“I’ve just one more question . . . Has he been in any way unkind to you?”
Gertrude stared quizzically up, and the glint in his eyes that promised death registered. Edwin. He was speaking of Edwin. “No. His Lordship has been nothing but kind,” she promised, warmed that this man who’d once been her family’s rival should be so devoted and concerned after her well-being. It spoke to the depths of his character that he should feel that loyalty, given the fact that Gertrude’s own brother had attempted to destroy his hell and Stephen had actually succeeded in burning down his clubs.
But then, that is what love did to a person.
“Gertrude?” her brother-in-law asked, concern in his question.
Footsteps sounded in the hall; with her heightened hearing, she’d always detected those steps moments before her siblings, who were skilled in different ways.
A moment later, the door burst open with such force it bounced back and nearly slammed Ophelia in the face. “Stephen,” she rasped, her husband, Connor O’Roarke, appearing just behind her. With a cry, she sprinted across the room, knocked Cleopatra away, and launched herself at Stephen.
The little boy grunted, and where he’d once have chafed at those displays of affection, now he wrapped his sister in a tight embrace. “Ophelia!” he cried out.
“I came as soon as I received word,” she wept against Stephen’s spindly chest in a display she never would have made before her marriage to Connor. Her middle sister also had been changed by love.
Gertrude stared on at brother and sister. She’d devoted her entire life to Stephen and his upbringing. She’d sought to give him skills beyond the ones involving a weapon or acts of treachery and deceit. In short, skills that would always be seen as useless in St. Giles. As such, she and Stephen had never formed the bond he shared with Ophelia and Cleopatra, one forged in both friendship and love.
To him, Gertrude had been a bothersome motherlike figure who didn’t have anything of real meaning to offer. Oh, she didn’t doubt he loved her, but their relationship had been . . . different.
From over Ophelia’s shoulder, Stephen opened his eyes, and his gaze collided with Gertrude’s. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
Her heart swelled, and all the reservations she’d felt in coming here, all the worrying that had followed their late-night flight to Cleopatra and Adair’s, fled.
She returned a tremulous smile that quickly wavered. The quarter-clock chimed another reminder. “We have to go,” she said back, silently.
He nodded. “I know.”
With a maturity better suited to a boy ten years his senior, Stephen was the one to break that endless hug with Ophelia. “We’ve got to be going.” He stepped out of her arms and, stuffing his hands into the pockets along the front of his midnight trousers, rocked on his heels. “I wanted to say hello and . . . and . . .” Goodbye.
Gertrude swept over, and catching his hand, she gave it a light squeeze.
Stephen’s little fingers clutched hers tight.
Cleopatra and Ophelia exchanged a look.
“We’ll escort you back,” Ophelia said.
Gertrude was already shaking her head. Impossible. “We can’t risk being discovered.” She’d speak to Edwin and own what she’d done this night and hope he understood, but to bring her family ’round?
Her youngest and most obstinate sister growled. “I ain’t letting you two go back by yourself.”
“We got here by ourselves, and we’ll return the same way. We do not require a nursemaid,” Gertrude said tightly.
Shock pinged around the room, reflecting back in the eyes of her siblings and their spouses. Yes, Gertrude, as her sisters had known her the whole of her life, had never questioned their authority or decision-making. No more. Now she’d make her own decisions, without interference.
“It isn’t safe,” Ophelia said gently.
“Because I’m blind?” Gertrude shot back.
Ophelia couldn’t hold her gaze. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. None of you ever directly stated as much . . . to my face.” But the truth had always been there, implicit and understood. She looked first to Ophelia and then to Cleo. By their guilty, hangdog expressions, they, as she’d suspected, made her vision . . . or lack of, the reason for their overprotectiveness . . . and the limitations they had placed on Gertrude. Only Edwin had never doubted her capabilities simply because she had lost vision in one eye. “I’m not in need of your protection. I’m a grown woman who lived the same life that all of you did.” Including Connor and Adair, who fell back, allowing Gertrude and her sisters their long overdue talk.
