Page 36 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
“Is that so?” If he encouraged Penny to tell his story, perhaps the man would forget about the housebreak ahead of them so that Greer could devise a way to accomplish things without him.
Penny narrowed his eyes slightly, like he was trying to puzzle out why Greer was asking. He seemed to let go of whatever reticence he might have had and launched into his story.
“Mama was a laundress,” he said. “Papa worked on the docks. I don’t remember him very well. He was killed in an accident when I was barely five. Mama was desperate from there, but managed to keep all our heads above water. She was lucky to be pretty, and she caught the eye of one of the warehouse owners. Some called her a whore, but she was more like a kept woman for Mr. Gordon.”
“And this Gordon provided her with enough to raise the two of you?” Greer asked.
“More or less,” Penny said. “We remained in the boarding house where we’d lived from the first. I learned to pick pockets along with my peers, mostly because it was fun and there was nothing better to do.”
“No school?” Greer asked.
Penny smirked. “Not for street waifs, unless you consider the school of life to be an education.”
“But you are educated,” Greer pointed out. “Much more than an ordinary street rat.”
Penny’s smirk turned into a smile. “Mr. Gordon liked me,” he said. “And he liked books. He had no children of his own but had always wanted them. He brought me new books and spoke kindly to me whenever he came to visit Mama. Probably, he hoped I would go away to read while he did what he did with her.”
“You are a self-educated man,” Greer said with a smile.
Penny pretended to touch the brim of his cap. “At your service, sir.” He chuckled at his own joke, then sighed, settled deeper into his seat, and went on with, “I learned early that marks will trust you more if you speak genteelly. It took a while to rid myself of my street voice, but that alone is one of the most profitable skills I’ve ever taught myself.”
Greer was impressed. Deeply. He’d always known Penny was better than the life he’d been born into.
Knowing that did not ease the throbbing pulse of attraction that had him in an even tighter grip. The two of them shared more than he was comfortable with. Penny, too, had been handed a sow’s ear and made a silk purse out of it.
As if he could sense the direction of Greer’s thoughts, Penny grinned and asked,” What about you?” with a thrust of his chin in Greer’s direction. “You’re Irish, but that’s about all I know. You seem to have lost your accent the same as me.”
“I am Irish,” Greer said, back itching at the way the tables had just turned on him.
“But you only ever sound Irish when you’re, shall we say, distracted.” He winked.
Greer fought not to blush, but it was a losing cause. “You’re not the only one who recognized early that a man is judged for how he speaks,” he said, letting his Irish come through a bit more in his words.
He didn’t want to reveal anything more, but Penny kept staring at him. When the silence stretched too long, Penny asked, “Well?”
Greer wasn’t going to get away with silence. He sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and said, “What do you want me to say? I was born near Galway to a clerk’s daughter who ran away from a decent family to be with a man who turned out to be a violent drunk.”
Penny’s smug grin vanished in an instant, replaced with sorrow.
The tender expression had Greer squirming. He despised pity, but more than that, he was terrified of his instinct to fold himself into Penny’s arms and receive the comfort that a younger version of himself had always longed for.
To fight it off, he shrugged as if none of it mattered, which was a lie. “Mama was clever enough to take me and my little sister and run off in the middle of the night when I was eight. She was more than a little light-fingered herself and saved up enough from her bad habit, as she called it, to book us passage to England.
“Father pursued us, of course,” Greer said, his insides aching at the memory.
He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t go on. The dark, bloody memories flashed before his eyes like the greasy lamps around the station their train whipped past in the night. He’d fought for so long to get the screams out of his ears and the smell of copper from his nose. But above all, he’d battled for years to free himself of the guilt of running when a real man worth his salt would have stayed and faced the bastard head-on.
You were only eight, a small voice whispered in his head.What could you have done?
Greer blinked, suddenly realizing Penny had leaned forward and had a hand on his knee. He stared intently at Greer withconcern that wrapped itself around Greer’s heart and wouldn’t let go.
“Greer?” Penny asked, his voice a caress. “Are you alright?”
Greer cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders as best he could in the cramped train compartment. “I’m sorry,” he said, writhing in his seat, unable to meet Penny’s eyes. “They’re old memories.”
Penny still had his hand on Greer’s knee. “You don’t have to tell me any more,” he said softly.
“He killed them,” Greer blurted while he still had a modicum of courage. “I ran when he burst into the room. I kept running. The police found him and the bodies the next morning. He’d killed himself as well.”
