Breakfast at Mrs. Willoughby’s was an informal affair in theory and an interrogation in practice.
The cloth was white, the coffee strong, the eggs overly enthusiastic. Mrs. Willoughby presided in a wrapper of rose-colored silk that suggested she had plans for the day that did not involve piety.
Mira toyed with her toast.
Sally, hovering at the sideboard, shot her worried glances between refilling the teapot and quietly stealing an extra slice of ham for herself.
“You look as if you have slept at the bottom of a well,” Mrs. Willoughby remarked, peering over the rim of her cup. “Did you dream of Pell? Ugh. I do apologize. I have given several ladies bad nights by inviting him to dinner.”
“I dreamed of the river,” Mira said.
“How unpleasantly symbolic,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Has Mr. Ferris taught you to talk in metaphors already? I shall have to scold him.”
“You need not worry yourself,” Mira said. “Mr. Ferris has enough people scolding him as it is.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Willoughby perked up. “Do tell.”
Mira hesitated. She had resolved, sometime between her nightmare and the dawn, that she would keep certain things close. Caine’s name. The details of the back room. The way Pell had looked when she told him to save his own mind.
Not because she did not trust Mrs. Willoughby entirely—though she did not—but because every person who knew the whole picture made the tapestry that much more fragile.
“I went to Wapping yesterday,” she said instead, choosing her thread. “To a tavern. With Mr. Ferris.”
Sally nearly dropped the coffee pot. Hot liquid sloshed perilously close to the cloth.
“Sorry, ma’am,” she squeaked.
Mrs. Willoughby set her cup down very slowly. “I beg your pardon?”
Mira lifted her chin. “I needed to speak with a clerk who sees all the ships that come and go. Mr. Ellison arranged it. Mr. Ferris escorted me.”
“You.” Mrs. Willoughby’s bracelets jangled as she gestured with her spoon. “In Wapping. In a tavern.”
“Yes,” Mira said.
“At what time of day?” Mrs. Willoughby demanded, as if this somehow made a moral difference.
“Afternoon,” Mira said. “It was quite dim, if that helps.”
“It does not,” Mrs. Willoughby said faintly.
Sally could no longer contain herself. “There were men, ma’am. On the street. With pipes. And a woman with her—her—” She flapped a hand in front of her own chest, blushing. “It were *horrid.*”
Mira fought a smile. “It was…educational,” she said again, because the word covered both Caine and the state of certain necklines.
“And Mr. Ferris allowed this?” Mrs. Willoughby demanded.
“He escorted me,” Mira corrected. “He argued, naturally. But he did not carry me bodily back to the carriage, for which I am grateful. I think he likes having both shoulders intact.”
Mrs. Willoughby stared at her, then leaned back in her chair with a groan. “I shall be exiled,” she said. “They will send me to Bath to live out my days among gouty colonels and water.”
“I do not see why,” Mira said. “You did not accompany me.”
“That will not matter,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “‘Mrs. Willoughby took in a widow,’ they will say, ‘and look what she did. She unleashed her on the docks.’ *Hanover Square will never recover.*”
Mira’s lips twitched. “Hanover Square could do with a little shaking,” she said. “It has grown too fond of its own echo.”
“You *enjoyed* it,” Mrs. Willoughby accused, her tone hovering between horror and admiration.
Mira thought of the press of bodies, the smell of tar and sweat, the flash of unexpected kindness in Bess’s eyes, the way information moved there like contraband, hidden in jokes and mutters.
“I did not enjoy being looked at as if I were something to be plucked,” she said. “But I enjoyed not being invisible. In the country, widows fade. Here, at least, they are seen. Even if for the wrong reasons.”
Mrs. Willoughby regarded her over the rim of her cup, her expression softening.
“You are not easy furniture, are you,” she said. “You will not be set in a corner and covered with a cloth.”
“No,” Mira said simply.
“And Mr. Ferris,” Mrs. Willoughby went on, “how did *he* behave? Did he get into a fight? He likes fights. They remind him he’s alive.”
“He did not,” Mira said. “He was…useful.”
“How dull,” Mrs. Willoughby said, though the gleam in her eyes suggested she did not find it dull at all. “And charming?”
Mira’s stomach gave an unhelpful little swoop. She thought of his hand steadying her in the passage. Of his grey eyes, alight with vexed admiration. Of the way his voice had roughened when he told her she had more to lose than she realized.
“He…talks too much,” she said.
“Oh, that is fatal,” Mrs. Willoughby said solemnly. “Beware. Men who talk too much have often thought too much, and that is the last thing one wants in a lover.”
