by Laurel McKee
“Lily!” James shouted, and she heard the chair crash to the floor as he leaped to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I charge extra for a threesome,” the whore said sullenly.
Lily waited until she heard the rustle of fabric that told her James’s trousers were up before she turned to face him. James was staring at her, fury and embarrassment written across his handsome face as he raked his hands through his light brown hair. The girl still knelt on the floor, her bodice tugged low to reveal rouged nipples.
“I think the gentleman might want to wait until another night for that particular extra,” Lily said. “Considering I’m his sister.”
The whore just shrugged. “Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before. Are we gettin’ on with this or not? I got lots of work to do tonight.”
Lily crossed her arms over her waist, not looking away from James as he fastened his shirt. “I’m sure you’ve already been paid. The constables are probably already on their way, so you might want to get out of here.”
“Constables!” the woman shrieked.
James groaned. “Lily, what have you done?”
“I have done nothing, except come here to get you and find myself in the middle of a fight. I suppose you’ve been far too occupied in here to notice what’s going on downstairs,” Lily said.
James’s eyes widened, and he seemed to notice for the first time her bloody lip and torn dress. “Oh, God, Lily, I’m so sorry! What happened? How did you know I was here?”
Lily shook her head. “There’s no time now. We need to get out of here.” Before Tom found them. She turned to the woman, who had tugged up her dress and tied a shawl over her shoulders. “Do you know of a back way out of this place?”
“Follow me,” she said, all brisk matter-of-factness now that she had earned her coin and had to avoid arrest.
Lily grabbed James’s hand and pulled him with her as they followed the woman to the window at the end of the corridor. The whore climbed out onto an unsteady ladder that led down to the alleyway.
Lily pushed James out after her and tucked up her own skirts before she scrambled down the rungs. The whore was already gone before James even reached the bottom. He caught Lily around the waist and steadied her for the last few steps, and Lily couldn’t resist throwing her arms around him for a quick, hard hug. He smelled of cheap ale and the whore’s perfume, but he was here. She had him back, and they were safe.
Or almost safe. She heard a splintering crack of wood and shouts, and she whirled around to see that the fight was spilling out into the alley. A bottle flew over her head, only narrowly missing her before crashing into the wall and shattering.
“Come on!” James shouted, and dragged her into a run. They turned at the end of the lane and rushed on blindly, not knowing where they were going or what would be around the next corner. They just ran and ran until Lily was sure her lungs would burst.
This part of the city was like a maze, a squeezed-in rat’s warren of close-packed old buildings and twisting alleys that ended in blank walls or hidden courtyards. Anyone could lose themselves here and be hidden forever. It was as far from clean, white Mayfair or the gilded splendors of the Majestic as anyone could get.
The people who lurked in the doorways or peered out the broken windows didn’t stop them as they ran past; in fact, they didn’t seem to notice them at all.
They careened around a corner, and Lily’s foot slipped into a hidden hole in the slippery dirt. Her ankle gave a painful wrench, and she cried out as she felt herself falling.
James spun around and caught her up in his arms. “Lily, what is it? Are you hurt?”
Spasms of pain shot up her leg from her ankle, and she cursed their bad luck. Just as they were about to make it away!
She held on to James’s shoulder and tried to put her weight on her foot, but it buckled under her.
“I can carry you home,” he said. Lily looked up at him and saw the concern written on his face. She had forgotten how very young he really was, so young and foolish. Her sweet brother.
Lily shook her head. “Too far. We need to find a safer street and hail a hackney, if one can even be found at this hour. Or…” She quickly studied their surroundings, trying to find something familiar. The lanes were a little wider now, a little cleaner. She glimpsed a grocer’s sign she had seen before at the end of the street, and she knew where they could stop long enough to see to her ankle.
“Carry me just around the corner, James,” she said. “I know of a place there.”
James looked around suspiciously. His arms were tense as he lifted her up higher. “Are you sure?”
She gave a snorting laugh. “I’m not the one who landed us in that cheap gin joint, now, am I? Trust me. We’ll be fine there, as long as no one followed us.”
“How did you know where I was, Lily?” he said as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her where she pointed. “Do Mama and Father know?”
“Do they know the low company you have been keeping? No, and they don’t need to if you’ll stay away from places like that from now on. As for how I found you…” A cold wave of weariness suddenly washed over her, and her head felt very heavy indeed. The sheer nerve that had carried her through the fight was ebbing away. She let her head drop to his shoulder. “That is a very long story.”
They stopped in front of a locked door. The building was dark and silent, and Lily only hoped someone was there as she pounded on the door. She had no energy left to decide what to do next.
After several long moments, there was the scrape of a bar being drawn back, and the door opened. Robbie, the prizefighter turned barkeep, help up a lamp as he peered out at them suspiciously. His eyes widened when he saw them.
“Miss Lily?” he said. “What’s happened? Get in here at once!”
“How does that feel?”
Lily looked down at Nick’s dark head as he pressed a hot, damp poultice to her swollen ankle. Robbie had vanished somewhere after he took them to this little sitting room behind the theater, and James sat across the room with the woman who came in with Nick. James was starting to look hungover, as well as embarrassed and angry. He watched Lily as if he had never seen her before.
