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“Tell me what life was like before you started school here in London?”

“I lived in the country,” he said.

“You say that as though you did not enjoy it much,” Alexander said. He’d noticed the change in the boy’s tone instantly.

He shrugged. “It was all right.”

Alexander raised an eyebrow. “‘All right,’ as in ‘I liked it most of the time,’ or ‘all right,’ as in ‘I endured it most of the time’?”

“Do you always ask that?”

“If I need to. ‘All right’ is a very useful expression if you wish to hide how you really feel about something.” He looked at Benjamin, wishing that Miss Hadford were here to divine exactly what the boy was thinking and feeling. “I should like to know how you really felt about it. Did you like the family you lived with? Were they kind to you?” They passed by Mr. Morris’s desk again, and the boy avoided looking at him. Alexander waited until they were out of the man’s hearing. “You can tell me the truth, lad.”

Benjamin hung his head. “I haven’t told nobody what it was like. Then again, nobody’s asked me either. I didn’t think it mattered since I don’t have to go back.”

“Ah, but it does matter,” Alexander said, willing his voice to remain calm even as anger boiled in his stomach. “Remember what I said before about how we’re bound together by history? If your history was good, you should want others to have a similar experience; if your history was bad, you should do all you can to prevent it from happening again. You have the power to rewrite another boy’s history, Benjamin.”

For a few seconds, the child remained silent, his head low. Then Alexander heard a sniffle, and Benjamin ran his sleeve beneath his nose. “I hated it,” he whispered. “Mrs. Stanley was kind enough when it was just her, but Mr. Stanley was mean, and when he was there, she’d do whatever he said. He was always tellin’ her that she fed me too much, but it weren’t true. I had a bowl of porridge in the morning and some bread and gruel at night. Sometimes I’d cry about how much my belly hurt. If she could, Mrs. Stanley would sneak me another piece of bread or an apple, but if Mr. Stanley was there, he’d hit me for complainin’.”

Alexander forced his fingers to relax out of the fists they’d formed while he’d been listening to Benjamin’s account. “Did he hit you often?”

The boy sniffled again. “I suppose so.”

“What of the other boys? Were they treated the same way?” Alexander handed Benjamin his handkerchief. Benjamin took the white cloth, then looked up at Alexander, a question in his tear-filled eyes. “For your nose,” Alexander explained. “It will save your sleeve.”

Benjamin obediently ran the handkerchief beneath his nose. “Not Charlie. He weren’t ever hungry. But I don’t remember with the others. There was only a baby there when I left. The older one, Daniel, died.”

“Do you remember him being ill?”

He shook his head. “I just remember it was bad because Mrs. Stanley was gone for a few days and Mr. Stanley and Charlie were yellin’ at me all the time. Mrs. Stanley was sad when she came back. She said Daniel had died.”

Charlie was obviously the Stanleys’ biological child. The one Miss Hadford had seen hitting Asher. But why on earth would Mr. Stanley agree to take in extra boys if he disliked them so much? Especially if there was not enough food to feed them properly. Alexander attempted to sort the jumble in his head. Benjamin had enlightened him on the situation in High Brodmore, but the boy’s information was limited because it was based upon spotty childhood memories.

The child wiped his nose on the handkerchief again and then offered it back.

Alexander smiled and shook his head. “You keep it,” he said. “I don’t imagine a brave lad like you will need it very often, but it might come in handy sometime.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Now, what do you think about us going around the room one more time and you can tell me about the tadpoles you caught when you were in the country?”

Benjamin looked up at him with wide eyes. “How do you know about them?”

Alexander chuckled. “Every boy catches tadpoles if there’s a pond around. I’ve done it myself many times.”

The boy gave him a watery smile. “Did they turn into frogs?”

“Toads,” Alexander said. “Big, brown, ugly ones.” He leaned a little closer. “Believe it or not, I sometimes kept them in my pocket.”

Benjamin’s smile grew, and Alexander’s did too. One unnobleman-like confession was all it had taken to have Benjamin’s smile finally reach his eyes.

Chapter 11

Jane could smell the sausages as she came down the stairs. Grateful that Cook had managed to put the unexpected meat to use, she followed the savory aroma directly into the breakfast room, where she discovered her father sitting at the table, reading through a small pile of correspondence.

“Good morning, Jane,” he said, looking up from the letter in his hand with surprise. “You’re up early today.”

She limped over to the buffet and perused the assortment of breakfast foods. “I have an errand to run in the village.”

Her explanation was met by silence, and she did not need to turn around to know that her father was frowning. Like smothering smoke, his ceaseless concern for her safety wafted across the room between them.

“Who will accompany you?”