Color rushed to Mira’s cheeks with such force she nearly choked on her toast. “Mrs. Willoughby!”
“Oh, hush,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You are a widow, not a virgin. You may think *lover* without fainting.”
“I may,” Mira said. “I might even have one, in theory, without fainting. But I have no intention of taking Mr. Ferris to my bed.”
Sally dropped a fork this time.
“Mira,” Mrs. Willoughby said, switching to her given name like a weapon, “you cannot say such things at breakfast. I have fragile nerves.”
“You introduced the word,” Mira said, feeling perverse.
“Yes, but I did not expect you to brandish it so boldly,” Mrs. Willoughby muttered, fanning herself with a napkin. “In any case, you are quite right. He is entirely unsuitable. No money, no title, a rack of bad habits… He would make a dreadful husband.”
“I am not looking for a husband,” Mira said.
“A lover, then,” Mrs. Willoughby said promptly, entirely undeterred. “One must be practical. Wapping and ledgers are all very well, but a woman cannot live on indignation alone. She must have some diversion.”
“I have plenty of diversion,” Mira said dryly. “Being threatened by men who run smuggling empires is quite diverting enough.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s spoon froze halfway to her mouth.
Sally slipped, in her surprise, and sloshed coffee onto the cloth at last.
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Willoughby said.
Mira exhaled.
Too much, too fast.
“I misspoke,” she said swiftly. “It was merely—a turn of phrase. We met some very…unsavory…men. One does not need to know their names.”
“Mira,” Mrs. Willoughby said in a new tone. Warning. Concern. “You *will* tell me if you are in actual danger, won’t you? Not social danger. That I can manage. Real danger. Knives and rivers and that sort of thing.”
Mira met her gaze. “I do not yet know,” she said honestly. “Which sort it is.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“If you drown yourself in pursuit of…of some grubby truth about a few missing guineas,” she said fiercely, “I shall never forgive you. The world has too few amusing women as it is.”
“It is not about guineas,” Mira said.
“Everything is about guineas,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “And men pretending it is about honor.”
“Sometimes it is about both,” Mira said.
Mrs. Willoughby studied her a long moment. “You have that look again.”
“What look?” Mira asked.
“The one my nephew had when he decided to go to Spain to fight the French. There is no arguing with that look. There is only arranging one’s letters for after the funeral.”
Mira’s stomach turned. “Is he…?”
“He wrote to say he was having a splendid time,” Mrs. Willoughby said briskly. “And then he wrote no more letters. I assume he made some Spaniard’s cow very happy by fertilizing a field.”
Sally made a strangled sound.
Mira stared. “I am not going to Spain.”
“No,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You are going somewhere worse. The docks. Commerce. Men who talk in low voices and take what is not theirs. Spain has at least the merit of sunshine.”
Mira’s lips twitched despite herself. “I shall remember to pack a parasol.”
Mrs. Willoughby set her cup down with a little clink. “Very well. If I cannot stop you—and I suspect I cannot—I shall at least do the next best thing.”
“And that is?” Mira asked warily.
“Teach you how to lie properly,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You are abysmal at it.”
“I beg your pardon,” Mira said, offended. “I have lied plenty in the last week. Everyone seems to think I am perfectly respectable.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “They think you are respectable because you tell the truth too often in small things. It lulls them. But when you *do* lie, your ears go pink and your voice goes very precise. Lady Bennett noticed yesterday when you told her you were ‘only in town for a few weeks.’ She will have written to her sister already. By tomorrow, half of London will know that you are up to something.”
“Good,” Mira said. “I should hate to bore them.”
“You will not find it so amusing when some harpy corners you at a ball and asks with a sweet smile whether Mr. Pell has been to tea,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You must be able to obfuscate without blushing.”
“I do not blush,” Mira protested.
Sally snorted from the sideboard, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
Mira glared at her. “Traitor.”
“It’s only,” Sally mumbled, eyes shining with apology and affection, “you do go a bit pink, ma’am. ‘Specially when…er…”
“When what?” Mrs. Willoughby pounced.
“When Mr. Ferris sits too close,” Sally said in a rush, then ducked as Mira flung a crust of toast at her.
It sailed wide and landed in the marmalade.
Mrs. Willoughby crowed. “Ah! *Now* we are interesting.”
Mira pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “You are impossible.”
“Correct,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “But I am also very good at navigating scandal. Lesson one: when someone asks you an impertinent question, you do *not* owe them an honest answer. You owe them a *satisfying* one.”
