From the first day together, she had won his admiration with her artless honesty. His lies, like the galloping whopper that paraded as his essential civility, were those of omission only. In fact, he had been more honest with her than he’d ever been with anyone other than Poll.
And even then, Cas had for years lied to Poll with such ease that he sometimes worried for his soul.
Poll was the attentive one. Poll liked to cover all the angles before committing to action. Poll liked to assure himself of a lady’s attention, sometimes at the cost of common sense.
Yet here Cas skulked, lying in wait before her home, common sense cast to the wind.
The front door opened. Cas drew back into the doorway until only a bit of his forehead and his eyes could be seen, just a faintly lighter smudge in the shadow of the doorway.
They were, of course, fully clothed. This didn’t help. His mad nightmares of lurid decadence could still come true behind closed doors, he had no doubt.
He watched Poll help Miranda into her carriage, and then join her there. Cas’s eyes narrowed. He knew perfectly well what two people could get up to in a carriage, right in the middle of the city!
When the carriage pulled away, Cas stepped from his hiding place. A hack was discharging a passenger half a block before him. Without taking a second to reconsider the wisdom of his actions, Cas let out a shout and took off at a run to catch the conveyance.
* * *
Poll caught a glimpse of a running fellow out of the corner of his eye as the hack that carried him and Miranda turned onto another street.
Cas.
There was no point in telling himself he was mistaken. One knew one’s twin, whether a yard away or a mile.
Cas, lurking outside Miranda’s? Waiting for him? Why not greet him, then? Why wait until they were on their way and then catch another hack?
To follow, of course.
Cas was spying on him? Or them? Or was it only Miranda?
In any other bloke, such attentions might indicate deep feelings for the lady in question.
But in Cas?
* * *
Poll held the door for Miranda as they entered the orphanage she had told him so much about. He was a little surprised, to tell the truth. It wasn’t much of a place, really. Someone had converted an old town house into a residence for dozens of children and a few caretakers.
After accompanying her into the building, he continued the discussion they’d been having in the carriage. Miranda wasn’t telling him something; he could feel it. “But I don’t understand how it can be an orphanage in which many of the children are not actually orphans.”
Miranda smiled at the young woman in nurse grays who came to take their things. Then she tucked her hand through Poll’s arm and guided him through the entrance hall to what once was probably a parlor but was now the office of the headmistress, if that’s what one called the matron of an orphanage.
“This is a special place,” Miranda began. “These children are from a particular circumstance … one in which they are all equal no matter what their origins.”
“But their parents have not passed away?”
Miranda bit her lip. “Some have. Some are … merely detained elsewhere.”
She removed her hand from his arm and greeted the matron. Poll made nice noises—Callie would be proud—but mostly he looked about him, taking the place in. Miranda’s reticence had fired up the old Worthington curiosity.
He tried to place what seemed odd about where they were. The place was not ideal for an orphanage in structure, with its large receiving rooms and probably relatively few bedrooms upstairs, so it must have been chosen for some other reason … perhaps the location?
Sometimes orphanages were run by churches, or in benefit to the children of the workers of some industry—but there wasn’t a prominent church nearby, nor factories, though there were a few warehouses and drapers … but other than Newgate Prison, Poll could think of no other landmark nearby.
The prison … detained, she’d said.
His eyes widened. “These are the children of criminals?”
Miranda hushed him with a hand on his wrist. “We prefer the term ‘incarcerated.’”
Poll blinked. “Yes, because they’re criminals.”
Miranda pressed her lips together. “Whatever their parents have done, it is hardly just to hold it against their children.”
“Isn’t it?” Poll looked around him in alarm. Were any miniature criminals sneaking up on him?
Miranda gave him her shoulder and plainly ignored him while she spoke to the matron. Poll wandered to a window overlooking the side courtyard of the place. Several children were tending what looked to be an old rose garden, gone to weeds long ago. They all worked willingly enough, it seemed. Poll himself never would have stood for it. He’d have been over that wall and off to great adventures, only to come home late and hungry.…
But this wasn’t home for them, was it? This wasn’t a place with an indulgent mother and an exasperatedly affectionate elder sister. This was merely a safe place to stay, until.…
Until when? Poll knew enough about the prison system to know that of the people condemned to Newgate, the ones that came out alive—the ones who did not fall prey to violence or disease within—were much changed. What would it be like to wait and wait for your parents or parent, to wait for years, in a place like this one, never knowing if whom you got back would be whom you lost?
Discomfort roiled within him. Poll rubbed the back of his neck. He and Cas broke the law on nearly a daily basis. All small things, of course. Stealing onto palace grounds. Racing through the city on “borrowed” mounts, only to return them happily weary to their stalls, sometimes leaving a mysterious note of thanks. Climbing in and out of windows to reach their ladyloves.
Poll flinched a bit at that thought. He and Cas had never been caught. The few times they were suspected, they always managed to talk their way free.
Yet what would happen to his own family if he or Cas were ever well and truly convicted of something? It would ruin Ellie and Attie’s chances for a good marriage. It wouldn’t do Dade any good either. Old family name or not, the Worthington clan didn’t have the wealth required to make a little blot like a criminal conviction disappear from the family ledger.
