The Taste of Innocence by Stephanie Laurens Page B

elevation with the valley hidden in the dip between, the hills appeared closer.
    Sarah lifted the door latch. Turning, Charlie followed her through the door—into bedlam.
    Or so it seemed. Eight small children, boys and girls both, had been traversing the front hall in a more or less orderly file, but the instant they saw Sarah, all order deserted them. Bright smiles lit their faces; as one they detoured to mill about her.
    They all talked at once.
    It took Charlie, also trapped in the knee-high melee, a minute to attune his ears to the high-pitched babble, but Sarah reacted with aplomb. She patted two heads, asked one boy if he’d lost his tooth yet—the answer was yes as he promptly demonstrated with a gap-toothed smile—then she waved her arms and effectively herded the gaggle back into the clutches of a thin woman who’d been following in the children’s wake.
    The woman smiled at Sarah; her eyes widened as she took in Charlie, but then she turned and shooed her charges down a corridor. “The others are in the office waiting,” she said to Sarah as she passed.
    “Thank you, Jeannie.” Sarah waved to the last of the children, then made for a door to the right. Reaching for the latch, she glanced at Charlie. “Would you like to sit in on the meeting, or”—she nodded in the children’s wake—“look around?”
    Charlie held her gaze. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to listen to the discussions. I can look around later.”
    She smiled. “I don’t mind.” Her lips quirked. “You might even learn something.”
    As he followed her into the room, he wondered how he should take that comment, but the truth was he did feel compelled to learn more about the orphanage. Although it lay beyond his boundaries, he was nevertheless the senior nobleman in the area; in certain respects it fell within his purlieu, yet he knew very little of it—how the orphanage ran, under whose auspices, where their funding came from, and so on. All were things he ought to know, but didn’t.
    That the orphanage was legally Sarah’s, and she involved herself in the running of it, made his continued ignorance even less acceptable.
    The room was a well-furnished office with two desks, one large, one small, and various chairs and cabinets. In the center stood a round table at which Mrs. Duncliffe and Mr. Skeggs sat; as Sarah entered they broke off what had plainly been a social conversation to smile in welcome.
    When they saw him behind Sarah, surprise entered their eyes, but the welcome remained.
    He knew them both; they exchanged greetings, shook hands, then he held a chair for Sarah. Once she’d sat, he lifted another chair and set it beside hers, a little back from the table. He smiled at Skeggs and Mrs. Duncliffe. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to get some idea of how the orphanage is run.”
    Both assured him they had no objection to his presence; while Mrs. Duncliffe certainly wondered over his motivation, Skeggs was almost touchingly delighted.
    “The more locals of standing who associate themselves with our effort, the better.” The anemic solicitor beamed. He straightened a small stack of papers before him and adjusted the pince-nez balanced on his thin nose. “Now…”
    Charlie sat back and listened as the three discussed various aspects of the day-to-day running of the orphanage. He learned that they bought most of their perishables in Watchet, with vegetables, grains, meat, and fish brought in by cart twice a week. For manufactured goods they turned to Taunton; Sarah consulted a list and declared there was nothing urgent enough to warrant sending the cart south just yet.
    As the meeting progressed, dealing with the children’s requirements—clothes, shoes, books, and so on—Charlie detected no funding constraints over such matters, but when it came to the fabric of the orphanage, a different sort of limitation emerged.
    “Now,” Sarah said, “Kennett has had a look at the leaks in the south wing. He