“Enough!” said Teresa. She looked at Lord Macklin and pointed to an armchair. He sat down. She stood up. “You have no actual right to information, you know,” she said to the young ladies. “You are not owed an explanation.”
They looked surprised, hurt, offended, according to their various personalities. Teresa felt a mixture of weariness and compassion.
“We helped investigate,” said Miss Deeping.
“We asked all sorts of questions,” said Miss Moran. “How can you say that we…”
“We are not speaking of a pet raven stealing trinkets here,” interrupted Teresa.
Now she had provoked them all. A row of frowns confronted her.
Teresa suddenly felt far older than these young ladies. “Evil exists in the world, you know.”
“We are well aware…” began Miss Deeping.
“You don’t know what real evil is, and perhaps you shouldn’t have to,” Teresa interrupted.
“We may be ignorant,” replied Miss Finch. “It does not follow that we should be.”
“You could consider it good luck,” said Teresa. Much of a person’s destiny seemed to come down to luck.
“I do not,” said Miss Moran quietly.
Teresa was surprised that it should be this girl who objected.
“Knowing is always best, I think,” the girl added. “One should never refuse to learn.”
“But once you learn a…dreadful thing, you cannot erase it from your memory.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” said Miss Deeping. “The truth is you have gone off on adventures without us, and you have no intention of explaining.” She looked from Teresa to the earl and back again.
Her petulance goaded Teresa. “The opera dancers we were seeking, and two other girls, were imprisoned in a place where men came to do whatever they pleased to them. Vile, unprincipled men. The girls are lying upstairs, bruised and still frightened. Odile may die from the mistreatment she received.”
This brought a shocked silence. Lord Macklin, who had raised a cautionary hand, let it drop.
Miss Finch murmured a curse.
“But why would anyone…” Miss Moran began. She fell silent.
“Evil,” said Teresa. “In the world.” She’d achieved the effect she was looking for; she had shaken them. And now she was sorry she’d lost her temper.
“How did you…” Miss Deeping began. She stopped and shook her head. “It’s not just an exciting story.” Miss Moran swallowed, her blue eyes wide.
“I hate people,” said Miss Finch. She was looking out the window as if she could eliminate a few passersby with her stony gaze. “Nearly all of them are despicable.”
Even more, Teresa wished she hadn’t spoken.
“Helping can be an adventure too,” said Lord Macklin.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“The old tales are full of swordplay and derring-do, but adventure is not only physical danger. As I discovered this past year.”
“Whatever it is, we are supposed to have nothing to do with it,” said Miss Deeping. She sounded thoroughly disgruntled.
“Not necessarily.”
Teresa was surprised by his intervention. She didn’t understand what point he was making.
“Are you going to suggest that we become smug Lady Bountifuls, distributing largesse?” asked Miss Finch. “If you knew how many people have come to me for donations since I inherited! I find their attitude…”
“Grasping?” the earl interrupted. “Undeservedly entitled? Condescending?”
Miss Finch nodded, looking surprised.
“I hate being patronized,” said Miss Deeping. “Half the haut ton seems to think they know better than I ever could. About everything!”
“I don’t think anyone enjoys being treated so,” said the earl.
“As if you’d know,” muttered Miss Deeping.
“Charlotte!” said Miss Moran. “There’s no need to be rude.”
Miss Deeping murmured an apology. Lord Macklin waved it aside. “I was patronized as a boy,” he said. “I admit it has been a while.”
When his eyes twinkled in that way, he was irresistible, Teresa thought. What if she refused to resist? The thought was so enflaming that she nearly missed the next remarks.
“What do you mean by help?” asked Miss Finch. She had a gift of staying with the topic at hand. “And why do you call it an adventure?”
“The adventure comes in discovering the kind of help people really want. Not what you may believe they want, or think they should want. Particularly the latter. That discovery takes one in unexpected directions.”
“Isn’t finding out just another kind of patronizing?” asked Miss Finch.
“You are quite an intelligent young lady,” the earl replied.
Miss Finch blushed with pleasure.
“And the answer is, it can be,” he went on. “One must make an effort to be sure that it is not. Beginning with respect. Discussing matters as equals and not, as you said, Lady Bountifuls. And then observing behavior as well as talk. Action may not match words. People may not know their true wishes. The process is not easy.”
He spoke to the young ladies as if they mattered, Teresa thought, just as he’d always treated her with respect. How had a privileged nobleman become this unusual man?
“That doesn’t sound like adventure to me,” said Miss Deeping. Seeing Teresa’s eyes on her, she sighed. “Yes, I understand what you have said.”
“The opera dancers need help,” said Miss Moran slowly. “Especially the ones staying here. But all of them have a hard time of it.”
“Perhaps we could find better places for them,” said Miss Deeping. “Some other sort of employment.”
Miss Finch shook her head.
“They like to dance,” said Teresa. “Most of them love the theater. They don’t wish to leave.”
“Better pay?” asked Miss Moran tentatively.
“You would suggest that we ask them,” said Miss Finch, with a nod to Lord Macklin.
“In doing so, you would enter another world,” he said.
“And that is the adventure,” said Miss Deeping. “I do understand.” She didn’t seem entirely reconciled to the idea.
“May we see them?” asked Miss Finch.