“Darragh, let go this instant,” Lucien ordered in the voice that sent the most powerful men in parliament scurrying to obey. The boy seemed to focus on him at the sound of the name, so intently it was dashed uncomfortable. “I will catch you.”
“You can trust him,” Grace said.
Lucien’s chest felt too tight at her words. The boy stared down at him, then, without any warning, released his hold.
The suddenness stunned Lucien for a moment, the filthy bundle hurtling toward him. He had intended to catch the boy by the arms, hold the squirming child as far away from his own clothing as possible, then set him down. But the instant his hands closed on the child’s spindly little body, the lad twined around him like the monkey one of his mistresses had kept as a pet.
“Dado!” The boy curled his fingers in Lucien’s cravat and buried that filthy little face in Lucien’s neck. There was no way Lucien was saving his coat.
“Yes. Darragh,” he said with a frown, trying to disentangle himself from the boy. “Now, you have caused quite enough trouble for your sister for one day.”
The boy merely clung all the more fiercely, jabbering to Sibby Rose in Gaelic.
“What is he saying?” Lucien asked.
“He thinks you’re our da. Ye look a bit like the picture we have o’ him. And when you said Darragh…”
“Well, I’m not his father! Tell him…”
“Willn’t matter. Stubborn, he is, when he gets somethin’ in his head.”
Lucien looked at Grace, but she was not about to help him, he realized with some umbrage. The woman was grinning at him, so radiantly he’d have felt bathed in sunlight were it not for the ripe stench coming from the boy’s bottom. The child was nearly strangling Lucien with his own cravat—which was all he needed. Giving the broadsheets a new way to mock him, he thought, imagining the cartoon.
A hostler with bits of harness over his shoulder stopped a few feet away. “What’s that nob doin’ wi’ the boy?” the hostler said.“Draggin’ him to the poorhouse! What he’d do wi’ all o’ us if the fine folk have their way.”
“I’m not…dragging…him anywhere,” Lucien growled as he worked to uncurl the little fingers. “I’m trying to…get him…off me.” The boy’s grip finally gave way and Lucien set the lad on his feet.
“Best check your pocket,” a smirking dandy in a high crowned beaver called out. “The boy probably nicked your watch!”
The watch was the least of Lucien’s worries. It would be a miracle if he hadn’t acquired a case of the lice or fleas doubtless crawling among the boy’s rags. Lucien’s scalp itched at the mere thought.
“Infernal Irish!” the dandy’s friend called. “Like rats, infesting England’s streets.”
“Because we’re damn well starving across the pond!” a burly man who looked as if he could twist iron bars shouted back. He glared at Lucien, his teeth bared in raw hatred. “I know who ye are, Lord Everdene, and ye and yer like will get what’s coming to ye. We ain’t going to stand by anymore while lords like ye bleed us dry!”
Lucien leveled the man a hard glare. “You were standing by when the boy was about to break his neck climbing the statue.” He drew coins from his waistcoat pocket, heartily wanting to send the urchins on their way. “I’ll take the rest of your flowers,” he told the girl—Rose something, wasn’t she? “Here. Buy yourself a meat pie and take Darragh home for the day.”
“Gor’!” The girl’s eyes went round as plates. “Thankee, me lor’.” She stuffed the coins in her pocket, then scooped up her somewhat wilted nosegays and thrust them into Lucien’s arms, smearing pollen and petals and drops of less-than-clean water down his front, finishing off the coat once and for all.
She turned to Grace. “Thank ye, fer helpin’ with Scrap, me lady.” Sibby’s gaze clung wistfully to the scarlet ribbon Grace’s maid had wound in her hair that morning. “I think that’s the prettiest ribbon I ever saw.” After a moment, she tugged her attention from the pretty bit of silk and grabbed her brother’s hand.
As she wheeled away, Grace called out. “Sibby Rose, wait!” She reached up and drew the ribbon from her hair, then carefully tied it around the child’s ragged braid.
If anything, the girl appeared more thrilled with the ribbon than she had been by the coin.
“Thank ye, miss, me lor’,” she said, with a curtsey, then poked her brother. “Make a leg to milor’.”
“Dado,” Scrap cried and flung himself at Lucien’s leg, clinging to it. Startled, Lucien dropped the bouquets. He gave his leg a little shake, shooting a helpless glance at Grace. “What does he want? Get him off me.”
But it was the sister who grabbed her brother’s hand, tugging him along with her empty box still slung over her shoulder. “C’mon, Scrap! Meat pie!”
Before they disappeared around a corner, a man in a flat cap started after them. Someone from the rookeries that trained young thieves and pickpockets or some procurer eager to lure Sibby Rose into a brothel?
Before he could pass, Lucien extended one boot, tripping the man who fell into a pile of horse dung.
Grace started to exclaim, but Lucien stepped between her and the man, blocking way the children had headed. The bounder shoved himself to his feet, glaring up at Lucien with gin-glazed eyes.
“Watch ’ere yer goin’!” he barked.
