He released her legs and switched seats, then pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.
“This is better,” she murmured, snuggling against him as the violent shudders dissipated.
“I need to take a moment, one moment . . .” Alec pressed his lips into her hair, his arms tightening around her.
Kendra laid her head on his chest and slid her arms around his waist. Outside, the rain drummed and splashed, but all Kendra heard was the steady beat of Alec’s heart.
***
Deep inside the ancient stone aqueduct, Edwina huddled with the rest of the mudlarks, hands outstretched to capture the warmth from the fire. Not enough to dispel the damp and cold, but Edwina no longer felt discomfort. Instead, she felt . . . safe.
Or, rather, shehadfelt safe. The woman—Lady Sutcliffe, she called herself—had changed all of that. Edwina licked her dry lips as fear churned her stomach. If the lady could find her, what was stopping the devil?
“’Ere ye go, Edie. It’ll warm ye up.”
Edwina glanced at the tin cup clenched in a grubby hand. The hand was attached to an equally grubby boy of about fourteen, who went by the name of Fish.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and took a cautious sip, no longer surprised to taste gin. Fish had probably filched the bottle. He had been a Little Snakeman at one of the rookeries, until he’d gotten too big to slither through pipes and down chimneys to open doors for his gang of housebreakers. He’d been forced into stealing and begging on the streets before he’d taken up mudlarking. He was good at scavenging, always digging out the biggest lumps of coal or finding the most interesting artifacts and old coins—coins used by the same folks that built these tunnels. He supplemented his finds with a fair amount of pickpocketing and thievery, which kept their small group from starving.
Fish had been the one to find her after she’d fled the devil.
She drew in a ragged breath as she thought about how she’d wandered the streets of London. Fear and horror had gnawed a hole in her gut. She hadn’t known what to do, other than return to the Bowden Theater later that night. It was only by the sheerest of luck that she’d seen the man leaning against the streetlamp, watching the theater from across the street. He wasn’t the same man who’d killed the lady and chased her, but sheknew. She knew he was waiting for her.
And she knew then that she could never return to her old life.
Despair and hopelessness had flooded her as she retreated to the streets. She’d briefly considered going to the magistrate. But her past experiences with Charlies had never ended well. They might even accuseherof pushing the lady off the balcony.
Edwina had bitterly regretted leaving behind the loaf of bread she’d purchased only that morning, especially after a meager early meal and a growling stomach that evening. She had sought refuge from the plunging temperatures in the doorway of a church, curling up into a tight ball, tears freezing on her eyelashes and face.
She couldn’t remember hearing a sound, but when she’d opened her eyes, Fish had been looming over her.
Later, he confessed that he’d intended to nick her reticule, but for reasons that weren’t even clear to him, he’d changed his mind when she’d opened her eyes. Instead of robbing her, Fish had brought her to his gang of raggedy mudlarks.
Most were children, the youngest being five and the oldest fifteen—just two years younger than her. Abe was the old man in their group, older, she thought, than Old Beatrice. His right hand was a stump, as he’d lost it fighting Boney in the war.
“Who’s the gentry mort?” A querulous voice broke the silence. “She knew yer name.”
Edwina looked to Raven—a nickname, Edwina suspected, derived from the dark locks that tumbled around a plain, pinched face. At fifteen, Raven was closest in age to Edwina, but that didn’t mean they were friends. In fact, the other girl had taken an active dislike to her.
“Lady Sootcliffe, she said she was,” said five-year-old Peter.
“How’d she find ye?” Raven demanded, her eyes locked on Edwina.
“I don’t know.” But Edwina averted her gaze as guilt assailed her. She’d only returned to the Bowden Theater once—once—to collect a few things and leave an old thimble she’d dug out of the mudflats for Beatrice. It was too old fashioned to be of much use or any value, but she’d thought Beatrice would enjoy the artifact.
“Don’t matter how she found ’er,” Fish snapped, his chin jutting up belligerently. “We protect our own.”
Raven’s mouth knotted. “She ain’t our own!”
Edwina swallowed, the gin she’d drunk earlier threatening to come up.
“Stop yer bickerin’,” Abe muttered, shifting. “We need ter eat a bite and rest. We barely got a haul ’cause of the nobs. The tide’ll be goin’ out again soon enough.”
Edwina opened her mouth to apologize, but Fish shot her a warning look and shook his head. No one spoke as oranges—again, thanks to Fish’s nimble fingers—were passed around and eaten. Afterwards, each mudlark found their space, as near the fire as they could manage, and curled up to sleep.
Edwina did the same. She’d become used to the mudlarks’ odd sleeping habits. Life revolved around the River Thames’ tide. In the beginning, she’d lain awake and counted the breaths rising and falling around her in the small space. The scurrying of mice and rats never bothered her, as they were familiar sounds in the theater. Now the soft huffs of breaths around her lulled her into sleep within minutes.
No one heard the mudlark rise and slip out of the tunnel.
