Fitzroy didn't mention the knife incident the following day, but I was curious about something. "When did you realize I had it?" I asked as we ate breakfast.
"When I sat at the desk, I felt for it and noticed it missing."
Almost immediately then. "Why didn't you confront me at the time?"
He flattened the newspaper on the desk, his back to me. Clearly he didn't think me a threat. "I wanted to see what you would do."
"But what if I'd caught you by surprise, when your guard was lowered?"
"I never lower my guard."
"Not even when you're alone?"
He half turned so that he was in profile, and considered his answer before he said, "Sometimes."
"Which times?"
He turned a little further and regarded me through narrowed eyes. "You expect me to tell you?"
I grunted a laugh. "I suppose not."
He cracked the top of his boiled egg open with a spoon. "You won't catch me at such a moment, anyway."
"You're very arrogant, aren't you?"
"So I've been told."
After breakfast, he proposed another walk around the estate, and I readily agreed. The day was overcast and warm, with dark clouds gathering on the horizon. I got hot quickly. Sweat trickled down my spine and gathered in uncomfortable places. Fitzroy didn't look the least bit hot, but he only wore a shirt with no waistcoat or jacket, whereas I kept my jacket on. Taking it off would reveal too much now that my shirt was damp.
This time we stopped at the stables to see to the horses. Fitzroy rolled up his sleeves and mucked out their stalls, but I hung back. My father had not owned a horse, and while they were always present in the street, pulling carriages and carts, I'd never gone too close. Those hooves looked dangerous and the teeth large. I filled a pail with water from the trough and another with feed, but passed it to him instead of going in. I admired the way he walked behind them, without a care for the hooves, and rubbed their noses, getting close enough to have his own bitten off.
"Do you ride often?" I asked.
"When I have the opportunity," he said, closing the stall door and rejoining me.
"For pleasure?"
"Not anymore." He handed me an empty pail and I returned it to the back of the stables. "You don't like horses?"
"I like them well enough," I said. "As long as they are over there and I am over here."
"They frighten you?"
"I don't want to get too close to an animal that could crush me, kick me or bite me. What if it were startled? What if it didn't like the way I smelled? Or it liked my smell too much?"
"Unless you smell like an apple, there is little danger that a horse will eat you."
He led the way outside, and once again I had to trot to catch up to him. I passed a number of sharp and heavy looking tools that I could have grabbed and used on him, but he didn't seem worried. Either he knew I couldn't go through with hurting him or he had faith in his ability to stop me, even with his back to me.
"Fitzroy," I said, "slow down. I wish to ask you something."
He slowed his pace. "You should refer to me as Mr. Fitzroy."
"Or I could call you Death. Or do you prefer Mr. Death?"
He walked off. "Go on."
I blew out a breath. "What will you do when you cannot trace me as far back as you wish to go?"
"You think we'll fail?"
"Yes."
"I don't fail." He didn't look like he was joking. Not that he ever seemed anything other than deadly serious.
"Everyone fails from time to time."
He said nothing, but his strides lengthened as we crossed the courtyard. We did not go the back way into the house this time, but headed toward the side. It would seem our walk wasn't yet over.
"Let's assume you fail," I said. "Let's also assume that I continue to deny that I am a necromancer, which I will because I'm not. What will you do with me?"
He stopped and a small crease settled between his brows. He didn't look at me but at the corner of the house. "Come with me." He set off again, his strides longer and faster. Keeping up meant I had to half walk and half run. When we rounded the corner of the house I saw what he'd heard—a glossy black carriage approached.
When it pulled to a stop I saw that it was a private landau, not a hansom cab, with a gold escutcheon painted on the side.
"Is it Lord Gillingham again?" I asked. Cold sweat trickled down my spine. I shivered.
"It's not his carriage, but if he's one of the party, he won't hurt you."
"How can you be certain?"
He walked forward as a footman jumped down from the rumble seat and opened the door. Lord Gillingham emerged, a new walking stick in hand. He paused on the step when he spotted us. He nodded at Fitzroy and glared at me. Fitzroy didn't respond.
"Keep moving, Gilly," came a gruff voice from inside the cabin.
