Page 10 of No Match for Love (Regency Love Stories)

Jones pulled on Lydia’s arm, attempting to bring her back in the direction of their waiting carriage, but Lydia dug her heels in.

“Good heavens, miss, come away from there,” Jones demanded. She might even have stomped her foot, but Lydia’s attention was otherwise occupied, staring across the street as she was.

Lydia pulled her arm from Jones’s grasp. “Those children need help.”

“They are perfectly well!”

“They most clearly are not, or they would not be begging for coins.”

Jones sighed. “You haven’t any coins, and we were given instruction to collect your new gloves and return home.”

Lydia scrunched her nose, thinking. The true purpose for this outing was not to gather Lydia’s new gloves, as Jones assumed, but to find the solicitor’s office.

Still, she could not walk past the three young children across the street without doing something.

No matter how many other fine lords and ladies did just that.

“I could at least say hello, make them feel important.”

“They hold no importance to you and your current station. You owe them nothing.”

Lydia gaped at her maid. She had known that the woman was miserly and autocratic.

. . but heartless? Unfortunately for Jones, her staunch disapproval only stoked the fire in Lydia even more.

She only wished to say hello. Perhaps to help.

Not that she had any way to do so. She hadn’t been granted any pin money, as Jones had pointed out, so what could she do?

Food. She could give them food. Not now, but perhaps later. She had often brought food from Lord Tarrington’s kitchen to the tenant families in need.

Tucking the slim box containing her gloves under her arm, she stepped away from Jones and into the street, careful to avoid the refuse that littered the road.

It was a busy thoroughfare, but with several glances back and forth as she made her way, it was easy enough to cross.

She stopped in front of the children before Jones had even begun to follow.

“Hello there. I am Miss Faraday. Might I ask your names?” She smiled down at the three children, two girls and a boy. She would guess their ages to all be under ten. It was one of the girls—likely the oldest—who answered.

“I be Fanny, and this here’s Anne. And Georgie.”

“Is George, Fanny,” the boy hissed. Fanny shot him a look only an older sister could give.

“Well, George ”—Lydia put extra emphasis on his name as she met his eye.

He was dirty, far dirtier than the poor in her small country town.

Soot stained his cheek and brow, and she was not certain what color his clothing had been before it reached this dull, brown state—“Anne, and Fanny, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Fanny gave a lopsided curtsy, and George, something that resembled a bow. Lydia returned the gesture with her own, likely lopsided, curtsy.

A man passing by dropped a coin into the hat George had placed upside down beside them, but he didn’t look at the children. George hollered his thanks nonetheless. From her periphery, Lydia saw that Jones was nearly upon them.

“I apologize, but I haven’t any coin,” Lydia said. “I should love to visit you, though. If you would just give me the address of your home.”

Wariness entered each child’s expression, excepting Anne, who popped her thumb out of her mouth; peered up at Lydia with round, brown eyes; and cocked her head down the road. “We lives jus’ dow’ there. Two streets o’er, ’bove the pawnbroker’s.”

There. That was all she’d wanted—why did Jones have to create such a fuss? “Thank you, Anne. I shall see you soon, I hope.”

But the children were no longer watching her. Their eyes were fixed on something behind Lydia. She turned but could not immediately decipher who or what they were watching, the street was so full of people.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“Pick tha’ up, Georgie,” Fanny muttered, pointing at the hat on the ground.

George swiped it up but grumbled, “Is George.”

Jones was upon them then, breathing a little heavily from the exertion. “Come along, Miss Faraday. We best be going.”

“But is something wrong?” she asked the children again.

“No’ at all—”

“Fanny’s worried the Runner’ll see us. They don’ like our folk.” Anne had once again popped her thumb out of her mouth to fill in the gaps.

Lydia glanced over her shoulder again, this time noting a man in a dark coat buttoned to his neck and a tall black hat. A Bow Street Runner. His eyes were on the children, and he was headed their direction. Just then, someone intercepted him, someone tall and near her in age. Someone familiar.

Lord Berkeley glanced over at their little group, acknowledging Lydia with a nod. She began to lift her hand in return, but he was already talking with the man. He pointed down a street in the opposite direction, and the man, with a quick look at the children, went the other way.