She rested her head wearily on the back of the chair. She didn’t blame him for looking at her like that—she didn’t feel like herself tonight. She felt like a stranger, someone seen from a distance.
“Much better, thank you,” she said. “It was kind of you to take us in, Nick.”
He laughed as he wrapped a binding around the compress to hold it in place. “Nonsense. Things have been too quiet since the last time you were here. We needed a little excitement.”
The pretty blonde he was with looked as if she certainly didn’t agree, but she didn’t say anything. Nick pushed himself to his feet and reached for a bottle on the table to pour everyone a dram of whiskey. The dark liquor was burning and bracing as it poured down her throat.
“So there was a fight at Jefferson’s place, was there?” Nick said as he tossed back his own drink. “Serves the bugger right, with his watered-down gin. But how did you happen to be in such a place, Miss Lily? And all alone?”
Before Lily could answer, James said, “I’m afraid she went there to find me.”
Nick’s gaze narrowed on James. “Is that so? And who are you?”
“He’s my brother,” Lily said. “And it’s all a bit more complicated than that.”
“Interesting,” Nick murmured.
Suddenly the door opened with a bang, and Aidan stood there. His blue eyes swept over the room, taking in the scene with one glance. He wore elegant black-and-white evening clothes, as if he had just left some society ball, but his cravat was loosened and his waistcoat unbuttoned. Perhaps wherever he was he had spent his time dancing with Lady Henrietta Lindley.
Lily knew she should be surprised to see him and angry that one more complication had been added to an already nightmarish evening. But she wasn’t surprised at
all, and a warm feeling of something that felt suspiciously like relief swept over her.
“Lily?” he said roughly. “What’s happened? Robbie said you were hurt.”
“I’m not,” she answered. “I twisted my ankle, but it’s much better now.”
Aidan knelt down beside her chair and reached for her foot. He set it on his thigh, and his long fingers moved over it gently as if to assure himself she wasn’t hurt. His other hand curled around her calf, warm and steady through her knitted stocking.
His touch might be gentle, but his voice held a touch of steel in its depths. “How did you get caught in a gin-joint raid?”
Lily straightened her shoulders back against the chair. “I went to find my brother.”
“Your brother?”
“Er, I’m afraid that would be me,” James said sheepishly. “I’m James St. Claire.”
Aidan’s eyes narrowed as he peered across the room at James in that cold, steely look Lily had come to be wary of. She reached down and grabbed his hand in hers.
“It’s not his fault,” she said quickly. “It was… someone else who lured him there. I only went to fetch him. I didn’t know the place would be raided. I didn’t know where else to go when we ran away, and Nick was kind enough to let us in. He didn’t need to bother you, though.” She glanced over his fine clothes again. “You must have been… busy. With family and society duties.”
“I’d much rather be here,” he answered. He looked up into her face, his eyes searching hers. “I want to know what really happened tonight, Lily. But I can see that you’re very tired.”
She nodded. Her head suddenly felt light, her whole body aching with everything that had happened. “Yes, I am.”
“Then I’ll take you and your brother home. But you will tell me everything that happened. Very soon.”
Lily slowly climbed up the wide stone steps into the almost-sacred hush of the British Museum as she closed her parasol. She blinked in the dim light after the bright glare of the day, and for an instant, the large, looming statues in the galleries to either side looked like lurking demons, waiting to leap out at her.
She rubbed at her eyes to try and will the pain of the headache away. She had barely slept at all after returning home from Nick’s barroom, even though she had crawled into her bed and tried. The dreams kept plaguing her, haunting her, and there seemed nowhere to run. She was trapped by the past.
Then Aidan’s note had come at breakfast, asking her to meet him here. She wanted to refuse, to forget the way he looked at her last night and his watchful silence as he took her home. It was a silence that told her he was only biding his time until she told him her secrets. So she had come here to face him.
The museum was quiet that day, a good place to share secrets. She could hear a few hushed murmurs echo off the marble and alabaster, could glimpse a few artists sketching and couples strolling together. Two children playing tag around a stone lion made the only real noise, until their nanny quickly subdued them. Lily hurried past them all, the heels of her kid boots clicking on the stone floor as she made her way to the Elgin Room.
She remembered her own days at the museum as a young girl, when their governess would bring all the St. Claire children there for a “history lesson.” But the governess had really been more interested in meeting her suitor, and Lily and her siblings were left to their own devices. The boys always ran off to look at the mummies, while Isabel liked the gold Roman jewelry. Lily would seek out this room, longing to be alone in its quiet, elegant beauty. It seemed to her that here, surrounded by the pale marble and the scenes of ancient gods and heroes, so orderly, so perfect, nothing bad could ever happen.
She had loved those days when she was left alone in its cool hush and still came back there when she wanted to be quiet and think, away from the tumult of her family. It was a sanctuary in the midst of the noisy, dirty city.
