Chapter Ten
"Are you out of your mind?” Rogue snapped once they were ensconced in Rafe’s office with the door closed.
Rafe scoffed as he looked through his things, collecting what he could take along with him while gadding about London with Margaret in tow. Nothing of critical importance, obviously, but a few things to make whatever he did accomplish worthwhile, if possible.
“Not lately, no,” he replied calmly, scanning the latest reports that had come in.
“He’s completely gone ‘round the bend,” Rogue said to Cap, who leaned against the wall, watching Rafe without a word.
“Have not.”
“You brought that woman here!”
Rafe paused in his perusal and gave his friend a very calm look. “That woman being Miss Easton, with whom you were just flirting?”
Rogue sputtered and turned redder with rage. “I was doing no such thing!” he finally managed.
That was a ridiculous assertion. “Please. She took the wind right out of your sails,” Rafe told him, smiling with understanding and pity. “You were your usual caustic self, and she melted you down with a smile.”
Rogue opened his mouth, then closed it again. “She took me by surprise,” he grumbled. “I expected a shy, retreating miss, not an impudent…”
“Careful,” Cap said softly, speaking for the first time.
Rafe looked at him in gratitude, then went back to his papers.
“She’s very pleasant and very quick-witted, I’ll grant you that,” Rogue went on, his tone reluctant to say anything nice if he could help it. “But that does not explain why you are with her and why she is here.”
“That is what I would like to know as well,” Cap added in his usual calm. “It is obvious that you trust her enough to bring her here, but we don’t. So, if you would, explain please.”
It sounded polite, but Rafe knew full well that the underlying steel of Cap’s tone meant he was not particularly pleased either. He just possessed an unnerving reserve of composure and strength and he usually employed it in his emotions when they were not engaged in something tending towards the dangerous.
And there was no request in his tone, despite its apparent politeness.
It was a command.
He probably spoke to his four children that way, and they implicitly obeyed.
Rafe sighed to himself and quickly related what he could about the day’s adventures thus far, watching with satisfaction as his colleagues’ features hardened with the telling of Margaret’s state and situation. They had no other expression, except for a snort of derision when Suds was mentioned, but he really didn’t expect anything.
Stories were wasted on these two.
“You and your damned hero complex,” Rogue muttered with a shake of his head, folding his arms.
Rafe frowned at him. “If you had seen her as I did then, even you would have found some small untarnished portion of your soul that had some honor, Rogue.”
He glowered, but made no response except to grind his teeth.
Rafe took that as an unspoken agreement. Rogue would never admit it, but Rafe knew that he possessed some honor still, despite what he portrayed and claimed. He would have helped her too, and taken the responsibility of her safety on himself. He might not have been as pleased about it as Rafe was, but there was no accounting for taste.
“Why bring her here?” Cap asked as if Rogue had made no complaint.
“You object?” Rafe’s tone was too defensive, but he did not check it.
Cap gave him a sardonic look. “Of course I do not object to your actions, and if you have a good reason for her being here, I do not object to that either. I am not particularly pleased about you feeling the need to bring the object of your desires into our highly secretive place of work, but if it was necessary, so be it.”
Rafe fought a heavy sigh and stopped fidgeting with whatever he could find on his desk. “I don’t know that it was necessary,” he admitted, “but I wasn’t quite sure what else to do. Once I saw to her health and care, knowing she would not be safe if returned home, I was so tossed about that I couldn’t think straight. So, I brought her here to find something to do with myself, some way to do my job with her and not compromise her or me or any of this.”
“Then she doesn’t know…?” Cap trailed off with a questioning tilt of his head.
Rafe shook his head. “She doesn’t know anything. Hasn’t even asked.” He shrugged and gripped the back of his neck. “I was going to tell her the cover, if that’s all right by you.”
Cap nodded once, but Rogue looked unconvinced.
“What?” Rafe all but barked, tired of his friend’s irascible behavior.
Rogue looked at him for a long moment, clear blue eyes almost eerie in their solemnity. “Should Margaret really be going around London with you?”
He chuckled a little. “Are you concerned for her virtue, Rogue?”
Rogue did not smile. “I might be.”
