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Twenty-One

“Papa?” Daisy reached up her plump baby hand to cup Simon’s cheek.

He looked down at her sweet face, her round eyes large with concern, and tried to recover himself. Though he didn’t think he’d get over seeing Eliza here anytime soon. “This is my friend Eliza.”

Daisy nodded and smiled, seemingly pleased by this answer.

The spell that held them all still had been broken.

Eliza realized that perhaps standing with the door open wasn’t appropriate.

With a sheepish look on her face, she stepped fully into the room and closed the door.

The other option was to turn around and leave, but having come this far, he didn’t expect her to leave until she got answers.

He knew her well enough to guess correctly which option she would choose.

Eliza stared at him. Her eyes were soft now…

almost vulnerable, exactly the way he felt.

No one had ever seen Daisy from his other life, the life he lived outside of Whitechapel.

It wasn’t that he wanted to hide her, but that he was forced to hide her away here.

Eliza was the first person he cared about to meet her.

Because Daisy lived here, the room had always had a reverent aura to him.

Eliza had stumbled upon this sacred space, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about it.

It felt as if she was seeing a very tender part of him.

“This is Daisy,” he said. “Mary’s daughter.

” He paused to allow the meaning of that to set in.

Understanding flickered across Eliza’s face as did a good bit of relief.

Had she thought that he’d fathered the child on the young girl?

“And this is Henrietta. Daisy has christened her Heni. She helps take care of her.”

Henrietta looked back and forth between them, uncertain, but she bobbed a quick curtsy. “Good evening, ma’am.”

Eliza had yet to find her voice, but she managed to mumble a greeting to Henrietta.

He’d found the girl working here as a scullery maid when it had become clear that Daisy was outgrowing the need for her wet nurse.

Downstairs girls often became upstairs girls when they became of age, so he’d offered her the choice of tending to Daisy instead, which she had readily accepted.

Heni picked up her fallen mending and gave Eliza a wide berth. “Please take my chair,” she said, and walked to sit on the chest at the end of the bed.

“Thank you,” Eliza said, but she still looked to Simon for permission. She was the trespasser, and he suspected that she was only just coming to realize how much she had transgressed here. He nodded and held out a hand toward the chair. She murmured another thank-you and sat down.

“You followed me?” he asked after he’d retaken his seat with Daisy settled on his lap.

He didn’t know how to feel about that. A part of him had lit up when she’d appeared in the door.

It didn’t make sense. This was an egregious invasion of his privacy, but all he could feel was glad.

At last, he could share this with someone…

with her…the woman who had begun to haunt his every moment, waking and sleeping.

Daisy looked over at her curiously as she munched a piece of bread.

“I’m sorry. I had no right.” Eliza’s cheeks burned. “I had just gotten to Montague Club when I saw you leave. I meant to turn around…to come back again tomorrow, but something about you…you seemed concerned, almost upset, and so I followed you.”

She shouldn’t have. She knew that, if the contrite look on her face was any indication.

He tried to get a handle on the pounding of his heart and his sheer joy at seeing her, because it was not good that she was here.

It was dangerous. He also couldn’t forget the look of outrage and jealousy that had marked her features when she’d opened that door.

“Then it was your concern for me that brought you here?” he asked.

“At first, yes.” She didn’t want to say the rest. She nibbled her bottom lip with uncertainty.

He had to force himself not to look at it and not to imagine biting it himself.

“Then I realized this was a b…” She glanced to Heni.

She couldn’t say the word brothel in front of others.

“I realized what this place is. Well, then I was angry that you might be a customer here.”

He let out a huff of laughter and shook his head. “Daisy wasn’t feeling well when I saw her this morning, so I’ve come back to check on her. She’s much better now, as you can see.”

Daisy munched the last of her bread and reached for a piece of crumbled cheddar that sat in front of her on the table.

Loaves of bread and bricks of cheese rested there with a basket of strawberries and one of gooseberries, along with a clump of watercress and some roasted hazelnuts in a cone made of newspaper.

He’d brought them for her and Heni, part of the groceries that he kept them supplied with every few days.

He didn’t want them eating the shite found in Whitechapel.

The bread here was made of mostly alum and chalk with only a smidgen of flour.

The cheese was molded, and there was very little fruit to be found.

“Yes, I can see that. She’s very lovely,” Eliza said.

Daisy, who was always impressed by compliments, smiled at her, revealing her tiny white milk teeth. Eliza smiled back at her and something happened inside him. He couldn’t say what it was, only that his chest felt heavy and warm and he couldn’t breathe for a moment.

He didn’t know what showed on his face, but when Eliza looked up at him her smile faltered. “I should go.”

“No.” The word was between them before he was aware of uttering it. His tone had been hard and final. “You shouldn’t be on the streets alone. I’ll see you home.”

He girded himself for her refusal but, much to his surprise, she remained silent on the matter and nodded.

Relieved that they wouldn’t have a row about it, he bounced Daisy lightly on his knee.

She giggled and looked up at him, and he was nearly overcome with his affection for her.

Every time she got sick, he braced himself for the fact that she might not survive.

It was a terrible way to live, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

Early death was a part of life here. It’s why he made such an effort to get her nutritious food.

It’s why he’d nearly bankrupted himself to supply her with real breast milk and not the watery gruel given to babies here when their mothers were forced to work in factories for most of the day.

Running his fingers through her silky hair, he pressed his palm to her forehead.

The child had slept most of the morning but seemed much improved now.

There was no fever that he could tell. He pressed his lips to her forehead to check again, just in case.

Eliza made a soft sound. He couldn’t tell what it was, but her eyes were dark and velvety, shining out at him when he met her gaze.

For the next several minutes, he spoke with Daisy and Heni about their needs and reassured himself that his niece had overcome the slight cold she’d had.

About midway through his conversation with Heni, Daisy offered Eliza a strawberry and Eliza accepted, eating it slowly.

For one brief moment he allowed himself to imagine a future with them both, sitting at a breakfast table and enjoying a quiet moment together.

He shook his head to clear the thought away.

There was no future until after the last prizefight in a fortnight. That’s all that mattered now.

“Eliza and I need to be going. I’ve work to get back to.”

Daisy’s brow quivered with concern. She loved him very much and never liked to see him go.

He felt much the same. After the fight, he’d bring her to Montague Club and keep her there.

Perhaps they’d find a flat in one of the new buildings nearby.

“Don’t fret, love. I’ll see ye again in the morning.

” He kissed her cheek and then tossed her into the air, one of her favorite things. She giggled as he hoped she would.

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise.” He kissed her cheek again and handed her over to Heni. “Come,” he said to Eliza.

Eliza stood and held out her hand to Daisy. “It was lovely to meet you, Miss Daisy. I hope I can see you again soon.”

Daisy smiled at her and looked up to Heni who nodded in encouragement. Daisy took Eliza’s gloved hand. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Liza,” she parroted back to her in her baby voice.

Everything in him stilled, and then a warm flush crept over him.

His mind went back to those domestic images he had created in his head.

A home together. Eliza in his arms every morning.

Daisy with a room full of toys and dresses that was all her own.

It was too painful to imagine things that would never come to pass.

It’s why he never allowed himself to dream of things he couldn’t have. Until Eliza had come along.