Helen Dickson - The Earl and the Pickpocket

‘I know,’ Adam remarked drily. ‘You prefer to steal it.’

‘I’m particular as to whom I eat with.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Adam turned abruptly and strode away.

Gnawing on his bottom lip, the lad watched him go, the hollow ache in his middle reminding him how hungry he was. It had been hours since he’d eaten, and the stale bread and mouldy cheese had been less than appetising. Hunger pains overcame his sense of outrage and, unable to let the chance of a meal slip by he scrambled in the stranger’s wake.

‘Wait. I suppose I could manage a bite,’ he said, though it chafed him to do so.

Adam smiled to himself and glanced back. ‘Then hurry up. You’re lagging, boy,’ he reproached, heading for the nearest alehouse.

The youth glowered at the broad back. The man was infuriatingly sublime in his amusement. If he weren’t so desperate to eat, he’d cheerfully tell him to go and jump in the Thames.

Avoiding the drunks, they entered a tavern. It was scruffy, noisy and dark, the walls blackened with the heavy smoke of the fire, candles and tobacco smoke. When they were seated in a dark corner and food ordered, Adam looked across the table at his companion. He sat erect, his small chin raised, and Adam could see him putting up a valiant fight for control—a fight he won. Despite his ragged garb he looked incongruously like a proud young prince, his eyes sparkling like twin jewels. Adam’s granite features softened and his eyes warmed, as if he understood how humiliated the lad felt.

Pity stirred his heart. The lad was just one of hundreds of London’s lost children with thin, dirty faces, their eyes dull and lifeless, children who would never know their parents, since many whose parents could not support them had been deserted, and their only means of survival was to steal or beg.

His thoughts shifted to another young boy, a bastard of the same blood as himself—that he too might be a ragged street urchin, condemned to a life of disease and hunger. Deprived of the prosperity he was accustomed to, had he survived—this? With this in mind he looked again at the lad and felt himself drawn to him. Why, he could not say, but he was in a position to ease his lot in life—if only a temporary ease—and perhaps the lad could be of help to him.

‘Since we are to eat together, we might as well get better acquainted. My name’s Adam. What’s yours?’

The lad met Adam’s gaze, serious, intent on his own. He had the uneasy thought that his companion was like a tall, predatory hawk, and that he was a tiny disadvantaged bird, or a mouse about to be pounced on.

‘What’s that to you?’ he questioned suspiciously.

Adam’s curiosity increased. He arched a brow and peered at his companion, shrugging casually. ‘Just curious. You do have a name, don’t you?’ he enquired with a trace of sarcasm. When the lad made no further comment Adam glanced at him sideways, prompting, feeling his resistance.

‘Ed,’ the lad mumbled reluctantly.

‘Ed? Ed what?’

‘Just Ed,’ he retorted sharply, not wishing to become too friendly.

‘Right. Just Ed it is then.’

Ed began to fidget and his expression became pained. Removing his hat to scratch his head, he exposed an unevenly cropped thatch of an indeterminate colour.

Adam grinned at the tousled-haired youth. ‘It’s time you took yourself in hand and gave yourself a bath.’

‘I can take care of myself,’ Ed bit back irately, pulling his hat back on. ‘Besides, baths are for the gentry—not the likes of me.’ Uneasy beneath Adam’s close scrutiny, he pulled his hat further down. Sometimes daylight had a habit of revealing more than it ought.

Adam continued to watch him, reminding himself that here was no innocent. But he could not help but wonder at the gist of the lad. ‘Where do you live, Ed—when you’re not relieving people of their possessions, that is?’

Ed’s eyes sparked, and his fine-boned face tilted obstinately to betray his mutinous thoughts. Why did he have to pry? ‘You ask too many questions,’ he snapped.

‘It’s a habit of mine. Besides, in the light of your theft of my watch, I reckon you owe me a few answers.’

Ed saw Adam’s blue eyes were not without humour, but there was censure in the set of his jaw. ‘I—I have a room.’

‘With friends?’

‘No. I’m selective about who I call friends,’ he said reflectively, some of his cockiness fading. ‘I don’t need them. Some people do, but I don’t. People are not always what they seem—and not to be trusted. I only need myself. It’s best that way—easier, and less complicated.’

‘In that case you must be lonely.’

Ed looked at Adam, considering the word. Lonely, he thought. Yes, he was lonely; in fact, he had never imagined he could be so lonely, but, worse than that, he was afraid—afraid of getting caught. He hated robbing people, and he hated St Giles. He desperately wanted to stop and be respectable, and not spend his life feeling scared. When he’d found himself in London’s substructure six months ago, he’d had no choice but to face a world he could never understand, and a tyrant who might end his life at a whim.

‘I can see that in your line of business,’ Adam continued, ‘there must be a great many things you wish to protect from intruders.’

Ed frowned. ‘Secrets, perhaps, not things. I don’t own anything.’

‘You own yourself,’ Adam responded quietly.

‘Do I?’ he asked, thinking of Jack, and wondering what this stranger would have to say about that, since Jack regarded him as his most valuable possession. ‘I’ve never really thought about it. Do you?’

