Chapter Two

A moment after she'd closed the door on Mr. and Mrs. Lennox, Evie leaned against the scuffed oak panels and sighed wearily. Séances always exhausted her and this one had been the most challenging yet.

She couldn't stop thinking about the look Harcastle had given her in that final moment, as if he wanted to overturn the table and grab her by the throat. If that had been all, she could have shrugged it off—she'd endured violence at male hands before—but she'd seen something else too. A vulnerability that had stolen her breath. Her lucky guess, calling him "boy" in that gruff, raspy voice, didn't seem lucky anymore. His reaction told her she'd stumbled into highly sensitive territory—territory he would guard with all the fierceness of which he was capable.

Put on a nice, safe show, she'd thought. No pyrotechnics. Nothing that can give the game away. Get him in, get him out, and refuse any further sittings. One did not poke a sleeping beast.

So much for that.

It sickened her to remember that momentary glimpse of naked anguish before she'd seen murder in his eyes. Now he had her in his sights, and she was terrified. So terrified that she jumped a clear foot when someone knocked at the door on which she was still leaning.

"Yes?" she called, her voice little more than a croak.

"It's me," came the muffled response.

Jack! Thank heavens . If Harcastle had returned, she didn't know what she'd have done. Barricaded herself in, probably.

Jack leaned against the doorjamb, his head cocked to look up at her as she opened the door. He'd never told her his true age but she guessed he was much older than his diminutive height suggested. Beneath his shock of red hair, slanted blue eyes gazed at her steadily. Her so-called spirit guide might be more corporeal than her clients would like, but he still unnerved her at times with his little boy face and ancient stare.

"Well?" he said.

"Hello to you, too."

His plump Cupid's bow lips curled into a wry smile. "My apologies, ma'am," he said, with a low bow. His overdone courtesy reminded her of Captain, their common benefactor. Jack idolized him.

She curtseyed and beckoned him in.

"You must have heard the uproar," she said, once she'd closed the door behind them. The Lennoxes had been extremely distressed.

"'Course," he said, his eyes lighting on the still overturned chair. "But I couldn't tell what it was about. Was the row because I sent the right message or the wrong one?"

"Right, so far as it goes. Perhaps a little too effective. You took your time, though. I thought we'd have to sing those bloody hymns forever."

Jack winced. "And no one wants that. You're a rotten singer, Evie."

She swatted at him but he ducked away, laughing.

"Anyway, I had to fetch Captain," he explained. "‘Boy' ain't much to go on, is it? I didn't know what to write. Then Captain had to find paper because I didn't know 'ow to spell ‘wasting.' It'd look a bit rum if the old duke forgot how to spell since he died, wouldn't it?"

"All right, all right. Don't nag." But they were both smiling. "Is he still here?"

"Who, Captain? Yeah. He's waiting to walk you 'ome."

"I should think so."

At this time of night, the denizens of Soho tended to get rowdy and, these days, she had a reputation to protect. Evangeline Jones wasn't her real name but it would do as well as any. Miss Jones didn't stand for wandering hands. She sang hymns, said her prayers, and kept her ankles decently covered. The prissy, touch-me-not air suited her fine. If she sacrificed any warmth or pleasure as a result, she also escaped a world of pain. She'd seen enough of men and women together to realize that heartbreak, degradation, and penury were the most common outcomes of love and lust.

Still, she felt the usual twist in her gut whenever she had to spend time alone with Captain. Or time with him in any capacity, really. There'd been a time when she'd felt absolutely safe with him, but now… Now she knew what lived beneath the jolly, hail-fellow-well-met exterior.

"Mind you don't leave anything behind when you clear up," she said, gathering her outdoor things. If the duke didn't return in the next day or two to examine the room, she'd dance naked at her next séance.

"Do I ever?" he asked, without looking up from his work of rolling back the carpet.

She left the room and went downstairs to the taproom.

Despite the crush, she spotted Captain easily, seated at the best table as usual. He liked to splash his money around as ostentatiously as possible. How else, he always said, will people know to respect me? She used to wonder why no one took advantage of him when he was so friendly and generous. But that was before she saw firsthand how vicious he could be. Even with that deceptive twinkle in his eye, no one dared ask precisely what he was Captain of and he never volunteered the information.

Evie knew more about him than most. She knew he'd trodden the boards and, prior to that, had traveled with a circus, but who or what he'd been before remained a mystery.

