“Yer got Sibby Rose? Moira’s been tearing up the neighborhood since she didn’t come home last night. The last thing she needs, with her husband up and gone.” The woman’s eyes sparked with disdain. “Won’t believe what the rest of us know. Darragh Nolan is not comin’ back. Come along, an’ I’ll take ye there.”
Lucien, thinking she could full well be leading him into some sort of trap to be robbed, was a bit surprised when the old woman made a clucking sound with her tongue, her expression one of compassion. He glanced over to see Grace already framed in the carriage door, the little girl in her arms.
Though he wanted to take the child from Grace as he helped her disembark, Sibby Rose looked so comfortable there, so secure…God, what would it be like to feel so damned…safe? Was that what Grace would look like with his child one day? The babe that might even now be growing in her womb? He felt a sting of panic at the possibility.
The old woman rapped sharply on a nearby door. “Moira, some swells got Sibby Rose here.”
A woman flung open the door, saw her daughter and Grace, then rushed at them. Lucien could taste her fear and the flood ofrelief as she tearfully cried out, then stopped, as if too afraid to approach. “Sibby! Oh, Sibby!”
She had been beautiful once, he guessed, her face heart-shaped, her wide green eyes and glowing coppery hair like her daughter’s. But hunger and worry had etched deep lines in her skin and sharpened her cheek bones. Those traits, a stark contrast to the sprinkling of freckles dusting her nose, which made her look more like Sibby Rose’s sister than a mother barely holding her family together.
A boy older than Sibby, but just as spindly, wedged his way through the door and glared at Lucien. “What have you done to my sister? Run her over in the street?”
“Robert!” the mother cried.
Young Robert put hands on hips. “Why else would they have her?”
“There was a riot last night,” Lucien explained. “She was hurt, so we carried her out of the mob.” He wanted to get his wife away from here, but Grace carried the girl inside. He followed her in, taken aback by what he saw. He had seen poverty before as he traveled the city streets and on farms struggling through bad times. But he’d never stepped inside such poor quarters. This was unlike anything he’d ever witnessed. Rush lights gave a faint, oily glow to the single, cramped room. It was dark, what passed for a window boarded up and covered with scraps of old newsprint. Even so, Lucien could see that what little was there was as clean as possible. Carefully mended clothes far too large for anyone there dried on a rack drawn up by a rope to the ceiling. A kettle hung on the hearth. Three chairs, a lone bedstead, and a scarred table were crowded into the room.
“Mammy?” Sibby Rose’s little voice broke in.
Mrs. Nolan bent over her. “Mo chroi, oh, treasure, are you well?”
“My head aches.”
At that moment, there was a blur of motion from a nest of rags beside the hearth. Worried eyes lit up as they locked on Lucien. “Dado!” Scrap squealed. He ran over, trying to scale Lucien’s leg like a kitten escaping a hound. There was nothing for it but to disentangle the boy before he tore the fabric.
“Scrap!” the oldest Nolan boy shouted. “Get off him, ye daft bugger!”
Something about Robert Nolan’s disgust brought out the contrariness in Lucien and he lifted little Darragh into his arms.
“Robert, stop yer yellin’,” Sibby said. “These’re the nobs I tol’ ye about—the gent ’at pulled Scrap down from the statue and the lady who gave me my ribbon.”
“Well, we got ye home, so they can go now.” Robert jutted his chin up at Lucien. “It’s hard enough around here without folks thinkin’ some milor’ is tupping me ma.”
“Robert Nolan!” his mother said, her voice sharp. She turned toward Lucien, her cheeks red. “Your worship, he doesn’t mean it.”
“Ye know full well I do.” He balled his hands into fists. “Swells come around here only after one thing! Ye can’t have Sibby Rose, or me ma!”
Lucien had always loathed the idea of how vulnerable women were in such situations, ripe for procurers should they become desperate. But now that he had met Sibby Rose and Moira Nolan, those women and children had a face, a voice…The thought suddenly hit home. He could feel Sibby Rose in his arms as he carried her to the coach, picture Sibby Rose at Raven’s Court, Grace brushing and freshly plaiting the tangle of coppery hair and tying the end with the cherished red ribbon. The child was such winsome little thing with her pointed chin, rosebud mouth and eyes that did something strange to Lucien’s chest.
Moira’s eyes darted fearfully to Lucien. “My lad, he means no harm, your worship. Listens too much to troublemakers at the factory.”
“Robert, is that your name?” Grace inquired in a voice that might soothe an injured fox. “This is the Viscount Everdene and I am his wife, Lady Grace. Perhaps you’ve glimpsed me when you let out from Sunday School. I have seen Sibby Rose waiting for you there.”
“Got better things t’ do than gawk at ladies who shriek when I brush by their dress. And what’s that have t’ do with Sibby not coming home?”
Grace, unperturbed, continued on, “Your sister was alone, in the midst of a violent mob. We took her to our home until the streets quieted down for her own safety, and then brought her here, that is all.” She turned to a drawing in a crude homemade frame at the mantel, a rosary draped over it. A man’s face. It was the work of an obviously untrained artist, but the natural gift was evident and compelling. A man of about thirty years, with a shock of dark hair and a scar on his chin.
“Is this your father?”
“Aye,” Robert said.
“Sibby mentioned he is away at present.”
Mrs. Nolan lovingly touched the worn rosary adorning the sketch. “He’ll be back any time now, my Darragh.”
“Where is he?” Grace asked.
