Page 70 of The Gentlewoman Companion

“Dead.”

“Other relatives?”

“All gone. I ge’ along fine, but I’m afraid my sis’er ain’ strong enough.”

The boy had likely watched his parents die, perhaps other siblings. To be so young and so acquainted with death.

James approached the door and pounded until it opened again.

“Off with you!” The woman’s words cut off when she beheld the earl.

“I am Lord Halverton. This boy and his sister need asylum. Is that not the purpose of this establishment?”

The woman stooped into a clumsy curtsy. “My apologies, sir, but I must obey orders. No exceptions.”

“I will speak to Mr. Bloomfield, then.”

Thirty minutes later, after James asked that the money he donated be used for the boy and his sister and threatening to discontinue his patronage, Mr. Bloomfield repeated the same line for the hundredth time. “There is nothing we can do.” He reached a finger beneath his wig and scratched. “Some foster children in addition to donating, should that interest you.”

“You are not suggesting…” James thought of the tour they’d completed—the frazzled cooks slicing bread too thin, the girls in frocks that were too short, the boys who all needed haircuts. But he was not equipped to care for children. He was young, without experience, and he had no nanny to assist him. “I am afraid that is impossible.” Defeated, he turned his back on the Hospital and strode toward his waiting carriage with Louisa and Margaret at his side.

The boy ran up, his face bright with hope.

“I did everything I could,” James said, all the while knowing he hadn’t. “What’s your name, child?”

“Don’ worry abou’ tha.’ She is called Susan.” He held his sister’s face, streaked with snot and dirt, for James to inspect. Susan smiled and reached for one of James’s gleaming buttons. “You will ’ake ’er.” It wasn’t a question.

A stench, fetid and sharp, accosted him. He stepped back from the children. Margaret nudged him. “You really want to make a difference?”

Louisa’s eyes flashed between him and the children.

A rock dropped into his belly. For all he knew, these thin children with unhealthy crimson cheeks were his relatives. Would he condemn them to a life of privation or to death? He forced himself to move toward them.

“I will take you both.”

“No’ me.” The boy placed the baby at James’s feet and ran.

She cried out, rolled to her stomach, stood, and took a few stumbling steps in the direction of her brother. “Dom!” she screamed. “Dom, Dom, Dom!” He vanished around the gate, and she plopped onto the ground and wailed.

“That was a brave thing you did,” Margaret said, “but before you ask, I am no nursemaid.” She crossed her arms, and James had no choice but to lift the wailing babe from the ground and breathe through the poor child’s stench.

“I am sure one of your servants will know how to care for her,” Louisa said with more doubt than her hopeful words should carry.

“How old to you think she is?” he asked.

“It’s hard to tell with a starving child. Maybe two,” Margaret said.

“What have I done?” he asked.

When they returned to Grosvenor Square, Margaret disappeared to see Samuel. In turns, James and Louisa stared at each other and at Susan, who sat on the floor and sucked her thumb, her sobs diminishing to the occasional shuddered inhale.

“What will you do?” Louisa asked.

He sighed. “Do you have a suggestion?”

“Call your mother?”

“My mother, yes. But perhaps the housekeeper first, to bathe her?”