by C. J. Archer
"Patience is the only one who put herself about," Willie said. "Not the other two."
"It won't matter. The scandal will stick to all of them. At least for long enough to ruin their chances of making swift and good marriages."
Willie scoffed. "I don't believe it."
"Why can't one of them make a good marriage?" Duke asked. "The middle one's got a few matches missing from the box, but the youngest, Hope, ain't so bad. She's pretty, too. Some lord or other could fall in love with her."
"How, when she won't be invited anywhere?" Miss Glass asked. "She won't get to meet any suitable gentlemen, closeted within the walls of Rycroft House. Besides, she's not that easy to love. Believe me, I tried. None of the girls are."
I expected Matt to admonish her for being unkind, but he remained silent. Too silent. I hazarded a glance at him only to see him watching me, a small frown forming a line between his brows.
Miss Glass emitted a small sigh. "What gentleman of quality will love a damaged girl?" she murmured.
"This is absurd," Matt said. "I am not marrying one of my cousins. I'm meeting Payne and resolving this once and for all."
"Aye, with your death," Duke muttered. "That's the only thing that'll satisfy him."
"I don't want to hear any more about it. Is that clear?"
Duke and Cyclops stormed out, shaking their heads. Miss Glass touched her fingers to her temple and declared herself too tired to discuss it anymore. She followed them out.
"I'll come with you," I said.
"India, wait," Matt said. "Stay a few minutes."
"I'd rather not."
"Please."
How could I refuse when he injected so much vulnerability into that one word? I waited as Willie gave him a final dressing down over the subject of him meeting Payne then left too. She shut the door. I wished she hadn't.
"Don't try to sweet talk your way out of this, Matt," I said as he moved toward me. "I'm still angry with you." He drew closer, his gaze intense beneath heavy lids. I backed up against a chair. "Surely you must see how foolish it is to meet with Payne. He's not going to—"
He touched a finger to my lips. "I meant it when I said I don't want to discuss it."
That simply wasn't being fair. He had no right to cut me off from voicing my opinion a second or third time. I pushed his finger away and stamped my hands on my hips. "Then why did you ask me to remain here? And do not say to kiss me. I am not kissing you. Either we talk or I leave."
"Very well." His mouth flicked up on one side. "You're beautiful when you're angry."
I crossed my arms. "Is that it? Are you done?"
"Not in the least." He backed away and indicated I should sit before doing so himself. The distance between us allowed me to catch my breath but my nerves remained brittle. "I want you to know, without a shadow of doubt, that I intend to marry you if you'll have me. No matter what my aunt says, I will not be marrying Patience, Charity or Hope. Only you."
I simply stared at him. After a moment, I realized my mouth was ajar and closed it. "Now is not the time," I said, rising. "Considering Sheriff Payne might kill you, you won't be marrying anyone. Let's see if you live, first."
I regretted my quip the moment I said it. How could I be so thoughtless? If Payne didn't kill Matt there was a good chance he'd die anyway if we couldn't fix his watch.
"You're right," he said. "And yet I wanted you to know my feelings."
"I am aware of your feelings," I murmured, my face heating.
"Are you?" He crouched before me. "Because sometimes I don't think you understand the depth of them. India, I—"
"No, Matt. Please. We agreed to leave this discussion until after you're better."
"I've decided I can't wait for then. I want you to know now. I want to kiss you now. I want to have you now."
I blinked at him.
He smiled and brushed the hair off my forehead. The sweet gesture almost undid me. I felt the sob rise in my throat and swallowed it down.
"But I'll wait for that," he said. "The kissing, however…"
I put a hand to his chest. "There will be no kissing. There will be no more suggestion of anything between us, including marriage."
He sighed. "Until after I am better, yes, I know and agree."
"No, Matt." I pushed myself up and strode to the door, away from him. "Enough pretending. The conversation tonight has only driven home to me how much you and I cannot be together."
