When he’d disappeared from her sight, she frowned, then turned and headed back to the bonnet she’d been feathering. If, thanks to him, she was going to be closing early, she needed to get back to work.
At ten o’clock that morning, Barnaby walked unheralded into Penelope’s office in the Foundling House—surprising her in the act of searching through a stack of files.
Glancing up and seeing him, she blinked.
He smiled, all teeth. She was standing beside her desk. He strolled to her side. “Any luck?”
After a fraught second of simply staring at him, her distracting lips compressed and she returned her attention to the papers she was leafing through. Rather tightly, she said, “There’s one boy I remember, but I can’t recall his name. He lives with his mother somewhere in the East End, and she’s dying.”
He nodded at the files. “Are all these of about-to-be-orphaned children?”
“Yes.”
There had to be dozens, a sobering thought.
After a moment, she paused, then reached out and pushed the stack across the desk toward him. “You could weed out the girls, and those under six years of age, or not in the East End. The details, unfortunately, are scattered throughout the pages.”
He dutifully opened the next file, and scanned. They settled into a rhythm, he discarding the files of girls, younger children, and those outside the East End, while she studied the details of the remaining files, searching presumably for some feature that would tell her she’d found the likely lad she recalled.
Ten minutes passed in silence; her stiffness gradually eased. Eventually, without looking up, she stated, her tone almost accusing, “You got here an hour early.”
Scanning the contents of the next file, he murmured, “You didn’t seriously think I’d let you hie off on your own?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her lips tighten. “I was under the impression gentlemen of your ilk lay abed until noon.”
“I do.”When I have female company in said bed, and—“When not chasing villains.”
He thought he heard her humph, but she said nothing more. He continued to eliminate files; she continued to read.
“This is it—him.” Holding up the file, she read, “Jemmie Carter. His mother lives in a tenement between Arnold Circus and Bethnal Green Road.”
She glanced through the file again, then laid it on the pile.
He watched while she rounded her desk, picking up her reticule, and wondered if any purpose would be served by attempting to dissuade her.
Chin high, she swept past him on her way to the door. “We can get a hackney across the street.”
She didn’t even glance back to see if he was following. He turned and stalked in her wake.
Fifteen minutes later, they were rocking side to side in an ancient hackney as it rolled deeper and deeper into the stews. Barnaby eyed the decaying and decrepit façades. The Clerkenwell Road had been bad enough; he wouldn’t have brought any lady into this area, not by choice.
Leaning back against the seat, he studied Penelope. Holding tight to a strap, she was gazing steadily out at the dismal streets.
He couldn’t put his finger on what, but something had changed. He’d expected some resistance, yet on walking into her office he’d encountered an amorphous yet steely barrier, effectively shielding her from him. When he’d taken her hand to help her into the hackney, she’d tensed as usual, but as if his effect on her was now muted to the point of triviality.
As if she’d dismissed it, and him, as inconsequential.
It was one thing to have his mental acuity rated more highly than his personal attributes; it was quite another to have said attributes entirely ignored.
He’d never considered himself vain—he was quite sure he wasn’t—and he certainly wasn’t the sort of gentleman who expected ladies to fall swooning at his feet, yet her refusal to acknowledge him as a man, her refusal to acknowledge the effect he had on her, was definitely starting to grate.
The carriage entered Arnold Circus, then drew in to the side of the narrow street.
“Far as I can go,” the jarvey called down.
Meeting Penelope’s gaze with a narrow-eyed look, Barnaby opened the door and stepped down. He glanced around, then moved to the side, giving her his hand as she descended and joined him. He looked up at the jarvey. “Wait here.”
The man met his eye, read the message therein, and tapped the bill of his cap. “Right, sir.”