Rafe straightened up fully, all traces of humor gone. “I don’t think you are accusing me of lacking in morals,” he said slowly, anger seeping through his tone. “I don’t think you’re suggesting that I would compromise her, now that she is finally at my fingertips…”
“Stand down, Rafe!” Cap barked, forgoing their absolute directive of only using code names.
Rafe and Rogue stared at Cap in horror, then at each other, unable to believe the most controlled of them had breached that particular barrier.
“Get over that, too,” Cap muttered, his tone returning to normal. “And to be perfectly honest, Gent, I have the same concerns. Not that you would ruin her, but considering your feelings for her, is it really in her best interest to be with you?”
Rafe did not take offense this time, for some reason. He understood their concerns, and had had the same himself. But he knew himself, and he knew what he was doing. “I care about her,” he admitted, surprising no one. “More than even I thought, and that is only growing the more I get to know her. But more than that, I want to protect her. She will not go home, and I very much fear she would run away again if I tried, and what if I cannot save her then?”
“You can’t be with her all the time,” Rogue reminded him. “Eventually, she will have to return home.”
“I know.” He was already dreading that. “But until she is ready, would she not be best suited to be with someone who would protect her above all others?”
“Even from yourself?”
He nodded once. “Especially from myself.”
Cap was looking at him strangely, his mouth almost forming a smile. “Perhaps she ought to go with Rogue, since he is so very concerned about her and has no such ties to her.”
Rogue laughed once, a bit roughly. “No, thank you. She’s already won me over, three more minutes in her company and I’ll be on one knee or headed for Gretna.”
Rafe glowered at him, which only made him laugh more. “That’s not funny,” he muttered.
Rogue grinned, which was rare. “No, and neither is it true. But I can see your reasons for wanting her, and she’ll be under my care as well, should she ever need it.”
“And mine,” Cap murmured, glancing towards the front of the building as if he could see through the walls. “With all she has been through today, she ought to be terrified, and yet she is teasing Rogue, of all people, and smiling.” He shook his head. “A rare woman, Gent. Mind her well.”
Rafe looked between the two of them, torn between elation and amusement. “For heaven’s sake, I haven’t married her,” he said with a laugh at last. “I haven’t promised anything at all but her safety. I’ve only taken her under my wing for the day, perhaps for a few of them. There is no… I haven’t…”
Both of them looked at him steadily, and his words simply faltered off.
They knew what he knew.
Margaret was his.
Promises or no promises.
No matter what happened today, tomorrow, or beyond.
“Weaver likes her, for whatever that’s worth,” Cap said with a curious smile.
Rafe stared at Cap in a mixture of horror and amazement. “What? How does Weaver…?”
Cap almost grinned. “He’s met her on several occasions on the Continent. Says he approves.”
Rogue barked a laugh while Rafe glared at his superior. “I don’t need his approval!”
“I’ll be sure to tell him.”
“Careful, Gent,” Rogue told him, still chuckling, “you may get reassigned to Parliament note-taking if you disparage Weaver.”
“I’d risk it for Margaret,” Rafe heard himself say. All of the breath fled his lungs and he shook his head. “What am I to do?” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Visit the gypsies,” Cap suggested, pushing off of the wall. “You’re due to check in with them anyway.”
There was a thought. Away from the city, among people who respected him and would treat her well, so long as she was with him… And there was a warmth and energy to the Rom that he thought she would find most appealing.
Yes, that would work rather well.
He glanced at Rogue. “You’ll mind my traitors?”
Rogue snorted. “They’ve been silent for weeks, you think they’ll exact a coup while you are distracted?”
“With my luck, probably.” Rafe sighed and shook his head. “You know, there is one bright spot in all of this.”
“Yes, we know, and she is sitting in the front office with Jones,” Cap said with a faint smile.
Rogue snorted with derision as he picked up some of Rafe’s reports to examine.
“Besides that,” Rafe corrected, rolling his eyes.
“Oh?”
He nodded once. “She hasn’t met Rook. You two are fairly immune to her, but Rook?”
The other two nodded with smiles. “And she would know Rook, more than likely,” Rogue pointed out. “He moves in her circles.”
Rafe shuddered at the thought.