Orion wouldn’t care if it did not interfere with his studies. Lysander would only grow more saturnine, if that were possible. Callie … God, Poll shuddered to think what Callie would say, she and her scarred husband. Broken and battered the fellow might be, Poll had never mistaken him for anything but dangerous. Dade had confirmed that judgment, telling the tale of how Ren Porter had rescued Callie from a great brute of a kidnapper, downing the giant with only his rage and his bare hands.
As Poll watched the garden, a little girl, hardly more than a toddler, with golden hair and a smudged face, looked up at the window and caught his gaze. She stared at him for a long moment, then ran her wrist under her nose to wipe away the running of it.
The motion reminded Poll forcibly of Attie.
God, what would Attie do if something bad were to happen to him or Poll? They were the only ones in the family who truly understood her. If they went away, she would be left with Ellie’s impatient care and Orion’s cold tutelage. The effect of Zander’s darksomeness didn’t even bear thinking about.
It didn’t occur to Poll to include his parents in Attie’s list of caregivers. Archie and Iris Worthington lived in a world of their own, drifting about Worthington House like colorful ghosts, muttering Shakespearean sonnets or splattering paint on the furnishings, but never, ever taking responsibility for anything.
And what of poor Ellie? If the blight of criminal conviction fell upon the clan, Elektra, no matter how lovely, would be a spinster forever. Everyone knew that delinquency ran in the blood, although he supposed it might skip a generation, for his parents certainly weren’t lawless. Odd, yes. Eccentric? They’d invented the word. But he was entirely sure they had never crossed a legal line in thei
r odd, disconnected lives.
The little girl sat abruptly down in the soil she’d been tending, her gaze still locked on his. There was a question in her eyes, and Poll was terribly sure he knew what it was—what every orphan must think a thousand times a day. Are you going to take me home?
She reached out one hand, her pudgy fingers twiddling in a wave.
Poll felt a touch on his shoulder and turned to see Miranda smiling at him. “Would you like to meet some of the children?”
Poll frowned at the figure of tragic hope still hunkered down in the garden and shook his head before he had time to think. “No, I’d rather not.”
She drew back, clearly disappointed. “Oh. Well.” Her brow furrowed, then cleared. She lifted her chin. “I suppose you’d like to be on your way. I’ll show you out.”
Poll caught at her fingers with his, not caring if the matron saw. “Miranda, wait—”
She turned back, her expression a little wary. Poll smiled down at her. “Don’t be so defensive, darling,” he teased. “You’d think these little knee-biters were your children, the way you protect them!”
He knew he’d said something wrong the moment the words left his lips. Her chin lifted sharply and her eyes flashed.
“They are not my children,” she said tightly with a challenge in her eyes. “They are me.”
His brows shot up. “Don’t be silly. You have nothing in common with the children of criminals—”
She pulled her hand away with a snap. “My father was a thief. An embezzler. He was an attorney in charge of several large trusts. When I was nine years of age, it was discovered that he had stolen every penny from their coffers and spent it on my wayward mother.
“He was caught and sentenced to Newgate. My mother fled the country with one of her lovers. I never saw either of them again.”
Poll swallowed. “So you were raised in a place like this?” He found that hard to believe.
She went quite still. “No, though sometimes I might have wished I were. My father’s mother took me in. She watched me like a hawk for any signs of criminal tendencies. Every day of my young life I spent living down the transgressions of my parents. I hardly dared sneeze, for she would find fault with the way I tendered my handkerchief.”
It explained a great deal. Her shyness, her repression, her extremely poised and proper behavior, at least in public. That husband of hers, Gideon, had likely only made it all worse, conservative old stick that he was.
“Oh, Miranda.” He reached for her hand once more, but she stepped away. He smiled coaxingly. “Don’t think about it anymore. Let’s run off to Hyde Park and loll in the sunshine.”
She tugged at the wrists of her gloves, her jaw tense. “These children have never been to Hyde Park.” She lifted her gaze to his sharply. “I wonder, would the world stop spinning if, just once, you did something other than play?”
Poll bristled, but only because the truth held a sting.
Miranda lifted her chin. “I think it’s time to go.” She turned to the matron, who was practically hiding in a corner so as not to disturb them. “I shall come back another day,” she told the woman. “Alone.”
Poll did his best to charm his way back into her good graces on the carriage ride home, but Miranda merely bade him good day at her doorstep and did not invite him in.
Poll wondered if Cas were still watching.
His brother must be laughing out loud at the sight of Poll rebuffed at the door.
Chapter Fifteen
When Cas saw Miranda and Poll leave the building, he was torn between continuing his trailing of them and trying to discover what lay within those nondescript walls.
Worthington curiosity won out. Besides, from the distance between them when they left and the way Miranda had disdained Poll’s hand on boarding the carriage, there would be no fond kiss good-bye today.
Cas considered a second question. He could continue to lurk, or he could simply walk up and knock on the door. Lurking had done him little good today.
The door opened on a small wren of a woman who peered at him in surprise. “Mr. Worthington! Back so soon?”
