The floor beneath Miranda tilted. “Who was he?”
“I…” Her eyes grew bright. “He was lost to me long ago.”
The genuine sorrow in Victoria’s eyes moved Miranda to touch her hand, but she stopped short, inexplicably unwilling to make contact. “They say time heals all wounds, but I don’t believe it.”
Victoria met Miranda’s eyes, and her tears threatened to spill. She gave a little laugh and brushed them away with a flick of her gloved hand. “Ah, well, it is a pity I have so much time on my hands.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“So it was not Lord Marvel, then?” Or Archer?
Victoria’s little smile returned, knowing and sure. “You are referring to the quarrel between Marvel and Archer.” She stirred her tea once more. Tiny clinks that hit Miranda’s nerves like an anvil. “Archer did not like the idea of Marvel taking his place.”
The cooled tea within Miranda’s cup began to steam. She let it go quickly. “Taking his place?”
Victoria’s cheeks plumped, her eyes gleaming as though she knew precisely how she tormented Miranda. “Of course, we were no longer together.” She tapped the rim of her cup thoughtfully. “Nevertheless, there was a modicum of jealousy involved as Archer does not like being replaced. In any capacity. So they discussed the matter.” Victoria’s brow lifted. “I assume you’ve heard the outcome of that discussion?”
Woodenly, Miranda nodded, and Victoria’s little teeth flashed like seed pearls beneath red-painted lips. “And did you, then, learn of how the elder members sent him away?”
When Miranda shook her head like an automaton, Victoria continued. “He was an embarrassment, a living testament to their failure. And one not easily controlled. Poor Archer never was able to govern his temper.” Her dark head tilted as she sipped her tea. “Quite the motive for revenge, is it not?”
Miranda could not argue the fact. So she sat as stone, her stays pinching her ribs, the cold length of silk encasing her torso tightening with each breath.
Victoria seemed to understand Miranda’s struggle between loyalty and logic. “Miranda, cher, I do not think it is he who does these things. Murder in secret is not his style. Archer in a temper is a glorious and vocal spectacle.”
She looked off fondly as though remembering something altogether intimate, and the collar about Miranda’s neck suddenly felt too tight. She swallowed hard, forcing a cooling breath as the room began to grow warm.
“Though you cannot deny,” Victoria went on, “he makes a most excellent target, should one want to make him appear guilt—”
“Do you still love him, Victoria?” She no longer cared to hear Victoria’s theories. Only to know where they stood.
Victoria tilted her head. The image of a great spider wrapping its victim up with silken threads to suck its life’s blood came to mind. And Miranda thought Archer had been quite correct in his desire to warn her away from Victoria.
“I believe you know that answer,” Victoria said in a voice like the gathering of a storm.
Cold sweat broke out over Miranda’s skin as her temper rose. The room heated, the gas lamps above their heads flaring white-hot. Victoria glanced at the lamps, her brow knitting. Miranda took a breath. Then another, pushing down that familiar feeling of need. The need to let go of her temper, and with it, the painful coil wound within her. Control, Miranda. Do not become that monster.
“Do you mean to try to win him back?” she asked.
Victoria’s lips pulled as if to offer the merest hint of apology. “And if that is my intent?”
The lamp about Victoria’s head wavered wildly as Miranda spoke. “Then you shall have to go through me.”
Victoria reached with shocking quickness, enfolding Miranda’s wrist in a grip like iron. “I find that I like you, Miranda. Despite myself, I do. So I shall give you a small piece of advice. If you intend to keep your husband, believe nothing you hear. Everyone lies. Most especially your husband. If he thinks it will protect you, Archer will not hesitate to employ the simplest equivocation to keep you in the dark. Do not let him, or risk losing him entirely.”
Chapter Seventeen
Everybody lies. Miranda could not stop Victoria’s warning from echoing in her head in a constant refrain. What were Archer’s lies? Why did he feel the need to tell them?
The muted song of a fiddle drifted through the din of caterwauls and raucous laughter. Despite the late hour, street urchins wove underfoot, brushing their little fingers light as spider silk over the pockets of the unwary. With any luck, they’d steal enough to keep them alive. Some were no older than three—little snakesmen and goniffs in the making.
Blue darkness cloaked Miranda, the scant lamplight saved for taverns. Her booted feet crunched over something that felt and sounded unnervingly like bones, and she decided that the darkness was a blessing. In more ways than one. With a bowler crammed down low and her shoddy coat collar pulled up high, most of her face was hidden. Dirt covered her skin, hastily smeared on as she’d crept through the garden after Archer had ridden off into the night.