“We look after one another,” Cleo said tightly. “It is what we do.”
“Yes, we do. But you have both been permitted the right to choose.” Gertrude turned her palms up. “Can’t you see, can’t you at least own, that those decisions always belonged to you? I never had a say . . . My opinion never mattered.”
Ophelia made a sound of protest. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Gertrude shot back and then glanced to Cleo. “Isn’t it?” She took a deep breath. “I’m not condemning either of you. I allowed you both to stand in the de facto role of big sister. I ceded my rights.” Because she’d ceased believing in herself. Living with Edwin . . . taking a stand on behalf of her brother, had inadvertently proven to also be a stand for herself. “I’m not doing so any longer. I moved into Lord Maddock’s with Stephen. I reasoned with him. I came here with Stephen. Those were all my decisions.” Gertrude lifted her chin in that defiant manner each of her sisters had proven masters of. “And I’ll walk out of here.” And take that hired hack she’d paid to wait. “Just as I entered, with Stephen, and alone.”
The room stood in a silence so vast the drop of a pin could be heard.
Small fingers clenched hers once, twice, a third time. Gertrude glanced down at her brother. The pride glimmering in his eyes filled her. She winked once.
He returned that little gesture, and then his grin faded, replaced with the usual pugnacious set to his features. “We’re leaving this place . . . together. I trust her.”
I trust her.
Oh, God. That evidence of his trust in her, after all these years, was too much.
Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. And lest her family see and take that for the weakness it was in the streets, she made a show of adjusting her cloak.
Cleopatra broke the impasse. “Very well. Ophelia, Adair, and I won’t follow you.” She flicked her chin in Connor’s direction. “He will. At a distance,” she hurried. “He’s different from us, in the marquess’s eyes. Mad Maddock hired him.”
Gertrude and Stephen spoke together.
“He is not mad.”
“He ain’t mad.”
Every set of eyes swung to her and Stephen.
Fiery blush on her cheeks be damned, she’d not allow her siblings to disparage Edwin, not when Mac Diggory and an unwitting Broderick had been to blame for Edwin’s retreat from the world. “He is not mad,” Gertrude repeated, daring a room full of London’s most notorious street toughs to challenge her. “He’s been fair and kind to Stephen and me—”
“And we won’t have you talk about him.” Stephen slammed a fist warningly against his open palm.
“Very well, then,” Cleo said, the only one who saw the way things now were. Through her wire-rimmed spectacles, a suspicious stare met Gertrude’s gaze.
Or mayhap . . . she saw entirely too much altogether.
Gertrude cleared her throat. “Come on, Stephen. We have to go. One more goodbye.”
In a whirlwind of hugs, Stephen went around the room hugging each sister, and in a sign of how much he missed life in St. Giles, he even hugged their former foes and the men he’d spoken with open loathing about. Moments later they were gone, their carriage rattling through the streets of London.
Stephen sat silent and small in the corner of their hired hack. He reached for the curtain, but Gertrude sta
yed him. She shook her head once.
He let that fabric fall and sighed. “You think he’ll let me see them again?”
“I don’t know,” she said simply, not pretending to misunderstand.
“He’s seen you ain’t bad.”
“You ‘aren’t,’” she corrected out of a lifetime of serving in the role of tutor.
“We’re talking about you, Gert.”
“I know. I was merely indicating that—” His eyes twinkled. With a quiet laugh, she nudged him with her elbow. “Scamp.” Throwing an arm around his shoulders, she drew him close. “I don’t know if he’ll allow it. I like to think he will. I like to think he’s come to see that the Killorans aren’t the Diggorys, but I also know it might take him time.”
They didn’t speak the remainder of the ride through Hanover Square. When they reached the intersecting street that emptied out into Grosvenor Square, Gertrude knocked hard on the roof, twice.
