Page 23 of The Hellion is Tamed

But she could,would, make the best of it.

Because this life provided more than fresh quarter loaves Mister Sampson sold her on the sly.

She could turn a knob and have warm water shoot from faucetsright in the house.She had her own tub and a basket of stylish soaps the duchess had given her, colorful cubes that smelled of lavender and peony, enough for a thousand washings. Oranges andgrapeswere available every morning at breakfast. Last night, she’d sneaked down to the duke’s pantry and perused the incredible variety of staples on the shelves. Milk that sold for leagues more than the 1802 price of two pence, half-penny a quart. Vegetables. Fish. Meat. Every hearth she passed was crammed with firewood, the windowpanes sporting not evenonecrack. The newspapers scattered about were recent editions, not stained, months-old rubbish. The books in the home’s library smelled of ink and leather, the spines cracking when you opened them because most had never been opened before.

The duchess housed a library in her mind, her supernatural gift, and did not need anactuallibrary.

Regrettably, for her heart, the most marvelous thing about 1882 was Simon Alexander.

For him, Emma would strive to be as polished as the duchess’s priceless silver.

Emma snapped out of her musings to find Mollie slumped on the settee, sobbing, her head propped on her bent knee. Emma slid from the bed and crossed the room, crouching next to the girl. “What’s wrong? You can tell me. Have I upset you in some way?”

“My s-s-sister.” Rubbing her fist across her pinkening nose, she shook her head furiously, her mass of coal-black hair spilling from her mob cap to hit her shoulders. “I’m sorry. When you asked if it was bad, itwasbad, Whitechapel, but not so much for me. I got out but left her behind.”

As Emma listened, Mollie unleashed a desperate tale of two sisters. Mollie, saved by a benefactor, the other, Katherine, a year older, a young woman who hadn’t been able to escape the destiny of the slums.

“When did Katherine get involved with this man you say has ruined her?”

Mollie wept into her starched sleeve in between uttering broken apologies for her behavior. “She h-h-had a right fine job, a learning position at a dressmaker’s in Bethnal Green. Mostly domestic uniforms and reproductions of the lavish dresses you see in the shops on Bond Street.” She gestured to Emma’s gown as if to say,like yours. “Katie has a way with copying the posh designs, thus the new position once the dressmaker seen her walking down the lane in one of her creations. Could sketch them right up and cut the patterns, too. G-g-gifted, like you but without the time travel. She’d taken a turn at what they call a plain sewer at the garment mill in Bethnal Green. But the air is filled with fibers, and anyone there more than a month coughs something awful for the rest of their d-d-days. And the dyes, don’t make me reveal what those poisonous liquids do to a soul.” Mollie swallowed, slanting Emma a fearful look, twisting her hands together.

“And…?” Emma prompted.

Mollie yanked her mob cap free, sending midnight strands of hair streaking across her cheek. “The owner of the factory, Mason Thomas, he’s a m-m-mean one. Greedy and tight-fisted. Broad as a barn, strong as a bull. Doesn’t provide food except for scraps of bread and water when folks work twelve-hour shifts. Children, too. Ones as young as eight years old slaving away on his garment floor. He got his eye on K-K-Katie. She’s a looker, all right. She quit, up and left the second he approached her with his base desires. He has a wife and three children already!”

“But he found her,” Emma whispered, a tale she’d heard a hundred times before.

“Ah, that he did.” She dragged her cap across her nose and hiccupped. “One evening, leaving her shift at the dressmaker. Cornered her in the lane just behind. It was force, I tell y-y-you. And now, she’s holed up in some squalid flat he’s got for her, miserable. No options, no life. A baby on the way at some point, sure as the d-d-day is long. She can’t leave, she says, not afterithappened. Even Josie couldn’t talk her out of that place.” Mollie ironed her hand down her modest but serviceable domestic uniform. Kicked her feet together to display unattractive but glossy, new boots. “When I have all kinds of a future. If I could o-o-only go back to that day, before he attacked her, I would give my life to save her.”

“What if we can do that? What ifIcan?” It would be the first time inthistime, beyond the desperate ventures she’d waged in 1802—going back to help Mrs. Marsden cross the street before the cart ran her over, making sure the doctor was notified when Eileen Churchill went into labor that last awful time—that she’d found a way to use her gift.

Maybe Simon would forgive her if time travel came to have true meaning.

Maybe she would forgive herself.

Emma rose, crossing to the bedside table. Gleaming mahogany with glossy pewter hardware, an elegant piece unlike any she’d ever owned. The blue velvet pouch was in the top drawer behind the copy ofDavid CopperfieldSimon had given her. When she opened the bag, the swish stone rolled into her hand, a glittering ball of fire. A powerful sensation pulsed through her as she clutched the gem to her chest.

To protect, to transform.

Toamend.

She turned to Mollie, who eyed the flickering stone with all the admiration it deserved. “Tell me the exact day, the exacttime, Mason Thomas found your Katie in the alley. We’ll be back before breakfast, no one the wiser.”

She hoped with not a little trepidation that she could keep this promise.

Chapter 8

Simon just knew it was going to be a ghastly evening.

He’d had a nagging itch between his shoulder blades since leaving Josie’s the previous night, unwelcome advice and intolerable realizations stinging worse than the driving rain in which he’d sprinted back to the Blue Moon.

Love. What the bloody hell did he know about love?

He understood death, the line between the living and the deceased gossamer-thin in his world. People stepping in from the past to plague him, then stepping out again as suddenly. Appropriately, the only woman he’d been compelled to consider his own floated like a feather between eras, in his grasp, then gone again. Uncertain, when his other relationships were certain without desire for them to be.

Bracing his hand on the balustrade of the balcony high above the gaming floor, Simon surveyed his domain. Let the crack of dice, the din of conversation, the aroma of brandy, cigars and macassar oil soothe his nerves. The shout of victors, the whimper of those losing their wealth and their souls, rising to echo off the paneled walls of his study.

This day…bad to worse.