Page 45 of Miss Devoted
“Are you still supporting this girl?”
“I help out from time to time.” Caution laced that admission, suggesting it was at least an understatement.
“You help out enough that Arbuckle could link you to the child and to her current circumstances. He’d still have a difficult time proving that this girl is the very infant he ordered you to take to the poorhouse years ago. Babies look like babies, a certain sameness to them. I say that as an artist and as a woman who regarded babies quite closely for a time. I doubt this Arbuckle made a thorough inspection of her little person.”
“He barely glanced at her.” Michael spoke quietly, but with a seething contempt for his former superior. “I have wanted to raise the whole topic with my father, but Papa was a vicar before he became a father, and he’ll be a vicar for years to come. I’d put him in an untenable position were I to share what I’ve done.”
“Arbuckle put you in an untenable position, Michael. Condemn a child to death, or disobey your spiritual supervisor. All very Old Testament and morally degenerate. Arbuckle sounds closer to the fiend than to any heavenly intercessor.”
Michael stroked a finger down her nose. “Blasphemer.”
“In this instance, I surely am. Abraham might appeal to hopeless zealots as a man of unshakeable devotion, but he was a murderous father and a terrible husband, which says a lot about the failings of your theology, Mr. Delancey.”
Michael pressed his lips to her temple and spoke against her hair. “I adore that you can debate morality with me when I’m half undressed and reviewing sad memories, but it’s not my theology. My theology, if I have any left, is that of my own father. Kindness, tolerance, good works, and a good example. Love thy neighbor, especially if he’s lying in an insensate heap in a foul ditch. I am unfit for the rigors of more complicated moralizing than that.”
He was admitting to more than mere low church sympathies. Poor-box pennies were so many guilt offerings in his eyes, and prayer never fed a starving child.
“You are no more a priest than I was a wife to Jacob,” Psyche said. “The trappings are there, the intentions were genuine once upon a time, and you made a good effort at the appearances, but the whole business became a matter of inertia and convenience for all concerned.”
“Don’t tell Lambeth, please. My pay packet is very dear to me, and if that makes me a heretic, then I’m likely in good and voluminous company.”
“High regard for steady wages makes you human, sir. How much of that pay packet goes to support the child, Michael?”
“Children. I repeated my folly once more, and that was the last time the need arose. The children dwell together as brother and sister and are in thriving good health.”
“And you carry the whole burden of their upkeep. I could shake you.”
What Psyche could not do was fall in love with him. His heart was spoken for—two orphans, or as good as, had purloined it years ago. His days were spent at Lambeth Palace earning coin of the realm, and his nights were passed as the Robin Hood of London’s discarded infants.
Michael’s life was a delicate balance of mundane clerking, nocturnal heroics, criminal risks, and paternal determination, all wrapped up in a tissue of secrets and disguises. He wouldn’t know what to do with a wife if he had one, and Psyche was certainly not interested in acquiring another husband.
“Instead of shaking me,” Michael said, “might you consider kissing me?”
Psyche thought for a moment. She could not fall in love with him, but she could like him, admire him, and respect him.
Also desire him. “How about we kiss each other.”
He laughed and gently, gently complied with her suggestion.
ChapterTen
“I hesitate to share what I’ve seen,” Belchamp said, keeping his voice down. “I can scarcely credit it myself.”
Dermot topped up Belchamp’s glass, prepared to be unimpressed. Bumpkins were easily overawed by the wonders of Town. “Say on. Perhaps I can help make sense of the puzzle.”
The club would soon shift from supper mode to a focus on serious play in the cardroom. London’s dandies and younger sons were growing restless, ready for winter to be over so the mad socializing, wagering, and waltzing could begin.
Enderly had left Town to visit some wealthy auntie—thank the heavenly intercessors—one who doubtless delighted in his everyon ditandcertaines personnes disent. Bless her dear, doting heart, but a curse upon him who’d so easily won his aunt’s indulgence.
Aunt Esme, by contrast, hadn’t been home the last two times Dermot had called upon her.
“My lodgings are across the river,” Belchamp said, lifting his glass a few inches in Dermot’s direction. “Your health.”
“And yours.” Dermot reciprocated with the same cordial gesture. “And to our mutual prosperity.”
Belchamp took a sip of port and set his glass aside. “Before we get to my latest sightings of Mr. Smith, you must congratulate me. I’ve been commissioned to paint a pair of twins, little girls who will squirm ceaselessly, but they are adorable nonetheless. I told our Mr. Smith of my good fortune after class earlier this week. He suggested I have their governess read them stories when they sit to me.”
“Insightful, I suppose, but hardly brilliant. Perhaps the fellow has younger siblings.”
