children left their slates behind, scrambling over one another to be first to the nursery.
Penny turned to Gabe. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Why would I want that? They’re your kittens.”
“Yes, but the children are your charges.”
“They are not,” he said firmly. He gave this place money. He didn’t take the children into his care.
“As you like.”
Penny and Mrs. Baker went to the center of the circle and began lifting kittens from the hampers. Upon glimpsing the little balls of fluff, the children cried out with delight.
Boys bartered and argued over which kitten belonged to whom. Penny stepped into the fray, matching feline personalities to human ones.
Gabe disentangled the striped ginger kitten who’d found his trouser leg and looked about for somewhere to deposit it. Over to the side, a younger girl hung back, clutching her knees to her chest and watching the happy mayhem with longing in her eyes.
“Here. Have this one.” Gabe placed the kitten in her lap.
When the girl remained hesitant, he crouched at her side and gave the cat a gentle stroke. “Behind the ears, like so. There aren’t many creatures who don’t like a scratch about the ears.”
The girl snatched her hand away. “It’s growling.”
“Purring,” he corrected. “Means he likes you.” The tiny creature rubbed and curled in her arms. “You’d better give him a name.”
As he stood, Gabe felt eyes on him. When he met Penny’s gaze across the sea of furry mayhem, she was wearing that sweetly smug expression he’d come to expect.
The little smile that said, I told you so.
Damn it. He would never hear the end of this.
She didn’t waste any time starting in on him, either. Upon leaving the charity home, they walked toward a busier street to find a hackney cab back to Bloom Square. They weren’t halfway to the next corner when Penny stopped on the pavement and turned to him.
“Gabriel Duke. You are a complete hypocrite.”
“A hypocrite? Me?”
“Yes, you. Mr. I-Know-a-Hidden-Treasure-When-I-See-It. You said you know how to spot undervalued things. Undervalued people. And yet you persist in selling yourself short. If I’m the crown jewels in camouflage, you’re a …” She churned the air with one hand. “… a diamond tiara.”
He grimaced.
“Fine, you can be something manlier. A thick, knobby scepter. Will that suffice?”
“I suppose it’s an improvement.”
“For weeks, you’ve been insisting you haven’t the slightest idea what it means to give a creature a loving home. ‘I’m too ruthless, Penny. I’m only motivated by self-interest, Penny. I’m a bad, bad man, Penny.’ And all this time, you’ve been running an orphanage? I could kick you.”
“I’m not running an orphanage. I give the orphanage money. That’s all.”
“You gave them kittens.”
“No, you gave them kittens.”
“You sent them gifts at Christmas. Playthings and sweets and geese to be roasted for their dinner.”
“It was the only business I could attend to on Christmas, and I don’t like to waste the day. All the banks and offices are closed.”
She skewered him with a look. “Really. You expect me to believe that?”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “What is your aim with this interrogation?”
“I want you to admit the truth. You are giving those children a home. A place of warmth and safety, and yes, even love. Meanwhile, you are stubbornly denying yourself all the same things.”
“I can’t be denying myself if it’s something I don’t want.”
“Home isn’t something a person wants. It’s something every last one of us needs. And it’s not too late for you, Gabriel.” She gentled her voice. “You could have that for yourself.”
“What, with you?”
She flinched at his mocking tone. “I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you meant. Isn’t it? You have this idea that you’ll rescue me. Bring me in from the cold, put me on a leash, have me eating out of your hand. I’m not a lost puppy, and I don’t need saving. You’re being a fool.”
Her chin jutted toward him. “Don’t mock me. Don’t you dare mock me just because you’re afraid.”
“You think I’m afraid. You don’t know the meaning of fear. Or hunger, or cold, or loneliness.”
“I know the meaning of love. I know that you deserve it. I know you are too good a man to be alone.”
“Don’t say such things,” he warned her. “Don’t make me prove you wrong.”
She put her hand on his arm. “I’m not wrong.”
He tipped his head back and cursed the sky. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t convince her with words. She’d never understand unless he showed her the truth.
“Come along, then.” He pulled her arm through his, roughly. “We’re going to take a little stroll, you and I.”
She pulled against his arm. “Where are you taking me?”
“On a tour of Hell.”
Penny stumbled as he pulled her around a corner, off the bustling street of shops and onto a smaller, crowded lane. Passing women eyed her with a mix of curiosity and contempt. Men raked her with lascivious gazes.
“Stay close.” His voice was dark and bitter. “This is where the ladies of the evening hawk their wares, and in a neighborhood like this one, it’s evening ’round the clock.”
Penny’s face heated. As they stepped off the pavement, she lifted her hem to keep it out of the muck.
He clucked his tongue. “Mind you don’t raise those skirts too high. Another inch, and you’ll be mistaken for one of them.”
The air was foul with the stench of filth and gin. People called and whistled to them from glassless windows and doorways on either side of the lane.
“Let’s have a little tour of my childhood, shall we? I was likely conceived in one of the many rooms above this street. Fathered by a man who could be any of dozens, and born to a prostitute who was a slave to gin. Nonetheless, she made a better mother than many. She didn’t abandon me to die of exposure. Not as an infant, at least.”