“And what, precisely, is the difference?” Mira asked.
“Truth rarely satisfies,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “It is ragged and complicated and involves far too many unflattering details. A satisfying answer, on the other hand, is neat. It fits their prejudices. It makes them feel clever. It distracts them from the thing they ought to wonder about.”
“You mean,” Mira said slowly, “if someone asks whether I have seen Mr. Pell, I ought to say…what?”
“‘We danced once and I found him tedious,’” Mrs. Willoughby supplied promptly. “Which will be true.”
“And if they ask why I am in town?” Mira persisted.
“You say, ‘To decide my future,’” Mrs. Willoughby said. “They will assume you are shopping for a husband. They will look at Mr. Pell, then at Mr. Ferris, then at half a dozen other men, and whisper and speculate. They will not think to ask whether you are shopping for a rope to hang someone with.”
Mira’s mouth curved, reluctant. “You are devious.”
“It is the only way to survive past thirty,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Lesson two: do not speak of ledgers in public unless you wish all the men to wilt. Speak of them in private, in corners, as if they are secrets. Men love secrets. They will tell you things to impress you that they would never tell their wives.”
“That seems…unpleasant,” Mira said.
“It is,” Mrs. Willoughby agreed. “But useful. Lesson three: you may flirt without intending to bed a man. Men do it all the time. They call it ‘being charming.’”
“I do not know how to flirt,” Mira said flatly.
“You do,” Sally put in unexpectedly. “You used to, with Mr. Godwin. ‘Specially when you wanted a new gown. You’d stand by the window and sigh about how cold your shoulders were, and he’d be in town the next week ordering fur.”
Mira choked. “I did no such thing.”
“Yes, ma’am, you did,” Sally said stoutly. “And it were very effective.”
Mrs. Willoughby looked delighted. “Oh, splendid. You have natural instincts. We need only refine them for broader use.”
“I do *not* intend to sigh at men until they buy me fabric,” Mira said.
“You intend to sigh at them until they tell you where their money is going,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Which is much the same thing.”
Mira’s cheeks warmed. “I am not sure I like this vision of myself.”
“You will like it when it keeps you one step ahead of your enemies,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “You walked into a tavern yesterday. You cannot afford to remain naive in drawing rooms.”
“I was never naive,” Mira said quietly. “Only…complacent.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s gaze softened again. “We all were. It is the luxury of those who think the world will behave if they behave. It is a lie. The world does what it pleases. The only choice we have is whether to lie down and let it roll over us or to dig in our heels and make it stumble.”
“You dig in your heels,” Mira said.
“I am too old to lie down,” Mrs. Willoughby said briskly. “Now. Lesson four: if you are to play at this level, you must have allies beyond one impoverished second son and a gossip like me.”
“I have Ellison,” Mira said. “And Gilbert.”
“Ellison is a mouse,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Gilbert is a cabbage. You need a fox. Perhaps a wolf. Someone who can growl at the right people and be invited to dinner by them the next week.”
“You describe Mr. Ferris,” Mira said before she could stop herself.
Mrs. Willoughby’s mouth twitched. “How convenient.”
Mira shook her head. “He has his own debts. His own…scars. I am not sure it is fair to pull him further into this.”
“My dear,” Mrs. Willoughby said, leaning forward, “men like Ferris are tripping over their own guilt. They long for a chance to be noble that does not require them to be bored. You are offering him that. He will lap it up like cream. Let him. Just do not mistake guilt for love. Or obligation for the same.”
Mira’s spine went rigid. “Who spoke of love?”
“No one,” Mrs. Willoughby said lightly. “Which makes it ideal conversation over breakfast. Eat. You will need your strength. Tonight we go to the theatre. You must learn to eavesdrop in boxes.”
“The theatre?” Mira repeated weakly. “But I—”
“Cannot possibly stay at home brooding,” Mrs. Willoughby cut in. “Grief is very exhausting if one does it all day. Best keep it to a few hours in the afternoon, like embroidery.”
Mira laughed, a short, surprised sound.
“There,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “That’s better. Remember: whatever game you are playing down by the river, you must continue to live *up* here. Laugh. Dance a little. Let men look at your bosom while they talk of politics. It will confuse them. Confused men make mistakes.”
“You are terrifying,” Mira said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “And I am on your side. Imagine how much worse I would be if I were not.”
***
That afternoon, Hanover Square received callers.
