“Who are you?” he asked again, this time keeping his voice low, but it was too late. She was already rushing away. He could chase her, of course, but that would only frighten her more. So he stood still, waiting long enough for her to feel as if she’d escaped. Only after she had disappeared around a bend did he rush to follow her.
He wasn’t equipped to slip through early morning shadows, but he managed well enough. As London was waking up, he hid behind fruit carts and morning hawkers. And he ran to catch up to her.
There she was! A small dark woman carrying an easel and satchel. She moved with lithe precision, slipping in and around the flow of humanity as easily as a fish gliding downstream. But then she took an unexpected turn. He’d thought her wealthy given the quality of her paintbrush and the paper on which she painted, but she headed into a rowdy corner of town.
Then she disappeared into the side of building. It took him a moment to figure out his location, but then he was more confused than before.
The Lyon’s Den. A gaming hell with a lurid reputation. It specialized in all the normal games plus wagers that took a bizarre turn. Who could juggle the most cricket balls, who could seduce the most redheads, who could eat the most bizarre meats. There were upstairs ladies to service the clients, of course, but the mysterious painter couldn’t possibly be a common lightskirt. Her manners were too refined, her fear too palpable, and her art too exquisite.
He stood outside the hell as he considered the possibilities. In the end, he had more questions than answers. There was a secret here, and he was determined to ferret it out. It shouldn’t be hard. All it would take was a meeting with the owner—Mrs. Dove-Lyon—and then he would know all. Hopefully, it wouldn’t involve anything more than a few pounds’ bribery. But more likely, the lady would encourage a livelier kind of game. It was said that was her favorite entertainment.
But the end would be the same. He would get his hands on the art and use it to get back into Prinny’s good graces.
Chapter Two
Today was asquiggly day.
Li-Na acknowledged the truth of this moment with nothing more than a shrug. For a woman who prized order, she was having a great many wiggly days lately thanks to that bizarre encounter with that strange man a week ago. He looked so fierce as he clutched her bad painting to his chest that she had nightly dreamed about him.
Average height for a man, but with broad shoulders and stormy blue-gray eyes. He’d seemed both outraged and apologetic as he tried to speak with her. Normally, she’d have run immediately. Indeed, shehadrun. But she’d stayed around long enough to hear the calmness in his voice.
It made no sense. He’d been panicked and angry, and yet there was an underlying gravity to his voice that settled her fears. There had been no violence in his demeanor, only protection of her silly painting. And when she’d run away, he had let her go. That alone was enough to have him in her thoughts. No man she knew allowed her to escape unless forced.
And since she worked as the Abacus Lady at the Lyon’s Den, she knew a great many men. Since she handled the money at the gaming hell, she was the one they begged, cajoled, flirted with, and made wagers on, all hoping to gain influence with her or leniency on their debts. She had denied them all without thinking twice about it.
Until a man with stormy eyes had scolded her for ripping up a bad painting.
Hence the squiggles. Fortunately, she knew how to handle them and set down her painting materials with purpose.
She was in a shadowed corner of Hyde Park near enough to hear the thunder of horses’ hooves from riders on Rotten Row. Shadows fell on her easel, but that didn’t matter. Today wasn’t about creating an image, it was about releasing her unruly emotions.
She set a sheet of foolscap on the easel, touched her brush in the ink, then began to draw exactly what she felt. Wiggly squiggles punctuated by the sound of galloping horses. They came through as fractured swirls and dark blobs. She heard a lady laugh and dotted light gray bubbles at the top. She listened to an elderly man cough, and that translated to a jagged dot that lengthened into a gray stairstep.
It was a chaos of black, white, and gray, all kept within the confines of the foolscap because even in her most jagged moments, she always kept her emotions within a frame. She could express everything inside that careful square, and not be bothered by it again. Once—on a particularly bad day—she had added color.
That wasn’t the case today. Colored pigment was too expensive to waste on normal squigglies. Today’s feelings could be released harmlessly onto foolscap before she crumpled the paper and used it to light a fire. Or so she told herself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working. Just as it hadn’t worked since the morning she’d met the stormy man.
She painted for two hours until several pages were covered in dark marks. One was so full that no white remained, only shades of black and gray. Only time would tell if she’d truly released her wiggles onto the page or if they remained embedded inside her back and belly, causing her to leave off her food and spit out her tea.
She took her time as she walked back. The Lyon’s Den gambling hell would not open for several hours yet. Plenty of time before she sat in the cage, a dark veil over her head, as she used her abacus to record the den’s receipts. Everyone called her the Abacus Woman because Mrs. Dove-Lyon thought it added an air of mystery. Li-Na didn’t mind because it hid her Chinese heritage as much as her veil. And since she never spoke above a whisper, they didn’t catch her accent either. As far as the world was concerned, she was another white woman who toiled during London’s dark night, and she was happy with the anonymity. It kept her inside a dark box as securely as her squiggles had been contained on the foolscap.
She entered the building through the tiny classroom space Mrs. Dove-Lyon used to teach her employees new skills. Two of the girls sat there now click-clacking with their abacus as they learned bookkeeping by double-checking Li-Na’s work from the night before. If they caught her in an error, they would receive a night off. Li-Na took great pride that no one had ever had a night free because of her.
She walked past them without exchanging pleasantries. She would not have minded speaking with them, but she had long since learned to speak to no one unless they initiated the conversation. She spent many of her days in absolute silence.
Which is why she was startled when the pit boss met her at the door into the gaming hell. He smiled warmly at her then jerked his thumb toward Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s private parlor. “She wants to speak with you. First thing.”
A summons? Why? This wasn’t Tuesday or Friday, their usual days to talk. Alarm shot through her, igniting the squiggles inside her belly until they burned. She locked them down tight and nodded. First to her bedroom on the top floor to put away her paint and paper. Then a quick ablution before she donned her dark veil and headed downstairs. She arrived while Mrs. Dove-Lyon was drinking her morning tea which she set down with a click.
“Oh, leave off the veil, Li-Na. The two of us look like old crows sometimes, and I’m not of a mind to feel that way today.”
As was customary, the lady wore her usual widow’s attire, but the veil was dumped in the corner. And whereas Li-Na didn’t exactly wear mourning, her grey dress was so dark as to be black and her veil made it seem as if they were two old ladies huddled in the back of a church.
Ever obedient, Li-Na pulled off her veil and folded it carefully in front of her, then she stood waiting. Mrs. Dove-Lyon released a heavy sigh as she gestured to the chair set beside her.
“Sit down, please. Li-Na, we’ve known each other for five years and yet you still act like a pensioner around me. Are you truly that unhappy here?”
Li-Na titled her head in confusion. “I am very happy.” She had food, clothing, and safety. Given that Mrs. Dove-Lyon had won her in a card game from a slaver, Li-Na would do anything to prevent a return to her former life. Plus, she was well paid for her services. That was an extraordinary life for a servant. But she also knew that could change, and so she remained respectful and never took liberties unless invited. “I appreciate my life here, Bessie,” she said. Her voice softened into informality as she as she settled on the chair.
