Chapter 23

The sun dipped low over the horizon, painting the sky in fiery hues as they approached the outskirts of Dover. After hours in the saddle, Grace felt every bone in her body aching, but the promise of rest spurred her on as the little village appeared before their eyes.

Ford had surrendered the reins to her some time ago, allowing Grace to guide them toward their destination. She steered them off the main road, leading them down a narrow trail winding between hills.

The salty tang of the sea grew stronger with each passing moment, bringing a smile to her face and bringing forth memories of the time she'd spent here with Hades and his late sister. Images of Ava frolicking in the waves played before her eyes. What a powerful sense the smell was, instantly bringing Grace's mind to the past. Her heart beat faster with every step their mount took, and she was peeking forward to see the cottage ahead.

Ford must have felt her excitement, his arms tightening around her waist. "What is it?" he asked in her ear.

Grace turned toward him. "We are almost there."

Just as she said it, a little stone cottage, its walls overrun by ivy, appeared behind the bend.

She guided her horse toward the front garden's rickety fence.

"I don't suppose you have the key on you, do you?" Ford asked.

Grace whipped open her cloak, revealing her trusted chatelaine, which, among other things, had several keys hanging from it.

Ford raised a brow. "Truly, you've been carrying it around all this time?"

She chuckled and drew the ends of the cloak back together. "Of course not. I am just jesting. I don't have the key. But…" She started walking away from him and said the rest over her shoulder, "I know where to get one. Wait here."

She rounded the house and found the key under the rose bush behind a small boulder. Good thing Hades still kept it there. She opened the gate and after settling the horse into a small stable, led Ford inside the house.

It was just as she remembered it. Small but cozy, neat, and clean. Hades had a local family look after the house and the garden once every couple of weeks, and it seemed like they kept the house in good shape. They knew that Hades was going to visit soon, too. Grace didn't know when exactly, but he was bound to return from his trip sometime soon. And she was certain he would spend a few days here before returning to London.

"What is this place?" Ford asked. He had managed not to ask this question throughout their journey. He just trusted her to bring him to a safe place. And this was exactly what this house was to her.

A safe haven.

"It's a… Hades bought this house a few years ago for his sister. She didn't end up enjoying it for too long. But now he gets to enjoy it with his wife."

He looked at her strangely. "You and Hades, you were very close, weren't you?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "We've been inseparable for years ever since we met. I used to be his advisor. Come. Let me show you the house."

She led him to the kitchen and started inspecting all the dishes and the dry foods they had. There was some rice, tea, and herbs. Excellent. They'd need to find a market or a little shop to sustain themselves for their stay here. But it would have to wait until tomorrow.

"You were Hades' advisor?" Ford returned the conversation to the previous topic.

"Yes," Grace said as she unlocked the door to the larder. There was some butter in there, some cheese. Great! They'd make it through the night. "I taught him to read, to count. I made most business decisions that didn't require intimidation and blackmail. I was his business partner and his family."

Even if she didn't mean it to, a hint of bitterness escaped her voice, and Ford, obviously, noticed. Because he said, "You were in love with him."

"I was, yes. I loved him. And I hated Eloise for taking him from me. But the truth is, he was never mine. And he was right to choose her. We went through hell together. Our memories are tainted by pain and grief. He needed someone who didn't carry the weight of our past. He needed someone who could take him away from the darkness."

"And you don't?"

She smirked lightly. "I am the darkness." And then she chuckled at her own foolish words. Her tone grew more serious as she continued, "He was the first man to show me kindness. I suppose for that, I will always love him." She paused, reflecting on her past and reconciling her past experiences. "I never realized that—how could I? I didn't have enough insight, but now, having met plenty of people with similar life experiences, I see a pattern. People who grow up without parents, or who are taken from them young and passed around by those who see them as things or burdens—tend to cling to anyone who shows them kindness and mistake it for love.

"I was lucky to have Hades in my life. He gave me stability, kept me from harm, protected me against any man who wanted to use me. Because I was in love with him, I didn't let any other men near me, either." She chuckled. "By the time I realized he would never love me romantically, I had grown up. I had found my worth, my passions. I had friends who supported me. I realized I didn't need outside affection to be whole."

"You do not seem too over the fact that he didn't love you back."

