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“Let us take a moment to consider our words,” Sir James advised, as if wishing to avert a disaster.

  “I can’t help you arrange such a marriage as this,” Thea went on, ignoring the lawyer. “Knowing what I do of you, it would not be right.”

  “You know nothing of me,” Lord Lyon countered.

  “I beg to differ, my lord. I may know more of you than you know of yourself.”

  “And what would that be?” he challenged.

  Thea sat back, realizing she was now on very sensitive ground. How well did she know him? How much had he changed?

  Certainly she wasn’t the same person she’d been during those long-ago summer days.

  But one thing was still clear in her mind—she believed in love.

  The acknowledgement startled her. After all that Boyd, her father, her family had put her through, she still believed.

  It isn’t often one is struck with self-knowledge, and every time it is surprising. Suddenly, she realized why she’d set herself up as a matchmaker. She wanted to right wrongs, to guide others away from the disastrous decisions she’d made in her own life.

  She softened her voice. “My lord, marriage is a difficult endeavor. I’m not saying you must love your wife, but you must like her. Otherwise you will be saddling yourself to a cold, uncompromising life.” The sort of life his parents had had all those years ago.

  The sort of life she remembered him vowing never to live.

  Her change in tone worked. The fury in his eyes died, replaced by hopelessness. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain to me,” she said.

  “I’m cursed.”

  Thea blinked. Uncertain if he was being dramatic or factual. “Cursed?”

  “Yes,” he said with complete seriousness. “And my only hope of survival is to marry someone I don’t like, that I will never be able to abide. It will call for a very special woman. I don’t want someone I would detest. There is a difference between not liking and detesting.”

  Thea glanced at Sir James to see if he thought his lordship was spouting nonsense. He nodded his head as if agreeing with Lord Lyon.

  “You believe him cursed as well?” Thea challenged the solicitor.

  Sir James shrugged. “There is evidence to suggest it.”

  For a second, Thea wondered if she had wandered into a world of nonsense—and then her mind seized upon another possibility. A sinister one.

  “Is my brother behind this?” she demanded.

  Both Lord Lyon and Sir James acted perplexed at her accusation, but she was on to the game now. This was the only explanation that made sense. She stood. “Oh, this was very clever of him. I know Horace is not happy that I remain independent and even dare to go so far as to work for my living. But this?” She shook her head. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Sir James. And you, Lord Lyon. What a faithless friend you are. Apparently your title has destroyed whatever was good inside of you.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Lord Lyon said. He’d risen when she had and now pretended to be clueless in the face of her accusation.

  She moved toward the door. Her excitement over a healthy commission had turned to disappointment.

  Sir James came around the desk toward her. “Mrs. Martin, please, I don’t know what we said to upset you—”

  She cut him off by whirling around, her outstretched hand a warning that she did not want him to come closer. “Enough. I can’t believe I wasted a half shilling on the two of you. Here you are giving in to my brother’s schemes, and for what? A payment, Sir James? Some sort of cloakroom political deal in the House of Lords, Lord Lyon? Oh, yes, I know how the duke works. He’s always hatching new alliances for his own benefit. But I once thought you the closest of friends, and to my great dismay, you have grown into a man much like your parents—cold, distant, everything you said you wouldn’t be. Curses,” she said, biting out the word as if it had been an epithet. “Did you really believe I would be so gullible. Well, return to my brother and tell him no one believes in curses in this day and age. Not even his sister, the one he refuses to acknowledge.” With that pronouncement, she opened the door and sailed out of the room.

  “Thea, come back here,” Neal ordered.

  Her response was to keep walking.

  Chapter Two

  Righteous anger propelled Thea down the street and halfway home. She didn’t have blood in her veins right now, she had gunpowder.

  To think she had taken them seriously at first. She’d asked Lord Lyon what sort of qualities he was looking for in a wife? They had been very good at not snickering in her face.