The news of Mira’s presence—and her blue gown—had spread as swiftly as Mrs. Willoughby predicted. A pair of simpering gentlemen arrived first, ostensibly to pay respects and truly to gawk. Mira endured their condolences, their not-so-subtle questions, their sideways glances at her hands as if expecting to see ink stains.
She answered with Mrs. Willoughby’s “satisfying” truths.
“Yes, Mr. Pell has been very kind.” (He had been dangerous. Kindness had nothing to do with it.)
“Yes, Mr. Ferris knew my husband well.” (True. Uncomfortably so.)
“Yes, I intend to remain only until I have decided my next steps.” (Also true. She simply did not mention that those steps might involve either rope or exile.)
When they left, buzzing like overfed bees, Lady Bennett came.
She settled into the largest chair with the air of a woman accustomed to occupying both furniture and attention.
“So,” she said, fixing Mira with her sharp gaze. “You have been very busy for a woman in mourning.”
Mira folded her hands. “Have I?”
“You have gone to dinners,” Lady Bennett said, ticking them off on bony fingers. “To musicales. You have waltzed in direct defiance of propriety. Mrs. Willoughby informs me you are going to the theatre. And I hear”—her eyes narrowed—“that you have been seen in less…salubrious…parts of town.”
Mira’s heart skipped. “You hear quickly.”
“London hears quickly,” Lady Bennett said. “You cannot sneeze without six people wondering if you are pregnant.”
Sally choked on her way out of the room.
Mira stifled a snort. “I assure you, Lady Bennett, any sneezes I have managed have been entirely respectable.”
“Do not be clever,” Lady Bennett said. “It only encourages me. Is it true? Did you go to the docks?”
Mrs. Willoughby, lounging by the window with a book she was not reading, shot Mira a look that mixed warning and curiosity.
Mira considered.
“Satisfying, not honest,” Mrs. Willoughby had said.
“Yes,” Mira said, meeting Lady Bennett’s gaze. “I went to speak with a man who knew my husband’s business. I did not drink. I did not sing. I did not take up with sailors.”
Lady Bennett sniffed. “You should have taken at least a sip. Taverns water the ale dreadfully. One must be sure one is getting what one paid for.”
Mira blinked. “You have…been to taverns?”
“Of course,” Lady Bennett said, as if insulted. “I was not born in a drawing room, child. My father owned half of Rotherhithe’s warehouses. I toddled among bales of cotton like other children toddle among flowerbeds. I have seen more naked backs in my life than you have seen teacups.”
Mrs. Willoughby wheezed.
Mira stared, shocked delight warring with admiration. “Why did no one tell me this?”
“Because it is not proper,” Lady Bennett said. “And because I married well and scrubbed the river from under my fingernails. Or so they like to pretend. It amuses me to let them.”
“You know the docks,” Mira said slowly. “You know this world.”
Lady Bennett’s eyes glittered. “Better than you. Better than Pell. Better than most of the men who think they own it because their names are on the ships’ sterns.”
“Then—” Mira leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Why did you not say so sooner?”
“Because,” Lady Bennett said tartly, “I was waiting to see whether you would be cowed by polite disapproval. There is no point wasting knowledge on a woman who will scuttle back to the country the moment someone raises an eyebrow.”
“I have no intention of scuttling,” Mira said. “I intend to stride.”
“Good,” Lady Bennett said. “You have the legs for it.”
Mira flushed. “Lady Bennett—”
“Oh, do not be modest,” Lady Bennett said. “You have hips. Hips are useful. They make men stupid. Use them.”
Mira pressed a hand to her forehead. “Why is everyone determined to enlist my body in this war?”
“Because it is here,” Lady Bennett said. “Because men have been using their bodies to tilt the scales in their favor since time began. There is no virtue in pretending we are vapor.”
Mrs. Willoughby nodded vigorously. “What did I tell you? You and Lady Bennett are going to be terrible together. I am almost jealous.”
“Do you know C—” Mira cut herself off, the syllable sticking in her throat. “Do you know…certain men who operate along the river?” she amended.
Lady Bennett’s gaze sharpened. “There are many. Some more dangerous than others. Which one has set your mouth that way?”
Mira hesitated. Naming Caine aloud in a sunlit drawing room felt…different. More permanent.
“I have heard talk,” she said cautiously, “of a man who calls himself Caine.”
Lady Bennett’s expression went very still.
Mrs. Willoughby, who had been about to tease, closed her mouth.
“So,” Lady Bennett said slowly, “you *are* wading into deeper water.”
“You disapprove,” Mira said.
