She’d been a prattler since they’d found each other as girls on the street outside of a Drury Lane theater. Alone, wearing tattered garments, the girl had been lost and crying, her piteous wailing ignored by all. Except Julia and her mother. Julia’s mother had urged Julia to go collect the lost little girl. Together they’d brought Adairia back to the hovel they’d called home, and there the girl had stayed.
Adairia had always been whimsical.
Hell, when they’d first met, the other young woman had insisted she was a princess and wanted to find the way back to her castle.
Which was why Adairia was the absolute worst person to whom Oswyn, that bloody street tough, could have approached with all this nonsense about Adairia being a ‘lost lady’.
Adairia, who was no princess.
Adairia, who, like Julia, had no father or family… beyond Julia.
The gentleman was speaking to one of the drivers, directing the distribution of those flowers. As he checked the glimmering fob that dangled from his perfectly cut black trousers, there clearly wasn’t a place the fellow cared to be less.
But then, what person in their right mind would prefer these parts, compared to the ones a bloke like him was accustomed to?
“Oswyn said Rand Graham has information about me…and that he wishes to speak with me about…things he knows about my abduction,” Adairia ventured, and Julia abruptly stopped. Adairia halted beside her.
Rand Graham. The evil leader of the Rookeries. Younger and more deadly than even Diggory. And that was saying something about his evil. Before he’d been taken down by the head proprietor of the Hell and Sin Club, the late Mac Diggory had ruled the streets of East London—and he’d done so with a viciousness that lived on in the memories of him that still haunted these cobblestones.
“First, you aren’t a viscount’s long lost daughter,” Julia started.
“An earl’s,” Adairia swiftly amended.
Innocent as the London day was unforgiving, Julia’s sister was too-naïve-for-her-own-good. “And you were notabducted, Adairia,” she continued. “My mother and I found you. You were lost,” she said bluntly, reminding her sister of that forgotten details. “Do you remember that?”
Adairia’s features fell. “Yes, but—”
“And third of all, are you really suggesting we answer a summons from Rand Graham, the most ruthless gang leader in the Dials since Mac Diggory, and discuss your supposed abduction from these parts?” Rand Graham who now controlled these parts.
After a beat of silence, Adairia beamed. “Yes!”
Oh, good Lord in heaven. Julia took her sister-from-the-streets by the arm and marched her toward more important matters—the fellow passing out flowers.
Except, Adairia wasn’t done.
“I don’t understand what the harm is in speaking with him. Oswyn said Graham knows information that no one else knows. He says I have an aunt, and she is a duchess, and—”
“You really don’t understand the danger?” Julia snapped, fighting to maintain her patience and realizing for the first time just how much she’d failed Adairia while trying to preserve her joyful spirit and innocence. “Since Diggory’s death, Graham’s openly fought for control of St. Giles and the Dials, and you really have no idea about his reputation?”
“But—”
“Let us assume that this farcical story is true. Let us assume you were abducted, which you absolutely were not,” Julia took care to remind Adairia. “The ones behind that evil would have been people Rand Graham is even now seeking to protect.”
Her eyes tortured, Adairia troubled at her lower lip, and for the span of a heartbeat Julia believed she’d managed to get through to her sister.
And then, Adairia lifted her palms. “But I have to know, Julia. I have to.”
“Aren’t we enough?” Julia implored. “Do you really need to go chasing dreams of bigger”—better—“families?”
That managed to cut through her friend’s jabbering.
Briefly. “Of course you are. But, Julia…” Adairia gripped her by the shoulders, turning Julia away from the street and forcing her to meet her eyes. “This is our chance.”
“Aye, it’s our chance.”
The other woman’s gaze lit.
“Our chance to get ourselves a windfall.” And they had to act before they were beaten to it. Julia pointed past her friend’s shoulder, directing her focus and attention precisely where it should be… on the crates upon crates overflowing with the whitest, most-silken-looking flowers she’d seen in all her years as a flower peddler.
Which, given that she’d been doing it since she was a small girl and had continued doing it all these years later, was saying a good deal indeed.
Adairia frowned, that downturn slip of the woman’s lips as rare as her silence. “I’m not talking about the flowers.”
“I know,” she said. “But you should be.”
The tall, golden-haired fellow headed to one of those carriages, and Julia instantly strained. He was leaving, which meant they had to act now.
Wait…
The servant collected another small case of white flowers.
No… there were more blooms, was all. So many. Why, at that amount, she and Adairia would be selling for days. There were so many, it would be impossible to keep up. They’d have to dry some of them out.
Fingers tugged at her sleeve.
