“I be Sibby Rose Nolan an’ he be Scrap.The wickedest brother in the world!” she shouted, no doubt for his benefit alone.
Grace stifled a smile. “Is your mama or papa about, Sibby Rose? I think your brother might need some help getting down.”
Sibby Rose glanced up at her brother, than back at Grace. “Ma and me brother Robert are at the factory workin’, and me da…well, he’s been gone lookin’ for work for ever so long.” She paused, her attention focused so intently on Grace’s head, she wondered for a moment if she’d sprouted horns.
“We got to sell these flowers if we’re to have any supper, an’ all Scrap wants is to play pirates.”
“He’s doing a brilliant job. But maybe we should get him off the crow’s nest and to the cannons.”
“Not the cannons,” Sibby Rose whispered. “He once fired off a loose cobblestone, nearly hit someone with it.”
“Indeed. What sort of pirate fare might bring him down?”
“Treasure, of course.” Her gaze landed once more on Grace’s hair. “Me Da’s going to bring me a ribbon just like the one in your hair when he comes home. I hope it’s exactly that color. I think that’s the prettiest I ever saw.”
Grace reached up, touching the scarlet ribbon her maid had wound in her hair that morning. “I doubt this is a worthy enough treasure to bring him down. Something better, I’d think.”
Sibby Rose tugged her attention away from the pretty bit of silk and glared at her brother. “I’m not sure treasure’d do this time. He’s never climbed that high before.”
“Lady Grace?” A familiar masculine voice came from somewhere in the crowd.
She glanced over her shoulder, relieved to see Lucien striding toward them.
His coat of black superfine fit his broad shoulders to perfection, not a crease in his trousers or the almost blindingly white shirt he wore. His hat was perched on perfectly combed jet-black hair. “Is there some difficulty here?” he asked, looking up at the boy, then at her.
Even little Sibby Rose seemed impressed. “Gor…” she muttered under her breath.
Grace smiled. “I fear we have encountered a problem with pirates,” she told him.
Lucien looked around the area thronged with shoppers, a crease between his brows. “Pirates?”
“If you could just disentangle this young gentleman from the crow’s nest, Sibby Rose and I would be most grateful.”
Lucien, in his pristine coat and crisply knotted cravat regarded the two children with something akin to horror. “What, pray tell, does that have to do with pirates?”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
“This is Lord Everdene, Sibby Rose,” Grace said by way of introduction. “He has had some experience with pirates of late. My naughty brothers, was it not?”
“And I came away with ruined boots and mud in my face, as well as a runaway horse,” he grumbled. “Where are you parents, girl?”
Sibby Rose scooped up another nosegay, this one crushed, and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Like I already tol’ the lady, meda is gone, an’ brother and mammy are at the factory. Widow Dunne usually minds Scrap, but she’s off helpin’ with a birthin’.”
Grace, noting the boy’s paling face, leaned toward Lucien, saying softly, “I truly think Scrap is frightened, but pride won’t let him admit it. Surely, you can get him down?”
Lucien lookedat Grace as if her hair were on fire. She didn’t actually expect him to…what? Scale the statue in the middle of a crowd? He could easily summon a footman or anyone else with a lordly wave of his hand. And he might have, but Grace was looking to him, provoking some ridiculous urge he would have quashed at any other time.
He glanced up at the boy and cleared his throat. He reached up, his arms not quite able to touch the child. “Come down here at once. It is very wrong of you to worry your sister so.”
The boy clung tighter, drawing his little legs closer to his body, further out of reach. He shook his head.
Lucien, glimpsing a mixture of stubbornness and fear in the child’s eyes, tried to remember his name. He glanced at the girl. “Scrap did you say?”
She nodded.
“I can’t call the boy Scrap,” he grumbled. “What is his Christian name?”
“Darragh,” Sibby Rose said. “After our da.”