They heard footsteps approaching and a knock at the door. Cap opened it and stepped back as their unnamed young associate entered. “Sorry to interrupt, but we may have a… situation.”
All three men were instantly on alert. “What is it?” Rogue demanded.
“Where’s Margaret?” Rafe barked.
The man looked at him first. “She’s out front cataloguing things a maid could help with here. Don’t ask.” He looked at the others. “And… Rook just got here.”
They all looked at each other, swore in various colors, then headed for the front.
Margaret was staring at Rook in bewilderment and Rook, to his credit, was still the peacock of Society.
“What,” she asked with pointed curiosity, “is he doing here? I saw him last evening, and he was speaking with my cousin, what is he doing here?”
Rafe didn’t even know how to respond. “I…”
“Miss Easton,” Rook simpered with what was probably his trademark smile, “I am only just arrived, the poor chaps won’t have any idea why I am here.”
She folded her arms, crushing the paper in her hand as she did so. “Mr. Pratt, you are wandering in parts of London that no one of your reputation and character would.”
“As are you, Miss Easton.”
She frowned, but Rafe could see amusement in her features. And worry.
Rook sighed dramatically. “Very well, I shall confess, but only because I cannot bear your poor opinion. I require the services of these fellows in a matter of some delicacy. Nothing nefarious, I can assure you, but I cannot go to Bow Street for it. The rumor is that there are those in coarser circles that are just as efficient, but less official and less conspicuous.” He gestured flippantly to Gent and the rest. “So I have come to see if they will take up my case and keep it quiet.”
Margaret glanced at Rafe. “Is that what you all do here?”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
“Sometimes less,” Rogue muttered, looking very much like he wanted to murder Rook on the spot.
Rook ignored him and was looking rather imploringly at Margaret. “Do say you will keep my secret, Miss Easton,” he pleaded, somehow sounding like a desperate man without being pathetic.
She cocked her head. “Will you keep mine, Mr. Pratt?”
He placed a hand over his heart. “I swear on my honor, I never saw you today.”
Margaret’s full lips quirked and she held out a hand. “You keep my secret, I will keep yours.”
Rook grinned a surprisingly devilish grin and took her hand, kissing it gently, without any of the gallantry a peacock would have done. “I like that sentiment,” he mused quietly. “Perhaps we might discuss where else it might apply?”
Rafe almost growled but Rogue pushed him aside. “Mr. Pratt, is it?” he intoned with the barest hint of politeness. “Come with me to discuss your… situation.”
Rook nodded, bowing deeply to Margaret, then following as Rogue led him from the room. Rook barely glanced at Rafe, giving him a faint wink that tempted Rafe beyond belief to blacken both of the idiot’s eyes for good measure.
Margaret watched him go, shaking her head, then looked down at her paper. “There is really so much to be done.” She looked at Cap with a measure of pity. “You ought to consider a maid, sir. Or a housekeeper. A servant of any kind, really, and sooner rather than later. I am surprised that Mr. Sharp here hasn’t developed a layer of dust himself, but I suspect the three of you keep him busy enough to avoid the settling.”
Sharp tugged at his limp cravat restlessly.
Cap stared at Margaret without expression, which was usually how Cap stared at everybody, and then, to Rafe’s astonishment, he nodded. “It is a good thought,” he said quietly. “If we can find the funds, I will undertake the hiring myself.”
Margaret blushed a little, which made her look all the more fetching. “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I ought not to pry into affairs that are not mine.”
Now Cap looked sympathetic. “Miss Easton, is it?”
She nodded, keeping her chin a bit lower.
“I do not consider an earnest concern prying,” Cap told her, his voice surprisingly kind. “I daresay having a woman of your observation and determination here with us would turn this place on its head and have it in better working order in no time at all.”
Margaret smiled shyly and looked up at him. “I’m an interfering busybody with little tact,” she said bluntly. “It is a horrid flaw, and probably my chief reason for remaining unmarried at my age.”
Rafe bit back a laugh at her quip and wished he were closer so he could squeeze her hand.
Cap smiled with more warmth than Rafe had ever seen him do since the death of his wife. “I doubt your age is that shocking, Miss Easton, and your interference comes with such charm that the so-called tactlessness is irrelevant.”
