Page 27 of The Boxing Baroness

“That sounds like a question, Uncle.”

“No, of course not,” he blustered. “I don’t know anything about it. You’ve just unsettled me, Marianne. I don’t appreciate you accusing me of things.”

Marianne employed Staunton’s trick of staring without speaking.

“I am your uncle,” he said piteously. “I swear I am telling you the truth—I know nothing of any letter or locket. Surely you believe my word over a stranger’s?”

She held his watery gaze for a long moment. “Of course I do, Uncle,” she said with a tired sigh. It wasn’t quite a lie, yet it wasn’t the truth, either. But the locket and letter were the least of her concerns: Her entire future had just crumbled in a matter of minutes. Her uncle had gambled away the money she had entrusted to him.

“Whyever would Staunton be so interested in me? In us?” Barnabas asked, almost of himself. His mouth was compressed into a worried frown and his gaze had turned inward.

When Marianne didn’t answer, he met her angry stare. “You needn’t do anything he says, Marianne. I’m sure we can contrive a way to get the money. Perhaps I could—”

“Never mind,” she said wearily. She could just imagine the sort of muddle he’d contrive if left to his own devices. “I’ll take care of it.” She pushed to her feet and turned to the door.

“But how?” he asked behind her. “You don’t have the money—other than that horse, you’ve never even spent any of your earnings on jewels or anything of value that you could sell, my dear.”

Oh, she had one thing left to sell: her pride.

Chapter 7

The door to the dressing room opened and Cecile bustled into the room, slammed the door, and leaned against it. “He’s out there again tonight, Marianne.”

She didn’t need to ask who he was.

Marianne squeezed the charcoal stick she was using to darken her eyebrows. “Blast,” she muttered as small black fragments rained over the pots of face paint on her dressing table.

“Did you hear me?” Cecile asked.

It would be difficult not to, but Marianne kept that observation to herself. “His being here has nothing to do with me,” she lied.

Cecile turned her dark eyes to stare at Josephine Brown, who had performed before Marianne tonight.

Marianne didn’t know the reserved and mysterious woman very well—nobody in the circus did. Josephine had simply appeared at the Newcastle Street address one day and then commenced throwing knives until she’d gained Barnabas’s attention. He’d hired her on the spot to be his third big attraction on the Fayre’s non-theatrical evenings.

If there was a knife or sword in existence the lethal woman hadn’t yet mastered, Marianne hadn’t seen it.

Usually, she did her act and disappeared, never socializing with the other employees. But, for some reason, Josephine was loitering in the dressing room even after she had removed her face paint and the scandalous outfit she wore for her act: black leather breeches, a black superfine tailcoat, black linen, and black riding boots, topped off with a black leather mask that covered the top of her face. The outfit was especially dramatic when combined with her fair skin, pale gray eyes, and corn-silk–colored hair.

Not to mention the huge black bird that accompanied her at all times.

Angus, her raven, was as quiet and mysterious as his owner. The two were inseparable, and Angus was an integral part of her knife routine. He’d been trained to hold playing cards up for Jo to impale with her daggers, among other things.

The bird was also something of a thief—at least that was what several members of her uncle’s troupe believed. Small things—not always valuable—had gone missing over the past four months since Josephine and Angus had joined the troupe. And although nobody could prove Angus was the culprit, he and his mistress were the focus of much suspicion.

Her uncle billed Jo as La Sabreuse and kept her identity a secret. Not that any of the people working at the circus knew much more about Josephine Brown than the punters did.

“Did he watch you tonight?” Cecile asked Josephine, who was lazily sharpening one of her knives, a pastime that seemed to fill a great many hours, given the quantity of knives she kept on her person. Angus was perched on a pile of clothing that had been tossed over the arm of the settee, his feathers fluffed up and his massive head tucked beneath his wing.

When Josephine didn’t answer Cecile clapped her hands, the sound like the report of a pistol in the small room. “Blade! Écoutez-moi!”

Neither Jo nor her bird turned so much as a hair. Or a feather.

Instead, a dull hiss filled the silence as Josephine scraped the knife down the whetstone once more before looking up, her strange opal-gray eyes slumberous, as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep.

“I beg your pardon?” Her voice was soft, her accent not exactly refined, but without any regional inflection. She spoke much like an upper servant—perhaps a housekeeper or governess. Dressed as she was right now, in a plain navy wool gown, with her striking hair braided into a thick rope down her back, she reminded Marianne of the milkmaids who kept their herds in the park and offered cups of fresh milk for sale. Her appearance was wholesome and pure.

Until you looked more closely.