Page 13 of The Hellion is Tamed

Embarrassed, sure his soft smile meant he was teasing her, she dipped her chin in question.What did that mean?

His smile grew, but it was subdued, his gaze dropping to his feet as he kicked one shiny boot out, scuffing the floor for no reason she could see other than it placed his gaze in a location where she was unable to study it. “Dickens.” When his dark eyes found hers, drawn like a magnet, his expression one of cautious delight, she could almost imagine that, someday, he was going to forgive her for leaving him.

“Dickens,” she whispered. Not one her ma had stolen much of.

His gaze fell to her hands, which she’d begun to twist around the parasol’s handle. “Your gloves tucked away there somewhere? Almost October. It’s getting colder at night. You’ll need them.”

Emma gave the parasol an obscuring tap while curling her fingers into fists. Her nails, after a long soak and vigorous buffing, looked tolerable, but her hands were chapped and worthless as consideration for being a lady, according to every maid who’d thought to touch them. “I’m afraid to wear them. If I stain the blasted things before this bloody ball where the duchess plans to parade me around, that’s one more detail to fret about. She doesn’t want repayment, even if I could somehow find the funds. Convinced I helped her snag her duke, she is, when I was only using her to find the Soul Catcher. You remember? She tumbled from her mount when I stepped in front of her all those years ago, practically flopping into the duke’s arms. I’ve apologized, tried to tell her that’s just not so,myfault, all of it. She won’t listen, the stubborn chit.” She traced a scratch in the floorboard with the parasol’s pointed tip. “Curious, but my stealing the Soul Catcher and dumping her into the Oxfordshire dirt is now part ofherlove story.”

Simon hummed the answer to a question he’d evidently only asked himself. “Delaney told me about the swap you proposed. The Soul Catcher for the League’s allowance to delve deeper into your gift.” Tugging a pair of kidskin gloves from his coat pocket, he extended them without a hint of mockery, which, right or wrong, would have had her tossing them in his face. “I remember that feeling. Of being indebted in a way I could never repay. When I came to live with Julian, I was very tormented. And still, to this day, I feel I owe him. And Finn. Piper. Which if I utter the sentiment, sends Julian into an indignant spiral. Only, poverty doesn’t breed a desire to take things one hasn’tearned. I know this. I understand. I stole because I had to. Now, if I’m the occasional thief, it’s only because I’m bored.”

She laid the parasol aside, and after a moment, took the gloves from him. They were the color of the caramel sweets sold in the market around the corner from her flat. Butter-soft. So delicate and yet, not. She resisted the impulse to bring them to her nose and inhale. He’d think she was cracked, for sure, or that shelikedhim. Tugging them on, where they bulged and hung on her slim hand but felt like sleek magic, she asked, “Trade?”

Bringing his hand to his lips—quiet—he opened the cloakroom door and peeked into the hallway. Then half-turning, he crooked his finger at her, beckoning. “All clear. Come. If Delaney finds you missing, we’re in trouble. And that kind of trouble, I don’t need.”

“But—”

“No arguments. Not after my fishing you out of this stew. Another word of advice? If we come upon anyone, anyone at all, look at the ground. Those eyes of yours are about as astonishing as your hair.”

A familiar sting scalded her cheeks. Her hair had always been an embarrassment, a reason for unwanted attention. Yet, Simon described it in a way that made her feel almost…beautiful. Taking a courageous breath, she nudged her mask high and stepped into the hall, so close to Simon, his shadow washed over her.

If she could only stay in that safe nook forever.

“What’s the trade?” she whispered as she crept down the darkened hallway. Laughter and the crack of dice and crystal flowed down the passageway like a river along narrow banks. The scent of whiskey, cigar smoke and men’s cologne salting the air with a piquant mix with which she was well acquainted. Not everything in the future was different. “I’m not sayin’ I agree until I hear the provisions, you know.”

He smothered a laugh in his fist and halted at the end of the hallway. Lifting his arm, he rapped on a scarred walnut door three times in rapid succession. Two knocks came back from the other side. Simon repeated with one knock.