He rose when she approached, his gaze warming. Despite everything, a small part of her softened in response.

"There you are, my dear." He inclined his head in greeting.

As always, he was immaculate, his suit made of goodquality wool in dark green, his moustache waxed to a flawless handlebar. Last month it had been an imperial. He liked to experiment with different styles; the showier the better. Personally, she preferred Harcastle's simple, close-cut beard. She didn't know Captain's age. He might have been anything between thirty-five and fifty. But he was handsome. Women, young and old, flirted with him wherever he went.

Unlike Jack's cordial yet overdone courtesy, when Captain bowed over her hand, he did so with every appearance of sincerity. Though they were not related, he had never once tried to take liberties. Without him, she'd probably be dead.

"Well?" he said. "How did it go?"

"I think the Lennoxes were pleased."

He raised his brows. "You know that's not what I mean, but now that you mention it, they're not likely to be good for much after what Jack told me."

She returned his gaze without flinching and waited for him to continue.

"‘ Found peace? '" he said, a note of exasperation creeping in. "I ask you, is that any way to do business?"

This wasn't the first time they'd had this argument. Evie reasoned that people who fell for cheap tricks had problems bigger than the loss of the pittance they paid her. Besides, her punters enjoyed the show. She entertained them, like a magician, and she was perfectly willing to levitate tables, rap out yes and no to their questions, and scratch nonsense on slates. But she drew the line when it came to bilking the bereaved long-term. When people like the Lennoxes came to her, she'd do what she had to do, lie as much as needed, to keep her reputation intact. But she refused to keep them on the line indefinitely so that Captain could milk them for every penny.

To Captain, her scruples were a useless sop to her conscience, but he let her have her way. She suspected he had his own reasons for doing so. One day, he would want something in return. Her victories over Captain were never permanent. His generosity always had a cost.

He offered his arm. "Are you ready to leave?"

She nodded and allowed him to guide her through the noisy patrons and out into the night. The theater crowd would be out soon, so she was glad of the escort. A woman alone was considered fair game.

Together they made the walk to Brewer Street in silence. Evie hadn't noticed how suffocating the loud, smoky, aledrenched inn had been. The cool breeze soothed her tired eyes. Blowing the cobwebs away , her roommate would call it.

"What about Harcastle?" Captain asked. "Did Jack get the message right?"

"Yes. Thank you for helping him." Though, with the force of the duke's displeasure focused on her as the figurehead of their joint enterprise, she didn't feel particularly grateful.

Perhaps some of that ingratitude showed in her tone because Captain lowered his voice. "Harcastle flew out of the Nimble Rabbit like a rat with a terrier on his tail. How did you know what note to strike?"

Even his obvious admiration failed to cheer her. "We knew the father's reputation. When the son walked in tonight, he looked so…" She struggled for a way to describe it in a manner Captain would understand. Harcastle had walked in, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in black from head to toe and, for a second, she'd thought him handsome, even beautiful, with his chiseled features. Then she'd seen his cold, dead eyes—shark eyes—and shivered. Yes, he was handsome, but as hard and joyless as granite.

Captain waited.

"He looks like he doesn't know how to be happy. I couldn't imagine that he and his father had an easy relationship. A man like the late duke couldn't have that with anyone and Harcastle seems cast from the same mold."

"Well done, girl."

She shook her head. Captain saw tonight as a triumph rather than the mistake it truly was. Harcastle would be back. If she began to doubt that, she only had to recall his parting look. Retribution, that's what that look had promised. Yes, she had avoided exposure for the length of a single sitting with Harcastle, a distinction few, if any, other mediums could claim, but she wouldn't risk a second meeting, assuming she had a choice.

She glanced at Captain's profile in the glow of the streetlamps. To say he'd been pleased by the duke's interest in tonight's proceedings was a ridiculous understatement. He saw attracting his notice as the pinnacle of their achievements to date. Aristocratic patronage, though obviously not from Harcastle himself, would almost certainly follow. From that point of view, this was a coup, but they were in danger as long as Captain failed to comprehend the magnitude of the threat the duke posed.

"So that's it now, right?" she said. "We've got through tonight unscathed, but we need to keep clear of Harcastle. Now is as good a time as any to try the continent, at least for a few months."

