The Gentleman and the Thief (The Dread Penny Society #2) - Sarah M. Eden Page 0,98
which had been recently dusted and swept, then up the stairs to the first-floor landing. “The ol’ place looks nice.”
“Miss Newport brought a li’l one over who’s looking to learn to be a maid. The mouthy little thing is a delightful sort of hooligan. But she’s done her work well.”
A mouthy, delightful little hooligan. That rather perfectly described someone who’d recently shown herself to be a whirlwind in his house.
He entered Mr. Newport’s room and found precisely the tiny thief he’d been expecting.
“Oy, sir.” Very Merry snapped a jaunty salute. “Miss Newport said you wouldn’t be in a huff if I came here to do a spot of learning. You ain’t, are you?”
“Not at all, scamp.”
“Scamp?” She put her fists on her hips again. That seemed a favorite posture of hers. “I’m a proper maid now, you old put.”
She shrugged and returned to her dusting. Very Merry was a handful, but a fellow couldn’t help but like her.
He turned to Mr. Newport, seated by the low-burning fire. “Good afternoon to you. How are you enjoying your newest addition to the household?”
The kind-eyed man looked to Very Merry with real affection. “She is, quite possibly, my favorite person in all the world.”
The little girl did something few urchins ever did: she blushed. Her smile, while still as full of mischief as ever, held a touch of fondness. Street children didn’t trust easily. That Mr. Newport had earned hers already boded well for this arrangement.
“Ana has finally decided to move into the mistress’s bedchamber,” Mr. Newport said. “It’s good for her to be finding her place in this home again. I’m hopeful her heart isn’t hurting as terribly as it has these past years.”
“You have a remarkable daughter,” Hollis said.
“That you recognize that reflects well on you.”
Hollis sat in the chair nearest his. “Does it reflect well enough that you’d not object if I started courting her?”
Amusement twinkled in Mr. Newport’s eyes. “Started courting her?”
It was a point well made. “Started courting her in earnest.”
“I have no objections, but the lady herself is just now stepping in the room. Her objections are the ones you ought to be most concerned about.”
His heart dropped. “She has objections?”
“Only one way to find out.” Mr. Newport rose as his daughter approached.
Hollis did the same.
“Have you come to visit us, Hollis?” she asked.
“There’s no ‘us’ about it, Ana,” her father said. “He’s come to visit you.”
“How fortunate.”
The simple observation made Hollis beam. How fortunate. She was pleased to have him there.
“I need help moving an armoire,” she added.
Mr. Newport laughed out loud.
Ana grinned. “Come move the heavy piece of furniture, Hollis, and I’ll say every flattering thing about you that you could possibly hope to hear.”
“I will hold you to that,” he warned.
She pressed a kiss to her father’s neatly shaven cheek. “Do not spoil our Very Merry too much while I’m gone. I’ve seen you slipping her sweet biscuits.”
“No such of a thing,” Very Merry objected.
“She’s quite right,” Mr. Newport said. “They were jam tarts.”
Ana looked content, something he’d not seen in her face the first months he’d known her, certainly not when she was here, fretting over her father and their home and lives. How Hollis loved seeing her so light and at peace.
He walked with her from the room to the adjacent one from which he and Brogan had surveilled the neighbors.
A large armoire sat in the middle of the room. She’d moved it far already, and on her own, apparently. When he’d first met her, he’d thought her fragile and perhaps too breakable. He hadn’t minded the softness he saw, but he found he liked her combination of fire and lace even better.
He joined her at the tall piece of furniture. “Where are we taking this, darling?”
She pointed to the spot she was aiming for, and together they slid the armoire into place. In addition to that, her room now boasted a bed, a bedside table, a washstand, a large rug, and a chair near the window. It was a proper bedchamber again.
“I can’t imagine you snuck the armoire out of someone’s house the way you did the manicure set or silver snuffbox.”
She laughed. “Wallace helped me repair a washstand and bedside table stored in the attic. The armoire was obtained secondhand in exchange for a few of the items I”—she cleared her throat—“repossessed. The bed, well, Wallace procured that, and I am choosing not to ask how.”