He rose too, slowly, and regarded me levelly. "Because I'm the Rycroft heir? That's the reason for your rejection of me? Come now, India, you know that means nothing to me. I don't care if you're a kitchen maid. I've fallen in love with you."
My heart lurched painfully in my chest. I pressed a hand to my stomach and concentrated on what I had to say and not the curious look in his eyes and the vein throbbing in his throat. It was not time to give in to my desires, but time to be a sensible adult and lay out the reasons why I couldn't marry him.
"I don't want a life where the people I see every day consider me unworthy," I said.
"They won't."
"Hear me out. I finally feel as though I'm standing on my own two feet, out of the shadow of my father, and even of you. And I like it. I like being in control of my life, knowing my future is an open book, waiting for me to write the words. Me, Matt, not a father or husband, or even sons." A lump rose in my throat at that. I wasn't just giving up Matt but any future children I may have had with him. "Marrying you will see that all disappear. Not because you want it to be that way, but just because it will. That's the way of the world. I will be your wife, not me anymore. Not my own person."
"That's not true. Many married women make their own mark on the world. I'm not going to imprison you. I don't want you to not be yourself. Marrying me won't be the end of your freedom, India. It'll simply mark the beginning of a new phase."
I blinked back the tears threatening to well. He was right; I knew he would never smother me if we married. Yet I forged on. I didn't really know why, when every argument I threw at him was as thin as paper and my resolve crumbled with every word.
"Your own family will treat me as inferior," I went on. "They'll think I am marrying you for your money and title. It will drive a wedge between us, and I'll lose Miss Glass's friendship."
His face softened. He took a few steps toward me and skimmed his thumb down my cheek. "Aunt Letitia will come around. She likes you more than she likes her friends. If they want to make an issue of it then she'll refuse to see them. As to Uncle Richard and Aunt Beatrice, I simply don't care what they think, and I doubt Aunt Letitia does either."
My breaths came in short, sharp bursts and my skin felt hot, tight. I shouldn't allow him to seduce me with words. Shouldn't want him to seduce me. Yet his deep, rumbling voice wrapped around me, and I couldn't get free.
"They'll be determined for you to marry Patience if Lord Cox breaks the engagement," I said, feeling sick at the thought of him marrying anyone but me.
"Don't worry about that. I'll think of something, if it comes to pass."
A bubble of nervous laughter escaped. "You have an answer for everything."
"Almost." He searched my eyes then his gaze fell to my mouth. "Almost." He kissed me lightly on the lips then suddenly pulled away.
I grasped the back of a chair for balance and blinked at him. He stood by the door, a wicked smile on his lips and heat in his gaze.
"I told you I'd wait to have you," he said, thickly. "So you'd better go."
I slipped past him and hurried up to my room, not entirely sure if I'd accepted his proposal of marriage—or if he'd even offered one. I wasn't entirely sure of anything anymore, except that we needed to fix his watch soon and resolve what lay between us, one way or another—whichever way that may be.
Chapter 7
Abigail Pilcher and her supervisor weren't keen for her to take a short break when Matt and I showed up at the workroom of Peter Robinson’s Oxford Street shop. Matt had to slip the supervi
sor some money and use all his charm on Abigail before she agreed.
We left the workroom and its dozen seamstresses bent over their noisy sewing machines, making our way out through the shop and into the street. The day had already begun to warm, and the dense early morning traffic had thinned to the usual mid-morning bustle.
"You're the American what asked about me yesterday," Abigail said, a wary eye on Matt.
"That was my friend. I'm Matthew Glass, and this is Miss Steele, my…friend."
My face heated, despite the innocuous description. Matt and I had not spoken of the previous evening's conversation. There was simply nothing more to say. But it made the walk to Oxford Street a little awkward.
"What do you want?" Abigail asked. She was a sturdy woman, like me, although her girth was wider and her cheeks as round and rosy as apples. The rosiness began to fade the longer we remained out of the stuffy workroom. Despite the ravages of a difficult life imprinted on her face, she wasn't old. She must have been quite young when she left the convent.
