Chapter Twelve
Lily hardly knew what was happening. One moment, she and Julian were entangled in a passionate embrace. The next, he’d set her on her feet and dashed off down the alley.
Her kiss couldn’t have been that bad. Could it?
She hurried after him, catching up to him at the end of the block. “Julian—”
He motioned for quiet, peering around the corner.
“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
Pointless to ask. In the dark, it wasn’t as though she could see to read his answer. He knew it, too, so he didn’t stop to give her one. He just grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her around the corner, pulling her down the street. They walked quickly, clinging to the shadows that edged the narrow lane. Lily spied two men some distance in front of them, lumbering down the street with the unhurried arrogance of men who’ve had too much to drink. Julian seemed to be following them. For what reason, she couldn’t imagine.
She struggled to keep pace with him, skidding and sliding over the wet cobblestones in her impractical evening slippers. She would have been better off barefoot. Her heel caught in a narrow gap in the pavement, and her ankle turned. Surprised by the sharp twist of pain, she cried out.
Ahead of them, the two men stopped in the street.
Then, they began to turn.
For all that Lily did not comprehend who these men were, or why on earth they were following them, her viscera intuited one thing: She and Julian must not be seen.
Julian’s gut evidently agreed. His arm shot around her waist. Yanking her off her feet altogether, he whisked her to the side of the street, pressing her into the darkened doorway of a shop. He anchored her to the far corner of the alcove with his hips, putting his body between her and any threat. His free hand clapped over her mouth to silence her.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she adjusted to breathing through her nose. The aroma of his glove leather overwhelmed her senses, pungent and sharp. She couldn’t seem to draw enough air. The instinct to struggle was strong.
Lily fought back panic by reminding herself this was Julian. She knew this hand that muffled her. She’d watched him use those long, dexterous fingers to play the pianoforte, shuffle cards, pen letters with graceful ease. But never, until this moment, had she realized just how much strength they had.
Long, agonizing moments passed. It was the worst sort of torture. She had no idea what was happening in the street. She couldn’t detect any footfalls or voices to let her know if the men were leaving or coming in pursuit. She didn’t even know what sort of men they might be. Harmless drunkards? Dangerous footpads? Julian could tell her nothing. She couldn’t even make out his facial expression, much less any words he might speak. But the frantic thumping of his heart and the labored huffs of his breath against her cheek were not very reassuring signs. They were in true peril, or so he believed.
What in the world was going on?
Finally, after an agonizing minute, Julian’s brow met hers. Butter-soft leather caressed her cheek as he cautiously slid his fingers from her mouth, then replaced them with his lips.
A kiss. I’m sorry.
Tearing his lips from hers, he pressed hard against her shoulders, pinning her to the shuttered door.
A demand. Stay here.
Keeping one gloved hand on her sleeve, he stepped back and turned, looking into the street.
“Did they see us?” she whispered. “Are they gone?”
He tapped her shoulder, warning her to stay back. Then he took two steps into the street. A distant streetlamp traced his handsome profile in gold. As she stared at him, Lily felt her breathing slow to a steady, calmer rate. She was still terrified. But she was also strangely relieved to be here, sharing the fear with him. No more sitting up alone at night, worrying about Julian’s whereabouts. His whereabouts were hers. If some grave misfortune befell him, it would befall them both.
Julian’s chest deflated with apparent relief. For the moment, fortune seemed to be on their side.
He turned to her and stretched out a hand. She took it.
He led her into the street, immediately turning her in the opposite direction of the way they had been walking. Julian set a slow, falsely casual pace, and he kept her close, tucked securely under one arm. They walked about a block before he stopped, directly under a street lamp, and turned to her.
“Are you well? Your leg … It’s not hurt?” As he spoke, he shrugged out of his coat.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Come quickly, then. And be silent.” He settled his coat about her shoulders and resumed walking.
She stopped him short, keeping him in the light. “Julian, what’s going on? Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace safe.”
