Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(49)

Anna passed her the slate and chalk, and Lily carefully inscribed her name on the small square of slate. Beneath it, she wrote, Thank you.

Smiling, Anna moved her hand back and forth in the universal gesture of “no thanks are necessary.” She took back the slate and worked over it for a few minutes. While she did so, Lily managed a sip of cold, too-sweet tea.

After a minute, Anna handed her the slate.

“‘Friend of Jamie welcome,’” Lily read aloud. Puzzled, she frowned at the slate. She knew Anna could not hear her. The question escaped her lips anyway. “But … but who is Jamie?”

A sudden vibration jarred her focus. Her teacup did a frantic dance on its saucer. Something heavy had fallen, or perhaps a door had slammed shut? She looked up, and there was Julian. His clothes were sodden, and he’d lost his hat. Dark hair clung to his brow in wet, matted locks. He looked like hell, and not himself at all. But he was here, and he was standing, and he was—so far as Lily could see—all of a piece. Alive.

“Me,” he said. “I’m Jamie. She means me.”

“We can talk up here.” Julian took Lily by the hand and led her up the narrow staircase. “Mind your head,” he said, adding a palm-to-pate smack for emphasis.

He knew Lily wanted some explanation. And after the night she’d just passed, he couldn’t deny her that. But they couldn’t discuss matters downstairs in the kitchen. Dawn was already breaking, and soon the milkmaid would be coming round, the day’s baking would commence … For this conversation, they needed privacy.

It was time to tell her the truth. Or at least part of it. He knew Lily understood they came from different places on the map of English society. What she didn’t comprehend was the vast dimension of the gulf between them. This morning, he would acquaint her with its insurmountable nature, in no uncertain terms.

They emerged into a cramped garret, occupied by only a narrow slice of window under the eaves and a wobbly cane chair.

“Sit here,” he told her, stripping off his wet coat. For himself, he extricated an old crate from the furthest reaches of the eaves, overturned it, and sat down—squarely within the shaft of sunlight thrown by the window, and as far away from Lily as the space would permit. Which amounted to a distance of about four feet. Less than ideal, but it would have to suffice. Whatever follies he’d contemplated last night, he could never allow them to become reality. He’d exposed her to people and places she should never have encountered in her life. Worst of all, he’d put her in true danger. Leo had paid with his life, just for calling Julian friend. He could not allow Lily to suffer for the same dubious privilege.

“Come closer,” she said. “I want a proper look at you. I haven’t yet satisfied myself on the state of your health.”

He shook his head. Absolutely not. It had been proven to him, several times in the past few days, that he was incapable of resisting her whenever she came within reach. “I’m not injured. Just wet.”

“Wonderful. So now you’ll catch your death of pneumonia.” She slid the blanket from her shoulders. “At least take this.”

His teeth chattered. “You keep it.”

“Julian, I expect this conversation won’t be brief. I can’t watch you shiver through it. Unless”—she tipped her head—“you’d care to share the blanket.”

He accepted the thing with no small twinge of pride. He’d passed a damned cold night, and it wasn’t much warmer up here in the garret.

“So what happened?” she asked. “Weren’t you able to find them?”

“I found them. But they weren’t Leo’s killers.”

Julian sighed with fatigue. He’d followed those men for hours. Watched them drink, eat, piss in the alley, drink some more. Then take turns tupping the same apathetic whore. Finally he’d overheard enough to gather they’d only recently arrived in London. It was their first adventure in the fair city, as evidenced by the fact they’d lost their way in St. Giles, and only much later realized the apathetic whore had made off with their purses. He didn’t expect it would console the two Scots when they learned she’d left them with the clap in recompense.

So much for his hope of stumbling onto Leo’s murderers. He would have to return to the other plan: drawing out the man, or men, who hired them.

Lily shucked her slippers and curled her feet up, tucking them under her flimsy excuse for a skirt. Despite his chilled state, he knew a warm, buzzing current of desire. Parts of him heated beneath the rough blanket.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “I’m glad it wasn’t them.”

“Don’t you want your brother’s killers found?”

“I do, I do. But I don’t want you to find them. Not alone and unarmed in the dark. If the solution to Leo’s murder comes at the cost of your life, I don’t want it. I will live with the mystery, thank you very much.”

She looked close to tears. He hated the fact that he’d put her through another night of anxiety, but it thrilled him that she cared so much whether he lived or died.

“Now, then,” she said, sniffing. “Speaking of mysteries. What is this place? What do you mean, you grew up here? Why does Anna call you Jamie, and how do you know her sign language?”

“It’s a long story.”