handsome, one of the nobility.' Suddenly Noelle was embarrassed. Why was she telling him all this? 'But then, you don't want to hear me go on. Besides, Daisy wasn't above telling a few clankers. It probably wasn't true at all.'
Simon wondered. Was it really so unlikely that a girl like this could have been fathered by an aristocrat? There was a certain dignity about her.
'Who took care of you after your mother's death?'
She looked genuinely bewildered. 'Why, I took care of myself. Who else would?'
'But you were only a child.'
'I wasn't all that young. I was ten.'
'You rang for me, sir?' The butler's voice startled Noelle. She had not heard him enter.
'Yes, Tomkins. The young lady would like some tea. Serve it in here.' Simon dismissed him and turned back to Noelle, as if there had been no interruption.
'So you're seventeen now.'
'Almost eighteen.'
'And you've been on your own since you were ten?' He shook his head in puzzlement and spoke almost to himself. 'The English are a truly incredible people. They believe they are the only ones fit to govern the rest of the world, but they can't even tend to the injustices on their own doorstep.'
'Here, now,' Noelle cried, lifting her small chin. 'Don't you say anything bad about the English, especially since you're an American.'
'Oh, and what's wrong with being an American?' Simon was amused by her patriotic indignation.
'Why, they're savages,' she sniffed haughtily. 'Walking around practically naked with paint smeared all over their faces.'
Simon chuckled. 'Noelle, I think you picked an unfortunate example.'
'What do you mean by that?' she questioned suspiciously.
Simon did not respond. Instead, he reached out and gently stroked her hollow cheek, showing her his scarlet- stained fingers. Then his eyes traveled briefly to her decolletage. 'Practically naked with paint smeared all over their faces?'
Noelle looked in his eyes and saw them twinkling humorously. An angry retort sprang to her lips, but something in his face stopped her. Just as she had earlier judged him, she saw that he was now waiting for her reaction, testing her. He had made a joke at her expense, but she sensed instinctively that he was not mocking her. Her anger left her as abruptly as it had come, and she suddenly laughed, producing a merry tinkling sound that delighted Simon.
The American businessman and the English pickpocket smiled companionably at each other for several moments before Noelle realized she had carelessly let down her guard. Chiding herself, she quickly dropped her gaze and studied a ragged seam that formed an angry V in the skirt of her garment.
The silence lengthened, but she was determined she would not be the one to break it.
'Would you tell me how you've managed since you were ten?' Simon yearned to ask her how long she had been prostituting herself but couldn't think how to frame the words and did not want to challenge her stubborn pride.
'For the first few years I was a mudlark.'
'Mudlark? What in God's name is that?'
'You don't know what a mudlark is?' Noelle was astonished that a man of Simon's wealth and station should be so ignorant.
'No, I'm afraid not.' Simon smiled. 'There are some gaps in my education. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to fill in this one.'
'Why, the mudlarks go to the riverbanks and gather pieces of coal to sell in the streets. I was the only girl mudlark in London,' Noelle boasted.
Simon looked suitably impressed. 'And how did you accomplish that remarkable feat?'
Hesitantly Noelle began to tell Simon of her early days. He listened intently, totally absorbed in her narrative. Before she knew it, she was speaking of her times with Sweeney Pope and of his tragic death. Although she hardly spoke of Daisy, from the few remarks she did make, Simon was able to obtain a fairly accurate picture of her relationship with her mother. He was most interested to learn that Daisy had been a demimonde, not an old street crone as he had first imagined, for the germ of an idea was beginning to take root in his mind.
'When I was twelve, I knew I couldn't pass as a boy much longer, so I had to find another trade.'
Simon leaned slightly forward in his chair. There was a tenseness about his handsome mouth; he found himself unexpectedly reluctant to hear what he knew she was going to tell him. It suddenly mattered to him very much that this spirited young girl was supporting herself as a prostitute. But the story Simon heard was not the one he expected.
Instead, Noelle told him how she had become a pickpocket, describing the old coat she had hung above her head in the tiny corner where she slept. She spoke of her hours of practice while the others who shared her cramped quarters were asleep-pulling a handkerchief out of various pockets, trying not to move the coat. For weeks she had repeated the movements until she was finally satisfied. Then she had substituted a smaller piece of cloth. Finally a stone that lay deeper in the pocket.
Noelle's forehead puckered as she remembered the months of practice. 'That was a long time ago,' she said, her tone dry. 'Since then I've established a reputation for myself.' Looking him squarely in the eye, she challenged, 'Some say I'm the best pickpocket in Soho.'
Simon swallowed hard at this. She seemed to have no conscience, no sense of having done anything wrong. My God, was she as proud of being a prostitute as she was of her times as a pickpocket?
Noelle defied his silent censure. 'I didn't have any other choice, you know. It was picking pockets or being a whore, and nothing could ever make me be a whore.' A shadow crossed her face. 'Nothing, that is, until your son came along.'
'My son!' Simon exclaimed. 'I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand what you just told me.' His eyes took in her costume. 'Are you saying, then, that you are not a…a prostitute?'
'Mr. Copeland,' she said softly, 'until last night, I was a virgin. I only dress like this to distract the men so I can pick their pockets.'
Simon was incredulous. What had Quinn done to this child? Although he barely knew her, he did not doubt her, for he knew his son too well. Somehow she had become entangled in Quinn's net of revenge, an unwilling victim who had been deeply injured.
He got up from his chair and settled himself beside her on the sofa. 'Tell me what happened, Noelle.'
Noelle looked into his handsome face. She did not want his pity, but he deserved to know what kind of man his son was.
She told her story ferociously, as if the telling alone would ease her anguish; it poured from her. As she repeated the conversation she had overheard between Thomas and Quinn, Simon's face set into hard, chiseled planes, and she was once again struck by the resemblance between father and son, especially as she saw a ruthlessness in the older man's face that had been absent before.
When Noelle described pulling a knife on his son, Simon felt a brief moment of regret that she had not found her mark. My God, he'd like to kill Quinn himself for this! Noelle had a good memory and could accurately repeat most of Quinn's discussion with Thomas about marrying her. Simon appreciated what Noelle did not really understand-the stunning perfection of Quinn's revenge.
Was it so wrong for a man to take pride in his name? Simon wondered. To want that name to be respected? What was so absurd about asking Quinn to marry a woman of grace and breeding who would bear proud sons to carry on the Copeland name? God damn it! Quinn had made Simon's honest aspirations seem foolish and pretentious.
The idea that had been only the faintest impulse before began to take shape in his mind. If this was the kind of game Quinn was going to play, he would soon find out that he had badly underestimated his opponent.
Noelle's voice faltered as she began to speak of her arrival at Quinn's lodgings.
'You don't have to tell me about this if it's too painful.' Simon spoke more gruffly than he had intended, but he did not want to hear any more.
'I have to tell you. You're his father.' Noelle looked at him levelly, but not accusingly. 'Whatever happened
