s persisted so that
by the middle of September she stopped eating breakfast altogether and spent her additional time
outside waiting for the arrival of her tutor. When asked about this change of routine by her
sponsors, Anne skillfully lied that she fancied she was taking advantage of Windsor by eating his
meals every day and forgetting to show thankfulness for his hospitality. (To prove this, Anne
pretended to forget to thank Windsor for his breakfasts a few days before she stopped eating
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them. Before doing that, she had always showed him how grateful she was in some way.)
Even before Anne started to skip breakfast, her tutor would always come to the hotel at
nine o’clock sharp in a black carriage that Anne considered to be decidedly inferior. She would
then resign to the drawing room with Miss Ricketts for a morning of reading until lunch was
ready at noon. After lunch, Miss Ricketts assigned a piece of writing for Anne, and she would
have two hours to complete it before it was time for arithmetic. A regular school day would
conclude at four o’clock, add or subtract a few minutes.
Miss Ricketts turned out to be a fine teacher, patient, friendly, and as strict as a tutor
should be. Having gained the knowledge by Rad’s letter to her that Anne was fourteen years old
and uneducated, she took it upon herself to impart as much knowledge as she could unto Anne in
the two-year period that she would be working with her. Such a daunting task required endurance
on the tutor’s part, but having educated other children for more than twenty years it was not a
new experience for her and she worked quickly and efficiently in order to make her goal.
As much as Anne liked her life and her learning the three major subjects, she could
barely tolerate Miss Ricketts. The confidence that she, the student, was of a higher intelligence
stood to a tall degree within her, particularly when her tutor made the honest mistake of giving
her a beginner’s writing assignment when she yearned to try her hand at an advanced one. This
occurred on a day in early August, when Anne had only been studying for a couple of weeks.
Miss Ricketts had assumed that Anne was by no means prepared for an intermediate writing
lesson, even while glancing at her previous essays that had betrayed excellent work. Her training
indicated to her that the beginner lessons should continue for at least one more week, but when
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she told this to her student she was met with protest. Anne did not see why she was forced to go
on with such “childish” writings, and she was eager to complain this to Miss Ricketts. While
verbalizing this she acted contrite, but the reality was that she suspected her own teacher to be
stupid. If she was the fine tutor that Rad had so carefully selected, why was her physical
appearance always so sultry and her manner so ordinary? As a matter of fact, it sickened Anne
that she had to have an instructor like this one.
Things were really not entirely bad for the girl, though, for Miss Ricketts was
open-minded enough to take Anne’s wishes into consideration. She had been baffled and
somewhat surprised when Anne had told her that she desired more challenging assignments, but
after paging through the child’s past work and discussing it with Rad, she ultimately decided that
Anne was smart and deserved to have her wishes granted. Even when Anne got what she wanted,
she disliked Miss Ricketts more every day. Soon she ceased to show cordiality toward her tutor
completely and was merely polite when necessary. Her assignments came easy to her, but she
pretended to concentrate on them as arduously as she could to keep from interacting with this
new hate. Therefore, her sheer willpower began to sail her through each school day, as well as
the awaiting for the clock to strike four.
After her school hours were finished for the day, Rad would persuade Anne to seek out
and find activities that interested her, for he held a high belief that recreation was essential to a
happy life. He gave permission for her to enjoy herself in this fashion until dinner was ready at
six o’clock, and then after dinner Rad and Windsor would take their dear friend out to entertain
her even more. They traveled to one event each night in the wonderful coach that became the
girl’s pure joy, most of the time to London, where there was always something going on. Rad
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would take Anne to parties with wines and dances and to balls, circuses, plays and anything else
that he could think of, for he wanted nothing more than for her to be happy, especially given the
harsh life that she had forever known. Anne did enjoy herself immensely at these gatherings, for
nothing filled her heart with more pride than to see countless men swarming around her like flies
to honey, their eyes shining with the longing to delight her with a drink or dance. However, it
was not all sunshine to her, for fate had long ago chosen who its victim was. All of the time that
she attended these occasions, her heart lived inside her throat as she scanned the area for the tight
smile and costly ensemble of Madame Button. Never did a moment go by during these times in
which Anne was not anxious about coming upon the hateful woman; she lay in incessant
expectation of the lady sneaking up behind her, covering her mouth, and dragging her off. She
did not care that it seemed to the public eye that she now had a family. The knowledge that
Madame Button would find her wherever she was and the terror of this unfolding made its
permanent home in her heart. She did not dare to tell Rad about what she was afraid of. His
attempts at giving her as much happiness as possible were blessings to her-not that she was
immediately thankful for them. Moreover, she just did not wish to hurt his feelings in regard to
how she was feeling at everything that she attended with him. Thus, she kept silent.
By several expeditions into city centers, Anne unveiled to herself how fond she was of
shopping, and this led to many walks on London’s famous Bond Street, where some of
England’s most fashionable suits and dresses hung so temptingly in stores. The excited child
would purchase items continuously every night that Windsor transported her to this street. The
result of this was that it would be nearly midnight before the trio returned to their hotel. Covent
Garden was also a favorite site to visit. Anne loved the long rows of fruits and vegetables that
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were sold so freely to so many customers, and when she tasted one she wondered how she could
have gone through fourteen years with such a small number of them ingested by her.
Rad was also destined to make Anne comfortable on Saturdays and vacations when she
did not have school, and it was during these days that they went on certain road trips together,
once even to the ocean. Anne liked the trips, though not as much as she liked to travel to local
places near the Bell. All of the time that she spent alone with Rad aggravated her spirit now and
then, for the longer the periods that she exhausted with him the more confused she became. She
hated to admit it to herself, but the close feelings of companionship that can only come from a
friend squelched her heart. They fed it until it could take no more but instead hoped for
something different. Its hunger grew insatiable and Anne did not want to admit why. To anyone
else she would describe how fruitless and bad Rad was, and certainly she never told herself
anything but this. Yet there was a warm candle in his eyes, and this she could not deny. He
seemed to never tire of raining upon her a lavish life and laughed joyously at his own expense.
Anne wished that she could hate Rad and push him out of her mind, but no matter her brutal
ways and the flower of fear that had bloomed within her in respect to being drawn to the male
sex, she was being drawn to him the more that she was with him. There was something about
him that gripped her with a deathly squeeze, and like everything else she could not escape from
it.
The way that Rad felt about Anne was quite similar, but more outward and intense than
Anne’s feelings were for him. The slightest mention of her name sent his heart pounding and
sailing by her side, making him wonder how she was doing when she was not in his sight. His
mind dwelled on her constantly, day and night, and the more that he thought about her the more
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he wished that she was his. However, he knew that such a dream must be put aside until Anne
became fully accustomed to both her new life and him. Soon enough, though, he planned to
request to court her. He only hoped that she longed for it as much as he did.
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6 A Chance for Gratitude
Christmas soon approached, and to celebrate the holiday a huge ball was scheduled to be
had in the heart of London’s most popular neighborhood. Anne was, of course, both required and
requested to attend. Rad had it in his mind that the more he placed Anne in social situations, the
better the chance of her acquiring better social skills and finding a suitable beau. He made this
known as he was supposed to, and although his love for Anne kept growing day by day, he knew
that if he truly cared for her he would introduce her to other men before she made a decision on
whom she would permit to court her.
The party was to be held on Christmas Eve in the heart of the West End, a neighborhood
that was well known for hosting various events for the upper classes. Anne had memorized most
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of the city of London but this part was somewhat foreign to her, probably because it was a sect
that was reserved only for the wealthy and therefore, she had never dared to venture into it. What
Rad had been giving her through the last months, however, more than qualified