Page 7 of If a Lady Lingers

“Stop the carriage!” he shouted at the coachman, then bounded to the ground before the wheels had stopped rolling.

In front of a bakery, a man in a soiled apron with white flour graying his hair and beard held a small slip of a boy by the scruff of his neck. He smacked the boy alongside the head with his large hand in an angry and brutal attempt to box the boy’s ears. The child struggled and twisted to get away, crying out in pain and terror yet keeping a death grip on the half-eaten meat pasty in his hands.

“Let go of him!” Whitby charged up to the man. “Let go of him this instant, I tell you!”

The baker sneered at Whitby and struck the boy again. This time he drew a small trickle of blood from the boy’s left ear, and the boy cried out in pain. “This is none of your damned business, you peacock!”

“You’re beating a child.” Which made it everyone’s business. Whitby grabbed the man’s arm before he could strike the boy again. “Why don’t you beat on me instead?”

The man laughed. The beefy brute lowered his arm but didn’t release the small boy who continued to cry in pain. His little hand clamped over his bloody ear to protect it, while his other retained its grip on the pasty.

“Hell, guv’nor,” the man laughed. “This child could put up more of a fight than you, ye scrawny thing!”

Whitby ignored that insult if not the sting of it. He could hold his own in fights, despite how slight he appeared. He’d taken private lessons in fisticuffs from Gentleman Jackson’s salon for years, building on what his six older brothers had taught him from the time he was just a lad. They’d had to. The other boys at school had delighted in tormenting him, and his brothers had grown tired of always having to fight in his defense. The problem was that while Whitby knew that other solutions were usually available that didn’t involve bare knuckles, swords, or pistols, he also knew that children should never be beaten, regardless of the reason.

It was time to fight. Gritting his teeth, Whitby clenched his fist and drew back—

Mariah darted between the two men and grabbed his arm. “What did the boy do?”

“Caught the little urchin attemptin’ to steal from me, my lady,” the baker explained, giving a nod of deference to Mariah and a hard shake to the child by his collar for good measure.

The pasty flopped in the air, but the boy’s fingers held tight. It was his prize. He wasn’t giving it up.

“He was probably hungry, the poor little thing,” she scolded the baker. “Where is a child like him supposed to get money for food?”

“Don’t know.” The man spat on the footpath. “Don’t care.”

“And you’re beating him for trying to keep from starving?” Whitby accused.

“That’s right. Givin’ him a good pummelin’ ’fore I take him to the authorities so he’ll think twice ’bout doin’ it again.”

Whitby couldn’t let that happen. At worst, the boy would be sent to gaol or have his palm branded for theft, and at best, he’d be sent to a workhouse, where he would be farmed out for labor to pay the parish for his keep. Either way, his young life would be over before it began.

“I’ll pay for the pasty.” Whitby reached into his pocket for the loose coins he kept there. “How much?”

The baker slid an assessing gaze over him. “Half a crown.”

Whitby’s arms fell to his sides in exasperation. “Tuppence at most.”

“Half a crown,” the brute repeated, “or I drag him ’fore the magistrate right now.”

Whitby grimaced. Resentfully, he handed the coins to the baker.

The man snatched them into his large hand. He dropped the boy onto the stone footpath, then kicked him for good measure as he turned to stomp back inside his bakery.

The boy shoved the remaining pasty into his mouth.

“Wait here!” Mariah ordered, then rushed inside the chophouse next door.

As they waited, Whitby looked down at the boy. The child glared back at him with an insolent gleam in his eyes, as if waiting for Whitby to strike him just as the baker had. Most likely because he was used to being beaten by every adult he encountered on the streets. Whitby’s chest tightened with grief. The boy couldn’t have been more than six, but his young existence was already bleak and brutal.

Mariah returned with a small package wrapped in paper and string. She bent down to the boy who was still chomping away at the pasty that filled his entire mouth and plumped out his cheeks like a chipmunk’s. Or the king’s.

“This is for you.” Mariah held out the package to the child who eyed her suspiciously. “For later. Some bread, cheese, and meat…and a sticky bun.”

He didn’t take it, but swallowed down the last bite and struggled not to choke. “What fer?”

“For you,” Whitby interjected. “So when you get hungry again, you won’t have to steal.”