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Her expression grew even cooler. “A matter of luck,” she replied. Her tone was vastly unencouraging, making it clear that her doings were none of his affair.
“Indeed.” Arthur could speak frostily, too. He didn’t often bother, but she was acting as if he was an encroaching mushroom whose pretensions required depressing.
“Lord Macklin found me my job,” said Tom. He looked amused.
“Mrs. Thorpe was the prime mover,” Arthur said.
This earl knew Mrs. Thorpe. Teresa found that almost as odd as his apparent ease in Tom’s company. She gazed up at the tall man before her. There was no denying his square-jawed, athletic attractiveness. Perhaps ten years her senior, she judged, more or less. His handsome face showed few lines, and those seemed scored by good humor.Seemedindeed, she thought with contempt. Charm was the mask aristocratic gentlemen used to hide their ruthlessness. But she knew the breed all too well. They took what they wanted and cared nothing for those without power. Indeed, they enjoyed exerting their dominance, savored it as a dark pleasure. Nothing such a man said could be trusted.
This earl’s blue-gray eyes gleamed with intelligence, which made him even more dangerous. She had to suppress a shudder. The smart ones were worse. They found ways around obstacles. They set cruel traps for the unwary and relished their struggles. Her fingers tightened painfully on her cloth bag.
She reminded herself that she didn’t need anything from this nobleman. She didn’t have to please him. She didn’t need anyone, and wouldn’t, not ever again. She was free. “I must go,” she said.
“I’m headed back,” said Tom. “We can walk with you, can’t we, my lord?”
“Of course,” said the tall earl.
Teresa was amused to hear reserve in his voice. He was vexed that she hadn’t bowed and scraped when told his rank. And she could afford to annoy him. How she enjoyed that. But what was he doing with young Tom? Was she obliged to warn the lad? Yes, she would, when the object of her concern wasn’t looming over them like a storm cloud. “There is no necessity to accompany me,” she said. She wished they wouldn’t, in fact.
“We’re happy to,” said Tom. “Eh, my lord?”
Lord Macklin bowed, a polite acknowledgment rather than an agreement.
Tom was finding something amusing in this encounter, Teresa saw. As he did in so much of existence. She envied the boy his easygoing temperament. For her part, she wanted to get away. She didnotrequire disruptive earls in any form. All was serene in her life now. Well, barring minor annoyances like Dilch. She was satisfied and settled and determined not to stray from the bounds she’d set. It had been a long, difficult road to this place. She would let nothing threaten that hard-won peace. “It is but a few steps,” she said. “I won’t trouble you.” She nodded at Tom and said, “Good day, my lord.”
The earl took his dismissal with bland grace.
Worse and worse, thought Teresa. Such smooth surfaces concealed deceit. It was much easier when this sort of man was cutting and cold. But no matter. She wouldn’t ever see him again. There was no cause for concern. “Good day,” she said again. And walked rapidly away with her lumpy bag of produce bumping at her knee. Though she could feel his eyes on her back, she did not rush. Prey ran; she was not prey. She would never be prey again.
“Who in the world is she?” Arthur asked Tom when the lady was gone.
“Like I said, a neighbor.”
“In your lodgings?” Arthur had never seen her on his visits to Tom.
“No, she has her own house just down the street from my rooms.”
“With her family? Her husband, perhaps.”
Tom gave him a sidelong glance as he began to walk along the cobbles again. “No, just her and a servant girl. I think her family all died in the war. She doesn’t speak of them. Turns the subject right quick if anyone asks.”
“Ah.” The war against Napoleon had caused a great deal of displacement on the Continent, and the Iberian Peninsula had been particularly affected. “So she lives here in London now?”
“Aye. I reckon she has a bit of money. She seems to be able to please herself.”
A small income would sustain an individual in this part of town, Arthur thought. “You say she paints scenery for the theater?” He still found this odd.
“That’s where I met her, at the workshop,” said Tom. “She can make the flats look real as real. Like you was…were looking out over a regular vista.”
“An artist then?”
“Learned watercolors as a girl, she said.”
One of the accomplishments of a lady, Arthur thought. He had no doubt she was one. Was it her fall in status that made her so prickly? Or did she blame him, as an Englishman, for the depredations of the war? That seemed petty and unfair. “And who is this Dilch?”
“Him.” Tom sniffed. “Our local bully.”
“He hurts people?” Arthur grew concerned for Tom.