“I am impressed,” Lady Bennett said. “And appalled. Caine is not a rumor, Mrs. Godwin. He is a fact. An unpleasant one. Like plague. Pretending he does not exist does not keep people from dying. But staring him in the face does not necessarily prevent it, either.”
“I have stared,” Mira said quietly.
Lady Bennett’s brows flew up. “You have *met* him?”
Mira inclined her head.
Mrs. Willoughby made a strangled noise. “You told me you met ‘unsavory men.’ You did not tell me you met *him.*”
“I was trying not to panic you,” Mira said. “I see now that was futile.”
Lady Bennett leaned forward. “And he did not kill you.”
“Not yet,” Mira said drily.
“Did he…?” Lady Bennett searched for a word and seemed, for once, to find none delicate enough. “Did he frighten you?”
“Yes,” Mira said. “And no. And yes again, later, when I thought about it.”
“Good,” Lady Bennett said. “If you had said ‘no,’ I would have slapped you. Fear is a survival tool, not a failing.”
Mira exhaled. “He wishes to bargain.”
“With you,” Lady Bennett said flatly.
“Yes,” Mira said.
“And what currency does he think you hold?” Lady Bennett pressed.
Mira hesitated. Mrs. Willoughby’s eyes bore into her like twin green drills.
Thomas’s pages weighed heavy in her mind.
“I have…some of my husband’s writings,” she said slowly. “Notes. Questions. Caine thinks they contain names that might be…inconvenient…to him. Or to others.”
“Do they?” Lady Bennett asked.
Mira met her gaze. “Yes.”
Lady Bennett sat back, her lips pursed.
“Then you sit at the edge of a very sharp blade,” she said. “Caine will not let you fall off it easily. Neither will the men whose names are etched on the steel.”
“You think I should burn them,” Mira said.
“I think,” Lady Bennett said, “that if you burn them, you will always wonder. And if you keep them, you may die curious. There is no safe choice, child. That is the nature of certain decisions.”
“Caine said something similar,” Mira murmured.
Lady Bennett sniffed. “Never trust a man who agrees with me. It makes me feel used.”
Mrs. Willoughby, who had been uncharacteristically silent, spoke at last. “What did he offer?” she asked. “In this bargain.”
“Information,” Mira said. “Guidance. A…reprieve. For Thomas’s name. For mine. Perhaps for Mr. Ferris’s.”
“Ferris,” Lady Bennett repeated, as if tasting the word. “That boy always did find the worst places to stand.”
“He is not a boy,” Mira said sharply.
“No,” Lady Bennett said. “But he still thinks like one. Scrambling to square everything with some imagined ledger in his head. Debts. Credits. Sins. Virtues. He is trying to pay for something he did or did not do. Men like that are dangerous in their own way. They will walk into fire thinking it will balance the scales.”
“He already has,” Mira said.
Mrs. Willoughby’s fingers tightened in her lap. “Do *not* let him be a martyr on your behalf,” she said. “I cannot stand martyrs. They are so self-satisfied.”
“I do not intend for anyone to burn for me,” Mira said. “If burning must be done, I am quite capable of doing it myself.”
Lady Bennett’s mouth curved. “You remind me of someone.”
“Yourself?” Mrs. Willoughby suggested.
“Perhaps,” Lady Bennett said. “Perhaps my father, standing on his first pier with no money and less sense, staring down men who could break him with a word. He took their money. He made his own. He died in bed with the smell of tar in his nose and a smile on his face. He would have liked you.”
Mira swallowed. “I am not sure if that is reassuring or not.”
“It is what it is,” Lady Bennett said. “Listen to me, child. Caine is useful, as far as he goes. He knows where certain bodies are buried. Sometimes because he dug the hole. Sometimes because he sold the shovel. But he is not your friend. He is not your enemy either, not yet. He is…weather. Adapt to him. Do not lean on him. And never, *ever,* forget that he will toss you overboard the moment you cease to be entertaining or profitable.”
“Understood,” Mira said quietly.
Mrs. Willoughby shuddered. “I need a drink,” she muttered. “It is two o’clock in the afternoon and I am entirely sober. This will not do.”
“You will manage,” Lady Bennett said. “You always do.” She turned back to Mira. “And you. You will **not** go back to any tavern, back room, or riverbank without telling one of us. Do you understand?”
“I already have an escort,” Mira said. “Mr. Ferris is quite insistent on throwing himself in front of every possible danger.”
“Yes,” Lady Bennett said. “But who will throw themselves in front of him? He has no sense of his own value.”
