Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

G race's heart raced as she hastened across the square through a maze of carriages and shoppers to reach the children, fearing the boy might break his neck at any moment. He was likely half Bennet's age, she thought as she reached them. The red-haired girl, perhaps all of seven years, strained on tiptoe beside the statue's tall marble base. The nosegays she was trying to sell from the box that hung by a leather strap around her narrow shoulders were spilling to the ground.

Her head craned so far back it looked as if her fragile neck might snap as she tried to reach the boy who had scrambled onto the cavalier's shoulder and now clung to the statue's raised arm. How he had managed to climb to such a precarious perch, Grace had no idea. But there was no way the little girl could haul him down without likely cracking one, or both of their skulls on the cobbles below. And no one in the throng of fashionably dressed people pouring up and down the street was paying them the least bit of mind.

The little girl, apparently, was more upset over her fallen nosegays than the lad's predicament. "Now look at what you've done!" she said, crouching. She scooped up a handful of tiny bouquets, her bright green eyes going wide at the realization of Grace's presence. "Me brother didn't mean nothing by climbing up there. He's a pig-nosed, stubborn blighter who's going to get us both in trouble," the girl said in a lilting Irish accent.

Grace, after assuring that the ‘stubborn blighter' had a firm grip on his perch, gave his beleaguered sister a commiserating smile.

"Brothers! I have four of them at home. What are your names?"

"I be Sibby Rose Nolan an' he be Scrap. The wickedest brother in the world !" she shouted, no doubt for his benefit alone.

Grace stifled a smile. "Is your mama or papa about, Sibby Rose? I think your brother might need some help getting down."

Sibby Rose glanced up at her brother, than back at Grace. "Ma and me brother Robert are at the factory workin', and me da…well, he's been gone lookin' for work for ever so long." She paused, her attention focused so intently on Grace's head, she wondered for a moment if she'd sprouted horns.

"We got to sell these flowers if we're to have any supper, an' all Scrap wants is to play pirates."

"He's doing a brilliant job. But maybe we should get him off the crow's nest and to the cannons."

"Not the cannons," Sibby Rose whispered. "He once fired off a loose cobblestone, nearly hit someone with it."

"Indeed. What sort of pirate fare might bring him down?"

"Treasure, of course." Her gaze landed once more on Grace's hair. "Me Da's going to bring me a ribbon just like the one in your hair when he comes home. I hope it's exactly that color. I think that's the prettiest I ever saw."

Grace reached up, touching the scarlet ribbon her maid had wound in her hair that morning. "I doubt this is a worthy enough treasure to bring him down. Something better, I'd think."

Sibby Rose tugged her attention away from the pretty bit of silk and glared at her brother. "I'm not sure treasure'd do this time. He's never climbed that high before."

"Lady Grace?" A familiar masculine voice came from somewhere in the crowd.

She glanced over her shoulder, relieved to see Lucien striding toward them.

His coat of black superfine fit his broad shoulders to perfection, not a crease in his trousers or the almost blindingly white shirt he wore. His hat was perched on perfectly combed jet-black hair. "Is there some difficulty here?" he asked, looking up at the boy, then at her.

Even little Sibby Rose seemed impressed. "Gor…" she muttered under her breath.

Grace smiled. "I fear we have encountered a problem with pirates," she told him.

Lucien looked around the area thronged with shoppers, a crease between his brows. "Pirates?"

"If you could just disentangle this young gentleman from the crow's nest, Sibby Rose and I would be most grateful."

Lucien, in his pristine coat and crisply knotted cravat regarded the two children with something akin to horror. "What, pray tell, does that have to do with pirates?"

She couldn't help but laugh.

"This is Lord Everdene, Sibby Rose," Grace said by way of introduction. "He has had some experience with pirates of late. My naughty brothers, was it not?"

"And I came away with ruined boots and mud in my face, as well as a runaway horse," he grumbled. "Where are you parents, girl?"

Sibby Rose scooped up another nosegay, this one crushed, and gave a long-suffering sigh. "Like I already tol' the lady, me da is gone, an' brother and mammy are at the factory. Widow Dunne usually minds Scrap, but she's off helpin' with a birthin'."

