The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance Read online

  Another chuckle, this one a shade darker. “Oh, so ye noticed my knees, did ye?”

  She hid her blush against his chest.

  Finally, he stopped, and she could tell from the scent of baking bread and the sound of glad barking that they were at her front doorstep.

  “I can stand.”

  He gently set her down, his hands clinging to her shoulders as if he would have preferred to carry her all night against his heart rather than let her feet touch the ground. Once she unlocked the door, he gave her a meaningful look and stepped in first before ushering her inside, one hand on the small of her back. Everything was as it should have been, the birds rustling softly in their cages, a few sleepy heads peeking out from under fluffed wings. The puppies stopped barking and started whining for food, and Thom closed the door behind them. Warmth and comfort and rightness washed over Frannie, and she put up her chin and said, “Right, then. Tea.”

  She handed Thom his jacket and went to busy herself in the kitchen. He followed more slowly, checking every dark corner of the shop.

  “Would the animals know if something was amiss?” he asked.

  She laughed as she measured out the tea. “Oh, yes. Clockworks are all well and good, but birds are the noisiest and most easily agitated of busybodies. If anyone they didn’t recognize had come in downstairs at night, they’d still be talking about it and tossing feathers and seed onto the floor. I think we’re safe now.” And she did. Not only because the pet shop slept but also because Thom was there, blocking the door. He leaned against the side, crossing his feet and narrowing his eyes at her. She fumbled the spoon.

  “I know I asked ye before, but I must ask again. Does someone wish ye ill? Someone from your past?”

  “I don’t believe I have any enemies. The one person from my past . . .” She stared into the stream of boiling water as it swirled with the tea leaves, turning them from a dusty gray to a warm, wet green. If only she had possessed some sort of magic, she would have read the leaves in her cup and his, later, to try to puzzle out why everything was changing. “He was indifferent, like a storm that leaves destruction in its wake. If anyone wished revenge, it was me. Crossbows were never his style, in any case. He preferred swords.”

  “Anyone complain about a pet sale? Any threatening letters? Lawsuits?” She shook her head, and his eyes went sharp. “Thrown over any lads lately?”

  She snorted and plunked sugar cubes too forcefully into his tea, although he hadn’t requested them.

  “Until last week, I spoke to no one but Maisie and the odd nod with the neighbors. One might ask if you and Casper had enemies.”

  It was his turn to snort as he took the tea and sat on the couch, holding the thin porcelain with excessive care. “I live a solitary life, and any man with a grudge can call me out for a good thrashing, if he wants one. It’s clear the Maestro has enemies aplenty, and for good reason, but it’s also clear they could have shot him onstage and finished him off. No, they were aiming for you, lass.” He blew on the tea and sipped thoughtfully. “First the incendiary device and now an arrow.”

  Frannie blushed and looked down, stirring her tea with a small spoon. “And someone may have mailed me a viper.”

  Thom choked on his tea and set the cup and saucer down to glare at her. “Ye might have mentioned that!”

  She shrugged and sipped.

  “Have you somewhere else to go, lass? Where you could lie low for a bit?”

  She looked up at him, defiance snapping in her eyes. “Absolutely not. This is my home, and I refuse to run away in the hopes that someone would be too stupid or silly to follow me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve no enemies.” She fingered the rip in her jacket. “And I’ve nowhere else to go, in any case, and no money to get there. So that’s that.”

  “Then you’ll have to put up with having a great brute about for a bit.” He stood and pointed his chin at the stairs, the orange gaslights sparking off the stubble. “I’m sleeping in your hall.”

  12

  Of course she couldn’t sleep; Thom sat just outside her door. The gallant man had promised not to let himself drift off until she herself was firmly dreaming, and she suspected that he was alert to her every toss and turn. Heaven knew her head was full of enough snakes to keep an entire block of London bludrats hopping.