  And what of Lyon? Her relationship with her father had always been troubled. The duke and Thea had locked horns continually while she’d been growing up. She’d rebelled at his numerous rules, his favoritism toward her brothers and the injustice of refusing to let her study anything except deportment, painting and religion. He’d wanted docile, obedient daughters with more hair than wit, and Thea wasn’t cut of that cloth.

  Neal had known all that. She’d confided in him the struggles and arguments between she and her father. With the solace of Neal’s friendship, Thea had been able to face a summer of her father being unusually harsh with his strictures and criticisms, until Neal had thrown the friendship aside without a fare-thee-well. He’d just left her wondering, worrying if she had done something to set him off her, worrying if he’d been ill or, worse, dead.

  Of course, he’d been fine. She’d heard through the servants that he’d been up and around the parish.

  He just hadn’t cared enough to explain why he hadn’t wanted to see or talk to her any longer.

  And that was unforgivable.

  Fury consumed her. Right there, in the middle of the busy city, she walked in a small, tight circle like a madwoman with too much energy to spare. Of course, she bumped into someone . . . an orange girl who was not expecting Thea’s sudden change of direction.

  “Sorry, miss, sorry,” the girl mumbled, adjusting the basket on her arm and hurrying on her way.

  Thea looked around. She was in Picadilly. Only a few more blocks to home. She took a deep breath and released it. Enough of this nonsense. She needed to collect herself so that when she walked through the door of her apartments she had a smile on her face for her sons.

  Of course, her smile would have been broader if she had actually been looking forward to a fat commission.

  Money worries always plagued her, but the school fees were a particular concern. Mirabel, Lady Palmer, had offered the money, but Thea didn’t want to take advantage of her friend, who was already too generous to her and her sons by half.

  No, educating her sons was something she must do on her own.

  As Thea turned the corner onto her narrow street, she repeated under her breath with each step, “It will all work out. It will all work out.”

  Her lips might be saying the words, but her mind was very anxious, an anxiety compounded by the realization that she had not shopped for their dinner that night. In her desire to save money, she sometimes let the cupboard grow a bit too bare. Her boys would be hungry.

  Thea stood at the base of the four flights of stairs leading to her apartment and decided that this night, they all needed a treat. The half shilling she owed Mrs. Gray would clean out the allowance she gave herself for the week, but just this once, she should raid the Future Box for a little extra.

  Perhaps she and the boys would make a night of it. They would do a bit of shopping and then buy a meat pie for their dinner. Jonathan’s appetite was starting to grow, but she and Christopher could spilt a half pie between them, and they would enjoy it in the small park several blocks away.

  Her boys grew restless when left inside all day. She didn’t dare let them roam free in this neighborhood. She knew from growing up with brothers that boys of any age could find trouble if not kept under some sort of su
pervision. Furthermore, she was determined to raise gentlemen, not urchins.

  The trudge up the stairs was always tiring, but Thea’s fatigue vanished when she saw her door slightly ajar. She always kept it bolted, and, before she’d left, she had advised Mrs. Gray to do the same.

  She hesitated outside the door. “Mrs. Gray?”

  “We are right here, Mother,” came Jonathan’s voice, his relief clear.

  Thea pushed the door open. Her sons were sitting side by side on the same wooden chair. Jonathan’s arm was around Christopher’s shoulder. She smiled. It warmed her heart to see her boys depending on each other and relieved her momentary fears.

  “Hello there, my handsome lads,” she said. “Mummy’s home.”

  To that statement, Christopher burst into tears. He jumped from the chair and ran to her, catching her at the knees and almost toppling her.

  “I’m happy to see you as well,” she said, laughing. She gave him a hug and smiled at Jonathan, a smile that quickly died when she saw that his eyes were red and he had been crying as well. “Jonathan? Is something the matter? Where is Mrs. Gray?”

  There was no sight or sound of the woman.

  “She left,” Jonathan said, his voice strained, as if he had the worst sort of news to tell her. Christopher buried his head deeper into her skirts and cried harder.

