Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,59
the child.
Unable to watch Dare any longer while he spoke to Lionel, Temperance forced her gaze downward to the child—Rose—seated on her lap.
It was the wrong decision.
Enormous eyes so dark they were nearly black met hers. The babe clapped her hands excitedly, and then studied those digits as if they were the most fascinating things in the world.
Temperance sucked in a breath—or tried to through constricted lungs—wanting to run. Wanting to flee. Needing to put the tiny girl down but unable to. She wanted to be free of the crushing weight of pain and regret of what had almost been, and now, what could and would never be.
“Li-Li-Li,” the girl babbled over and over, that close approximation of her uncle’s name.
“What do you need?” Dare asked in those gentle tones.
Lionel looked once more at Chance.
“Tell him,” Temperance’s brother urged. “He’s one of the good ones.”
He’s one of the good ones.
And . . . Dare was. He’d lived a life of crime, and yet at every turn, he’d always put others, the men and women and children struggling, first.
Still, Lionel hesitated.
“I knew your brother well,” Dare said quietly.
The little boy perked up. “Did ya?”
“Dare taught me and Joseph how to survive,” Chance supplied.
Yes, Chance and Joseph had both hero-worshipped Dare. But then so had every last soul in the Rookeries. Even as she’d struggled with Dare’s means to help, Temperance herself hadn’t been immune to him . . . in any way.
Hesitating, Lionel twisted his hands. “Oi need ya to take ’er. Oi’m a sweep, and Oi can’t do it.” The boy directed his words at his lap. “Until me brother returns. Moi da?” His voice climbed an octave as he spoke. “’e’ll give ’er away, but to people who can’t ’ave her. Ya know the people there, Grey. They’re bad people. She’ll end up dead or worse,” he finished on a whisper.
Yes, there was always a fate and future worse than death in the Rookeries.
“Of course we’ll care for her,” Dare replied without hesitation, and the little boy’s shoulders sagged.
Temperance worked her eyes over Dare. He was the only man in the whole of the world who’d simply agree to take in a street urchin’s unwanted niece. Nor did it escape her notice that he’d said, “We’ll care for her.” A pairing that would see Temperance and Dare play at that role of caregiver. It is too much. Temperance bit the inside of her cheek to repress the piteous moan building in her chest.
Angling his chin up mutinously, Lionel glared about the room as if he resented that he’d had to ask for help. “It isn’t for forever. It’ll only be until Joseph gets out.” And that was where the boy’s thin bravado flagged. Lionel’s face fell. “If ’e gets out . . .” His voice emerged, whispery soft.
Dare and Chance spoke at the same time.
“He will.”
“I promise, he will.”
That was Dare . . . issuing promises to free the oppressed. And invariably he’d done so.
“Thank ya, guv’nor. Oi ’eard of ya, Oi ’ave. When Mr. Chance told me to come yar way, Oi’d ’eard about all the people ya’ve helped.” There was so much adoration in the little boy’s eyes, a sentiment Temperance had worn in her own eyes more times than could have ever been counted. The same went for most in the Rookeries.
Dare waved off those words. “Helping is what all people should do. The world needs more helpers, wouldn’t you say?”
Lionel nodded, and in Temperance’s arms, Rose bobbed her head up and down, as if in an agreement of her own.
And as if he’d just realized Temperance was there, holding the babe, Lionel looked past a silent Gwynn and nudged a chin Temperance’s way. “Who is this one?” He eyed her with a worldly wariness of a man twenty years his senior.
“My wife.”
“Also my sister,” Chance volunteered.
Some of the tension left the waif’s slender frame. “I can trust her, then.”
“I used to look after your brother whenever he’d come to visit Chance.” Temperance spoke in solemn tones. “You can trust me, Lionel,” she said, understanding those words should and needed to be spoken from her.
“Do you know anything about babes?” he piped in, his voice hopeful.
“I . . .” Her entire body turned to stone. Her facial muscles froze. Oh, God. She was going to break. One more wrong word . . . from him or Dare or her . . . and she’d shatter into a thousand tiny shards.