Was she fooling herself?
She looped the yarn around her hook, and as the shape appeared in her mind, her hands followed. Even foundlings needed toys. They needed food, and clothing, and sometimes medicine, but they also needed toys.
But if they did, why did he react like that?
Amelia ignored the taunt in the back of her mind, continuing to crochet the body, and then two squatted legs with feet. She’d examined toads more closely than she’d ever imagined in order to get the shape as accurate as possible.
Just as she went to work on the head, someone rapped on her door. “My Lady?” It was a woman’s voice.
Amelia stopped but didn’t stand up. “Come in.”
The door opened on near-silent hinges, and one of the maids Amelia had met earlier stood in the doorway holding a silver tray. “Bessie asked me to bring up some biscuits and tea. Since you’ve not come out all day.”
Amelia glanced toward the window.
Focused as she’d been on her work, she had indeed lost track of the time.
“That’s thoughtful of her—and you.”
The maid stepped inside and then deposited a tray on the desk across the room. After she’d arranged the cup and plates just so, she turned and studied Amelia.
“It’s a rare sunny day,” she said. “Mr. Beckworth says you can walk along the cliffs as long as you take a maid and one of the men with you.”
“How very generous of him.” Amelia didn’t want to sound churlish, but really? He couldn’t even tell her himself? “That won’t be necessary. But thank you, Miss…?”
“Fanny. Just Fanny.” The plump, brown-haired woman, who looked to be a decade or so older than Amelia, tilted her head. “You aren’t sick, are you, my lady?”
“Just working.” Amelia lifted her hands and then second-guessed herself. Did calling her crocheting “work” offend the maid—a woman who did real work in order to live?
But Fanny’s stare was focused on Amelia’s hands. “Is that… a frog you’re making? With the yarn?”
“A toad, actually.” Amelia turned the little body to explain. “See how short the legs are? Frogs don’t come out as well—they’re skinnier. But if I make a toad’s body, I can add these little bumps… like the toad’s warts.”
“Oh, that’s right clever, isn’t it? Do you have children?”
“No. Do you?”
“None for me.” But her attention turned back to Mr. Toad. “What do you do with them, then?” It was just the right question to lift Amelia’s mood, and having lacked female companionship for days now, she suddenly found herself telling the maid all about her little project.
“And you don’t sell them? You just give them away?”
“Yes.” Amelia frowned. “Mr. Beckworth wasn’t amused by the idea, though. Do you think it insensitive for me to give those children toys instead of… more food?” The question soundedridiculous to her own ears. Of course, those children needed food first. But Fanny was shaking her head.
“I think the toys are wonderful. Even urchins need reminders to be children.” She claimed the chair adjacent to Amelia’s. “I wouldn’t have minded something like that. Although, I can’t imagine Mr. Beckworth would have known what to do with a toy. Even as a young’un, I don’t think he had much patience for childish things—of course, he’s seen more than most…” She grimaced and shook her head.
But she’d piqued Amelia’s curiosity. “Did you know him before he bought Smuggler’s Manor?”
Fanny pinned her stare on the fire, and for a few seconds, her open demeanor fell away. But then she nodded, turning back to Amelia. “There was a gang of us, running between Whitechapel and the docks. If not for Bex—that’s what we called him back then—I’d have ended up working in one of the brothels. Or dead.” Despite the grim words, a little smile crested her mouth. “There was always something different about him. Did you know they call him the King of Bond Street now?”
Amelia nodded. “But how did he rise above all of that?” He could not have simply worked and saved enough to purchase property. She was naïve, but not that naïve.
Fanny scrunched up her nose. “I’m not sure I should tell you. Don’t folks from your set have delicate sensibilities?”
Amelia waved a hand in the air. “Not all of us. And I really would like to know.” Still seeing doubt in the other woman’s eyes, Amelia leaned forward. “I promise. I can handle it.”
Even so, Fanny pinched her mouth together. But after a few moments of deliberation, she nodded.
“When a person gets so hungry that their belly feels like it’s glued to their back, there isn’t much they won’t do. Eating trash, dead rodents, thieving… Desperate people do desperate things.” The woman stopped and reached her hand to her mouth, andwhat she did next had Amelia rethinking her ability to keep her promise.