  She’d been twitchy ever since the fire. The new glass in her window was even thinner than the pane that the device had shattered, flying into her room and setting the curtains ablaze. She hadn’t heard the crash then, just as she hadn’t heard the arrow thwack through her sleeve and into the plush velvet seat, a finger’s span from her arm. She had told Thom the truth: she didn’t know who would wish her harm. But she was more scared than she could admit. Having him near was becoming a habit, and not just because she knew that he’d already saved her life at least twice and wouldn’t hesitate to dive between her body and danger.

  She heard him shift outside and sigh, the old door creaking against his back. Without meaning to, she echoed his sigh and turned again, the bedsprings squealing beneath her. Of course, she was afraid to fall asleep, when her dreams held nothing but the memory of blood on snow, the jangling of the traces on the black horses of the funeral carriage, and, more recently, the hot reek of fire. She’d held her secrets alone too long, and a desperate glance at the closet only made her more fretful.

  “Stop worrying and sleep, lass,” Thom called through the door. “You’re safe, I promise ye.”

  She rolled over, cheeks hot and red, the ribbons on her nightdress caught under her hand. “I’m trying,” she called back, and he made a Scottish noise deep in his throat that seemed to say he didn’t believe her, not one little bit.

  Long memories of a foolishly broken heart and a dead family weighed her down, and she was on edge about the recent and random attempts on her life. But what really kept her wide awake in the middle of the night was the warm and restless presence of the Scotsman in the hall.

  “I could make ye some more tea,” he said uneasily, and she snorted. He struck her as the sort of fellow who could do anything but boil water.

  With a final, deep sigh, she sat up, her hands gripping the rough new wood he’d used to rebuild her bed. No point in pretending any further. The uncomfortable truth was that sleep wasn’t what she needed most. Sleep couldn’t ease her heart.

  Frannie stood and slipped a shawl over her shoulders. Her feet were silent on the boards, her nightdress whispering as she crossed the small bedroom and put a hand on the door as if she would be able to feel his warmth through it. With no warning, she twisted the knob, and the large man caught himself before he could fall backward into a lady’s chamber.

  “What ails ye now?” he asked, pulling his kilt and unbuttoned shirt to rights and keeping his gaze politely averted from her bare feet.

  She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, and that made it all the easier to answer, “You do.”

  He leaped to his feet and stood, dwarfing her. “I can keep watch downstairs in the parlor, if that would be easier. I know it’s damned improper, having a strange man about at night and not a lodger.” He frowned as he looked at the door of Casper’s empty room.

  She only put a hand on his arm and said, “Can I trust you?”

  “Aye.” It was half statement, half question.

  He hesitated for just a moment on the threshold of her room before following her inside. The house was dark, but she knew every inch of it. She wasn’t surprised to feel his fingers catch her gown as she walked to the closet door. Frannie had kept her family’s secret faithfully, the only one left to keep it since Bertram’s death. As she opened the closet door and pushed aside the layers of tweed and wool, a little thrill ran through her, making her swallow down a giddy giggle. Even Charles had never known about this. She had planned to tell him after their wedding, which had never happened.

  Thom’s breath was hot on her ear, one hand even hotter against the small of her back. “Dragging me into a closet, lass? I don’t th
ink that’s going to help ye sleep.”

  “Close the door and come along.”

  She pulled the hook hidden under a coat, and when the panel slid aside, she reached behind for Thom’s hand and pulled him up a narrow staircase. Even as she shoved the coats aside, he didn’t grumble or question her, as if he understood that what he was about to see was important. The steps were tall and wooden and probably quite dusty, but it was too dark to know for sure. Frannie held her nightdress up in front, counting the steps until she felt the press of wood against her outstretched hand. The stair below hers creaked ominously as Thom stopped and waited, a solid presence behind her. Smiling to herself, she opened the door to the roof and stepped out into the most beautiful garden in London.

  The smell always struck her first. Green things and deep earth and robust, natural health. And, yes, goat. Next came the tweets of birds in the branches, just as sleepy as their captive brothers below. After a few steps in, the smooth stone under her feet turned to soft grass, and she sighed happily and looked up at the half-full moon that lit the milky glass of the greenhouse ceiling.

  “I’ll be damned,” Thom said softly under his breath. “Am I dreaming, lass?”