That was all he would say. Together they walked swiftly for another block or two, then turned down a narrow lane … emerged into a larger street … and then made a series of twisting turns. Lily didn’t recognize any of these streets or landmarks, and due to the circuitous nature of their journey, she no longer had any idea in which direction they were walking. She tried to take comfort from the warmth and scent of his coat, for she was well and thoroughly lost.
Finally, they approached a coffeehouse. The door was open, but the windows were dark. A woman in a white-lace cap was shooing a man out the door and into the street, sweeping him along with a broom as if he were a heap of ale-soaked rushes.
“Oy!” the man protested, jumping at another prod of the broom. “I’m on my way. No call to be rough.”
With her broom handle, the woman tapped a sign on the window. Lily squinted at it. It read, “Closed.”
As she and Julian approached, the woman caught sight of them. Her brow wrinkled with displeasure, and again she tapped the broom to the sign. Closed.
Julian was undeterred. Releasing Lily, he approached the landlady. As he moved toward her, he made a gesture with both hands.
The older woman stopped, peered at him.
Julian removed his hat to aid her examination.
The landlady froze. Then she threw down the broom in the street and flew at him. Julian reeled from the collision, disappearing into a mass of doughy bosom and starched lace.
Lily gasped, suddenly alarmed. Who would have guessed Julian would escape those two brutes, only to be smothered by an aged matron in a lace cap? She darted forward. Perhaps she could grab up the broom, use it as a weapon …
But as she neared them, it became apparent that Julian was not being attacked. He was being hugged. When the landlady finally released him, Julian gestured to indicate Lily. Lily nodded her head in greeting, and the older woman returned the gesture with a tearful smile. After wiping her eyes with a corner of her apron, she opened the coffeehouse door and waved them both inside.
So curious, Lily thought to herself. Julian and the landlady clearly knew each other well. And in the course of that whole broom-and-bosom interchange—so far as Lily could tell—they’d neither of them spoken a single word.
Even inside the coffeehouse, they continued this way. Neither speaking a word. Not with lips or tongue, at any rate. No, Julian and the landlady were communicating solely with their hands. Rapid, precise, two-handed movements that Julian only belatedly—after sending Lily an apologetic glance—began pairing with speech.
“She’s my friend,” he said to the older woman, matching his words with hand signals that Lily could marvel at, but not understand. “I need you to keep her here. Keep her safe.”
The landlady made a motion, and her eyebrows lifted in query.
“Not long,” Julian answered. “A few hours, perhaps.”
“A few hours?” Lily claimed his attention. “Julian, what do you mean? You can’t leave me.”
“I must.” He drew her aside. “Those men … I have to go back and try to find them.”
“Why?”
“Because those might be the men who killed Leo.”
“What? How can you possibly believe—”
He shook his head, impatient. “They match a witness’s description. I don’t have time to explain it further than that. But I can’t let them get away. This is the closest I’ve come in months, Lily. Five. Long. Months.” He shaped each word distinctly. She’d never seen his eyes such a dark, intense shade of blue. “Stay here, no matter what occurs. Here, you’ll be protected.”
Oh, certainly. She would be protected. But what about him? Chasing strange brutes down dark alleys in the night …
“Don’t go.” She rushed to him and grabbed hold of his arm. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
“Lily, I can’t take you with me. It’s too dangerous. You’ll be safe here.”
“But … but how can you know that?”
He paused. Then said simply, “I was raised here.”
Stunned, she released his arm.
“Stay,” he commanded. His hand shot to her face, roughly cupping her cheek. His gaze bored into hers—as though with a forceful look, he could bolt her to the wall. “Stay. No matter how long it takes. I will come back for you. Do you understand?”
She nodded numbly. He left her no choice. “Wait. Your coat.” She slid the garment from her shoulders and thrust it at him. “It’s cold out there.”
