by Shana Galen
Dane didn’t reach for the book. “Why are you still here, Marlowe?”
She shook her head, looked over her shoulder at the street. Dane imagined they were making quite a scene for the neighbors passing by. The Earl of Dane standing on his stoop, talking with a beautiful young woman. Oh, the rumors would fly. The gossips would have him married by the end of the day.
But he didn’t care. He held out his arm. “Fancy a walk?”
Her brows rose. “A walk? To where?”
“Just a walk.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “Because the sun is out and the day is mild and we might as well enjoy it.”
“So you walk as a diversion?”
“I am no great walker, but many do, yes. Come along. You might enjoy it.” He offered his arm, and she merely blinked at it. With a sigh, Dane took her hand and placed it on the crook of his elbow. Keeping his hand on hers, he led her from the stoop. Neither of them were wearing gloves. She didn’t own a pair, and he hadn’t anticipated walking, and had left his inside. He might have paused to retrieve them, but by then, Marlowe could have been halfway back to St. Giles. So it was that his flesh grazed hers rather intimately.
Her hand was small, which he supposed was an advantage for a pickpocket, and rough. He had not held many ladies’ hands, but the few he’d held were usually plump and soft. Marlowe’s hand was long, thin, and scarred with scratches, calluses, and even a burn mark. Her nails were blunt but clean—thanks to her bath—and despite the abuse her hands had obviously endured, they were rather elegant. It was her long fingers, which would have been perfect for playing the pianoforte or drawing—two lady’s accomplishments she had probably never even considered, much less attempted.
Dane had the ungentlemanly urge to glide his hand from hers up to her dainty wrist and then to her pale forearm. He wondered if the skin was softer there. He remembered soft skin from last night when she’d been in his bed. Better not to think of that at the moment. It wouldn’t be repeated, and if she was Lady Elizabeth, it had better never be mentioned.
He’d turned her unconsciously toward the park at Berkeley Square, and as they neared the green area, he realized this path had probably been a mistake. He would undoubtedly meet with acquaintances, and how was he to introduce Marlowe? But he had chosen his path now, and perhaps it was too early for many of the ton to be out and about except on social calls.
“What do you”—she began and then paused—“what does one do on a walk?”
He smiled. She was trying to mimic her betters, and he found that strangely endearing. She already had a good grasp on the accent, almost as though she’d been born speaking well and had merely laid the ability aside. Or perhaps she had cultivated the accent in order to further some scheme or other. How could he know?
“One enjoys the fresh air.”
She looked up at him, her expression incredulous. “The smell of horse s—manure and coal fires?”
He grinned. “Very well, fresh air might be enjoyed only in the country. One day I will take you to walk or ride in Hyde Park. There are paths on which one forgets he is even in a city.” Why was he saying this? Acting as though their acquaintance would continue?
“I’ve been to Hyde Park.”
“Yes, but this time you would leave without having filled your pockets with others’ valuables.”
She shrugged, not appearing reprimanded in the least. “What else does one do on a walk?”
He thought for a moment, surprised he was still having to resist the urge to slide his hand up her arm. “Oh, one usually discusses the weather.”
She looked at the sky. “Why? You can see it as well as I can.”
“That’s not the point. Here, I’ll begin. What do you think of this sunny weather we’re having?”
She cut her gaze to him. Her expression was one of extreme patience. She quite obviously thought he was daft. “It’s…sunny.”
“Yes, a welcome change, as it’s been so dreary the last few days.” Even he was impressed by that statement. He had never waxed so eloquent on the weather.
“What do you care if it’s dreary? You don’t have to be out in it.” Her statement was so unexpected, Dane burst out laughing. It was probably quite true from her view. He had never considered that the lower classes might think of the weather quite differently than he and his ilk. To him, it was a banal topic. To them, extensive rain or cold might be more than just an inconvenience. What did people who could not afford coal do in winter?
They’d paused on the edge of the grass at Berkeley Square, where several governesses and nannies were out and about with their young charges. Dane released Marlowe’s arm and turned to her. “I like you, Marlowe.” And he did. Anyone who disdained talk of the weather could not be all bad.
Her eyes, blue like the clear sky today, narrowed at his comment. “What do you want?”
He grinned. “Always suspicious. Very well. I want to know why you were still sitting in front of my town house.”
She didn’t answer, merely crossed her arms over her bosom and stared at the park.
“You were free to go,” he said. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
She nodded. “It was. I mean, it is.”
“Then why are you still here? Do you want Mrs. Worthing to make you a lunch to take along?”
She turned toward him, eyes wide. “Would she?”
He laughed. “If that’s what you’re waiting for.”
“Humph.” She blew out a breath. “You’re certainly in a hurry to be rid of me.”
“Not at all. In fact, I want you to stay.” Had he really just said that? He had, and he’d even meant it. Life had been far more interesting with Marlowe in it. If he’d been thinking as an earl ought, he would have had Crawford shove her off the stoop. She didn’t belong in Mayfair. She didn’t belong in his home. Despite all appearances, she was still a thief, a criminal. She might turn out to be Lady Elizabeth, but she might not. That was not really his concern.
