Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(19)

“It’s not a secret.” She caught his skeptical look and amended, “The part about me being a patroness isn’t a secret anyway. Maximus is well aware that I’ve pledged to help the home. The problem is its location. He doesn’t want me visiting St. Giles.”

“I applaud his intelligence,” Griffin said drily. “Then why sneak out?”

“Because I’m the patroness!” Lady Hero frowned at him like an offended queen, the look only slightly dampened by the freckles scattered across her nose. “It’s my duty to make sure the new home is built properly.”

“All by yourself?”

“There is another patroness—Lady Caire. But she is out of the country at the moment.” She bit her lip. “I would go to Lord Caire, her son, or his bride, the younger Lady Caire—she is the sister to the manageress of the home and used to run it herself—but they have recently married and have retired to Lord Caire’s country estate for the next several months.”

He stared at her incredulously. “So you’re overseeing the building of the home all by yourself at the moment?”

“Yes.” Her chin tilted proudly, but her pretty mouth trembled.

He raised his eyebrow at her and waited.

“It’s not going very well,” she said after a second’s hesitation. Her voice was a breathless rush, her hands twisted in her lap. “Actually, it’s going terribly. The architect we hired appears to be untrustworthy. That’s why I’m going to visit the site today—to see what he’s accomplished in the last week.”

“Or what he hasn’t accomplished?” How odd that her small show of trust should make his chest expand with warmth.

She inclined her head. “That, too.”

Griffin shook his head. “You must tell Wakefield about your problem. He or his agent can deal with this for you.”

She lifted that damned proud chin again. “I am the patroness, not Maximus. The duty is mine. Besides,” she added a bit less autocratically, “Maximus would probably forbid me from the position of patroness if I told him of my troubles. He was quite unreasonable when he learned of my decision to help the home.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t like his money being spent for him.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “It’s my money, I do assure you, Lord Griffin. An inheritance from my great-aunt quite apart from my dowry. I own it free from any interference from Maximus—or anyone else for that matter. I may do with it as I like, and I like helping the children who live at this home.”

“I beg your pardon for my misassumption.” Griffin held up his hands in surrender. “Why does your brother hate the thought of you helping orphans so much?”

She winced. “It’s not the orphans he hates—it’s where they live. Our parents were killed on the streets of St. Giles. His loathing for this place is quite deep.”

“Ah.” Griffin laid his aching head back against the squabs.

“I was eight when it happened,” she said softly, though he hadn’t inquired. “They’d been to see a play and had taken Maximus—he was just fourteen. Phoebe and I were much too small to go to such adult entertainments, so we stayed at home.”

He frowned, interested despite himself. “What were they doing in St. Giles? There’s no theater here.”

“I don’t know.” She slowly shook her head. “Maximus never told me—if he even knows. I remember waking the next morning to the sound of weeping. Our nanny was quite fond of Mama. All of the servants were terribly distressed.”

“As were you, no doubt,” he said softly.

She shrugged one shoulder, the awkward movement unlike her usual graceful gestures. “Maximus was in his rooms—he wouldn’t talk for days—and there was no one to take charge. I remember that I ate cold porridge in the nursery that morning while the adults tramped about and talked on the floors below. No one paid me any mind at all. After a bit, the family lawyers arrived, but they were strange and cold. It wasn’t until Cousin Bathilda came a fortnight later that I felt safe again. As if someone was there to take care of me. She wore a terribly strong, sweet perfume, and her black skirts were stiff and scratchy, but it was all I could do not to cling to her as Phoebe did.”

She smiled almost apologetically.

The thought of her as a little girl, pale, solemn, and freckled, worrying that there was no one in the world to look after her—to care about her—was almost too much to bear.

He looked out the window and noticed absently that the neighborhood had gotten worse, if that was possible. “Will you come here again?”

“Yes.” She said the word without hesitation.

“Naturally,” he muttered, and scrubbed his hands across his face. The stubble on his jaw scraped his palms. He probably looked like a beast. Christ, just last week a woman had been attacked and left for dead in St. Giles. “Look here, I can’t in good conscience let you wander about the streets of St. Giles alone.”

She stiffened across from him, her lips parting, no doubt in argument.

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and met her eyes. “I can’t and that’s final—no matter your reasons or your arguments.”

She closed her mouth and tilted her chin away from him, staring out the window.