The Watchmaker's Daughter (Glass and Steele #1)(45)

I don't know how long I spent on that clock, but I was woken from my trance-like state by the loud whispers of Willie and Duke coming from beyond the door.

"Why can't you do as you're told for once?" Duke hissed.

"You should know me better by now." Willie sounded huffy, but not angry. "I do as I please, and what I want to do is go out tonight."

"Stay home."

"No."

"Willie…" Duke growled. "It's dangerous. He's out there."

"He's got no argument with me, and you can stop giving me orders. You ain't nothing to me." She stormed into the drawing room, only to stop short when she saw me. "How much of that did you hear?"

I glanced past her, but Duke hadn't followed. "Most of it. But don't worry. I don't care about your squabbles with Duke, or anyone else for that matter."

She came to stand beside me and inspected the clock, although I suspected she wasn't really taking much notice. "I don't like being dictated to by him. Or by any man."

"Do you mean to say we actually agree on something?"

She smirked. "I know why I think like that, but why do you? I thought you liked your pa."

"I did. My former fiancé, however, is another matter. If I learned one thing from my time with Eddie, it's that I didn't like the person I became when I was with him."

She sat down and rested her elbows on her knees. "Go on."

"I know now that I wasn't myself when I was engaged to Eddie. I was trying to be an ideal version of womanhood to make him like me. I haven't had all that much luck with men, you see, and Eddie made me feel special. I didn't want to lose him because I voiced an opinion he didn't agree with." I didn't know why I wanted Willie to understand something so personal about myself, something I had only just begun to realize. Perhaps because we were both women around the same age, or perhaps because I knew she would applaud me rather than condemn me. I may be considered forthright but she was ten times more so. Besides, simply saying the words out loud was cathartic.

"You stopped being yourself, you mean," she said quietly.

I nodded. "I thought it would help keep Eddie. I was wrong. Not only did I lose him anyway, I almost lost myself too. That was much worse."

She leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. She regarded me with a frown on her brow but a smile on her lips. "I hate men too."

"I don't hate men. Just Eddie. My attitude toward them is different now, though. I won't go throwing myself at the next man who shows some interest in me." Not that I expected any interest now.

"You don't know men like I do, Miss Steele."

"Call me India."

"You don't know men, India." Her smile vanished altogether and the frown took over her entire face, tugging at her mouth, shadowing her eyes. "I pray you never do."

I wanted to reach out and touch her hand in sympathy, but I suspected she wouldn't like me to, so I simply nodded.

"Excepting Matt, of course. He's a good man, despite…" She waved a hand, as if I should know what she meant.

I waited, but she didn't elaborate. "And Duke and Cyclops?"

She merely lifted one shoulder. "I don't know them like I know Matt."

It would have been the perfect time to ask her for information about him, but I was worried it might be too soon and she'd push me away again. I liked that she was no longer resentful of me.

"Come with me tonight, India," she said suddenly. "Let me show you what a woman can do when she has a mind to do it."

"Go where?"

"There's a gathering of card players above a shop in Jermyn Street."

"A gambling den?"

"I'll teach you to play like a man and how not to be one of them silly, simpering females."

"I don't think I'm either silly or simpering, thank you."

She rolled her eyes. "You'll see how men treat you different when they know you're not helpless. Come with me. I would like some company."

"Why not take Duke with you?"

She pulled a face. "Good company. Well? Are you brave enough?"

I laughed. "I won't fall for your baiting. Let me think about it. I'll give you my answer later."

She left and I finished putting the clock back together, my mind on Willie's offer. Going to a gambling den wasn't something I would ever have contemplated until now. But I could do it. What was to stop me? Surely she wouldn't go if there was a chance of encountering danger. It sounded like a thrilling idea and not at all something the old me would have done. I had always done the proper thing, but now I felt like I'd woken up from a fog. I wanted to try new things.

Yet years of cautious behavior and a gentle upbringing made me hesitate. I warred with myself for the rest of the afternoon. I was only distracted by the deep rumbling of Mr. Glass's voice as I checked the clock on the half table near the door to his rooms.

"According to Jem's letter," he said to someone with him, "Sheriff Payne knows we're here."

Duke and Willie both swore. "How did he find out?" Duke asked.

"If my little brother told him, I'll gut him," Willie snarled.