‘All the time,’ Adam replied, studying Ed gravely, having decided that Ed was a young person of no ordinary cleverness. ‘You seem to be an intelligent lad so I’m sure you care about yourself, about what you do—but not enough, it would seem, and for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps you don’t have enough faith in yourself—or pride. If you did, you wouldn’t steal things. Why do you steal, Ed? Don’t you have an alternative?’

Ed looked at him steadily, his eyes darkening at some secret memory. ‘Oh, yes—I do,’ he said quietly. ‘But this is far, far better.’

‘I see. You might give some thought to what I said.’

Ed nodded, fascinated. Adam’s eyes were frank and interesting. ‘I have—and I do believe in myself,’ he confided. ‘I don’t like stealing things and I intend to stop—one day. And I will. I want so many things—somewhere special, and safe, that I can call my own. I will change my entire life, when I’ve figured out a way how to do it.’

Adam believed him. He was troubled by the intensity of his statement. It was born of deep conviction—and perhaps more than a little pain. Ed’s eyes were wide and intense, showing in their depths a strong will that as yet knew neither strength nor direction. He was surprised at the feelings of tenderness this youth aroused in him. He sounded so ingenuous about what he wanted that he wanted to reassure him.

‘Don’t take too long,’ he said gently. ‘Those who make thieving their profession are destined for an early death on the gallows. Next time you get caught, the person you rob might not be as lenient as me. Have you always been a child of the streets? Have you never lived anywhere else?’ When he got no response he lifted a questioning brow. ‘France, perhaps?’

Ed stiffened, suddenly wary. ‘Why should you think that?’

‘When I pulled you out of the puddle, your cursing in that language was most proficient.’

Immediately the shutters came down over Ed’s eyes and his expression became guarded. He didn’t like talking about himself, especially not with strangers. ‘I told you—you ask too many questions,’ he replied sharply, averting his eyes.

Adam smiled, nodding slowly. He assumed there was a past that Ed was trying to forget. ‘I beg your pardon. I can see I intrude on your privacy too much. Being a private person myself, I respect it in others. You can relax. See, our food has arrived.’

Faced with warm buttered bread, hot, succulent meat pies and tarts packed with apples and pears, a significant battle to conduct himself properly was fought and lost in a matter of seconds as Ed was unable to override the demands of hunger. Eating more leisurely, Adam watched in amusement as the ravenous youth gorged himself. Studying the remarkable face and unable to resist the temptation to draw the lad, he took a small sketchpad and a piece of charcoal from his pocket and began to sketch quickly, effortlessly.

As the food filled and warmed his belly, Ed began to eat more slowly, savouring the taste fully. When his hunger was satisfied, he took a rag from his pocket and wiped his mouth and sat back, lulled into a harmony he thought he’d lost. He became aware of Adam’s preoccupation as he sketched, his fingers long and lean—the fingers of a creative man of some refinement—and how he raised his eyes every now and then to glance at him. How remote he was, he thought, how detached. Stung with curiosity, he leaned across the table.

‘Can I see?’

‘Of course. Here, what do you think of yourself?’ Adam turned the pad round to show him.

Ed gasped, staring incredulously at the image of himself. Adam had captured his likeness expertly. His face was all angles and shades, his eyes sad and thoughtful. ‘Is that how you see me?’ he asked, without taking his eyes off the sketch.

‘I’d have made a better job of it if I’d had longer.’

‘You’re very good. You really ought to take it up professionally.’

‘I’m glad you like it. And I promise to give serious thought to your suggestion,’ Adam replied, with a teasing smile in his voice and a knowing glint in his eyes.

‘You should,’ Ed said with gentle, but unshakeable firmness. ‘You could make a fortune. May I keep it?’

‘My pleasure.’ Adam tore the sketch off the pad and passed it to him, touched to see how carefully Ed handled it and placed it flat beneath his jacket so as not to crease it, as if it were the most precious object.

‘Do you feel better with food in your belly?’ Adam asked.

Ed nodded, remembering his manners. ‘Thank you. I am grateful.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Ed’s earlier anger had receded, leaving nothing to bolster his flagging courage. Adam’s eyes were still fixed on him so avidly that he blushed. There was an intensity, a pointedness about his look that for some reason unnerved him. He was curious to know more about the man whose watch he had stolen and who could sketch so artistically. He wondered why he hadn’t handed him over to the law, as others he stole from would have done. He cocked his head to one side and took stock of him. He really was a striking-looking man.

‘You’re a gentleman, I can tell, so what’s a gentleman doing in St Giles?’ he asked. ‘I don’t believe you came to take a stroll, or take the air.’ Suddenly his dark scowl vanished. He laughed out loud, a mischievous twinkle dancing in his eyes as the obvious reason occurred to him. ‘Were you looking for something that might be of interest to your habits?’ he remarked boldly. ‘If it’s a whore you’re after, there are plenty to be had, but ’tis the pox you’ll get for your sins.’

Adam caught his breath. ‘I don’t buy my pleasures—I’ve never had to. I can attract my own women—and I never barter.’ He became silent and thoughtful as he seemed to mull something over. ‘I’m looking for a boy,’ he told Ed bluntly.

After six months as a resident of St Giles, it took no straining of Ed’s mental process to conclude his companion might be one of those depraved characters who practised wicked vices.