She let out a strangled chuckle. "I suppose I am not. Not because I am still in love with him; I am not. I do love him and I always will—he is my family. But a part of me is resentful that he couldn't love me back in the same way."

"The way he loves Eloise."

Another chuckle. "Yes." She paused looking down at her feet. She'd never said that out loud to anyone before. She didn't know if Ford was the right person to confide in after all they'd been through and the fact that Eloise was his sister. But the feelings she had for him were… different than what she'd felt for Hades all those years ago. The fact that he'd listened to her musing about her past feelings to Hades felt liberating. As if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. It felt comforting to freely share her innermost thoughts with him. "So, would you like some food, tea perhaps?"

Ford blinked, surprised at the abrupt change in the topic, but quickly nodded. "I would love some food."

"Then you need to bring me some fresh water."

Ford chuckled. "Point me in the direction of a well or a spring."

Grace matched his smile. "Gladly."

* * *

Ford rubbed his hands together as he looked at the large wooden table laden with… two cups of rice, some tea, and a plate of cheese. Two small candles illuminate their sparse dinner. He grinned, looking at the food. "I am starving."

"Well, I hope you are not expecting anything extraordinary. We will have to go to the market on the morrow. Today—" She waved her arm over the table.

He shrugged. "As far as I am concerned, you are a sorceress to be able to whip this up from whatever we had in the larder."

"As long as we have tea, I don't need much," Grace said.

He needed much more than that, but the buttered rice would have to do for tonight.

They were so hungry they finished the first cup of rice quickly and silently. Luckily, there was more. As Grace offered the second serving of the rice, Ford sipped the greenish-colored tea, now less suspicious of the brew. "I am quite enjoying this tea. Where do you get it?"

Grace's nose twitched as she settled across from him. "Smugglers."

He raised a brow, and she laughed. "Come now, do not tell me you didn't know the answer. The tea is too expensive in England to get it legally."

He clicked his tongue. "Good thing I am a fugitive now. Might have arrested you for this."

Grace laughed. "You could have tried."

"What I meant was I have never seen tea quite like this. Although I much prefer whisky to anything else."

She shook her head in disapproval. "Why, Mr. Gunning. Perhaps I should make you appreciate tea more. There are several types which are quite enjoyable. My mother taught me the love of different types of tea. She… She wanted me to know some of my roots, although she didn't know much herself."

"Your roots?" Ford promoted.

"Mhm… My grandfather was Chinese, although, as I said, I don't know much about Chinese culture. Only what my mother taught me."

"How did he get here?"

She looked into the distance. "He came here on some religious mission. Not to England, but to France. There he fell in love with a girl, fled his mission, and… that's how I am here." There was a slight bitterness to her words. He was starting to discern her easy changes in tone.

"You resent him for that," he guessed.

Grace took a sip of tea. "I don't know. Maybe. He did it for love, I suppose that should be forgiven. But look where it got us. He died of some kind of disease. His daughter became a courtesan, his granddaughter a whore. With my looks, I… I didn't have much chance to have a normal life in England."

"I'd say you managed well," Ford noted.

Grace didn't answer. She continued to silently eat her food.

He tipped his head toward her chest. "The cross you wear, it's his, isn't it?"

She paused, then her gaze fell to the jewelry in question. "Yes."

"You blame him for your state of life. Yet you wear his cross."

She smiled. "I blame a lot of people for a lot of things. But the fact is he is part of me. A part of my story. A part of how I came to be. And it is hard enough for me to try to relate to anything. We do not belong here. I am quite certain I don't belong in China either. I don't belong anywhere really. And he is the reason why. But he is also my only link to the past. So, I might as well own my past, my heritage. My mother always said I looked like him. And I'd like to think that I would have loved him had I met him."

"What about your father?"

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I don't remember him either. I am certain I met him as a little child, but I don't remember his face, or anything about him, except that he was wearing a signet ring on his finger. I think there was a wolf on it… In the middle, and a knight or a sword. That's as much as I remember."

"He was a lord." Ford shouldn't have been surprised. She had told him she used to have tutors. He was probably quite influential as well. It was hard to believe she'd ended up where she was now.

