by Merry Farmer
Mrs. Ross stopped him as they all spilled into the front office. “It’s not there,” she said, her face lined with exhaustion and misery—something Stephen was only just seeing, now that he stood close enough to see her clearly.
“What do you mean, it’s not there?” Deep foreboding filled him.
“There was a fire,” Max said, stepping up to his side and taking his arm as if he knew Stephen would need steadying. “In the middle of the night. The whole thing burnt to the ground.”
Stephen could suddenly smell it—a faint hint of smoke and soot that infused the air around Max, Mrs. Ross, and Annie. Whatever resistance Stephen had to the idea of embracing Max fully as a friend, lover, and partner vanished as it became obvious Max had been there for the fire, had possibly saved precious lives. If not for Max’s support, Stephen would have collapsed. “The girls,” he said, dreading the answer. “What about the girls?”
“They’re all safe,” David told him, rushing their group through the office and out to the street. “Max came to me as soon as he returned from Leicestershire. He told me all about the threats his father made and what happened at Gretton Mills.”
“I knew my father would retaliate swiftly,” Max continued the story. “Sister Constance was the one who suggested getting all of the girls out of the orphanage and moving them to the Sisters of Perpetual Sorrow as fast as possible. When the arsonists arrived, the building was empty but for the three of us.” He nodded to Mrs. Ross and Annie.
“We saved as much as we could before….” Mrs. Ross burst into a sob.
“So none of the girls were hurt?” Stephen asked, his voice weak and rough.
“Not a hair on any of their heads,” David said, giving Stephen a reassuring pat on the back before pushing him into a carriage that was waiting on the curb. “The building is a loss, though. But unless I’m mistaken, it was insured.”
“Insured?” Stephen’s head spun as they all squeezed into the carriage.
“I took the liberty of insuring my investment almost immediately after it was made,” Max said with a broad grin, grasping Stephen’s hand once they were seated side-by-side and twining their fingers together.
“But why?” Stephen asked.
“Because I know my father,” Max answered grimly.
It was all the answer he gave, all the answer Stephen needed. Buildings were mere afterthoughts. As long as his girls were all safe, he could consider it a victory over Lord Eastleigh. “Where are we going to go?” he asked his next thought aloud.
“Don’t worry,” David said with a triumphant grin. “The Brotherhood has that covered.”
Stephen could only imagine what the man meant. He was grateful to The Brotherhood in more ways than he could count and eager to discover what they would do next.
Chapter 21
One month later…
Giggles and screams rang through the halls of the newly-relocated Briar Street Orphanage. Stephen glanced up from the seemingly endless paperwork connected to his insurance claim on the old, Briar Street building and the purchase of the new property in Earl’s Court. Not that he needed to worry about their new home in the least. The property was one of many owned by Mr. Daniel Long, and the man was selling it for a song. He’d allowed Stephen, Max, and the girls, along with Mrs. Ross and Annie, to move in immediately, well before the sale was final. The building also had the advantage of being located in a square where nearly every house was owned or occupied by members of The Brotherhood.
Lord Eastleigh could try his best to rain terror down on Stephen and Max for what he saw as defiance of his supreme authority, but they and the girls were protected in ways the bastard couldn’t imagine.
Another giddy shriek kept Stephen from returning to his work, and the smiling, rosy-cheeked figure of Jane streaked past the door to his office. Stephen caught a flash of something shiny in her hands.
“Jane, sweetheart, for the last time, please don’t run with scissors,” Max called out, dashing past Stephen’s doorway in chase of her.
Stephen grinned before he could stop himself, his heart feeling far too large for his chest. Jane was home and happy. She still had nightmares, and Stephen suspected she would have them for the rest of her life, but he was confident she felt safe under his roof. Under his and Max’s roof. There had been no question at all that Max would move into the new Briar Street Orphanage, move into a room and a bed with Stephen as well. Not even Annie had questioned that when the arrangements were made.
