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Sampson nodded and returned to cutting up his turkey. He wouldn’t count on anything. But he would feel free to hope. “Why don’t you tell me the story of how you and Amanda became family?” he asked. “How did you meet one another?”

Rose bit her lip and looked at Amanda.

“You can tell it,” Amanda encouraged.

Rose took a deep breath. “All right,” she agreed. “After my mother died, I used to sleep…outside.”

“You didn’t have a home?”

The little girl set her jaw. “I had a lot of homes,” she said. “Sometimes my home was in an alley, other times it was under a shop awning. Anywhere that kept me warm and dry was a home. Sometimes shopkeepers gave me food. Other times, I had to take it.” Her eyes went to Amanda again.

“You had to,” Amanda said softly. “We talked about it, remember? It’s not wrong to steal when it’s the only way you can keep yourself fed. That’s different.”

“But it would be wrong to do it now,” Rose said.

“That’s right. Why?”

“Because I have other ways to get what I need.”

“Very good.” Amanda smiled.

“But…” Rose cut her eyes to Sampson.

“Sampson agrees,” Amanda said.

“He does? Did you ask him?”

“I don’t need to ask him.” Amanda turned her gaze on Sampson. There was a warning in her eyes, a directive not to counter what she was saying.

He understood. “Yes,” he said. “I agree with Amanda. If you needed to take food in order to have anything to eat, that was the right thing to do. Nobody thinks you should have gone hungry. But you won’t need to do that ever again, because I’m going to make sure that you have everything you need from now on.”

Rose folded her arms. “I don’t need you to do that,” she said. “Amanda takes care of me. Amanda will make sure I have everything I need. She promised that the day we met. I don’t need anyone else to get involved.”

Sampson inclined his head. He could respect that. Rose wanted to make sure he knew that she wasn’t indebted to him. “I hope you won’t mind that I want to take care of the two of you,” he said. “I know you don’t need it. I’m doing it because it was something my friend asked of me. Because I know that it would have made him happy, and I think I can be of help—even if you would have been all right if I had never intervened.”

“You don’t need to take care of Amanda, either,” Rose said. “I do that. She was lonely when she found me, but she isn’t lonely now because we have each other. She doesn’t need anybody else.”

“I understand,” Sampson said. “Still, sometimes having more people can be a good thing. Maybe there is something I can offer her in addition to all the good things you bring to her life.”

Rose thought it over. “You have a house,” she conceded. “I don’t have a house. So I couldn’t give her a place to stay. We would have had to live with Lord Stapleton forever, and Amanda wasn’t happy living there.”

“She wasn’t?” Sampson raised his eyebrows.

“That’s enough, Rose,” Amanda said firmly. “I wasn’t unhappy. But we are grateful to have this new home.”

“But you weren’t happy,” Rose insisted. “That’s why we had to leave. You said it yourself. You said that we’d be going to a new home where we would be happier than we had been before.”

“Eat your dinner, Rose.”

“No, tell me more, Rose.” Sampson was intrigued, particularly by the fact that Amanda seemed so determined to quiet the girl. “What was so troublesome about life with Lord Stapleton?”

“Oh, well, he wasn’t going to let us stay there forever,” Rose said. “He might have thrown me out. That’s what Amanda was worried about—that he would make me leave. And then he would make her leave, although in her case he only meant to force her to marry. He wouldn’t have put her out on the streets, I don’t think. That would have made him look bad, and Lord Stapleton cares about his reputation.”

“I see,” Sampson said slowly. “That doesn’t sound like a very reliable place to live, then.”

“Well, no, it wasn’t,” Rose said calmly. “It was still better than not having a home at all, though. You have to have somewhere to sleep, and at Lord Stapleton’s house I had a bed, and there was food every day.”

“Those things are certainly important,” Sampson agreed. “What if I could promise you that you’ll always have them here, and that you’ll never be forced to leave for any reason. Wouldn’t that be the best scenario?”