Even after what had happened last night, after coming face-to-face with Tom Beaumont again, the beauty of the sculptures worked their soothing magic on her. As soon as she stepped through the doorway, she could feel it. She strolled over to the back wall where the long frieze depicting the procession of Athena’s festival was mounted, tucked behind the massive bulk of statues of Theseus and a headless goddess draped in diaphanous robes.
There was no one else there for the moment, and Lily was alone. She stared up at the carved line of young women dressed in floating chitons and cloaks, all of them so poised and graceful as they carried their urns and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. The lighting was dim, but Lily could make out their serene expressions. They were where they were meant to be, doing the work they knew they had to do.
She glanced at the next wall, a more violent scene of horses and soldiers in battle. The procession was how she wanted to feel, how she wanted life to be. But this battle was more the way things actually were.
She heard a footstep behind her and turned to see that Aidan had come into the gallery. He wore a dark coat and waistcoat, making him blend into the dim shadows, but his glossy brown hair gleamed. His face looked so solemn and austere as he took in the room, so still, as if he were one of those gods, come to walk among mortals for a time. He saw her there, half hidden behind the statue, and gave her a small bow before he moved slowly toward her.
Aidan even walked like a god, with a natural grace. She curled her gloved fingers hard over the ivory handle of her parasol and forced herself to stay still. To not flee.
“How are you today, Lily?” he asked quietly. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, as if he didn’t notice their tension. As if they were in a ballroom someplace, and he had never saved her from a gin-joint raid.
“Quite well, thank you,” she answered. “My ankle is a bit sore, but nothing that won’t fade soon.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And your brother?”
“Contrite. He has agreed to accompany my mother and sister on their seaside holiday and try to mend his ways. He is not a bad person; he is just… young.”
Aidan nodded. “Sometimes young men just need a reminder that their actions can affect other people as well. People they care about.”
“Do you need reminders of that?”
He grinned down at her. “Constantly, but I fear it never sticks. I’m a selfish bastard, remember?”
Lily bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use such language in the British Museum.”
“Hmm.” Aidan glanced up at a carving of Athena in her helmet and shield. “She does look rather stern, as if she would run me through with her spear if she took a dislike to me. She reminds me of you.”
“Me?” Lily said, startled. “I am hardly so stern as that. And I am not at all goddess-like.”
“Ah, but you are. A warrior goddess.” There was a burst of laughter in the doorway, and Aidan looked over to the group who had just come in, breaking the precious hush with their merriment. He held out his arm to Lily. “Shall we walk? It’s become rather crowded in here.”
Lily nodded and slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. For a moment, she wondered if he knew those people, if they were society friends of his parents and what they would say if they saw Aidan with her. But then he led her into the next gallery, holding her up as if he knew her ankle was beginning to ache again, and she forgot everything but him and what had happened last night.
The gallery was a long, narrow room lined with a jumble of marble statues, a crowd of gods and goddesses and warriors, all staring down at the passage of mere humans with blank, disinterested eyes. The air was cool there, and no one else was around. Only those statues were there to listen to Lily’s secrets.
Statues, and Aidan.
“Tell me what happened last night, Lily,” he said quietly, and she knew the moment had come. “You said you went to save your brother from ‘someone.’ Who was it?”
Lily nodded. “I told you I ran away from Madame Josephine’s after my mother died,” she said. “I didn�
�t know where to go, what to do. I only knew I didn’t want to be what my mother was. I didn’t want to do something, be something, where I had to numb myself with opium just to make it through the day. So I ended up like thousands of unwanted children, scrounging on the streets for a crust of bread and a warm place to sleep for the night.”
She curled her hand harder on his arm and took a deep breath. “I was rather adept at picking pockets, but one night it was very cold and there was almost no one out and about. I didn’t have the penny for a place in a padding-ken bed, and the landlady turned me away. I tried to sleep in a doorway. That’s where Tom Beaumont found me.”
She closed her eyes and shivered as she remembered that night, as if she felt the bite of the bitter cold wind again. “Tom had a great criminal empire. He ran pickpocketing rings, prostitution rings, padding-kens, organized cons. He ruled by beatings and terror, even murder, but I didn’t know all this at first. Perhaps you have heard of him?”
Aidan gave a tight nod. “I have heard tales.”
“Yes. He’s still famous among a certain sort of person. He’s scarred now, but he wasn’t as fearsome-looking then. They called him ‘Handsome’ Tom Beaumont, and for good reason. He spoke to me gently, coaxed me out of the doorway, and offered me food. All he needed in exchange was for me to crawl in through a small shop window and take a few things for him. If I had been caught, I could have been hanged, of course, but I was so desperate I didn’t care. That was how it began.
“Tom had legions of people like me working for him. But I was rescued one day by the St. Claires when I tried to pick William’s pocket outside the theater. I’m not sure what they saw in me, but they took me home with them and adopted me into their family. And soon after, Tom was arrested and transported to Australia. I thought I would never see him again, that that part of my life was finished. Until he showed up again.”
“And lured your brother into his net.”
“Yes. He wanted me to come to him, and he knew my family is the one thing I would always protect. He wants revenge on me, and I fear… I fear he won’t stop until he has it. Or until I stop him.”