Stephen stood, tossing his pen on the unfinished paperwork, and walking around the corner of the desk to the hall to see what the commotion was. The new orphanage was slightly larger than the old one, but it felt more crowded and noisier than the old one ever had. That was due, in part, to the constant stream of visitors, several of whom were gathered in the great hall, enjoying supper with the girls.
“Sir, look, look!” Beatrice leapt up from the table nearest to the door as Stephen entered the room. Instead of two, long tables, the new great hall contained a dozen round tables, most of which were draped with crisp cloths and adorned with flowers—gifts from Mr. Nigel Merriweather, who owned a flower shop on Cromwell Road. “Mr. Tarleton taught me how to style my hair like the ladies at the opera.”
Stephen couldn’t keep his smile in check. Beatrice’s mass of brown hair was piled artfully atop her head. James Tarleton applauded as Beatrice spun once to give Stephen the full impression. If anyone was qualified to teach Beatrice how to style her hair, it was Tarleton, who regularly styled his own hair, or at least a wig, in a similar fashion when he performed as a supernumerary at the Royal Opera House.
“Oh, Sir, you must see this,” Ginny flagged Stephen down from a table deeper into the room. “Mr. Cristofori is helping me write a play.”
“Is that so?” Stephen gave Beatrice an encouraging squeeze of her shoulder before moving on to see what Ginny and the renowned playwright, Niles Cristofori, were working on.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Cristofori said with an apologetic look as Stephen reached their table. “Most fathers wouldn’t approve of their impressionable young daughters developing an interest in any aspect of the theater.”
Stephen laughed aloud. “Look around,” he said, glancing across the room himself. “I think the list of things most fathers would disapprove of that are considered normal here is pretty long.”
In fact, the orphanage had become the pet project of more than a few of the members of The Brotherhood who lived on the square. A constant parade of guests were in and out of the house all day, bringing gifts of food, clothing, and toys, offering to teach classes, and bringing as much love and affection to the girls as it was clear the men desperately needed themselves. They were all outcasts, whether they were unwanted orphans or society’s castaways. It filled Stephen with immense pride to see all the ways his girls and the community around them were able to help each other. And the more men there were in the house, men with a vested interest in the girls’ well-being, the greater the protection his girls would have.
“Mr. Siddel, there you are,” Annie said, glancing up from the rectangular table at the front of the room, where the adults took their meals. “You haven’t eaten supper yet. I’ve tried to keep it warm for you.”
“You’re too kind, Annie.” Stephen nodded to Cristofori and started toward the head table, a slight blush heating his face. In spite of Annie apologizing for being such a fool where he was concerned after the incident at the jail and her insistence that she didn’t have any lingering feelings for him, Stephen continued to feel awkward around the young woman. Perhaps it was because she never quite looked him in the eye anymore and seemed a little sad when he and Max were at their happiest together.
“That kind Mr. Arnold brought us four simply gigantic geese,” Annie went on, ushering him to his spot at the table. “I would say they’d feed us for a week, but he insisted that he’d bring us an entire suckling pig on Sunday and that we shouldn’t try to ration out the geese. Can you ima
gine?”
Stephen took his seat at the table with a laugh. “It seems the Briar Street Orphanage has gone from having to sing for our supper to having more patrons than we know what to do with.”
“I’ll say.” Annie removed a covering from the plate in front of Stephen and poured him a glass of weak ale from the pitcher on the table. “It’s the most curious thing I’ve ever seen. Although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a bit concerned about all these men spending so much time with our girls,” she added in a quiet, suspicious voice.
Stephen laughed as he took up his cutlery. “Believe me, there is no danger at all in having them here. We’re much safer for it.”
Annie hummed in thought and moved away, beginning to clear the places of the girls who had finished their meals and were completing the last of their schoolwork or entertaining their guests. A young man who Stephen knew for a fact had escaped a pitiful life of prostitution on London’s docks jumped up to help her clear. Stephen was considering hiring the man full-time, but wanted to consult with Max first.
