Unchaining Alice

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Alice was roused from her sleep by a loud bang. She sat up right in her little bed on the first floor of the orphanage and waited for the noise to happen again. It did.

“The children had better not be out of bed,” she said under her breath in French. The older children were as good as gold but it was the younger ones that enjoyed testing her patience. It wasn’t their fault. They were growing up without parents, or if they did have parents, they didn’t want them. It wasn’t the childhood for anyone to have.

Throwing back the blanket on her bed, she grabbed the lamp from the bedside table and turned up the flame so it gave off a flickering glow. Alice crept down the long hallway and was thankful when she didn’t see any of the children out of the beds. Another bang sounded, and she realised it was the door.

It was pitch black. The reverend had long since gone home for the night and the children had retired hours ago. Who could possibly be banging on the door at this hour?

She unlocked the door and pulled it open to see man lying on the doorstep. The scent of alcohol hit her nose so hard that it burned. He was intoxicated. From his clothes she could tell he came from money.

‘Typical,’ she thought.

As she knelt down beside him to try and wake up him, she recognised him as the man who had come to the orphanage earlier in the day to fix the bench. She’d thought him undeniably handsome, yet undeniably arrogant. Arrogance cancelled out handsomeness. He walked with a certain air about him, one that told others that he was important. It was a dismissive aura, one she’d been raised to detest.

But there he was on her doorstep, practically unconscious. His brown hair was completely unkempt and was sticking up all over the place and she could see the bottom of his dark blue hues through his narrowly parted eyelids. He had nice eyes, she would give him that. She’d never seen a larger man in her life, he was so tall and broad that she had no idea how she would ever move him. She was not a tall woman, nor a strong one.

“Hello,” he drunkenly slurred, a cheeky smile spreading across his face. His dark blue eyes opened and she felt momentarily frazzled at his charming looks. He had a nice smile as well. His teeth were straight and he had slight dimples in his cheeks. “I seem to have fallen over.” He started chuckling to himself. She was not going to be charmed by an aristocrat, particularly not a drunk one.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur Alcott,” Alice huffed impatiently. “I’m going to need your ‘elp to get you inside.” She grabbed one of his arms and pulled it around her shoulder and tried with all her might to lift him to his feet, but he was twice her size.

But James helped her by getting to his feet clumsily. He didn’t remove his arm from around her shoulders and there was a small part of her that didn’t mind.

“Shh,” she hushed him as she closed the door behind them. Alice helped him down the hall to her little bedroom. There wasn’t much to the room. There was just her small bed and table, a shelf for her few possessions and a shabby armchair that sat beside the small fireplace that was just glowing embers. She threw James off of her and onto the bed, which he landed on heavily, still chuckling. She set the lamp down and brought her blanket up and over him to cover him. He seemed to fall asleep instantly even though he was much too long for her little bed.

She didn’t have to take care of him. If her parents or her brother saw her now than they would be so disappointed, but she wasn’t cold hearted. She could never be cold hearted.

Alice knew her family would be disappointed in her anyway. She’d made it to England in the crate of silks. She’d had every intention of finding French survivors but once she was in the streets of London she was afraid. She was terrified. All she wanted to do was run and hide. And that’s what she’d been doing for three years. She’d been hiding. She’d adopted the feminine version of her brother’s name and had been fortunate enough to come across Reverend Preston who, by some miracle of God, spoke her language. He’d taught her English to the best of his ability and had given her employment and a home.