A word fell from his lips. Judging by the sharp crease of his brow, she guessed it to be a vicious curse. His hand slid back into her hair, and he gripped tight. Then, with those same blasphemous lips, he kissed her full on the mouth.
The kiss was bruising, potent. Far too brief.
By the time she recalled how to breathe, he and his coat were gone.
A teapot appeared before her face.
Lily looked up, into the round face of the woman holding it. Thick, hoary eyebrows rose, disappearing under the brim of a white lace cap. More tea? the landlady’s expression silently inquired.
Gathering a borrowed blanket about her shoulders, Lily smiled politely and shook her head. She’d scarcely sipped from her first cup. At her elbow, a plate of food remained untouched. Since it had been served to her, the edge of a freshly pared bit of cheese had already gone crusty and dry.
How many hours had she been here? Morning could not be long coming. To stave off panic, Lily pressed one hand flat to the planks of the tabletop, worn glassy-smooth by decades of use. The cool, solid surface calmed her pulse.
Julian would come for her. He’d promised.
Dear God. What would she do if he didn’t?
She’d never felt more helpless in her life. She didn’t even know where she was. If she could decide where to go—out in search of Julian, back home to wait—how would she get there? Walk out on the street and hail a hackney cab? She’d never hailed a hack in her life, ever. There’d always been a servant or friend to do it for her. Perhaps she could send word to Amelia. But what would the message even say?
The older woman sat down across the table from her. Did she mean to attempt conversation? This would be a challenge, unless the landlady could read lips, too.
Lily said, “Thank you. For everything.”
The woman gestured rapidly in response, and Lily shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the hand signs. You see, I never learned.”
The woman’s amazement was obvious. As if Lily had just confessed to being illiterate, or unable to count.
She knew such a manual language existed, of course. In the first year following her illness, her tutor had shown her an alphabet formed with the fingers. But Leo didn’t take to it especially well, and after that failed experiment, Lily had declined to learn any more signs. With whom would she use them?
Except—apparently, she could have been using them with Julian all this while. How did he know this language? Why had he never told her? She was so confused.
From a nearby shelf, her hostess gathered a slate and nub of chalk, then resumed her seat and applied herself to the use of both. When she held up her work, Lily read aloud from the slate.
“Anna.” She looked up. “That’s you? You’re Anna?” At the woman’s nod, Lily extended an open hand. “May I?”
Anna passed her the slate and chalk, and Lily carefully inscribed her name on the small square of slate. Beneath it, she wrote, Thank you.
Smiling, Anna moved her hand back and forth in the universal gesture of “no thanks are necessary.” She took back the slate and worked over it for a few minutes. While she did so, Lily managed a sip of cold, too-sweet tea.
After a minute, Anna handed her the slate.
“‘Friend of Jamie welcome,’” Lily read aloud. Puzzled, she frowned at the slate. She knew Anna could not hear her. The question escaped her lips anyway. “But … but who is Jamie?”
A sudden vibration jarred her focus. Her teacup did a frantic dance on its saucer. Something heavy had fallen, or perhaps a door had slammed shut? She looked up, and there was Julian. His clothes were sodden, and he’d lost his hat. Dark hair clung to his brow in wet, matted locks. He looked like hell, and not himself at all. But he was here, and he was standing, and he was—so far as Lily could see—all of a piece. Alive.
“Me,” he said. “I’m Jamie. She means me.”
“We can talk up here.” Julian took Lily by the hand and led her up the narrow staircase. “Mind your head,” he said, adding a palm-to-pate smack for emphasis.
He knew Lily wanted some explanation. And after the night she’d just passed, he couldn’t deny her that. But they couldn’t discuss matters downstairs in the kitchen. Dawn was already breaking, and soon the milkmaid would be coming round, the day’s baking would commence … For this conversation, they needed privacy.
It was time to tell her the truth. Or at least part of it. He knew Lily understood they came from different places on the map of English society. What she didn’t comprehend was the vast dimension of the gulf between them. This morning, he would acquaint her with its insurmountable nature, in no uncertain terms.
