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She went on. “But men like that... they don’t stop at what’s legal. And our work is to meet them there, when they overstep. At least when our justice is meted out, we are able to protect the innocent bystanders.”
“Wives and children,” he clarified.
“Children, often. Like Helene. Wives...” She inclined her head. “They’re trickier.”
“Proximity to power is a heady drug.”
“Too many of them cannot see the truth.” She nodded. “It is not unheard of that a wife might work in tandem with a wretched husband. Against her best interests.”
“The long run will never hold sway the way the short run does,” he said. “You’re talking to a parliamentary reformer.”
“I read a speech of yours once. In theNews. About Newgate.”
“About closing it. For good.” He paused, lost in thought. And then he said, “I would take it all away if I could; I would spend my life erasing the memories, if you would let me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want them erased.”
“No?”
“No. Henry. Don’t you see? They are fuel.”
He hadn’t seen, but in that moment, as she spoke the words, he seemed to.
“They forged me,” she said softly. “A girl from Lambeth who should have married a brute and raised a generation of them. And instead...”
“A new path.”
“A strange one,” she said. “Without country—half on one side of the river, half on the other. And because of it, always untethered from both. No longer a South London nipper, not yet a North London darling.”
“You’re my North London darling,” he said softly, stealing a kiss.
She grinned, and allowed it. “It’s odd. Logically, I know that I have a place with the Belles. They’re my crew, my family. And yet sometimes in my heart I fear that at any moment, they might decide I am not worth their time or energy. As though they might remember I do not belong.”
Just as you will notice someday.She hated the thought—the way it paced through her, like a wild beast.
Silence fell between them—long enough that she finally looked to him.
Henry looked thunderous.
“Not worth their time? Adelaide—” He bit back whatever he was about to say. “You are a marvel in a dozen ways. A hundred of them. Your worth—it cannot be quantified. Not in time. Not in energy. The sheer enormity of it... My God, Adelaide, that you cannot see it makes me want to raze the whole of your father’s empire to punish him for not showing it to you every day.”
“I’ve heard worse ideas,” came a voice from the doorway. “And it can certainly be arranged. But we’ve a larger, more pressing problem.”
Adelaide and Henry snapped to attention, turning to the doorway to find the Duchess of Trevescan there, tall and blond and beautiful, her lush mauve skirts showing barely any sign of the days-long travel she must have endured to find them here.
Shocked, Adelaide made to stand, but Henry held her close and did not move. “I’m not sure you don’t deserve a bit of punishment, too, Duchess.”
The other woman looked to him, surprise in her eyes. “I confess, I am pleasantly surprised by your ferocity. I did not think you had it in you.” Her cool blue gaze tracked over his bruises and bandages. “Though you have looked better, Clayborn.”
She swept into the room, revealing that she was not alone. Imogen and Sesily followed her inside.
“Oh!” Imogen’s brows rose and Adelaide imagined what her friends saw—her clad only in a chemise and spectacles, on Henry’s lap.
“Ooh!” Sesily tossed her a delighted grin. “Well done, friend!”
Ignoring the excited pronouncement and her own flaming cheeks, Adelaide spoke directly to the unflappable Duchess. “What pressing problem?”
Duchess crossed the room and lifted the now open puzzle box, inspecting the mechanism within. “Lord Carrington and Lady Helene.”
