It was early yet, much earlier than I was accustomed to, but my staff were civilized sorts. Mrs. Booth had like as not been up with the sun, and her man was already dressed in the severe black attire of his station.
No matter that the house had been shifted below, Booth was a man who took his role seriously.
The step-thunk-step of his pace echoed hollowly in the home Ashmore had made for them all.
What I found most interesting was the lack of rigid severity in this house away from Chelsea’s bohemian demand. Though Booth and Mrs. Booth had not changed their way, they also did not appear to mind when I sat at the table wearing my nightdress and high-necked wrapper. My hair was left half-tumbled, for it hurt to lift my arm to tend, but Booth did not so much as flick a disapproving glance at my attire.
I was bemused.
More, I was legitimately concerned. As he placed a tray at my elbow, I took the opportunity to stare hard at his features. They had not changed overly much from my memory, and I was relieved to note this. Broad of feature, strong-nosed and possessing of a leonine head of wild white hair, he had always struck me as the epitome of a gentleman pirate.
He did not suit this home below the drift, but then, many a lady might have let him go for lack of a leg. He’d lost it in service to Her Majesty, and I loved him all the more for it.
Booth had been something of a father figure, in my limited understanding of the role, and he had always subtly indulged my fancies. Mrs. Booth was the sterner of the two, but they were a childless couple, and I had long recognized the forbearance with which they treated me.
Fanny, content to play the villainous tutor in my fanciful turn, never interfered in such things.
It had taken me a long time to come to terms with the truth of my existence above the foggy drift. Booth and his wife, Fanny, even Betsy—who had left for a safer home in her husband’s Scotland village—had all been more of a family than those of my blood.
Relief caused my eyes to well over, and there Booth’s calm façade cracked.
Concern replaced gentility, and he plucked from his pocket a handkerchief. “There, now, miss,” he said softly. “None of that.”
I warbled something wordless into the cloth I brought to my face, shaking my head.
Booth set out the repast his wife had prepared, silently allowing me to come to grips with the sudden burst of emotion.
When I was no longer in danger of imminent loss of composure and faculty for intelligent discourse, I blotted at my eyes and took a steadying breath.
Booth poured my tea. “Sugar, miss?”
“No, thank you.” The rich aroma of the black tea wafted up from the delicate tea cup, patterned with roses in shades of dusky pink to mauve. Gold glistened in delicate accents, and I cradled the saucer in hand as I smiled at it. “I thought all of these were meant to go to His Lordship.”
Booth’s pale eyes twinkled as he replaced the tea cozy. “We furnished Lady Northampton with a list of all items,” he assured me, and did not say what I quickly surmised.
Like my tears, my laughter came rather more freely than perhaps once I had allowed it. There was no opportunity to demurely hide it, and it ended on a snort when it caught me by surprise. “You devilish things,” I chuckled.
“I’m sure I’ve no idea what you mean, miss,” he replied, oh so seriously but for the devil in his eye. “May I acquire for you anything else?”
Given the meal placed before me, I couldn’t think of anything in particular. It was similar to the plate Mrs. Booth had made for me the night before, and my stomach growled hungrily for it. Booth, bless his gentility, did not acknowledge the uncomfortably loud demand. “I believe I have all I need,” I told him.
He bent at the waist, acknowledgement of my care, and took the tray back to the kitchens, where I imagined Mrs. Booth worked.
I ate quickly, and pondered what this new development now meant for me.
I wondered how easy it might be to simply remain where I was—not a countess, not a collector, not a circus creature but simply Cherry St. Croix.
But then, what was Cherry St. Croix?
A scientist? Not for too long.
A Society heiress? Not since my disastrous marriage.
A sad, sober invalid desperate to stay hidden from the sight of those that wanted her dead?
I sighed as I saw to my meal. That latter seemed far more the thing, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel like a fox caught in a hunt.