Captain was already shaking his head before she was halfway through speaking. "What, turn tail like cowards when we've got him on the run? No fear!" His jovial tone didn't fool her. If she wanted to flee, she'd have a fight on her hands. "Onward and upward," he said, in the same hearty

tone. "We must capitalize on tonight's success."

"I don't…"

Shame made her dig her hands into her pockets and stare at the ground. Even now, after everything that had happened, she hated to refuse Captain anything. She knew him now for the stone-cold villain he was, but he was still the man who had fed and clothed her for years, the man who taught her to read and to speak properly, who'd taught her every trick she knew. It was his contacts and capital that had launched this enterprise. Even though she knew he'd done none of it for her, that self-interest governed every move he made, she still felt beholden.

"I can't," she gritted out.

He said nothing further as they turned onto Dean Street. Two minutes of uneasy silence later, they reached the little print shop beneath her lodgings. Captain never came up to her room, but now he drew her into the recessed entryway. One of the brass buttons of his coat glinted as it caught the light from a nearby streetlamp.

"Evangeline, look at me."

Instead, she clenched her teeth and focused on that button, on the tiny glimmer of reflected light. Sometimes she hated this life. It had brought her a measure of independence and a strange sort of respectability. In many ways, she was fortunate. But the lies got easier and easier. One day she would look in the mirror and see a stranger, someone hard and empty. Captain had taken her choices from her. Having invested his time and money, he didn't intend to let her go. Not ever.

Like it or not, she was his.

"All right," he said, on a sigh. "Close your eyes."

She sighed, too. After years of knowing him, most of his tricks were familiar, this one included. She obeyed anyway because it was easier. Because she was tired. But she had no intention of allowing Captain to change her mind. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps a healthy fear of Harcastle's investigative powers made her a coward. So be it. She'd rather be a coward than a fool.

"Tell me your earliest memory," he said, once her eyes were shut.

"Captain—"

"Do as you're told for once."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"Think back, that's all. What do you remember from when you were small?"

"I…" The question loomed in her mind, so simple yet somehow unanswerable.

Her time with Captain was vivid, full of warmth and small comforts. Before that, she remembered Miss Rose who'd employed Evie as a drudge at her ‘Home of Introduction,' a polite euphemism for a brothel. They'd worked her hard there, but she hadn't minded the fetching and carrying or even cleaning up after the girls and their gentlemen. Miss Rose had taken her in when she was three or four, but before that…

"Do you remember your parents?"

"You know I don't."

"Someone must've taken care of you, though."

"No, there's only me." Other children came and went, but no one whose name she recalled. She hadn't lived anywhere permanent, of that she was sure. All her memories—flashes really—were of cold, dirt, misery, and…

"Hunger," she said, a decisive note creeping into her tone. "I remember I was always hungry." Sometimes with great, gnawing pangs, and sometimes with a dull emptiness that left her literally asleep on her feet, and eventually, too weak to lift a hand.

"What did you do when you were hungry?"

She flinched as his breath brushed her cheek. Lost in the past, she'd almost forgotten him.

"I…" She didn't want to talk about this.

"Go on."

"I begged." Even now, saying the words aloud caused a hot surge of shame. "I…"

"All right. You're all right." Captain's voice had turned soothing. "Now think about that duke. Think about Harcastle. Do you think he's ever known true hunger?"

An image of Harcastle formed in her mind. When he'd risen from the table, he'd overturned his chair, his movements fluid and powerful even in his moment of panic. He'd towered over her, his lips pressed into a grim line, his eyes no longer cold but burning with fury. Whatever his distress in that moment, he reeked of money. It wasn't only the black silk waistcoat or the sparkly gold pocket watch hanging from its chain, but the man himself. His shining black hair, the elegant hands with long pianist's fingers, his strong body, and the way he held his head erect as if he'd never known a moment's shame.

"Think of the pampered life he's led," Captain urged. "Think about his clothes and his carriages, his fine estates, and enormous townhouse, then open your eyes."

She did, and this time she met Captain's gaze squarely.

"Are you, Miss Evangeline Jones, going to let that spoilt dilettante chase you away from your city? From your career and your only defense against starvation?"

"No," she said, and lifted her chin. Fear had given way to a seething resentment. Resentment against Harcastle for being rich, well-fed, and invulnerable. But perhaps even more against Captain who manipulated her so blatantly.

"That's my girl."

