The pink tea gown brought out a pleasant rosy flush to her cheeks. She looked warm and drowsy. He hardly noticed her scrapes and bruises.
“May I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the armchair by the fireplace.
“It’s your house isn’t it?”
“But you are a lady. I ought to ask your permission.”
She shrugged. “Well, you have it.”
He sat, angled toward her. Normally, he preferred the sofa after a long day at the Bank, but he did not want to crowd her. She looked so comfortable without him.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Perfectly wonderful. I had two breakfasts followed by a nap.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting tea, then.”
She laughed. “I want tea and supper too! Are you hungry?”
Mark couldn’t help but smile. The girl would eat him out of house and home. “Starved.”
“Should we ring?”
“Don’t bother. They know my habits—I take my tea precisely half an hour after I arrive.”
She smiled. “Reckon they set a timer?”
He’d never stopped to wonderhowhis servants did it, only that the tea tray promptly arrived when he expected it to. “I haven’t the foggiest. Let’s keep an eye on the clock, shall we?”
As expected, tea arrived right on time. Eliza erupted into giggles as soon as the footmen appeared. Mark felt foolish for being so exacting, but he wouldn’t apologize for wanting things done when and how he liked them.
“Do you know how to pour out, Eliza?”
She blinked at the tray, as if searching her memory. “I do. Or I did. My mother taught me, though our tea service was nothing so fine as this.”
Although she was rusty, she managed well enough. He wondered about her mother, a woman of straightened means who’d done her best to bring up her daughter in a ladylike fashion.
He marveled at his pickpocket friend, who sipped tea and nibbled watercress sandwiches. She was a bit common—she’d lived among the rabble long enough to lose her polish—but Eliza was not the wild-eyed urchin from two nights ago.
Mark helped himself to a rhubarb tart. “I noticed you were reading. I haven’t many books, but you’re welcome to them. I prefer magazines, myself.”
“Like this one?”
She gestured to the periodical she’d been flipping through earlier. The latest issue of one of London’s many gentleman’s weeklies by the look of it. He hadn’t read that one yet.
“Those are for chaps. If you ask Pearson, he might pick you up some ladies’ papers.”
“Who’s Pearson?”
“My butler.”
She shook her head and waved him off. “Oh, no. I’m alright. I wouldn’t know anything about ladies’ magazines. But I like this sort of thing…” Eliza flipped open the paper and handed it to him.
‘The Society of Vice’.
He nearly choked on his tart.
She laughed, taking the magazine back. “Got any more of them?”
