One red brow rose as she glanced up at him, considering.
“It is pure gold.” He was babbling like a maiden. Irritation flushed within him. He bit it back. “Melt it down and sell it when you have need.” The idea gave him a certain joy.
Her fingers closed around the coin. “You think I’m too proud to take it?”
His lips twitched. “On the contrary. I think you pragmatic enough to make good use of it.” He didn’t offer her the wad of bank notes he had in his pocket. A gift was one thing. Charity was another.
Green eyes slanted up at him. “Silver-tongued devil. But you’re wrong. I don’t take gifts from strangers.”
He opened his mouth to protest when she flicked her wrist. The knife in her hand hissed through the air, embedding itself with a thud into the wall next to him.
“A trade, however.”
Oh, he liked this girl. Keeping his eyes on her, he pulled out the knife with ease. The slim, black-enameled hilt was warm from her touch. That she trusted him with the knife left him oddly expectant, as if for once the next sunrise might be a welcome sight. “A trade it is,” he rasped.
“Go on, then,” she said. “I’ll not leave until you’re well out of here.”
Deliciously peremptory. His gut tightened and went hot.
Come with me. He’d take her to a tavern, buy her ale and bread, tease her simply to hear her talk, to watch her all night and revel in the way she commanded those in orbit around her. Only then she’d see him. And run. The heaviness in his chest was a crushing thing.
“As my lady wishes.”
She gave a start. She hadn’t truly thought he’d obey, and it made him chuckle. God, he hadn’t smiled this much in years. The muscles along his chest ached from his recent laughter. When had he last laughed? He could not remember.
Desperate yearning returned, for in her unflinching stare, the way she did not hesitate to speak to him, he saw the reflection of his own salvation. A man no longer cast out to the shadows, but seen. If there was a greater gift in this world he knew not of it. Archer was not fool enough to turn away from a gift.
Hector Ellis’s daughter. So the man would have to live. Archer turned a new plan over in his mind. One Archer knew Ellis would agree to, for a man such as him would agree to anything to save his own skin. A little time was all that Archer required.
Taking a deep breath, he made himself say the words he must. “Good night to you, fair Pan.”
Chapter One
Three years later. London, September 1881
No, no, farther down… yes, that’s the one… there!” Satisfaction pulled at her lips. “Ah, how lovely.”
The man at the counter flushed in pleasure. His gaze strayed to her smiling lips and held for a moment past propriety. “The loveliest I’ve seen, Miss.”
His small boldness sent another wash of red over his fair skin. Miranda leaned farther into him. The glass countertop beneath her elbows gave a small groan, and the clerk swallowed hard, his gaze flittering between her mouth and the swells of her br**sts that plumped over her bodice. His grip tightened on the ruby bracelet he held in his hands.
So easy, really, to seduce a man with the simple act of arching one’s back. A woman ought to feel satisfaction in the sight. Miranda only felt as she always felt: dirty, wrong, empty.
“Set it down,” she murmured before clearing her throat delicately. “Let me see it in the proper light.”
Gently, he set the bracelet among the others, dozens of necklaces and bracelets strewn out over the small counter. Too many wares pulled out for display than was prudent or proper. So very accommodating. And a mistake only a befuddled clerk would make.
Miranda set her chin upon her hand, the act bringing her arm against the side of her breast, lifting it further into view. The clerk smothered a noise, his eyes riveted to the sudden increase in displayed flesh. Her skin crawled. She did not flinch, only looked up at him with a small secret smile. You and I understand this forbidden desire between us, it said to him. Her free hand settled with the lightness of a feather upon the pearl necklace lying near her ribs.
“Any one of these jewels would do you credit, miss.”
Her finger hooked over the row of pearls. Slowly. Slowly. Countless times she had done this, yet every time felt like the first. Every time filled her with terror. Never let it show.
She mocked a wounded pout. “The jewels credit me, sir?”
His thin mouth worked as he flushed. “You misunderstand. They pale against your beauty. Were I a ruby, I would despair at being noticed while in your presence.”
A genuine smile tugged at her lips. Plain and bashful, he might be, but the young man had a romantic heart and the beginnings of a poetic tongue. It was his whey-face and quick blushes that had made her select this shop that rested at the edge of respectability. The little shop specialized in fine jewels pawned by aristocrats whose wealth was dying. A place new wealth bought baubles for their town-kept mistresses. A place where a young, unescorted woman might go, pretend to shop for jewels far past her means so that she might flirt with the young clerk she had her eye on.
