Lydia blinked. “Whatever it is you think I am referring to, not that kind of problem.” She lifted the stack of papers, and Mara’s heart sank. It seemed Temple’s sentry was the smallest of their worries today.
She waved Lydia into her office and sat behind the desk. Lydia sat, too. “Not one problem. More like one large problem made up of many small ones.” Mara waited, knowing what was to come. “We’ve lost our credit.”
It was to be expected. They hadn’t paid their debts in months. There wasn’t any money for it. “With whom?”
Lydia began to sift through the bills. “The tailor. The bookshop. The cobbler. The haberdasher. The dairy. The butcher—”
“Good Lord, did they all attend some kind of citywide meeting and decide to uniformly come collecting?”
“It would seem so. But that is not the worst of it.”
“The boys shan’t be able to eat and that’s not the worst of it?”
Mara shivered and moved to the fire, opening the coal bin to discover it empty. She closed it.
Lydia held up a single envelope. “That’s the worst of it.”
Mara looked to the bin. Coal.
Again.
London winters were long and cold and wet, and the orphanage would require coal to keep the boys healthy. Hell. To keep the boys alive. “Two pounds, sixteen.” Lydia nodded, and Mara said what anyone would say in such a situation. “Damn.”
Lydia did not flinch. “My thoughts, precisely.”
Damn bills.
Damn bill collectors.
Damn her father for sending her into hiding.
Damn her brother for losing everything.
And damn Temple and his gaming hell for taking it.
“We’ve a houseful of boys bred from the richest men in England.” Lydia said, “Is there no one who can help us?”
“No one who would not expect our lists in return.” The lists of bloodlines, two dozen names that would scandalize London and in the process ruin the boys. Not to mention the reputation of the orphanage, which was of the utmost importance.
“What of the fathers themselves?”
Men who came in the dead of night to pass off their unwanted offspring. Men who made unthinkable threats to keep their identities secret. Men who Mara never wanted to see again. Who would not want to see her ever again. “They’ve washed their hands of the boys.” She shook her head. “I won’t go to them.”
There was a long pause. “And the duke?”
Mara did not pretend to misunderstand. The Duke of Lamont. Rich as Croesus and doubly powerful. And rightfully furious with Mara. “What of him?”
Lydia hesitated, and Mara knew her friend was searching for the right words. As though she hadn’t thought them herself. “If you told him the truth—that your brother’s funds were not his to gamble . . .”
Nothing you could say would make me forgive.
The words echoed, their dark promise sending a chill through her. He’d been so angry with her last night. And she’d brought it upon herself—telling him half tales, tempting him with partial truths, and then asking him to pay for his memories.
She sat.
No. The duke would not help. She was alone in this. The boys were her charges. Her responsibility.
It was she who must care for them.
She stood and moved to a nearby bookcase, extracting a fat volume. She held the book in her hands, her breath coming hard and fast, every inch of her resisting what she was about to do. The book was her safety. Her future. Her promise to herself that she would never go poor or hungry again. That she would never have to rely on the aid of others.
It was her protection, cobbled together with twelve years of work and saving.
Everything that would keep her from the streets.
Everything she’d planned to use once Temple ruined her.
But the boys were more important.
She set the book on the desk and opened it, revealing a large hollow space, filled with a cloth sack that jingled when she lifted it.
Lydia gasped. “Where did that come from?”
From years of work. Of saving. Of a shilling here and sixpence there.
Twelve pounds, four shillings, ten pence.
All she had.
Mara ignored the question, extracting coins. “Pay the coal, the dairy, and the butcher. Take your salary. And Alice’s. And Cook’s. And do what you can to put off the others—until the eldest require new shoes and clothes.”
Lydia considered the money, shook her head. “Even with that—”
She did not have to finish the sentence. The money wouldn’t be enough to carry them through winter. It would barely get them into the New Year.
There was only one way.
More time with the Duke of Lamont.
She stood, and headed for the foyer, now filled with boys. They were all at the two front windows of the house, teetering on chair arms and clinging to windowpanes, eyes riveted on the man across the street.
Lavender sat several feet away, watching them, and Mara lifted her to safety before the piglet could be crushed by a falling boy.
“He’s been there for an hour, at least!” Henry said.
“He doesn’t seem cold at all!”
“Impossible! It’s snowing!” Henry replied, as though the rest of them hadn’t eyes.