He made it halfway through his meal before Jane came flying into the room, still giggling and wielding scissors, Max still chasing her.
“Jane, for the love of—” Max finally caught her, scooping an arm around her waist and lifting her into the air. He pried the scissors from her hand and continued carrying her all the way up to the table where Stephen sat. “I’m not sure whether to set this one up as an apprentice to a butcher or a seamstress, or to send her off to darkest Africa to fight the Boers,” he told Stephen.
“Oh, let me fight the Boers,” Jane gasped and wriggled out of Max’s arms, landing on her feet. “I would make such a good soldier.”
“I believe you would,” Stephen told her with a smile. “But until you prove that you can behave and keep yourself safe by not running with scissors, you are forbidden from handling any sharp objects for a month.”
“Oh.” Jane deflated, her shoulders sagging. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“Eat your supper, for one,” Max told her. “Everyone else is already finished.”
“But eat it with a spoon,” Stephen called after her as she slunk her way to the one table where girls were still eating. Annie left what she was doing to make sure Jane was served.
Max grinned after her for a moment before walking around the table to take a seat next to Stephen. “If you had told me two months ago that I would be chasing rapscallion orphan girls through undoubtedly the most unconventional orphanage in all of London, stopping them from doing themselves harm by running with scissors, I never would have believed you.” He reached for Stephen’s hand as he scooted his chair in, squeezing it briefly before removing the lid Annie had placed over his plate.
“If you had told me I’d be sitting down to supper with the man I love and gazing adoringly at him without anyone in the overcrowded room thinking twice about it, I never would have believed you either,” Stephen said.
Max glanced at him, and Stephen treated him to his most adoring look to prove his point. He must have looked as treacly as he felt, because Max burst into a chuckle. He then leaned in and stole a kiss from Stephen’s lips.
“Take that, Father,” Max said with a wink before returning to his food.
The statement of defiance sobered Stephen, and he sat straighter. “Is he still spreading the rumor about town that we’ve run off together to live in sin?”
“Of course,” Max answered before taking a bite of goose. “And he and George are still parading around as though they are morally superior in every way, in spite of Lady Bardess naming the two of them in connection to the Manchester brothel.”
Stephen snorted in disgust. In spite of the fact that they’d rescued nearly three dozen young people from slave labor at Gretton Mills, and in spite of the connection that had been uncovered with a brothel in Manchester, absolutely nothing had been done to take action against the noblemen that Stephen and Max knew were involved. Lesser men had been blamed—the manager of Gretton Mills, for one. And even though Lady Bardess had cracked under pressure and named her father and brother, along with Max’s father and brother, as accomplices in the kidnapping ring, she had been declared mentally unfit and sent away to live with relatives in Italy as a rest cure.
The injustice of it all rankled at Stephen, putting him off the rest of his supper. He threw his fork down and leaned back in his chair to rub his hands over his face, knocking his spectacles askew. The one good thing that had come out of the entire fiasco—aside from the new and decidedly better orphanage and its neighbors—was Stephen’s new pair of spectacles. They were a surprising improvement over his old pair and allowed him to see things much more clearly. It was a blatant metaphor for his improved grasp of the situation they all found themselves in.
Max stopped eating for a moment to grasp Stephen’s hand once he rested it on the table. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “Yes, the bastards got away for the time being, but their days are numbered.”
“I pray you’re right,” Stephen said, twisting his hand in Max’s so that he could thread their fingers together. “With so many people working on the investigation, they’re bound to be caught in time.”
“Precisely,” Max said, attempting to continue eating with one hand. “David’s sent a man to the continent to find Joe Logan and to ask him what his sister meant by ‘the man with the lion’, after all.”
