“How many more?” Clary shook out her hand and glanced at the wall clock, adorned on either side by watercolors completed by her students at Fisk Academy. After addressing twenty invitations in a swirling round hand style, her wrist throbbed from the tension of striving not to make a single error.
“Are you tired already?” Helen teased. She’d already thanked Clary for leaving Ruthven’s and coming straight to the school for more work. “Luckily, this is the last of the lot. We’ve already sent dozens of invitations ahead of these. Sally has a lovely looping hand, if not nearly as neat and precise as yours.”
“How is Sally?” Since she made her visits in the evenings, Clary missed seeing many of the girls. The few who lodged at the school were sent to bed at seven, though as one of the oldest, Sally was allowed an extra hour to read before turning down her lamp. Of late, Helen reported that Sally had been quiet and depressed, often choosing to retire when the younger girls did.
“We’ve had no more visits from her unwanted suitor, if that’s what you’re asking.” Helen wouldn’t even speak the man’s name around the girls. She’d also gone straight to H Division police station and informed them of his antics.
“Good.” Clary clenched her fingers and stretched them out, noting that nearly every nail was stained with black ink. It made an interesting contrast to the pink still coloring much of her hand. Clenching a fist again, she recalled the moment she’d placed her hand on Gabriel’s. How he’d tensed in response. Perhaps he’d simply been wishing she’d take her paint-splattered self and leave him alone.
“Would you mind ticking off the ones you’ve finished?” Helen laid a handwritten list in front of Clary.
“You’ve invited so many people.” The list covered both sides of the paper, written in Helen’s tight, neat script, and the numbered names included thirty-five invitees.
“Your sister said her ballroom could accommodate forty easily. A few on the list were invited to bring guests.”
After Clary’s mention of the charity ball, Sophia had sent a note offering the use of her Mayfair townhouse’s ballroom. At the prospect of spending an evening with her sister and Grey, Clary was almost looking forward to the event. Almost. She still wasn’t thrilled about the notion of a ball, but the money raised would be put to good use. Even if Kit never agreed to her ladies’ magazine project, they could pour every penny into Fisk Academy. Perhaps even rent a larger space and admit more girls.
Helen pasted penny stamps at the corner of each envelope before passing them back to Clary to tick off the list. As she skimmed names looking for a Lord and Lady Avery, her finger stalled on another. Adamson.
“You sent Mr. Adamson an invitation?”
“It seemed the least I could do.” Helen gazed at Clary over the rim of her spectacles. “He did help you fend off an attack.”
“My croquet mallet would have done quite nicely.” Clary could still see him striding up. A perfectly attired Galahad coming to her rescue. After years at Rothley, she’d almost forgotten how much his excessive masculine beauty irked her. Now another emotion sparked when he was near. A reaction that had little to do with his looks and everything to do with what she felt when he touched her. “I doubt he’ll donate any funds.”
“I didn’t realize you disliked him so.” Helen settled back in her chair and cast Clary one of her bloodhound expressions. “I invited him as a kindness. Do you loathe him so much that you can’t bear to spend an evening in a crowded ballroom with him?”
“I spend every day with him.” And still found herself thinking about him at night. “Maybe he won’t come.” She swept her finger over his name before proceeding down to the lord and lady she sought.
“Well, I hope he does. He seemed dubious about the value of the school. Maybe hearing more about our programs will change his mind.” Helen planned to present information about the school’s successes. She’d even invited the oldest girls to attend and speak of their experiences at Fisk. So far, only Sally had accepted, and she’d been giddily working on sewing herself a ball gown ever since.
“He doesn’t seem to care for charity.” Clary recalled how he’d snapped at her during their cramped carriage ride.
“Well, he should, if he’s pulled himself up from the East End.”
Clary chuckled. “What makes you think that?”
“His accent.” Helen reached for the last few envelopes and carefully applied stamps to each.
“His accent is perfect.”
“Isn’t it though? Too perfect. A bit like mine, wouldn’t you say?” Helen grinned wryly. “I spent years shedding my Cockney dialect. I’m sure he has too, but I could hear it underneath all the polish, yearning to get out.”
Clary took the stamped envelopes and ticked off the final names from the list. “But he speaks of this place as if it’s loathsome, a kind of hell from which no one escapes unscathed.”
“Many of the girls upstairs would agree.” Helen shrugged her slim shoulders. “This corner of London contains some of the worst elements of the city and some of the best people I’ve ever known. It’s why my father insisted on remaining, even after he’d earned his wealth.” She cast her gaze toward the window, but her eyes glazed as if she was staring into the past. “Unfortunately, staying in the East End meant all his vices were near at hand too. Gambling, opium, and all the rest. The poverty of his last days are so vivid in my mind that I can hardly remember the years of plenty.”
Helen’s father had risen up from meager beginnings to become one of the most successful businessmen in the East End. He’d bought up, renovated, and resold numerous properties for a sizable profit. But by the time of his death, he’d lost all his wealth, forcing Helen to seek a scholarship to fund her education.
