Chapter Six

reakfast was often a disastrous affair—at least, when taken at a long table filled with twenty children, each of them far too chipper and excitable than one might reasonably expect anyone to be at such an hour.

Table manners were, at best, an afterthought, and Emma had to dodge more than a few flying bits of cutlery. And food. But she hadn't been quite quick enough to dodge little Cynthia's flailing hand, and so she'd ended up with a great glob of raspberry jam upon the front of her dress.

"Cynthia, your toast belongs in your mouth or upon your plate," Emma chided gently as she swiped at the sticky substance with her napkin.

"Sorry," Cynthia mumbled around a mouthful of toast.

"It's quite all right, darling," Emma said. The girl was just eight years old and had been with her only a few months now, but she was a sweet, exuberant child with cheerful disposition and a bit of a penchant for mischief. "How are your studies coming along?"

Cynthia beamed, her crumb-encrusted grin blinding in its brilliance. "Miss Finch says I'm too clever by half!"

Emma hid her smile behind her teacup. The child was unaware, of course, that it wasn't precisely a compliment—but then Cynthia was clever. If she had been a boy, Emma was certain she would have been bound for university. She had a head for mathematics that far outstripped most children of her age, and often those considerably older. In the few months she'd been within Emma's home, the child had learned to read, to write legibly, to work complicated sums, and had even acquired an elementary understanding of French. If she was perhaps a little more excitable now than was deemed appropriate even in children, still she was on her way toward a respectable vocation in the future. That bright mind would serve her well. Or possibly get her into a great deal of trouble.

At the opposite end of the table, Josiah had his head bent over a book, his brow creased in studious reflection as he scanned the lines contained therein while absently chomping on a piece of toast. He'd gone through so many books in his tenure with her, poring over them in her library for hours and hours.

Probably, she thought, he would appreciate the dusty old tomes which Ambrose had kept in his office. Not exactly light reading, but if anyone could get use out of them, it would be Josiah.

The din of so many chattering children, which had begun at a dull roar and had risen since to an ear-splitting crescendo, was brought to silence when Miss Finch gave two sharp claps of her hands. "Finish quickly, children," she said. "Lessons will begin in five minutes, and I'll expect you to have found your seats by then."

Miss Finch was only one of the several matronly women that Emma had hired to educate and mind the children, but she was an efficient, no-nonsense sort of woman whom the children revered like a deity. Truth to tell, Emma rather did as well, since she had an effortless command about her that seemed to make a body instinctively obey. With only two claps of her hands, she had effectively quelled the usual mayhem of breakfast, and the only sounds remaining were of the children scraping the last bits of egg from their plates or else gulping down what was left of their tea as they hurried to do as Miss Finch had bid.

As the last of the children scattered for the school room, Neil arrived at Emma's side. "Beg pardon, ma'am," he said. "You have a caller."

"Oh? Who?" Emma swiped once again, in vain, at the jam staining the bodice of her gown. Ruined, in all likelihood. It wasn't so much that her laundry maids were not wonders with stains, but that the toast had been buttered as well, and grease was far more difficult to manage.

"A young boy," Neil said. "He had a note for you, but he wouldn't give it to me. Said he'd kick me in the"—an uncomfortable clearing of his throat—"in an unmentionable place if I tried to take it from him. I put him in the green salon."

"I see." Emma set down her napkin, rising to her feet. "I'll see him, then."

"I thought you might. Shall I send for tea?"

On her way toward the door, Emma stopped to consider. "How young, exactly, is this boy?"

"Ten on the upper end, I'd say. Certainly no older."

"Better to make it drinking chocolate, then," Emma said. "And some biscuits, if Cook has got any ready-made."

Neil sketched a bow and left to make the necessary arrangements, and Emma made her way across the vast expanse of the house toward the green salon, where Neil had placed the child to await her. The presence of a footman just outside the room suggested that Neil had not been precisely certain whether the child could be trusted not to stuff something valuable into his pockets were he to be left unattended.

The boy sat upon a couch that was much too big for him, kicking his feet in his impatience as he waited. Absently, he scratched at his long, shaggy hair—fleas, she supposed, if he was lucky. Lice if he was not.

His head jerked toward her as she entered the room, and he hopped off the couch in all the vivacity of youth. "You Emma?" he asked, squinting at her, once hand cocked upon his hip, his chin jutting out at an impudent angle.

"I am," she said.

"Got a note fer ye," he said, stuffing one hand into his pocket to retrieve a folded scrap of paper. "I'm to wait fer ye to send somethin' back."

