Her precious daughter turned from her, beckoned Mr. Rourke with her finger. He leaned down while she whispered loudly her secret into his ear while glancing at Elizabeth. “Make sure you bring Miss Spencer with you when you come to the orphanage.”
Elizabeth could feel heat rushing to her face from her daughter’s bold matchmaking.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that decision to Miss Spencer…if she dares.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth and closed it with his challenge. She lowered her eyes, pretending to be busy with Caroline’s wiggling to find a comfortable position, and then tucking the child in the crook of her arm. Elizabeth glanced up beneath her eyelashes, and he was still looking at her.
The child fell limp, asleep instantly. This was how it was supposed to be with mother and daughter. She looked up to Zachary across from her. He smiled.
When they pulled up in front of the orphanage, Zachary took Caroline from Elizabeth’s reluctant arms and carried her daughter into the orphanage.
Joseph followed, his eyes fixed on them. Satisfied that Caroline was laid safely to bed, he stared down on her. “She’s mine, you know.”
Elizabeth turned. Had she heard right? “Pardon me.”
“We’ve made a pledge to each other, and it can’t be broken.”
“How’s that?” Zachary asked, tamping down his amusement from the nine-year-old’s
bravado.
“We swapped our blood with our pinkies and swore on it.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth not understanding the elements of their crude courtship.
“When I came here, she adopted me when no one else wanted me,” he choked, raising his chin, and hardened from the past. “I was small and didn’t know how to read. The other boys made fun and picked fights with me. She stopped those boys, and then taught me how to read.”
Elizabeth burst with pride for her daughter’s defending the scapegoat. Other than Elizabeth’s visits to the orphanage that gave her few glimpses of her daughter, Joseph had afforded her an inside view to Caroline’s character.
“I’ve saved her several times. She is reckless,” said Joseph, looking down on Caroline, avoiding long looks as if he werelooking at the sun, yet seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking at the sun.
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. Reckless? This side of her daughter alarmed her. “How is she careless?”
“She climbed up on the painter’s platform. I yelled at her to get down. She kept going higher and higher. She fell. I caught her. She could have broken her neck.”
Elizabeth gasped. Her daughter was a hurricane. “There’s more?”
“One night, that bad headmaster lured her into his office. I warned her to stay away from him. I knew something was up. When I heard Caroline cry, I got two older boys. Together we rammed a bench into the locked door and kept on ramming it until the door splintered wide. The headmaster was naked. We beat the hell out of him and would have killed him if the other teachers hadn’t pulled us off.”
“Dear God!” Elizabeth grabbed Joseph, held him close to her. She had no idea her daughter had been attacked. “Thank you for protecting her. I’m infinitely in your debt.”
The boy thirsted for the hug, and then reddening, remembered himself, and pushed away. “The best protection for her is me. I never rely on chance or other people.”
After an emotional and enlightening report, Zachary assisted Elizabeth in the carriage.
“I could walk home,” he insisted.
Unescorted and to be with a man outside familial representation might bring scandalous ruin. She bit her nail, and then tugged it away. An awful habit her mother browbeat her for and one she longed to eradicate. She sat shaking fromJoseph’s revelations and wanted someone solid to be nearby. To the devil with societal dictates. “It’s a long way to Shawn’s. For all you’ve done, the least I can do is give you a ride home.”
“I know what you are thinking.”
Her laughter came with an edge. “Do you? Please enlighten me for it would be a new experience for me.”
“You want your daughter with you.”
She spoke between gritted teeth. “Yes.”
“Then fight for her.”