“Julia.”
Dried flowers fetched less.
“Julia.”
But with this many of them, they could string together even more when the fresh buds weren’t plentiful.
“Julia!” There came another frantic tug on her tattered sleeve, and Julia ripped her attention her friend’s way.
“What?”
“What? Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said, Julia? I’m pointing out that if we pursue this,” Adairia said, “then we can put all of this behind us.”
Bloody hell.
The swarms had already converged upon the gent, and he and his servants were handing out cases of flowers to the waiting girls around him.
“Let’s go!” Julia muttered. Taking her friend by the hand, she began dragging her forward.
At her side, Adairia smiled. “Splendid. I—”
“I’m talking about the flowers. They’re going to be all gone.” Blast and hell. She maneuvered herself through the collection of smallish children and young women. “Flowers, please, sir,” she called, lifting her palms up to the liveried footman who was accepting offerings from another ridiculously bewigged fellow inside the coach.
The man gave her a once-over and frowned.
“Those ones are a bit old to be flower sellers, don’t you think, my lord?” he called, and Julia followed his stare to the person to whom he’d directed that question. Tall, attired in an elegant cloak, the man was already retreating, indicating how little he cared about this. “Probably one of the whore sorts.”
The whore sorts.
Of course, because everyone knew there were two types of flower sellers—the youngest of girls, who hawked their blooms from baskets outside of Covent Garden theaters, and the older girls, who were no longer children and who coupled the sale of a flower with a coupling.
The gentleman didn’t bother to glance back. But why should he? It was a wonder he was involved in any way in the common task before him. “Distribute the rest as you see fit,” the young lord said, heading for his grand carriage.
“He don’t care,” she said, unable to keep a frantic note from creeping in. “And I’m not a whore,” she felt compelled to add. Because a pompous one like him who’d mentioned it would care.
Sniffing at the air, he bypassed her, ignoring her assurances and handing the offering over to—
“You,” she spat.
Meg Silvers, the most notorious seller of both flowers and her body and now also a notorious sellout to Rand Graham, smirked. “Step aside.”
That bastard had come and solicited help from those who’d grown up and still lived in these parts. For their fealty and information he found useful, he gave them protection in the form of safety and monies.
Several of the children who stood in wait assessed the arrival of Meg Silvers. Knowing the threat they faced now if they secured flowers over her, a favored hand of Rand Graham, those children scattered.
Fury licked at Julia’s insides. She’d be cursed to hell and back before she ceded these flowers to this sellout. Edging Meg Silvers out with a swift elbow, she angled herself in front of the other woman and held her arms up to the servant. “Give me a bloody case.”
“Phew, the mouth on you,” the man spat as he drew that offering back.
No!
Everything in Julia cried out at the loss of that gift, one that would have seen them fed and the rent paid and without worries for at least two months.
“You can keep your damned flowers,” she shouted, waving a fist.
She dimly registered someone tugging at her sleeve.
“We are, and we’ll give them to more thankful, more grateful people than the likes of you.” The nasally nosed bastard flicked a glance over Julia before handing that crate and then another and another to Meg and the children and other women who’d resumed swarming them.
Desperation nearly brought her doubling over as she surged forward. “She’s not more grateful. She’s a liar. She is the wh—”
“Julia. Julia,” Adairia said more insistently. “Come.”
She allowed herself to be dragged away, her gaze locked on the dwindling supply and the cheering children until the mirth faded, and the carriages rolled away. The streets returned to their usual bustling activity, devoid of charity and filled with the cries of the piteous hawking their wares.
Julia sank down onto the slight stoop where the pavement met the cobblestones and stared forlornly out.
Gone.
It was all gone.
“We didn’t need their flowers anyway,” Adairia said with her usual sunny optimism.
Something snapped. “Actually, we did, Adairia,” she exclaimed. “We needed every single one of those damned flowers. To sell. To dry and then sell.”
“But we can have more than flowers.” The younger woman withdrew a small official-looking sheet and waggled it under Julia’s nose. “Oswyn gave me this. It is from a detective whose been sending queries around St.—”
Cursing, Julia ripped the page from her friend’s hand hard and fast enough that it shredded at the corner, leaving a remnant of the damning scrap in Adairia’s fingers. “Have a care,” Julia ordered the younger woman. “Lest someone discover you with this.”
Julia should be kinder, and she should be more patient and understanding, but the other woman didn’t know the level of danger she played with. If anyone How could she not realize that? And worse, how could she believe this shite?
But they all did what they had to to cope in these parts. Her friend had opted to live a life of make-believe, where she wasn’t just some fatherless bastard whelped by a whore and turned into a flower seller.
