Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(92)

Down below was the dark woods, and she knew all about the woods from the fairy tales that her friend Ned had told her when she’d been a wee thing. In the fairy-tale dark woods were witches and ghouls and trolls, all ready to eat you up.

In the woods of St Giles the monsters were far, far worse.

Tonight she’d fought monsters.

She flew over the roofs of St Giles. Her booted feet were swift and sure on the shingles, and the moon was a big guiding lantern above, lighting the way for her patrol as the Ghost of St Giles. She’d been following the Scarlet Throat gang—a nasty bunch of footpads who’d do anything up to and including murder for the right price—and wondering why they were out in such force, when she’d realized they were chasing Kyle.

In her daytime guise as Alf, she had a bad history with the Scarlet Throats. Most recently they’d taken a dislike to her because she refused to either join them or pay them to be “protected.” On the whole they left her alone—she stayed out of their way and they pretended not to notice her. But she shuddered to think what they would do if they ever found out her true sex.

Letting a lone boy defy them was one thing. Letting a woman do the same?

There were rumors of girls ending up in the river for less.

But when she’d seen the Scarlet Throats chasing Kyle like a pack of feral dogs, she’d not thought twice about helping him. He’d been running for his life and fighting as he went, never giving up, though he’d been far outnumbered from the start.

The man was stubborn, if nothing else.

And afterward, when their enemies lay at their feet, groaning and beaten, and her heart was thumping so hard with the sheer joy of victory and being alive, it’d seemed natural to pull his pretty, pretty lips down to hers and kiss him.

She’d never kissed a man before.

Oh, there’d been some who’d tried to kiss her—tried and succeeded—especially when she’d been younger and smaller and not so fast, nor so swift with a kick to the soft bits of a man. Even then no one had gotten much beyond a mash of foul tongue in her mouth. She’d been good at running even when little.

No one had touched her in years. She’d made sure of it.

But the kiss with Kyle hadn’t been like that—she’d kissed him.

She leaped from one roof to another, landing silently on her toes. Kyle’s lips had been firm, and he’d tasted sharp, like wine. She’d felt the muscles in his neck and chest and arms get hard and tight as he’d made ready to grab her.

She’d hadn’t been afraid, though.

She grinned at the moon and the rooftops and the molls walking home in the lane far below.

Kissing Kyle had made her feel wild and free.

Like flying over the roofs of St Giles.

She ran and leaped again, landing this time on a rickety old half-timbered tenement. It was all but fallen down, the top story overhanging the courtyard like an ancient crone bent under a big bundle of used clothes. She thrust her legs over the edge of the roof, slipped her feet blind onto one of the timbers on the face of the building, and climbed down into the attic window.

If St Giles was the dark wood, this was her secret hidey-hole nest: half the attic of this building. The sole door to the room was nailed firmly shut, the only way in by the window.

She was safe here.

No one but she could get in or out.

Alf sighed and stretched her arms over her head before taking off her hat and mask. Muscles she hadn’t even realized were tensed began to loosen now that she was home.

Home and safe.

Her nest was one big room—big enough for an entire family to live in, really—but only she lived here. On one wall was a row of wooden pegs, and she hung up her hat and mask there. Across from the window was a brick chimney where she’d left the fire carefully banked. She crossed to it and squatted in front of the tiny hearth—a half moon not much bigger than her head, the brick blackened and crumbling. But this high up it drew well enough, and that was the important thing. She stirred the red eyes of the embers with a broken iron rod and stuck some straw on top, then blew gently until the straw smoked and lit. Then she added five pieces of coal, one at a time. When her little fire was burning nicely, she lit a candle and stood it on the rough shelf above the fireplace.

The half-burned candle gave a happy little glow. Alf touched her fingertip to the candlestick’s base and then to the little round mirror next to it. The mirror reflected the tiny candle flame. She tapped her tin cup, a yellow pottery jug she’d found years ago, and her ivory comb. Ned had given her the comb the day before he’d disappeared, and it was perhaps her most precious possession.

Then she picked up a bottle of oil and a rag from the end of the shelf and sat on a three-legged stool by the pile of blankets she used as a bed.

Her long sword was mostly clean. She stroked the oiled cloth along the blade and then tilted it to the candlelight to check for nicks in the edge. The two swords had cost most of her savings and she made sure to keep them clean and razor sharp, both because they were her pride and because in the dark woods they were her main weapons as the Ghost. The long sword’s edge looked good, so she resheathed it and set it aside.

Her short blade was bloodied. That she worked on for a bit with the cloth, humming to herself under her breath. The cloth turned rust red and the sword turned mirror bright.

The sky outside her attic window turned pale pink.