Someone to Watch Over Me (Bow Street Runners #1)(28)

"It's a constant headache," Morgan answered dryly, setting the book aside. "My head is well acquainted with the top of every doorframe in London."

Vivien's smile turned sympathetic. "You must have been a long-legged, gangly child."

"Like a monkey on stilts," he agreed, making her laugh.

"Poor Mr. Morgan. Did the other boys tease you?"

"Endlessly. And when I wasn't trading insults, I was busy fighting. They each wanted to be the one to thrash the largest boy at Lady of Pity."

"Lady of Pity," Vivien repeated, the name unfamiliar to her. "Is that a school?"

"Orphanage." Morgan seemed to regret the revelation as soon as it left his lips. At Vivien's silence, he threw her an unfathomable glance. For one electric moment, she saw a flash of defiance--or perhaps it was bitterness--smoldering in the depths of smoky green. "I wasn't always an orphan," he muttered. "My father was a bookseller, a good man, though damned poor at making business decisions. A few bad loans to friends followed by a year of poor sales landed the entire family in debtor's prison. And of course, once you go in, you never come out. There is no way for a man to make money to pay his debts once he's in prison."

"How old were you?" Vivien asked.

"Nine...ten, perhaps. I don't remember exactly."

"What happened?"

"Disease went through the prison. My parents and two sisters died. My younger brother and I lived through it, and were sent to Lady of Pity. After a year I was thrown out to the streets for 'disrupting internal order.'"

The recitation was matter-of-fact, emotionless, but Vivien sensed the pain and hostility banked beneath his calm facade. "Why?" she murmured. "My brother, Jack, was small for his age, and somewhat sensitive by nature. The other boys were apt to bully him."

"And you fought to defend him," she said.

He nodded briefly. "After a particularly nasty fight, the director of the orphanage reviewed my record, which was filled with words like 'violent' and 'incorrigible.' It was decided that I posed a hazard to the other children. I found myself outside the orphanage walls with no food or possessions save the clothes on my back. I stayed by the gate for two days and nights, shouting to get back in. I knew what was going to happen to Jack if I weren't there to protect him. Finally one of the teachers came out and promised me that he would do what was in his power to look after my brother. He advised me to leave and try to make some kind of life for myself. And so I did."

Vivien tried to imagine him as a boy, young and frightened, torn away from the last living link with his family...forced to make his own way in the world. It would have been so terribly easy for him to turn to crime and violence as a way of life. Instead he had come to serve the society that had victimized him. He made no effort to pose as a hero, however. In fact, he had deliberately painted himself as a self-serving scoundrel who upheld the law only for the profits he made from it. What kind of man would commit himself to helping others while at the same time disclaiming his own good motives?

"Why this?" she asked. "Why become a Bow Street Runner?"

Morgan shrugged, and his mouth twisted cynically. "It comes naturally to me. Who better to understand the criminal element than someone who comes from the streets? I'm a mere step away from being one of them."

"That's not true," she said earnestly.

"It is," he muttered. "I'm just the other side of the same bad coin."

In the ensuing silence, Vivien made a project of straightening a stack of books on the floor. She pondered his bleak words, the stillness of his large body, the tension that shredded the air. He seemed as unfeeling and immovable as a block of granite. However, she suspected that his invulnerability was an illusion. He had known so little softness in his life, so little comfort. A powerful urge took hold of her, to reach out and hug him, and pull his dark head to her shoulder. Common sense prevailed, however. He would not want or welcome comfort from her, and she would probably earn a humiliating jeer for her pains. If she was wise, she would let the subject drop for now.

But another question slipped out before she could prevent it. "Where is your brother now?"

Morgan seemed not to hear.

"Where is Jack?" she asked again, kneeling before him, staring into his averted face.

The green eyes shifted, his gaze meeting hers with searing impact.

"Please," she said softly. "You know the worst about me. Surely you can trust me this far. Tell me."

Dark color crept over his face. It seemed as if some terrible secret were leaking poison inside him. Just as she thought he would not answer, he spoke in a rusted, halting ramble, so softly that she could not hear some of the words. "I went back for Jack when I was able...had secured a promise of work for him at a fishmonger's stall where I cleaned and wrapped fish. I knew they would let him leave the orphanage if...some relative were to speak for him. I was nearly fourteen, a man by most standards, ready to take care of him. But when I went to Lady of Pity and asked for Jack...they told me he was gone."

"Gone?" Vivien repeated. "Had he run away?"

"Smallpox. Half the children in the orphanage had it. Jack died without me there...without anyone who loved him."

Words failed her. She regarded him sorrowfully, pressing her hand hard against her thigh to keep from touching him.