They emerged into a cramped garret, occupied by only a narrow slice of window under the eaves and a wobbly cane chair.
“Sit here,” he told her, stripping off his wet coat. For himself, he extricated an old crate from the furthest reaches of the eaves, overturned it, and sat down—squarely within the shaft of sunlight thrown by the window, and as far away from Lily as the space would permit. Which amounted to a distance of about four feet. Less than ideal, but it would have to suffice. Whatever follies he’d contemplated last night, he could never allow them to become reality. He’d exposed her to people and places she should never have encountered in her life. Worst of all, he’d put her in true danger. Leo had paid with his life, just for calling Julian friend. He could not allow Lily to suffer for the same dubious privilege.
“Come closer,” she said. “I want a proper look at you. I haven’t yet satisfied myself on the state of your health.”
He shook his head. Absolutely not. It had been proven to him, several times in the past few days, that he was incapable of resisting her whenever she came within reach. “I’m not injured. Just wet.”
“Wonderful. So now you’ll catch your death of pneumonia.” She slid the blanket from her shoulders. “At least take this.”
His teeth chattered. “You keep it.”
“Julian, I expect this conversation won’t be brief. I can’t watch you shiver through it. Unless”—she tipped her head—“you’d care to share the blanket.”
He accepted the thing with no small twinge of pride. He’d passed a damned cold night, and it wasn’t much warmer up here in the garret.
“So what happened?” she asked. “Weren’t you able to find them?”
“I found them. But they weren’t Leo’s killers.”
Julian sighed with fatigue. He’d followed those men for hours. Watched them drink, eat, piss in the alley, drink some more. Then take turns tupping the same apathetic whore. Finally he’d overheard enough to gather they’d only recently arrived in London. It was their first adventure in the fair city, as evidenced by the fact they’d lost their way in St. Giles, and only much later realized the apathetic whore had made off with their purses. He didn’t expect it would console the two Scots when they learned she’d left them with the clap in recompense.
So much for his hope of stumbling onto Leo’s murderers. He would have to return to the other plan: drawing out the man, or men, who hired them.
Lily shucked her slippers and curled her feet up, tucking them under her flimsy excuse for a skirt. Despite his chilled state, he knew a warm, buzzing current of desire. Parts of him heated beneath the rough blanket.
“Thank goodness,” she said. “I’m glad it wasn’t them.”
“Don’t you want your brother’s killers found?”
“I do, I do. But I don’t want you to find them. Not alone and unarmed in the dark. If the solution to Leo’s murder comes at the cost of your life, I don’t want it. I will live with the mystery, thank you very much.”
She looked close to tears. He hated the fact that he’d put her through another night of anxiety, but it thrilled him that she cared so much whether he lived or died.
“Now, then,” she said, sniffing. “Speaking of mysteries. What is this place? What do you mean, you grew up here? Why does Anna call you Jamie, and how do you know her sign language?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then do begin.” She leaned forward, focusing intently on his mouth. “But slowly, please.”
“My mother …” He swallowed hard. “My mother was born completely deaf. She came from a very rural, isolated area of Kent where deafness is common. Her cousin was likewise without hearing.”
“How strange. All in one place? I wonder why that is.”
“You, and many scholars. It seems to pass through family lines. It’s so common, signing is like a second language there. For everyone, even the hearing.” He propped an elbow on the windowsill, relaxing into the tale. “Anyway, when my mother was a child, charity toward the deaf was all the rage. You’ve heard of Braidwood and his school?”
She nodded. “My own speech tutors were trained there.”
“His efforts were famous. He made it the fashionable thing to show charity toward the deaf and mute. My mother and her cousin were recruited for employment, offered posts in service here in Town as chambermaids to a wealthy lord’s family. The promised wages were an untold sum for two girls from the weald.”
“So they accepted?” Lily prompted.