The driver immediately drew on the reins, bringing the conveyance to a stop. Not waiting for assistance, she opened the door and urged Stephen out ahead of her. Drawing the hood of her cloak closer about her face, she caught the sides of the carriage and climbed out. Stephen waited at her side as she handed over another small purse with the agreed-upon fare for the ride and wait. Then, hand in hand, she and Stephen found the shadows, that St. Giles art form, and wound their way through the streets.
“Do you like him?” Stephen asked quietly, breaking the rule about silence and stealth in nighttime travels.
Gertrude missed a step. “Do I like . . . ?”
“My father. The marquess.”
“I do,” she said simply. “He’s kind and wants what is best for you and is trying to be a father and oomph—” She glared down at her brother, who’d given her a sharp jab. “What was that for?”
“I don’t mean ‘like him’ like that. I mean . . . you know . . . like him like Cleo likes Adair and Broderick likes Reggie and Ophelia likes Connor. You know, where you want to have his babies and”—he puckered his lips and made smooching sounds—“that kind of like.”
Oh, God in heaven. Of all the people she’d ever thought of having this conversation with—mayhap her sisters, Reggie—never had she dared consider she’d be having it with Stephen. She wanted the cobblestones to open up and swallow her whole before continuing this discourse with her brother.
“Oomph.” Glowering at him, Gertrude rubbed at her wounded side. At this point she was going to be sporting a nasty bruise. “Do stop hitting me.”
Taking her arm in a surprisingly strong hold, Stephen brought her to a stop. “You aren’t answering.”
“I . . . I . . .” Gertrude briefly closed her eyes. “I do,” she breathed.
“I knew it!” Stephen exclaimed, jubilant, his voice echoing around Grosvenor Square. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
“Shh,” she whispered, pressing a finger to her lips. “Come, let us—”
“Turn around real slow. ’And over yar purse and fancy jewels.” That coarse, guttural Cockney cut across her orders.
Cockney that had no place in these parts. Bloody hell. Caught unawares. And mistaken for a lady in these parts, which would be the likeliest assumption, given the people who dwelled here.
Careful to avoid sudden movements, she turned. “Oi’m afraid ya’ve come to fleece the wrong pocket,” she said, easily slipping into her original East London street tones to match the masked stranger before them.
The thief gave no outward display to that revelation of her station. “Don’t care if yar a lady or not. Yar fancily dressed, and ya got jewels there.” He brandished the tip of his blade in a manner meant to threaten. He pointed it at her breastbone, to that place her brooch dangled.
Automatically, her fingers went to that piece, a gift from Broderick, special because it had been the first gift anyone had ever given her. She shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered, her disavowal reflexive.
“Put yar knife down,” Stephen growled. “Or I’ll split you open.”
“Careful,” the burly man warned almost gleefully. “Or Oi’ll cut ’er.”
And he would. From the corner of her eye, she caught Stephen, his entire frame poised, braced for the fight. She gave her head a slight, imperceptible shake, willing him to not draw his weapon. The minute that happened, situations always dissolved into a street fight, and in her skirts as she was, she’d be useless to him. “You can have it,” she said in the same calming timbre she reserved for the skittish cats around the Devil’s Den. Holding her palms open so the pickpocket could see them, she moved her fingers slowly to her chest, and not taking her attention from the blade trained on her, she unfastened the cherished piece and tossed it lightly on the ground at his feet.
He made no move to retrieve it.
“Now the knife. I want that fancy jeweled piece strapped to you.”
How . . . ? Gertrude gritted her teeth.
“Over my dead body.” Brandishing his knife, Stephen flew forward.
The brute spun and turned his weapon on her brother.
“Stephen!” she cried, launching herself in front of him.
Their assailant immediately swiveled.
Stephen’s cry echoed around Mayfair. “Gertrude! Watch out!”