I ate all that I could, happy when I felt contentedly full, and drained the last of the tea from the pot. It had cooled, but the flavor remained strong, and a bit on the tart side.
The dining room was not large, but it was comfortable. The table could seat four, and while there was no fireplace, another brass stove warmed the air. Fanny had exercised her fashionable sense here, as well, and the walls were papered with a delicate pattern that included gilt in the edging.
Despite the change of location, I had a rather persistent suspicion that Ashmore had given Fanny free reign in her spending.
A home, though it did not soar above the fog as our previous.
Fanny would no doubt agree that I could do worse than Ashmore by way of lifetime companion. He provided well, cared for the people I cared for. Thought in ways similar to me.
Times like this, I remembered what it was to be ill-treated by Hawke. Such meandering paths turned Ashmore into something of a white knight out of storybook in comparison.
Wholly unfair of me.
I could not help who it was I obsessed over.
“I will not call it love,” I insisted to my plate, and Booth’s irregular step hesitated at the door. Another pot waited on a small platter, balanced with ease in his gloved hands.
He still knew me. My tastes might have altered some, but I adored my tea.
“Another pot, miss?”
“Please,” I said, flushing deeply. Had he heard me?
He exchanged the pot, but did not immediately leave. His gaze remained on the table he tidied around me. “You have a furrow between your brows,” he informed me solemnly.
I reached up a finger to smooth the line that had definitely formed. “Do I,” I replied, but it lacked the lilt of a question. “I suppose I must.”
He hesitated, my plate in hand, and I knew he must be weighing the bounds of propriety with that of years of knowing. “The missus has been worried for you,” he finally said.
I frowned into my refreshed tea. “I am sorry, Booth.”
“Oh, we knew you’d be all right,” he replied, as though he meant to reassure me. “We just meant to say that we know it is no easy life, the one you’re living.” I winced a little. “But, miss, do know we’re always here for you.”
I looked up into his kindly features, that line once more formed in my brow. This time made of bittersweet emotions for which I had no real name.
“Washington Barrett Booth,” I said, firm and rather more direct than acceptable from a lady, “I love you dearly. And Mrs. Booth, too.”
He pinkened to the very roots of his hair. “Oh, well,” he managed, a sort of clearing of the throat. “You know we’ve always looked at the little miss as something of our own.” The plate he placed on the silver tray clattered.
“But,” I continued, lacing my hands around my tea cup in a manner that Fanny likely would have deprived me of, “I fear that if I stay here, I will only put you all in terrible danger.”
“Is this to do with your collector business?” he asked, bushy eyebrows lifting.
“Well informed, aren’t you?”
Booth’s smile was gentle, but it revealed nothing.
I tucked my feet up on the chair’s rungs, as I’d done when I was a girl, and hunched over the table’s edge until I could place my cheek upon the cool surface.
It was terribly rude, but Booth did not point this out. I had always been an unusual child, and he had always allowed me such indulgences when alone.
“That, and the burden of a wi
dow’s grief,” I admitted. “I’ve mucked it all up, Booth. My decisions have only served to land all of you in trouble.”
He scoffed, a dismissive, “Hrmph.” When I turned my head to fix him with a pointed stare, he translated for me his intent. “We’re all right enough, little miss, never you mind us. Mrs. Fortescue is well taken care of, and Mr. Ashmore ensures we want for nothing. Why, even Leviticus is turning his hand to a trade.”
“Levi is?” I lifted my head, intrigued. Leviticus was the house-boy Booth had taken under his wing, teaching him to steer the gondolas that the well-heeled used to move about above the drift. A great deal could be said of a family whose gondola was well-steered, and Booth was among the best.
I did enjoy the boy’s cheeky humor, but then, I’d long preferred brats to Society adults.
“He is taking a turn at glass-making,” he replied, serious enough that I couldn’t laugh. “He’s apprenticed with a master and is showing remarkable promise.”