Stephen’s pulse sped. As soon as Max had told him about the girl, Lily, and her message, David had known exactly who Lily was. Apparently, Joe Logan had been searching for his sister for almost a year, which was troubling in itself. Stephen couldn’t shake the image of the girl and the certain knowledge of her fate from his mind. She hadn’t been at the Manchester brothel when it was raided and shut down. He only hoped they would be able to find her again and break the ring as soon as possible.
“You’re doing everything you can do,” Max reminded him. “And you’re not doing it alone anymore.”
Stephen smiled at him, his heart warming and filling him with the deepest affection he’d ever known. “Your father gave me the greatest gift imaginable by disowning you,” he said, raising Max’s hand to his lips to kiss it.
Max barked a laugh. “Not the result he was hoping for, I’m sure.”
“No.” Stephen laughed along with him, letting go of Max’s hand and returning to his supper.
He was close to finished when the entire room suddenly erupted into a flurry of excitement. Girls leapt up from their seats and rushed to the great hall’s door. Stephen could see in an instant what had his girls squealing for joy. Lionel Mercer had entered the room.
“Hello, my lovely little hellions,” he announced himself in a loud and cheerful voice. “Don’t you all look beautiful and devilish tonight.”
Stephen rolled his eyes and sent a sideways grin to Max.
Max put down his fork and shook his head, muttering an oath under his breath before saying, “That man is worse than Everett Jewel when he has the right audience.”
“I suspect Lionel is attempting to outdo Jewel when it comes to adoring admirers,” Stephen laughed.
“What did I bring for you all this evening?” Lionel went on, reaching into the small, purple velvet sack he carried with him as David stepped around him, shaking his head, and strode toward Stephen and Max at the front of the room. Lionel drew a fistful of brightly-colored lollipops from the sack with a flourish and a, “Ta da!”
The girls burst into shouts of delight, giggling and falling all over themselves in their efforts to be the first to snatch one from Lionel’s hands. Lionel, for his part, beamed as if he were Father Christmas—albeit Father Christmas dressed in an impeccably-tailored mauve suite without a hair out of place—as he handed them out and accepted hugs as payment.
“I’m convinced he only comes here to bask in the glow of his adoring public,” David said as he reached the table. He turned to lean against it and watch Lionel, arms crossed. He could pretend impat
ience with Lionel all he wanted, but there was a little too much enjoyment in his eyes and a shade too much pink to his cheeks.
“The girls do adore him,” Stephen pointed out. He abandoned the rest of his supper to walk around the table and stand by David’s side. Max shoved a last few mouthfuls down, then got up to join them.
“I never would have guessed it, but Lionel is a natural with children,” Max said.
“That’s because he’s still a child at heart, no matter how adult most of his life has been,” David said, a fair amount of wistfulness in his voice.
“What are you doing, you daft man?” Mrs. Ross shouted at Lionel as she entered the great hall, still wearing the apron that indicated she’d been busy in the kitchen with the new cook and maid they’d hired. “What sort of fool gives children sweets right before bedtime?”
“The very best kind,” Ursula chirped as she took a particularly big lolly from Lionel.
“There you have it.” Lionel grinned at Mrs. Ross. “I am the very best kind of fool.”
A few of the girls who were old enough to grasp his joke laughed. The younger ones beamed at him. Ursula latched herself to his side, looking as though she had no intention of letting go.
“Well, on your head be it,” Mrs. Ross scolded. “And as punishment for riling them up at such a late hour, I am charging you with reading them a bedtime story.”
The girls rippled with excitement all over again.
“Yes, please, Lionel.”
“Read us a fairy tale.”
“You do the best voices.”
The girls jumped up and down in their excitement. Several of the gentlemen guests laughed and looked just as excited about the prospect of being tucked into bed by Lionel.
“Very well,” Lionel said as though they’d twisted his arm, though it was clear he’d come for a visit at such a late hour expressly so he could read to the girls. “But only after you’re all scrubbed and in your nightgowns and ready for bed.”