Chapter 1

1

London,1813

“You oughta go back to Mayfair, where you come from!”

The words, expertly dropped by one of the seven children before her, cut through Miss Jane Grant like a headman’s axe. All of them were dressed in what looked like rags, their dirty skin showing through the rips and holes. They fidgeted behind their school desks, ripping the precious paper she’d carefully chosen and ordered months ago in preparation for the opening of her school. Chairs and desks scraped against freshly laid wooden floor as the four boys and three girls threw pens and paper balls, pushed each other, yelled, and cackled.

Her dog, Hercules, an English foxhound with large brown and gray spots on his white body, sat at attention next to the door, his ears perked, giving cautious barks. Reuben, a tall and large man in his forties with a shaggy beard, stood in the opposite corner of the room with his massive arms crossed over his chest, watching the scene with a concerned frown. He was one of her brother Thorne’s most trusted men and often accompanied Jane around Whitechapel as her bodyguard and chaperone.

“Back to Mayfair,” red-haired Alfie echoed, his steely blue eyes locked on her, before spitting out, “princess…”

How did the boy know exactly what would hurt her? She supposed it was as clear as the light of day she didn’t belong here. Jane blinked against the burn of tears building behind her eyes. She was their teacher; she couldn’t give up in the first few minutes of her little school’s fragile existence.

She drew in a quick breath and plastered a brave smile on her face.

“Children!” Jane cried, trying to yell above the cacophony. “Please, be quiet! If you let me speak for a minute…”

As the noise in the classroom swelled, she caught Reuben’s eye. He slowly shook his head, a deep frown of uneasiness mixed with empathy etched onto his features. Jane knew he wanted to help.

He made his way through the row of simple oak desks and chairs she had ordered a year ago from the local Whitechapel carpenter. The man had salvaged the wood from broken furniture and was so grateful for the large order, he’d had tears in his eyes.

A quill pen crunched under Reuben’s feet as he walked. Sunlight streamed through three small windows, illuminating the blackboard hanging at the front of the room. Fresh maps she had managed to buy at a cartographer in Cheapside, and educational posters with the alphabet, numbers, and the arithmetic table she’d painted herself adorned white-paneled walls.

The building used to be the abandoned kitchens at the back of her brother’s exclusive gentleman’s club, Elysium. Over a year ago, Thorne had hired unemployed local men to renovate it for Jane’s school, and the room still smelled of fresh wood, paint, and faintly of chalk.

As Reuben stood next to her, his eyebrows like two small storm clouds over his eyes, Jane felt a flutter of gratitude. She knew his presence was not just out of duty to Thorne but out of a bond they’d formed during storytelling and shared meals.

Reuben glowered at the children and boomed, “Shut up, you rascals!”

The silence that fell over the classroom was absolute. Hercules gave a final, approving bark, and settled into his dog bed, his head still high as he threw warning glances at the boys and girls. The children stilled and turned to face Jane and Reuben, their eyes wide, eyebrows knit, shallow faces somber. Jane let out a small breath of relief. She would have liked to get the children to behave by herself, but she had to admit, Reuben’s tactic was more effective. Reuben turned to her and gave her a small, conspiratorial wink, then scowled at the children once again.

“Yer a bunch of ungrateful brats,” grumbled Reuben. “Miss Grant, she’s been toilin’ over a year to make this school for you. Got all these books, pens, and paper on her own. And now look…”

He walked to the first of the desks, picked up a turned-over inkwell, and returned it to its place, then wiped his black-smeared fingers against his brown coat. The pool of ink dripped down from the desk and onto the fresh floor. Would Ruby, her maid and housekeeper, even be able to get rid of the stain?

“Ink spilled,” Reuben continued, “quills broken, paper wasted…”

Jane chuckled nervously. “It’s all right, children. I have more supplies. All that matters is you’re here.”

“Why are we here?” questioned Lily, a girl of eight. “Should be at the mill, earnin’ me keep.”

“You wanna get yer hands mangled by the machine, workin’ for a measly penny?” demanded Reuben.

“Sometimes that penny means a crumb or two for me little sis.”

Jane’s skin crawled. She had walked door to door in the neighborhood for weeks, talking to the parents, inviting them to send their children to her school.

“And I should be helpin’ me uncle,” stated Alfie.

“Out on the streets, Alfie?” Reuben barked. “Liftin’ wallets, that’s yer best talent, eh?”

Alfie threw a scowl at him. “We were gonna do me first big job. Ma is six months late with rent.”

“The lady’s just eatin’ up our time,” grumbled nine-year-old Peter, a lad with a mop of black hair.

She knew how she must seem to them. During the five years since she’d moved to Whitechapel from her father’s house in Mayfair, she’d seemed so strange to the inhabitants. Her clothes were simple but clean and tidy. Her hair was always meticulously done by Ruby, not a hair out of place. Her hands and face were clean. Her spectacles must have told them volumes about who she was—someone educated. She didn’t talk like them, didn’t dress like them, and didn’t look like them. She didn’t have to worry where her next meal came from. Thorne made sure of that. And despite living in the criminal district of London, she felt quite safe with Thorne’s men guarding her like their princess.