But he wasn’t thinking as a proper earl. He was thinking as a man, a man who was suffering acute ennui from all of his proper engagements. A man who still enjoyed the company of a beautiful and…vivacious—that was a good way to put it—woman.
She was staring at him, her expression bewildered. “Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Nefarious ones, I’m sure.”
He raised his brows. “That’s an impressive word. I cannot say it has been used to describe me very often, if ever.” He turned to her. “Answer the question, Marlowe, why were you still on my stoop?”
She sighed, and her shoulders slumped, making her look so small and fragile. Dane clasped his hands together to keep from touching her, from pulling her to him for a comforting embrace.
“I’d be a fool to leave,” she said finally, though he doubted that was what she’d been thinking. “Why go back to the flash ken when I can live it up with the swells?”
“Why, indeed? You said something about Satin coming for you.”
A shadow crossed her face, but she blinked it away. “I can handle Satin. Besides, how would he ever recognize me, looking like this?”
“True.”
A long silence descended. He didn’t break it, merely watched the children playing a game of tag. Finally, she said quietly, “I just thought that maybe there was a chance. And if there was a chance I was—I am this Lady Elizabeth—I should stick around and see it through.”
“So you’re staying?”
“I…” She looked up at him and frowned. Now what was bothering her? She had the most expressive face. “If I can, that is.”
Ah, she did not like asking him. He imagined she rarely asked anyone for anything. He might have made it difficult for her. Instead, he said, “Shall we continue to introduce you as a distant cousin?”
“I don’t even know what
that means.”
“And you’re willing to attend the Duchess of Abingdon’s ball?”
“Is your head cracked? I can’t go to a ball!”
“If you stay, you’ll have to. My mother will not allow it to be known that she’s been sheltering one of the…lower order in our house.” He also could not allow that, even if he was starting to like her.
“Then I should stay back, where there’s no chance I embarrass everyone with my lower order behavior.”
“But what you do not understand, Marlowe, is that my mother’s sole objective in life is to marry my sister to a wealthy, honorable family. That won’t be accomplished by annoying the Duchess of Abingdon. If you stay, I fear you’ll have to go to the ball. Susanna and I will keep you out of trouble, and you can complain of a megrim so we must depart early.”
Marlowe was watching the children playing now too, and he wondered if she’d even heard him. The children had a ball, and one boy was kicking it while a little girl chased him. “Come on!” the boy yelled, and Marlowe flinched, almost as though she had been struck.
“What is it?” he asked, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She stared at the boy and the ball. “Marlowe?” He reached out and touched her arm. It was ice cold. She drew her arm back and stared at him, her eyes not seeing him. “What the devil? Marlowe, what is it?”
“I’m fine. I-it’s nothing.”
But it was not nothing. She was shaking like a leaf.
“I have to go.”
He took her arm before she could bolt, and directed her toward Gunther’s Ice House, which was just across the way. “Let’s sit down.”
For a few moments, she allowed him to lead her, and then she withdrew her arm and looked about. “Where are you taking me?”
“Gunther’s.” He gestured to the small shop nearby.
“It doesn’t look open.”
“They will open it for me.”
“Fine.” She looked back over her shoulder, studying the children a last time before she allowed him to lead her away. Dane didn’t know what concerned him more—the haunted look on her face or the fact that she didn’t protest when he took her arm. Something told him life with Marlowe was about to become even more interesting.
Eight
Several minutes had passed before Marlowe realized where she was. When she did, she looked around and blinked at the small, clean shop, the concerned clerk wringing his hands nearby, and the little table where she’d been seated.
“—I asked if you wanted an ice,” Dane was saying. She blinked up at him. The look on his face indicated he had probably asked her this question once, if not twice already. Why would she want ice? “It’s food,” Dane said.
“Oh, in that case, yes, please.”
He spoke to the clerk, and she looked around again, seeing the green grass of the park through the windows. Something about that boy and the ball had been so familiar—and oddly terrifying. She was still shaking, and she did not understand it.
Dane sat across from her, looking elegant and at ease. This was his world, and he moved in it with enviable confidence. He would have moved in her world with that same confidence. Like Satin, he was a born leader. It seemed strange that she should see him thus, since she had always associated leadership with brute strength and intimidation. Satin was obeyed because the rogues were too scared to disobey. Dane was not violent—not from what she’d witnessed—and he still commanded respect. Was it the blunt in his pocket? The power in the title he’d been born with? Or something else? How much of his confidence was given to him by God and how much from growing up as the heir to a title?
The clerk returned with two small bowls of colored ice. She looked at hers then watched as Dane lifted his spoon and brought a portion to his mouth. “Have you never had an ice before?”
She shook her head.
He motioned to her cup with his spoon. “Try it. It’s most refreshing, especially on a warm day.”