Experience told her Archer would be gone for hours—doing what she couldn’t begin to fathom, though she suspected it was as clandestine as her mission tonight. Cheltenham’s murder, and the attack at the museum, lay heavy on him. Since then, he had gone out every night, when he thought her long abed. She knew he was in search of the killer. Even though he tried to hide it, she could see the frustration and rage in his eyes burning just below the surface. And it ignited a wild urge in Miranda to protect him and find out what she could, where she could.
Cold air, heavy with icy shavings of soot, filled her lungs. She resisted the urge to tuck her head farther into her collar. One walked with purpose here, or one would be quickly singled out. But the smell brought tears to her eyes. Onions, piss, shit, rotted meat… The thick stench of rot was the worst, working its way into mouth and throat, a promise of one’s future: death and decay. She pressed her lips tight and forged on.
Her mark stood beneath one of the few working lampposts. Nearly a head taller than the rest, he was as lanky as a garden ladder, his shaggy brown hair dull in the flickering light. He was older, just as she. Fine lines fanned out from his cheerful brown eyes. But the grin. That gap-toothed grin remained the same, an equal mix of ready humor and malice. A group of younger men and boys surrounded him, watching his every move, modeling their behavior to his. He was boss now to this small group, after having worked his way up through the ranks. His velvet green bowler and mustard-colored sack suit were a bit less shabby than the clothes of his mates. Perhaps one day he would run the whole area.
Her steps slowed. How to get him alone? It wouldn’t do to come upon him with his gang hanging about. Willing to wait, she leaned against an abandoned lamppost. The lamplighter had passed it by. Passed by most of the street lamps here. This neighborhood wasn’t deemed fit to have good light, or fresh water for that matter.
A sudden anger sparked hot in her breast, and with it an idea. Perhaps she alone could smell the acrid sweet tang of gas that had leaked out of the unused lamps to pool in the thin, trash-filled gutter running down West Street. It was enough to burn. One small spark would do the trick. Her loins tightened with a throb of excitement, and a familiar power ignited within. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets to hide their trembling, and her fingers curled around the cool coin hidden there. She held onto it like a lifeline. Should the task be done incorrectly, the whole of West Street could ignite like a lamp. In truth, the very fog-fouled air of London was an incendiary bomb waiting to go off. Nothing too grand, she promised herself as a cold sweat broke out over her skin. Only a small spark, directed with precision at the gutters.
An organ grinder and his monkey danced by. Then she acted. A shiver of pleasure pulsed through her limbs, and the gutter along West Street flared to life with a sudden hiss. Gasps rushed through the night as a yellow river of fire ran between the throngs of people. Among the laughter of surprise and the general mayhem, Billy Finger lifted his head. His brown eyes glared round before catching hers. They narrowed for one cool moment. Miranda touched her brim, and the familiar gap-toothed smile curled in response. She was, as they say, all in it now.
“ ’Ello there, darlin’,” he said as he came near. “Know how to make an entrance, you do.” The overpowering scent of grease, sweat, and bay rum—most likely lifted from a recent house job—followed him. “An’ how’s me favorite mot on this fine night?”
“Don’t call me that,” she hissed in a low voice.
His feathery brows rose. “Wha? Mot?”
“ ‘Mot,’ ‘darling.’ ” She stiffened her shoulders to make them appear broader. “I’m a man, remember.”
The gap-toothed grin appeared again. “Right. An’ a very convincing cove you are.” He snorted, blowing stale breath over her. “Only a blind codger would happ’n upon you and not want to put his old nebuchadnezzar to the grass.”
“Don’t be disgusting.” She shifted down farther into her collar where the air was fresher. “I’m not planning on showing my face—”
“Eh, Billy, who’s the fancy bloke?”
Billy turned with a snarl to the younger rough that had come upon them. “He ain’t no bloke! This ’ere’s Pan, a regular brick and me pal, so I’d watch me mouth if I was you.”
The rough, who was no older than sixteen, backed up. “No need to raise your dander.”
Billy gave a sharp jerk of his head. “Eh, hook it. An’ keep an eye on Meg. Lazy toffer’s been treatin’ her corner like a doss.”
The youth ambled off.
“Turned to the skin trade, have you?” Miranda asked. The idea of Billy as a pimp soured her stomach.
Billy gave a twisted smile. “A man’s got to make his livin’, hadn’t he?” He picked at something between his teeth and then spat. “An’ you’re getting too old to blend here, Pan.”