No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(17)

“Yesth! Yesth!” Charlie jumped up and down, his thumb back in his mouth.

“We’ll start with how you make a bed. Watch very carefully, lads. You want the corners tucked under like so.”

Julia stood in the doorway for a good five minutes, watching as Wraxall showed the boys how to make beds, dust, and fold clothing. And then she had to walk away, because if she didn’t, she feared she would forget she did not like him.

On the way back to the parlor, she had two questions.

Just who was this man?

And how much had her father paid him to put on this act?





Five


When he stepped out of the orphanage, Neil felt as though he could breathe again. The tightness in his chest finally lessened, and by the time he’d hailed the hackney and was away from Spitalfields, his shoulders had relaxed and his head ceased throbbing.

He didn’t need to go to King Street in St. James to post the letters for Lady Juliana. He could have done it in Spitalfields, but he wanted to go to his club. He needed one hour there, just to remind him who he was. The orphans were not as bad as he’d first thought. It was fortunate none were older than eleven, or Lady Juliana would never have been able to manage them. As it was, she would need to watch Walter and Billy closely. Living in the midst of a rookery meant there were always gangs looking for cubs to train as thieves. Small hands were nimble hands, and the young were given lenient prison sentences and could be back to work within months.

Neil had told himself his work at St. Dismas Home for Wayward Youth was temporary. He had his orders—persuade Lady Juliana to return home. It hadn’t taken a quarter hour for him to ascertain she would not be easy to persuade and that the situation was worse than he’d anticipated. She wasn’t safe in the least, and as far as her well-being… Well, the rats with biblical names spoke for themselves. So he’d done what he always did when he assumed command: he handled the crises as they came. He’d fed the children and then handed them off so he could do the real work of identifying the threats to safety. But every time he thought he had the boys taken care of, they landed back in his hands.

And so he’d gritted his teeth and did what was required. He’d told himself he’d been assigned worse tasks than supervising a dozen orphans. He’d had to set up camp in Russia in the middle of winter, he’d had to order men to complete missions he knew were suicide, and he’d had to inform mothers and fathers that the sons they’d lovingly rocked in their arms as infants were dead.

Making tea and toast with orphans was—pardon the pun—child’s play. Except it wasn’t. Because every single time he looked into those boys’ faces he saw himself. No, he hadn’t been raised in an orphanage, but he was Robbie and Jimmy and Chester all the same. His mother had died in childbirth. His father had claimed him, but even that acceptance couldn’t wipe away the shame of his birth. He was a bastard, and every look, every word exchanged, every moment spent with the orphans was a harsh reminder of his bastardy.

When the hackney stopped in front of the Draven Club, Neil almost sagged with relief. Here no one cared he was a bastard. Here he could forget that he was an outcast and that his own father didn’t quite know what to do with him, and that father’s wife would gladly have traded Neil’s life for that of her beloved son Christopher.

There were days Neil would have traded himself for Chris too.

The Draven Club was a haven from the circumstances of his birth, and it was the one place he could go to remember the men he’d lost. Ewan and Rafe and he could reminisce about their fallen comrades and, in that small way, keep the men’s spirits alive. It was the least Neil could do, considering he’d killed them. All eighteen of those lives were on his conscience.

He paid the hackney driver and walked briskly to the door of the club. Porter opened it as though he’d been expecting Neil at precisely this moment. “Hello, Porter.”

“Mr. Wraxall, a pleasure to see you, sir.”

Neil handed the Master of the House the two letters from Lady Juliana. “Would you post these for me, Porter?”

“Certainly, sir.” He tucked the letters into a pocket and took Neil’s greatcoat and hat. “Do you want dinner?”

It was still a bit early for dinner, and Neil wasn’t hungry. The churning of his stomach from the reminders of his bastardy that had been thrown in his face all day had dampened his appetite. But he had promised Lady Juliana to deal with dinner for the children.

“I wonder if you could help me on that point, Porter,” Neil said.

“Of course, Mr. Wraxall.”

Neil explained his needs, and Porter assured him it would be nothing for the cook to make another pot of stew and bake several more loaves of bread. The bounty would be ready in an hour, and Neil must take the club’s carriage in order to convey the meal to the orphans and their mistress.

Neil made a note to mention increasing both Porter and the cook’s salary when Draven’s men next met to discuss club business. He’d also ask about the aforementioned conveyance. Why hadn’t he known the club had a carriage and a coachman?

“Is anyone here at this hour, Porter?” Neil asked.

“Mr. Beaumont is in the Billiards Room, sir.”

Neil nodded. No doubt Rafe was hiding from some woman who hoped to sink her claws in him for a night or two. Most men would have been happy to have Rafe’s problems with women. Even Rafe had been happy to find himself a magnet to the female sex, until he’d realized that his love affairs often created more trouble than they were worth.