“You’ve been dressing her up too, I hear. Hoping thePrettyoutshines thePariah,are you? Handley was cursing your name.”
“How gratifying.”
“ButthenI heard you never turned up at the Lloyd’s ball. Not like you to snub one of society’s darlings.”
“You know how life is. Full of surprises.”
His uncle scoffed, brushing pastry crumbs from his thick fingers all over the tablecloth. He fixed Sebastian with eyes like a waiting gin trap. “But what I heard last was far stranger still.”
Sebastian scanned the business pages. Terrible, the price of wheat.
“I hear rumours of you carrying grubby children through the streets, the Pretty Pariah at your side. The Pretty Pariah coming here. With you. Alone.”
“Ah, but you forget the child.”
“Oh,chaperone, was it?”
Sebastian only smiled slightly and sipped his coffee. “We discovered a badly injured boy on our return from the picnic. Mrs Ardingly, as you can well believe, was determined to help. I offered some assistance.”
“What boy? Some ragged street thief, from what I heard.”
“Who can say?”
“And you brought it here?”
“Here was as close as anywhere.”
His uncle stared at him for a moment, then broke into a sharp laugh. “By God, but this is hilarious. Caught in your own traces! I suppose youdidpromise to find her ten men for her cause. Volunteered yourself first, eh? Are you thinking nine more will follow, like chicks after a mother hen?”
“No, but if it annoys Handley to think so, by all means, spread the word.”
“Devil take Handley, what I want to know is what Lady Frances makes of it all.” He helped himself to yet another pastry, chewing ruminatively. There was something rather bovine in the power of his thick jaw. “How well is your plan going to go if she gets wind of you cosying up to this pretty widow at night? Or is making her jealous your new goal?”
“Cosying? With a gutter rat bleeding on the rug? That’s rather more your aesthetic than mine.”
His uncle’s eyes narrowed. Fifteen years ago, he would’ve cracked Sebastian across the jaw for that. But he couldn’t touch him now.
Oh, how he hated him for it.
The man stretched a mocking smile over his anger instead. A gruesome mask. He sat back, his heavy weight making the chair creak. It was all muscle, no matter how many French pastries he ate. His body was never anything but muscle. “So you really brought the boy here? And all at the widow’s pretty pleasing.” He shook his head, laughing. “Cote, my boy, are you sure you’re still the piper in charge of this particular tune?”
Mrs Ardingly arrived not long after his uncle had left, apologising for being late, as though this wasn’t an hour many people were still abed. Her aunt was with her, big and bustling in brown velvet trimmed with creased lace and smelling strongly of both lavender and camphor. The latter didn’t quite seem to have vanquished the moths.
Mrs Ardingly also wore an old dress, one he’d not yet seen, of brown and cream striped cotton. She looked like a faded shop’s awning. And he was certain all of her new morning dresses had been delivered. He pressed thumb and forefinger together as she spoke. This was not the time to mention it.
“And then Reverend Moore came to call,” she was saying, “which meant we were much delayed in calling at St. Agnes’s—”
“St. Agnes’s?”
“The workhouse. We had a great deal of involvement with it last year and know several of the staff well. The superintendent was able to give us a bottle. For the lice.” She delved inside her reticule as she continued to speak. “But how is the boy? That’s what we’re desperate to know.”
Lady Pemberthy nodded rapidly, both the ladies looking raptly at him.
“He’s well. Or so the doctor says. He called early, before breakfast. It seems…it seems there is no internal damage after all.” And what a fool he’d felt on learning it this morning, after all the night’s burning worry. “There’s the broken arm, of course, and the bruising. But it seems likely he will make a full recovery.”
Lady Pemberthy let out a great gust of breath, pressing a hand to her voluminous chest and murmuring praises to the Lord. Mrs Ardingly only looked at him, her smile a soft brightness in her eyes. He looked away, gesturing to the door. That the boy lived was hardly due tohim.
“I’ll take you there now.”