Grace, noting the boy's paling face, leaned toward Lucien, saying softly, "I truly think Scrap is frightened, but pride won't let him admit it. Surely, you can get him down?"

Lucien looked at Grace as if her hair were on fire. She didn't actually expect him to…what? Scale the statue in the middle of a crowd? He could easily summon a footman or anyone else with a lordly wave of his hand. And he might have, but Grace was looking to him, provoking some ridiculous urge he would have quashed at any other time.

He glanced up at the boy and cleared his throat. He reached up, his arms not quite able to touch the child. "Come down here at once. It is very wrong of you to worry your sister so."

The boy clung tighter, drawing his little legs closer to his body, further out of reach. He shook his head.

Lucien, glimpsing a mixture of stubbornness and fear in the child's eyes, tried to remember his name. He glanced at the girl. "Scrap did you say?"

She nodded.

"I can't call the boy Scrap," he grumbled. "What is his Christian name?"

"Darragh," Sibby Rose said. "After our da."

"Darragh, let go this instant," Lucien ordered in the voice that sent the most powerful men in parliament scurrying to obey. The boy seemed to focus on him at the sound of the name, so intently it was dashed uncomfortable. "I will catch you."

"You can trust him," Grace said.

Lucien's chest felt too tight at her words. The boy stared down at him, then, without any warning, released his hold.

The suddenness stunned Lucien for a moment, the filthy bundle hurtling toward him. He had intended to catch the boy by the arms, hold the squirming child as far away from his own clothing as possible, then set him down. But the instant his hands closed on the child's spindly little body, the lad twined around him like the monkey one of his mistresses had kept as a pet.

"Dado!" The boy curled his fingers in Lucien's cravat and buried that filthy little face in Lucien's neck. There was no way Lucien was saving his coat.

"Yes. Darragh," he said with a frown, trying to disentangle himself from the boy. "Now, you have caused quite enough trouble for your sister for one day."

The boy merely clung all the more fiercely, jabbering to Sibby Rose in Gaelic.

"What is he saying?" Lucien asked.

"He thinks you're our da. Ye look a bit like the picture we have o' him. And when you said Darragh…"

"Well, I'm not his father! Tell him…"

"Willn't matter. Stubborn, he is, when he gets somethin' in his head."

Lucien looked at Grace, but she was not about to help him, he realized with some umbrage. The woman was grinning at him, so radiantly he'd have felt bathed in sunlight were it not for the ripe stench coming from the boy's bottom. The child was nearly strangling Lucien with his own cravat—which was all he needed. Giving the broadsheets a new way to mock him, he thought, imagining the cartoon.

A hostler with bits of harness over his shoulder stopped a few feet away. "What's that nob doin' wi' the boy?" the hostler said. "Draggin' him to the poorhouse! What he'd do wi' all o' us if the fine folk have their way."

"I'm not…dragging…him anywhere," Lucien growled as he worked to uncurl the little fingers. "I'm trying to…get him…off me." The boy's grip finally gave way and Lucien set the lad on his feet.

"Best check your pocket," a smirking dandy in a high crowned beaver called out. "The boy probably nicked your watch!"

The watch was the least of Lucien's worries. It would be a miracle if he hadn't acquired a case of the lice or fleas doubtless crawling among the boy's rags. Lucien's scalp itched at the mere thought.

"Infernal Irish!" the dandy's friend called. "Like rats, infesting England's streets."

"Because we're damn well starving across the pond!" a burly man who looked as if he could twist iron bars shouted back. He glared at Lucien, his teeth bared in raw hatred. "I know who ye are, Lord Everdene, and ye and yer like will get what's coming to ye. We ain't going to stand by anymore while lords like ye bleed us dry!"

Lucien leveled the man a hard glare. "You were standing by when the boy was about to break his neck climbing the statue." He drew coins from his waistcoat pocket, heartily wanting to send the urchins on their way. "I'll take the rest of your flowers," he told the girl—Rose something, wasn't she? "Here. Buy yourself a meat pie and take Darragh home for the day."

