Page 27 of Rakes & Reticules
He gave a terse nod. “They are.”
“Could you please stop looming over me?” She stared up at him, not nearly as intimidated or remorseful as she ought to have been. “I feel like you’re an enraged panther about to spring, and I haven’t the strength to defend myself.”
Guilt poked his ribs, and the tenderheartedness incensed him all the more. Nevertheless, he stepped backward two paces.
She stared at some point across the room.
“Have you ever been hungry, Mr. Westbrook?”
He pulled his eyebrows together.
“Have you ever wondered where your next meal will come from?” she asked, cutting him a brief glance before training her attention across the chamber again. She idly toyed with the sheet’s edge. “If you’ll have a place to live the next day? Or if your siblings will starve because your parents did not come home one day, and you still don’t know what happened to them?”
Fletcher mentally ticked off each question with a silent “No.”
She sounded as if she’d gargled glass, so rough and hoarse was her lilting accent. Fletcher didn’t doubt that emotion and grief also clogged her throat.
Now, at least, he knew why she and her siblings were alone. He made a mental note to ask Torrian and perhaps also Lucius to look into her parents’ disappearance.
“Have you tried to find a respectable position in an unfamiliar city, and the only job offered was to become a harlot?” she asked, though every word obviously pained her.
Fletcher suspected she bloody well knew the answers before she posed the questions.
He shook his head, still not trusting himself to speak or to give her the satisfaction of being right.
In Miss Kenney’s mind, she justified her behavior and dishonesty.
Nevertheless, Fletcher valued loyalty above all else. Her reasons might be valid to her, but it would be a cold day in Hades before he ever trusted her again.
“You might have told me the truth.” He purposed to keep his tone gruff lest she believe she could manipulate him with her dire tale. “I would likely have found a position for you.”
“You would have granted me an interview? A woman you don’t know?” A winged raven eyebrow jetted high onto her forehead. “I have no notable skills. I’ve never held a position before. Pray tell me, how do you stay in business if all your employees are incompetent charity cases?”
She had him there.
Rather than give her the gratification of an affirmative answer, Fletcher grunted.
Siobhan shoved herself upward a fraction on the fluffy pillows, the effort costing her greatly. All the color drained from her face, and the hand she raised to shove a raven tendril that had escaped her long braids off her cheek trembled.
“You are angry, and justly so. I deserve a tonguin’.” Her eyelids fluttered closed, and for a moment, Fletcher believed she slipped into slumber.
The next heartbeat, those fathomless blue orbs popped open again. “But when I tell you I had no choice but to impersonate a boy, I am not exaggerating.”
God above, would she please stop speaking?
Fletcher expected her to spit up blood, so raw did her throat sound.
A glance at the window revealed the day would soon leave morning behind. Though he’d met with his staff earlier as was his daily practice, he must still have a word with his security before opening his establishments tonight.
“For months, I tried to find employment. May God strike me down dead if I’m lying.” Raising anguished eyes to his, Miss Kenney released a harsh little laugh ending with a hiccupping sob. “You can judge me, but as you’ve never walked in my shoes or suffered what I’ve endured or feared for the wellbeing of others entrusted to your care, that makes you a judgmental hypocrite.”
“Judgmental?” God help him. He was near his snapping point. “Someone could havedied.Did that not cross your mind? I take the responsibility of protecting my staff seriously.”
Each fury-tinged word cut through the air like the swipe of a saber. Though Fletcher appeared to be the target, that didn’t mean others might not also get hurt.
“This is not a child’s game, Miss Kenney. The peril is real.”
Fletcher forced a calming breath into his lungs.