All at once, Helen burst up from the table, reached across, and clasped Clary’s arm. She pulled her toward the wall and twisted the knob of the single gaslight sconce to cut off the light, casting the front schoolroom into darkness.
“What is it?” Clary clutched Helen’s hand and found her skin clammy and cool.
“Is that him?” Helen whispered. “Is it Keene?”
As her eyes adjusted to the light, Clary could see the shape of a man in the shadows of a shop awning across the lane. He seemed to be watching them, but she couldn’t tell if it was Keene. As pedestrians passed on the pavement in front of their window, Clary blinked, and he was gone.
“I had a nightmare that he came back,” Helen whispered. “I was staying over at the school, and he broke in.” When one of the matron volunteers was ill or couldn’t monitor the girls at night, Helen stayed to keep watch. “In the dream, I’d fallen asleep, and he took us all by surprise.”
“It was just a dream, Helen.” She’d never known her friend to give in to fancy or fright. At Rothley, Clary had been the one up late, reading penny dreadfuls, painting macabre scenes, and attempting to write her own scary stories, while Helen read Euclid and Pythagoras.
“You’re right, of course. But I’ve considered whether we’re doing enough to protect the girls. Nathaniel suggested we hire a guard, at least for evenings.”
“Wouldn’t that make the girls more frightened?” Clary appreciated that Dr. Landau wished to protect Helen and the girls at Fisk Academy, but, thanks to Kit, she also knew how stifling overly protective instincts could be. “Where would we even find someone willing to serve as a guard?”
“Is your Mr. Adamson available?” Helen asked, her voice lilting mischievously. “The girls seemed to like him all right.”
“The same could be said of your Dr. Landau. Mr. Adamson is not my anything.”
“Not true.” Helen released Clary’s hand and crossed the room to retrieve matches from a drawer. When she returned to light the gas sconce again, she added, “He’s your employee, and now, oddly, your manager and mentor.”
“He leaves the mentoring to Mr. Daughtry.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Why would I be?” Damn Helen’s bloodhound instincts. “You saw how domineering he can be. How dismissive.”
“I’m sure there’s more to him.”
There was. He could turn gentle in a heartbeat, touching her as if she was delicate and precious. He could be helpful, instructing her with patience and praise on how to defend herself. And, apparently, he’d come from a part of London he spoke of with loathing.
As if she’d read her mind, Helen added, “Best not to bring up what I said about him coming from the East End. If it’s nothing he’s volunteered, then he may have his reasons for keeping mum.”
“He’s mum about everything. I know nothing about the man.” And she wanted to know. Desperately. “He admitted he has a sister, but he won’t tell me her name. Oh, and he has two friends, a Miss Morgan and her cousin.”
“I hope he brings one of them to the ball. The invitation does include a guest.”
“Perhaps.” Would he bring the young woman who’d visited him at the office and blushed every time he looked her way?
If nothing else, Clary would have a good view. She and Helen had already decided where to place their chairs in the back of the Stanhope ballroom to oversee the festivities.
“She’ll be eager to see you, of that I’ve no doubt.” Sara blew into her cupped hands to warm them. While the sun had managed to break through the clouds midday, the evening had turned cold, and London’s hansom cabs offered meager shelter from the elements.
“You’ve forgotten your gloves again.” Gabe removed his own and passed them to his sister. A lifetime of counting gloves as a luxury meant that Sara often left hers behind. But they were good for hiding the scars on his knuckles, so Gabe rarely forgot his pair.
“Miss Morgan, I mean.”
“I know who you meant.” His sister was tenacious but rarely subtle.
“You don’t mention her much.”
Unfortunately, Sara took his failure to speak of Miss Morgan as a sign of his determination to avoid marriage. In fact, it was that Jane Morgan didn’t interest him in that way. Though he had no interest in admitting to his sister which woman did.
“Perhaps we should stop accepting every invitation we receive from Jane Morgan.”
She pivoted to face him in the carriage’s close confines. “She’s one of few friends we have. Thomas’s family is scattered around the countryside. Jane Morgan may very well turn out to be the only guest at our wedding.”
“You’re right, of course.” Mercy, he was a selfish bastard. Because of the past, the secrets he needed to keep, he’d narrowed their lives to a few select interactions with people he believed he could trust. And it was a very short list. Miss Morgan and her father, when he was alive, and perhaps the Ruthvens and Thomas Tidwell, Sara’s betrothed. And, of course, Daughtry and his wife. Gabe and Sara joined the couple for supper at the pub around the corner from Ruthven’s once in a while.
She nudged him with her elbow and grinned. “Wish I had a sixpence for every time you tell me I’m right.” Shifting to reach into the pocket of her coat, she gazed over at him, wide-eyed, and added, “Seeing as how you’ve decided to accept all of Miss Morgan’s invitations, perhaps you should extend one to her in return.”
The envelope she placed in his hand had been sliced open, and the thick paper was covered with a ridiculously fancy script, full of useless loops and swirls. Among the decorative handwriting, he noted his name and their old address.
