In the six months that have passed since leaving Lord Cumberland's house, Rose has made her way to London and taken up residence at a tavern where she was also able to get a job as a bar maid. Quite surprisingly she has not had to be with a man. The owner of this tavern told her in no uncertain terms that he would not have the women in his employ going after the men that come in. With a decent wage he has made it better for the ladies who work for him. Yes, a quick fondling of the breasts, or being pulled onto the lap of a horny seaman are to be expected, but that is as far as it goes.
There are many days that Rose will walk by the docks and just watch the men as they load or unload the ships. With their strong, well-toned bodies she wonders what it would be like to be fucked by them, but after her first encounter with non-anal sex, she is terrified of finding out. On one of these outings she sees a carriage that looks somewhat familiar but she is not sure where she has seen it before. Before she is able to see who emerges from the carriage she is grabbed from behind and pulled up against a man's body.
"Hey, Lovely Lady, why don't you and I go and enjoy ourselves for a little while?" Since she has gotten use to this treatment she is not scared.
Pulling away a little bit she turns to him and laughs gently up at him. "Milord, I am just out to see what merchandise I can purchase for the tavern that I work in. Please don't make me late getting back there. If I am late, I will be out of a job and a residence. If you are interested, I work at the Top Hat Tavern two streets over." She pulls away a little more. "I really must go now." With a smile and a quick kiss to his cheek she breaks away and leaves him standing there looking after her. Unbeknown to her, the gentleman in the carriage had been watching the interaction with interest.
As she gets back to the tavern she brings her purchases in to her boss and tells him about her encounter. "Well, young lady, you did the right thing. Hopefully he will be coming this evening to see if you are available for some private entertainment." Looking at her again, he shakes his head. He knows that if she would just take a little more interest in herself and keep herself cleaned up she could be a very beautiful lady. Instead, she has allowed her hair to become tangled and ratty, and her skin is dirty, weather beaten and coarse. Underneath all the filth he knows there is a very good-looking young lady because when he hired her she was nowhere near this level of nastiness. "Would you like to have a bath today?" He has asked her this many times, but she has always declined in the past. "I could have Morgan bring the tub to your room, or I could have him stand guard if you would rather."
With a small, sad, smile she declines the offer. "Thank you, but I will wash up to the best of my abilities before coming to work tonight." As always, the sadness is like a cloak around her shoulders that she hides herself away in. "Could I possibly have my time now? I will be behind the bar on time, I promise."
"Eliza, you may take your time. You do not need to ask me all the time. I know that you will be there. You have proven yourself trustworthy since you have been here. I am just concerned that someone will steal you away from me sometime."
"Sir, I have nowhere else to go. No one will steal me away." So saying she walks away toward the nicer areas of the city, but not to the point that she will be yelled at to leave.
Not really paying attention to where she is walking, she bumps into another lady. Thinking that she has bumped into a lady of quality, she immediately looks down and apologizes. She is stunned when the lady reaches out and tips her face up so that it can be seen. Keeping her eyes downcast she doesn't see the recognition that flashes in the other lady's face.
"Rose? That is you, isn't it?" Looking up, she finds herself looking into the friendly eyes of Mari. "Oh, Rose! What has happened to you? Why did you leave like that?" Trying to draw her along, Mari pulls Rose's arm through her own, but Rose refuses.
"I'm sorry, Mum. Ye must have me confused with someone else. Me name is Eliza. Please, Mum, I am so sorry that I bumped inta ya. Please let me go."
Instantly compassion crosses Mari's face. "Where are you now, Rose?"
"Mum, I don't know who this Rose is, but I be Eliza." Looking around in a panic Rose frees herself and hurries away, going back in the direction that she came from. Within minutes she is rushing into the tavern and up to her sleeping area, rushing right past the proprietor in the process. Throwing herself onto her sleeping mat she bursts into tears. Unknown to her, Mari kept up with her and took note of which establishment she went into.
Later that evening, when the tavern is full of rambunctious sailors that haven't seen the shore in much to long, a stranger walks in. Sitting down at a corner table, he surveys the room until his eyes rest on Eliza. With her hair in even more disarray than it was earlier, and her filthy dress slightly askew from dodging the pawing hands of sailors, there is not much that would make one think that she had been brought up as gently as she was. Only this stranger knows for certain when he sees her eyes because the life that had been in them and had drawn him to her all those months ago is gone. Her eyes are dead. Sure, she is laughing and flirting as she refills the mugs, but nothing brings any light into her eyes.
Summoning the tavern's owner over the stranger asks him about her, and what her story is. What the owner tells him breaks his heart a little bit more with every word.
It seems that the tavern owner heard a woman screaming about five months before and went to investigate -- something he otherwise never did. To his dismay he found a woman being brutally raped by numerous men. What had made her scream was when one of them brought out a knife. Thankfully the tavern owner was a very large man and he waded into the melee and saved the woman from any more humiliation. When he brought her inside and up to a room she immediately thought that it was to have sex and so she asked him what he liked, and then she blacked out. Over the next three days she was in and out of consciousness and at one point the doctor had to be called in. When she finally regained her senses she was as she appeared now. She said her name was Eliza and she needed work. Since the only type of work that she was trained in was on her back, she needed to find a place to rent. The tavern owner took pity on her and gave her a job at his bar because he knew that men knew that the girls that worked for him were not for hire.
"Sir, the lady that you call Eliza is known to me as Rose. Her whole name is Mary Elizabeth Rosemary Johnson, and she is from an estate house that is just a short distance from my own. I have been searching for her for six months." Looking at what she looks like now, he knows a great shame, because he realizes that what she is is because of him and what he did to her. "Sir, I would like to talk to her, but I do not know how she will react to me. I mean her no harm. Could I have her serve me a mug of your best ale and whatever you are serving tonight?"
