Lucan sank his teeth into the flesh of Simon’s forearm, freeing himself. He raced for the open window, climbing out to the sill just as Simon groped for him.
He must have seen, recoiled, because his hold slipped. With a shriek, his body plummeted.
Simon leaned out the window, but it was too late.
“Simon.” Behind him, feet pattered in.
Gripping his arm, he glanced back to see Miss Whitmore coming toward him, while the maid and butler peered in with panicked expressions.
She started for the window, but he pulled her back. “He is dead.”
“Who?”
“A turnkey from Newgate. The one who soiled your cousin.”
She took the news without a shift in expression, until her gaze dropped to his arm. Only then did her cheeks redden. He sensed that if she had been brave enough, she would have pried his hand away, dabbed the blood from his bite wound, and bandaged him with fingers more gentle than any that had ever touched him before.
Guilt stung him more than the teeth marks.
Because if he had been brave enough, he would have let her.
If she had known the children were here, she would have never requested to see them.
Georgina sat in the large chair by the bedchamber hearth, aware that one of Simon’s shirtsleeves was draped across the back. The room smelled of him. Perhaps it looked like him too. Dark and masculine colors, clean and inviting, with oddities spread about. His rifle leaning against the black-painted mantel. His open sketchbook on the stand by the bed. His faded, worn trunk beneath the window, appearing rustic and handmade compared to all the other gleaming furniture of the room.
“Papa killed him?” John sat next to her chair, fiddling with two tin monkeys in the candlelight. “He can fight anyone. Like Blayney.”
“Blayney?”
Mercy, snuggled on Georgina’s lap, pulled her thumb from her mouth long enough to answer, “Him kills bears!”
“He does,” John affirmed with a serious nod. “I will too when I’m grown.”
“He sounds very exciting.”
John nodded.
“You must miss him. And your home.”And your mother.All the things Simon had told her rushed back. The children hiding in the loft. The loss of the one they needed. The hardships of their journey across the sea.
The last thing she wished to do was think of their hurt.
They were too young.
Too little.
Too easy to press close to her, to laugh with, to protect, to need, to love.
No.Instinctively, she nestled Mercy closer. Of course she did not love these children. They were not hers. Never would be…
The door came open.
Georgina jumped to her feet, jostling Mercy from her near-slumber.
Simon hesitated in the doorway, as uncomfortable to see her as she was to be here, it seemed. “Wilkins told me you came to sit with the children.”
“You were attending…”The dead body? The man who tried to kidnap John and Mercy?“Other things,” she finally stammered. “I wanted to sit with them until you were finished.”
“May I speak with you?”