Besides, all of Whitechapel knew that Thorne Blackmore’s sister, a legitimately born baron’s child—unlike him—was untouchable. If a hair on her head fell out of place because of someone’s actions, their own head may soon be missing.

But if Jane wanted to help these children, she needed to find a way to relate to them and make them want to be here.

“Education is not a waste of time,” she said. “Peter, if you learn to read and write, you won’t have to work in dangerous mills, or pickpocket, or beg on the streets. You could find work in service or as someone’s apprentice, learning a skill such as carpentry, cooking, or shoemaking…”

And not on the gallows, she wanted to add. But the mere thought of that made a chill run down her spine. A mental image slapped her internal vision: a ten-year-old boy hanging by the neck, swinging, black against the dark storm clouds. Two years ago, she’d witnessed a public execution when the coachman took the wrong turn, and they were stuck in a crowd of onlookers.

Thorne had told her not to look, but she couldn’t turn away. When she asked him what the boy had done, Thorne had said somberly, “He did what many Whitechapel children do every single day. The difference is, he got caught.”

She prayed she could help these children escape that fate. And, if her school was a success, not just these seven, but many more.

“Young’uns, don’t you worry yer heads about work or stealin’,” said Reuben. “Mr. Blackmore, that’s Miss Grant’s brother, he’s gone and paid your folks for the work you’re missin’ today.”

While the children murmured among themselves with satisfied smiles, shock hit Jane like a slap.

It was all false. It wasn’t her doing that these children sat here.

It was all Thorne. Always Thorne, protecting her, shielding her, making sure her every wish and whim came true.

And yet, she had thought, finally, it was all because of her. She had assumed she’d succeeded in convincing the children’s parents to send them here after weeks of going door to door. She’d thought that she had managed to make a difference, that she’d taken one small step to feeling like she belonged here, like she mattered.

She’d believed that she wasn’t just a criminal lord’s overprotected, lonely, aristocratic sister who didn’t know what to do with herself among thieves, sex workers, and thugs.

“Time for me to head off,” Reuben announced, lifting a finger. “Now, you lot better listen to Janie—er, I mean, Miss Grant. If you don’t, I’ll tan yer hides so hard you won’t be able to sit right for a week.”

Jane stared at Reuben with horror. “No, no, Reuben,” she said. “There will not be corporal punishment, not in this school. The children struggle enough already.”

Reuben chuckled but threw a warning scowl at the children, who glared back at him. He pointed his index finger again without a word.

“I’m not jokin’, Janie,” he said quietly as he leaned to her. “If these little devils cause you trouble, they’ll have to deal with me.”

With that, Reuben left under the watchful eyes of Hercules. With the sound of the door closing, seven pairs of rebellious, challenging eyes landed on Jane. She smiled, stepping from foot to foot.

Never had she felt more out of place. What could she know about their lives? What did she know about needing to survive day to day with a growling stomach and only rags on her shoulders? What significance could reading and writing have for them when they didn’t know if they would eat tomorrow?

Nevertheless, she had to go on. Perhaps it would be difficult today, but later on, it might mean the difference for them between the gallows and a safe home. She took a deep breath and walked up to the blackboard.

“Let’s start with the alphabet,” she said. “A is for apple. B is for ball…”

She went through the entire alphabet, writing the letters out. The children repeated after her, but their voices were dull and uninterested. Until, when she reached W, they started giggling and yelling again.

She turned around. Alfie had drawn a surprisingly skillful sketch of a lady in spectacles with a perfectly tied knot at the back of her head, her skirts flapping in the wind and her petticoats quite scandalously exposed. As she gasped, a satisfied roar of laughter sounded from the children.

“Alfie,” she said, “that is quite enough. This is inappropriate.”

“What are you goin’ to do, Miss Grant?” demanded Peter. “Send us home?”

An approving, joyful howl rolled through the room.

Jane’s cheeks blazed with heat. Whatever Thorne’s good intentions were, he couldn’t help here. It was between her and the children. But it was as though she simply couldn’t find the right words to make them see why they should want to be here.

“No, of course not, but you have to understand—”

But they weren’t listening. Alfie jumped on the chair and started some sort of a wild dance. Peter shook Alfie’s chair, threatening to drop him on the floor, and Jane yelped. While Lily giggled, the rest of the children crumpled the remains of their paper into balls and started a fight. Hercules jumped to his feet and barked in earnest, adding to the mayhem.

“Please!” cried Jane, desperation clawing at her chest. Who was she jesting? She was not a governess, not a teacher or a mother. She was simply a lady, a lady who had been raised to understand etiquette and act with grace, not to control a room full of children. Her upbringing as the daughter of a baron was meant to prepare her to be the wife of a noble lord, spending her time in a drawing room, not the schoolroom. Yet here she was, with no intention to ever marry, chasing a dream that felt as distant as the stars. “Please, everyone, calm down!”

