“We ain’t weak as water,” Burnt Ricky objected.
“And we ain’t babies,” added Bob’s Your Knuckle.
The street children often had odd names.
“You’re a regular pride of lions, I don’t doubt,” Vera said. “And you might well like it, but it’s different from what you usually pick. I only want to make certain you know that.”
“Is it gruesome?” Olly asked, a bit of doubt tugging at his soot-smudged brow.
“Not yet.”
“Have you read it?” None of the boys posed that question, but rather a man standing nearby who sounded as though he hailed from Ireland.
She turned to look at him. He wasn’t dressed fine and fancy, but neither did he look like he was a breath away from poverty. His hair was a startling shade of red. He watched her expectantly.
“I have. And I am eager for the next installment. Of his, and Mr. King’s, and Fletcher Walker’s, and Lafayette Jones’s.”
“’Twould seem you’ve read a great many of the penny dreadfuls.” A grin blossomed on the man’s face, and blimey if it didn’t fully upend her. Ginger men were often dismissed as less handsome, less striking, but bless him if he didn’t prove that utterly and entirely false with a simple upward tip of his mouth.
“I read them all if I get the chance. Pays to know the inventory, don’t it?”
“I imagine.” He eyed Brogan Donnelly’s latest, the one they’d been talking of mere moments earlier. “Are you enjoying the tale?” He motioned to it.
She nodded. “Donnelly’s quality at weaving a surprising story. And this one’s set in Ireland, which I’d wager will appeal to you.”
“Sorted that about me, did you?”
She tugged her ear. “These ain’t just for holding up spectacles.”
He gave her a sweeping glance. “You don’t wear spectacles.”
“All the more reason to put my ears to other uses.”
“Put your ear to listening to my question, Miss Vera,” Olly said, uncharacteristically impatient.
She motioned to Olly with her head and, to the ginger stranger, she said, “Right nutty little fella, this one.”
“Miss Vera.” Olly whined out her name.
She took pity on him. “What’s your burning question?”
“Would we like ‘The Dead Zoo’?” He flicked his thumb toward himself and his urchin chums.
She gave the boys her full attention once more. They were being patient, bless ’em. “Mr. Donnelly’s other stories usually have dying and sometimes murder.”
“Fletcher Walker writes that too, Miss Vera,” Burnt Ricky tossed back.
“And everyone’s dead in Lafayette Jones’s tales,” Olly said.
Vera lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Not everyone.”
Grins appeared on all the children’s faces.
“Gab amongst yourselves. Let me know what you decide.”
The children put their heads together, yammering low and eager. She adored the little ones who came into her shop. Too many hadn’t families to look after them. She didn’t fancy herself a replacement for their missing mothers, but she hoped she gave them some feeling of the safety of home.
The ginger-haired man crossed her path again as she saw to her other customers. “Are you meaning to refuse to sell Donnelly’s latest to the lads?”
“Not if they fancy it.” She straightened a stack of Mr. King’s latest offering; the green cover was quite striking. “Once they’ve made their pick, I let ’em crack on with it.”
“Then why go to such lengths warning them?”
An easy enough question. “It’s tough times. Their pennies are hard-earned. If they mean to spend their coppers here, I fully mean to give them the best I can for their money.”
She stepped behind the counter. The Irishman leaned a shoulder against the nearby wall, facing her. Studying her. She knew she was a bit tall for a woman, and that caught people’s notice. Her features were often described as looking Russian, though those who told her as much couldn’t ever say what specifically gave away her heritage. She knew so little of the country of her birth that she couldn’t answer the mystery either.
“What brings you to the shop?” Vera asked the inquisitive new arrival.
“You’ve a sign in the window saying you’re hiring on help.”
Ah. She gave him a quick look over. He wasn’t teetering like he’d tossed back a few too many at the local pub. Whether or not he was a lazy bones she couldn’t yet say.
“We’re looking to,” she said. “There’s a fair lot of hauling things about the shop and running deliveries out to customers.”
“I was a delivery man when I lived in Dublin,” he said. “Though I can’t say as I’ve ever been hired on to haul things about a shop, I think I could manage it.”
“Pay ain’t luxurious, but it’s fair.”
He nodded, not seeming overly worried.
“And it wouldn’t be all day every day,” she further warned. “Two or three days a week at most.”
“Fair enough.” He popped his hands in his coat pocket and watched her. “Care to give me a try?”
“Come by day after tomorrow, and we’ll see how the day goes.”
“You have yourself a lugging-and-errand boy, Miss Sorokin.”
“Sorokina,” she corrected. Most people in England hadn’t the first idea how Russian surnames worked.
“Sorokina.” He dipped his head in acknowledgment.
“And what’s your name?” she asked.
“Ganor O’Donnell.” His lips tugged upward, sending her heart fluttering a touch.
Peter, who had a cart in the area and who regularly dropped in to pick out a story, brought up a penny dreadful to the counter and paid her for it. He had it open even before reaching the door and was distracted enough by what he read to not manage more than a couple of steps outside.
“He bought that same one you warned the children might be a bit too frightening,” Mr. O’Donnell said.
“It’s a first installment in a new tale and selling well.”
“Do you really think the wee urchins’d be upset by reading it?” he asked.
“Likely not.” London’s street children knew far too much of the world to be upset by tales of danger and dastardliness. “I simply want to make certain they never feel they’ve wasted their pennies.”