"I want to buy you and Miss Steele gelati." Matt indicated the brightly painted cart where a man with a heavy Italian accent was trying to drum up business to little avail.
"I can't be gone too long," Abigail said, glancing back at the shop as a customer left, a parcel under her arm.
"Then you'll have to eat your ice cream quickly." Matt spoke to the seller in a language I assumed was Italian. The seller beamed and the two of them fell into a genial conversation as the seller filled two glasses with the confection stored in the iced depths of his cart.
Matt returned and handed a glass and spoon to each of us. Abigail accepted hers with an even warier gaze. I didn't blame her for her caution; I knew how odd it felt to have a gentleman suddenly pay you a lot of attention.
"We have some questions for you about your time at the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart," Matt said.
Abigail stopped licking her spoon and stared wide-eyed at Matt. She removed the spoon slowly from her mouth. "How do you know I was there?"
"Sister Margaret told us. She says you were friends."
Abigail's shoulders relaxed and a wistful smile touched her lips. "She remembers me?"
"She not only remembers you but she misses you," I said. "She was sorry you left."
"I never told her why." Abigail toyed with her ice cream. "I couldn't."
"We know why," I said gently. "We know all about Antony."
Her head snapped up. "How?"
"We're investigators. Finding out things is what we do. For example, we know you're very proud of your son." It was a guess but not a very difficult one. Most women would be proud of a son who'd been born in a filthy Bermondsey tenement and risen to become an importer for a growing business enterprise.
She smiled. "I am. I miss him when he's away, but he's got to make his own way in the world." She scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and popped it into her mouth. "So that's what you want? To know who Antony's father is?"
"We already know," Matt said.
She went very still. "He told you?"
"Not in so many words. But it was easy to put the pieces together and see Father Antonio's reaction when we spoke to him about it."
She lowered her gaze. "So you know my shame."
"It's not yours," I said quickly. "He took advantage of your naivety and his position."
"It wasn't like that. I was naive, yes, but he and I…" She huffed out a half-laugh. "I like to think he loved me but loved God more."
"I think he did love you," I said gently. "Perhaps still does. We won't tell anyone your secret, Miss Pilcher. That's not why we're here. We want to ask if you know why Mother Alfreda disappeared."
She shrugged. "No. Why would I?"
"Did she leave the convent before or after you?" Matt asked.
"About a week before."
"Do you think she left of her own accord or did something happen to her?"
She licked ice cream off her lower lip as she thought. "I don't rightly know. Her disappearance came as a shock, I'll tell you. None of us knew what to think. Seems strange she'd just up and leave without a word, but if she didn't…well, it means something happened to her, don't it. Something happened to her right inside those convent walls." She smirked as she scooped out more ice cream. "Maybe one of them done her in. Can't blame 'em. She was a dragon."
"Any ideas who might have…done her in?"
"Could be anyone. I had good reason, but it weren't me, if that's what you're thinking."
"We weren't," I assured her. "Was she cruel to you after learning of your plight?"
She nodded. "Not just after. She hated me all along. Sister Margaret said it was because I was too pretty and spirited. I don't rightly know, but Mother Alfreda didn't like me before, and she thought even less of me when she learned I was with child. She called me all sorts of terrible things. I didn't think I'd hear words like that inside those walls. It got worse because I wouldn't give her the father's name."
"She asked you to leave?"
"No, that were the new mother superior what done that. Mother Frances."
"She took over the role immediately?" I asked.
"She couldn't wait. She'd been eyeing off that office for years, so the older nuns said. Apparently she'd wanted to become mother superior before but missed out and they gave it to Mother Alfreda. Once she was gone, the next in line was Sister Frances. She was a bitter, nasty old thing too. Don't s'pose she's dead now?"
"No," I said.
"Pity."
"What about the other nuns?" Matt asked. "Did any of them have reason to dislike Mother Alfreda?"
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "There was always something. One sister complains of working too hard, another thinks she should be allowed to keep a book given to her by her family, that sort of thing. Just petty problems."
