Page 50 of Ghost in the Garden
“Actually, it does, as far as I have seen. Where, Mrs. Silver, are your things?”
“The best of it’s at your back door,” she said brazenly. “I left more at a friend’s and sent some to Connie’s establishment. She’ll be fizzing mad, but she’ll keep it safe for me.”
Solomon stood up and went to haul the trunk through the back door and into the office.
“Thanks, duck. Now, you see I’ve taken you at your word and I’m trusting you, because Con does. You wouldn’t take advantage of me, would you? Charge me a fortune now you know I’m desperate?”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”
“I ain’t asking for favors, mind. I’ll pay a decent rent.”
“If you’re paying it to me, I don’t want you fencing.”
“Mr. Grey,” she said, shocked and offended, although her eyes were twinkling. “You already said. I never been respectable before, but I’ll try anything once.”
“Hmm. I shall need to pay a few calls, see what is available that might suit you.”
“You do that, duck. Finish your tea first, though. I ain’t in that much of a hurry. Where’s Connie?”
In Lambert’s house, where I left her.Deliberately, he quashed the resurgence of anxiety. If they found a way to make this work, he would have to learn to deal with such worries. “Working,” he said. “She may not be into the office, though I will try to speak to her later. Who’s the landlord of your old place?”
“Didn’t Connie tell you? It’s mine. I own it, legal like. Ain’t worth much, mind, all squashed up between its neighbors and all them stairs. But it’ll do.”
Solomon frowned, new ideas springing into his head. “No. No, she didn’t tell me that.”
“One of my regular gents left it to me when he turned up his toes, bless him. That’s when I gave up the old game and took to selling.”
“When you say gent,” Solomon said, “do you mean a gentleman as the world understands the term?”
“Lord no—common as muck, Charlie Roe, but he were decent.”
“Did Constance know him?”
“Met him once or twice, but she wouldn’t come with me when I moved there. I thought it might be fun, the two of us.”
There was hurt in her voice that she couldn’t quite hide, but no blame.
“Was he Constance’s father?” Solomon asked bluntly.
Juliet’s jaw dropped, her cup suspended just beneath her chin. “Is that whatshethinks?”
“It might be.” It might be what she feared.
Juliet thought about it. “Nah. I didn’t know Charlie till later. Tell the truth, duck, I don’t know who he was and I don’t much care.”
“Constance cares.”
Her eyelashes, still long and luxurious like Constance’s, swept down over the slightly puffy skin beneath her eyes. “I was never enough for her. But I tried to tell her there’s no fairytales in real life. Does she hate me?”
“No. She just wants to belong somewhere, with people who make her comfortable.”
“In a nobs’ brothel?” Juliet said in disbelief.
“The women are her friends, her responsibility.”
“Her family,” Juliet said, and swallowed. “I never gave her that.”
Solomon’s breath caught. A tide of longing, warm and exciting and bright with sudden hope, crashed over him, knocking everything else aside.