  Thea moved into the room, walking her youngest in with her. She set her reticule aside on a chair and called, “Mrs. Gray?”

  No answer.

  “She’s not here, Mummy,” Jonathan repeated. “I told you she left.”

  “Where did she go? Why would she leave?”

  Christopher started gasping for breath as if he would be sick. Jonathan, instead of being horrified the way he usually was when his brother threatened to be ill, jumped from the chair and raced over to hug him.

  Thea fell to her knees on the floor and gathered them both in her arms. “Be easy, Christopher, easy. Mummy’s home. Nothing bad will happen.”

  “It is bad,” Jonathan said. “Very bad.”

  “What is bad?” Thea asked, struggling to keep her voice calm. “You can tell me. Did Mrs. Gray do something bad?”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “I didn’t mean to tell her about the Future Box. I told her to stop.”

  “To stop what?” Thea asked.

  “Taking the money,” Jonathan said. “She took all the money in the Future Box.”

  Thea went cold with panic. She rose to her feet, ran the few steps to the bedroom.

  All looked as it should. The bed was neatly made, all tidy and right, but Thea knew her sons were not teasing. She came down to the floor, reached under the bed and pressed the board so that one end would pop up.

  Her boys had followed her. They stood in the bedroom doorway, their faces pale.

  Thea lifted the box out. It was much lighter.

  So much saving, scrimping, planning . . . dreaming.

  She opened the box. She had to see with her own eyes that it was empty, and it was. All was gone. Everything. The only money she had to her name was the half shilling in her purse she had been going to use to pay Mrs. Gray.

  “We told her to stop,” Jonathan said. “Chris didn’t mean to tell her. She had us sharing secrets.”

  “Sharing secrets?” Thea said, confused.

  “Yes, she said we all had secrets and she told us some and then wanted to know ours. It was a game,” Jonathan insisted. “A game.”

  “Yes, she said she was thirsty and wanted to know where we hid things,” Christopher said. “I didn’t mean for her to take the money.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Thea answered. She had to stay calm. She must think, reason.

  “I told her it was for Jonny’s school,” Christopher said. “She didn’t listen to me.”

  Anger welled up inside of Thea, and disgust with her own culpability. She hadn’t known Mrs. Gray other than in passing. She should not have trusted her.

  But that didn’t give the woman license to steal from them either.

  In a blink, Thea was on her feet, the box under one arm. She marched through the apartment and out into the hall.

  “Where are we going, Mother?” Jonathan asked.

  “To see Mrs. Gray.”

  Thea took the stairs two at a time. Her sons dashed behind her to keep up, Christopher echoing her words, “See Mrs. Gray.”

  They were all on a mission now.

  She knocked on the door at the top of the stairs. It opened immediately. Mrs. Hadley looked at the three of them standing on her landing and gave them a tired, welcoming smile. She was a thin woman with a sharp nose and pleasant blue eyes.

  “Look who has come to see me,” she said in her soft Irish lilt. “My, you lads are so handsome and brawny you brighten my day. You need to stop growing. Doesn’t your mother put the bricks on your head to keep you little? If you aren’t careful, Mrs. Martin, they will be tall as giants.”

  Usually when she made her comments, they all laughed, but not today.

  “Where is Mrs. Gray?” Thea asked anxiously.

  “Why, I don’t know,” Mrs. Hadley said, her manner changing to concern. “She was not here when I returned home. I went to see my husband in the hospital.”

  “How is he doing?” Thea stopped her own concerns to ask.

  “Not well. Why do you need my husband’s sister? What has she done now?”

  Thea’s heart sank at the wariness in Mrs. Hadley’s tone. “She stole from us.”

  “She took the money in the Future Box,” Jonathan chimed in.