It was the role she played. Letting him see her walk by his window once a week. Making eye contact before turning away with a blush. And then working up her courage to finally enter. She dipped her head and blushed.
“You are too kind, sir,” she murmured.
He fairly glowed with pleasure, and her heart ached. Too good a boy to ruin. For he would be ruined when his master found out what he had let happen here. But she could not return empty-handed. It had been too long. On the inside she screamed. This is my life, and I hate it. I hate it. She returned his smile.
The shop bell trilled, and the young man started as if caught with his hand in the biscuit bin. Two plump matrons entered, giving him a curt nod. Like Miranda’s, their gowns were slightly out of date and well-mended, but unlike with Miranda, the clerk took notice and did not jump to assist them.
Miranda trailed a gloved finger down her neck.
“W-would you like to try one of them on?” he asked.
She licked her lower lip, a tiny flicker of pink tongue that kept him riveted. “I don’t think I should.” It took no effort to make her lips tremble. In truth, she felt like crying.
“Merciful heavens!”
The matron’s exclamation made them both turn. The older woman pressed her hand upon her ample chest and grabbed hold of her companion.
“Oh, Jane, look who it is!”
Her friend paled and made an attempt to support her friend. “Who, Margaret?”
“The Dread Lord Archer! His coach is coming up the street!”
“No!”
Both women craned their wrinkled necks to peek between the gold lettering upon the shop window. Miranda stopped short of rolling her eyes. What a pair, these two. Her fingers tensed to take her prize but she held firm. Slowly. Slowly. Marks always felt it if one rushed. It was instinctive.
“I’ve seen him,” hissed Margaret. “Late one night on the way home from the theater. He walked along Piccadilly as if he had every right to do so. I swear I nearly swooned from fright!”
“You poor dear. What has the world come to when men such as he are permitted to roam the streets?”
Miranda had never heard such censorious drivel.
“My dear, he is aristocracy,” said Margaret, “and as rich as Croesus. Who would dare question him? I heard he has sent at least four men to hospital for simply looking at him in the wrong light.”
The conveyance came flush with the shop window. Miranda caught a glimpse of the black top hat and cloak of a coachman, a black coach with a white shield upon its door.
“Heavens, he looked at me…” Jane shuddered, and with a moan, her eyes rolled up in her head.
“Jane!” Her friend tried to grab her as the woman began to topple.
“Here! Here!” The clerk jumped up, running to catch the hare-brained woman.
There was something to say for flighty females. Miranda acted, slipping the necklace into her skirt pocket as she rushed to aid, accidentally brushing several necklaces off the counter in her haste. “Oh my,” she exclaimed, frantically trying to gather the jewels and succeeding in making a muck of it. Ropes of gold and gems fell to the floor, a hopeless muddle.
The clerk wavered between assisting her and struggling to help the matron on the floor. Perfect.
“What a mess I have made!” Miranda pressed a shaking hand to her brow. “I am sorry. And you have your hands full!”
She reached the door, her heart pounding. It pounded every time. Every time.
“Wait, Miss!” The clerk buckled, his hand outstretched as if he would pull her back.
Hand twitching on the doorknob, she shot the clerk a regretful smile. “Good-bye. I am sorry.”
His words were drowned out by the bell.
Outside, the coach in question was gone, swallowed up by street traffic and drifting fog. Only now did the gaping pedestrians begin moving on. Unsettled murmurs rippled along the streets before being drowned out by the usual clatter and clang of hacks, omnibuses, and coaches rattling along the cobbled road. Miranda decided she did not want to know what the unfortunate Lord Archer looked like. She had experienced enough horrors in her meager lifetime.
The slight weight in her pocket felt like a ton as she made her way home. Miranda’s steps stuttered to a stop as she saw the sleek, black double-brougham stretched out like a coffin in the front portico of the house. Thick whorls of yellow-green evening fog rose from the cobbled drive, ghosting over the coach’s large spoke wheels and coiling like snakes round the spindly legs of the matched black Friesians that stood placidly waiting.
Dread plucked at her insides. Long gone were the days when their drive filled with endless lines of landaus, barouches, and phaetons as nobility and gentry alike called upon father to purchase his wares.
With a jostle of rigging and the smart clip of hooves, the coach turned, and the crest upon the door flashed in the waning light. A white shield bisected by a heavy black cross bore the words Sola bona quae honesta upon it. Four sharp arrowheads slashed across the white planes of the shield. The hairs along her arm stood at attention, and she knew the source of her disquiet. The Dread Lord Archer.