The Vixen by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell [Caldwell, Christi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503902251
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The following afternoon, Ophelia sat in the Eve Dabney Foundling House as the founder, Mrs. Eve Dabney, spoke to the assembled gathering. This event was proving far preferable to other ton events she’d been forced to suffer through. Despite the lords and ladies also present, Ophelia found herself in contact with men, women, and children to whom she could relate and understand.

As Eve Dabney spoke in her flawless, cultured tones, her words shifted in and out of focus, blending with Connor’s revelations.

“No child should know hunger.” My da made him an orphan. “No child should be alone.” My da hurt his mother in ways no woman should ever know pain, and Connor witnessed it. “No one should know strife . . . and yet so many do. Too many.”

While Mrs. Dabney went on, Ophelia struggled to swallow around the emotion stuck in her throat.

They were cut down before my eyes by a ruthless, heartless scum of the streets, a man named Mac Diggory.

Diggory had killed his parents.

She briefly closed her eyes. Was it a wonder Connor should hate everyone and everything connected with that miserable blighter?

Since they’d been reunited, he’d been anything but hateful. He’d spoken candidly, letting her into his past. He’d defended her before a room full of highborn guests. He treated street urchins with concern when any other constable or investigator would have cared about nothing other than the information to be obtained, and to hell with how they got those details from a guttersnipe.

He doesn’t realize you’re not just any child bought or sold into the Diggory gang. She was one of Diggory’s bastards. Sprung from his blood and loins, as a living testament to evil.

Would he have stepped in to save you all those years ago if he’d known who you really were?

Bitterness stuck in her throat.

She’d spent her entire life hating the nobility. Hating the law. Both of which represented her enemies—those who gave no thought to the oppressed and lived for only their own pleasures and pursuits. Yet she’d not truly taken ownership of the crimes carried out by her and her family. Instead, she’d separated herself from the truth.

Until Connor.

“The children of the streets,” the young lady was saying, “are far more than the circumstances they were born to.” The woman’s voice rose in an impassioned plea. “We have an obligation to provide when the world has failed them.”

A murmuring of assent went up about the crowded room; Mrs. Dabney’s reminder was a near echo of Connor’s from the evening prior.

“We are more than our stations and experiences,” Ophelia mouthed. Mayhap the other woman was . . . correct. Mayhap the world—Connor—could see more in Ophelia than Mac Diggory.

“Wot did ya say?”

She started.

Her brother Stephen scrunched his nose. “Ya’re talking to yarself now?” he demanded on an outraged whisper.

Stealing a glance about, she leaned close. “I am not talking to myself.” She’d merely been repeating silently what Connor had reminded her of in the Duchess of Somerset’s portrait room.

“Ya were.” She set her teeth.

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