In the midst of the chaos, Hercules ran to the door, barking madly.

The door was flung open, and the most handsome man she’d ever seen stood in the doorway.

He was tall and muscular under his rich, dark waistcoat, which sat somewhat askew. His high cravat was undone, and his breeches were crumpled. He was the embodiment of her every romantic fantasy. He had thick auburn hair, the fashionable windswept hairstyle disheveled. His features were perfectly correct and chiseled—high cheekbones, straight nose—like those of a Greek god. Dark auburn eyebrows knitted above his intense blue eyes as he looked over the children and her. Then his broad mouth quirked in a crooked grin.

Though the children quieted, staring at the stranger, Hercules did not. With a ferocious growl and spate of fierce barking, the dog jumped at the man.

Shocked, the man backed through the open doorway, stomping on the filthy, muddy backyard behind Elysium, mud slurping under his shiny boots. Hercules jumped through the puddles and the mud and kept advancing on the man as he backed away.

Jane ran after Hercules. “Stop! Sit, Hercules!”

But Hercules was much too riled up to listen to her.

Instead, he backed the beautiful man against the wall, his muddy paws leaving black smudges all over the man’s white shirt and light breeches.

Hercules growled and barked right into the man’s face. To his credit, the man threw his arms up, calmly saying something soothing to the dog, however futile. Jane ran to Hercules and pulled him by his collar.

“Sit, Hercules!” she cried. “Sit!”

Hercules, the little protector that he was, finally listened. He sat down, whimpering, growling, but his tail still wriggled as he ached to keep tormenting the stranger who may have come to threaten his mistress.

Jane stared at the man. She breathed hard, inhaling his intoxicating, masculine scent—expensive cologne and brandy—mixed with the whiff of the stables, the alehouse, and the chicken pen that always hung over Elysium’s backyard.

“Well, it seems that dog doesn’t like me much,” the stranger said, his voice deep and smooth.

She suddenly became very aware of his proximity. His warm blue eyes were on her, and she was sinking in their beautiful—if slightly bloodshot—depths. No doubt he was a lord, not just a solicitor or a bank clerk from somewhere in Cheapside. In a ballroom, a man like him would never notice someone like her. She belonged with books, hiding behind the rims of her spectacles. She would never gain the attention of a gorgeous, charming, and no doubt rich man like him.

But she would notice him anywhere.

She wished she wore better clothes than the mousy gray frock Ruby had made for her three years ago, and she wished she had a more fashionable hairstyle than the simple bun. He was all saturated, bright colors, while she was gray and washed-out. For the first time in five years, she felt a longing to match him and an acute awareness that she did not.

He looked somewhere behind her. “Forgive me,” he said, “aren’t those your children?”

She turned around and groaned as she watched her pupils scatter out of the school, run across the backyard, and disappear through the door in the carriage gates.

Anger roared in her. What was she thinking? This man, clearly one of Elysium’s frequent members—dressed like he hadn’t been home all night, reeking like a distillery—had barged into her school and disrupted her lesson, and now, because of him, everyone had left!

“Sir, I beg you to refrain from entering the backyard of Elysium!” she said, her voice stronger than she felt. “Was it not clear that only the front door is for visitors?”

He chuckled, eyeing her softly. She did not like that amused glint in his eyes at all. Nor the warmth in her whole body as she found herself the object of his unwavering gaze. She reminded herself to not let his charm sway her. “I find myself wishing to become a bad boy as long as I have a governess such as you to teach me manners.”

She felt heat rush to her cheeks at his words. She was not used to such forwardness. But she had to stay focused. “What, heavens help me, did you want with me, then?”

“As much as I begin to regret this, I did not come for you, miss. I was looking for Thorne Blackmore. No one is answering the front door of Elysium.”

“And so, being a frequent visitor, you felt entitled to find your own way in,” she declared.

His eyes narrowed into a smoldering glare. “Not all is as it seems,” he spat out, a tempest brewing in his voice. “But surely, someone as sanctimonious as yourself has the wisdom to discern right from wrong, isn’t that so?”

She stood tall, the pulsing beat in her ears echoing the heightened tension in her whole body. “As a matter of fact, I do. Clearly, your modus operandi is to disrupt, rebel, and incite chaos. And then someone like me is left to pick up the pieces in your wake.”

His expression twisted into a snarl. “So, you’ve got it all figured out, have you?” he spat, his voice rough with anger. “You stand there, on your high ground, casting judgments. How bland and boring your perfect life must be then. Remember, miss, those that sit on high horses do so alone.”

The blow was like a punch to her gut. The tears she’d fought down earlier prickled again at the backs of her eyes. She had no words to contradict his. They rang too true.

“If you wish to see Thorne Blackmore,” she said, her voice low and trembling, “the servants’ entrance is behind you. Please, do not come near me or my school again.”

She watched his large, broad-shouldered back as he walked away, her heart still racing.

She turned and walked into her school. She had a purpose, a goal. And she would see it through, no matter what. Regardless of unkind, handsome strangers or painful memories.