"Are you?" She cast a glance over her shoulder toward the waiting footman, who had no doubt overheard the little scamp's demand, and took himself off to retrieve paper, pen, and ink.

"Don't get paid ‘til ye does," the boy said.

"Well, then. I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few moments for it." She held out her hand to receive the note, and the boy laid it into her palm. "Perhaps you'd care for some drinking chocolate while you wait?"

The boy's eyes rounded; likely he had never been offered such an indulgence before. Just as quickly, he recovered his laissez-faire demeanor. "I s'pose," he said. "Since I'm bound to wait anyway."

"Perhaps a biscuit or two would not go amiss," Emma suggested, pinching her lips together to disguise a sudden surge of mirth.

The boy gave an inclination of his head that could only be described as regal, and he took a seat once more upon the couch to resume kicking his legs.

Emma took a seat in the chair across from him, unfolding the note in her hand.

His name is Dannyboy. I'm not certain his situation is quite so comfortable as he has attempted to lead me to believe. He's been instructed to bring your response back to me.

Perhaps we might leave Chris out of future correspondence. I'm paying Dannyboy a comfortable salary to carry messages for me—at least until you can decide what else might be done with him.

Until Monday at midnight.

—Rafe

Emma tucked the note into her pocket just as Neil entered the room, carrying a silver tray set with a pot of drinking chocolate and a heaping plate of biscuits, which he laid upon the table.

"Have you a family, Dannyboy?" she asked as she poured, and then stirred a few lumps of sugar into the drink. At the suspicious glance she received in return—he hadn't provided his name—she shrugged and added, "It was in the note."

"Oh." He reached out his hands greedily for the cup she passed to him and snatched up a biscuit with his free hand, cramming it into his mouth so swiftly she suspected he'd had no breakfast. "Got a mum," he said.

"She takes good care of you?"

Another biscuit was lost to the sharp little teeth that sheared through it. "When she's about."

"And your father?"

"Ain't got one." A thick moustache of drinking chocolate wreathed Dannyboy's upper lip as he slurped the drink. "Leastwise, ain't never knowed one. Don't think mum got ‘is name. Nor for the new babe."

"The new babe?" Emma pressed, pushing the plate of biscuits nearer so that he didn't have to lean quite so far to snatch for them.

"Mum's bellyfull," he said. "Big as an ‘ouse, or just about, I reckon." A furrow creased his brow, and with one hand he picked at a hole in the knee of his trousers. "You gonna send back a note? Don't get nuffing ‘til I bring one back to the gent."

"I'll write one out for you as soon as my footman returns," Emma said. "How much are you to be paid?"

"A whole half-crown," Dannyboy crowed, and his heel thumped against the leg of the couch as if he couldn't quite contain his delight. "More than Mum brings back even when she's got on her back to earn it."

Emma suppressed a wince. "Your employer is quite generous." But she suspected that Rafe knew he was overpaying for services rendered.

Dannyboy snorted. "'E's a fool, is what ‘e is. I woulda done it for a shillin'. Could I take some biscuits wiv me?"

"Of course." Emma watched the boy snatch at a handful of biscuits and cram them into his pockets, wondering if they would all he had to eat for the day. But many within London were less than fortunate. Even if the boy wasn't fed or clothed to her liking, still he seemed happy enough with his circumstances. She'd seen children in better situations than Dannyboy—but she had also seen them in much, much worse.

"Fanks," the boy said, patting at his pockets. "This'll do me right well for dinner. Got to save me coin fer a cradle."

Emma's heart wrenched for the boy, who had taken up such a responsibility at so young an age. The footman returned at last, and Emma bent over the small table before her to scratch out a brief note, blowing upon the ink to dry it as well as she could manage before she folded it and extended it to the boy. "Here," she said. "I expect I shall see you again." If only because Rafe wished not to communicate through Kit.

"I s'pose I won't mind," Dannyboy said as he jumped to his feet. "So long as there's biscuits and chocolate."

"I'll see you out," she said, rising.

Dannyboy slanted her a look too severe for a child of his tender years. "I ain't gonna pinch the silver," he said. "Got a job now."

"I didn't imagine you were," she said as they exited the green salon. "I want to introduce you to my butler properly, so that he knows to admit you if you're sent back to me. Ah, and here he is." Neil had been waiting at the intersection of two corridors, still some distance from the door. "Neil, this is Dannyboy," Emma said, with a small gesture to the child. "He's to be brought to me at once should he come to call."

"Of course, my lady," Neil said. "Shall I see him out?"

