Her Majesty's Necromancer (The Ministry of Curiosities #2)(16)

"I don't understand."

"I know you're trying to find my mother through the orphanages. We could cover more in faster time if we worked together. Or am I not allowed to search for my own mother because it's taboo ministry business?"

"It will be if it becomes too dangerous for you."

I blinked rapidly at him. "But she's my mother." It sounded pathetic—small—and I wished I could take it back as soon as I’d said it. He was probably right in that others might try to use her necromancy too, if they knew about it, just as Frankenstein had tried to use me. But who else knew about her—or me, for that matter? There was unlikely to be any danger now.

"You admonish me for trying to keep you safe?" he asked quietly.

"Frankenstein is gone, and Holloway is in jail. Nobody else who knows or, I suspect, cares what I can do."

"We cannot know that for certain. For now, I'd like you to be careful." He went to shut the door, and this time I backed out. There was no point arguing with him anymore.

His words had reminded me of the man I'd seen get off the omnibus—the same man who'd watched me as I left the orphanage. It was probably just a coincidence, however. Nothing untoward had happened, and he'd not even approached me.

I changed my clothes and returned to the kitchen for soup. Poor Gus was still out in the rain, watching Jimmy and Pete, and since I'd been given the day off, Seth acted as scullery maid and washed the dishes.

"You had a morning off yesterday," he complained as he collected bowls. "Why did he give you an entire day today?"

"I'm not sure." I handed him my bowl and gave him a sweet smile. It didn't work and he stormed out of the kitchen like a boy who'd been scolded by his mother.

"Death be gettin' soft, now there's a woman in the house," Cook said.

"Fitzroy, soft?" I laughed. "Hardly. Come and play cards with me until it's time for training to begin."

He sat with me and pulled the deck of cards from his apron pocket. "I thought you'd given up cards," he said as he dealt. "You bein' no good and all."

"I'm not too bad when I concentrate." I checked my cards and placed the queen of hearts on the table. "Did you know that Fitzroy has a set of weighted dice?"

"I do not cheat at dice. Or cards."

I spun around as my stomach plunged. Lincoln strode into the kitchen, looking like he wanted to challenge me to a duel for besmirching his reputation. "Why are you always sneaking about? It's grossly unfair."

"I am not sneaking." He flicked his hand and Cook dealt him in. "Why do you think I cheat?"

"The Red Lion barkeep said you won every throw against Jimmy and Pete."

"That was luck."

"Every time? How many throws were there?"

"Twenty-eight." He threw down a card and swept up the pile. He'd won the round.

"Twenty-eight!" I looked to Cook. "In your experience, has anyone ever won twenty-eight throws of dice in a row?"

Cook glanced from me to Lincoln then threw in his entire hand. "I have bread to bake."

"Coward," I muttered.

"It was merely luck, Charlie," Lincoln said again. "Jimmy and Pete couldn't accept that, even after they inspected the dice." He tapped the table with his finger. "Are you playing or arguing?"

I threw down my best card and won the hand.

"You should have discarded something lower," he said. "My card was only a six."

"What if I didn't have anything lower?"

He looked at me like he didn't believe me.

We played for another hour and he won every round except for those where he deliberately discarded a low value card. It was extraordinary. It was as if he could see my hand. I checked the deck during the break we took for him to have his soup, but I couldn't see any markings on them. If he was cheating, it wasn't obvious how he was doing it.

"You're wasting your time," he said. "I do not cheat. I'm merely lucky at cards. And dice." He sounded offended.

I resisted telling him, once again, that nobody was that lucky. "You could make a fortune at those disreputable gambling dens that you gentlemen like to frequent."

He said nothing, merely finished his soup. Seth, who'd rejoined us, laughed softly. "Where do you think we met? It was at one of those disreputable gambling dens. Mr. Fitzroy did indeed win everything that night."

I recalled Seth telling me the story of how he'd been about to wager his body as a last resort when Lincoln had stepped in and won enough to clear Seth's debts. His price had been Seth's service, which he still seemed to be paying off a year later.

"He was banned that night," Seth said, smiling. "For suspected cheating."

"I didn't—"

"Cheat," I finished for Lincoln. "So you keep saying."

He set the bowl down hard on the table. "It's time for your training." I got the feeling he was going to make me work extra hard today. "Change into your exercise clothes and meet me in the ballroom. It's still raining outside and there's more space in there."

I did as told, leaving him behind in the kitchen. I changed into my training attire of loose fitting men's trousers and an oversized shirt. Even without a corset, women's clothing was too restrictive. I would one day have to learn to fight in it, so Lincoln had told me, but not yet.