Page 37 of When a Duke Loves a Woman
“What is your full name, Robin?”
“Robin, like I said. Ain’t no more to it.”
An orphan then, or another left on a doorstep. He located a crown and placed it on the waiting palm. The boy’s fingers closed around it and he pressed his fist to his chest. “Thanks, guv.”
“What’s this then?” Gillie asked.
He hadn’t heard her approach, but he immediately shoved himself to his feet. She was wearing a plain cloak and he assumed her fetching of it had delayed her return to him. “Master Robin and I were negotiating how much I owed him for saving my life.”
He hadn’t expected her to look so sad or disappointed. Slowly, she shook her head. “Robin, we don’t take money for good deeds.”
“He’s a toff. He can afford it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Give it back.”
The lad unfurled his fingers and looked longingly at the coin.
“Surely—” Thorne began, but her sharp look cast in his direction abruptly stopped him from attempting to convince her to let the boy keep it.
“It’s only a crown,” Robin muttered as he slowly set it on the table.
“Now, don’t you feel better?” Gillie asked.
He lowered his brows, pushed up his lower lip. “No.”
“Some day you will. Go ask Hannah to dish you up some pudding.”
He dashed off.
“The lad wanted the money to purchase you a gift,” Thorne said quietly, picking up the coin and slipping it back into his pocket.
“Better he learn to be generous in helping others than learn to take advantage of others’ generosity. Shall we be off?”
“Indeed. My carriage awaits in the mews.” Leaning on his walking stick, he picked up his hat and offered her his arm.
“It’ll give the wrong impression,” she whispered before heading for the door.
He followed. Once they were outside, he said, “That I’m a gentleman?”
“That there’s something between us.” She glanced over at him. “We should probably wait until tomorrow night. Give your leg time to recover from our earlier outing.”
“It needs the exercise. Do you go to penny gaffs often?”
“No, but I hear things. We’ll go to one of the more popular ones. If she’s not there, perhaps someone knows something.”
Once they were in his carriage, on opposite squabs, she said, “I hope you don’t think I found fault with you paying Robin. I know you meant well—”
“Is he your son?” He couldn’t believe he’d had the audacity to ask. With his dark hair and dark eyes, the boy resembled her not in the least, and yet there was this possessive streak running through Thorne that made him want to search out every secret she might harbor, to have confirmation she’d never been intimate with another man.
“Do you think I’m the sort who wouldn’t acknowledge my own child?”
She left no doubt she had found fault with his question. He rather regretted asking it but there was not a single thread of her life he didn’t want to weave into a tapestry that gave him the whole picture of her being. “No, no, I don’t. I simply don’t understand your relationship, why you seem to be mothering him and yet not.”
She glanced out the window. “I’d given a group of lads some tokens. He was one of the boys. After that first bowl of soup, he came back every day whether or not he had a token, and naturally we gave him a bowl of soup either way. We never turn away anyone who is hungry. One morning I went down to open up and he was asleep on the stoop. I took him to a home for orphans that my brothers and I have set up and the next morning, I found him once again asleep on my stoop. The boys with whom he’d been running about taught him how to pick pockets. I taught him how to wash dishes.”
They were traveling without the indoor lamp being lit, but the lantern on the outside of the coach swayed, causing light and shadows to ebb and flow over her face. Her gaze was back on him. “I tried to convince him to live with my mum, but he wouldn’t have it. We talked about him moving into my apartment, but he prefers sleeping in the kitchen. I don’t know why. Perhaps because when it’s locked up for the night, it’s all his. He’s a good lad.”
“So I gathered.” He studied her, sitting across from him, taking up hardly any room at all. When he had traveled with Lavinia, her voluminous skirts and petticoats had taken up most of the seat and all of the space between her legs and his. If this woman wore any petticoats at all, it was only one. “It took you so long to return to me that I thought perhaps you were changing your attire.”