“This feels very mysterious,” Emma murmured, intrigued despite herself. 1882 was turning out to be more entertaining than 1802 had been.And,the future held Simon.

Without comment, he blindly reached for her hand and, when the door opened, tugged her through the entranceway and into the alley. The cobblestones were slick with dew and grime, the foul scent of the river and what smelled like charred meat stinging her nostrils. Pale moonlight peeking through the ashen clouds, feebly lighting their way. “For God’s sake, cast your gaze to your feet,” he whispered roughly and escorted her to a waiting carriage. A fine one, from the looks of it. Luxurious equipage. Nothing of the dilapidated hackney variety she was used to when any conveyance, in truth, was a luxury she’d rarely been able to afford.

A brutish sentry who’d been stationed by the alley entrance lowered the carriage step, the door open and awaiting her arrival. Emma frowned.So, this is what the series of knocks had said without words.A woman who needed to sneak like a rat into the night without advertisement. A frequent enough occurrence for the Blue Moon staff to have a secret code to put the plan into action.

Emma climbed the step on temper alone. Flouncing to the tufted velvet squab, she shifted her bottom and yanked her skirt from beneath her, the piercing rip she heard sending her anger bubbling. “How often do you employ this crafty dodge anyway?”

“Ofen’ enough, miss,” the sentry murmured with a chuckle, closing the door with a finalizing click. “Tucks ‘em away in his flat right regular, he does. And we gets ‘em out. A bang-up operation we run at the Blue Moon, innit? In the gaming salonandout back.”

“Christ, Mackey, shut up,” Simon growled and elbowed him aside.

Mackey gave a choked stutter, his ruddy cheeks flooding with color she could see clearly in the misty night. “Them dirty boots and the gaudy mask, oh, I thought this wasn’t one of yours, Mister Simon. The viscount losing his beans at the whist table, maybe. Or that daft earl who’s come in every night this week because his actress trotted off with the poet.” He tipped his hat in apology. “Your ladies are quality and don’t usually leave this early.”

“Bloody hell,” Simon muttered and motioned Mackey away from the carriage. Leaning in, he clutched the window ledge, his knuckles blanching. His chagrined expression would have had her snickering had crimson not been bleeding into the borders of her vision. His lips tilting, the bottom one tucked attractively between his straight, white teeth. As if he wanted to speak but had decided it best he not.

Invading her space with his broad body when all she could imagine were thethousandsof women he’d had ‘right regular’ up there in his blasted flat.Qualitywomen, which her soiled boots had revealed her not to be. She was, in fact, quality, according to rookery rules. Untouched, though she’d no doubt this would surprise most. A battle it’d been to stay that way, too, when selling herself would have paid well enough to keep her in candles most nights. Her gift of disappearing the reason she’d been able. Stepping out of dangerous situations. Consequently, she’d gained a reputation as having the touch, never a good thing.

And because of her upbringing, she knew the mechanics of the act, had seen more than any young lady of good breeding—quality— should have.

The thought of Simon and anyone butherdoingthatsizzled across her skin like a fever. Too late, the thoughts, because she had that damned vision in her head to guide her, a rotten experience she planned to never tell anyone about.

Worse than imagination when a person had the real thing to recall.

However, Madame Hebert’s words flashed through her mind, the barest whiff of good feeling. Like Simon’s stimulating scent drifting in the open carriage window, light but uplifting. He’d looked for her until he wasmad with it, which must mean something.

Simon’s shoulders drooped on a sigh men all through the ages had expelled, his teeth losing their hold on his bottom lip. “I’m not sure what you’re so annoyed about.”

It hit her then, like her ma’s occasional smack across her bottom.

Emmaline Breslin, who could’ve snared any bloke she’d wanted in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, even if they’d been scared to pieces of her mystical touch, wanted a man who didn’t want her. In that way. He wished tosaveher, to pick apart her gift. He hadn’t spent ten years tracking her down out of fondness or devotion. Same as her, at first. She’d come to the League because the gypsies who camped at the edge of town every spring told her about a group of people who aided those mystically gifted—and about a magical swish stone.