“I do,” Mrs. Willoughby said promptly. “It is just beneath mine.”
Mira couldn’t help it; a laugh escaped.
Lady Bennett sighed. “Hopeless, the pair of you. Very well. If you insist on consorting with smugglers and second sons, I shall have to dust off my own less respectable connections. You are not the only one who can talk to men in low places, Mrs. Godwin. I simply prefer to do it from a sedan chair.”
“You would…help?” Mira asked, surprised.
Lady Bennett sniffed. “Do not be stupid. Of course I will help. I did not spend my youth watching men walk away with more than they sacrificed just to sit here in my dotage and cluck. Pell disgusts me. Harcourt annoys me. And Caine…” Her eyes narrowed. “It will do him good to remember that women are not merely decorative.”
Mira’s chest tightened. “Thank you,” she said simply.
“Do not thank me yet,” Lady Bennett said. “You may curse me before we are done. Now. Finish your tea. Then let Mrs. Willoughby drag you to the theatre. And do try not to seduce anyone in a box. It creates *terrible* echoes.”
Mrs. Willoughby gasped. “Lady Bennett!”
“I did not say it from experience,” Lady Bennett said. “But I have heard things.”
***
That evening, the theatre shimmered.
The chandelier blazed above the pit, its candles dripping soft light over powdered wigs, shining hair, bare shoulders. The air was a stew of perfume, sweat, greasepaint, and anticipation.
From their box—modest, but with an agreeable view of both the stage and a good portion of the other boxes—Mira watched London watching itself.
Mrs. Willoughby leaned on the velvet railing, opera glass in hand. “There,” she murmured, peering. “Lady Holt has found herself a new coat. Pity about the man inside it. And there—oh, Lord. See that peacock? That is Lord Renshaw. He insists on turning up his collar like a highwayman. As if anyone has ever mistaken him for dangerous.”
Mira followed the direction of her glass. Lord Renshaw did indeed resemble a very pretty rooster. His gaze flicked, bored, from box to box, lingering slightly on those with the prettiest women.
“You see what I mean?” Mrs. Willoughby said. “They have no idea what to do with themselves when they are not shooting or breeding.”
“Breeding horses,” Mira said, deadpan.
“Mostly,” Mrs. Willoughby agreed. “Occasionally each other, but they try not to think about it.”
A movement below caught Mira’s eye.
Daniel Ferris, in a coat that had seen better seasons but had clearly been brushed within an inch of its life, made his way along the edge of the pit. He paused to greet a man by the aisle, exchanged a few words, then glanced up—almost unconsciously.
Their gazes met.
From three tiers above, his features looked less precise, but his eyes were unmistakable: that clear, unexpected grey, sharper than any opera glass.
He inclined his head, just a fraction.
It should have been a small, meaningless gesture. A simple acknowledgment of acquaintance.
Heat curled low in her abdomen.
Mrs. Willoughby, following her line of sight, made a small humming noise. “Mm. He wears the theatre well.”
“Does he?” Mira said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Like a hungry man at a feast. He wants everything and knows he can afford very little. It makes him attentive.”
“Are you suggesting I feed him?” Mira asked.
“Not in that sense,” Mrs. Willoughby said, then eyed her. “Unless you wish to.”
“I do not,” Mira said too quickly.
Mrs. Willoughby’s lips quirked. “Of course not.”
Ferris found a place beside Reggie Clarke in the pit. They exchanged some remark; Reggie laughed, broad and guileless. Ferris’s gaze drifted back up once more, not quite to her box. To the row below. To where, at the edge of the curtain, Mrs. Willoughby’s green gown gleamed.
He would not assume she was with Mrs. Willoughby. Not at first glance. There were other ladies, other gowns.
Mira lifted her hand, slow and deliberate, and rested her fingers on the velvet railing.
Ferris’s eyes found them.
His lips curved.
An usher stepped into the box, bowing. “Good evening, ladies. Mr. Daniel Ferris begs leave to inquire whether he might pay his respects.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s eyes sparkled. “See?” she murmured. “Hungry.”
“Send him in,” she said aloud.
Ferris entered the box with the air of a man stepping into a room whose temperature he was not entirely sure of. He bowed politely to Mrs. Willoughby, then to Mira.
“Ladies,” he said. “You have excellent taste in amusements.”
“You are late,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “We have been deprived of your commentary.”
“I would not dare compete with yours,” Ferris said. “I heard you flaying Lord Renshaw’s collar all the way from the pit.”
“He deserves it,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “Mira, does he not look ridiculous?”
