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“There’s plenty of ivy on the back side of the house.” She made her voice steady and her back straight, but her smile was beyond controlling. “I’ll leave the top right window unlatched for you. Unless, of course, you’re not agile enough for the task.”

His reddish brows crept low over his eyes and he laughed. “God, woman, sometimes I swear you’ve a dash of evil about you.”

He turned to leave, but she tugged on his hand and pressed her mouth to his, reaching on her tiptoes and collapsing her weight against him. His arms came around her back, strong and instant. “Be careful,” she breathed.

His eyes traveled to where his fingertips brushed a stray hair back from her cheek. “The gravest danger is posed by those ladies you brought. If they find out that’s Maria Louisa’s silk and not Queen Charlotte’s, I’m liable to meet the gallows.”

She smacked his chest with her fist. “Don’t jest like that.”

“You go down first and keep them from killing one another while I look for this dratted fabric.” He released her, winked, and was gone.

twenty

The warehouse at 159 Cheapside squatted against the evening light. Rafe hopped down from the cart, stretching his arms behind him. Alfie always liked driving the horses, and that only left idleness for Rafe. That, paired with the bluish, moonlit cast of the Thames frothing by (it had almost looked clean, in the low light), put him on the cusp of drowsiness.

Alfie cast a glance over his shoulder as the pair slipped into the warehouse. “You’re more at ease than usual.”

“Not really.”

He couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. It couldn’t be considered strange at this advanced stage. He wished Alfie would share whether he’d found any opportunities for employment, but their conversation had been limited to pleasantries thus far.

“This it?” Alfie asked, his voice low. If they were to be caught, it would be by the oil lamp, not their voices, but there was something preternaturally eerie about the warehouse. A gaping, high-ceilinged creation that retained cold and damp like a sponge.

“Should be.” Rafe seesawed the end of his crowbar between the crate of interest and its lid. One firm crank of his arms, and the contents revealed themselves under Alfie’s lamp.

“Blue wool cloth of long ells and surges,” Alfie said flatly.

Rafe let the wooden lid fall closed, and a thin spray of dust whooshed into his face. He coughed it away. “You sound like you’re reading someone’s last rites.”

“Mhm, maybe ours, if anyone notices these missing.”

They each lifted a crate and headed for the cart, repeating the process until the dank warehouse corner was left bare. Six crates. Barely enough to justify dragging the cart to Greenwich, but the hospital directors had requested as much stock as Rafe and Alfie had left. The constant addition of pensioners during wartime meant new blue coats were always being made or altered, and the men in charge were adamant about everyone’s uniforms matching. Surely that consideration must be meant for the affluent visitors of the Painted Hall, for navy men who had seen the things those fellows had … Rafe didn’t think they’d be hasty to compare the serge of their coat sleeves.

He surveyed the meager cartload before climbing onto the seat. “Well, at least he’s too much of an egoist to come down here himself. We’ll order in some more blue wool and no one will be the wiser.” They could afford to, given how handsomely the hospital was willing to pay for this final shipment.

“Right,” Alfie said. The one-horse team clicked into motion, carrying them swiftly over the cobbles. “I just don’t like it.”

The thickness in Rafe’s throat made swallowing a challenge. His uncharacteristic optimism had prevented him from absorbing the full riskiness of this move, but hearing the weak note in his friend’s voice solved that. They tried never to empty Thomas’s entire stock of any given item. That was precisely why they had ordered extra blue wool two years earlier, when they had won the contract to supply the pensioners with fresh coats. The odds of Thomas ever looking at the account books, much less personally digging about the warehouse, were extremely negligible. But it would always be easier to explain low stock than no stock, and, for the first time, he and Alfie had broken that precautionary rule.

“I know, Alf,” he said, and found his voice hoarse. “I don’t wish to keep doing things this way.”

Deceit stopped somewhere, even for the basest of men. That was one thing Rafe could take comfort in: when he first proposed running contracts with Alfie all those years ago, he had detailed in no uncertain terms how it would work, theft and all. His friend had thankfully chosen to buy in, rather than carry him by his nape to be tossed at Thomas’s feet. It was the first time Rafe had really, truly trusted someone. Today, with Sophie … Well, that was the second. God, he physically ached for her when she wasn’t in his sight.

“Well, maybe our time’s about over,” Alfie said. “I found an option for you. A way you might could strike out on your own.”

Rafe stiffened. “Yes?”

“There’s a draper, not far from here, in Cheapside. He’s getting out of the business and disposing of his stock for cheap. I hung around, just chatting with him, and he says he’s to let the shop immediately.” Alfie took one hand from the ribbons to scratch his nose. “There’s a decent set of rooms above the shop, and he said if you were interested—I named you only as a friend—he’d be happy to put a price on the fixtures and remaining stock. Let you have the whole piece.”

Rafe almost certainly could not afford the cost of whatever that would be. Figures. He ought to be running the figures in his mind. I couldn’t ask her to live above a draper’s shop. Not even if it was the finest in London. And what of the smog? She’d never want to stay in town through winter. Hell, she loves the country. He shifted on the wooden bench to soothe his half numb backside. “And where is this, again?”

“Cheapside. Not far from the timber yard and Drapers’ Hall.” Alfie huffed. “Hell, if you could get in with their lot, you could make a damn fine business out of the place. They control the whole trade. Your old man couldn’t touch you.”

Even if she was mad, and by some miracle wanted to lower herself to be with him, it didn’t solve the issue of his mother’s care. A quaint living above a shop would be exquisite for one man, or even man and wife. But man, wife, adopted child, ailing mother, and tempestuous nursemaid? God in heaven.

“Rafe?”

He inhaled sharply as his head raised. “Hm?”