Chapter Five #3
He gave an experimental nod, aware that his right eye was closing.
How he was going to explain that to Ambrose he had no idea as yet.
His brother would likely accuse him of fighting, not an unknown occurrence in their youth.
“All I know is that my mother was a poor Frenchwoman who thrust me as a baby into the arms of the woman I would come to believe was my mother before fleeing.”
“A Frenchwoman?”
“Yes. It was at the time of the Terror in France. Large numbers of refugees, almost all of them without any possessions, were escaping for fear of the guillotine. Many fled to the area of London known as St Giles and are still there now. I can only assume she was one of them.”
“But wasn’t that just the aristos? I had a French governess, Madame Dupont, for a while after I came to live with my aunt, and she said it was just the aristos who fled.”
He gave a wary shake of his head. “No. People from all social levels escaped. It was a time of great danger for everyone, of neighbors informing on neighbors. My mother told me the woman who gave me to her was poorly dressed. She said she seemed terrified, and was being pursued. She spoke French to my mother and asked her to look after me, but refused help for herself. That was how my mother knew she was French.”
“So your mother, I mean your adoptive mother, kept you?”
“She did. My father, the duke, had his men search everywhere for the poor woman who’d given me to her, but they never found her.
He’s a kind man and has been a loving father to me.
He loved my mother dearly and I think he indulged her in allowing her to keep me.
She only had the one son, you see, and she told me many times she thought God had given me to her as a second son.
” He held out his left arm. “Here. Look. She said I’d been kissed by an angel. That was why she named me Gabriel.”
His sleeve slipped back an inch to reveal his birthmark and Phoebe leaned forward to peer at it.
He’d always been proud to have had the mark of an angel on him as a child, feeling it singled him out and made him special.
Maybe not so much now he was an adult and didn’t believe such things could happen.
She nodded gravely. “I see it.” At least she seemed to be taking this all in.
“So who told you all this?”
His heart did its customary dip at the memory, but he gave her the explanation that had lodged itself in his head.
“My mother told me on her deathbed. She wanted me to know the truth, you see. Perhaps she thought that one day I might want to be able to find the woman who’d given me life.
She explained it very carefully, for I was only a child. ”
She nodded. “And that is why you want to help other children who live as you might have lived had you not been saved?”
He nodded.
“But stealing for it? Did you not think to ask people to make donations? I’ve always thought the rich liked to donate to help those less well off than themselves. They like to feel as though they’re doing good.”
He shook his head. “I thought so too, but when I explained I was offering succor to the children of dead prostitutes and those of people so destitute they can’t feed their children, they turned their backs on me.
There is a good man, the Reverend Andrew Reed, who does something of what I try to do. ”
He let his sleeve slide down again to cover his angel’s kiss.
“He’s a nonconformist minister who lives in Shadwell, which itself is not a good area, from where he runs something called the East London Orphanage Asylum.
You would think it would make a point of taking in the sort of children I’d like to help.
But those on the board of governors, and the sponsors, have a preference for children in need from hard-working families who’ve fallen on hard times.
Not children from the gutter, whose parents, if they ever knew them, were likely the worst sort of criminals. ”
He paused. “For that, the good Reverend Reed has royal patronage and funding, and those who give him money pat themselves on the backs for their generosity.” He snorted in disgust. “I don’t begrudge them the help they receive, but I do begrudge the fact that none of these benefactors is interested in saving what they see as the undeserving dregs of society.
No matter that they’re blameless children.
” He gave a shrug and winced. “I was a blameless child when my mother took me in. Just like the children I’m trying to help. ”
“So instead you’re stealing?”
“Yes, and I only steal what we need, never more. I have a house where those I’ve managed to save live, and I’m opening a second and hopefully a third.
I don’t want a grand institution for these children.
I want them to grow up in something that feels like a family.
So not too many children in each house. Three women work in the first house, mothering them, but the costs are high and my aim is to expand.
That second house will have more children, more kind women to care for them.
Later on the third house and maybe even another after that. ”
“And what happens to the children you help?”
He had her hooked. “Right now they’re just fed and looked after and shown love until they reach four or five years of age.
Then they can be educated and I’ll need a teacher for them.
Despite their start in life, none of them are stupid.
They can be taught to read and write, to work with numbers if they have the bent for it.
Then, when they’re older, we plan to find them work as servants or in shops, or even apprentice them to craftsmen.
I like to think that if we have a boy with the intelligence, we could send him to a good school and perhaps on to university, but that will take even more money.
However, we’ve not been going long, and all the children are young, as yet.
The bridge to a good school and university is one we will have to cross in the future. ”
She nodded. “So that’s why you wanted my pearls.”
He nodded. “They’re exquisite, and worth a lot of food and coal, not to mention good shoes and clothes for growing children. Maybe even enough to send that clever boy to Oxford one day.”
A frown darkened her brow. “Was that then the only reason you asked me to dance? So you could get a closer look at my pearls?”
Of course she would logically think that.
What to say? He swallowed. “Yes and no.” He held up his good hand to prevent her interrupting.
“I saw you from across the room, doing what I do, although I doubt for the same reason. I was scanning the crowd to pick out my next mark. You, I think, were just curious.” He paused.
“And frightened by what you saw. I was more than curious about you. I wanted to find out more.”
“And weigh up my pearls.” Was that gentle mockery in her voice?
“I only spotted them when I drew closer to you.” A small white lie, but one that was required. He managed a wry grin. “An added bonus, you might say.”
She looked him up and down. “I have decided not to scream.” Her lips twitched in a half smile.
“In fact, I have decided to help you.” She got up and went to the head of the bed.
A quick rummage under the covers and she pulled out her jewelery box.
“Here. You may not have my pearls because my mother’s grandfather brought them back from his travels for my great-grandmother as a gift.
Then they were my grandmother’s, then my mother’s, and now mine.
But I have in here some costly jewelery of which I’m not so fond.
I don’t wear it, so no one will ever miss it.
Here.” She held out several glittering pieces to him. “Take these to fund your orphanage.”
Gabriel hesitated. Now she was offering, he felt a decided inclination to refuse. Why? Because he liked her very much and it felt as if he were using her. “I can’t,” he said, aware of unaccustomed heat rising to his cheeks.
She huffed. “Please don’t tell me you have scruples and can only profit from goods acquired in dead of night without the owner’s consent?
Because that would be silly. Consider me one of the benefactors you would like.
” And she took his left hand and placed the jewels in it, pressing his fingers closed with her own.
“There. They’re yours now to do with as you will.
As I said, no one will ever miss them. And I will be helping those children I never knew existed. ”
Gabriel wasn’t an idiot. He kept hold of them. “Thank you.” On unsteady legs he rose to his feet. “I’d best leave now.”
She eyed him up and down. “By yourself? I think not. I shall accompany you and make sure your arm receives the proper treatment. After all, I owe it to you as it is thanks to me it’s broken.”
He would have argued, but something told him it would have been useless.
“Good,” she said. “That’s decided then. Pray wait outside the door while I dress myself.”
He did as he was told.