“Sad but true.”
“You are afraid I will falter when it comes time to bring my mother down.” He kissed her when she looked guilty. “I will not, Olympia. I will not say that it will not trouble me when it is done, but I cannot allow this to continue. I failed by not ending her reign after what she did to Faith and I will not fail again. All I can hope for is that I can do it without locking her in Bedlam or having her hanged.”
And that, she thought, was a sad truth she could not argue away.
Chapter 11
Idly wondering if she needed more sweets for the small tribe of children she now housed, Olympia hesitated outside the shop, decided she had enough, and then began the short walk back to the Warren. She hoped no one had seen her slip out for there would be lectures about walking out alone to endure if someone had. She knew a lady should not go anywhere alone but she was not some virginal miss who needed protection just to keep the slurs of gossip-mongers destroying her good name and it was still day, as well as only a short walk away from her home. Despite that stern talk, however, she began to feel both guilty and nervous about being out alone. Olympia prayed it was not some forewarning and quickened her step.
After three days of hard work, her house was not as full as it had been. One by one the children who could not or would not be returned home were being placed with her family but she still housed six boys, one girl who was close to being a woman, her four boys from the stews, and her two nephews living with her. The ones rescued from Dobbin House would need a lot of help no matter how good the situation they were placed into was. They had been born into the dark, dangerous slums of the city and had an acceptance, even an expectation, of the cruelty of life that the children of the more prosperous would never have, but they were still badly bruised in mind and spirit. She wanted to take everyone who had sent the children into that hell to be beaten until the skin hung in shreds from their bodies and she would like to see even worse done to the ones who had paid to make use of those poor children.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, fighting to clear the haze of anger from her mind. Just as she began to feel calmer she heard the sound of a cat. Olympia peered down the heavily shadowed alley between two aging buildings when a repetition of the noise told her it was not a cat but a kitten. Good sense and a creeping sense of foreboding, but good sense crumbled rapidly beneath the sounds made by a small animal in distress.
Cautiously, she entered the alley. The moment she was fully within its confines, she paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the near dark surrounding her. The first thing she saw clearly was a tiny yellow ball of fur hanging by its back legs from a hook high up on the side of the building to her right. It was frantically trying to free its back legs from the rope that bound them, the other end of the tether tied to the hook in the wall. Appalled by the cruelty of such a thing, she hurried toward the kitten.
Olympia was just trying to figure out how to reach the end of the rope the kitten hung from when two men rushed her from out of the deep shadows a few feet farther down the alley. She held her folded parasol out like a sword but it did not cause the men to hesitate in their advance on her for too long. Olympia began to use it as a club next, swinging it hard against any part of the men’s bodies she could reach. All the while she kept them at a distance, she attempted to back her way out of the trap they had set for her.
A small misstep ended her escape. The heel of her boot hit a slick cobblestone causing her to stumble. It was enough to allow one of the men to grab her and the other to deliver a blow to the side of her head. Instead, just as the swing of his fist would have landed on her, she turned her head and caught a hard blow on the side of her face. Olympia had to fight hard not to give in to the searing pain of the blow. The force of it had pushed her hard against the man who had grabbed her and he stumbled, releasing her. She forced all her fear and outrage over the men attempting to hurt her and, as they tried to get hold of her again, she showed them that she could fight almost as well as any man. She also fought dirty.
“Bitch!” the taller of the two men yelled when she poked him in the eyes and he released her to cover his now streaming eyes with his hands. “She done blinded me!”
“Shut your gob, Will!” ordered the slightly shorter, more muscular man. “Ye will be drawing all eyes our way with all that noise ye are making.”