“I’ll fetch Mrs. Hollingbrook from the kitchen,” Mary Whitsun said, and hurried away.
Lady Hero didn’t sit and neither did Griffin. He circled the tiny room before halting in front of the fireplace. He tapped his fingers against the mantel and watched as crumbs of plaster fell to the hearth.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and then the door was pushed open. The young woman who stood there was very pretty, but flustered. Pale brown hair with streaks of light red and blond was bundled untidily under a cap, tendrils stuck to her flushed cheeks. A smudge of flour dotted her chin.
“Lady Hero, we weren’t expecting you,” she said in a breathless rush as she curtsied.
“No matter, Mrs. Hollingbrook.” Hero smiled calmly, which seemed to set the other woman’s nerves slightly at ease. “I’ve brought a friend, Lord Griffin Reading. He’s heard me speak of the home and became quite interested. I was wondering if you could show him some of the children?”
Mrs. Hollingbrook’s face brightened. “How do you do, my lord?” She bobbed a wobbly curtsy, rising eagerly. “I’ll be very happy to introduce you to some of our charges.”
Griffin smiled and bowed. “Thank you.”
He waited until the lady had turned her back to lead them from the room before shooting Lady Hero a skeptical look.
“What are you up to, Lady Perfect?” he murmured in her ear as he placed a hand against the small of her back.
She glanced at him nervously as he ushered her from the room. They followed Mrs. Hollingbrook back through the house.
The kitchen they entered was cavelike. Griffin had to duck his head so as not to knock himself out on the lintel. Six little girls were crowded around a long wooden table, in the process of rolling out pastry of some kind. As one, they looked up and saw him, then froze like young fawns surprised in a woodland glade.
“Children,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said, “we have a special visitor. This is Lord Griffin Reading, a friend of Lady Hero. Please show his lordship your best manners.”
“Best manners” must’ve been a code word. The girls each curtsied with varying degrees of grace.
Griffin nodded gravely and murmured, “How d’you do?”
A small, ginger-headed child smothered a giggle.
Mrs. Hollingbrook chose to disregard this breach of decorum. She laid her hand on the eldest girl. “This is Mary Whitsun, who I believe you already met at the door.”
Mary Whitsun bobbed a curtsy.
Lady Hero cleared her throat. “How long has Mary Whitsun lived at the home, Mrs. Hollingbrook?”
“Nearly ten years, my lady,” Mary Whitsun answered for herself.
“And how did you come to the home?”
Mary looked quickly at Mrs. Hollingbrook. There was a slight line between that lady’s eyes. “Mary was brought to us by a”—she darted a look at the girls—“er, person of ill repute. She was just three at the time.”
“And her mother?” Lady Hero asked softly.
“We don’t know anything about her parents,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said slowly, “but judging by the person who brought her here, it was thought that her mother was a poor unfortunate who walked the streets.”
Her mother had been a prostitute. Griffin looked at the girl, wondering how she felt to have such intimate matters of her history discussed in front of her.
The girl met his gaze, her expression stony.
Griffin nodded at her and said gently, “Thank you, Mary Whitsun.”
Mrs. Hollingbrook moved to the next small girl in line. “This is Mary Little. She has been with us since she was an infant left on our doorstep.”
Mary Little bobbed a curtsy. “Are you the one that’s to marry Lady Hero?”
Lady Hero gasped softly beside him. Griffin didn’t dare glance at her. “No, it’s my brother who is to wed Lady Hero.”
“Oh,” said the child.
Mrs. Hollingbrook cleared her throat. “And this”—she laid a hand on the third girl in line—“is Mary Compassion. She came to us at the age of two along with her brother, Joseph Compassion. Their parents died within a sennight of each other from cold and ill nutrition.”
“And drink,” Lady Hero murmured.
Griffin stared at her impassively. She lifted her chin, stubbornly staring back.
“Well, yes.” Mrs. Hollingbrook looked between him and Lady Hero, a puzzled frown on her face. “Most of the deaths in St. Giles—the ones that are not from old age, that is—are helped along in one way or another by drink.”
“How many die from old age in St. Giles?” Lady Hero asked.
“Few,” Mrs. Hollingbrook replied softly. “Very, very few.”
Griffin fisted his hands, trying to keep his voice level. “And these other young ladies?”
“Oh.” Mrs. Hollingbrook glanced distractedly at her charges. “This is Mary Evening. She has been with us since infancy. She was found on a nearby church step. Next to her is Mary Redribbon, who was brought to us by a local tavern owner.” Mrs. Hollingbrook glanced quickly at Lady Hero. “I’m afraid Mary Redribbon was left at the tavern by her mother, who did not return.”
Griffin forced a smile to his lips as the little girls dipped in curtsy. Damn it. He wanted to shout that it wasn’t his fault if people chose to drink gin. He’d made no woman prostitute herself or abandon her babe in a tavern. If he didn’t distill the gin they drank, someone else would.
“And finally, this is Mary Sweet.” Mrs. Hollingbrook stroked the curls of the smallest child, who couldn’t have been more than three. “Her mother has five other children and attempted to sell Mary when she was but an infant. We persuaded the mother to give her to us instead.”
