Read Online Pickpocket's Apprentice by Sheri Cobb South - Free Book Online

regarded him with unconcealed scorn. “John Pickett, are you afraid of Papa?”
    “Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “Sophy, don’t you see? He’s my master, and will be for the next four years. Until that time, I can’t—I’m not free—”
    She sighed and began buttoning her bodice, an operation that to Pickett, fixing his eyes determinedly on her face, seemed to take an unconscionably long time. “John, you’re a fool. Still, I’d rather spend time with you than sit in the drawing room reading that dreary Mrs. More aloud to Mama. Shall we play chess this Sunday, just like we used to?”
    “You said you would be able to beat me,” he reminded her, grateful for the change of subject.
    “We’ll see, won’t we?” she predicted mischievously as she headed for the door, and Pickett had the feeling, both thrilling and terrifying, that she was not talking about chess.
    They fell easily into their old pattern, with Sophy visiting him in his room at night when she could slip away undetected, and losing to him at chess every Sunday afternoon. Much as he hated to agree with the servants’ gossip, he was forced to admit they were right: school had changed her somewhat. Her speech was different, for one thing, and then there was her new and disturbingly carnal interest in him. For her part, she exclaimed that he was even taller than she remembered (and it was true that, at seventeen, he was still growing), all the while making it quite plain that she was far from repulsed by this change in him.
    She tried twice more during that summer of 1801 to prevail upon him to consummate what she called their friendship, but Pickett was steadfast in resisting her advances.
    “Are you afraid of getting me in the family way?” she asked after being rebuffed for the third time. “There are ways to prevent that.”
    “How do you know?” he asked, taken aback not so much by the revelation itself, but by the fact that she should be aware of such a thing.
    She shrugged, peeping up at him from under her eyelashes. “You’d be surprised at the things schoolgirls talk about at night, when we’re supposed to be asleep.”
    He suspected her parents would be surprised as well. In fact, it had occurred to Pickett that if Sophy were to become pregnant, her father might be willing, even eager, to allow him to marry her. Alas, it was far more likely that Mr. Granger would cast him into the street, while God only knew what would happen to Sophy. She might be thrown out as well, and while there would be no one then to keep them apart, neither would he have any means of supporting her. No, he would not bed her until he had earned the right, and there was an end on it. He only hoped he could survive the next four summers without weakening in his resolve.
    As it happened, he need not have feared such an eventuality. The following Christmas saw him just as firmly separated from his love as the previous one had done, and it even seemed to Pickett that Sophy took a certain malicious satisfaction in ignoring him. He wasn’t sure if her feelings had been wounded by his steadfast refusal of her advances, or if the long wait until they could marry was quite as much of a strain on her as it was on him. Then summer came, and with it, the discovery that she would not be returning to Cecil Street at all.
    “Gone visiting at the home of some gentleman’s daughter,” confided the housekeeper to the staff at large, as she presided over the servants’ dinner. “They’re supposed to be great friends at school, or so I hear. Depend upon it, the master and missus are thinking to get that girl married into the gentry, and remove the whiff of coal dust from the family name. Well, the trade’s been good enough for Mr. Granger, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be good enough for Miss Sophy as well.”
    No, Pickett thought desperately. It wasn’t true. Even if her parents wanted her to make such a match, she would never agree to it. He was the one