Page 109 of Guardian
I slipped out of bed and found the chamber pot. Using it is one of the few things I cannot do stealthily, and when I crept back, I found him watching me, his eyes still sleepy and a grin on his face.
“You weren’t thinking of sneaking off, were you?” he asked.
“No,” I retorted, climbing back in under the quilt. “Not without my morning tea, which you’re going to make for me, seeing as it’s bloody cold in this room.”
He drew the quilt up over both of us, rolling so his body covered mine. “It’s not so cold,” he said. “I’ll make your tea later.”
We’d loved and dozed until we could no longer ignore the sun blazing through the window. His hand rested on the sheet, and the light was enough I could see a scar on his thumb that I’d never noticed.
“Seems you have scars all over you, on every limb,” I said, kissing it. “Where did you get this one?”
“Ach,” he shrugged. “Wrapped a rope wrong way around a cleat a few years back. Wasn’t paying attention.”
“Hmm,” I said.
He began coiling a lock of my hair around his finger, like a bandage covering the scar.
“Mr. Stiles came by a few days ago,” I said.
“Oh?”
“He said he could find me a position as a costumer at a theater. It was kind of him, but I don’t want to sew for my living.”
“I can see that.”
“And Sarah and Mary are happy as clams in the shop, but I can’t imagine standing at a counter all day, talking to strangers, fetching tea and helping them with purchases.”
“It’s going well, isn’t it?”
“They’ve already installed a second oven for Mary.” I drew a breath. “From what Sarah says, their tearoom is crammed from opening to closing.”
James nuzzled into the warm spot between my bare shoulder and my neck.
“But I’ve been thinking,” I said, pushing him away so I could sit up. “Do you think theMirrormight take me on?”
James propped himself on an elbow, palming his temple. “The newspaper?”
“Mr. Fuller owes me a favor, don’t you think?” I asked. “And there’s a woman working there. I spoke to her. She’s not much older than I am. She has an office right near him, and she was writing.”
Understanding lit his eyes. “You mean to write stories for them.”
“Well, I don’t mean to be hawking them on the street.”
He laughed. “I didn’t think so. Scandal, scandal.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sometimes the truth is scandal enough, and there are plenty of things I could write about that they might be able to use.” I studied James’s face, and to my relief he wasn’t laughing. “It would be a new game for me, but I think I could reuse some of the cards I picked up during my last one.”
“Would seem so.”
“Mr. Fuller could steer me in the proper direction.”
“I’d think he’d be glad to have you.” He took my hand in his own and raised it to his mouth to kiss my bare fingers, one by one, in a way that shredded my breath to nothing. “Clever girl.”
James walked me to the offices of theMirror, left me at the front door, and went to a pub nearby to wait.
I entered through the heavy wooden door. Recent rain had swelled it, so it stuck in the frame, but I pushed harder and it gave way.
I took it as a good omen.
