“None of that sounds good,” Charlotte said, looking to Charles for the meaning, but this time he was as lost as she was.
“Tatts are dice,” he offered lamely.
The boy nodded, as did his mother, who added, “He’s got a lot of swank in any case for someone with no steady job except for being a skilled tooler. A pickpocket, you understand?”
Charles nodded. Of all the people whom Charlotte could have chosen to build a staircase!
“He said you were the perfect pigeon,” Edward added, staring at Charlotte.
“A pigeon?” she repeated.
“A victim,” Charles explained, having heard the term many times around the courts.
“Oh.” At that, Charlotte rose to her feet, forcing Charles to do the same. She paced the small room. “I’m not particularly pleased with being a pigeon,” she said. Then she looked at Edward. “And I’ve promised the manager at The Langham that I would handle the problem with the deliveries coming up short. How do you think I should do that, Edward?”
He swallowed, looking less talkative again. Charles felt sorry for the boy, and they both waited for Charlotte to fire him on the spot.
“I will tell you how,” she added. “I think you should work extra hard for me and my family, and even put in a few hours for free to make up for it. In return, I won’t let you go. But you must never compromise the good name of Rare Confectionery again. If you can’t promise me that, then you must say so and leave my employ.”
Charles was impressed by her generosity, as was Mrs. Percy.
“Thank you, miss. He was only doing as he was forced to do. But my boy won’t let you down again, will you?” She turned to her son.
“No,” Edward said, his voice a little firmer.
“What happens when Mr. Tufts returns,” Charles asked, looking at Edward’s mother, “and expects your boy to continue providing sweets for you to sell?”
“I already told him I was found out,” Edward said.
“I suppose that was why he abandoned the ruse,” Charlotte said. She was staring at Mrs. Percy with a thoughtful expression. “I’ve had a thought or two during this enlightening discussion.”
They all stared at her. Charles hoped she would get on with disclosing her ideas, since they’d pushed their luck in staying as long as they had. While he had no doubt he could defeat Archie Tufts in a duel of fisticuffs, he had no wish to bring danger upon this family or Charlotte.
But she shook her head. “My parents have returned from a brief trip, and the shop is really my mother’s, so I cannot say any more without speaking to her first. In any case, nothing can be done as long as you are associated with Mr. Tufts. While I don’t wish him ill or even for him to end up at Newgate, I don’t intend to be his pigeon again.”
“Have you nowhere else to live?” Charles asked Mrs. Percy, wondering if the woman had formed a romantic relationship with the aforementioned snidesman.
“We wouldn’t be here if we had,” she said with a lift of her chin, then added, “your lordship.” Frowning, she asked, “Or it is my lordship?”
Before he could answer, she said, “To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never spoken to a member of the nobility before, and I cannot believe my eyes that one is in my own home. Honest to God, you look like a regular person.”
Charles felt like a zoological specimen. “That’s quite all right. Let me speak plainly. Are you intent or compelled for any reason to stay with Tufts?” He hoped that was clear enough.Did the woman want to get away from the charlatan or not?
“I see no way to leave, but if I could, I would. I have no—” she glanced at Edward, who wore his normal earnest expression. “I have no particular feelings for the man.”
“Very well. I sit on the council of the Society for Organizing Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity. They may be able to help.”
“Mendicity?” Mrs. Percy asked.
“Begging,” Charles said.
She drew back, affronted. “Mr. Tufts gets up to all sorts of things, most I don’t ask about, and it’s true, he’s forced us to do his bidding in some things we ought not to have done,” she glanced at Charlotte, then back at him, “or we’d have faced his nasty temper, your lordness.”
Charles nearly corrected her but wisely held his tongue, as the woman was working her way into high dander.
“But I am no beggar, nor was my husband, God rest his soul. He was in the shoeblack brigade when he was younger up the old York Road at King’s Cross, and even went to school four nights a week. When he was sixteen and too old to be in the brigade, he got a job as a cobbler with my own father, God rest his soul, too. Last year, we lost the shop,” Mrs. Percy said, her tone thick with emotion. “Then we lost it all.”
“I’m so sorry,” Charlotte said, sounding overwrought, and Charles, too, felt the lump in his throat.
