Page 51 of Lord Gabriel’s Undoing

“We can live a bit more frugally if we have to,” Bessie said with a sigh. “It’s not like none of us haven’t ever done it before. Grew up on frugal, I did. We’ll manage. And I don’t want you putting the next house on hold, not with all the little children out there still in want of a warm bed to sleep in and food in their bellies.”

Gabriel ruffled the hair of the child nearest to him, who looked up at him with a smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll manage. You heard what Phoebe said—she has more jewels we can fence.” He winked at Phoebe and took another swig of his tea.

Bessie frowned at him. “I don’t want you doing anything silly and making that arm worse. I don’t doubt you should still have it in a proper sling. It’s only been a few days. If you were a son of mine I’d have you chained to this table so you couldn’t go off adventuring. And don’t you raise your eyebrows at me, because I know you know I’m right. I’ll wager that arm’s giving you gip right now. I can see it in your eyes.” She paused, her expression softening. “I’ve some more laudanum in the medicine cupboard. I’ll get you a dose. Just a small one, mind.”

He made no objection, so she got up stiffly and disappeared into a small pantry on the far side of the kitchen.

For the first time it began to dawn on Phoebe that Gabriel was the only breadwinner for these three women and their twelve small charges, even if it was by such unorthodox methods. And that with his arm broken he couldn’t perform any more daring robberies in Mayfair. As he’d implied, the children might well have to do without things until he could use his arm again.

“I can help,” she said in a rush and sitting up straighter. “I don’t just have jewelry. I have money, too.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows at her. “Money you can access?”

She subsided again. “Well, only my pin money at the moment.” She paused. “But I am an heiress. Aunt Fanny says it makes me very desirable as a bride, even though I’m so clumsy.” She paused as something strange dawned on her. “Only, for some reason, I haven’t been at all clumsy while I’ve been out with you…Not once. That’s so odd…”

He shrugged. “You didn’t have time to think about what you were doing, to worry about putting a foot wrong, that’s what. So you weren’t clumsy. Obvious.”

She shook her head. “I can assure you I’ve been scared the whole time I’ve been with you, only just not about dropping things or tripping up. The whole of the rookery was terrifying. I kept thinking one of those dreadful people was going to attack us, especially when I had the money tucked under my arm. I thought one of them might know I had it from how I was walking and would stab me. It felt like I had a big sign on my head saying, ‘She’s a girl and she’s got money hidden under her arm.’”

He laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Never mind that.” She shook her head, determined to get to what she had to say before common sense stopped her. “To go back to my money. My mother was Ruth Downham who was joint heir to Downham’s Tea and Importation Company that my great grandfather founded a hundred years ago. She’s dead, and so is my grandfather, but my Aunt Olivia is still alive. She and my mother were sisters and my grandfather’s joint heirs. I suppose Aunt Olivia and Uncle Richard already have control of her half. Their son, my cousin Tobias, who you know, will come into that half of the inheritance one day. But there’s only me on my side. So half of the Downham fortune will come to me when I turn twenty-one.” She paused and licked her lips, her heart beating wildly against her stays. “Or on my marriage if that is sooner.”

“And how does that help us?” Gabriel, his brow furrowed, asked.

For an intelligent young man he was rather slow. “If I were to marry you,” Phoebe said, on a rush, her heart hammering even faster now and fiery heat rushing up her cheeks, “you and I would get access to all that money. You could build a wonderful orphanage in the countryside rather than the city. You could help hundreds of children. Do what you really want to do without having to worry about money.”

She waited. A variety of thoughts assaulted her. He might not want to marry her because she wasn’t pretty like Mattie. He might not like her at all. The only reason he’d brought her with him might be because he thought her a spoiled brat and didn’t like her and wanted to educate her. He might be shocked by her forwardness. She was herself to the point of wishing the tiled kitchen floor would swallow her up this instant. And he might have other ideas about how to get money.

She heaved in a tremulous breath, suddenly aware she’d been holding it. “And after all, it is my fault you can’t go out and rob some other house.” That felt a very lame excuse. “And I do have to marry someone this year or Aunt Fanny will be furious,” she added, aware she was digging an even deeper hole. “So I thought it might as well be you. At least you’d do something good with my money. I wouldn’t mind that at all. The money, I mean. I’d be glad to help little children like these.”

Her audience regarded her in various states of surprise or shock. The children were wide-eyed and confused, and Gabriel looked simply stunned. Probably he didn’t want to marry anyone at all and now thought her a dreadful hoyden. If only she’d kept her mouth shut. This was all far too embarrassing.

She could feel her cheeks blazing with heat. Her whole body, in fact. If only he’d say something rather than just staring at her like that as though she were a cat that had suddenly found the power of speech.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, he blinked a few times and licked his lips. His mouth opened as though he were about to speak, but, before he could, Bessie emerged from the pantry brandishing a small brown bottle. “Had to search for it, but here it is. Now, let me get a spoon and I’ll give you a bit. Not too much or you’ll get a liking for it you can’t control. And you already had some the other night.”

Gabriel closed his mouth and looked away, his own cheeks tinged with color.

Phoebe, wishing with fervor that Bessie wouldn’t see her embarrassment, sunk back into her seat, head down, her bread and jam forgotten.

Chapter Eighteen

“Now, where was I?” Bessie said having administered the laudanum to Gabriel in a kitchen she didn’t seem to have noticed was now bristling with tension. Only the children appeared unaffected and were now using their fingers to scrape the last of the jam off their plates.

The laudanum tasted disgusting. He would have liked to have spat it out but common sense told him how unwise that would be. A gulp of the sweet tea might take away the bitterness. It didn’t, but hopefully the laudanum would take the edge off the pain in his forearm. He needed it to. Taking off the sling might not have been such a good idea.

Bessie continued as though she hadn’t noticed the suddenly charged atmosphere. “You said your young lady wanted to know how we run this place?” She smiled. “First I’d best introduce you to some of the children. As soon as Eliza comes back down she can take them off to the school room for an hour. The bigger ones are learning their letters. One or two are getting really good at them.”

A look of relief flooded Phoebe’s face as she turned her attention to the children while Bessie went round with a wet flannel wiping jammy faces and hands.

Gabriel, having one-handedly removed the plates and horn beakers to beside the sink, sat back down and listened as each child was named and introduced to Phoebe. The laudanum was already having an effect and he could either no longer feel the pain in his arm or it just wasn’t registering. Lovely. He could see how someone might become addicted to this sensation. Most pleasant. It was difficult to concentrate on what Bessie was saying.

The children seemed a little confused by her addressing their visitor as “Miss Phoebe” while she was dressed as a boy, but they smiled shyly at her and after a couple of minutes she removed her woolen cap and let her glorious chestnut hair hang loose. Now, despite the trousers, she looked a proper girl, and Gabriel found his thoughts straying to where he didn’t want them to go. No doubt the laudanum was helping with that particular daydream. He struggled to redirect his thoughts down a less disturbing avenue, but only came up with what she’d said to him such a short time ago.

She’d proposed. Unheard of for a young lady to do. Granted, she’d done so in a rather matter-of-fact manner and said she had to marry someone, so why shouldn’t it be him. Should he feel insulted? Or had she said that because in her heart she truly wanted to marry him? Or had it been just a whim, a way of being able to help financially with the orphanages? More than likely, given his less than aristocratic origins. And on top of that, had she even considered what marriage entailed? Now he was back to the thoughts he’d wanted to banish. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable, and tried to listen to Bessie.

She was telling Phoebe how long the children had each been at the orphanage. Little Robbie, the oldest at nearly five, was chattering to her about the letters he knew and telling her he could count to a hundred.