“Yes. They took the posts. They were young and afraid, but they had each other’s company. At first. My mother’s cousin took ill and died within a few months of their arrival in London.”
“Oh, no. How tragic.”
“My mother’s lot was worse. She’d never learned to speak or write, knew no one in London. Her employers were older and decent enough, but there was a son and he … Well, he took advantage.” Bile rose in his throat. “Chambermaids are misused by their masters every day, but imagine her situation. She couldn’t fight him off. She couldn’t ask for help. Even if she had, it was doubtful she would have received it.”
Lily hugged herself. “What did she do?”
“She survived, as best she could. When the housekeeper finally saw she was pregnant, she was sacked without reference and tossed to the street. I came into the world a few months later. My mother gave birth to me in a vacant warehouse.”
“Alone?”
“She was afraid of asking for help. Thought her baby would be taken from her, and she’d end up in the workhouse or Bedlam. It wasn’t an unrealistic fear.”
“That was very brave of her.”
“Yes. Yes, it was.” He’d been a help to his mother when he grew older. But Julian knew at any time in his infancy, she could have made life a great deal easier on herself by dropping him on the doorstep of a foundling hospital. She hadn’t. They’d always had each other. Most times, that was all they’d had.
“Why didn’t she go home to her family?”
“She had no money, no means of travel. And she felt disgraced. Ashamed.” He took a slow, deep breath to calm himself. “That’s who I am, Lily. The product of fear, violence, and shame. The bastard son of a lecherous nobleman. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, on the wrong side of Town. Raised in conditions a gutter rat would fancy himself a cut above. We had nothing. No food. No home. No proper clothing. My mother worked when she could; I begged and stole when she couldn’t. The rest of the time, we starved.”
Like an ancient echo, hunger rumbled in his stomach. He’d eaten nothing since those few bites of beefsteak last night. Even before Leo’s murder, he’d done this often—skipping meals, sometimes for a day or more. He didn’t plan it so, but it was almost like he couldn’t allow himself to forget the sensation of hunger. That bitter, gnawing emptiness that had shadowed all his early years.
“When I was about nine years of age,” he went on, “I heard word of this place. A coffeehouse owned and entirely staffed by the deaf. I brought my mother around, and the owner—Anna’s late husband—gave her work as a scullery maid. I ran messages, shoveled coal.” His eyes went to the sloping ceiling. “They gave us this garret for our lodgings. I had a little cot, just there.” He pointed at the floorboards beneath her chair. “First real bed in my life. And at night, I lay down to it with a full belly. For the first time in years, my mother had steady work and friends with whom she could converse. She was happy. I was happy.
“It was only later, as I grew older, that I realized what advantages we should have had from the first, and what a toll those years of dire poverty had taken on my mother’s health. I finally came to understand the magnitude of suffering my fa—” He couldn’t use that word. “… the man who sired me had inflicted on her.”
“And on you, as well. Do you know who he was?”
He shook his head. “He’s dead. She told me that much, when I grew old enough to ask. The son died first, not long after I was born, leaving his father without an heir. When the old man died a few years later, the title passed to a distant relation. I gather my mother took me to the executor of the estate, hoping for a settlement.”
“I suppose she was denied one.”
He nodded.
“Julian …” Lily inched forward on her chair.
“Noblemen,” he said, ignoring her proffered sympathy, “came in to this coffeehouse every day. It was quite the fashionable meeting house, in its time. For years, I smoothed the creases from their newspapers, polished the buckles on their shoes, wiped their spit from the floor. And I watched my mother grow a little weaker every winter.”
“Until she died?”
With a curt nod, he slanted his gaze away.
“How old were you then?”
“Fourteen.” Fourteen. Half a man, and a total fool. “And I wasn’t even there for her. I was in jail when she fell ill.”
“In jail?” Her eyes widened. “At fourteen? For what?”