Adairia frowned. “You don’t believe it.”
Julia stole a frantic look about. “I believe you should put this away,” she muttered, and hopping to her feet, she promptly folded and stuffed the ivory page inside the front of her dress.
All that fucking Graham had brought to their step was potential peril. She damned that ruthless bastard to hell.
“But there’s this detective and Graham who are both saying—”
“To hell with Graham,” Julia interrupted. “Graham is consolidating power and flushing out people who might have been disloyal to Diggory so he can purge people he deems traitors.”
Adairia proved as persistent in this as she did in that fanciful dream she’d allowed herself to believe since she’d been all but a babe. “But—”
“How have you still not learned that a person doesn’t bring attention to themselves in the Rookeries?” Or claim that you are a rightful lady taken from a noble family by the ruthless people who still dwell in these parts?
Her friend smiled. “Because sometimes there are things too wonderful to turn away from. Because fear should not chase away chance and hope and truth.”
Why, that rumor alone that her friend spoke so freely of was enough to see a woman with the hilt of a dagger buried in her throat. Because the ones who’d supposedly had a hand in the disappearance of a child, were also the ones who’d pay for those crimes.
She’d failed the other woman. There was nothing else for it. Julia shuddered.
Understanding dawned in Adairia’s eyes. “Ahhh…”
Do not say more. She’s only put that soft little utterance there to get you to say more. Do not. Do—
Julia hopped to her feet. “What?” she snapped.
With all the grace and aplomb of the princess she’d professed to be, Adairia sailed to her feet. “You’re scared,” the other woman murmured in her soft, lyrical speech. “But you don’t have to be. This woman who is looking for me is my aunt.”
“Aye, I’m scared. I’m scared that we don’t have enough money to fill our bellies. I’m scared we’ll have to turn ourselves to whoring.” Which, by the grace of God—nay, to hell with that fake figure. Which, by the grace of Adairia’s songbirdlike voice, which she employed at the start of and end of every Coven Garden production, they’d been spared. “And you know what else I’m scared of?” she demanded, taking a furious step closer and angling her head back to meet the taller, willowier woman’s gaze. “I’m scared that you don’t have the sense God gave a damned flea to know this is a ploy of Graham’s, one where you end up dead or worse.” A test that Adairia was failing mightily.
“What kind of ploy could it possibly be?” Adairia asked with all the exasperation only one of her innocence could manage.
“I don’t…know,” Julia said. “Perhaps he’ll use you to get money from the peerage. Or perhaps he wants to see if you would point fingers of blame at people from these streets. All I know is I can’t get it through your goddamned head,”—Julia jammed a finger into her own forehead—“there isn’t a damned way out for you or me. We do not have time for children’s games and bloody fairy tales. You aren’t the damned princess you claimed to be the day we met, and you certainly aren’t one now. My mum went where you said you were from and asked whether they’d lost a child. There was no lost daughter. There was no earl. Now, if you could just… let this rest, before Graham’s people get wind of it and nick the both of us.” Cursing herself for saying all those damning words as loudly as she had, Julia lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please, Adairia.”
Adairia’s stricken eyes stared back, ravaging even Julia’s life-hardened breast with guilt.
Hell. Fear made a person do shite things in life. But yelling at one’s only family? That was the worst. “Oi don’t want ye to feel bad,” she said gruffly, slipping briefly from the proper King’s English to the coarse cockney her mother had abhorred and had gone to efforts to instruct her out of. Julia looked about and moved closer to her sister. “It is just the more you spin this yarn, the more likely it is we’re going to find ourselves… in a bad way.”
Nay, there was only one fate that awaited them were Adairia’s wishful imaginings about being the niece of a duke overheard. Gooseflesh climbed along her arms. Dead. They’d find themselves dead, and likely raped, beaten, and bloodied bad enough beforehand that they’d be grateful when that blade was last stuck inside them, ending their misery. Because those who’d been involved with the children being taken and sold to Mac Diggory wanted nothing more than their role in those abductions to go away.
Even so, she didn’t want to hurt the other woman. “I’m sorry they’ve filled your head with this, Adairia,” she said with all the gentleness she could. “I truly am.” A pained laugh spilled from her lips. “Do you truly think I wouldn’t, more than anything in the world, want this to be real? But it’s not.” She held the younger woman’s eyes, trying to will her to see the truth. “It’s not, Adairia,” she said, this time infusing a greater emphasis meant to puncture the fantasies her friend had let herself believe these past years.
