Chapter Five #4
The little girl just smiled up at her. She didn’t have an answer.
Avalyn took a long look at the child; she was tiny, bony, and absolutely filthy.
But she had the face of an angel. Her heart began to tug for the beautiful little girl and she knew, for her own sake, it would have been better had she never stopped to talk to her.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters? Is there anyone to take care of you?”
The little girl blinked again, this time in thought. “Sometimes the biggers do.”
“The biggers?”
Avalyn didn’t understand until the little girl pointed behind her.
In the shadows, a host of children huddled, filthy and hungry and covered with vermin and sores.
They all stayed to the darkness, but she could see the glitter of the eyes that that looked fearfully back at her.
Avalyn sighed softly, her gaze returning to the little girl.
“What is your name?”
The little girl shivered, her little arms going around her spindly body as if to block out the chill. The rags she wore as clothing hardly did the job. “Poupée.”
Avalyn smiled faintly. “So they call you Doll, do they? You certainly look like one. You are beautiful.”
The little girl’s smile broadened, if such a thing was possible. She was already smiling broadly. She held up her hand. “Do you have a coin?”
Avalyn’s smile faded. The child was starving and begging was a way of life.
A glance at the children staying to the shadows behind her suggested that they sent Poupée out to beg for their group, as no one could resist such a beauty, including Avalyn.
She could imagine that once the child gained a coin that she would see little benefit; the ‘biggers’ probably took it from her for their own use.
The little girl looked as if she hardly ate at all.
It was survival on the streets and little Poupée was only the bait, the bottom of the food chain.
A strange sense of anger rushed through Avalyn. She would not contribute to the child being taken advantage of. Touching the little face, she stood up and snaked her hand into the crook of Brogan’s elbow. Without a word, she resumed walking.
Brogan didn’t say anything as they moved down the avenue; he was more intent on watching her face, discerning the emotion that crossed her lovely features.
He had refrained from saying anything at all as she spoke to the child, mostly because orphans littered the streets aplenty and he saw nothing unusual about them.
But it was clear that the lady did. He was intrigued with her show of compassion, something he was most unfamiliar with.
Compassion was not something he entertained on a regular basis.
Just as they neared a small intersection on the dimly lit street, they could hear cries and sounds of impact behind them.
Avalyn froze, whirling in the direction they had just come.
More cries and more sounds of impact. It sounded as if someone was being beaten.
Horror surged into her chest as she took off at a run with Brogan on her heels.
By the time she reached the place where she had last left the little girl, the sounds of crying and beating were very loud.
In the shadows along the alleyway that ran beside the pub, she could see several children in a writhing mass.
The cries were coming from the center of the huddle.
Outraged, she plowed forward and began pushing older children aside.
In little time, she saw the tiny little girl huddled in a protective ball against the wall of the pub.
Her head came up and enormous blue eyes were spilling with tears.
“Stop it,” Avalyn hissed to the older children standing around her. “How dare you attack this child. Keep your hands off her!”
There was no possible way any older child, no matter how brave, was going to tangle with the lady and the massive man at her side.
Brogan stood next to Avalyn as she picked the little girl up and covered her in the folds of her cloak, wiping her tears and the trickle of blood from her nose.
He covered her retreat back to the street, backing up and keeping his eyes on the gaggle of astonished children.
When he was finally convinced they weren’t all going to rush them in a fit, he turned to Avalyn.
She was holding the little girl tightly, rocking her gently as the child’s sobs died.
Brogan stood there, watching, thoughts of his own boy filling his mind.
He remembered when Shaw was very young and his mother used to cradle him the very same way.
There was such kindness to it, such tenderness.
He could see the same intense motherhood instinct in Avalyn and it warmed his heart as nothing in his life ever had.
To most, it was just another orphan. But to Avalyn, it was a sweet little life.
He could tell by the look in her eye what she was thinking. Had he been a betting man, he would have wagered on it.