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June retreated deep beneath the covers, while the oil lamp was extinguished. The only light left in the room was the faint orange glow around the edges of the stove door and vents.

There was movement at the other side of the bed, the mattress sinking a bit as Mad slid in beside her. He went still and let out a luxurious sigh.

There they lay, side by side without touching, like a pair of nuns on holiday.

“You settled in awright, June?” she heard him ask.

“No.”

“You ain’t?”

“This bed’s cold enough to freeze the bollocks off a brass monkey,” she grumbled.

She heard a quiet laugh before Mad reached out with a long arm to pull her into the crook of his shoulder. The man radiated heat like a brickkiln. With a quiver of comfort, she cuddled close to him.

They rested together, while she absorbed the pattern of his breathing, the steady beat of his heart, the feel of his strength wrapped around her. In all the time they’d spent together, they’d never had this kind of privacy, in which anything could be said or done.

One of his hands played in her hair, fingertips teasing down to her scalp until she wanted to arch like a cat. “Your hair’s like a mermaid’s,” he said. “You’re so pretty, Junie. Every inch of you.”

She smiled and turned to press a furtive kiss against his shoulder. “Go on with you.”

“My day never starts ’til I go into the kitchen and see you. You’re sunrise to me.”

Surprised and moved, June propped herself up on an elbow to look down at him through the shadows.

“That’s the tattoo I’d get, to remind me of you,” he said. “A little sun, with rays all around it.”

“No more tattoos,” she told him. “You won’t need no reminders of me—I’ll be right here in front of you.”

“Not always.”

“Why not always?”

“No one’s never stayed with me for always.”

“I might—if you can keep your arse out of Millbank Prison.”

“I will,” he assured her. “I been a upstanding bloke so far, ain’t I?”

“Yeah,” June said, smiling as she traced the firm shape of his lips with her fingertip. “If I thought you needed a tattoo for me, it wouldn’t be no sun. I’d put my name on you.”

“On which part?”

“All your parts. You’d have ‘June’ written all over you, head to toe. And that’s too many blinkin’ tattoos.”

Mad’s arms went around her, and he turned them on their sides, so their bodies were tucked close together. He nuzzled into her hair and let out a soft chuckle. In a moment, he said in a muffled voice, “I would love to have June all over me.”

Chapter Thirty

Scallop

I might fancy goin’ to church someday,” Belinda said on the way back from Brompton Cemetery.

That drew June’s attention away from the window of the hired mourning carriage. She, Enid, and Mad all stared at Belinda in astonishment.

“Why’s that, Bee?” June asked.

“What the reverend said while we was all standing around the grave-hole. About how God loves housemaids.”