Eat ice? What else would these swells think of? She’d eaten plenty of ice—melted it over meager fires for drinking water, had it stuffed in her mouth during scuffles with another cub, woke up with a thin layer of it on her threadbare blanket. She was no lover of ice. But she had never eaten colored ice, and so she dipped her spoon in and tasted it. Her eyes widened. “It’s sweet,” she said.
Dane nodded. “Strawberry.”
She’d stolen a handful of strawberries once and gobbled them down eagerly. They had not tasted like this.
“Slow down, or your head will ache,” Dane said. “If you want another when you’ve finished, I’ll buy you one, though I can’t think where you would put it.”
Marlowe continued shoveling ice into her mouth, but Dane had a point. She was uncomfortably full. It was a strange and slightly unpleasant feeling. She never thought she would dislike being full.
“What was troubling you in the park?” he asked, setting his spoon aside and watching her eat. She wondered if he was simply going to allow his food to go to waste.
Marlowe shrugged. “Just someone walking over my grave, I guess.”
“Is that all?” Dane frowned. “You were trembling and ice cold.”
She finished her ice and stared at his bowl, which had been abandoned. Dane shook his head and pushed it toward her. “You are going to make yourself sick.”
Marlowe spooned more ice into her mouth. She was definitely cold now, but the ice was so sweet, she could not seem to stop eating it. And there were worse things to be sick from than eating too much. She heard the children calling one another outside again, the boy yelling, “Come on!” and she glanced at Dane.
“There was something familiar about that boy.”
“You can’t know him.”
“I’ve never seen him before. I can’t explain it, but as I watched him play with that little girl, I felt as though I had seen it all before.”
“Perhaps it reminded you of when you played as a child.”
She stared at him. “I never played. We worked for our keep.”
Dane sat back. “That sounds like a dreary childhood.”
“It was better than some. Have you ever walked through St. Giles? Walked through Seven Dials?”
“Of course. I went there a time or two in my youth.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Ah, yes. A visit to the rookeries for the bored young gentleman. It’s not quite so entertaining when you live there and you watch the children starve on the streets. You watch a woman sit in her dirty doorway, two filthy brats hanging on her, and another in her belly. Her eyes are empty because she can’t feed the two she’s got. How’s she going to feed another? There’s never enough food, and always too much to drink, and everywhere you look, there’s dirt and cold and someone’s brat sniveling.”
He blinked at her. “I never thought of it like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Your world is clean and warm and filled with”—she gestured to the empty bowls—“ices. That’s not my world.”
“Don’t you think it could be? Perhaps watching that boy and girl play affected you because you once played like that. Before you were taken.”
She shivered. “If that’s true—and I’m not saying it is—but if it is, then where do I belong?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Is your position something you were born into, or were you raised to be who you are? Even if I was born Lady Elizabeth, I was raised—if you can call it that—to be Marlowe.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “That’s an interesting question.”
“Interesting how?”
“Because I didn’t expect you to say it.”
She scowled at him, brows coming together. “You may not believe it, but I have a mind. I’m a person just like you.”
He waved a hand as though to brush the comment aside. “Very well, let’s discuss philosophy. I
believe it was Rousseau who said, ‘We do not know what our nature permits us to be.’”
“Which means what?”
He smiled. “Since we’re speaking of philosophy, I’ll play tutor and make you answer that question yourself. What does it mean?”
She thought for a long moment. “That I can be anything.”
He nodded. “Very good.”
She went on. “It also means rich young nobs shouldn’t go into the rookeries thinking they’re better than those who live there, because the nobs somehow deserve their place, while we deserve ours.”
“Touché.”
“No one deserves to live like that,” she said. “Not even a dog.”
He rose and held out his hand. She looked at it. “I don’t need help.”
“Allow me this small courtesy.” If he was offering a courtesy, maybe she’d said something that got through to him.
She put her hand in his and allowed him to help her rise. His hand was so large it completely covered hers. She had the oddest sensation that she was safe with him. Her instincts must have been off, because she wasn’t safe at all. She couldn’t trust him, any more than she could trust any of these swells. She could trust Gideon and the Covent Garden Cubs. That was all. She had to remember that.
He led her back into the sunlight, and they strolled along the park again, toward his town house. It felt odd to watch people walk by her and not to mark them. Not that she didn’t evaluate them. That man walking briskly was in such a hurry that she could bump into him, do a dive, and he’d probably keep right on walking. That woman walking two yapping dogs was another easy bubble. Marlowe could have riled the dogs and stalled her up, then done the trick. The woman might not have much blunt in her reticule, but she probably had a wipe in there. There was a market for silk handkerchiefs, and dolly shops who’d buy them, no questions asked.
For once Dane wasn’t going on about the weather, and she could study the people she passed, and the buildings. She had the knack of never being lost. She always knew which direction pointed to Seven Dials, but she rarely took the time to look about her and simply enjoy the surroundings. They walked on, along a busy street, and she saw the turn to the block where Derring House was located just up ahead. That street was quieter, the homes larger and more stately. But as they neared the turn, her back prickled and her scalp crawled. She must have stiffened, because Dane said, “What’s wrong?”