She tucked her cheek against his shoulder. “I should feel guilty, shouldn’t I?”
“No,” he said. “Anyone who threatens your life deserves what they get. Don’t ever feel guilty for surviving.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.
“I told my mother,” she confessed. “The truth about me. I could always have told her. I spent so many years so certain that I could never, that no one would ever understand. But if I had—if I had, then—”
Then they wouldn’t be here now. Phoebe would likely have found contentment as the marriage mart failure she had endeavored to be, the maiden aunt to her siblings’ practically countless progeny. She would not have been beset by suitorsseeking a mother to the own children. There would have been no need for him to chase off those gentlemen with the judicious lobbing of oranges over the wall. They might never have spoken, never developed the habit of meeting in secret late in the evenings.
“But you told me,” he said, and that had made all the difference.
If she had never confessed her desperation, there would never have been a reason for him to suggest a marriage of convenience. How easily they might have missed one another. By mere inches; just the width of the garden wall.
“I did,” she said. “I suppose I thought that you would keep my secret. That you might understand what it was like to be different.”
He had. Of course he had. But it had also been a new and novel experience to have someone—a stranger—trust him to do so. She had not seen him as a villain, even if the whole of society did.
They had been friends first, and he thought that made it all the more remarkable.
“Tell me what happened with Russell,” she said, dragging her leg up the inside of his own. “How did he come to be…alive? And why did he come here?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“I was rather busy with rallying my family and stabbing a man in our foyer.”
“Ah.” His slid his hand down the gentle slope of her spine. “Clearly, I hadn’t managed to kill him all those years ago,” he said. “I thought I had. He said he knew I would, eventually,if he showed his face again. So instead he did truly become the bogeyman haunting the streets, frightening the children. For a while. Until he got pinched for theft and transported.”
“Transported? Truly?”
“Yes. Came back using a new name. I’m not even certain it’s his own. But it had been over two decades since he’d last been in London, and he’s changed substantially. No one recognized him—and likely would not have, so long as he never claimed his prior moniker. He set himself up as a kidsman once again.”
Phoebe shivered. “I hate to think of it,” she said. “Those poor children.”
“I’ve nabbed more than a few of them,” Chris said. “Sent them on to Em. He didn’t return to avenge himself, but I made it unavoidable. Either he did away with me—or eventually I’d find him, learn who he truly was, and finish the job I’d begun so many years ago. He had to kill me, I expect. But he wanted me to suffer.” He heaved a sigh, rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. “Do you know, I never expected your brother to come to my defense.”
“I think he likes you, at least a little,” Phoebe said. “Probably,” she added, “he’ll trade upon your reputation when it comes time for his daughters to be married. Just to ensure their suitors know to treat them well.”
Or else, Chris supposed. He gave a little snort. “I like that,” he said. “For once to have my blackened reputation be a blessing. I suppose I could let your brother know that he may depend upon me to break a few noses if the situation calls for it.” Or an arm. A leg, perhaps, if it were truly merited. He could count on one hand the people he’d ever given a damn about in the world, but since Phoebe had somehow scrawled her name onto that list, he supposed he could make room for a Toogood or several.
Or several dozen.Hell.
“Speaking of my family,” Phoebe said, muffling a yawn against his shoulder. “I suppose I really ought to tell you about Christmas.”
A niggling sense of unease slid over him. “What? What aboutChristmas?”
“We always spend it at my family’s country estate,” she said.
“We? Who iswe?”
She gave a hesitant shrug. “All of us. It’s tradition.”
“All of you.” The words banged around inside his brain. “Allof you? Even the children?”
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Especially the children. It’sChristmas.” She laid one palm against his chest. “We’ll have to go, too. It’s only a week—”
“A week!” Perhaps he ought to have let Scratch shoot him.
“And really, it’s pleasant. Mostly.”
Chris groaned.
