discover she was to be no help at all. The only way Chloe could be of use was by stopping Miss Spranklin.
Chloe touched a hand to her heart and gave a small nod. “For Bean.”
Chapter 7
Two days later, just before dawn, Chloe and her siblings gathered in the sick wing, in the corridor leading to Bean’s closed bedchamber. Their shoulders pressed to the wall separating them from the closest thing most of them had ever had to a father.
Chloe had been the first of the siblings to be adopted and her siblings looked to her for instruction. But she was only the temporary leader. Bean was the leader. He was the glue that held the family together. The Wynchesters were who they were because of Bean. They had never spent so much as a single day without him.
“He will be fine,” Chloe said firmly.
Her siblings bobbed their heads in agreement, but none of them met each other’s gazes.
They’d all lost everything they’d ever had to lose before. What was to stop Fate from snatching away someone they loved all over again?
Jacob cleared his throat. “Marjorie and I will stay with him.”
Marjorie nodded. “We’ll read to him, if he feels up to a little company.”
Chloe’s heart twisted. How she wished she were the one reading to him from his latest novel! Lazy afternoons with a good book had always been a special treat she and Bean had shared.
But she could not be in two places at once, no matter how deeply she wished to.
The children at the Spranklin Seminary needed the Wynchesters’ help. Bean would not want them to waste an opportunity to help someone in need.
“The carriage is here,” Graham said with obvious reluctance.
Tommy and Chloe pulled away from the wall and trudged down the stairs after their brother.
Chloe had peeked through the sickroom door on several occasions.
The truth was, Bean didn’t look good. He was covered in horrible pustules.
That was what smallpox was, Chloe reminded herself. Plenty of people had scars all over their bodies. It had been painful, but they’d lived through it.
Just because Bean was advanced in age didn’t mean...
“Shall we discuss the mission?” Graham said once they bundled into the carriage.
“Yes,” Chloe said fervently.
It was much better to think about things they could change than to dwell on what they could not.
Her siblings looked at her expectantly. It was Bean who guided the planning sessions, Bean who suggested tools and refined strategy.
But until he recovered, it would have to be Chloe. Head of the family for the next fortnight or two, when Bean emerged from the sickroom. She could not let him worry about how things were going without him. The siblings would have to manage without his presence or counsel.
Could they manage without his presence or counsel? What if Chloe missed some detail that Bean would have seen, and they failed to rescue the children before the construction began? What if Bean left the sickbed only to discover Miss Spranklin’s newly enlarged boarding school now housed double the quantity of frightened and exploited children?
No. They had to save them. For the girls’ sake, and for Bean. She straightened her spine.
“Good news.” Her voice barely wobbled. “Fortunately, it’s an old building with the same style of locks as the orphanage. I could pick them in my sleep.”
Her siblings’ tight shoulders visibly relaxed. Missions were proceeding as normal, even if their home life was suddenly anything but.
“As soon as I can sneak in, I’ll find those contracts,” Chloe promised.
“It is deeply satisfying that Miss Spranklin’s self-serving greed works in our favor,” Graham said. “She tries so hard to take advantage of others, it never occurs to her that others might have ulterior motives, too.”
“The bad news is that I scarcely have a moment alone,” Chloe said. “The girls are starving for attention and affection. You should see their faces whenever I try to leave them. Somehow, Miss Spranklin always senses when I step away. She materializes right in front of me in the corridor with a new task I’m to add to my repertoire.”
Worse, Chloe was making personal connections with each of the girls. The ones taking lessons, and the ones scrubbing dishes and cleaning chamber pots. It felt like the orphanage all over again. The days when Chloe had taught herself to pick pockets in order to buy a crust of bread to share with the others. She had been too young and powerless to save them all back then, but she was grown and capable