Instead of the hot glare of revenge, it was compassion that swirled in Galahad’s stormy green stare. “You got any family expecting you somewhere, Billy? Someone depending on you? Anyone who would even be worried that you had gone missing this past week?”
Stunned by Galahad’s unexpected lecture rather than the violent beating he undoubtedly assumed he had coming, the boy shook his head.
“So you’re all alone in the world?” The boy nodded, his breath sawing in and out erratically but his gaze now fixed on the man’s. “Got no one and nothing except the clothes on your back and my watch in your pocket?”
Billy nodded again, looking ready to burst into terrified tears at any moment if his captor so much as raised his voice. Yet instead of raising his voice, Galahad turned to an equally stunned Tommy and Sydney, who couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing or hearing, either, and spoke to them in the sort of reasonable tone one would expect in a friendly debate at a duchess’s tea party rather than during a citizen’s arrest after a mad dash across town.
“Do you two hate living at Miss Merriwell’s orphanage, too? Is it a bad place where they treat you mean and beat you?”
Both boys swallowed but Tommy managed to find his voice first. “The Reverend Smythe doesn’t believe in violence. Nor does Miss Merriwell.”
“If they don’t whip you, how does the orphanage punish you if, for example, you unleashed a thousand creepy spiders on a roomful of unsuspecting girls?”
“We had to polish all their boots for a week.”
“Were you starved that week, too, Tommy? Sent to bed with your tummy so empty the pain of it ripped you in two and kept you awake allnight?” Another insightful question that once again made Vee wonder if Galahad knew firsthand what he was asking about.
As if he understood the tack this polite interrogation was taking, Tommy Claypole shook his head again but stared straight at Billy as he spoke. “I’m always in trouble, but I still get three square meals a day plus an apple at playtime even if I’ve lost the right to go outside and play.”
“That sounds like a nice place to be living, if you ask me.” Galahad stared intently at his prisoner again, willing him to see reason. “A decent place filled with decent people. I’ll wager those shiny new boots you’re wearing that it’s a place far better than you are used to, Billy, so why on earth would you want to throw it all away? For a watch that no decent pawnbroker will touch with a barge pole in case they get charged for handling stolen goods, and none of the indecent ones would pay a street urchin like you so much as a tenth of what it’s worth?”
It was a rhetorical question that Galahad expected no answer to because he smiled at the boy who was now hanging limp in his arms and clearly mortified by his own shortsighted stupidity. “It makes no sense to toss all those good things away when life has finally thrown you a chance. Given you a warm bed. Food. Safety and security. An education so you can better yourself and lovely people who care about you, for a change, like Miss Merriwell here. Who is guilty of nothing more this morning than trying to defend you, when you let her down.”
Billy’s bottom lip trembled as his gaze flicked to hers, ashamed.
“It’s all right, Billy.” Vee smiled. “We all make mistakes. I’ve made some corkers in my time.” So many stupid errors of judgment, usually involving men, that she had run out of fingers to count them on.
“When life tosses an opportunity your way, Billy Boy, only a fool doesn’t grab it.” Galahad smiled at his prisoner as he used his accent again to charm and disarm. “So what say you to givin’ back my ol’ watch, we finish buyin’ those books, you go home with Miss Merriwell so she can teach you how to read them, and we all just forget this silly misunderstanding ever happened?”
A tear rolled down the boy’s cheek as he nodded; a tear that Galahad gently swiped away with his thumb before he lowered Billy to the ground. When he held out his palm and the watch was deposited in it, Galahad even ruffled the boy’s hair. “I knew you weren’t an idiot, kid. Knew it the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
And that was apparently that.
No lingering outrage.
No grudge.
Not even any further mention of the theft, almost as if it had never happened.
Instead, they all walked back to Hatchards together, chatting amiably about this and that as if taking a leisurely Sunday stroll after church. At the shop Galahad proceeded to not only gather up all the books they had hastily discarded but also add to the huge pile with a few favorite “flights of fancy” of his own. He even insisted on paying for them all.
Back outside, he tossed Tommy a sixpence to buy the three boys something from the confectioner’s and she finally had a moment alone with him to thank him for his phenomenal benevolence and admirable good grace.
“That was very decent of you.” So decent it made Vee feel guilty about every ill thought she had ever had about him. “Especially when you were well within your rights to call a constable.” That he hadn’t had touched her. Forced her to reevaluate, yet again, the complex man that he was, now that she had been confronted with proof that, once again, she had grossly misjudged him. “A kind and generous heart clearly beats inside your chest.” Unable to help herself, she pressed her fingertips against it, only to be reminded that it was indeed as impressive and solid a chest as she, and her wayward bosoms, remembered from their waltz. Despite wanting to explore the intriguing plain of it further, she snatched her palm away. “You have been very noble.”
He shrugged it off, embarrassed either by the compliment or to have revealed that side of himself. “A watch can be easily replaced—but the lifeline you and the orphanage have thrown that boy couldn’t. Besides, if I’m reading young Billy right—and after last night’s sound drubbing you have to concur that I am excellent at reading people”—his green eyes danced as he winked, and her pulse quickened at the sight—“it was habit that made him steal my watch, not malice.” Rather than look at her, he raised his arm to flag down a passing hackney. “A habit born out of a lifetime of desperation—because he knows no better, nor expects any better from the people he encounters.”
She had clearly grossly underestimated Galahad all these years and on so many levels. He was as perceptive as he was intelligent, and as compassionate as he was vexing. Because she was sorely tempted to use her errant fingertips to smooth his lapels, she fiddled with the delicate handle of her reticule instead. “The reverend rescued him when he tried to pick his pocket, too. I was in Hampshire, snowed in, at the time he arrived at the orphanage, but by all accounts he was filthy, shoeless, and dressed in rags.”
“As he’s a bag of bones, I’m guessing he was also starving.”
“He was. He’s actually put some weight on this last fortnight, so he was alarmingly malnourished. Yet despite the bed, clothes, and food, he still distrusts the orphanage.” Most children did, but for the most grievously abused few—like Billy—that distrust was entrenched so deep, it took forever to dislodge. “I only brought him along today to prove that it isn’t a jail and instead of reassuring him, the first chance he got, he reverted to stealing.”
Galahad’s shrug said he wasn’t the least bit surprised. “He’s grown upneedingto be wary of the motives of everyone around him. For a boy like Billy, if something appears to be too good to be true, it usually is. Therefore, it would make sense to have some insurance put by in case he needs to make a quick escape when his instincts are proved right. You only have to look at the way he reacted when he was caught to realize he’s already had the hardest of lives. If that is what he’s used to, he’s going to be a harder nut to crack than Tommy Claypole.”
As the Claypoles had been almost wild when they had first enteredthe orphanage, that truth did not daunt her. “It often takes time to earn an orphan’s trust.”
He smiled. Not his usual easy, charming smile, but one more intimate. Utterly potent as far as her body was concerned—but insightful. As if he understood her and approved. “But I’ll wager my newly repatriated watch that you’re one of those rare people prepared to put in the hours to make sure that happens, Miss Venus, so I reckon Billy’s going to come good in the end.” He directed that killer smile at the boys as they hurried toward them, already stuffing their delighted faces with licorice.
