“Send him in,” Sterling said, just before he reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be all right.”
She nodded, rising to her feet as he did. Jim strode into the room and came to an abrupt halt as his gaze fell on her. She saw the disappointment sweep over his face. She suspected it didn’t take a genius to determine what had happened here. Was it evident in her blush, which she had no ability to control?
“Inspector, would you care to join us for breakfast?” Sterling asked.
“No. I just…we were worried about you, Frannie. We didn’t know—”
“I left a note on Jack’s desk.” All she’d said was that she was going to see after Greystone, but still, it had given her whereabouts. There’d been no cause for worry. Well, except for the part where she’d promised to return yesterday.
Jim nodded. “You’re all right, then?”
“Yes, I’m very well. Thank you.”
“Sorry to have disturbed your morning.” He spun on his heel and strode out.
“Jim!” Tossing down her napkin, she rushed out after him.
“Frannie!” Sterling called after her but she ignored him.
She ran down the hallway, catching up with Jim in the foyer, grabbing his arm. “Jim.”
He spun around. She could see the concern and hurt in his green eyes. And anger, too, as though he didn’t know what exactly to feel any more than she did. “He won’t marry you, Frannie.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“I would.” He dropped his gaze to the floor as though he couldn’t bear to see whatever her eyes might reveal. She was acutely aware of him struggling to get his emotions in check. She wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him, but she was fairly certain he wouldn’t welcome either at that moment. He lifted his eyes to hers, and all the love he’d ever felt for her was there. “Even if his babe is growing in your belly, I’ll marry you.”
He headed for the door. The footman opened it and Jim strode through it without a backward glance.
Oh, God, what had she done? Why had she never seen that before, why had she never recognized the depth of his feelings?
“Are you all right?” Sterling asked, coming up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders.
Tears burned her eyes. “I should leave now.”
“I’ll have the coach readied.”
She nodded, as the full measure of what they’d done and what they must now do loomed before her. Slowly, he turned her around and held her close. She inhaled his scent, absorbed his strength. Then he tipped her head up. His eyes met hers, and he began to leisurely lower his mouth—
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said softly.
He stilled. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. His arms moved slowly away from her. “It’s been my pleasure, Miss Darling.”
Leaving him standing in the entry hallway, she headed for the stairs so she could change into her clothes and return to her world. Her chest ached so badly that she thought it might cave in on itself. She wouldn’t cry here, but later, in her apartment where no one could hear her, she would let the tears fall. And she prayed that eventually they would stop.
Chapter 19
With a sigh, Frannie placed her elbow on the desk and her chin on her palm. She was supposed to be adding numbers and instead she’d been writing Greystone, Sterling, Duke on a piece of paper at random angles. Once, she’d even written Duchess, but she scratched it out. She wouldn’t be his duchess—ever.
It had been two nights since she’d gone to his residence. She’d visited the secret balcony at least half a dozen times trying to catch a glimpse of Sterling at the gaming tables. If he was there, he was as hidden as she was.
If Jack had a problem with where she’d gone for two nights, he didn’t say anything. He’d become a little more accepting of the nobility since marrying into it and perhaps not as judgmental. Jim hadn’t stopped by. She rubbed her brow. She was dreading that encounter when it finally happened—if it ever happened. Jim might be having misgivings about how much he’d revealed regarding his feelings for her. He’d laid them bare. And dear God, help them both, she couldn’t return his affection in equal measure.
She considered going to talk with Luke. He’d once asked her to marry him, but he hadn’t loved her, not truly, not in the way that a man loved a woman. His love was the love of youth. Thank goodness, Catherine had come into his life and shown him the error of his ways.
She supposed she could talk with Catherine. After all, Sterling was her brother, but she sensed that they weren’t as close as they might have once been.
Frannie was tired, not sleeping well, because she’d begun to dream, to remember the dreams, and in every one of them Sterling was doing wicked things to her and she was screaming out his name. In some, she was being equally wicked and he was screaming out hers.
She rose from her chair and took a last look around her sparsely furnished, tidy office. She should probably move her books to the orphanage. She could work on them there and be with the children every night, instead of only visiting with them during the day. It didn’t matter where she worked on the books as long as she worked on them.
Strolling down the hallway, she removed her dagger and reached into her pocket for the key that unlocked the door to the outside. She wasn’t about to let one of Sykes’s footpads frighten her into cowering. Let someone try to attack her again. She was in the mood for a fight.
Once she was on the steps in the dim glow of a lantern hanging nearby, she closed and locked the door. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the shadowy and foggy gloom.
“Frannie?”
She heard the soft whisper, the almost desperate need to be heard and not heard at the same time. Turning toward the shadows, she reached up and lifted the lantern from the hook. Because she recognized the voice, she wasn’t afraid, but she was incredibly curious and cautious. “Nancy?”
A woman stepped out of the shadows. She was only two years older than Frannie, but the years had not been kind to her. Her face was hollowed-out cheeks and eyes, dark circles and smudges that might have been dirt but were most likely bruises. “How ye be?”