Griffin inhaled. “How very fortunate for Mary Sweet.” He glanced at the toddler, who promptly hid her face in Mrs. Hollingbrook’s skirts.
“We are fortunate as well,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said affectionately. “Now, if you’ll come with me, I can introduce you to some of our boys.”
“Ah, as to that.” Griffin made a grimace of apology. “I’m afraid Lady Hero overestimated the time available to us. We shall have to save the rest of your tour for another day.”
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said. “You’re most welcome at any time, my lord.”
He smiled and took Lady Hero’s arm in a firm grip, propelling her to the door even as she breathlessly said her good-byes. He kept his smile pasted to his face until they were outside.
She tried to take her arm from his grasp. “My lord—”
“Not here,” he murmured, trotting her up the lane. He gave instructions to the coachman, helped her into the waiting carriage, and sat.
Then he looked across at her and growled, “What do you think you’re doing?”
READING’S PALE GREEN eyes were hard, his lips pressed together, forming white brackets on either side, and his nostrils flared.
He looked so intimidating, in fact, that Hero had to swallow before she could reply. “I’m trying to get you to understand what your gin distilling is doing to St. Giles and the poor people who live here. As a friend—”
He laughed sharply, drowning out her words. “Yes? As a friend, what did you think would happen when you took me there? I’d gaze at those tiny girls and have a sudden revelation? Perhaps give all my worldly goods to the poor and become a monk?”
He sat forward. “Listen, and listen well, my lady—I like who I am and what I do. I’m an unrepentant rake who makes illegal gin. Don’t think you or anyone else can change me—even if I wanted to be changed.”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head, staring at him silently. Anger was rising in her as well.
He returned her stare until the silence seemed to irritate him. “What?”
“You, my lord, are not nearly as reckless—or as bad—as you would have me believe.”
“What in God’s name are you babbling about?”
“Your reputation.” She waved a hand. “Your rakishness. You’ve let all of London think that you left Cambridge on some feckless whim when in fact you left to help your family. You lead others to believe that you live the life of a libertine, without care or worry, when in fact you work for your family’s sake.”
He laughed incredulously. “In case it has escaped your memory, I was in the act of bedding a married woman when we met.”
She looked away, that vision making her even angrier somehow. “I never said you were perfect. Just not as damnable as you let others believe.”
“Is that so?”
She tilted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Yes.”
He smirked nastily. “What about my dear brother’s late wife?”
Her heart began to beat faster. The carriage was so confining, and his temper was a nearly visible haze of red between them. “What about her?”
“The whole world knows I seduced her under my poor brother’s nose, and had she not died in childbirth, along with the babe, no doubt I would’ve fathered his future heir.”
“Did you?” she asked softly.
“Did I what?”
“Did you do all those things the world and your own brother think you did?”
For a moment he stared at her, wild and grief-stricken, and she held her breath, waiting for his answer.
Then he slowly shook his head. “No. God, no.”
She leaned forward. “Then why let everyone believe such an atrocious lie? Why pretend to be worse than you are?”
“I’m not—” he began, but she wasn’t done questioning him yet.
“Why?” she demanded fiercely. “Why continue in this dreadful gin business? You are better than this, Reading.”
“What god gave you the right to sit in judgment over me?” he asked low and awful. “Oh, but I forget: You consider yourself more virtuous than the rest of us mere mortals. You are Lady Perfect, arbitrator of other people’s sins, an incorruptible maiden colder than graveyard granite in January.”
She gasped, unable to speak for a moment. Did he really see her thus? As a chilly, self-righteous virgin?
“How dare you?” she whispered, and couldn’t help the tears that flooded her eyes.
“Damn you.”
Her vision was blurred, so she didn’t see his movement, but she was suddenly across the carriage, half sprawled on his lap.
“I dare,” he muttered, “because I’m selfish and black-hearted and vain. I dare because you are what you are and I am what I am. I dare because I cannot otherwise. I’ve lived too long without bread or wine, crawling desperate in a lonely, barren desert, and you, my darling Lady Perfect, are manna sent directly from heaven above.”
His lips were on hers, urgent and hot. Oh, Lord, she had not known how much she missed his kisses! His mouth tasted of need too long suppressed, but where he might’ve been rough with her, he was instead gentle.
Very gentle.
His lips pressed against hers, his tongue licking at the corners of her mouth.
“Let me,” he pleaded even as she opened her lips.
He canted his face, pulling her closer, his tongue sliding into her mouth. His beard scratched against the soft skin of her chin, but she didn’t care. She suckled his tongue, drawing on it as if it were the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.
“Let me,” he murmured again, and she felt his broad hand on the bare skin just below her neck.
He stroked her as if gentling a kitten, softly, expertly, his hand drifting lower. All her awareness was centered on that hand, on his fingers drawing nearer to the tip of her breast. Her breasts felt tight and heavy in anticipation, and she waited with bated breath for him to touch her. He bit suddenly at her lower lip, distracting her, and then—oh, heavens!—his fingers slid beneath her bodice.
