Surrender to the Devil 3 by Lorraine Heath

Author:Lorraine Heath [Heath, Lorraine]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061891861
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2009-06-29T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

As his coach rumbled toward the outskirts of London, Sterling knew it was pointless to prolong his time with her. Her thoughts were not on him. They were on the young lad stretched out on the bench, the one whose head was in her lap while she slowly combed her fingers through his dirty hair. The boy was like a mongrel pup, filthy and ill cared for. He’d stuffed himself with so much food that he’d brought a good deal of it back up on the way to the coach. Sterling wanted to believe he was just a greedy little bastard, but he suspected he was quite simply starving. His arms were little more than sticks. Sterling wouldn’t have thought he could have carried his ink blotter out of the residence, but his pockets had told a different story.

“It was very kind of you not to have him arrested,” Frannie said quietly.

To ensure that she was comfortable with him in the coach, and to ensure that the lad didn’t find a way to disappear from it—Sterling certainly wouldn’t put it past him to be artful in the ways of escape—he’d had the footman light the coach lantern. Besides, it gave him the opportunity to see her a little more clearly, even if the shadows worked against him.

“I decided your Scotland Yard friend would liberate him and give him to you anyway, so what was the point?”

She smiled at that, giving him reason to believe some truth resided in his words, and looked back at the boy, who appeared to be asleep.

“So who is this Sykes fellow?” Sterling asked quietly.

Rather than answering him, she murmured, “How old do you think he is?”

He was not a student of children, but based on the boy’s size—

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of five.”

“I put him at eight, possibly nine.” She sounded confident of her answer.

“He’s too small.”

“That’s the way Sykes likes them.” She lifted her gaze, and he saw not only profound sadness but fury as well. She was a woman of far-ranging passions and the ability to feel them simultaneously. Knowing of her past, was he a bastard for still wanting her in his bed? Knowing he could never marry her, was he a blackguard for wanting her in his life? “He scours the streets for the smallest of lads, and then works very hard to keep them small. He feeds them only enough so they survive. I suspect this one either came down one of your chimney flues or through a window that is seldom locked because it’s considered too small to allow anyone entry. It’s the very reason Sykes works so very hard to keep them so small.”

While she spoke, not once did she stop or slow the journey of her fingers through the lad’s hair.

“He terrorizes them so they do as they’re told. Under his care, they know not the gentle hand of kindness. If they fall ill, they get no comfort, no food, because they’re no longer earning their way.

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