He shook his head. There was so much Lily didn’t know. Could never know. “I ran afoul of the wrong aristocrat. The details aren’t important now. What mattered was, I wasn’t there for my mother. There was no money saved. She was given an unmarked pauper’s grave.” Determined to prevent an outburst of emotion, he pressed a fist to his mouth. “She gave me life in a dusty storehouse, and I let her die alone.”
Beneath the blanket, he began to shake. Not with cold or hunger, but with fury. He’d been living with this anger all his days, like some sort of phantom twin. The fury had life of its own: guts and memory and corporeal strength. It made demands.
Lily rose from her chair and crossed to him, sinking to her knees before the crate. With a light, tentative motion, she curled her fingers over his trembling fist. At that first jolt of contact, he sucked in a gasp. He couldn’t bring himself to spurn her touch. So generous and warm.
Gently, she pulled his hand away from his mouth, so his lips—and his words—would not be concealed. “Please don’t hide,” she said. “I need to understand.”
The blanket slipped from his shoulders, and the room’s bracing chill gave him a moment of cold composure.
“After she was gone,” he said, “I found work here and there. Spent some time as a table monkey, cutting patterns in the back of a tailor’s shop. It was there I first glimpsed Beau Brummel. He’s the son of a secretary, do you know? And he had the cream of English society all clamoring to lighten his tea. One day, I decided, that would be me. I would have everything the lords had. Everything that should have been mine, by rights. I would take it from them. Their money. Their status. Their women. I would reverse the scales, make them envy me.” He swallowed a hot, bitter lump of rage. “I hated them so much, Lily. I hated them all.”
She moved closer still. He could smell the light fragrance of her hair. It smelled expensive, and far too refined for this humble place.
“Don’t pity me,” he said. “I’m talking about your friends. Your family, your peers. I’ve devoted all the years of my adulthood to taking what I could. I’ve joined their clubs, fleeced them of their gold, tupped their wives, mocked them to their faces. Forced them to dress in hideous colors. All out of spite and a thirst for revenge.”
“And you kept all this from Leo, and from me.”
“Yes. For years.”
Her bottom lip folded under her teeth, and her gaze sharpened with concentration. She had an aim in mind, and he didn’t know what it was.
Her hand slowly stretched toward his face. Julian held his breath. With her fingertip, she dabbed a spot high on his cheekbone, just beneath the corner of his eye. His eyelids fluttered, partly out of instinct and partly out of sheer, sweet torment at the sensation of her touch.
Then she drew back her hand, stared at it. He stared, too, and discerned something glistening on her fingertip.
Oh, devil take it. He was weeping?
She pinched her thumb against her forefinger, rubbing the evidence into her skin. There, it was gone. Just one tear. One tear wasn’t weeping. After a night of such extraordinary events, and a morning of such heartfelt confession, limiting himself to a single tear was a formidable display of restraint. Manful, even. Wasn’t it?
And really, this garret was dusty as hell. It might have been a case of simple ocular irritation. Anyway, it was over now. He blinked, and no more tears fell. Excellent.
Tragic story told. Tears contained. Crisis averted.
Until Lily sniffed and began to blink furiously. Perhaps the dust bothered her, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her tone one of dismay. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to cry.”
“No.” Panic seized him. “No, don’t. Please.” With a finger, he propped up her quivering chin. “Lily, I’m not worth your tears.”
The words squeaked from her throat. “I can’t help it.”
Oh Lord, here they came. Tears, in abundance. Streaking her cheeks, tracing down to her chin. Her shoulders lurched with violent sobs, and she leaned forward, slumping inexorably toward him until her brow rested against his chest.
He raised his hands in defense, or perhaps surrender. What should he do? He could bring himself to refuse her comfort, but he couldn’t refuse to comfort her.
So he did the only thing he could. Which was, to be honest, exactly what he’d been wanting to do for a very, very long time. Ever since the night Leo died.
He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into the protection of his body.
And he held her tight.