An audible sigh escaped George.

Lydia frowned. “It is not as if you are doing anything wrong.” Was begging illegal in London? She did not actually know.

Fanny shrugged. She was still trying to gather up her siblings. “Come on now. Mama’ll be lookin’ for us.”

An increasingly familiar voice sounded at Lydia’s elbow. “Good day, Fanny, George, Anne... and Miss Faraday, of course.”

Gooseflesh erupted down her arm, and Lydia looked up at Lord Berkeley. His expression was as stoic as ever, but hers was quite the opposite. He knew these children? By name?

The children’s faces lit up.

George stood up a little straighter and bowed. It was far less crooked than the one he’d given her. “Thanks for turnin’ the Runner away.”

“Yes, sir, we thanks you kindly,” Fanny said, looking up at Lord Berkeley in near reverence.

Lord Berkeley cut his eyes to Lydia but then dropped down in front of the children. “Now, it just so happened that there was some trouble a couple streets over, but”—he looked at each child in turn—“I do not think your mother would approve of you being here.”

Lydia watched the exchange with surprise. This was a side of Lord Berkeley—of any lord—she never could have imagined seeing. And it was immensely endearing.

“Can you promise that you will follow your mother’s counsel from now on?” Lord Berkeley asked the children. Lydia was beginning to feel that she was intruding on a personal conversation between old friends. Disproportionately sized friends.

Each of the children nodded eagerly.

Lord Berkeley pressed a coin into Fanny’s hand. “Good. Now, I think you all deserve a little candy. Take some home to your mother.” When she hesitated to close her hand around the coin, he offered that crisp nod again. His expression was most severe, despite the kindness he was bestowing. “Go on.”

A smile spread across Fanny’s face as smoothly as hot butter on bread, and she grabbed little Anne’s hand, tugging her back down the walk without a glance for the adults watching them go.

“That was far too much money for a bit of candy,” Jones chose that moment to remark. Lydia shot her a look. Certainly the woman did not act like a maid around Lydia, but where was her decorum around Lord Berkeley?

“Indeed,” Lord Berkeley responded without ire. Without any emotion, really. “And far less than what would truly be helpful to their family, unfortunately.”

“Do you know them well?” Lydia asked, watching as the trio entered the shop. Hopefully the storekeeper would be kind.

“I know their parents.” He offered no more than that.

“I hope to deliver a basket. Anne said they live above the pawnbroker?”

Jones’s eyes went wide. “You cannot, miss.”

Lydia withheld a sigh. “We can discuss it at a later time.”

“Yes. In a flat above the shop,” Lord Berkeley said, ignoring the interaction between Jones and Lydia. Then, after a pause, he added, “The family is usually home in the evenings.”

“Perfect, thank you. You know, you are rather unique, Lord Berkeley. Not everyone would know street urchins by name. They are far below you in status. You’re a bit of a curiosity.

” After the words left her mouth, she wished to recall them.

Not because they were not true—he really did incite her curiosity—but because they could have come across as overstepping.

This man was not her friend. He was hardly an acquaintance.

Just because they’d had a handful of interactions did not mean they had any sort of relationship that would allow her to make such blatant observations. Her words had gotten away from her.

He glanced into the street, raising his hand in passing to a gentleman in a gig. “I assure you, I am nothing of the sort.” His tone was not rude, though it would have been his right had it been, it was simply as if he were stating a fact.

“Of course not. Forgive me, and thank you again for your assistance with the Runner. I hate to imagine what might have occurred were you not at hand.”

He bowed. It was as succinct as his nods. “I am only grateful I was.”

The sounds of the street filled the space between them. Was the conversation concluded? Should she curtsy and take her leave? Perhaps she should not have let her mind wander so when her governesses had been teaching her.

“Ah . . . We must . . .” She trailed off, unsure.

“I will leave you to your errands then. If there is not anything I can help with?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

He bowed again and retreated. Her eyes could not help watching him depart, her midsection feeling all fluttery, like a cloth covering a picnic basket in the wind.

“You are not searching out those urchins, Miss Faraday.”

Lydia tossed her maid an annoyed look. She would certainly be searching out the children. Just perhaps not with the woman’s knowledge.