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“There’s too much at stake.” Jack was looking at her.

She lowered her eyes. He was why, the reason she’d stay.

When their mother died, Nina had been left with no one in the world to care for her. No one but Jack, scarcely nineteen, too young for the burden. He’d turned up on Mr. Mucklow’s doorstep.

It’s you and me, Birdie, he’d said. We’ll stick together, come what may.

He’d sacrificed to keep her with him. His attic room in the mansion let by his fancy artist friends in Chelsea. His place at the Academy Schools.

She wouldn’t have picked the life he’d given her, but the alternative would have been worse. The orphanage. The workhouse.

If she fled when he needed her . . . who would she be? Someone unrecognizable.

But this . . . to be Alan De’Ath’s amanuensis. It was absurd, a hazardous proposition.

Her mouth felt dry again. She peered into the Staffordshire mug. The contents looked murky, curdled. Undrinkable. She gave a groaning sigh.

Blast. Fritz butted the soft underside of her chin with his head, which was hard beneath the fur.

She looked up and met Jack’s eyes.

“Do you think I’d better bring my own pen?” she asked.

Jack dimpled. Sweet Jack.

“That’s my Birdie,” he said. “Alan De’Ath is no match for you.” He laughed. “How keen can he be? He didn’t recognize your worth. Amanuensis.” Shaking his head, he stepped forward, reached out to take her hands. His fingers were hot and damp, the rings cool.

“These were made for more,” he said, lifting her hands. “And he’ll never know.”

Chapter Five

Casa De’Ath stood riverside in Chelsea. The largest of the houses on Wyvern Walk, a redbrick Georgian mansion, five bay windows wide. Nina hesitated between the gate piers. She touched her fingers to the chain of her chatelaine purse. The purse held a notebook, a pen, an ink bottle, and assorted nibs.

Ready as she’d ever be.

She walked the short garden path to the entrance, admiring the rectangular beds of shrubs and herbs, most unfamiliar. She recognized the olive trees from Italian paintings, all those narrow leaves.

Not surprising, really, that even De’Ath’s botanical taste distinguished him.

Scrolled wrought-iron rails framed the steps to the front door.

She knocked, waited, and knocked again.

At last, the door opened. A man squinted at her. He was bald with a gray, pointed beard. He held a small book bound in fragile-looking ochre cloth against his narrow chest. His brown suit was mostly made of patches.

“No ham?” he asked, peering about, as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. “No wine? Sausages?”

His thick accent transformed w’s into v’s.

The letters stamped across the book he held resembled none she’d ever seen.

“Nothing?” he asked. “Ah well. You are trusting talent, then.” He nodded his approval but added, softly, half to himself, still peering at Nina, “I had premonition. This time, ham.”

“This is Mr. De’Ath’s residence?” Nina heard the uncertainty in her voice. But there was no possibility of error.

Casa De’Ath, as the wags called it. Number 11 Wyvern Walk.

“Yes, yes.” The man waved her inside. “You are prima donna? What opera?” He said something in Italian and, when she didn’t answer, switched to another language. German, she thought.