Page 16 of I Will Steal You the Stars
The door across the way opened. Not the door to the basement, where Clara scurried, but at the top of the stairs. He paused to adjust his gloves.
Mina steeled herself, then launched across the street. The carriage jingled as it came down the side lane. In a few minutes, it would turn the corner and pull up before the house. He would climb in, and she would lose her nerve, and her chance.
Mina inhaled a breath of confidence, the sort Enzo would demand she take in a street like this where she did not belong.
‘Your Grace. Might I have a word?’
Annoyance flickered, before realisation settled. Any thoughts that he might help her fled at the sharp disdain in his eyes. He descended the stairs at a quick step. ‘You cannot be on the street before my house.’
‘I just want my wages,’ she pleaded, more desperate than she wished she sounded. ‘I worked for them, and I worked hard.’
‘You’ll only spend it on gin, then come back for more. The only way for people like you to learn is to pull yourself up. Otherwise, it’s charity, all the time.’
‘I cannot get work without a recommendation, and your wife refuses to give me one. I want to leave. Just my wages…’ Her voice went thin. ‘I need them.’
The carriage wheels crunched as they rounded the corner, and the harness jingled like a ticking clock as her opportunity dashed away. Without her pay, she’d never be able to start over. She’d be shackled to poverty, dependent on workhouses and collection plates.
You’re a Londoner. Your boots have more right to these stones than theirs.
Mina stomped her heel, and the sharp clap made the duke turn. ‘Pay me what I’m owed, or I’ll… I’ll go toThe Tattler.’
‘And tell them what? That you yield easily? It’s probably not even mine. Everyone knows what you women are like.’ He sneered. ‘An unwed mother is not news.’
‘Perhaps not, but a duke who deals in counterfeit chips is.’
She would never have Enzo's delicate flick, but as Mina flipped the wooden chip that Enzo had snatched from the safe, the duke looked at her like she had performed some magical feat. She rolled it between her fingers so that he could see each side, and the stamped crest that was not his.
‘How did you get that—’
‘Just because you don’t see the maids doesn’t mean they don’t see you. It’s a counterfeit chip, isn’t it? A copy from somewhere, for secretly topping up your bet once all the cards have been dealt and you know you have a good hand? Is this from a club, or a friend? You are right, a woman like myself in a city full of sorry tales may not be news, but I imagine this is.’
He lunged but Mina, with her hands trained for work and an eye for spotting the discomfort of her masters, moved faster, and tucked the chip safely into her skirt.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and the footman leapt down. He looked between the two of them. ‘Get out of here, you wastrel,’ he snapped.
Mina held her ground. These walls had heard her shout, and they had not crumbled. A little more courage would not bring the world undone.
With a shrug, everything about the duke shifted. He rolled his shoulders, as if shrugging off his condescension. His expression, his stance, even his exhalation softened, and Mina remembered the gentle man who had come to her room and complimented his way into her bed. And she felt a little kinder towards the naïve girl she had been.
‘You really are very pretty.’ He stroked her cheek with a gloved finger. ‘I wouldn’t be against an arrangement. I have rooms by the park. You can see the horses from the window.’
‘Upstairs?’ she asked. ‘A room out of the basement?’
‘I could sponsor another month at Duke Street. Then the baby would be properly looked after, given a chance. They would have my name.’
‘I’d have to give them up?’ Mina pressed her fingers to her stomach, which even now, rolled and churned.
‘I can’t have you parading about with a child. People might talk. And you would need to learn to avoid that, in the future.’
Mina’s fingers curled in on themselves. The baby would have regular meals, and lessons, clean linen and friendship. Things she would struggle to provide once she was on her own. But what of her own dream, the dream that held them both? What of that thing that had always grounded her—her mother’s love? ‘I cannot agree to such a condition. Death took my mother from me, and nothing less will part me from my child. And if you think your name and a few pounds is enough, then he or she is mine, and only mine.’ Habit made her bob. ‘My wages for your chip. Please.’
His scowl was that of a man who hated to lose, rather than a man who had lost something of value. With a grumble he reached into his coat and took out a small leather purse. He held out a gold sovereign.
Mina shook her head. ‘It’s too much. It will rouse suspicion. Just small coins. Coppers and shillings, if you have enough. Please.’
Mina left Grosvenor Square with her pocket jingling with the coins that would give her a future.
Pennies for her silence. Pennies for her penance.