  “You’re no sleepier than I am,” she said with a grin.

  She tried to see it through his eyes, as if for the first time. She’d played in the secret garden all her life, had even taken her first steps here. Since first her parents’ and then Bertram’s passing, it had been a large part of her life, taking care of all the chores that allowed it to flourish. The small fruit trees, carefully pruned. The grass and rows of vegetables and tidy fences. The flowers and beehives, sleepily humming. The cantankerous but tiny goats that kept her in cream and milk when the rest of the city suffered. The troublesome process of turning their scat into the richest compost in the city. Even the high stone walls of the roof that hid the bounty within were painted the fresh, warm green of a summer that had ceased to be, ever since London had grown weak and watery with pollution and sharp with blud creatures. Frannie’s home was the tallest house for blocks. The glass ceiling could only be seen from an airship, and not many of those crossed this part of London. A small but powerful charm helped eyes slide away, should they actually land on the curved glass, which was carefully vented on the side so the wild birds could come and go.

  “This is why you’re so scared of the Coppers, aye?” Thom asked. “And my badge?”

  She looked up at the cold, indigo sky. “All very illegal, yes. If anyone ever found out, it would all be seized for the city. Probably ruined, as they ruin everything.”

  Looking all around, he put a hand on her shoulder, where the shawl had fallen aside. The warmth and weight of his touch seared through her.

  “This place is far too precious to be ruined,” he said gently.

  “This is where I go when I can’t sleep. When I feel unsafe or unquiet or too alone. I lie back in the grass and stare at the sky and just breathe.”

  With long familiarity, she went to a faded wooden trunk along the wall and cleared off the half-filled pots and trowels to lift the lid. When she turned back to face him with a rough wool blanket in her arms, a smile lit his face with the light of secrets shared and promises to come. A new heat unspooled in her belly, matching the wet warmth of the sun-kissed grass soft under her feet. He took the blanket from her, and she moved to an open patch where the grass was thick.

  “This is my favorite spot,” she said, and he tossed the blanket high, holding on to one side and letting it settle smoothly over the ground.

  Even though she’d done this a thousand times or more, this was her first experience in the garden with a man’s eyes on her body, on her face. She tried to avoid his gaze, busily bundling her shawl into a pillow and stretching out on the blanket, enjoying the trapped warmth of the greenhouse more than any coverlet and trying to ignore the fact that she wasn’t wearing nearly enough clothing. She had long ago decided that the rooftop greenhouse was a place beyond time, a place where nothing mattered but warmth and nature and light, and she struggled to convince herself further as Thom settled by her side, not touching but close enough that she could feel the brush of his kilt.

  Frannie stared up through the glass at the faraway glitter of stars. London’s famous fog swirled in and out between the moon and the greenhouse, but she found her favorite constellations, the Swan and the Great Bear. Thom was a still and silent presence at her side. Barely moving, barely breathing. On high alert, and waiting.

  An owl hooted overhead, and Thom startled.

  Frannie finally had to laugh. “A bit jumpy, there?”

  He sighed and chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, caught out. “Aye, well, I’m in an illegal garden, alone with a beautiful, half-dressed girl. I’m one step away from sitting on my hands.”

  Frannie ran fingers through the grass, the uneven blades tickling over her palm. “Time seems to stop here,” she murmured. “I used to come here and watch the stars spin and fall asleep to the sound of rustling leaves. I came here when my parents died. I came here the night my brother was killed.” She rolled to her side, her head on her hand as she looked at him. “I came here after you kissed me.”

  He looked down on her with soft, serious eyes. “I’ve regretted that. Poor wee thing. I didn’t mean to scare you away.”

  “I’m not a virgin, Thom.”

  He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

  “I was engaged for one day, and then he used me and left me. My brother called him out to the Dueler’s Green, sword in hand. My brother lost.” Thom groaned and put his head in his hands, and she sat up, a hand on his forearm. “I’m not telling you so you’ll regret kissing me, nor so that you’ll pity me. I’m telling you so you’ll understand why I bolted. I’m skittish. No one’s touched me in years. I’m . . . apologizing. It was a nice kiss.”