“Levi is?” I asked again, as though to be sure.
Booth’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, miss.”
“Cor,” I breathed, earning a deepening of my butler’s smile. “I never would have thought it.”
“We are doing quite well,” he assured me.
I sighed, drawing my messy braid over my shoulder. “Which is all the more reason for me to leave you, isn’t it?”
Booth rounded the table, laying out a place at each. One for Ashmore, I assumed, one for Zylphia, who was not so much being treated as a maid as a guest who insisted on helping. Truly, I had one of the most unusual households in London.
Fanny would have her meal in bed, very likely.
My butler chose his words wisely and with slow care, as he always had. “What you do,” he said, inspecting a silver fork with ornate handle, “you must do because you believe it the right choice.”
“Of course,” I replied, frowning. “But what is the right choice?”
He set the fork neatly in line with the rest, nudged it minutely into place, and said simply, “As all things, miss, it must come down to what you can live with, as opposed to what you cannot.”
But that was the crux of all matters, wasn’t it?
What could I live with?
What couldn’t I?
I’d once thought that opium was the thing that I could not live without, and yet here I was, hungry for it and unwilling to make the effort to attain more.
Once upon a time, I might have gone to collect for the coin to acquire more; I knew it was an option, but it was not a safe one. The bit of smoke I’d inhaled the night before had scared me nearly to death.
That and the circus, and I was sure to be cured for life.
Or at least until the memory softened.
I could live without opium.
Could I live without my family?
I stared at the table as Booth retreated to the kitchen to prepare for the rest of the house’s waking, and when the table gave me no answers, I stood from it. It did not take long to pace the whole of the downstairs, and I touched this item or that bit of art without really seeing them.
There were not so many books here. I wondered if Ashmore had salvaged any from the marchioness’s grasp, or if, like all the things that had been my father’s, they were gone forever.
I could live without my family if it ensured that they were safe. I could also live with Fanny, with Booth and Mrs. Booth, but not at the risk of bringing them danger.
And I could not live with the thought that fleeing meant turning my back on Ishmael Communion and the Bakers to whom I owed an oath.
Could I live without Hawke?
I could. The thought plucked something painful in my heart, and I covered my bosom with a hand as it ached in a manner I told myself was because of my tender shoulder, but it didn’t help.
I could live without him, but I could not live with myself if I knew that he suffered because I was too much a coward to fulfill all that I could.
Do not disappoint me.
I imagined that I would always, in some way, disappoint his expectations. Then again, I owed him nothing to conform.
As I studied my reflection in a mirror placed upon the parlor wall, I saw the knowledge form in my own green stare. Rumpled dark red hair, too pale features, black shadows under the eyes, and I looked for all the world nothing like my mother.
And I could live with that, too.
I nodded to myself; my reflection nodded at me, as though to reaffirm the choice made.
If I stayed here, I would bring untold danger to my family.
If I fled London, Ishmael and his Bakers would like as not perish beneath the twisted Ferrymen.
If I turned my back on Hawke, I would never know if he lived or died; I would only know that he suffered.
Zylphia’s child deserved to know its father.
Fanny deserved to live her days in peace.
I was no longer feeling so arrogant that I thought myself the most important being in the lives of those I meddled.
“Well, then,” I said briskly, and turned away from the mirror. “Let us get to work.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I could not bear to lie to my family again. Nor could I risk Zylphia’s sharp awareness, or Ashmore’s return.
I escaped without word to any of them.
Any, that is, besides Fanny.
For her, I crept into her bedroom, mindful to make no sound. She slept quietly, propped up on pillows to keep her lungs clear. The daylight filtered through the drawn curtains, peppering the air with shimmery motes I drifted through.
The chair beside her bed remained drawn in place, and I perched upon it with care. “Good morning, Fanny,” I whispered.
She slept on, tired and worn, mouth drawn into a small frown.
I had little doubt I’d carved those lines myself with my antics.
