Page 44 of A Duke's Keeper
Linking arms with Syd like when they’d been children, Camille smiled. “What a coincidence. My destination happens to be the least offensive tavern on the river.”
Knowing instantly where she meant, Syd sighed. “Any chance there’s a bossy older sister working there?”
“Howdidyou know?”
Syd gave her a look. “Don’t tell her about your man. You thinkI’ma meddler... Tell me you’re not going for advice? She won’t approve. Her ideas of men are akin to puppet masters wishing to play women for fools.” She shook her head. “Scarlet is insufferable when she gets that ‘I-know-better-than-you’ tone.”
That, Camille knew too well. “Fear not, friend. We go for pie.”
Syd’s mood shifted with the prospect of warm food. She bowed again and offered her arm once more with enthusiasm. “Then by all means, milady, let’s be off.”
*
As luck hadit, the Cock ’n Hen had been so busy, Scarlet had little more than minutes to say hello, though still plenty of time to tell Syd to wash up before she got sick eating with filth on her hands.
Deciding to forgo the shadow on her way home, after procuring two meat pies, Camille ducked out of the tavern and walked the rest of the way to her flat in alert silence.
When she returned home, it was to find her mother in bed and deep in her cups.
Camille picked up a half empty bottle of gin. “Where did you get this? Did you leave the flat?”
“Me, go out into the dirty streets?” She scoffed. “Mr. Rockford stopped by, the melancholy little man.” She saluted with a limp wrist. “But the man is a Christian. Wouldn’t hear of me going without fortification for my pain.”
“You lied to our landlord for free liquor?”
Her mother’s drunken sneer was ugly. “My pain is internal. At leastsomeonecares what I’ve been through.”
Camille didn’t comment further. She’d take Mr. Rockford aside later and explain her mother’s ‘pain’ and offer another penny for his trouble. The man hardly asked for anything forrent and losing his good will would be a financial disaster they weren’t yet able to face.
A small sound from the outside alley stirred her from her planning: one of the knocker-uppers tapping the glass of a nearby neighbor as he made his early morning rounds for the factory workers.
She set the crockery from the tavern on her mother’s nightstand. “Meat pie, like you asked.”
Her mother sniffed, snatched the bottle from Camille’s hands, and took a long drag of gin instead.
That sound came again.
Camille looked towards the window, where little, tan stones sprinkled the sill and floor below. She strolled over and picked up the nearest one to examine what looked like finely ground gravel. There must have been two dozen of them scattered across the floor.
“Mother, where did these come from?”
Her mother’s glance was unfocused and blurry eyed. “Hmm? Oh, some urchin has been tossing them at the window for the past hour. I yelled for the riffraff to move along, but the filth must be deaf.”
Urchin? The space between the back of the flat and the next cramped building was suffocating for even a small dog.
She poked her head out the window, nearly hitting her face on the opposite building’s wall, and looked down the thirty feet to the narrow alley at a fair head of hair in the dim moonlight.
Her gasp had the figure’s head shifting and a face looking up. Camille nearly fell out the window at Renard’s boyish grin.
Heart leaping, she silently motioned to meet at the end of the row before turning back to her mother. “I’m going for a spot of air. I’ll be back shortly.”
Mother waved her on, taking another swig from her bottle.
Camille raced out the door and down the back stairs, careful to keep her tread light so as not to wake Mr. Rockford. When she got to the back door, she unbolted the lock with shaking hands.
He was here. She’d seen him that afternoon, but she’d convinced herself he hadn’t been real. The wonderful warmth in her chest and fluttering in her belly had been the work of girlish fantasy.
Settling herself, she flung open the door and there he was, strapping in a dark, wool-lined coat, trousers, and a flat cap in his hand full of tan stones.