"I believe he's capable of finding his own way. He's already assured me he's no thief." From the doubtful expression that Neil turned upon her, she guessed that he would very much have liked to make certain of that himself. But instead he bowed to her greater wisdom—and to Dannyboy, who scowled at him in return.

Neil heaved a sigh as the boy departed to head in the general direction of the front door. His mouth opened—closed—opened—and closed once more, with a fitful sort of snort.

"He wouldn't have stayed," Emma said softly. "If I had asked, I mean to say." But she hadn't had to ask to know it. "He's got a mother at home, and another sibling on the way. He's saving his wages to purchase a cradle. He wouldn't have stayed, Neil."

And he knew just as well as she that there was simply no way to make them stay, not if they were proper determined to leave. She hadn't any right to him, and he wasn't desperate enough to make the choice for himself.

"I had Cook send extra biscuits," he said, in a shame-inflected voice. "He looks as though he hasn't had a decent meal in some time."

"That was good of you." But then, Neil had once been in circumstances even direr. Probably he well remembered the days when his own stomach had stuck to his spine and had spared a bit of pity for a little boy who could so easily fall into the same. "Probably he'll be back. If he is, we shall make certain he doesn't leave without a decent meal, hm?" Sometimes it was all they could do. She cleared her throat. "Incidentally, I'll be expecting a caller on Monday at midnight. You need not wait up to receive him on my behalf."

His gaze swiveled toward her, brows creeping toward his hairline. "The same gentleman as—forgive me. I've overstepped."

For a normal butler, of a certainty. But he'd always been a little more—and a little less—than that. "I don't mind," she said. "Yes; the same gentleman." Her secrets were safe with Neil. They always had been.

"He sent Dannyboy to you."

"Yes. To determine whether or not he might be in need of a proper home." And he likely was—but it was not within her power to make that determination for him. Nor for his mother.

Neil drew a short, sharp breath, lifting one hand to rub at his forehead. "I knew I had recognized him," he said, in a slow, wondering tone. "It's eaten at me these last days."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The gentleman," Neil said. "I'd seen him somewhere before. I was certain of it. But I couldn't quite place him. Not until Dannyboy, there."

"Whatever do you mean?" A frown creased Emma's brow.

"He was there that night, my lady. The one your brother brought me to you. In fact—in fact, it was at his insistence."

∞∞∞

Rafe tossed a half-crown coin to Dannyboy, who caught it eagerly in his grubby fist. The note had come out of the boy's pocket along with a thick layer of crumbs, which had showered out upon the floor of his study the moment Rafe had opened it.

Dannyboy has got a family that suits him well enough at present, though I thank you for sending him to me regardless.

I shall leave the terrace door unlocked.

—Emma

Unwise in the extreme, under the circumstances, to be going around leaving doors unsecured. But he had no way of communicating that to her in a manner that would not instantly arouse suspicion.

He'd just have to arrive promptly and hope for the best.

"Got anything else fer me today, guv?" Dannyboy inquired, shifting on his feet as he licked a sprinkle of crumbs off of his palm.

"Not at present," Rafe said. "The woman I sent you to—do you know what she does?"

"'Course," the boy said. "All o' London knows about ‘er, I reckon. Is she simple-minded?"

"In fact, I do not." Rafe settled into his chair, leaning back. "She runs a home for children in need," he said, just in the event that Dannyboy's understanding of Emma's home was somewhat lacking. "If you asked her, Dannyboy, she'd let you stay."

A peevish frown tugged at the boy's mouth. "Yeah? And what fer, then?"

"To be educated. To become a self-supporting man, when you are grown." Rafe spread out his hands before him. "She's had boys who have gone on to be barristers, doctors, clergymen. Men of business and commerce. Gentlemen, no matter the station to which they were born."

Mulishly, Dannyboy thrust out the coin. "I can support m'self jes' fine," he said.

"A wise man keeps his options open," Rafe said. "But a wiser man makes use of the resources available to him. He seizes the opportunities that come his way." Probably, he thought, Dannyboy considered the promise of a shilling or more each day opportunity enough for him, but then he was still only a boy, and he'd no doubt become accustomed to a hardscrabble sort of life, one in which the security of a coin in his hand now was worth infinitely more than the potential of a better life in some distant, unknowable future.

"What's it to ye, anyway?" Dannyboy asked, squinting beneath the untidy mop of his bangs as if he might peer straight into Rafe's soul and reveal the blackened thing that it was.

"You're a bright boy," Rafe said. "Enterprising. Determined. You could go to university someday. Emma would help you, there."

Dannyboy scoffed. "Don't need no help."

"As you like it, then," Rafe said. "But do keep it in mind."