  Thea placed her hand on her son’s back. “I did something foolish,” she whispered, fearing she had only herself to blame. “I had an appointment, a rather important one, I thought, but it was a fool’s errand.” Thea forced herself to think clearly. “I came up here to see if you would watch my sons for an hour or so while I was gone, but you weren’t home. Mrs. Gray volunteered to help. I mean, the two of you are related, and you are so good and kind to the boys. Also, she was a vicar’s wife? I should have been able to trust her, shouldn’t I . . . ?”

  She broke off, needing, yearning for confirmation from Mrs. Hadley.

  “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry,” the older woman said. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “What is it?” Thea begged.

  “My husband’s sister is too fond of gin. Her husband had the affliction. He was a vicar but one that stole from the church plate. He was run out of three parishes, and she is just as bad as he was. He died and she being alone, she came to see me. She had nowhere else to turn. The Church didn’t want her. I told her she could not be sipping the gin under my roof, and I thought she was doing good. You know, some people make you think they are doing well, but they aren’t. They are liars. Thieves. There has been a time or two that I sensed she was going through my things looking for a bottle or money.”

  “Where is she now?” Thea asked, the words hard to push past the heaviness in her chest.

  “Who knows? If she has taken your money, I shan’t be seeing her anytime soon,” Mrs. Hadley predicted. “And don’t think I’ll let her stay under my roof again after what she did. I don’t know what to do for you and your lads, Mrs. Martin. I feel bad, but I don’t know what to do.”

  Thea didn’t either.

  “Perhaps you should call for the Watch. Let them know she’s a thief,” Mrs. Hadley suggested.

  And then what? Thea knew the money was gone. “I might,” she said, more to placate Mrs. Hadley.

  “I’m so sorry,” the older woman said.

  “I am as well,” Thea answered. She turned to her sons. “Come, boys. Let us see what we can find for supper.” They wouldn’t be going out for a shopping lark.

  “I have a bit of bread and cheese,” Mrs. Hadley offered. “Unless Mary took that as well.”

  “We’ll
be fine,” Thea said, the words sounding curter than she had intended them. She softened her tone. “Truly, we will be.”

  They would survive, but her dream of Jonathan going to Westminster was gone . . . and she didn’t know if she could revive it. Perhaps she had been fooling herself all along that she could enroll her sons there, that she could do it all on her own.

  “I’m hungry, Mother,” Jonathan complained.

  “Me, too,” Christopher echoed.

  Children were so resilient. Her mind was still spinning with what had happened, while her sons had moved on to what was practical.

  “Let’s see what we have to eat,” Thea answered, starting down the stairs, her tread heavy, her mind numb—

  She pulled up short on the last three stairs as she realized she had a visitor.

  Neal Chattan, Lord Lyon, stood at her open door. He’d heard them coming down the stairs and had turned to face them.

  He seemed even taller, and even handsomer, here in the dingy halls of her building than he had in Sir James’s office, perhaps because the refined cut of his clothes emphasized the shabbiness of her humble home.

  Their eyes met. Thea tightened her jaw in resentment. She had a good notion to heave the Future Box at him. She had no doubt she couldn’t hit him right on his arrogant nose, and it might make her feel better.

  As if reading her mind, he held up his hands. “We should talk, Thea. Please, just for a moment. We apparently have outstanding business between us.”

  Chapter Three

  Neal had been taken aback by how rickety the stairs in this building were. The smoke from coal fires burned his nostrils, while the smell of ages of cooked meals seemed to have permeated the walls.

  This building was so old that it had to have been standing during the time of the Great Fire. It was a pity it hadn’t been burned down. He’d not live here and was surprised anyone did, most of all Lady Thea.

  In the dim light of the hallway stairs, she stood tall, her eyes burning with pride. She was still dressed for going out, still in her drab hat, her gloves and her pelisse.

  And he remembered her as he last saw her years ago, the memory still fresh in his mind—her hair down around her shoulders, her feet bare because she’d been wading in the stream waiting for him, a chain of bachelor buttons and daisy wildflowers forming a crown on her head.