I took a small breath. “I know you won’t understand.” Slowly, mindful of her steady breathing, I covered a fragile hand with my own. Her skin was warm, dry and terribly thin. “I will forever regret that I came back only to leave again so soon. I wish I could spend the whole of my life making it all up to you.”
Tears thickened my voice. I refused to give them purchase, just in case Fanny were to wake and wonder at my tear-stained face. I shook my head.
“No one would let me do this, you understand.” I chuckled softly. “Zylla alone would like as not tie me somewhere. But I have no choice.” Slowly, I bent to lay my arms on the side of the bed, to cradle my cheek against her hand. I inhaled deeply, smelled the familiar fragrance of lavender and the perfume she acquired from France.
I adored that Ashmore did not force her to scrimp.
“Ashmore will take good care of all of you,” I promised. “He will never let you down. I know it doesn’t seem like it,” I added, closing my eyes, “but what I do now, I do for your safety. For Zylphia, and her child. Most of this is due to my own meddling anyhow.” A bitter laugh, little more than a hoarse rasp. “I had so arrogantly assumed that nothing I did would ever end in consequence, but I can no longer blame others.”
Fanny breathed out a soft sigh, shifting somewhat as though to settle more comfortably. I raised my head, but her eyes remained closed, her thin lips slack.
A smile touched my mouth. Warmed the resignation fostered in my heart. I was determined, but because I loved her—because I could no longer justify risking those I loved—I was resolved.
I stood, but dared not cup her cheek as I wanted. Instead, soft as I could, I brushed my lips over her brow. “Thank you,” I whispered, “for teaching me what it is to be a woman worthy of herself.”
I fled before I lost all nerve, before I inadvertently woke her. I could never repeat all that I said to her waking face, not when I knew she was ill. I would never form the correct arguments to sway her. All I knew was that if I did not act now, too many lives would be at stake.
A martyr I had never thought to be, and the word did not rest well upon my shoulders,
but responsibility—this new thing I felt keenly, similar to guilt but sharper for it—demanded I act.
None saw me as I left. Mrs. Booth bustled merrily in the kitchen, the last I heard of my staff as the door eased closed in my wake.
Before the girders that lifted London’s most prominent locations above the fog, Chelsea had been much farther west than it sat now. At the time, a small district affectionately termed Little Chelsea had cropped up around the much finer Chelsea it mimicked.
When the girders were formed and the districts re-aligned, Little Chelsea remained behind.
I laughed when I came to understand that Fanny had made her new home in this small area, close enough to the Thames to occasionally catch a whiff of the sickly rot, but on a high enough slant that a good breeze might force most of the fog to a thin mist.
Of course, on particularly thick days, the smell rankled and the fog closed in.
This, fortunately, was not such a day, and it made catching a carriage, nicer than the hackneys prowling the East End, a simple matter. The coin I’d lifted from Ashmore’s bedroom would be missed at some point, but in my defense—in my conscience’s defense—it was for a good cause, and not the opium I might have been tempted to buy with it.
I like as not caught the driver’s eye with my attire, for it was uncommon enough for the urchin I resembled to be female and have enough coin for a lift. I was forced to show the coin first before he let me up.
Although I considered it a risk, I took the journey unarmed. I’d like as not be divested of any weapons I carried the instant I crossed the Menagerie threshold anyway. It seemed terribly unkind to borrow one of Booth’s plethora of weapons—each earned in service to Her Majesty—only to lose it.
Of course, I’d give almost anything for the Springfield he’d once loaned Zylphia.
A long-gun like that wouldn’t allow me to hire a carriage, that was for certain.
The driver took me all the way to Limehouse without much comment, though once we entered the East End, he didn’t mind so much sparing a creative grasp of uncivilities for the often problematic traffic.
A girl though I obviously was, he took me for a tart, most like, or a doxy’s brat, and didn’t bother with apologies.
Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles Page 27