The dog began eying her suspiciously.
She would need to wait until Molly reappeared, and then follow her home. Molly couldn’t stay inside indefinitely—surely she meant to return well before Mrs. Wraxhall. But it was not unheard of for Mrs. Wraxhall to stay out well past midnight.
Alice’s warmest pelisse did not feel warm at all. She missed the heavy wool cloak that Mrs. Wraxhall had declared unfit for London. This was the first time she had been cold since leaving the vicarage. It was funny, how one got out of the practice of being uncomfortable. The cold greeted Alice like an old friend.
Was Molly warm, in her lover’s embrace? Alice really didn’t want to think about that; honestly, she went out of her way never to imagine Molly other than clothed and upright, but now she had a vision of curving hips and swaying breasts, a throaty laugh, a crooked smile.
“You lost, miss?” The voice came from far too near Alice’s shoulder. She spun around to see a strange man in a soft cap.
“N-no,” she stuttered.
Even in the darkness, Alice could see the skepticism on the stranger’s face. “You look lost. Let me hail a hackney?”
Alice drew herself up. “That won’t be necessary.”
The man reached out to take her elbow—maybe only to usher her towards safety, towards a hackney.
But it didn’t matter. Alice screamed.
Molly was nearly at the end of Katie’s bedtime story when she heard a sound like a cat being murdered.
“Oh for God’s sake,” she muttered, putting aside the page she had been reading. She rose to her feet, shifting the now-wide-awake Katie to her hip. This was Holborn—well, almost Holborn—not Seven Dials. One didn’t expect murder to happen in the middle of the street. That was why Molly paid so dearly to keep Katie here—it was safe and clean, certainly safer and cleaner than the rookery where Molly had grown up.
She pulled the curtain back enough to get a look at the street. It was dark, but in the moonlight she saw a flash of pale blond hair beneath a bonnet. Squinting, she could make out a dove-gray pelisse trimmed with slate-gray braid.
She knew that hair, had spent many a misbegotten moment wondering if it were as silky as it looked, had thought about bribing the housemaid who attended Miss Stapleton to feign illness so Molly could brush out that hair herself. She knew that pelisse too, because she had noticed that a bit of the trim had come down, and had tacked it up with her own hands. For all the time the lady spent with a needle in hand, she never seemed to notice when her own things needed tending to.
“Katie, sit with Mrs. Fitz for a minute, will you?”
The woman automatically held out her hands to receive the child. She loved Katie and did a fine job taking care of her, but Molly felt a surge of resentment at having to let go of her daughter one minute sooner than she had planned. God knew she already got precious little time with the girl. And all for the purpose of rescuing busybody ladies who stuck their noses where they didn’t belong.
Molly ran down the stairs and threw open the door. “Johnny, get your hands off her. Have you run mad?”
“I’m not the one who’s mad,” the landlady’s son retorted. “I was offering to get her a hackney and she went daft on me.”
Molly cut him a glare. It didn’t matter if he was telling the truth. In her experience, lads generally deserved a nasty glare and Molly was willing to do her part.
“You.” She turned to Miss Stapleton, who even in the dark was red with embarrassment.
“I—”
“Spare me.” As if Molly needed to be told what had brought this lady here. It was nosiness or malice or both. “You ought to be glad Mrs. Wraxhall took you in, because if you were left up to your own devices you’d starve. You haven’t the sense God gave a duck.” Miss Stapleton’s eyes were downcast, her fists balled tightly at her sides, and now Molly felt bad for having spoken harshly. Sighing, Molly said, “Never mind that. Get inside.” She threw another menacing look over her shoulder at Johnny, who had his hands raised in helpless protest. “Up the stairs, second door on the right.”
It was always a bit of a shock, seeing the right people in the wrong places, and the sight of Miss Stapleton in Mrs. Fitz’s flat, two paces away from Katie herself, didn’t add up in Molly’s mind.
“Mama!” Katie said, as she always did when Molly walked through the door.
“Katie, love,” Molly answered, bending to scoop the child into her arms as Mrs. Fitz left the room. “Now you know,” she told Miss Stapleton, who had a look of almost comical astonishment on her face. “I suppose you’ll try to get me sacked.” Molly held Katie closer.
“No,” Miss Stapleton said immediately. “It’s none of my—”
“That’s right, it isn’t. Mrs. Wraxhall already knows anyway, so you can spare yourself the trouble.”
“I thought...” Miss Stapleton shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped before her. “I knew you were sneaking out—”
“Not sneaking,” Molly said from behind gritted teeth. She didn’t have the patience for this. She had so little time with her daughter as it was, the rare hour in the evening or a half day on Sundays, barely enough for the child to know who she was, and she’d be damned if she was going to waste another minute explaining herself. “I told you, Mrs. Wraxhall already knows.”
“I didn’t know that, and I only thought to look into the matter for Mrs. Wraxhall in case you were...” Her voice trailed off, some genteel delicacy preventing her from saying aloud precisely what she thought Molly had done.
