Earl of Gold (Lords of Scandal #7) - Tammy Andresen Page 0,29

on anything but the man behind her.

Natty sobbed, burying her little face into Penny’s shoulder. “You’re all right,” Penny soothed. “It was just a dream.”

“She was there,” Natty’s voice trembled.

She was the innkeeper’s wife who had been merciless with the small child. “She can never hurt you again.”

“You won’t let her, will you?” Natty said as she lifted her head.

And that was when Penny realized that Natty wasn’t speaking to her. Penny looked over her shoulder to see Natty looking, with a fixed gaze, directly at Logan.

“Of course I won’t,” he answered.

And to Penny’s shock, the little girl reached out her arms to Logan.

Without hesitation, he took the child from her arms, his hands brushing Penny’s torso. Her body shivered in response to his touch and she could have cursed her treacherous skin. After what she’d learned how could her body respond to his touch?

Her treacherous body still wanted this man despite knowing that he didn’t actually care about her.

He held Natty close and she snuggled her face into his neck, her tiny hand fitting into his.

Penny choked back emotion, memories of her hand fitting into her father’s flitting through her mind. She never felt safer than when she held her father’s hand.

Penny squeezed her eyes shut. She and Clarissa, they had to be enough for Natty.

Because time and again, men proved they didn’t actually want to participate in this life with her. Hadn’t her past experience proved that? Lieutenant Vrabel hadn’t been a bad man. He just hadn’t wanted to be burdened…she closed her eyes, fighting back emotion. “Natty, why don’t I bring you upstairs?”

“No,” Natty cried out. “Let me stay. Just a few more minutes.”

Too tired to be combative, Penny watched as Logan took a seat with the girl in his arms. Softly, he began to sing to her. It was a bar ditty, not at all appropriate, but it calmed Natty just the same.

Penny’s throat closed, and she leaned against the mantel. The very one where her family portrait still hung.

Logan’s eyes flitted to it too, his eyes studying the family of three even as he kept singing.

“What happened tonight?” Clarissa asked. “Did the lords and ladies you met agree to help us?”

Penny offered her a small smile. “They did.”

Clarissa drew in a sharp breath and Natty picked up her head again. “How much help?”

A sigh of relief escaped Penny’s lips. For the first time, she remembered the really good things that had come out of this night. “A lot of help. Enough help for us to move.”

Clarissa let out a squeal. “Really?”

Penny nodded. “And enough help to open a second home for boys.”

“A home for boys?” Logan asked, his voice edged with an emotion she didn’t understand.

“That’s right.” She didn’t look at him. The groundskeeper they’d left at the house, she believed his name was Fergus, came in from the front sitting room he’d occupied.

“Thought you’d be later.”

Logan didn’t answer as he gave Natty another hug.

Penny bit back a small smile. She liked the groundskeeper nearly as much as Logan’s butler. “Your staff is very free with you.”

“Tell me about it.” He scrubbed his face. “I didn’t want to be like other men of my class. I’m not better than my staff. I’m—”

Penny’s breath caught. Perhaps his heart wasn’t as crusty as she’d imagined this evening after all.

But how did she reconcile the man who relentlessly pursued money and used her to the one who held crying children and hired men he considered his equals?

“He hired me because I charge significantly less and do far more work,” the Scot grumped, tossing himself into a chair.

Penny looked at the floor. That made a great deal more sense.

“I pay you far more than any other groundskeeper I know.”

The other man snorted. “Ye ken a great many?”

Natty sat up. “He must pay you a lot. Gold is right in his name.”

The other man laughed, but Logan’s face shuddered. “Even the children are giving me a hard time about being the Earl of Gold.”

“Oh. Pretty.” Natty nodded. “I like that very much.”

Logan shook his head. “It wasn’t what the ton intended, I can assure you.”

“What did they intend?” Penny asked, her hand gripping the mantel.

His lip curled. “Well, it was my father’s nickname first. And for him it was irony. It meant that he wasn’t able to hold onto a single bit of his money.”

Penny had that feeling again. Like the one she’d had on their first meeting. Inside him was a man who needed saving. It washed away much