“I’ve met someone.”
“And?”
“He’s an adorable little clerk at James and Rowe on Bow Street, but he hopes to have a booth in the new market when it opens next year. He’s completely unattached and quite taken with a certain someone who happened to pass by his shop. He calls me alady.”
I clasped my hands. My words, like little seeds, had taken root in her heart, watered with time.
“It isn’t official,” she hastened to add, “and I cannot promise anything—there’s no understanding between us.”
“Yet.” With a smile that grew by the second, I stood and wrapped my arms around Lily—dear, wandering Lily who was finally making her way back to the path. “I’m so happy for you, Lil. So happy.” I pushed her back to study her face, remembering what I’d done for her so long ago. Remembering Seven Dials. “You’re happy, aren’t you? Life is good for you, yes?” It would all be worth it if she was.
She merely squeezed my hand. “I’ll bring him by if you like.”
I studied her face. “Yes, I would like.”
I parted from her with a smile in my heart and a lightness I hadn’t felt in months.
My lighter steps carried me toward home, then veered in the direction of Westminster and the big brick mansion with green doors. I climbed the narrow stairs on the side, no veil over my face this time, and knocked. Jack threw open the door, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, face lined, and took me in at a glance. “I hope you aren’t expecting another lesson today. Some fiery lass decided to offer up a ballet that hasn’t yet been written.”
He looked horrid. “Have you slept?”
His fingers moved through the deep grooves already running through his mussed hair. “Well. Last week, I suppose.”
I slipped past him into the flat. “It’s fortunate I came, then. I hope you have some good, strong tea.”
He dropped his forehead onto the doorframe. “By all means, do come in.”
I stepped in and unpinned my hat, hit immediately withthe warmth of the place—and the scarcity. I stood in a single-room flat with one narrow dormer overlooking the street, and the most threadbare furnishings I’d ever seen. A fire popped under a dented kettle, highlighting the room that seemed clean, but thrown together with castoffs. “You don’t keep much of anything, do you?”
“No need. It’s just me. And I don’t like things—they make it hard to move about.”
I set my hat on the crooked table and tipped my head to the side. “Now, about that tea.”
Jack leaped across the room to rescue his pot before it boiled over. “Of course, my lady.” His personality flooded the tiny space, alive and vibrant even now, and suddenly it made sense. He would be too much for a lavish flat with large, showy furniture. The combination would simply knock a person out. Here he turned a dull flat lively and made a small space rich with atmosphere.
“Where do you work?” I couldn’t help but stare around me. Two cups rested on a top shelf, a stack of books waited on the table to be read, and a plain quilt covered a bed in the corner. Even the diamond-patterned wallpaper clinging to the walls paled into the background of Jack Dorian as he swept around the room.
“Here and there.” Freshly inked pages lay on every surface to dry, in no discernable order, and he hopped over them to bring me the tea. Some pages were scrawled narration, the rest were filled with lines andx’s showing the dancers’ movements with all manner of scribbles in the margins. “Come, I’ll clear you a spot.” He swept a few dried pages to the side and pushed them off one of the chairs, as if preparing it for royalty. The place spoke of a master who was something between frenzied genius and miserly vagrant.
“Have you perfected the opening at least?”
“Why don’t you read it and tell me? It’s here. Somewhere.” He lifted a page and skimmed, then discarded it for another. “This. No, this is the night scene with the moon ... Ah, here. Yes! Here’s the opening.” He shot about the flat like bottled energy. Hopefully he came uncorked near these pages so they might be filled with everything inside him. “Now, then. Tell me how bad it is and be on your way so I may finish before Monday.”
“Why do you assume it will be bad? And isn’t this what you wanted, for your work to see the light of the stage?”
“Yes, but ... of course not!” He couldn’t cease pacing. He covered the floor in three squeaking strides, but I was certain he could easily have crossed the Thames already, had he set off in that direction.
“Why ever not?”
“Because then people would actuallyseeit! And the king ... oh, theking. Uuuuugh.” Both hands raked through his hair. It stood straight up, his face gaunt with tension at the idea of his work actually succeeding. Of fame and recognition.
My lips pursed into a smile. “Now who’s afraid of heights, Mr. Dorian?”
He glared. “Jack. In my own house at least, call meJack.”
I removed my gloves finger by finger and looked up at him as I settled into the tiny space cleared for me. “Well then,Jack.We’ve a lot of work to do. I hope you have plenty of candles.” I steeled myself to dive headlong into my parents’ story, into the mystery of the fire that had changed everything. To the rest of the world, it was merely a fascinating mystery. To me, it was my history—and quite possibly a mirror to my future.
He grabbed a box from a top shelf and froze, the candlenubs tinking together. One golden eyebrow shot up. “What’s thiswe?”
