“I gathered that,” Nathan said dryly.
Lydia limped a few steps forward. Nathan was immediately at her side and she leaned on his arm. “It was very gallant of you, Kit, to want to protect me, but as you can see, Nathan intended me no harm.”
Kit thrust his hands in his pockets. His forefinger poked through one of them. He rocked on the balls of his feet as he looked from Nathan to Lydia and finally to Nathan again. He spoke in adult tones, man to man. “I’d wail her good when I got her home, sir. That’s how m’dad did me mum and Ol’ Bill did me sis. Kept them in line, too. You never saw one of them going off where they weren’t allowed. Worse could have happened here today.” Kit plucked one of the sovereigns Lydia had given him out of his shoe and gave it back to her. “Here you are, miss. Don’t hate him when he wails you. It’s for your own good.”
Lydia was perfectly speechless, but Nathan was asking seriously, “Did your father use a switch or the flat of his hand?”
“Just his hands, sir. O’course they were big as paddles. And now and again he’d use his fist, but that’s not sportin’. Not with a lady. Mum could hold her own, wallop him right back, she did. But your lady wouldn’t take to that.”
“I might,” Lydia said under her breath.
“I see,” said Nathan. “You’ve been quite helpful, young man. I’ll consider your suggestion.” He motioned to the driver, who hopped down from his seat and opened the carriage door. Nathan helped Lydia inside and tossed his sovereign back at Kit. “Get yourself some flash clothes and look the gentleman you are.”
Kit clasped the gold coin tightly. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. G’day, miss.” The carriage started to pull away. Kit ran after it briefly, waving. Just as it was turning the corner, he felt a beefy hand take him by the trousers and lift him off the ground. Bill shook him down for the sovereign then returned to Roo’s Rest.
Lydia wanted Nathan to stop the carriage. “Did you see that?” she asked. The tears in her eyes were only in part for her own pain. Mostly they were for Kit. “His brother-in-law took the money you gave him! We have to go back, Nathan. I’m not going to let that man bully that child.”
“And what do you propose to do about it? Think you can be by that boy’s side for the rest of his life? As soon as you leave, that bully will only take out his anger on Kit again and it will be worse for your interference.”
Lydia didn’t want to hear a rational argument then. She wanted Nathan to be as angry as she was over the injustice of it. Turning away, she stared blindly out the carriage window.
“Anyway, Liddy, it’s likely the boy will steal the money from the pub’s till.”
“That’s no answer.” Still, it made her feel a little better that Kit might get some of his own back.
“It’s part of life here in The Rocks.” His tone was not callous, but matter of fact. He slipped his hand in Lydia’s and squeezed gently. “Suppose you tell me what happened here this morning. Is this the sort of thing I can expect often—a nipper attacking me to defend my lady’s honor?”
Lydia shook her head and gave him a watery smile. Tears were an uncomfortable lump in her throat. She took a lace-edged handkerchief from her reticule and pressed it at the corners of her eyes. She told the story haltingly, without exaggeration, leaving out only the reason she had gone walking alone in the first place.
“So you see,” she said, coming to the end. “Kit surprised me. I really didn’t expect him to return with a carriage and change from the money I gave him. I didn’t expect him to return at all. I thought I would just stand there until someone offered help or I could walk again.”
“God,” Nathan said softly. “What a wait that might have been.”
“Do you know what people were doing while Kit and Bill were fighting?” she demanded, angry again at the thought of it. “They were making wagers on the outcome! No one lifted a finger to help or summon the police. They simply watched. I had to do something.”
“And what did it get you except a twisted ankle? Bill’s in his pub. Kit’s with Bill. Nothing has changed, not even your understanding of the people here. This isn’t San Francisco, Lydia. No one’s going to summon the police if they can avoid it, especially in The Rocks. The police are mostly despised; they’re too much like the guards who controlled the prisons. Our past dies hard here. We do what we can without interference from others, and in the main that means the government authorities. There’s still widespread sympathy for men on the outside of the law. They’re seen as rebels, an embarrassment to the government who can’t catch them all.
“No man here tells on his brother. Learn that, Lydia. It’s the honor code of a criminal community. Learn it, or die for breaking it.”
Lydia’s breath caught at the end of Nathan’s speech.
He was gripping her hand so tightly her knuckles were ground together. He seemed totally unaware of what he was doing. “Please, Nathan,” she gasped shortly, trying to ease out of his bruising clasp. “You’re hurting me.”
Nathan felt the pull on his hand and looked down at what he was doing. He released her abruptly. He turned away, but not before Lydia had glimpsed the stricken look in his gray eyes. None of that could be heard in his voice. “I’m sorry,” he said tersely.
She laid her hand gently over his. They rode back to the hotel in silence.
Chapter 10
Lydia’s foot was propped on an ottoman, supported by two pillows and ice wrapped in a linen towel. Her ankle was frozen, immobile, and still throbbing, but Lydia refused to complain. She was not giving Nathan another opening to lecture on her morning’s folly. He looked as if he were just waiting to say something. She could tell by the way he beat the pillows when he fluffed them.
“Would you like something to eat?” he asked.
“No, I’m really not very hungry. But if you want to go to the dining room...”
He leaned back in his chair. “No. I can wait.”
“Oh.” Her smile flattened. She picked up the embroidery in her lap and began to work. She relaxed a little more when Nathan picked up a newspaper. They sat without speaking while Lydia’s mind wandered back to the morning. She went over everything, but most especially the things Nathan said to her in the heat of anger, and she kept coming back to the one thing that didn’t make any sense. Portsmouth Square. What had he meant by that? What had happened in the San Francisco rough quarter that wasn’t a real danger?
