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cow?”
    A laugh lilted out of her throat. Matthew, for all the heartbreak, with his charming smile and wheedling voice, could tease a smile out of the weepiest woman. “A bit of bread and cheese will have to do, my lad. Still, I’ve an apple for our dessert.”
    He flashed her another cheeky grin. “A grand feast, then.” His hand slipped inside his frayed coat. “And perhaps a wee sip of God’s own nectar?”
    She shook her head, tempted to join him but knowing the danger. “I don’t drink anymore, Matthew.”
    Matthew slipped the green bottle out of his coat, holding on to it the way a child holds her dolly. “But you wouldn’t make your poor brother suffer, now, would you?”
    “You go ahead.” She placed the small sack down upon the table, pushing her precious books out of the way. Sometimes she wished she allowed herself the luxury of more books, but that money went to people who needed it far more than she. “But not too much, mind.”
    The cork slipping free of the bottle popped through the small space. “I’ve no desire to drink away my sorrows, love.”
    She rolled her eyes, thinking on the crowds out on the streets this very night, buying nine-penny gin bottles that would rot their innards faster than it would their brains. She’d done it herself once too often, unable to bear the sorrows surrounding her. “You’d be the minority.”
    Matthew blew out a disgusted breath. “Sure, and from this piss pot of a town, who wouldn’t want to drink their heads in?”
    It would be so easy just to engage in the easy banter of their childhood. Even when the people had been falling about them like sheaves of wheat during the fabled harvests, they’d teased and laughed. What else could they do? But now she had to face up to reality. No matter how her brother wheedled into her heart, he was not a little boy anymore. Nor could all his teasings wash away the sort of man he’d become. She could bear the banter no longer. All at once, her breath seized in her throat with fear for him. “Why are you here?” she demanded.
    Matthew’s smile froze, and his pale face turned ashen. “Get a bit of food in me first, eh?”
    She whipped the chunk of dark bread baked by a woman around the corner out of her sack and tore it in two. The grainy scent filled the air, and crumbles of the thick, dark bread spilled over her palms. She tossed one piece to him, then rummaged about for the small, slightly green-edged cheese at the bottom of the bag. She felt its spongy texture and fished it out. Her eyes darted to Matthew’s lanky frame, trying not to hurt at his thinness. Perhaps she should have sent him a few of her precious coins, what with the bankrupt earldom. But he had his causes too, and she’d had a strong feeling that he’d starve and use the money for his political leanings. She’d not been willing to support that. Still, he was so thin. Swallowing back her sorrow, she tossed the small block to him too. “They fed me at the asylum, lad.”
    Matthew caught the cheese, his smile entirely gone now, replaced by the haunted look that seemed to have captured every Irishman. “You know what Father Rafferty says about liars.”
    She
tsk
ed. “Father Rafferty can talk himself blue, for the whit I care.”
    His throat worked slightly as he eyed the cheese. “Thanks, love.” And then he tore into the small bit of food, eating voraciously. His fingers moved more like an animal’s hungry paws than a man’s—or an earl’s.
    Tears stung her eyes. She’d seen that often enough. All her childhood and here in London, where the rats were part of a proper meal in some parts of town. Still, it broke her heart to see Matthew acting like the wild, starving masses hoarding the streets.
    When had that happened? When had Matthew lost all his genteel ways? When her father had used the majority of his funds for ships to help the peasants leave? Or when he’d made those many trips to London’s House of Lords to beg help from men