Page 10 of I Will Steal You the Stars
‘Better than that. Can you roar?’
‘Roar,’ she said, then laughed, and tucked her chin against her chest.
‘That is not enough. What would a lioness say to a haughty duke?’ He pushed the top hat back on his head. ‘Back to the kitchen, maid.’
‘I would like to stay upstairs,’ she stammered.
‘Back to the basement.’ Enzo sat in the duke’s chair, thumped his boots on the desk.
Mina glanced up at him, took a slow breath, then looked back to the floor. ‘I said, I would like to stay upstairs.’
Enzo waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Go downstairs and fetch me fresh tea.’
‘No!’ Mina stomped her foot. ‘I will not be below ground any longer.Roar!’ Not a word, or a growl, her loud, throaty roar came from somewhere deep inside, and with it, all of Mina’s body trembled with fury. Words tumbled out of her, and with each syllable, she brightened. ‘What else might I do… I suppose I might try… I could take in mending, and laundry. Or piecework. That’s what my mother did, after my father died. She had a steady hand, and the diplomat didn’t trust anyone but her with his suits. He was a very particular man. That’s how we came to be in London. He insisted she join his staff, but she had no oneto leave me with, so I came too. Perhaps I can do what she did. I can work and still care for the baby during the day.’
As she clutched her skirt, waiting for his response, her confident smile spread through her whole body.
Mina turned anger into love, and where the world found disdain, she found hope.
And with a painful beat, Enzo’s heart remembered Mina Fischer.
The clock chimed the hour, the door slammed, someone whistled, and someone else sang. Terror filled Mina’s expression. Enzo slammed the safe shut and turned the lock, closed the painting over, dropped the hat then grabbed Mina’s hand and dragged her down the stairs and into the entry. She shoved the hat and scarf at the coat stand. Voices echoed up the servant’s stairwell, so he pulled her away from the front of the house, past a grotesquely opulent parlour and living room and through the back door, across the small courtyard, through the carriage house and out into the lane. Mina gasped for breath as he pulled her along, but he made her keep pace, because if they were nabbed, he might get clink, but she could get the boat, and the idea of Mina not being in London was bad enough, the thought of her leagues away in a prison of stone and sea was far too much.
Down the long, narrow lane they stumbled, until they staggered onto the street.
‘Where’s my packet?’ Breathless, Mina brushed her skirts and shook them out. ‘Enzo, where are my wages?’
‘I didn’t get them. I was distracted.’ He flipped the chip through the air. She caught it, then stared at the surface. The pride and exhilaration that had filled her when she became a lioness, vanished.
‘You were standing right there, before the safe. Why didn’t you grab them?’
He shoved his flat cap onto his head and pushed it back. ‘Because you don’t like thieving. You shouldn’t have to start because of what they did to you. Your dignity is worth more than a few shillings.’ Enzo took hold of the edge of her blouse and tugged it straight. ‘And because I don’t want you to go.’
Chapter Six
Mina stuck fast, her feet as heavy as a laundry copper pot.
‘I have no choice,’ she stammered.
‘Always no choice, always doing what you’re told.’ Enzo moved close so that his chest pressed against hers. ‘Didn’t it feel good to tell them to fuck off?’
‘No,’ she lied.
His delicious half grin tugged a cheek. ‘Lie to me all you want. Lies are as common as dirt in the rookery. They don’t hurt me. But once you start lying to yourself… that’s real poverty.’
‘I wasn’t lying. It didn’t feel good.’ And shouting her objections hadn’t felt good. It had feltglorious. Like her entire body had been a smouldering stack of tinder in a stove, and one gentle puff had breathed it into incandescence. ‘You talk like I don’t know what’s going on. Like I don’t see how neatly we fit beneath their heels. I do. But it’s not so easy for a woman to throw all that off and say they don’t care. For most women, the choice is between bending our backs at cleaning or straightening our backs as we spread our legs. What work is there outside of service for a woman like me?’
Enzo inhaled, then coughed a little, like the smog had caught in his chest. When he looked up, he fixed her with a gentler look.
‘I didn’t think. I’m sorry.’ Enzo tapped his side. ‘Seamus’s missus has a cart near here. Come on. I’ll buy you a potato.’
Like a few days before, she followed Enzo to the park, but this time, his normally proud head bent, and his shoulders curved into a bracket of apology. He saw her comfortable and disappeared into the crowd.
Mina crooked her body, half coward, half criminal. All her life she had followed rules, yet one small slip and she’d not only caught a reprimand, but she tumbled into a dark abyss of condemnation. Why were men like the duke—both dukes, both His Grace and Enzo—allowed so many chances, and she had to face a dark future because of one transgression?
A cheery whistle split the crowd, and a lamplighter, followed by a small lad, perhaps his son, ambled along the path. He set his ladder against the post beside her bench, clambered up, and then hollered down at his boy, who passed up a lantern. The latch on the glass lamp squeaked as he twisted it open, and he plied a flame to the wick. It flickered, then glowed into life. He closed the little glass door, climbed down his ladder, then swung it back under his arm to make his way toward the next post. The boy scampered along beside him.
Since the first morning when she had realised her condition and that terrible combination of fear and exhilaration had gripped her, Mina hadn’t considered the baby asheorshe. As the lamplighter and his apprentice paused to set their ladder against the next lamppost, it occurred to her that a son would be an incredibly useful thing to have. Someone who would make his way in the world easier than she could. If she were lucky, he would remember her when he grew, and might make some small effort to care for her.