"No, I won't run away, but I'm not going to poke a stick into a wasp's nest, either," she snapped, wiping the smile off his face. "We've come this far because we've been careful. We're not going to do anything reckless."

He smiled again and swept her one of his low bows. "It will be exactly as you command."

But she saw the hard glint in his eye.

"You're right about one thing. I've survived things that duke couldn't imagine, so no, I won't leave when my career's about to take off, but if you think I'm one of your pigeons ripe for the plucking, you're losing your touch. We can fool Harcastle for an evening but not a second beyond."

They exchanged a strained good night, and as Evie climbed the rickety stairs to her lodgings, she wondered what price she would have to pay for her defiance.

A light shone from underneath the door. Inside, Mags stood by the double bed, in the middle of pulling her nightgown on over her head. They'd been rooming together for the last year, though Captain had begun to talk about finding Evie somewhere better, more respectable, now that things had started to go so well. Mags, who was an actress at one of the lesser Soho theaters, was no longer a fitting companion for the irreproachable Miss Jones. Evie's resentment against Captain redoubled at the unwelcome thought.

"You're back early," Mags said, tugging the white cotton into place. Physically, she was Evie's opposite, tall and buxom, with a mass of untamable blonde curls. "What's wrong? Your jaw has that militant set."

"Oh, nothing worth worrying over," Evie said, removing her coat. Having finally got rid of Captain for the evening, she didn't want to think about him, much less discuss him. "Tell me about your night."

"Hall says I can play Olivia."

"Oh, that's wonderful."

Mags had been vying for the role for months. Next to Viola, Olivia was the best part in Twelfth Night , but Viola required a boyish figure. Evie would have been perfect had she possessed any talent for acting. What she did every day wasn't acting because Evangeline Jones was real, anything else Evie had ever been long suppressed.

"There's a cost, though. I have to be kind to Mr. Chase. At least he's handsome." Mags's tone was matter-of-fact. This wouldn't be the first—nor the last time--she'd keep company with a gentleman for the sake of a role, nor something she would ever choose to do. She wasn't even attracted to men.

She watched Evie's face closely, perhaps trying to detect some hint of disapproval.

Evie shrugged. "You do what you have to do."

You're not alluring enough to make a decent courtesan , Miss Rose had said when Evie was all of seven years old, but when you're old enough, you'll have to start receiving gentlemen of the poorer sort . Captain had saved her from all that. When he'd come to Miss Rose's looking for a girl to run scams with, she'd leapt at the chance.

Though she didn't have the stomach to sell her body to strangers, especially strangers who sometimes treated the girls roughly, she would never condemn Mags for the choices she made to survive and prosper. It was a man's world and sometimes it proved impossible for a woman to get anywhere unless she was willing to make certain compromises. Evie wished she could give them both a fairer world.

Mags shrugged too and rolled her eyes. "At least I'm honest, even if I am a whore."

"I wish I could say the same. Everyone's heard of the honest whore, but there's no such thing as an honest medium."

"No?" Mags teased. "No spirits? No life after death?"

"Oh, I believe in life after death," she said, as she began to undress, "but spirits hanging around down here? Even if they did, why would they need me to talk to the living? And why spend their time rapping on tables and blowing invisible bugles?"

Mags sat on her side of the bed and tilted her head to one side, apparently lost in thought. Evie slipped her nightgown on and pulled back the covers. After a long night, she wanted nothing more than to curl up. The evenings were drawing in, and she was glad of Mags's warmth. Strange how she'd got used to the other woman's presence in their bed. Once she would've had to sleep with a knife under the pillow.

Mags turned out the lamp. "Don't worry, Evie. You'll find a way out. Maybe one of your patrons will fall in love with you and make an honest offer."

"Ha!"

"And then you can tell Captain to bugger off."

Evie smiled in the darkness. "I couldn't abandon Captain," she murmured. "I owe him my training, my education—"

"He's had plenty in return for his trouble." Evie shook her head but remained silent.

"Night, love," Mags said, as she settled on her side.

But the moment Evie closed her eyes, she saw the anger and pain in Harcastle's expression. Whatever she'd said to Captain, she couldn't lie to herself. Things between her and the duke weren't finished. There would be a reckoning; her puny tricks against his power and rank. It wasn't a fair fight.

She had no hope of victory.

All she could do now was pray she survived.