Gertrude turned her head in time to catch the flash of a silver blade. Gasping, she leapt out of the way, sidestepping the brute of a man barreling down on her. His mask had slipped, revealing the harsh, angular planes of his face, marked and scarred from too many knife fights. He took another swipe at her. Her heart pounding, Gertrude lunged back. “Run,” she rasped, giving Stephen a push, propelling him forward.
And God love him for choosing to obey her. Stephen took off running, and she started after him. Her chest rose and fell hard; both fear and exertion set her heart to pounding a fevered rhythm. They weren’t far. She recognized the familiar pink stucco residence leading to Edwin’s townhouse. So close. They were so close. Her entire body burnt with the intensity of their assailant’s gaze. As Gertrude stretched her legs, she damned her cloak and skirts, encumbrances that hadn’t hampered her as a young thief but now slowed her escape.
She stumbled and came down hard on her hands and knees. Agony radiated from her palms up her arms.
Stephen cried out and doubled back.
“Go,” she screamed, shoving to her feet.
The masked stranger was almost upon her. Fiddling with the dagger strapped to her lower leg, she drew it out. Connor O’Roarke came flying from the shadows.
“Go,” he thundered, taking down the assailant.
The pair wrestled, rolling for domination. Her stomach climbed into her throat. Ophelia. She could not leave—
“Go now,” he bellowed, managing to bring his opponent under him.
And that sprang her into motion. Stephen stuck a hand in her face, and she took that small palm.
She had to leave for him.
They continued running, their steps slower from their efforts. Gertrude concentrated all her attention on Edwin’s doorway; it beckoned, called her forth, and gave her strength. Ignoring the stitch in her side, she pushed herself and Stephen onward.
Bloody hell, how in blazes was she going to explain this to Edwin?
Chapter 24
After his meeting with Charles, there had been only one place Edwin had wished to be.
He wanted to be there with her and thank her for reminding him that it was all right to live again. She’d shown him that the crimes he’d held himself guilty for . . . didn’t belong to him. Not truly. Those acts against him and his family had been carried out by another—just as Gertrude herself had been innocent of wrongdoing.
Stalking through his townhouse, Edwin made his way with purpose.
It was late and improper, going in search of a young woman living in his household. Even if she was like a sister to Stephen and serving in the role of temporary governess, a gentleman had no reason or right to, but there it was. Anticipation built arou
nd his chest, this lightness filling every corner of him, buoyant and joyous. Upon finding the library, that place she made her own each night, empty, he climbed abovestairs.
A chambermaid coming down the hall in his direction paled.
Whistling a cheerful ditty he used to belt out when drunk with his university chums, he called out a greeting. “Hello.”
The girl opened and closed her mouth several times. “M-my lord,” she returned and dropped a curtsy as he passed.
Edwin reached Gertrude’s chamber and knocked once.
And waited.
It was late. He could, and certainly should, wait until the morn to speak with her. He’d always been selfish, however.
Edwin rapped again.
As the seconds ticked by, he strained his ears for some hint of sounds within her chambers, some shuffling of her quiet footfalls, the whispery whir of fabric as she donned her night wrapper.
And it was the third rap . . . the third one, when unease crept in. It was a traitorous sentiment for a woman who’d given him no reason to doubt her.
Nonetheless . . . there was no shaking that fear. It was the same, hated disquiet that had gripped him when a melee had broken out at the entrance of White’s and one of his servants had stormed the clubs, violating the code expected of servants to tell him his entire life had been consumed in a fire.
His palms slick with sweat, Edwin grabbed the door handle. It gave easily, and he pushed the panel open. Working his gaze quickly over the rooms, he determined in short order the realization that sat like a stone in his belly—she wasn’t here.
He tried to make the muscles of his throat move so he could swallow.
You’re being a fool. She never goes to bed at this early hour.
Still, the doubts had taken hold and magnified so that logic ceased to exist. How many times had he trusted before, and how many times had he been betrayed? His wife. His best friend. The nursemaid who’d kidnapped his son.
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