Margaret grinned outright. “Well. Maybe I ought to run off with you, Cap.”
Sharp hooted a laugh that Rafe echoed, and Cap’s smile turned teasing. “I would only be so fortunate.” He nodded to her, then to Rafe, and returned back to the offices behind them.
Rafe shook his head, coming closer to Margaret at last. “Well, now that you have charmed all of my colleagues, perhaps we should go and find other people to fall at your feet.”
Margaret laughed and handed Sharp her list of chores. “If we step foot out that door, I think everyone will fall at yours.”
Rafe switched his cap for another on the wall and picked up a satchel from the floor beneath it. “They just might,” he replied without concern. “In which case, we will walk over everyone at our feet and have a merry time of it.”
He opened the door for her, let her precede him, then was quick to offer his arm once they were out.
She took it at once, smiling brightly. “Where to, Master Gent?”
“Wherever the road may lead, Miss Margaret,” he replied with a cheeky grin. “But first… You need to meet my children.”
Before she could respond, he whistled three short bursts of sound, and then led her along out of the street and to the meeting place long ago set for his best group of informants.
Children?
Margaret could barely swallow as he led her along, blissfully unaware of her torment.
How could he have children? That positively ruined everything. Did he also have a wife who had borne him those children?
Oh lord, was she running off on an adventure with a disenchanted husband and father?
Her face flamed with the shame now filling her.
Gent was saying something jolly and bright, but she could barely listen at all when she wondered how she was going to disengage herself from such a person. How could she have been so totally mistaken in him?
“And then Daisy’s mother passed away, and her father drinks his days away when he isn’t at the docks, so there really wasn’t an alternative but to take her in,” Gent said on a heavy sigh. “She’s a bit young, but her details are unmatched by any of the others.”
Margaret perked up at that. Mother and father? She traced back the conversation as far as she could recall, trying to fixate on what he had been saying while she had worried herself into a frenzy.
She wet her lips hesitantly. “H-how many are like her?” she asked shakily.
If he heard her nerves, he gave no indication. “Most of them, sadly,” he told her with a slow shake of his head. “A few are complete orphans, but they look out for each other so well, and having them tied to us gives them some security.”
“And what do they do for you?” Margaret asked, warming to his conversation more and more. He may speak of them as a loving father would, but he was obviously not biologically their father.
She ought to have known that from the start. She knew him, after all, despite their lack of interpersonal association, and he would never have betrayed his own family by being so familiar with her. As he had said, he had the honor of two toffs. She’d seen it for herself.
But honor aside, she was fiercely glad, and desperately relieved, to have been such a ninny.
Gent slid his dark glance to her, his cap lower on his face than it had been all day. “Whatever we ask,” he said, his tone too stiff. “Run errands, gather information, keep an eye on certain individuals…”
“Spy?” she asked before she could help herself.
He smiled at her. “More like pay attention. No one thinks much of a child, so they can gain access in very useful ways. And if there is an individual I wish to protect, for one reason or another, I can easily have a child tail them.”
Margaret frowned at him. “How would a child keep them from danger? They would be at just as much of a risk.”
His smile grew slightly cocky. “Not these children. But besides that, we have several other associates that can intervene if needed. But the children can inform us of changes or anything untoward, and they love sneaking around.”
Margaret thought back to her own childhood and the number of times she had thought herself so very sly. She had to smile; she’d loved doing that too.
Gent stopped and stared at her, his smile gone, his eyes unreadable.
“What?” Margaret asked, tilting her head, still smiling.
He reached out and gently touched the corner of her lips. “That smile,” he murmured. “You have no idea what it does to me.”
His tone sent a shiver down her spine and it was all she could do to avoid actually leaning into his touch. “I can’t help but smile,” she managed to squeak. “You’re speaking of children so warmly, and I thought of when I was a child myself, and…”
He pressed that same finger to her mouth, silencing her. “I didn’t say I minded,” he said gently, his mouth curving slightly. “I don’t. Not at all.”
Margaret inhaled a rough gasp, sure that she was going to expire on the spot.
Gent heard the sound and his eyes trained on her lips, where his finger still rested.
“Gent!”
