‘How humiliating for him,’ he said gently and she suddenly supposed it had been, so perhaps it was an unfortunate marriage on both sides and her mother would have been far better loving a better man and he a worse woman.
‘He didn’t kill her, though, I did that,’ she finally said bleakly. ‘And Peter,’ she added as if purging her soul of all her bitter crimes at once.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ he told her before she could add another word.
‘How do you know?’ she asked indignantly, almost as if she had to defend her right to the worst crime a human could commit against another of her kind.
‘You haven’t got it in you to harm a newborn kitten, let alone a woman you obviously loved and any kind of brother, even if he took after your sire in every vice available to him, which I doubt, since the rest of you certainly do not.’
‘Well, he didn’t, anyway. Peter was a dear, good boy; if he was a little slower than the rest of us, he loved more to make up for it. You never came across a more endearing soul than him and even the thieves and thugs in our near neighbourhood wouldn’t have hurt him, although we only lived on the edges of a rookery and Kit and I would never have taken him inside for fear of what they would do to him there. He was five years younger than me, so Kit and Ben and I ran riot and played catch-me-if-you-can through St Giles while Maria and Peter stayed home with Mama and minded their lessons.’
‘And Kit is five years older than you at the very least, so you were not running wild with him at thirteen years old, were you?’
‘No.’ She shook her head slowly, shuddering at the thought of what she’d done and why. ‘He left for the sea when I was seven or eight, but whenever he was home I’d follow him everywhere. Even he stopped trying to prevent me doing so, once he realised I could climb like a monkey and run as fast as the wind from any pursuit, so there really wasn’t much point in him trying to stop me when he knew I’d get out anyway, and find it all the more sport to track him and Ben down when I did. I hated the times he and Ben were at sea and how I hated my father for reducing us all to such straits that Kit couldn’t go to school as Mama longed for him to do. I couldn’t endure the thought that Kit might be lost at sea, while Papa gamed and drank and demanded good food and warm clothes, even if we had to go without so he could present a smooth face to so-called “good” society. I’ve since discovered anything remotely akin to society turned its back years before, but at the time I hated “society” almost as much as I hated the gaming hells for letting him in.’
‘Understandable in the circumstances,’ Hugh Darke said.
‘I was worse than he was, easily as selfish as he was,’ she condemned herself. ‘Anything Mama asked me to do, I ignored. Any task I had to perform because we were too poor for any of us to be idle, I did with ill grace and escaped from the boarding house my mother ran as soon as I could. Then I went into the rookeries and the mean streets around them, so I could play at being all the things girls and boys my own age were forced to do in order to put food in their bellies.’
‘In your shoes, I’d have done the same.’
‘You’d have been off to sea with Kit and Ben and left me more alone than ever, in my own eyes at least.’
‘Well, if I’d been born a girl I dare say I’d have followed in your footsteps, then,’ he assured her with a smile in his voice she suddenly wished she could see.
‘You’re a better man than me,’ she said on the whisper of a laugh. ‘Make that a better woman,’ she added; for a moment, none of it felt bad after all.
‘Best make it neither. I’m very glad I’m a man and you’re a woman, but I still know I’d have felt as frustrated and rebellious in your situation as you did, Louisa Alstone. You’re spirited and clever and if you managed to survive alone in such a harsh world, then you’re evidently extremely resourceful as well.’
‘Don’t make me into someone better than I deserve, Captain,’ she cautioned.
‘And don’t make yourself into your own demon.’
‘No need for that, I killed Peter and Mama,’ she remembered bleakly and all temptation to take herself at his inflated value disappeared.
‘How?’ he asked and she marvelled that he didn’t draw his arms away or try to set her at arm’s length.
‘Kit and Ben had gone back to sea again and I hated losing their company and the exciting adventures we had, so I ran off one day when I’d finished my daily ration of sewing and chores about the house. It was high summer and the nights were almost as light as the days, so I climbed out of a bedroom window and stayed away all night. I found a roof in Mayfair to sleep on and it was a good deal cooler and more comfortable than our bedroom under the eaves in a rotten old house that should have been pulled down half a century ago. Then I decided to run back through the streets before the world was awake, just for the devilment of it. Except this time I ran through the wrong ones and picked up the typhus fever,’ she said, then stared blankly into the darkness as she finished her tale. ‘It killed Peter first and then I don’t think Mama could fight it for her grief at losing him. Maria was only ill for a couple of days and I recovered in time to know what I’d done and wish I hadn’t. Maria and I bungled along somehow, running the boarding house as best we could with Mrs Calhoun and Coste’s help, and Papa came home every now and again when he had nowhere else to go. Then Kit came home with his share of a cargo in his pocket and arranged for Maria and me to live with our uncle and his wife. So Kit has paid for our keep and education ever since and I stayed there and tried to make up for the terrible thing I did, but nothing could wipe out that particular sin.’
‘You did nothing wrong, you idiotic woman. I can understand a grieving child taking on a terrible burden of guilt, but surely not even you are stubborn enough to cling to it now, in the face of all logic and mature consideration?’
She shrugged, knowing he couldn’t see her, but they were so close she could feel the frustration come off him. It was both unexpected and kind of him to try to absolve her of guilt. It also confirmed he had all the instincts, as well as the upbringing, of the gentleman she now knew him to be.
‘If I had only stayed at home as I should have done that day, Mama and Peter would probably still be alive today,’ she said sadly.
‘And if any number of things in history had happened in a different order we might not be standing here tonight, futilely discussing ifs and maybes. You know as well as I do that disease is rife in the slums of this city, especially in the summer, and anyone could have given them that illness. Would you expect the butcher or baker or candlestick-maker to carry a burden of guilt for the rest of their lives if they had carried it into your home?’
‘No, but they would have spread it in innocence, not after disobeying every rule my mother tried to lay down for my safety and well-being and probably worrying her sleepless all night as well.’
‘So you were headstrong and difficult—what’s new about that, Louisa?’ he asked impatiently and for some reason that made her consider his words more seriously than sympathy might have done.
‘Not much,’ she finally admitted as if it came as a shock.
He chuckled and she kicked herself silently for feeling a warm glow threaten to run through her at the deep, masculine sound of it. ‘I doubt very much those who love you would have you any other than as you are, despite your many faults,’ he told her almost gently.
‘But
