their attention. “And you can tell me plainly if you like—do you want to go back there?”
The children stared at him. The smallest girl, after darting him a glance, went back to her tea—I would do everything in my power to make certain she never had to worry about anything again.
The oldest boy glared defiance, but it was the middle boy, who was about twelve, who spoke up. “Ain’t no foundling, guv. Me mum and dad kept me, damn my luck. I left ’em. Couldn’t stick it.”
Mr. Fielding raised his brows. “If you tell me you were in that nunnery by choice, lad, I won’t believe you.”
“Who would be? But I didn’t come from no Foundling Hospital, and neither did them. They was on the streets, same as me.”
I stepped forward. I could not speak as matter-of-factly as Mr. Fielding, my voice barely working at all. “Were there any other children there?”
The lad shook his head. “Naw. Just us. At least since I been. I don’t know how long.” His bravado faltered the slightest bit.
“No, missus.” One of the older girls raised her head. “We been a year. She gets us off the streets, lasses and lads with nowhere to go. Says we can have a good meal. Then we can’t never leave.”
“Of course she’d say that,” Mr. Fielding said. “Coldhearted bitches know exactly how to pretend to be sweet, eh?”
The two younger boys grinned. The lad who’d been speaking to us said, “Ya shouldn’t use words like that, vicar.”
“Why not? It is only the truth. She’ll be banged up for this, mark my words.”
The boy shook his head. “She won’t. She’ll give a backhander to the magistrate and be let off. She done it before. She’ll move somewhere else, open another house. Maybe look for us again.”
The sisters fearfully clung to each other at his pronouncement. Mr. Fielding kept his gaze on the boy. “Not this time, lad. I’ll make certain of it.”
The grim finality with which he spoke reassured me at least. I had no doubt Mr. Fielding, and Daniel with him, as well as Inspector McGregor, would make certain this madam and anyone working in the house were given their just deserts.
The older girl raised her head again. “Where do we go now?”
I wished I had an answer for her. The Foundling Hospital took in babies at risk for death in poverty, not older children. Besides, if someone at the Foundling Hospital was spiriting children away and collecting money for it, how could I be certain they’d be safe there?
“We’ll find a place,” I said with confidence I did not feel.
The boy snorted. “No, ya won’t. Reformers come for me before, and I legged it. Not going back to a workhouse.”
The fifteen-year-old boy lost his sneer and looked haunted. “Never. I’ll take me chances on me own. I’m big enough to fight now.” Tall, perhaps, but he was spindly.
If these children were not taken in by a workhouse—a fate I’d wish on no one—then they would be on the streets again, prey to those who hunted them. There had to be something we could do, and I was already beginning to have ideas on that score.
But the question remained: If these children hadn’t come from the Foundling Hospital—where were the foundlings?
Nurse Betts had been looking for them. I had as well, and had run into the bullies at the building site.
“Do any of you know a fellow called Luke Mahoney?” I asked.
All of them stiffened. The middle lad spoke up again. “Aye, we know ’im. In thick with the missus, ain’t he? He fetches and carries for her, beats down those who won’t pay, and stays on the lookout for the coppers.”
That explained why he’d blocked my way to the bawdy house. He’d worried that I, a respectable-looking lady who might have been a missionary or a member of the Salvation Army, or some such, would discover the nasty secret he was shielding.
Daniel came out of his silence to ask the next question. “Do you know where Luke lives?”
“Oh aye,” the oldest boy said. “But you don’t want to go after him, guv. He’ll kill you as easy as look at you. Don’t matter you have a woman with ya. He’ll do her too.”
Mr. Fielding’s face went blank. I knew he was convinced Luke’s hand had struck down Nurse Betts, never mind she was found far from here. He would not be sparing with the man, and I, having had the pleasure of meeting Luke, wouldn’t dissuade