Cas nodded smoothly. “I found I simply couldn’t go without taking another look.”
Her brows rose a bit at that, but she obediently backed away and invited him inside.
Cas walked into the place and turned at once to take a long look around the entrance hall. The place had once been a fine if a bit ostentatious middle-class residence. In another decade, someone, probably a judiciary, had decided to make his home close to work—attending the court sessions at the Old Bailey, no doubt.
Convenient for his work, yes. Conducive to polite living? Perhaps not. Few visitors would wish to brave the surrounding areas by night, nor would anyone with half a brain wish to serve in a house so close to the center of crime and punishment in London.
Except, apparently, the woman before him. Cas lowered his gaze from the baroque cornice-work to contemplate the lady who had answered the door. “Please, tell me more about what you do here.”
At first the woman spoke about keeping up the hopes of the children. Children? Cas kept quiet, since evidently he was supposed to know all about the children. He merely nodded, said “Ah” at the appropriate intervals, and tried to follow.
When the woman, who referred to herself as the matron, led him from the entrance into one of the receiving rooms, he saw that it had been converted to a schoolroom. There were books, poor ones, much tattered and used, and slates with chunks of chalk. Pinned on one wall was a map of England that Cas knew full well was at least three decades out of date.
The next room held odd things, like miniature looms and spinning wheels. “This is where we teach the girls their trades,” the matron explained. “They’ll have a much better time of it if they know they can feed themselves. It makes them not nearly so inclined to turn to—er—well…” She faded off, but Cas got her drift. Prostitution was a last resort for many girls who lacked other resources. It might provide survival, but it wiped out any other sort of future.
“What of higher forms of service?” he asked. “What of housemaids or even governesses?”
The matron—damn, was he supposed to know her name?—stared at him perplexed. “Sir, there isn’t no one going to hire a girl what’s got criminals in the family to teach their children or shine their silver.”
Criminals. These were the children of the inhabitants of Newgate, no doubt. “No, no, I suppose that wouldn’t suit.”
It did not escape him that the reason for this grim prediction had been caused by people who were not even here. Lawbreakers, and yes, probably a few perfectly innocent ones as well, who were a bit too busy trying to survive the stew within Newgate to worry over much for the welfare of those they’d left behind.
Cas thought uncomfortably about the many times he and Poll had defied the law, pushing their games right to the edge. They’d not been caught, nor ever charged with anything, but the idea that if they had—
Their sisters would be destroyed. Like the girls who worked these looms and spinning wheels in this cheerless room, they would be left with few choices. The icy chill that hardened in his belly like ice was only the first moment of understanding the true consequences of his past actions, but it was a start.
“Mrs. Talbot was one of the fortunate ones,” the woman was saying as they left the trades room. “With her grandmother willing to take her in and getting that nice Mr. Talbot to wed her despite her past and all.” The woman nodded stoutly. “She’s a credit, she is. All the children look up to her so.”
Cas stopped midstep. Miranda? He cast his gaze about the place, with its peeling paper and cracking plaster. Miranda had been a child like the ones here?
It seemed impossible, yet at the same time, it made perfect sense. Miranda, so circumspect at all times, unless he was bullying her into doing something outré for his own amusement. Her manner, so quiet, as if every thought must be examined and reexamined and then polished befo
re it was allowed to be uttered, had been honed by a lifetime of trying to live down her family’s ruined reputation.
Had old Gideon known? If he had, Cas’s estimation of the fellow went up several notches. That had to be why Miranda never spoke ill of him, not even when she let slip something of her old life. Did she still feel grateful to the man?
“Sir, if you’ll excuse my impertinence, but what the missus said to you.…”
When Cas failed to hide his blank lack of understanding, she gripped the sides of her apron in discomfort. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to overhear.”
“No.” Cas really wanted to know, and this woman was as good as a witness to his twin’s relationship with Miranda. “Please, go on. I’d like to hear your opinion.”
She blinked at that, but stopped wringing her apron so forcefully. “When Mrs. Talbot said, ‘I wonder, would the world stop spinning if, just once, you did something other than play?’”
Ouch. The words, though they’d been uttered to Poll, held the same sting for Cas. “Yes?”
She fidgeted, so great was her distress. “Maybe it’s not my place to say so, but Mrs. Talbot, she didn’t mean anything by it. She’s a good woman, real generous-like. And so proper, even after all she’s been through. She is an inspiration to these little ones, I’ll give you that. Shows them that having their family incarcerated doesn’t mean they’ll always be looked down on. I shouldn’t want—well, ladies can be swayed by what their gentlemen think and all—I shouldn’t want her to give up on this place.”
Cas looked around at the great, drafty, shabby house and found it admirable, cracking plaster and all. “No,” he said quietly. “No, neither would I.”
* * *
Home at last. Miranda leaned back on the door she had just allowed Twigg to shut in Mr. Worthington’s face and let out a sigh.
She hadn’t meant to say anything. She’d only meant to show him the place that meant so much to her. He’d always seemed interested in her stories before—of course, that had been before the explosion in the alleyway, hadn’t it?
And Then Comes Marriage Page 13