“It is,” Adairia whispered, touching a hand to her heart. Such intensity radiated from within the blue depths of Adairia’s irises that Julia shivered. “I know it. I believe it. And this is our path out.”
Our path out.
As if there was such a thing. How did a person even come to believe such a thing in these parts?
Because that was what kept her sane.
“There’s no path out, Adairia,” she said quietly. “There’s just work and more work. There isn’t the happily-ever-afters of the stories you used to tell. And then we die. I’ll head to Colvill’s for their day’s refuse,” she said, of the exotic nursery near Sloane Square. “You head to Knight’s.” Because as it stood now? They didn’t have a damned bloom to sell.
Adairia beamed. “We’ll be fine. You’ll see!”
With that, Julia wheeled around and went in search of the hothouse-flower shops’ waste. “Stupid, silly magic,” she muttered as she trudged onward to Hillier’s Flower Shop.
Stepping quick, Julia headed westward toward the florist. She should have gone there first. But she, like all the other peddlers, had seen that handsome toff raining flowers down on them.
She should have known better. Julia did know better. She’d gotten careless.
It was all Adairia’s talk of magic and easy living and—
Two figures stepped into her path, bringing her up short.
Oh, bloody hell.
She eyed the hulking pair warily.
Both bald, both toothless, and both attired in matching crimson garments, they might as well have been twins. The similar look of them, however, marked them as members of Rand Graham’s gang.
“We got questions for ye.”
Julia eyed the pair and the path behind her. “Step aside,” she demanded. “I’ve a place to be.”
One of the fellows took a step forward, and she instinctively backed away.
“Ye were given a cloak. ’Ad some dealings ye did with a lady?” he asked. “Or was that the other one?”
Oh, God. No.
“It was me,” she said quickly. That damned cloak. A gift given to her by some benevolent lady on the street. She’d said she’d be wise to sell it. She’d known it made her and Adairia a mark of some sort, but Adairia had desperately wanted it.
Both brutes peered more closely at her.
“You wouldn’t just be saying that now, would ye?”
Calm. Be calm. Revealing too much in these parts was perilous. “I wouldn’t,” she said evenly. “I have an affinity for living.”
Both men chuckled.
“Graham’s got some questions for ye. About that lady.” They were already reaching for her.
She evaded their grip. “I don’t know who she is,” she protested, her heart hammering. “She was just a stranger.”
“Yea. Sure. Either way, ye can tell that to Graham.”
Gasping, she turned and tried to run.
Too late.
One of the men caught her plait, yanking her back hard, pulling a scream from her.
Her assailant immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling the remainder of that cry, burying it with the stench of sweat and grease.
He cursed, tightening his hold.
Julia bit down hard on his palm, gagging on the taste of his blood. His grip slackened, and she fought her way out of his arms.
She made it a pace before one of the men slammed into her, knocking her forward onto the pavement, sucking the breath from her lungs and sending stars dancing in her eyes.
Julia blinked back those slight flecks of light.
“Ye’re makin’ this ’ard when ye don’t need to,” he panted against her ear, his breath as uneven as her own from the fight she’d given him.
Good. The bastard.
Finding another burst of energy, the kind that could come only from the desperate need to survive, Julia bucked, and then she felt something hard prod her lower back and instantly stopped, recoiling as she realized he was aroused by her struggles.
“If ye choose to not cooperate, we can enjoy ourselves first.” He pressed a sloppy kiss against her cheek.
Terror and horror all rolled together inside as he shoved her face down onto the pavement. The cobblestones scraped her cheek.
She whimpered, choking with desperation.
And then, suddenly, the weight was gone.
Julia lay motionless, registering the absence of that pressure on her chest, and then, scrambling up onto her knees and then her feet, she faced the tableau behind her.
Like some Arthurian warrior Adairia had told her tales of, he stood there, braced over the two men he’d felled. One of the brutes was unconscious, the other dazed.
His slightly long golden hair was loosely tousled, his body as broad and powerful as the pair at his feet.
“That isn’t the way to treat a lady,” he said coolly, his voice as even as if he’d casually commented on the weather and not as though he’d impressively beaten two large grown men.
“That one ain’t a lady,” her assailant stammered. “Got something that belongs to me, she does.”
“I didn’t take anything that belongs to him,” she spat.
“No, I rather trust your word. It seems a good deal more reliable than that of a man who’d put his hands upon a woman.”
With that, he brought his arm back in a quick right hook and hit her assailant.
The man’s eyes rolled in his head, and then his form went limp.
