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Chapter Ten

Lark watched her go with her chocolate silk bonnet and purposeful stride. When she reached the first crossing, it required a fair bit of resolution to turn the other way. He told himself that no real harm could come to her. There were men who might misread her singleness as vulnerability or an invitation, and he had seen a few pretenders to fashion who might approach her. But he hadn’t spotted anyone on the game.

Oxford Street was familiar territory to him now. In the months since the fire, he had established himself as a regular in places like the West End Dining Room by the habit of stopping in for coffee and a roll and reading the papers. Still, he caught himself in front of a silk warehouse window, lost to his surroundings. His mind followed Viv. He pictured himself in the upper gallery of the Pantheon, looking out for her, watching to catch her reaction to the place.

He laughed at himself. He had tried to teach her something of his street-wise way of moving in London, but here he was, forgetting basic lessons in wariness that he’d learned as a boy under Dav. At least he was not fool enough to pull out his watch to check the time. The day was mild, and an hour was not so long.

He stuck to his promise. He strolled west, crossing and turning east again only when he reached the end of Oxford Street. He was looking ahead down the walkway, hoping to spot her approaching him, when at Shepherd’s Street, a body slammed against his, sending him reeling into the shadows of the byway, careening against a brick wall. His ribs screamed, and his hat went flying. He caught himself against the wall and turned to face his assailant.

From the middle of the lane, Rook glared at him, chest heaving, heavy fists balled at his sides. He was dressed as Lark had never seen him, in a brown wool sack coat and black tie, like a clerk in an office, his hair cut, his beard trimmed, and above all not reeking. In the shadows Rook looked almost respectable, as if he’d quit the game, but his angry bewildered face told another story. There was no one else about.

“What are ye playing at?” Rook demanded. “Ye think yer better’n me. Ye think ye can go places I can’t.”

Lark straightened. Any chance that his new appearance signaled a change in Rook crumbled like a snuffed candlewick. Sharp needles of pain pricked Lark’s injured side. “I told you I don’t do clicks. I’m about to go for coffee. Join me.”

Rook shook his head. “I saw you with her, with the mark. Wot’s yer new game?”

“No game,” he said, and a preposterous idea popped into his head. I am going to marry her. It had to be wrong. The wall opposite was plastered with posters, advertising the great spectacles in London’s theaters—The Fall of Pompeii, Tom and Jerry, Madame Vestris’ Tableaux Vivant. The grandiose posters mocked the idea that his engagement was real. He was having a lark, like his name, playing at being betrothed.

Rook thrust his face forward. “Yer no gentleman. Ye don’t belong here. This isn’t our pitch.” Rook shoved Lark against the wall. “I’m yer partner, not some bird ye just met.”

Lark steadied himself. Under the anger, he heard the cry of betrayal. In the bewildered face, he saw hurt. “We can be partners again if you want. Let’s go to Dav. He’ll help us start a new enterprise.”

Rook’s lip curled. “Enterprise? Yer daft. We do prigs and clicks. We don’t know ’ow to do naught else.”

Lark didn’t answer. He didn’t say that he did know. He knew quite well how to invest small sums that paid off handsomely, and then larger sums, how to play a long game, how to keep money in the bank, instead of in a hole under the floorboards. Rook had never been interested in Lark’s ideas about making money from money.

“Ye don’t belong with ’er. Her kind is not our kind. Ye think she’s better than Liza? Ye think there’s something different under those fancy blue skirts of ’ers?”

Lark threw a punch, trained, accurate, measured. It connected with Rook’s nose and snapped his head back. Rook’s hand flew to his face. He stood stunned for a moment, his brow furrowed, his brain clearly slow to comprehend what Lark had done. With the back of his hand, Rook wiped the blood away.

“’Liza’s better than you think she is,” Lark told him.

The remark launched Rook at him. Lark countered the flurry of punches, random but heavy with anger, until one fist connected with the wound in his side. His consciousness dimmed, his knees gave, and he fell back against the bricks and caught himself.

Rook dropped his fists and stepped back. “Ye can’t quit on me for some toffy-nosed skirt. I won’t let you.”

“Quit with me, if you want to be partners again.” Lark knew as he said it that Rook would never take the offer. Rook had found his place in London. He was who he was. He did not search as Lark did for a lost self he was meant to be.

“I warn ye. Keep shut of ’er, or… or… I’ll tell ’er who ye really are.” Rook shook a fist and turned away.

The attack was over. Lark leaned back against the wall, his ribs rising and falling like bellows pumping air, his side throbbing with each gusty breath. He reached for his handkerchief and ran it over his face. The linen caught a small bit of blood from the inside of his lip. He pushed himself from the wall. A rush of energy flooded him, but he knew it would pass. He brushed himself off and straightened his tie. His hat lay on the stones a few feet away.

He took the necessary steps, one at a time, and then laughed at himself. He could not bend down for the hat. He put his hand against the bricks and bent his knees until he could just reach the hat. He dusted it off, straightened, and set it back on his head. He stepped back into Oxford Street, a few doors from the dining room. He did not see Rook, but he wanted to make sure that Rook did not find Viv. Rook was not likely to hurt her, but he would make good on his threat to expose Lark.

At the Pantheon, the porter let him in without a second look. He passed from the entrance porch through the vestibule with its sculpture display, and up a flight of steps, through the galleries to the upper story. The wound in his side objected to the stairs, but he gritted his teeth and kept going until he could look down on the crowded main floor below.

A throng of ladies and gentlemen moved through aisles created by the island-like counters with their array of goods. Gentlemen’s black hats and ladies’ fashionable balloon-like sleeves made a shifting pattern below, like a dance. Relief rose up in him when he spotted Viv’s plain dark bonnet. She moved from millinery to lace to gloves, and he realized she was being followed, not by Rook, but by a twig of a man in a pair of lavender gloves. From his gallery vantage point, Lark could not tell whether Viv noticed the fellow at all. At a fourth counter, she at last made a purchase.

Unexpectedly, she looked up. He was not quick enough. She spotted him.

*

Viv marched up the steps to the Pantheon’s upper gallery, fueled by a spurt of hot anger. She had been thinking how helpful he’d been and how grateful she was that he’d led her to Oxford Street. Now that he had broken his promise not to follow her, her distrust of him returned.

He stood, one hand on the rail, looking the picture of gentlemanly ease, nothing exaggerated in his dress, unlike the excess in many of the men around her in the bazaar. As she drew near, she realized that his easy elegance was an illusion. His face had a drawn look, and something was wrong with his mouth. She suspected that he needed to hold onto the rail. “We were to meet at the West End rooms.”

“We can go together,” he said. “You must want to put some thoughts in your notebook.”