Margaret jerked at the chorus of voices and the scampering sounds of little feet and took a step back, breaking the contact between them in favor of gathering her wits. And if these children saw and remembered as much as Gent said they did, she dared not give them an excuse to include her in their reports.
Gent had turned at the first sound and now swept two girls into his arms, nearly over his shoulders, while three boys grinned up at him as though he were their hero. The girls giggled madly and tried to get away, but he held them fast. A trickle of more children, some nearly adults, joined them and all held the same apparent adoration for him.
Margaret hung back, afraid that if she joined the throng, she would wear a similar expression, but without their reasoning.
He spoke to them all, somehow paying attention to each individual child, even the squirming ones in front and the ones who scuffled with each other. They did not take turns speaking, but he seemed to catch all of it, every interruption, every stammer, and every wrong word. The older children had a measure of reserve that she assumed meant that they had been given more stringent duties and felt the responsibility of it, but he treated them with no less concern and enthusiasm than he had the younger ones.
Margaret watched the entire interlude, her heart growing and expanding at what seemed to be an impossible rate. Was this what a woman with a husband and children witnessed on a regular basis? How did any female stand to see something so sweet and tender and attractive?
She was near to swooning once more, and it had nothing to do with a corset, or lack thereof.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Gent turned slightly and smiled warmly at her, winking a little, which did nothing for the state of her knees.
“Do you all see that woman over there?” Gent said to his gathering, his eyes still on Margaret.
Several heads nodded without any sort of synchronization.
“That is Miss Margaret,” he told them with a smile that sent her toes tingling. “She is a very special friend of mine, and ought to be minded with care.”
“Not too much care,” she muttered as her cheeks flamed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He grinned rather boyishly. “Right, not as though she would break into pieces, but rather like a treasure. As if she were something precious.” His smiled turned tender and soft. “For she truly is.”
Lord, how was she to breathe properly after that?
She could not have looked away from him if she had wanted to. And she could not imagine ever wanting to do anything so ridiculous.
He said nothing as he, and the children, stared at her, but his smile told her he knew exactly what he was doing to her. And by the change in his breathing, she had the sense he was not so unmoved either.
She felt a tug at her dress and managed to wrench her gaze from him to the dark-haired urchin in a poorly patched dress. “Yes?” she asked primly, smiling.
The girl gave a shy smile, revealing a few missing teeth. “Are you Gent’s lady?” she asked in a very rough and lisping voice.
Margaret could almost hear Gent’s groan, but chose not to look at him. “What do you think?”
Her little friend grinned widely. “Yes. He has us watch ladies sometimes, but he don’t say such nice things.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth in a distinctive way. “I think you mus’ be his favorite.”
Enchanted, Margaret leaned down and cupped her hand around the girl’s ear. “I certainly hope so,” she whispered, making the girl giggle.
“Daisy, don’t get the lady’s dress dirty,” one of the others called, coming over. He put his hands on Daisy’s shoulders and gave Margaret an apologetic look. “Sorry, miss. Daisy don’t mean to smudge.”
The boy was obviously protective, but respectful. He seemed the oldest by a few years, and was without any of the rudeness that seemed prevalent in boys his age. Margaret smiled at him, feeling a surge of tenderness for a lad who could somehow be more gentlemanly than many gentlemen she knew. But with Gent as his mentor, that should not have surprised her one bit.
“I don’t mind a bit of smudge,” Margaret admitted, winking at Daisy, which made her grin. “I am not so fine as to be fussy, and certainly not if the smudge came from a sweet girl like Daisy.”
Several of the other children giggled and a few more girls came over, eying her dress with awe and appreciation, though it was simple and ill-fitting.
The lad still holding to Daisy smiled a little, and she had the sense he did not do it often. “You ain’t like other women, Miss Margaret.”
She smirked. “I should hope not. What is your name?”
“Jamie.”
She held out her hand. “Very nice to meet you, Jamie. Now perhaps you might introduce me to the rest of your friends, as Gent seems to be stuck in his present location without manners?” She tossed a teasing grin his way, loving the way he returned it, and how the children whooped in delight.
Jamie made a noise she took for a laugh. “With pleasure, Miss Margaret. This one here is Sarah, and mind you don’t get between her and sweets, or your shins will feel it…”