“You didn’t go back, did you?” They’d agreed to leave without notice, though they paid their landlord an additional sum to tell no one where they’d gone. So far, there’d been no more sightings of Rigg, and Sara was increasingly convinced she may have been mistaken in her identification of the man she saw.
“Not at all. Remember our neighbor, Mrs. Honeychurch? She dropped it by.” Her voice rose in excitement. “She apologized for opening the envelope. Said she didn’t notice your name until after. Soon as I saw that fancy hand, I thought perhaps you’d been summoned by the queen.”
Gabe pressed a thumb to the spot where tiny fists were pummeling behind his brow. “You told Mrs. Honeychurch our new address?”
Sara quieted for a moment. “You have to trust some folks, Gabe. Not everyone is a threat.”
His bitter chuckle echoed off the hansom’s interior. “And on that count, we’ll never agree.”
“It’s an invitation to a ball.” Her tone dipped low as a whisper. “I thought perhaps you could ask Miss Morgan to accompany you.”
“I don’t go to balls.” Gabe slid the invite free of its envelope and nearly dropped the creamy square. It was the charity ball Clary Ruthven had mentioned. Which meant she’d be in attendance. He pressed the paper so hard, it began to ripple in his fingers.
“No, but this could be your first ball.”
“I don’t own proper clothes, nor do I know how to dance.”
“You can rent proper togs, and dancing isn’t difficult.” Sara nudged his shoulder. “It would be an excellent opportunity to become better acquainted with the young lady.”
“Not a good idea.” The ache in his forehead sharpened. He was quickly losing patience with his sister’s determination to pair him off with Jane Morgan. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the young lady dominating his thoughts.
“You’re not giving the girl a chance.” She folded her arms. A move that, as a child, had often spurred him to relent. Because Sara had been his only ally. The only one who cared whether he lived or died.
Gabe still hated disappointing his sister.
“If I invite her, she’ll expect more than I’m willing to offer.” According to the Ruthven Rules etiquette books, an invitation to a ball was a sure sign of courtship. He’d read every word of the damned book when he’d taken his role at Ruthven’s. The rules had seemed comical, but they’d taught him where the boundary lines were. What was expected of honorable men.
He’d absorbed enough to know there was no honor in giving false hope to a baronet’s daughter.
“Now, yes, but perhaps soon—”
“No, Sara. I will never wish to marry Jane Morgan.” He’d always known the fact and wasn’t sure why he’d held back from confessing the truth to Sara so bluntly. “She and I wouldn’t suit.” Every time he looked at the girl, she became a blushing bundle of nerves. Hardly the makings of a happy marriage.
Of course, imagining Clarissa Ruthven reacting to him in the same overheated way held a disturbing appeal.
“Then I fear she will never marry.” Sara turned her head to watch the other carriages passing, pedestrians making their way along the gaslit streets. “She’s the sort of girl men don’t notice. Quiet and shy. I doubt she receives many invitations to accompany gentlemen to balls.”
Miss Morgan was far too well bred and connected to turn spinster. From what he knew of her, she was kind and gently mannered. Some man would find that appealing.
Gabe already spent his days playing a role, controlling his impulses, attempting to be a proper, buttoned-down man of business. Marrying Jane Morgan would complete the picture. Gain him valuable social connections. He knew all the reasons he should marry the young woman. But he craved something in his life that was real. The woman he married would damn well spark something in him beyond practical impulses and put-on manners.
“Why don’t you attend the ball with me? You’ve never been to one.”
“Don’t be barmy.” Sara cuffed him on the leg. “I wouldn’t know which foot to put where, but I’ll wager Miss Morgan does. Ask her, Gabe. I’m not insisting you marry the girl, but give her an evening out and a turn or two around the dance floor.”
He wasn’t going to win. He rarely did when his sister set her mind on something.
While he mulled all his possible rejoinders and all Sara’s arguments to knock them down, the carriage stopped along the pavement in front of the Morgan’s modest red-brick home in Hampstead.
“I’ll ask her,” he finally said.
Sara beamed beside him.
“But I will make clear the invitation is extended out of friendship, nothing more.” Which sounded much easier said than done. Hell, he didn’t like disappointing anyone.
After jumping from the carriage, he held out a hand to assist Sara down.
“Of course you will,” she said, in a way that made him doubt she believed him about his lack of interest in Jane Morgan.
“Sara,” he said in a warning tone, “she is not the young lady I wish to marry.”
“Oh?” Halfway to the Morgans’ front door, she tugged his arm to pull him to a stop. “Then there’s another young lady?” She wore one of the knowing smiles he remembered from their youth. Her smiles had been in short supply of late, and he liked seeing her eyes alight with mischief.
“I never said anything of the kind.” There was an odd catch in his throat that his cunning sister wouldn’t fail to notice. He knew better than to hide anything from her.
“No, Gabe, you didn’t say,” she said as they continued to the Morgans’ front stoop. “You didn’t have to.”