She nodded. "Most likely. He set up a nice house for me and my mother. I had tutors, clothing, food. But I barely ever saw him. I think he had a family… A real family. A wife and legitimate children. I don't know for certain, but why else would he leave us behind? I don't know if he cared that my mother died and that I disappeared. To be honest, I hope he doesn't. I'd like to think he is a cold and callous man because I don't wish the pain of losing a loved one on him."

"What happened next?" Ford asked, taking advantage of her open mood. He wanted to learn more about her. Craved it even.

"Next?"

"After you were stolen from your home."

"I was placed in a terrible brothel for young children. I wasn't even the youngest one there, but I was small for my age." She swallowed. "I don't remember much from that time, I try not to. Either way, I managed to run away a couple of years later. I slept on the streets, ate garbage if I wasn't able to steal something better. I tried to work, but… Nobody would take me."

"Because of how you look," he guessed.

Her smile was bitter. "Yes. I managed to sneak into a sewing factory once. People there found me and instead of throwing me out on the street were kind enough to give me work. I think they needed more hands. We lived in that factory, two to three people sharing a cot. And the work was so grueling, my body couldn't take it. I worked as hard as I could, but I got sick." She shrugged. "They didn't need sickly workers, so I ended up on the street again."

She paused, playing with her fork, not meeting his gaze. "That's when I met Madame Bordeaux. I don't know her real name, but she ran a little brothel by the docks." She shrugged her shoulders, looking weak and small, like that little girl who bounced from brothel to factory and back again in order to survive. "She offered me work, and I… I had no choice but to take it."

Ford's heart squeezed, and he wanted to ask her to stop. He didn't want to hear more; it was too painful. But he was the one who'd asked for it. It was too late to take it back.

Her gaze was distant as she recounted her past. "She was kind enough to share her wisdom about this profession. In a way, I am grateful to her. I learned some tricks to keep the men from hurting me. How to stand up for myself, how to steal. And most importantly, she taught us to wear a special… um… wig for our private parts. A merkin she called it. It helped us fool less sophisticated men, which most of them were."

"Fool them how?" Ford frowned, working out in his head how that could possibly help.

"Oh." She waved an airy hand. "We would guide men under the merkin but over our hip to imitate penetration."

"And men never noticed?"

She chuckled, shaking her head. "You'd be surprised at what men don't notice."

Fair enough. He hadn't noticed that she and Madame Tricheuse were one and the same. If those girls operated at night, in dark alleys, it was possible to get away with things like this. And if they managed to do that, then good for them.

"She also taught me to flirt," Grace continued, "and use my feminine wiles to get what I want. And then I met Hades." The sigh that left her chest was heavy and raw. "He was younger than me, but he had spent more time in those terrible child brothels. He was the opposite of me in many ways. Quiet, reserved, but angry. Very angry. He didn't like being touched, and he hated brothels. He helped me leave the brothel life. Helped me realize that I had something else to offer. I was more than just my body. I had my mind. My soul. My self. It took me a while to understand what to do with myself and how to reconcile what I am with what I've done. When Hades opened his hell, the women there taught me a lot. I learned about the erotic acts that I had been forced to perform. I learned that women could enjoy those acts too. I was curious about how people received their pleasure and I… um… I started coming up with accessories to help them explore their desires."

"The chair," he noted.

"Pardon me?"

"I saw a drawing of a chair in your room in London. The one with a conspicuous hole in the cushions. Is that one of the accessories you came up with?"

She chuckled, then added proudly, "It's a prototype. It's the largest accessory I've ever come up with. The other ones are much smaller. But once I started creating more and more things, I decided to open my own brothel. And I continue learning things and creating things for people's enjoyment. I was dragged into the business of pain. And now I am in the business of pleasure."

As if to punctuate her speech, one of the candles blew out. Grace chuckled. "I don't think we have more candles. One more thing to buy for tomorrow."

He pursed his lips. "Candles are quite expensive."

Grace raised her brow. "What would you rather do?"

Ford sat back, studying Grace's form illuminated by a single candle.

I am the darkness, she had said when talking about her relationship with Hades. She said he needed something different. Something to illuminate his life while she had indeed embraced the night. And she was thriving in it. He met her gaze, his lips quirking in an easy smile. "I quite like the darkness."

A small smile graced her lips as though she understood his meaning. "More tea?"