.
Natalia followed her silly cat around the corner and then froze once she reached the foyer. But the young girl couldn’t stay motionless for long. “Liam!”
He was prepared by the time she reached him and jumped into his arms. Their embrace was long, and she strained to bury herself against him.
“Dad told you to stop hugging our guest,” Lorenzo told her. He’d begun acting as though he were her chaperone since he turned nine last month. “You’re old enough to know better now.”
Natalia ignored him and clung to William’s shirt. She liked hugging people. She hugged all of Julius’ friends when she saw them. They always got along in the beginning, but then they’d take Lorenzo away to play ‘boy games’ and she’d be left alone.
But Liam was different.
She pulled away, but only so she could look at him. She thought him shiny like a coin. His skin was so gold, and his eyes were like evergreen trees. He was grinning down at her. Was he really happy to see her? She worried that sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes, he truly wanted to play with the boys and just wanted her to leave him alone.
That thought always made her angry.
He touched her hair. “Do you want to play?”
She smiled, content once again. “Oh, yes! Yes! Yes!”
Another person came to the door.
“Julie!” She jumped on her cousin and kissed his cheek.
Julius returned the hug but set her away much quicker than William had. “Tally Cat.” Natalia thought him shiny as well, but in a different way. He was so pale, like the flames her mother told her not to touch when she reached inside lamps.
But his shiny was not as shiny as William’s. Julius looked just like Lorenzo in every way.
Julius turned to Lorenzo then. “We’re playing rounders. You can play. We need a tenth person. Emmett couldn’t come.”
Natalia had never met Emmett, though the other boys spoke of him all the time. His dad was not nice, it seemed.
“William isn’t coming,” Lorenzo told his cousin. The light from the open door turned his hair nearly white.
“Not until Natalia can come,” William said, taking her hand.
Natalia jumped up and down and waited for Julius’ reply.
Her cousin gave her his annoyed look before he rolled his eyes. “Fine, but she’s your responsibility. Don’t let her get hurt.’
“I won’t.” William squeezed her hand.
Natalia jumped up and down some more then followed the boys out of the house. Starlight followed, but Natalia knew her cat wouldn’t go far from the house. She’d be there when she returned. Like always.
Hortense came into the yellow sitting room just after the day’s final lesson was completed. The housekeeper looked worried. Her usually well-placed gray curls were everywhere, and her large cheeks were stained red. She’d been running. “Oh, Mrs. Wells, I don’t know what to do! Come quickly, please.”
Leah put the book she’d been reading down on the table and stood. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Clara.”
The image of the small woman with a crooked but pretty smile bloomed in her mind. She rushed to the door and followed as Hortense led her through the foyer and toward the front door.
“What has happened?” Leah asked as she stepped outside.
Hortense thrust a hand down the road and there, on the corner, Leah saw Clara being dragged away by a very large man. The entire scene was being watched by the upper-class people who scurried out of their wake into the street. A few men on horseback also stopped and carriages with couples paused, but no one moved to do anything.
Leah cursed in French. Damn English laws. Jasper James was Clara’s husband and thus had the right to do as he pleased with what was nothing more than his property. Until just this year, Code Napoléon had allowed civil divorce, and it would have been easy to threaten Mr. James into such an agreement.
But it was not so easily done in England.
“Should I tell Fanny?” Hortense asked.
Leah’s eyes widened. “No, not Fanny.” The girl had only started to get her anger under control. This would break her. She was an experiment of sorts. Fanny came from the roughest part of London and had committed all manner of crimes long before she reached womanhood. She’d been working for London’s King of the Underworld before she was brought here six months ago. Fanny was the last person who needed to see this.
Leah could hear Clara weeping and knew she could not simply stand by and do nothing.
She turned to go back into the house and was stopped by her brother.
“Where are you going?” Zed narrowed his eyes.
“To get a weapon,” she told him.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “No, you’re not. That is her husband. He has a right to her.”
She jerked out of his hold and stared at him. Switching to French came easily, and she knew that Hortense didn’t know it. “Did you leave your sense of honor back in France? Think of our mother.”
He took back his hand as though her words had stung him.
Leah moved past him and went into the sitting room. Looking around, she grabbed a fire poker and started from the house.
She was sure she looked mad, but with her blond wig in place, she felt free from herself and free to do as she pleased. She hoped she’d not have to use the heavy iron tool that hung by her side, but she was not afraid to do so.
Their life in France had not been easy. Her mother’s job as a housekeeper had paid well but her beauty had attracted men who wished for her to serve them her body as well as their meals. Romina had been struck down by one French lord. The laws allowed such punishment for theft and the like. All he’d had to do was claim her mother was in the wrong.
Yet still, Romina had not yielded, and neither would Leah.
“Leah, don’t do this.” Her brother was at her side. She was not surprised he’d come out to stop her. “Wig or not, you could be arrested.”
“I’ll disappear before that happens and come back as someone else.” She didn’t bother to look and see his reaction, because she was already upon the couple by then.
Mr. James was shoving his wife into the wagon, but she was fighting. Her face was stained with tears, and she froze when she saw Leah.
“Why must you do this?” her husband asked right before his hand went up.
“Pardon me, sir!” Leah called.
Mr. James lowered his hand and turned to look at Leah. His gaze then went to Zed. “What do you want?” he asked her brother, as though it hadn’t been Leah who’d spoken.
Zed cleared his throat. “This is Grosvenor Square, sir. Perhaps, it would be best if we settled this matter at a later time. I could take Mrs. James back to the house and return her to you when there are not so many eyes watching.”
Leah thought that a good ploy and knew her brother would likely never give Clara back to her husband.
Mr. James, however, seemed to think the same. “I’m taking my wife home right now. You’ll do well to keep mind of your own business.”
Clara whimpered. There was already a red mark on her chin, evidence he’d struck her. Had he hit her anywhere else?
Leah stepped forward… only to have Zed drag her back. That didn’t stop her from speaking though. “Mr. James, I can’t allow you to take Clara.”
The man ignored her and began to gather his wife so he could place her in the wagon. By this point, Clara had stopped fighting, and Leah took note of the defeat in her eyes.
No!
Leah went around the back of the wagon, and as soon as Mr. James moved to climb in after his wife, Leah caught Clara’s hand and pulled her down.
Clara was surprised but went with Leah anyway.
“How dare you!” Mr. James shouted as he tried to reach for Clara, but Leah had already pushed the girl behind her.
Mr. James jumped from the wagon and came after her, moving them into the middle of the street. “You bitch!” His hand went up, and Leah lifted the fire poker with two hands to block him.
It worked. His hand struck the metal, and he howled in pain.
“Go to Zed!” Leah shouted at Clara.
The girl moved and, in a blink, so did her husband.
But he was not after Clara.
His next hit landed on Leah’s stomach. All the air in her lungs left her and the pain spread from where he struck like a wildfire that made her limbs give out. The poker hit the ground before she did.
“This will teach you to keep me from my property!” Mr. James lifted his foot but was swept away before even the heel could brush Leah’s cheek.
Then she heard the sound of a beating, one powerful blow landing after another.
It stopped before she was lifted into strong arms, and she rolled over to find Zed carrying her.
“Have you lost your mind?” Zed hissed close to her ear.
Leah could barely breathe but managed to say, “You didn’t ask if I was all right.”
“That’s because I hope you are not,” her brother declared. “If would serve you right to feel this pain for an entire week. It would help you think before you acted in this manner ever again.”
Leah smiled. “No. I’d do it again, Zed.”