They’d been friends on the street, although they were under the care of different kidsmen. When Nancy turned twelve, she moved in with a boy three years older—Bob Sykes. It wasn’t uncommon for young girls to attach themselves to boys only a bit older than they were. They offered protection. For the boys, having a girl was a symbol of achievement. Frannie had always been able to tell which boys had taken in a girl because they had such large swaggers when they walked about, their status among the other boys raised by the apparent evidence of their manliness.
Frannie hadn’t seen Nancy since the night Frannie had been abducted and sold into prostitution. She and Nancy had planned to sneak into a theater to see a play that Nancy had been talking about incessantly. Instead disaster had struck. Fortunately for Nancy, she’d managed to escape, while Frannie had been carted into hell.
“I’m doing well, Nancy. How are you? Still with Sykes?”
“Caw, yeah. ’e’s not somebody yer loikely to leave, now, is ’e? Ye still working for the Dodger?”
Nancy was stooped over, cowering from the light, so Frannie pulled it back. She knew what it was like not to want to be seen under too harsh a light. Nancy’s clothes were worn and frayed, but Frannie could tell they’d been recently pressed as though she wanted to make a good impression. Although it was night, she wore a hat that sat askew on top of her piled-up hair.
“Yes, I’m still with Dodger,” Frannie said. “We have a cook who prepares food for the gentlemen all night—anything to keep them playing at the tables. Come inside to the kitchen, and I’ll find you something to eat.”
“Nah, thank ye, I’m fine. That ol’ gent taught ye how to speak right.”
“He taught me a good deal.”
“So everything wot ’appened that night, I guess it weren’t so bad after all.”
Frannie had
been brutally raped. To even think that it wasn’t “so bad” was the same as comparing a knife through the heart to a pinprick of the finger. “I survived.” She glanced around. “It’s all damp out here with the fog rolling in. At least come up to my apartment, get out of the weather.”
“I ’eard yer taking in orphans,” Nancy said quickly.
“Yes, I—”
“Then take this ’un.” Nancy reached back into the shadows, then slung a boy against Frannie’s legs. “He’s one of Sykes’s boys. I ken bring ye more if ye’ll take this ’un.”
“Nancy—”
“Please. ’e’s my boy, too. I want something better than the streets fer ’im. ’is name’s Petey. ’e’s a good boy.”
Wrapping her arm around the lad, Frannie drew him up against her skirts. While he wore a jacket, she could still tell that he was little more than bones. Sykes was a burglar by trade, and she knew he worked hard to keep the boys small so they could fit through tiny places in order to get into a house and open the front door for him.
“You come with us, too, Nancy. I can provide a safe haven for you and the boy.”
Nancy scoffed. “I been with ’im since I was twelve. ’e ain’t likely to let me go easy.”
“I can find you employment in the country—”
She watched Nancy’s face crumple. “Ye was always so nice. I didn’t want to do it, ye know. Ye gotta believe that. I didn’t want to do it.”
“What are you on about?”
“It was Sykes. ’e made me. ’e said we’d make good money selling ye to that old woman. I never saw a “apenny.”
Frannie’s insides felt as though an ice storm had hit them. The old woman? The gray-haired woman who’d run the brothel where she’d been taken? Suddenly she found herself clutching the boy to keep herself standing.
“Ye look loike yer about to bring up yer supper. Ye didn’t know?”
Frannie shook her head. “No.”
“Ye was always so smart that I figured ye figured it out. Don’t hold it against my boy.”
“I’d never take the sins of the mother out on the child. Do you know what they did to me, Nancy?”
“I can well imagine.”
“No, I don’t think you can.”
“I imagine it’s pretty close to wot Sykes does to me ev’ry night. ’e’s an animal, that one is. A dog. Someone should put ’im down. I’ll bring ye more boys if I can.”
Before Frannie could respond, Nancy was running off into the darkness, her rapid footsteps muffled by the thickening fog. Frannie lowered the lantern and looked at the boy who’d been left behind.
He was the boy who went by the name of Jimmy.
The little thief was again in Sterling’s kitchen, sitting at the servant’s table, stuffing food into his mouth as though he hadn’t had a nibble since he’d last visited.
That Frannie had brought him here and not to her orphanage spoke volumes. Unfortunately, she wasn’t saying quite as much, and Sterling sensed that whatever was troubling her was far more worrisome than discovering the lad’s parentage.
“So he’s Sykes’s son?” he repeated.
“According to Nancy, yes.”
“I suppose that explains his inability to appreciate your taking the lad.”
“I’m afraid if I take him back to the orphanage that Sykes might come after him there.”
Sterling shifted his gaze to her. She was looking up at him with absolute certainty in her eyes that he would offer the solution without misgivings.
“If he’s to stay here and sleep in one of my beds, he’s to be bathed first. I don’t care the hour.”
She gave him a beatific smile that warmed the cockles of his heart. Blast her. Was there anything he could deny her? He’d let her go once and he didn’t know if he’d be able to do it again. To watch her walk away had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“I also think you should stay the night.” He didn’t like the idea of her being out on her own. Besides, knowing her, she’d head to the rookeries to confront this Sykes fellow. As much as he disliked her friends, he was considering alerting them to the situation. No, she’d see it as betrayal. He should see about hiring guards to follow her around.