"Gor'!" The girl's eyes went round as plates. "Thankee, me lor'." She stuffed the coins in her pocket, then scooped up her somewhat wilted nosegays and thrust them into Lucien's arms, smearing pollen and petals and drops of less-than-clean water down his front, finishing off the coat once and for all.

She turned to Grace. "Thank ye, fer helpin' with Scrap, me lady." Sibby's gaze clung wistfully to the scarlet ribbon Grace's maid had wound in her hair that morning. "I think that's the prettiest ribbon I ever saw." After a moment, she tugged her attention from the pretty bit of silk and grabbed her brother's hand.

As she wheeled away, Grace called out. "Sibby Rose, wait!" She reached up and drew the ribbon from her hair, then carefully tied it around the child's ragged braid.

If anything, the girl appeared more thrilled with the ribbon than she had been by the coin.

"Thank ye, miss, me lor'," she said, with a curtsey, then poked her brother. "Make a leg to milor'."

"Dado," Scrap cried and flung himself at Lucien's leg, clinging to it. Startled, Lucien dropped the bouquets. He gave his leg a little shake, shooting a helpless glance at Grace. "What does he want? Get him off me."

But it was the sister who grabbed her brother's hand, tugging him along with her empty box still slung over her shoulder. "C'mon, Scrap! Meat pie!"

Before they disappeared around a corner, a man in a flat cap started after them. Someone from the rookeries that trained young thieves and pickpockets or some procurer eager to lure Sibby Rose into a brothel?

Before he could pass, Lucien extended one boot, tripping the man who fell into a pile of horse dung.

Grace started to exclaim, but Lucien stepped between her and the man, blocking way the children had headed. The bounder shoved himself to his feet, glaring up at Lucien with gin-glazed eyes.

"Watch 'ere yer goin'!" he barked.

"I could say the same for you."

Swearing, the man loped off in the opposite direction. At least the children had a head start now, Lucien thought. During that brief exchange, the vast city had swallowed them up.

"One would almost think you did that on purpose," Grace said. She was looking at him with an expression far too wise.

"And risk a nasty scuff on my boot? I don't think so. I'll have to make a trip to Hoby's to replace it." Lucien discreetly sniffed his sleeve to distract her.

"What is it?" Grace inquired.

Lucien grimaced. "The distinct smell of a chamber pot. My valet will be aghast. I'll never hear the end of it."

She stepped in front of him, so close he could see the tiny wisps of curls that had escaped when she tugged off her ribbon. She straightened his cravat in a wifely gesture, her fingers brushing his throat. The intimacy stirred his desire. When had anyone touched him so easily?

After a moment, she examined the knot she had wrought, then frowned. Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her nose into the nook beneath his jaw, her warm breath tickling his neck.

His muscles tightened in response, desire spearing through him. For a moment, he forgot the crowd around them and felt the impulse to pull her into his arms, kiss those pink lips that were curled in approval.

"You still smell of bay rum and shaving soap," she said, breathing him in.

Perhaps the risk of a flea bite or two was a small price to pay to see her eyes shine up at him. "Where are Mother and Lady Elliot? You were supposed to be ordering gowns, not wandering out here alone minding some stranger's children."

"There was some rather startling news. I needed a moment to—to sort through my feelings. I couldn't help but stop when I saw the children in trouble. Not when Sibby Rose and Scrap remind me of Avery and Bennet." She gave one last adjustment to his cravat, adding, "Thank you for sending them home with meat pies. They were so small and thin."

Lucien hoped the little ones might get to eat after all, since he'd intercepted the man in the cap who had tried to follow them. Had Grace realized what the man was doing? He wasn't sure. He couldn't fathom how she had seen the distressed children in this crowd in the first place.

But then, Grace saw—truly saw—the people around her, their faces, their feelings. He'd spent years looking through them. No, that was not true. Looking away because he knew how families shattered.

He fingered the betrothal ring she wore, shoving back the emotions that scratched at the gates he'd slammed down.

"Grace," he warned softly, "you cannot save them all."

"I know." Her poignant smile slayed him. "But someone should."