The oldest boy glared defiance, but it was the middle boy, who was about twelve, who spoke up. “Ain’t no foundling, guv. Me mum and dad kept me, damn my luck. I left ’em. Couldn’t stick it.”

Mr. Fielding raised his brows. “If you tell me you were in that nunnery by choice, lad, I won’t believe you.”

“Who would be? But I didn’t come from no Foundling Hospital, and neither did them. They was on the streets, same as me.”

I stepped forward. I could not speak as matter-of-factly as Mr. Fielding, my voice barely working at all. “Were there any other children there?”

The lad shook his head. “Naw. Just us. At least since I been. I don’t know how long.” His bravado faltered the slightest bit.

“No, missus.” One of the older girls raised her head. “We been a year. She gets us off the streets, lasses and lads with nowhere to go. Says we can have a good meal. Then we can’t never leave.”

“Of course she’d say that,” Mr. Fielding said. “Coldhearted bitches know exactly how to pretend to be sweet, eh?”

The two younger boys grinned. The lad who’d been speaking to us said, “Ya shouldn’t use words like that, vicar.”

“Why not? It is only the truth. She’ll be banged up for this, mark my words.”

The boy shook his head. “She won’t. She’ll give a backhander to the magistrate and be let off. She done it before. She’ll move somewhere else, open another house. Maybe look for us again.”

The sisters fearfully clung to each other at his pronouncement. Mr. Fielding kept his gaze on the boy. “Not this time, lad. I’ll make certain of it.”

The grim finality with which he spoke reassured me at least. I had no doubt Mr. Fielding, and Daniel with him, as well as Inspector McGregor, would make certain this madam and anyone working in the house were given their just deserts.

The older girl raised her head again. “Where do we go now?”

I wished I had an answer for her. The Foundling Hospital took in babies at risk for death in poverty, not older children. Besides, if someone at the Foundling Hospital was spiriting children away and collecting money for it, how could I be certain they’d be safe there?

“We’ll find a place,” I said with confidence I did not feel.

The boy snorted. “No, ya won’t. Reformers come for me before, and I legged it. Not going back to a workhouse.”

The fifteen-year-old boy lost his sneer and looked haunted. “Never. I’ll take me chances on me own. I’m big enough to fight now.” Tall, perhaps, but he was spindly.