Page 44 of Speculations in Sin

I squeezed his hand, a lump in my throat. “I slept at Joanna’s last night. I got up in the dark to check on Grace, smoothed her blankets, watched her sleep.” I blinked stinging eyes. “I want to do that always, Daniel. I want my daughter.”

“I know.”

He said nothing more, though I read in his expression that he wished he could move heaven and earth to make it happen.

“The world isn’t an easy place, is it?” I said. “The life one wants doesn’t come from wishing. One has to work hard and plan, and be clever and brave—all those things I do not feel at the moment.”

“You have done that, been that, for years now.” Daniel lifted my work-worn hand and pressed a kiss to it. My fingers tingled anew, but this time not from cold. “Your work will be rewarded. I will make certain of it.”

I wanted to believe him. I knew that Daniel was in a dangerous position and had come from a dangerous past. I also knew he was a good man in his heart, which he’d proved time and again.

“My life is not up to you.” I softened my voice. “But I think the two of us, in time, can put things right. For the both of us.”

Daniel went very still, his face losing its habitual good humor. Even his wild hair didn’t move.

“Do I understand you aright, Kat?” He spoke as though reluctant to say the words. “Do I dare let myself?”

“You do understand.” I tightened my grip. “And you should dare.”

Daniel studied me gravely, the cheery man who teased me and whose kind interest won him many friends absent from his eyes. I saw a vast emptiness in him, a loneliness, a yearning, one I’d never had to feel myself. I’d lost my mother at a fairly young age and had been betrayed by a husband, but I’d retained close friends and made more, and had a daughter I loved beyond reason, who loved me in return.

Daniel had made his way alone, from childhood. He loved James fiercely, but had missed most of James’s young years, not realizing he even had a child until James was a tall youth.

I wanted Daniel to know that now he had me. As much as I waffled over whether I could trust a man with my heart again, or worried what his job would lead him into, I knew that I wanted Daniel in my life. Likewise, I wanted to be in his.

Daniel’s throat worked. “The coming years could be a very bright place, then.”

“I’d like them to be,” I said.

We shared another look, each fearing to say too much, to spoil what hovered between us. But I knew I did not want to let go of him, though the way ahead was precarious.

“We have much to do,” I reminded us both. “I will not worry about Grace going to strangers, because we will prove Sam’s innocence and win him free. He will come home, and we will go on as before.”

Daniel released me, relaxing into his warmth again. “Your determination is contagious, my dear Kat. You are right. We will win this, which means we must cease being maudlin and work.”

“Who is Bernard Compton?” I asked.

Daniel froze in the act of lifting his mug. He quickly set it down again. “Damnation, Kat, you ought to warn a man when you’re going to spring on him.”

“The name frightened Mr. Jarrett. He had no idea what sort of man you were until you said it. Who is he? Or was? You said he was deceased.”

“He is, thank the Lord.” Daniel drew a long breath. “Very well, since I know you will badger me for years to come if I do not tell you now, I will not be coy. He led a gang of thieves, housebreakers, and murderers in South London for years. Always eluded the police, no matter how many of his followers were caught and arrested. Not much different from Naismithor Carter for that matter. A man doesn’t get to be a general without strategy and winning battles.”

Naismith was the man suspected of murdering Mr. Carter, whom Daniel had looked upon as a father. Naismith was still a king in the East End, and one of Daniel’s many goals was to bring him down however he could.

“I don’t badger,” I said. “I am insistent, rather, when the information is important. This Compton recruited you? As Mr. Carter did?”

“No.” Daniel again became somber, darkness returning to his eyes. “He took me. I was a mite—could not have been more than three years old. One day I was living in comfort, the next, I slept in a cold hovel working like a slave for Compton. He was training me up, he said. He took children from the workhouses or orphanages, one or two at a time, and raised them to be part of his army. Loyalty couldn’t be bought, he knew, but it could be ingrained.”

I stared at him in horror. “He abducted you?”

“He did indeed. Do not ask me from where, because I don’t remember. He erased those memories, or perhaps I buried them, to keep from despair. As well, don’t ask me what sorts of things he had me do, because I want to bury those memories as well. Suffice it to say that Compton made monsters out of perfectly ordinary boys, and the streets feared us. They feared his older ruffians more, and Compton conferred a special terror even on hardened villains, like Jarrett. He was merciless if opposed. The tortures of the Inquisition were nothing to what he could put a man through.”

My heart thudded in sickening beats. “You got away from him.”

“I did. I took what I’d learned about housebreaking andlock picking, as well as trickery and coercion, to get myself out of his house and run like the hounds of hell pursued me. Which they did. Again, my teachings and a natural bent for deceit aided me. I fled to Bethnal Green, a place I knew even Compton’s boys would hesitate to enter, and lived by my wits until Carter found me. Needless to say, I did not trust Carter for a long while, no matter how genial he was. Anyone, for that matter.”

“Daniel.” The bleakness I’d seen inside him from time to time became understandable. It wasn’t only losing Carter that had hurt him, but what had come before. The idea that he as a lad had finally found someone he could trust, and that person had been taken from him, was unbearable.

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