be ripping?
But my journey terminated a few yards ahead at an oilcloth-covered table to one side of the platforms. I was handed a plate and a spoon. A hunk of bread was dumped onto the plate and then I moved on to one of the great pots full of stew. I could see pieces of meat and carrot floating in a rich brown gravy. I watched the ladle come up and over my plate, then it froze there, in midair.
I looked up in annoyance and found myself staring into Darcy O’Mara’s alarming eyes. His dark, curly hair was even more unruly than usual and he was wearing a large royal blue fisherman’s sweater that went perfectly with the blue of his eyes. In short he looked as gorgeous as ever. I started to smile.
“Georgie!” He could not have sounded more shocked if I’d been standing there with no clothes on. Actually, knowing Darcy, he might have enjoyed seeing me standing in Victoria Station naked.
I felt myself going beet red and tried to be breezy. “What-ho, Darcy. Long time no see.”
“Georgie, what were you thinking of?” He snatched the plate away from me as if it were red-hot.
“It’s not how it looks, Darcy.” I attempted a laugh that didn’t come off well. “I came down here to see if I could help out at the soup kitchen and one of the men in line thought I was coming for food and insisted I take his place. He was being so kind I didn’t like to disillusion him.”
While I was talking I was conscious of mutterings in the line behind me. Good smells were obviously reaching them too. “Get a move on, then,” said an angry voice. Darcy took off the large blue apron he had been wearing. “Take over for me, Wilson, will you?” he called to a fellow helper. “I have to get this young lady out of here before she faints.”
And he almost leaped over the table to grab me, taking my arm and firmly steering me away.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, conscious of all those eyes staring at me.
“Getting you out of here before someone recognizes you, of course,” he hissed in my ear.
“I don’t know what you’re making such a big fuss about,” I said. “If you hadn’t reacted in that way nobody would have noticed me. And I really was coming to offer my services, you know.”
“You may well have been, but it is not unknown for gentlemen of the press to prowl the big London stations in the hope of snapping a celebrity,” he said in that gravelly voice with just the trace of an Irish brogue, while he still propelled me along at a rapid pace. “It’s not hard to recognize you, my lady. I did so myself in a London tea shop, remember? And can you imagine what a field day they’d have with that? Member of the royal family among the down-and-outs? ‘From Buckingham Palace to Beggar’? Think of the embarrassment it would cause your royal relatives.”
“I don’t see why I should worry about what they think,” I said. “They don’t pay to feed me.”
We had emerged from the soot of the station through a side door. He let go of my arm and stared hard at me. “You really wanted that disgusting slop they call soup?”
“If you must know, yes, I really did. Since my last attempt at a career last summer—a career you cut short, by the way—I haven’t earned any money and, the last time I heard, one needs money to buy food.”
His expression changed and softened. “My poor, dear girl. Why didn’t you let someone know? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Darcy, I never know where to find you. Besides, you seem to be broke yourself most of the time.”
“But unlike you I know how to survive,” he said. “I am currently minding a friend’s house in Kensington. He has an exceptionally good wine cellar and has left half his staff in residence, so I don’t do badly for myself. Are you still all alone at Rannoch House, then?”
“All alone,” I said. Now that the shock of seeing him in such upsetting circumstances had worn off, and he was looking at me tenderly, I felt as if I might cry.
He steered me to the edge of the curb and found a taxi sitting there.
“Do you think you could manage to find Belgrave Square?” he asked.
“I could give it a ruddy good try, mate,” the taxi driver replied, obviously