  “No wonder you’ve no faith. Poor lass.”

  The way he said “poor” made it come out “puir,” and Frannie leaned forward slowly to put her head against his bicep. He stroked her braided hair gently and then wrapped his arm around her.

  “I had a wife.”

  She nodded against his chest, scared to speak and break the spell of the garden. Something about the sleepy warmth, the cool darkness beyond, and the charmed glass that kept it secret created a bubble of solitude that she didn’t care to end. Thom ran his fingers down the long braid in her hair, and he swallowed hard.

  “We were married young, and I left her behind when I did my service with the Scottish Navy. I didn’t know until I returned home with a bag of pearls that she had died in a fire just a few months after I left. I hadn’t been there. I couldn’t save her. Or the bairn she carried. I sold the pearls and left home again. I figured I would keep other families from losing their hearts, or die trying. Either was better than reminding myself of what I let happen. I should have been there.” He paused, and she heard his fingers scrape the stubble on his cheek, knocking away a tear, perhaps. “I don’t sleep so well, these days.”

  “I only sleep well here. Lie back beside me. Look at the stars. Feel the sun’s heat still in the ground.”

  He pulled back to look at her. “You’re a cheeky wee thing.”

  He scooted down and lay back on the blanket, arranging his kilt and settling his hands over his stomach.

  She stretched out on her back beside him, her feet crossed at the ankles. His elbow brushed hers, but it wasn’t enough.

  “Cheeky? Is that what they call it?” She shifted, setting her arm against his with quiet purpose. “From what I hear, the fine ladies of society have another word altogether for someone like me.”

  “Now, Frannie—”

  “I like the way you say my name. With that little trill on the r. And I don’t care what they would call me. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I ran away when you kissed me because I can’t hide from my memories, not because I’m worried about my future. I made mistakes, and I have regrets, but I don’t want to run away anymore.
You make me feel safe, make me realize that hiding isn’t actually living. Actions speak louder than words, for me. You make me want to live again.” She gazed up at the moon, praying to still her heart. “Are you still sitting on your hands?”

  “I can think of better places for them, if ye trust me.”

  He rolled to his side to cup her cheek, gazing down with watchful eyes that still held the sea. She put her hand over his.

  After placing a careful kiss in his palm, she whispered, “I trust you.”

  13

  Thom ran a thumb over her cheekbone with the gentleness he’d used cradling her dainty teacups. His eyes went hooded, and he leaned over to dust her lips with his. Shivers raced through her at the touch. It may have seemed gentle and soft, but the promise of more lurked in his hazel eyes, gone shadowy with the moonlight. She understood that he was giving her time to bolt, to break away. To turn from him.

  She didn’t.

  She lifted her head, inviting, and with a slow, curling smile, he obliged. His mouth slanted over hers with firm purpose as his hand slipped to her jaw. Whatever had made her panic last time, that impulse was gone, her body rooted to the earth and yearning toward his. The kiss was long, slow, and tasting, and she opened her eyes to watch him, her fingers trailing over the golden hairs on his forearm where his sleeve had slipped up. His eyelashes were light where they fell over his cheeks, and tiny webs of wrinkles sprang from the corners of his eyes as if he was always laughing. But he wasn’t laughing now, and he ran his thumb along the corner of her mouth as he deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping within. She closed her eyes. Now she was the one struggling not to fall apart.

  Charles had kissed her, and those kisses had excited her, but never like this. Charles had made love as he had done everything: quickly, sharply, selfishly, and with a mirror close at hand. She had been too young and anxious to please to consider that there might be something more to how bodies met. Thom seemed entirely focused on her, on her mouth, although he subtly sidled over, his hip pressing against hers with lazy suggestion. His tongue explored her, pressing sweetly and gently and playfully but with a slow tenderness that was half pleasure, half madness. He coaxed her with tender strokes, calling her into his rhythm, luring her to lap at his mouth with the same sly fascination, the same unhurried surety. She reached for his hair, for the tender back of his neck exposed beneath his collar.