Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom(139)

Everything in Justine rebelled against that interpretation, but she doubted Griffin could be talked out of it. Not after so many years, and not without proof that his mother truly did care for him.

“What did you do when you couldn’t find any answers in Leeds?” she asked.

“There was nothing to go back to in Yorkshire, so I made my way to London.”

“Did you know anyone there?”

“No, not really,” he said.

He sounded evasive, but before she could say anything he carried on. “Of course, by the time I reached the City I had only a few shillings left in my pocket. I almost starved to death within a month of my arrival, idiot that I was.”

“Oh, Griffin, I’m so—”

His eyes narrowed in warning, and she forced the words back down her throat.

“I won’t pretend that it was easy,” he said, clearly not wanting sympathy, “or that I didn’t spend many a miserable night shivering in a gutter, starved and half frozen. But I survived when many did not.”

She nodded. “Phelps and his wife.”

“And Deacon, too. I tried to pick his pocket one day while he was eating in Phelps’ tavern.” He smiled faintly at the memory. “Phelps gave me a sound thrashing for that, but then he convinced Deacon to give me a job.”

Justine smiled, even though his matter-of-fact recital of his horrific childhood experiences was breaking her heart. “So that’s how you met him.”

“Deacon was a doorman at The Cormorant at the time, and he got me a job running errands. Eventually, I took on other tasks and then moved upstairs, working the tables.” He gave her a full-out grin. “Apparently, my instincts when it came to money were as finely tuned as my criminal instincts.”


“Imagine my surprise,” Justine replied. “So that’s what provided you with your foothold in that world.”

He nodded. “When the owner died some years later, when I was twenty-two, I had enough blunt to buy the place outright from his heirs.”

She shook her head, amazed and reluctantly admiring of the drive and skill that had allowed him to attain both wealth and power at so early an age.

Justine was about to tell him so when another thought had her frowning. Griffin lazily crossed one leg over the other.

“I recognize that look,” he said. “What is it?”

“It’s Uncle Dominic,” she said. “He knew about you, didn’t he? Why didn’t you go to him when you arrived in London? Surely he would have helped you.”

He shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Because I didn’t know him. He’d written to my uncle a number of times over the years, but I never knew that. I found a few of the letters when I went through Uncle Bartholomew’s desk. But as far as I could tell, Dominic hadn’t written in some time. Besides, how was I to know how he’d react if an orphaned brat showed up on his doorstep?”

“I’m sure he would have taken you in.”

He dismissed that with an irritated wave. “I had no way of knowing that.”

“Of course,” she said, not wishing to argue. “How did he manage to eventually find you?”

He scoffed at her. “He’s a spy, Justine, although he’s never explained to me how he tracked me down. He found me about a year after I started working at The Cormorant.” He shook his head. “Wanted me to come live with him. Not bloody likely, I told him.”

She frowned. “Why not? You would have had a much easier time of things if you had.”