“Inspector O’Brien didn’t come in,” Heather said, catching her by surprise. “He obviously planned to, but something changed his mind. Once you went into the house, he just told Joseph to watch over you and left.”
Allison’s righteous anger disappeared so quickly it left her somewhat dizzy. “Oh,” she whispered. “I was certain he would.”
Heather smiled as she undid the last button and helped Allison out of the dress. “He’s a good man. And I think you like him.”
Allison drew in a deep, unfettered breath, the events of the day washing over her in a wave. “I do like him,” she admitted softly. “I always have.”
“Well, you should be careful then,” Heather admonished. “You can never marry a man like that. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I know that.” Allison squared her shoulders, trying to regain some of her confidence, which had been badly shaken by today’s events. “And his station is beside the point. You know I have no interest in being shackled to any man.”
“Sometimes our hearts and heads want different things,” Heather said with a laugh, pulling the bell to summon someone to bring up hot water for a bath.
Allison sank into a nearby chair wearing just her chemise, not dignifying that with an answer. Despite everything, it had been good to see Inspector O’Brien today. And she knew that he, like her brother, only wanted what was best for her. However, she was weary of men always thinking they knew the answer to that. Why couldn’t they let her choose her own path?
Perhaps because I make foolish decisions.
She shoved the thought away with a groan of frustration. She knew she was headstrong and always rushed full steam ahead when she should pause to think things through. But perhaps she wouldn’t if her brother didn’t constantly smother her and treat her like a child.
“We are helping those girls, aren’t we?” she asked Heather in a small voice. “What we’re doing is making a difference in their lives, isn’t it?” She hadn’t missed the knowing looks between those women, as though Polly’s behavior had been fully justified. As though living at Mercy House was like living in a prison. Was she treating them the same way her brother treated her? As though she knew better than them what they should do?
Heather sighed and placed Allison’s soiled gown in the basket to be laundered. “Of course, we’re helping. But perhaps you should think more about what the women want for themselves than what you want for them.”
Allison bit her lip because Heather’s words just strengthened the revelation she’d just had about how her own actions mirrored Lucien’s. “If I don’t have curfews and rules about gentlemen callers, I’m afraid they will just fall back into their old ways.”
“They aren’t children,” Heather said gently. “You think that they shouldn’t want to sell their bodies because the idea is so foreign to you. But some of these women have been passed around since they were little girls. They may be numb to it. And perhaps doing... that for ten minutes is preferable to them than spending a twelve-hour day in a mill.”
Allison started to protest, but Heather held up her hand. “I don’t think you can know the answer to that if you haven’t experienced either.”
Biting her lip, Allison had to concede that was true. She didn’t even have to take off her own gown or open her carriage door, for heaven’s sake, let alone work a twelve-hour day of backbreaking labor. And she’d never so much as been kissed. In fact, the closest she’d ever gotten to having relations with a man—whatever that even meant!—were the two times Quinn O’Brien had held her in his strong arms.
A shiver ran through her at the memory of being in his arms earlier today, how safe he’d made her feel, what a warm haven he was capable of providing. Perhaps he truly was a friend to her, because in the end, he hadn’t told Lucien what had happened. Not that she was foolish enough to believe that her brother wouldn’t eventually find out.
Banishing thoughts of Quinn, she knew she had to take action before it became impossible. “I’m going to have to find a home of my own,” she told Heather. “If I do, will you come with me?”
“Of course,” Heather said without hesitation. “My place will always be with you.”
Allison smiled at her friend gratefully. “Unfortunately, things like that are not accomplished overnight or easy for a woman, even a woman of means, to accomplish at all. I need somewhere to go for the time being.”
She was twenty-two years old, and since she planned to never marry, it was far past time she moved out of her brother’s house. Especially if he intended to tell her she was forbidden to return to Mercy House, which he certainly would once he found out what had happened.
Her mind raced through her options, the obvious being her mother, who had only recently managed to make her way back to London after Lucien had banished her to the country. She’d remarried, a mere viscount this time, a lecherous old man who gave Allison the most inappropriate looks.
Her mother had always been opportunistic and grasping. She’d allowed her first three sons to be abused by Allison’s father and half-brother Roger, refusing to help them if it meant jeopardizing her own role as the Countess of Winters.
Her brother Lucien had cut their mother off when it had come to light that she’d sent Serenity, the girl he’d always loved, away and made them both believe that their bastard child had died at birth. It had taken Lucien and Serenity seven years to find each other again and months longer than that to find their child.
When Allison had found out about it, hard on the heels of having heard from Inspector O’Brien all the terrible things Roger had been involved in, she’d moved in with Lucien. She’d seen her mother occasionally in the past five years, but she doubted the woman would be happy if her only daughter suddenly appeared upon her doorstep.
No, after everything that had happened, she didn’t have it in her to deal with her mother’s coldness and cruelty.
Biting her lip, she quickly rejected her other brothers, Morgan and Adrian, as well. Though she loved them and their wives immensely, she’d be in the same boat with them as she was with Lucien. They’d never allow her the freedom she craved.
“What about Lady Aston?” Heather asked, seeming to sense her quandary. “I’m certain she wouldn’t mind if we stayed with her for a few weeks.”
Jocelyn!
“Of course,” Allison cried. “That’s a brilliant idea!”