Mira considered Lord Renshaw. Considered Ferris. “He looks as if his coat is trying to strangle him,” she said. “Mr. Ferris looks as if his coat and he have struck an uneasy truce.”
Ferris put a hand to his heart. “High praise. I shall retire on it.”
Mrs. Willoughby laughed. “Sit, before I make you.”
He took the spare chair behind them, close enough that when he leaned forward to speak, his breath brushed the nape of Mira’s neck.
She suppressed a shiver.
“How are you?” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear.
“Still alive,” she said.
“A low bar,” he said. “Aim higher.”
“Very well,” she said. “I am also moderately well-fed and being lectured on deception by every woman over thirty in Hanover Square. Is that high enough?”
He huffed. “I see you’ve met Lady Bennett in full flight.”
“And survived,” she said. “She sends her regards. In the form of a warning that you are likely to martyr yourself in some ill-advised attempt at nobility.”
He winced. “She always was too perceptive.”
“Is it true?” she asked, tilting her head slightly toward him, her voice soft. “Do you intend to martyr yourself?”
“I had not planned on it,” he said. “But if the opportunity arises to dramatically fling myself in front of a villain’s pistol, I can’t promise I won’t be tempted. It would look very well in the pamphlets.”
A strange ache bloomed in her chest. “You make light of it,” she said.
“I make light of everything,” he said. “It is either that or pick up a pulpit. The choices for second sons are limited.”
“You could marry,” she said. “Settle. Take a sensible woman to the country and breed horses.”
“Do I look like a man who should be in charge of anything that breathes?” he asked.
She thought of him in the back room, steadying her. At the tavern door, lecturing her on caution. In Pell’s path, blocking his view of her with deliberate impoliteness.
“Yes,” she said before she could think better of it. “You do.”
He went very still behind her.
“If you are attempting to frighten me,” he said at last, lightly, “you are succeeding.”
She shifted, just enough to glance back at him. The lamps gilded the edges of his hair, picking out copper and fire.
“I thought nothing frightened you,” she said.
“Oh, widows frighten me,” he said. “Especially clever ones. They have too little to lose and too much to teach.”
“And what, precisely, do you think I am teaching you?” she asked.
“That my ledger of sins is longer than I thought,” he said. “And that I might yet find a way to balance it that does not involve a bullet.”
Her throat tightened. “Caine offered you…protection,” she said. “As part of his bargain.”
“He offered me a chance to be useful to him,” Ferris said. “Those are not the same thing.”
“Will you take it?” she asked.
He was silent for a moment.
Below, the orchestra struck a tuning note. The house hummed.
“I will take whatever keeps you from being the next body they pull from the river,” he said finally.
“That is not an answer,” she said.
“It is the only one I have,” he said.
The curtain rose. Actors trod the boards, declaiming lines about honor and revenge and love thwarted by circumstance.
Mira watched without seeing.
Ferris’s presence hummed behind her, a constant awareness. When he laughed softly at a clever turn of phrase, the sound slid along her nerves. When he shifted, his knee brushed the back of her chair.
During the interval, Mrs. Willoughby excused herself to go and exchange gossip with a friend in another box.
“I shall leave you two to whisper,” she said blithely, sweeping out in a rustle of green silk.
Ferris moved into her vacated seat by the railing, closer to Mira.
The theatre buzzed with talk. Men craned to see who occupied which box. Women pretended not to notice.
“Lady Bennett tells me you can see the river from your husband’s old office,” he said.
“Yes,” Mira said, eyes scanning the crowd out of habit now, cataloguing faces, expressions, patterns of attention. “He used to say it kept him honest.”
“The river?” Ferris asked.
“The smell,” she said. “He said it reminded him that there were ships beneath the figures. Men hauling ropes. Women praying. Children waiting for fathers to come home. He hated the offices that did not have windows. Said they made men forget that ink stains were not the only kind that mattered.”
Ferris’s mouth curved, bittersweet. “That sounds like him.”
“He wrote about you,” she said impulsively. “In his…notes.”
Ferris’s whole body seemed to still. “He did?”
“Not often,” she said. “But when he did, it was…warmly. Even when he was annoyed.”
“What did he say?” His voice was careful. Too careful.
She hesitated. “He wrote that you were ‘infuriatingly cautious when the numbers do not sing to him.’ That you had ‘a conscience inconvenient enough to trip over.’ And that you ‘talk to the sea like a lover.’”
Ferris’s eyes closed briefly. When he opened them, something raw flickered there. “He wrote that?”
