Lydia nodded, all seriousness. “Entirely reasonable.”
He bowed, short and perfunctory, turned on his heel, and left the room, leaded down the stairs to the exit. Halfway down the final set of steps, a small voice came from the shadows, staying his movement.
“She left.”
Temple turned to find a collection of small boys above him on the landing, each looking more worried than the last. Daniel was holding Lavender under one arm.
Temple nodded. “Yes.”
Daniel scowled at him. “She was crying when she left.”
Temple’s chest tightened at the words. “You saw her?”
The boy nodded. “Mrs. MacIntyre does not cry.”
Temple remembered the tears in her eyes that night that he’d left her naked in the boxing ring, and shame coursed through him.
“You made her cry.”
The accusation was harsh and honest. Temple did not deny it. “I am going to fetch her. To make it right.”
Henry spoke up, frustration and anger on his little face, as though he were prepared to avenge his lady. “What did you do to her?”
There were a thousand things he’d done.
I didn’t believe her.
I didn’t trust her.
I didn’t show her how much I loved her.
I didn’t protect her.
He settled on: “I made a mistake.”
George nodded. “You should apologize.”
The other boys seemed to agree with this course of action. “Girls like apologies,” Henry added.
Temple nodded once. “I shall do that very thing. But first I must find her.”
“She’s very good at hiding,” Henry said.
Another boy nodded. “The best of all of us.”
Temple did not doubt that. “I, also, am good at hiding. And one good at hiding is excellent at seeking.”
George looked skeptical. “As good as she is?”
He nodded once. “Better.” He hoped it was true.
Daniel did not believe it. “She’s left us. I don’t think she is coming back.”
The fear in the boy’s eyes echoed that in Temple’s chest, and he was reminded why he’d thought Daniel was his son.
The boy looked down at the pig in his arms. “She left Lavender.”
She’d left them all. She’d left the boys, thinking it was best for them. She’d left Lydia, thinking it would be easier to run an orphanage without the weight of scandal over her head. And she’d left Lavender, because the post road to wherever it was she was going was no place for a pig.
Another one spoke up then, repeating the sentiment. “She forgot Lavender.”
He came up the stairs, crouching low to face the collection of boys, finally reaching out to take Lavender in his arms.
She forgot Lavender.
He knew how the little pink piglet felt. The boys, as well.
She’d also forgotten him.
“May I borrow her for the day?”
The boys considered the question, huddling together to come to a unanimous decision before Henry turned to face Temple. “Yes. But you have to bring her back.”
Daniel stepped forward, extending the pig. “You have to bring both of them back.”
Temple’s heart thudded in his chest, and he nodded solemnly to the boys. “I shall do just that.”
If he could.
“She is not here.”
Temple paced Duncan West’s office on Fleet Street, refusing to believe it. “She has to be here.”
He had come to understand her. She would not leave London before she had honored their arrangement and cleared his name. He believed that with every ounce of his being. He had to. Because if he didn’t, he had to allow for the possibility that she was already gone, and that it would take him time to find her.
He wasn’t interested in giving up time to find her. He wanted her immediately. In his arms. In his bed. In his life.
He wanted to begin the life that they should have had a dozen years ago. The one that had been torn from both of them. He wanted them to have happiness. And pleasure. And love.
Christ, she could right now be with child.
With his child.
And damned if he didn’t want that child—that beautiful little girl with strange eyes and auburn hair. Damned if he didn’t want to be with them both for every possible minute.
She had to be here.
He turned on West, who was seated tall and straight behind a desk covered in papers, in notes and articles and God knew what else. “She would have come here. To speak to you. To give you your story.”
West leaned back in his chair, hands spread wide. “Temple, I swear to you I would like nothing more than for that door to open and Mara Lowe to wander in off the street, full of a decade’s worth of column inches.” He paused, his golden gaze flickering to Temple’s good arm. “But all I have is a duke with a pig.”
Temple looked down at Lavender, asleep.
“Why do you have a pig?”
Temple scowled at the half smile on West’s face. “It’s not your concern.”
The newspaperman tilted his head. “It’s strange enough to make an interesting little side story.”
“I shall make you an interesting little side story if you don’t tell me the truth.”