“If you don’t mind—” she began.
“I wouldn’t have offered if I minded. You should quit working at Dodger’s.”
She released a half laugh. “Dodger’s provides me with the means to do as much as I do for orphans.” She nodded toward the urchin. “We probably shouldn’t let him eat as much tonight.”
“I concur. One pie is all he’s getting.”
She squeezed his hand, may as well have squeezed his heart. “I know you don’t like light fingers in your residence, but I’ll see that he doesn’t steal anything.”
He touched her cheek. “He brought you back. He can steal anything he wants.”
Her laughter was soft and for a moment it erased her worries, but he could see them return with force. Once his company was abed, Sterling would seek to entice out of her what was truly troubling her. It was more than the boy. Of that he was certain.
He awoke the youngest of his footmen and had a bath prepared in the kitchen for the lad. While Frannie was scrubbing the little devil clean, Sterling went to his boot-boy’s room and grabbed a few items. The clothes would be a trifle large but should suffice.
When he returned downstairs to the kitchen, the boy was out of the tub and Frannie was toweling him off.
“Caw, blimey! Yer scraping off me skin!”
“Stop your complaining,” Sterling demanded, before Frannie could reply. “I’ll have you know I’ve paid good money to have beautiful ladies towel me off.”
She jerked her head around to look at him, and a charming blush crept up her cheeks.
He grinned at her. “Some foreign countries have lovely customs.” He held up the clothes. “He can have these.” With the toe of his shoe, he nudged the rags on the floor. “These we should probably burn.”
“Probably.” Reaching for the clothes, she dropped the towel and it pooled on the floor.
Sterling didn’t mean to stare, but dear God…“He really is nothing more than bones.”
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
Sterling could see some marks on the boy’s side, on his shoulder. He turned him around—
“ ’ere now!” the boy bellowed.
Ignoring him, Sterling studied the crisscross of faint scars on his back. “Did someone whip him?”
Turning him around, Frannie had him raise his arms and began working the nightshirt over his head. “The authorities,” she said quietly. “He was apparently arrested for stealing sixpence. Rather than sending him to prison, he got the lash.”
“But…but he’s a child.”
“Some gent fancied his sixpence more.”
“Wot ye bothered fer?” The boy crossed his bony arms over his skinny chest. “I didn’t cry.”
“How old are you?”
“Don’t gotta tell ye nuffin’, bloody nob.”
“He’s eight,” Frannie said. “Do we have a bed for him?”
Sterling nodded. “Yes.”
The room he chose was just down the hall from his. He thought Frannie might want to pop in and check on the boy from time to time. He stationed the footman inside the room with the order not to let the boy go anywhere.
He looked even smaller tucked into that massive bed with Frannie combing her fingers through his dark hair.
“You need to stay here, Peter,” Frannie said quietly. “It’s what your mother wants. Tomorrow we’ll have a nice breakfast and get you some proper clothes. Everything is going to be all right. I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“I ain’t afraid of nuffin’.”
“Don’t run away again, all right?”
He shrugged, nodded, rolled over, all at the same time.
Frannie rose and smiled softly at Sterling.
“That wasn’t exactly a promise now, was it,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Fetch me if there is any.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Sterling went into his bedchamber, grateful to see that Frannie was there, sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace where a low fire burned on the hearth. Her bare feet were drawn up on the cushion and she was rubbing her arms as though she were chilled. He went to a table where he kept his nightly brandy, poured two generous snifters, and joined her.
She took the snifter from him and drank deeply before balancing it on her thigh and holding it with both hands. Her gaze was far, far away.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he stated quietly.
“You don’t think that child deserves worrying over?”
He rubbed his thumb between her furrowed brows. “Something else is upsetting you. Tell me what it is.”
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“There is nothing you can tell me that will change…the affection I hold for you.”
“Do you have affection for me, Sterling?”
He feared he had a good deal more than that, but that admission would lead them toward a road they couldn’t travel and would make things so much more difficult in time. “I care for you very much, Frannie. I don’t like to see you so unhappy. The boy is clean, fed, and in bed. He’s back in your care. That should be a reason for joy. But, Frannie, my darling, you look as though your heart is breaking.”
She nodded, squeezed her eyes shut, and took another gulp of the brandy. Shifting around, she faced him. “Nancy…she was my friend. She wasn’t one of Feagan’s children. But she was there, on the streets, one of us. She was two years older. When she was twelve, she moved in with Sykes. Girls do that on the street. You survive the best way you can. But we were friends. Friends.”
She seemed to be stuck on that word.
“You were friends,” he repeated. “Did you play together?”
She laughed and shook her head. “The game we played was called the Lucifer Drop. I had two boxes of matches and I’d walk along offering them to people. Of course everyone ignored me, because I was a beggar. I’d very skillfully knock into someone and drop the matches into the mud. I’d start crying and Nancy would start screaming that our mum was going to kill me. The fellow I bumped into would pay us handsomely to quiet our attention-drawing dramatics. We made out quite well.”
Surrender to the Devil Page 19