“Yes,” she said. “I read it. Before I burned most of it.”
He swallowed. “Why burn any?”
“Because some griefs are too heavy to carry in words as well as in memory,” she said.
“And some truths are too heavy not to share,” he said quietly.
She looked away, to the stage where the actors were milling, the crew moving scenery. “Two days,” she said. “Tomorrow, and then the day after. I must decide what to do with the rest.”
“You could show them to me,” he said.
She stiffened. “No.”
He blinked. “That was…decisive.”
“Those pages are mine,” she said. “Thomas wrote them for himself. For his own understanding. For his own conscience. Sharing them with anyone else—even you—feels like…undressing him in public.”
Ferris’s jaw tightened. “You think I would leer.”
“No,” she said. “I think you would look too closely. And I am not ready to see what *you* see when you look at him. At me.”
He exhaled. “Fair.”
“You did not ask why I might show them to Caine,” she said.
“I don’t want to think about it,” he said.
“You will have to,” she said. “If you come with me.”
“Oh, I will come,” he said. “I am not leaving you alone in a room with that man. I may not be able to stop him if he decides to change the rules, but I can at least make it messy.”
“You speak as if it is already decided,” she said.
“Isn’t it?” he asked.
“I could stay away,” she said. “Ignore the appointment. Burn the pages. Sell the house. Go to Linton and let Gilbert count turnips.”
“You could,” he said. “But you won’t.”
“Because I am stubborn?” she asked.
“Because you care more about truth than about safety,” he said. “And because you loved your husband enough to be furious with him for leaving this mess.”
She stared at him.
“You see too much,” she said.
“It is an unfortunate habit,” he said.
“Has it served you?” she asked.
He considered. “Sometimes. Often not. It is hard to win at cards when you cannot convince yourself the other man is honest.”
“And yet you still play,” she said.
“I like to test myself,” he said. “To see how far I can go without slipping into the same muck as Pell. To see if I can cheat only myself and not others.”
“You think your sins touch only you,” she said.
“I used to,” he said. “Then I watched Godwin cough himself into the grave under a weight I helped heave onto his shoulders. I am learning otherwise.”
Silence hung between them, threaded with the hum of the crowd.
An usher moved along the opposite row, murmuring. The orchestra struck up a few notes to call people back to their seats.
Mira’s fingers tightened on her fan.
“Do you regret meeting my husband?” she asked, impulsive.
He flinched. “Regret the friendship? No. Regret introducing him to Pell? Every day.”
“If you had not,” she said, “Pell would have found someone else. Harcourt. Some other gullible merchant. The river would still have taken its due.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But it might not have been *him.*”
“And if you had not come into his office that first day,” she said, “he might have invested with someone worse sooner. Or married some pious fool who would have sat quietly when the money vanished instead of storming taverns.”
His lips lifted, unwillingly. “You think you have improved his lot.”
“I think,” she said, “that if he can see us now, he is deeply entertained.”
Ferris’s gaze softened. “He always did like a spectacle.”
“So do you,” she said. “Admit it. You enjoy all of this as much as you fear it.”
“I enjoy parts of it,” he said. “I enjoy watching you make Harcourt sweat. I do not enjoy watching you walk into rooms where one wrong word could see you dragged out by your hair.”
“No one is dragging me by my hair,” she said. “It is far too well-pinned.”
His eyes flicked to the curls arranged artfully at her nape. His hand twitched, as if tempted to test their security.
Heat licked across her skin.
“You should not say things like that,” he muttered.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I am trying very hard to behave,” he said.
She swallowed. “You think your behaving matters.”
“I like to think it does,” he said. “It may be all that stands between you and scandal.”
She let out a soft snort. “Scandal is already peeking through the curtains, Mr. Ferris. All it needs is a gust of wind.”
He leaned closer, his breath warm against the shell of her ear. “Then we must be very careful where we open windows.”
Her pulse skittered.
Onstage, the actors took their places.
She straightened, putting a fraction more distance between them.
“Watch,” she said. “Perhaps we will learn something about vengeance.”
“I’m more interested in the parts about temptation,” he murmured.
She did not answer.
Her fingers, curled on the velvet railing, trembled.
When the villain strode onstage, in a mask and a cape, the crowd booed and hissed, delighted.
Mira thought of Caine. Of his pleasant voice and pale eyes.
A villain who did not bother with masks.
And somewhere beneath the warm, flickering glow of attraction and banter, a colder determination sharpened.
Two days.
She would not spend them merely watching plays.
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