The gentleman glanced briefly back, and her breath caught as his gaze locked with hers. Blue. As blue as the skies Adairia whispered of that she recalled from the English countryside, a color so vibrant she’d doubted her sister’s telling. The hue of his irises managed to suck the thoughts clear of Julia’s head.
“Well done, my lord.” A servant came rushing forward, shattering the connection, but the gentleman held a hand up, dismissing him, and started for Julia.
She immediately tensed, the cloud of wonder now gone.
He reached into his jacket, and she took a hasty step back.
“It is fine,” he murmured in tones better suited for the fractious mouser she and Adairia kept. He withdrew a crisp handkerchief embroidered with three initials and snapped it open. Once. Twice. And then ever so slowly, he reached out. “May I?” he murmured, and it took a moment for her to gather that he was asking permission for… something, and it didn’t make sense, because people didn’t speak to her in those gentle tones, or worry after her.
She told herself to nod, even as she wasn’t certain what she was agreeing to, and then he tenderly brushed away the small stones that clung to her cheek.
“Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t feel a thing. She felt as light as air, with her feet five feet above the earth.
Julia lowered her lashes and peered up at him. “I—?”
“Darling, do hurry along.”
And just like that, the moment was again shattered, and she was reminded all over again that she was a poor peddler girl. And he? Why, he might as well have been the prince she secretly—and never dared admit aloud to Adairia—dreamed of. She followed his focus over to a grand black conveyance. A flaxen-haired beauty hung partially out of the carriage, impatience stamped upon her features. Never had the sorry state of her appearance, and very existence, been starker than it was in this very moment with that fair princess waiting for him.
“I’ll be along shortly,” he called, and the woman frowned, but then she ducked back inside the carriage.
The driver pushed the door shut, bringing Julia’s gaze to the familiar crest, and she froze.
He returned his attention to Julia. “Patience has never been one of her virtues,” he said with a wink.
With the threat of danger having receded, she registered his identity. The affable, and detached, flower distributor.
“Thank you, sir,” Julia said gruffly.
“I recognized you.”
Oh, God. Her stomach churned. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean—” Julia’s speech dissolved, wavering between the coarse cockney she’d been born with and the proper English she’d learned at Adairia’s hand.
“No. No,” he said, brushing off her apology, and then he started for the carriage.
Julia stared after him as he said something to the driver, who handed down a crate.
She stared on in wide-eyed disbelief as the gentleman made his way back. “Here,” he said, placing the case of flowers at her feet.
Struck silent, she moved her gaze between the offering of roses and the gentleman.
“Hardly seemed fair that my godmother’s servant got to make the determination as to who was worthy or not of the flowers.”
Words… failed. She attempted to get them out.
He reached inside his fine wool coat and removed a purse. “Here,” he said, handing that sleek sack out.
Of their own volition, her hand immediately shot up, claiming that most precious of gifts, and her fingers brushed his.
Heat. And warmth. Fingers that were not stained with dirt and grime as hers were, but yet somehow, the long, golden digits evinced strength.
She hurriedly snatched her palm back. “Thank you,” she said quickly. The weight and clink of coins within indicated he’d proffered a small fortune.
The carriage door opened once more. “Darling,” the stunning creature called out. Impatience lent her voice a whine.
The gentleman, whose name was nothing other than “darling” to Julia, winked. “As I said, patience is a virtue.” He cast a glance to where her assailants lay motionless on the ground, and she followed his stare.
They’d begun to stir.
“I’ve had the constable fetched.”
Her stomach lurched. Oh, God. No. What had he done? He’d meant well.
As if on cue, a pair of constables came rushing over and proceeded to drag the pair to their feet and off.
“You needn’t worry about them any longer,” the handsome stranger said, with the assurance and confidence of a man who had absolutely no idea how these streets worked.
“Come, darling. We shall be late.”
He sighed, lingering still, and for a moment, Julia thought he intended to stay. That he, at the very least, intended to say something more.
But then, with a bow, he tipped the brim of his high hat and left.
He’d bowed?
And tipped his hat?
At her?
They were peculiar details to fixate on, considering the stranger had left her with a veritable fortune, or at least enough to see her and Adairia’s rent paid and to more than match a month’s work of peddling flowers.
Gathering up the crate, Julia stood there, staring half dazed as the gentleman drew himself inside the conveyance. A servant pushed the door shut, and after he climbed back atop the box alongside the driver, the carriage lurched into motion.
For the first time in Julia’s life, her heart fluttered, and her thoughts were in disarray, and as the carriage drove off, she thought mayhap Adairia wasn’t altogether wrong. Perhaps magic truly did exist for people like her after all.
