His eyes widened just a bit. She was good. Reminded him of himself. “Touché.” He cleared his throat. “So lack of funds is holding you back.”
She gave a curt nod. “And space. Which, of course, takes more money.”
“Is this your life’s work? I only ask because you still go by Miss Walters. Normally a school mistress or housekeeper would have changed to Missus even if she wasn’t married, to indicate her position.”
She shrugged. He liked the shape of her shoulders, delicate yet held in perfectly straight lines. He saw the way her face flinched at the question, her shoulders hunching just a bit. “I fell into this life quite by accident. Clarissa, my first orphan, came to me when I least expected it. I only knew that I couldn’t leave a girl with her spirit where she was. But the more time that passes, the more I realize that children, like myself, need someone to look out for them.”
“Like yourself?” His ankles came undone and he sat straighter. Had she been an orphan too? The realization almost made him miss the fact that she hadn’t actually answered the question. Why was she still Miss Walters?
She twisted her hands again. “My parents died when I was twelve.”
His stomach dropped. How terrible. “Of?” he knew he was prying but curiosity had won out. Daring had sent a beautiful woman right to Logan’s door. Had Daring known she was this pretty? Had he done it on purpose to test Logan in some way? The man was forcing Logan to help this stunning creature and find business partners. Two tasks he’d avoided like the plague up until now. It was almost as though the duke had a hidden agenda.
Damn the man. He was worse than a meddling woman.
And Logan had found that understanding what motivated people always meant that he himself was more successful.
“A disease of the lung. My father was a doctor,” she said, her voice catching.
He flexed his fingers, noting that her father had also given himself in the service of others. And while he’d like to give her a lecture on the value of providing for oneself, another emotion entirely commanded his tongue. Sympathy. He knew about fending for oneself at an early age. “My father passed when I was thirteen.”
“You weren’t sent to an orphanage too, were you?” Her voice was rough with emotion as it pulled at the strings of his heart. Barely discernible. But he knew the memory hurt her still. He could feel her pain in his chest. It matched his own.
“No. I was the new earl of a broken earldom. I was sent to a different sort of hell.” One where young boys of the peerage were allowed to make his life a living nightmare. He still dreamed of a few of them on occasion.
Her large brown eyes caught his then and she leaned forward. “It’s so hard to be on your own from such a young age.”
Logan’s breath stalled. Because he knew where she was about to go. She’d tell him this was why she needed to help children, why he should give her more money. No one ever gave sympathy without an agenda. Hadn’t he learned that in life? Usually, he was more guarded with people, but tonight, he’d just foolishly opened himself up.
And now he’d have to explain to her that he’d built himself back up all on his own and people either helped themselves or didn’t. But the words lay heavy on his tongue. He didn’t want to say them to her.
She’d hate him for them and that…bothered him.
“It is,” he said, his jaw taut with tension.
“I was lucky too,” she whispered. “My parents’ house remained mine and a small income that paid for a nice orphanage until I was eighteen.” She sneered around the word nice. “But some of them are hell on Earth.”
Over the course of this evening, this woman had met his irritation with complete calm. She’d smiled and patiently explained her cause after waiting for hours. He admired her already. But the way she described the orphanages as hell made him shake inside. A small quiver deep in his gut. She was not a person prone to exaggeration. He knew that even in the short time they’d been acquainted. He made it his business to understand people.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to show him. He didn’t know why. He already knew how he felt on the subject. His life had purpose, order, and drive. He had a goal and he was closer than ever to completing it.
He’d not allow one woman to change his direction now. It was ridiculous that he’d even considered it for a single second.
Penny cursed herself. She’d revealed too much.
Her father had been a man of infinite patience and control. And love. He’d showed her the type of person she wished to be, and she’d fought through her teen years to hold onto her heart. To him.
Her nice orphanage was clean, and children were educated. But there had been no love in that place. It had been run on fear and efficiency. It could drain a soul.
She looked at the statue of a man across from her. Was that what had happened to him? He said he’d been sent to a different sort of hell. What hell had that been? And had it stolen all softness from him?
She shook her head. She had children to save. She didn’t need to go around trying to rescue the hearts of grown men, if that were even possible. She doubted it was. Adults were often too set in their ways to ever change.
It wasn’t that she didn’t secretly dream of marriage and children, she did. But to someone warm and kind, and ready to create a family of his own even as he continued to support her foundlings. A man that was a complete fiction, Penny was sure.
The carriage turned onto Adderley Street and slowed in front of her home. The one she’d grown up in. The paint was peeling now, the fence broken against the overgrown front beds. Her mother would turn over in her grave to see it.
Penny’s mouth pinched to think of this man seeing it. The Earl of Goldthwaite. Driving her home to the edge of the Docklands. She could already smell the tanneries.
But she refused to be embarrassed. She didn’t give these children a pretty place to live but they got bunches of love and that was what they needed to survive. To thrive.
He snapped open the carriage door and held out his hand to help her down when the front door of the house banged open.
Clarissa came charging out the front door with a fire poker clasped in her hands. Her feet were bare, her dress patched in several places. Her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“Did he hurt you?” she demanded, slapping the poker against her palm.
The earl straightened, his eyebrows rising as he looked over at Penny. “And you wonder why I call them urchins.”
Penny took his hand, ignoring the shiver that pulsed through her again, as he helped her from the conveyance. “Don’t let Clarissa hear you call her that. It will be your funeral.”
Clarissa stomped down the steps, oblivious to the cold December wind, her chin stuck out. “You’ve been gone for hours and hours. I was worried that—” The girl stopped, her fear shining in her eyes.
By way of answer, Penny reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry, my sweet Clarissa. It shan’t happen again.”
Logan cleared his throat.
Both women ignored him. Clarissa’s face crumbled for just a moment before she lifted her chin again. “Did he hurt you? Make you do…things? I’ll run him through if he did.”