To Desire a Devil (39 page)

A man lay on the ground, bleeding from the head. But that wasn’t what froze her—blood and even death were common enough in
St. Giles. No, what arrested her was the
second
man. He crouched over the first, his black cloak spread to either side of him like the wings of a great bird of prey. He
held a long black walking stick, the end tipped with silver, echoing his hair, which was silver as well. It fell straight
and long, glinting in the lantern’s light. Though his face was mostly in darkness, she could see his eyes were so blue they
nearly glowed. Temperance could feel the weight of the stranger’s stare. It was as if he’d physically touched her.

“Lord save and preserve us from evil,” Nell murmured, for the first time sounding fearful. “Come away, ma’am. Swiftly!”

Thus urged, Temperance ran across the courtyard and into another passage, leaving the scene behind.

“Who was he, Nell?” She panted as they made their way through the stinking alley. “Do you know?”

The passage let out suddenly into a wider road and Temperance relaxed a little, feeling safer without the walls pressing in.

Nell spat as if to clear a foul taste from her mouth.

Temperance looked at her curiously. “You sounded like you knew that man.”

“Knew ’im, no,” Nell replied. “But I’ve seen him about. That was Lord Caire. ’E’s best left to ’imself, that one.”

“Why?” Temperance asked.

Nell shook her head, pressing her lips firmly together. “I shouldn’t be speaking about the likes of ’im to you at all.”

Temperance let that cryptic comment go. They were on a better street now—some of the shops had lanterns hanging by the doors,
lit by the inhabitants within. Temperance turned one more corner and the foundling home came within sight. Like its neighbors
it was a tall brick building of dubious construction. The windows were few and very narrow, the doorway unmarked by any sign.
In the fifteen precarious years of the foundling home’s existence there had never been a need to advertise.

Abandoned and orphaned children were all too common in St. Giles.

“Home safely,” Temperance said as they made the door. She set down the lantern and took out the big iron key hanging by a
cord at her waist. “I’m looking forward to a dish of hot tea.”

“I’ll put this wee one to bed,” Nell said as they entered the dingy little hall. It was quite spotlessly clean, but that didn’t
hide the fallen plaster or the warping of the floorboards.

“Thank you.” Temperance removed her cloak and was just hanging it on a peg when a tall male form appeared at the far doorway.

“Temperance.”

She swallowed and turned. “Oh! Oh, Winter, I did not know you’d returned.”

“Obviously,” her younger brother said drily. He nodded to the maidservant. “A good eventide to you, Nell.”

“Sir.” Nell curtsied and looked nervously between brother and sister. “I’ll just see to the, ah, children, shall I?”

And she fled upstairs, leaving Temperance to face Winter’s disapproval alone.

Temperance squared her shoulders and moved past her brother. The foundling home was long and narrow, squeezed by the neighboring
houses. The small entryway led past a room used for dining and, on occasion, receiving the home’s infrequent important visitors.
At the back of the house were the kitchens, which Temperance entered now. The children had all had their dinner promptly at
five o’clock, but neither she nor her brother had eaten.

“I was just about to make some tea,” she said as she went to stir the fire on the hearth. “There’s a bit of beef left from
yesterday and some new radishes I bought at market this morning.”

Behind her Winter sighed. “Temperance.”

She hurried to find the kettle. “The bread’s a bit stale, but I can toast it if you like.”

He was silent and she finally turned and faced the inevitable.

It was worse than she’d feared. Winter’s long thin face merely looked sad, which always made her feel terrible. She hated
to disappoint him.

“It was still light when we set out,” she said in a small voice.

He sighed again, taking off his round black hat to sit at the kitchen table. “Could you not wait for my return, sister?”

Temperance looked at her brother. He was only five and twenty, but he bore himself with the air of a man twice his age. His
countenance was lined with weariness, his wide shoulders slumped beneath his ill-fitting black coat, and his long limbs were
much too thin. For the last five years he had taught at the tiny daily school attached to the home. The position was wretchedly
paid because each pupil was charged only pennies a week. And in addition, since Papa’s death last year, Winter had taken over
management of the foundling home. Even with her help, the work was overwhelming for one man. Temperance feared for her brother’s
well-being, but both the foundling home and the tiny day school had been founded by Papa. Winter felt it was his filial duty
to keep the two in business.

