“Oh, but where would the fun be in that? Now, as I was saying, Dimity, Abby, and I think that Miss Knight—”
“If you value the straightness of your nose, you will not continue with that sentence.”
Zach’s head tilted to one side. “You’re a lot more like Gabe these days.”
His youngest cousin had an uncanny ability to deflect. He could talk a person out of a bad mood and into a good one in minutes, and the opposite also.
Forrest looked out the window again.
“What do you believe her story is, Forrest?”
“Who?”
“Miss Knight. I heard about her brother and that she is one of seven children. What is her story? Why is she in London with Adam, who has trouble walking?”
He looked at Zach again. “I don’t know.”
“But you want to know?”
That was another thing about his cousin. He could be insightful when he wasn’t playing the fool.
“She is my daughter’s tutor, which makes me feel responsible for her.”
Zach nodded. “And she’s sweet, but there’s that thing she has.”
“Thing?”
“The vulnerability. Sometimes you look at her and think, that woman is weighed down by a burden of some sort.”
“Yes,” Forrest whispered.
“Why do you think she was in that street walking alone that evening, Forrest? To my mind she’d seemed scared.”
“I don’t know. I asked her again, but she wouldn’t say.” He thought about his next words. He had hidden much of who he was from his cousins; maybe he should stop doing so, as they’d shown him time and again they trusted and loved him.
“Six months ago, I was coming home one night in a hackney, and it hit a boy. It was Adam, Zach. He and Ruby were going somewhere. They had some luggage with them.”
“You never told us this.”
“I know, and at the time I didn’t see a need to. It was only at the picnic in the park when I met Adam that I realized who he was.”
“I tell you if I trip over a cobblestone.”
Forrest laughed. “Anyway. I helped them and retrieved their belongings when two men tried to steal them. I then put them in the hackney and sent them on their way.”
Zach whistled.
“I don’t know where they were going, or why they were there.”
“But?”
“But I believe they had just arrived in London.”
“At night? Alone?”
Forrest nodded.
“She lives with all those people and not her family, which is odd. Unless the family has no money and they came to London seeking work. But then why did Adam come, if he cannot work?” Zach mused.
