Page 11 of The Secret Word
That was a victory! She had called him by his preferred name. He hoped his exultation did not show on his face. “Two, but each has options and both, benefits and costs. Do I accept your father’s challenge or do I walk away? If I accept, can we manage your father’s expectations or will we end up paying his price? I think we can avoid being his puppets, and I know Billy will help, but what will Billy’s price be?” He paused for her comment, but she said nothing. That pestiferous bonnet was back in the way again.
“If I walk away, what will your father do to force my hand? Or can I convince him that I would be too much trouble, so that he dismisses me? And what of Billy? He is taking an interest in this match. If I refuse it, what will it cost me then?”
She had a tart comment about that. “My, Mr. O’Hara is taking an interest in my affairs. I wonder you let him push you around. I know you owe him, but does he own you?”
“In much the same way as your father owns you, Clem. And I dare say Billy has been as much a father to me as my own was. More, in fact, for he…” He trailed off, not sure if he was ready to share that particular piece of dirty laundry.
He expected her to demand that he finish his sentence, but instead she asked a question that got almost to the heart of his discomfort with her knowing his past. “Why do they call you Fingers? The people at Mr. O’Hara’s?”
They turned a corner and walked along the next side of the square. She didn’t press the question except by her silence.
Well, and why not? If she rejected him once she knew his story, so be it. If they were to decide to marry, he wanted arelationship based on honesty and trust. “When I was nine, my mother died,” he said, eventually. “My father had not been home for some time. I found out later that he was dead, too, which I suppose is why his debts were called in. The debt collectors took everything and left me homeless and alone.”
He was skipping the complication that was his grandfather, but the outcome was the same. He’d finished up out on the street. In more than his undershirt, but that didn’t last. A gang of boys beat him up for his clothes, which still had plenty of wear, though they were not new.
Fortunately, the boys were impressed at how well he’d fought and how many of them it had taken to subdue him, so they took him back to the den they’d made in the cellar of a burnt-out building.
“I was lucky. I found a place to live with some people who taught me a skill with which I could pay my share of food and board.” For nearly a year, he worked in a team, lifting purses and watches, swiftly graduating from decoy to pick pockets as his skill grew. “They taught me to be a pickpocket, Clem.”
An indrawn gasp was her only comment. After a pause, he picked up the story. “Until I was caught. Ramping Billy had me, and not only that, he recognized me, because he was one of the men who had collected money from my father in the past, though not one of those who stripped my mother’s rooms. He took me back to Fortune’s Fool—at that time, it was his only establishment. He handed me over to the ladies who worked there.”
Chris could remember exactly what Billy had said to them.“Wash him, delouse him, dress him in something that isn’t rags, and put him to work. We’re keeping him.”
“He told them to watch me, because I was light-fingered. So, they called me ‘Fingers’, and they still do.”
He shuddered at the memory of that hungry, terrifying year between the time his grandfather had abandoned him and when Billy had found him. He’d been well aware of his fate if he were caught by constables, and he’d been scared every time he lifted something.
But from the moment he entered Fortune’s Fool, he never stole again. Billy had made it clear that if he was caught stealing from Billy or any of his employees or customers, he’d be out on his ear again. By that time, he’d been a street rat for long enough to know how lucky he had been the first time. Being beaten and stripped was far from the worst fate to befall a handsome boy alone in the stews of London.
“So, that is why they call me Fingers, and that is why, between your father and Billy, I’ll take Billy every time. He is a villain, Clem, I’ll grant you that. But he’s anhonestvillain.”
“Whereas my father is a dishonest upright citizen. I accept your point, Chris.”
She was not yelling for her maid and stalking off in outraged disgust. That was a bonus. Instead, she seemed to have decided on an interrogation. “Do you gamble?”
“Only for pleasure and never more than I happen to have in my pockets. My father couldn’t leave the tables alone, and so my mother moved from rented room to rented room, outrunning the bailiff, never quite making ends meet. I won’t ever do that to those who depend on me.” He paused as a realization made him amend his statement. “Not that I have anyone dependent on me yet.”
She nodded. “Do you drink alcohol?”
“I do, but I am not a drunkard. From what I understand, both my father and my grandfather spent their lives intoxicated to a lesser or greater extent, which is probably why they were such poor gamblers that my grandfather had to flee overseas when my father died. You might not think much of my position with Billy,but it is a responsible job overseeing his finances, and pays well. I won’t put that at risk just for the sake of a temporary escape into dreams. No opium for me, either, or ether parties, or the like.”
Clem nodded, and he thought that turn-about was fair play, but before he could ask her the same question, she floored him with a question about the third vice of the disorderly—the one he had expected her maidenly sensibilities to ignore. More the fool, him. Clementine Wright was made of sterner stuff than that.
“Do you disport with women?”
It silenced him for a moment, but he had been blunt and honest so far, and had no intention of stopping now. If she had the knowledge to ask the question, she should not be offended by the answer.
“I am not a virgin, Clem. I have not been a virgin since I was fourteen, when one of O’Hara’s women took me on as a charity case. I have, in recent years, lost my taste for mindless coupling, but I have had temporary lovers—women who had an interest in my company and I in theirs. Hearts were not involved, except that we were friends—and in most cases still are. I do not have a lover at the moment.”
Come to think of it, he had not had a lover for months. Perhaps that was the reason Clem had bowled him over. Perhaps he should find a willing woman with whom to exorcise her.
Except he didn’t want to, and in any case, he was reasonably sure it would not work.
“I see,” said Clem.
Chris decided to take over the conversation. “My turn. Same questions. Do you gamble?”
“I shall simplify matters by saying that I do not gamble. I do not drink alcohol. And I am a virgin. However, I reserve the right to change all three once my father no longer monitors how often I breathe.”