If only his health did not give out first.

She filled the teakettle from the water jar by the back door to the kitchen. “Had we waited it would’ve been full dark with
no assurance that the babe would still be there.” She glanced at him as she placed the kettle over the fire. “Besides, have
you not enough work to do?”

Winter frowned. “If I lose my sister think you that I’d be more free of work?”

Temperance looked away guiltily.

Her brother’s voice softened. “And that discounts the lifelong sorrow I would feel had anything happened to you this night.”

“Nell knew the mother of the baby—a girl of less than fifteen years.” Temperance took out the bread and carved it into thin
slices. “Besides, I carried the pistol.”

“Hmm,” Winter said behind her. “And had you been accosted would you have used it?”

“Yes, of course,” she said with flat certainty.

“And if the shot misfired?”

She wrinkled her nose. Their father had brought up all her brothers to debate a point finely and that fact could be quite
irritating at times.

She carried the bread slices to the fire to toast. “In any case, nothing did happen.”

“
This
night.” Winter sighed again. “Sister, you must promise me you’ll not act so foolishly again.”

“Mmm,” Temperance mumbled, concentrating on the toast. “How was your day at the school?”

For a moment she thought Winter wouldn’t consent to changing the subject. Then he said, “A good day, I think. The Samuels
boy remembered his Latin lesson finally and I did not have to punish any of the boys.”

Temperance glanced at him with sympathy. She knew Winter hated to take a switch to a palm, let alone cane a boy’s bottom.
On the days that Winter had felt he must punish a boy he came home in a black mood.

“I’m glad,” she said simply.

He stirred in his chair. “I returned for luncheon, but you were not here.”

Temperance took the toast from the fire and placed it on the table. “I must have been taking Mary Found to her new position.
I think she’ll do quite well there. Her mistress seemed very kind and the woman took only five pounds as payment to apprentice
Mary as her maid.”

“God willing she’ll actually teach the child something so we won’t see Mary Found again,” Winter muttered.

Temperance poured the hot water into their small teapot and brought it to the table. “You sound cynical, brother.”

Winter passed a hand over his brow. “Forgive me. Cynicism is a terrible vice. I shall try to correct my humor.”

Temperance sat and silently served her brother, waiting. Something more than her late night adventure was bothering him.

At last he said, “Mr. Wedge visited whilst I ate my luncheon.”

Temperance paused, her hand on the teapot. “What did he say?”

“He’ll give us only another two weeks and then he’ll have the foundling home forcibly vacated.”

“Dear God.” Temperance stared at the little piece of beef on her plate. It was stringy and hard and from an obscure part of
the cow, but she’d been looking forward to it. Now her appetite was suddenly gone. The foundling home’s rent was in arrears—they
hadn’t been able to pay the full rent last month and nothing at all this month.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have bought the radishes, Temperance reflected morosely. But the children hadn’t had anything but broth
and bread for the last week.

“If only Sir Gilpin had remembered our home in his will,” Temperance murmured.

Sir Stanley Gilpin had been the patron of the foundling home. A retired merchant who’d managed to make a fortune on the South
Sea Company and had been wily enough to withdraw his funds before the notorious bubble burst. Sir Gilpin had been a generous
patron while alive, but on his unexpected death six months before the home had been left floundering. They’d limped along,
using what money had been saved, but now they were in desperate straits.

“Sir Gilpin was an unusually generous man, it would seem,” Winter replied. “I have not been able to find another gentleman
so willing to fund a home for the infant poor.”

Temperance poked at her beef. “What shall we do?”

“The Lord shall provide,” Winter said, rising. “And if He does not, well, then perhaps I can take on private students in the
evenings.”

“You already work too many hours,” Temperance protested. “You hardly have time to sleep as it is.”

Winter shrugged. “How can I live with myself if the innocents we protect are thrown into the street?”

Temperance looked down at her plate. She had no answer to that.

“Come.” Her brother held out his hand and smiled.