No reason to "do her in," as Abigail put it. Only Mother Frances had reason enough—if a power struggle could be considered a good reason. It may have been the motive for countless murders of political rivals over the centuries but not within convents.
"What do you know about the missing babies?" Matt asked.
She slowly lowered the spoon she'd been licking to the empty bowl and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "You know about them?"
"Yes. As do you."
She nodded. "Sister Clare told me. She's the mother superior's assistant and kept the records. She told me one day that a baby had disappeared and then another a short time later. Their records were also missing."
"Was one of the babies named Phineas Millroy?"
"I don't know."
"Did you ever see either of the babies?" I asked. "Touch them?"
She frowned. "Why?"
I drew in a deep breath to steel myself then stepped closer to her. "Because you're a magician," I said quietly, "and so was—is—Phineas Millroy. We thought perhaps you might be able to somehow identify the magic in him."
She looked from me to Matt then back to me again. "I don't know what you're saying."
"Yes, you do. I'm also a magician, Miss Pilcher."
"Don't be scared," Matt assured her. "We just want answers, nothing more. We don't care about your magical connection to silk."
Her throat jumped with her hard swallow. "What kind of magic do you do, Miss Steele?"
"Watches," I said. "I can make them run on time. You can work silk easily, can't you?"
"Quick and easy," she said with a hint of pride. "I can make a dress in half the time it takes two girls. I can make the prettiest, most delicate flowers and decorations. I even made a dress for a princess, last year. It were the loveliest thing you ever saw, all golden yellow with butterflies flitting between flowers on the skirt. Mr. Robinson himself says I might get another royal commission soon. Imagine that, eh? Me, thrown out of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart for being a bad girl, making dresses for princesses. I bet Sister Margeret'll be tickled. You'll tell her for me, won't you?"
"Of course,"
I said with a smile, "but I thought you were friends."
"We were, in a way. Friends but rivals too." She leaned forward and whispered, "She had an eye for Father Antonio too. We used to make up silly stories about him admiring our bright eyes and taking a fancy to us. They started as just girlish fantasy but when he took notice of me for real, she stopped being so friendly to me."
Matt cleared his throat. "Back to the missing babies," he said. "You say Sister Clare told you they'd disappeared."
She nodded. "I used to help her in the office, sometimes. She was new to the assistant position then, and the records were in poor order. I worked with her to get them right, and that's when she told me. I saw one of the babies in the nursery but I can't recall if I touched him. Anyway, you can't feel magic in another magician, Miss Steele, only in what they work on. You should know that."
"I do," I said on a sigh. "I suppose I was just clutching at straws, wondering if perhaps the baby had touched someone and—" I cut myself off before revealing that Phineas potentially had the power to heal. "Anyway, he was just a baby. If he did possess magic, he couldn't have practiced it without speaking a spell."
"And babies don't talk." She handed the empty glass and spoon to Matt. "I better get back."
"Of course," Matt said, taking my glass too.
"One last question," I said. "Did anyone at the convent know about your magic?"
"No. I kept that part of me hidden. The church don't look kindly on magic, Miss Steele. Mark my words, some of 'em think the devil's in us magicians. Be sure and keep it a secret from any religious folk."
"I will," I assured her. "But are you saying that you never worked with silk while you were a nun?"
"Silk ain't common in a convent, but there was one time. A silk handkerchief were donated by a toff lady. We got donations from time to time that we sold in our little shop for extra money. Well, the handkerchief were a bit frayed so I offered to fix it up all nice to sell." Her face took on a glowing reverence, as if recalling a divine experience. "It were a fine piece and I loved feeling it. It had been an age since I'd touched silk. I knew about my magic but I didn't think I'd miss silk until I could no longer feel it. I missed it so much that I wasn't all that upset when the reverend mother threw me out. I just wanted to work with silk again, see. But no one at the convent knew about my magic. No one saw me fix that handkerchief, and no one there could even recognize magic heat since they were all artless."