Now she looked uncertain. “I’m sorry. I just...”
“You’re right,” he admitted. “It’s remarkable how many of the things we take for granted are, in fact, luxuries. Food. Shelter. Cleanliness,” he said shortly.
“And it’s why you hire boys from Bethnal Green. Because you grew up in the rookeries, and you want them to have better lives.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.
“I hire them because they’re cheap and quick and grateful.” He was feeling a little self-conscious now.
“Oh, certainly. And the tutors you hire to teach them maths probably work for nothing. I happen to know that tutors do not like to work for nothing.”
He hesitated. “I don’t hire tutors.”
Her jaw dropped. “Youteach them maths!” Again, it was not a question. It was an amazed realization.
He did, in fact, teach them maths. As best he could.
Any moment now her questions would get a little too close to the bone and he needed to put a stop to that.
“So did you ask anyone else about me before you disrupted my life, Miss Woodville?”
“Yes. One more person.”
Her honesty amused him. “And?”
“She said you were dangerous. One of the worst men in London.”
He gave a short, stunned laugh. “You didn’t want to take a moment to soften that news?”
“I always feel as though you would take it as a personal affront if I attempt to soften anything.”
He smiled. For one moment, all he could do was sit there andlikeMiss Woodville.
“Well considered, Miss Woodville. And for all I know, your friend may be correct, though there hasn’t been a vote lately. I might have been usurped from the top spot. Who said this to you?”
“Mrs. Haddock.”
“Oh,her.” He had no idea who Mrs. Haddock might be.
She laughed. Albeit somewhat cautiously.
“I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective, like anything else,” he allowed finally.
He was surprisingly not wholly displeased to hear himself described that way. He’d spent so many years being afraid that there remained considerable satisfaction in being thought of as formidable.
He realized then that he could live with anything anyone chose to call him. He knew who he was. That was the only thing that mattered.
He wondered if the thieves had dragged their carcasses off into the shrubberies by now.
“Isn’t it funny how we’re sometimes comforted by weight?” Miss Woodville touched the sleeve of the big coat draped over her. “And sometimes oppressed by it. We describe responsibilities as a weight. And they do sometimes feel like an actual weight.”
She was thinking again about her duty to her family. He supposed it was never far from her thoughts.
She slid out from beneath his coat very carefully, smoothed it gently, and handed it back to him with a tender care that moved him.
“That’s what life is, I suppose,” he said abstractedly, because his coat now smelled very, very faintly of lavender after being close to her body. He surreptitiously brought it close to his face. “Nothing but paradoxes.”
As he pushed his arms into the coat sleeves again, he accidentally-on-purpose dropped the flint and steel he carried in his pocket. It was a tactic. When he bent to retrieve it, he surreptitiously tucked the little object he’d found on the pavement next to Miss Woodville’s walking shoe.
He sat up again.