Winter’s smiles were so rare, so precious. When he smiled, his entire face lit as if from a flame within, and a dimple appeared
on one cheek, making him look boyish, more his true age.

One couldn’t help but smile back when Winter smiled, and Temperance did so as she laid her hand in his. “Where will we go?”

“Let us visit our charges,” he said as he took a candle and led her to the stairs. “Have you ever noticed that they look quite
angelic when asleep?”

Temperance laughed as they climbed the narrow wooden staircase to the next floor. There was a small hall here with three doors
leading off it. They peered in the first as Winter held his candle high. Six tiny cots lined the walls of the room. The youngest
of the foundlings slept here, two or three to a cot. Nell lay in an adult-sized bed by the door, already asleep.

Winter walked to the cot nearest Nell. Two babes lay there. The first was a boy, red-haired and pink-cheeked, sucking on his
fist as he slept. The second child was half the size of the first, her cheeks pale, her eyes hollowed, even in sleep.

“This is the baby you rescued tonight?” Winter asked softly.

Temperance nodded mutely. The little girl looked even more frail next to the thriving baby boy.

But Winter merely touched the baby’s hand with a gentle finger. “How do you like the name Mary Hope?”

Temperance swallowed past the thickness in her throat. “’Tis most apt.”

Winter nodded and with a last caress for the tiny babe, left the room. The next door led to the boys’ dormitory. Four beds
held thirteen boys, all below the age of nine—nine was when they were apprenticed out. The boys lay, limbs sprawled, faces
flushed in sleep. Winter smiled and pulled a blanket over the three boys nearest the door, tucking in a leg that had escaped
the bed.

Temperance sighed. “One would never think that they spent an hour at luncheon, hunting for rats in the alley.”

“Mmm,” Winter answered as he closed the door softly behind them. “Small boys grow so swiftly to men.”

“They do indeed.” Temperance opened the last door—the one to the girls’ dormitory—and a small face immediately popped off
a pillow.

“Did you get ’er, ma’am?” Mary Whitson whispered hoarsely.

She was the eldest of the girls in the foundling home, named for the Whit Sunday morning twelve years before when she’d been
discovered on the home’s step. Young though Mary Whitson was, Temperance had to sometimes leave her in charge of the other
children—as she’d had to tonight.

“Yes, Mary,” Temperance whispered back. “Nell and I brought the babe home safely.”

“I’m glad.” Mary Whitson yawned widely.

“You did well watching the children tonight,” Temperance whispered. “Now sleep. A new day will be here soon.”

Mary Whitson nodded sleepily and closed her eyes.

Winter picked up a candlestick from a little table by the door and led the way out of the girls’ dormitory. “I shall take
your good advice, sister, and bid you good night.”

He lit the candlestick from his own and gave it to Temperance.

“Sleep well,” she replied. “I think I’ll have one more cup of tea before retiring.”

“Don’t stay up too late,” Winter said. He touched her cheek with a finger—much as he had the babe—and turned to mount the
stairs.

Temperance watched him go, frowning at how slowly he moved up the stairs. It was past midnight and he would rise again before
five of the clock to read, write letters to prospective patrons, and prepare his school lessons for the day. Then he would
lead the morning prayers at breakfast, hurry to his job as schoolmaster, work all the morning before taking one hour for a
meager luncheon and then work again until after dark. In the evening he heard the girls’ lessons and read from the Bible to
the older children. Yet when she voiced her worries, Winter would merely raise an eyebrow and inquire who would do the work
if not he?

Temperance shook her head. She should be to bed as well—her day started at six of the clock—but these moments by herself in
the evening were precious. She’d sacrifice a half hour’s sleep to sit by herself with a cup of tea.

So she took her candle back downstairs. Out of habit, she checked to see that the front door was locked and barred. The wind
whistled and shook the shutters as she made her way to the kitchen, making the back door rattle. She checked it as well and
was relieved to see the back door still barred.

Temperance shivered, glad she was no longer outside on a night like this. She rinsed out the teapot and filled it again. To
make a pot of tea with fresh leaves and only for herself was a terrible luxury. Soon she’d have to give this up as well, but
tonight she’d enjoy her cup.