Fitzroy moved forward as Gillingham stepped onto the drive, allowing the man behind him to alight. The new fellow was very tall and strongly built, with shoulders as wide as Fitzroy's. Even at his age, which I guessed to be about sixty, he looked in good health with the figure of a much younger man. His age showed on his face, however, in the deep grooves across his forehead and around his eyes, and the full gray mutton chops.
"General Eastbrooke," Fitzroy said in greeting.
The man took Fitzroy's offered hand and shook it heartily. "Dressed for the occasion, I see, Lincoln."
"I didn't know you were coming, sir."
Their hands parted, yet Fitzroy didn't offer his to Gillingham. He didn't acknowledge the lord at all, and Gillingham grew more and more agitated as he waited. With a stomp of his walking stick into the ground, he turned to me. His cold eyes drilled into me.
I sidled closer to Fitzroy. The irony wasn't lost on me that I felt safer with my captor.
"Is this the boy?" General Eastbrooke said, in a deep, blustery voice. He placed his hands at his back and approached.
I remained where I was and tilted my head up. Fitzroy didn't seem to detest this man as he did Gillingham, so I assumed the general wasn't as willfully cruel as the lord.
"It is," Fitzory said, looking down at me. "Charlie, this is General Eastbrooke."
I crossed my arms. "Another committee member?"
Eastbrooke's thick gray brows lifted. "You're supposed to say it's nice to meet you, sir."
"But I don't know if it's nice to meet you or not." I was being deliberately irritating, but I didn't care. The more people I annoyed during my stay, the less likely they were to keep me when they realized I wouldn't help them. "You could be an arse, like him."
Gillingham raised his walking stick, but lowered it upon a glare from both Fitzroy and Eastbrooke. "I don't know why you protect him," Gillingham snapped.
"He's valuable to us," Eastbrooke said.
Fitzroy's gaze slid to the general's. Gillingham snorted. "For the time being," he muttered.
"How old is he?" Eastbrooke asked.
"Thirteen," Fitzroy said.
"Gilly tells me he's tried to escape."
"He has."
"And yet you allow him outside?"
"He needs exercise."
I needed exercise? Ha!
The general regarded me. "He'll try to escape again while he's free."
"Then I'll catch him."
"I'm sure that will not be a problem for you. He looks rather scrawny."
"Street urchins usually are."
"Hmmm." He paced around me, hands at his back, then came to a stop in front of me again. He thrust his chin forward. "Show your face, boy."
I backed away and kept my gaze down.
"You're going to defy me?" He clicked his tongue. "I don't think you're in any position to do that, do you?"
"I'm ugly," I said. "My ugliness embarrasses me."
Gillingham snorted, but the general simply continued to regard me with his cool eyes, his out-thrust chin. If he ordered Fitzroy to hold me while he swept my hair back, I would not be able to
resist.
"Time is running out," Eastbrooke said. "You have this necromancer, but what of the other? If the girl is found by V.F, he will succeed. We need to win her to our side first or the battle is lost."
"We'll find her through Charlie. I'm sure of it."
Hearing Fitzroy speak about his suspicions of a link made my heart stop in my chest. How much did he know, and how much was a guess? He gave nothing away.
"And how will you do that?" Gillingham sneered. "He doesn't care what we're trying to achieve. He only cares for his own skin."
"I can't blame him for that, considering how he's lived."
"You're too soft, Fitzroy. Never thought I'd hear myself say that, but there you have it."
"Enough, Gilly!" Eastbrooke snapped. I wasn't sure if a lord outranked a general but Gillingham shut his mouth. Perhaps he was as awed by Eastbrooke's military bearing and powerful frame as I was.
"Do not forget what we're trying to achieve here," Gillingham muttered to Fitzroy.
"I haven't forgotten," Fitzroy said. "It's all I think about. It's all that matters to me."
Eastbrooke nodded. "Your loyalty and dedication to achieving the ministry's goals are not in doubt." He cut a flinty glare at Gillingham.
Gillingham bowed. "You're right, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. It's just that your methods—"
"Are not up for discussion," Fitzroy told him.
Gillingham cleared his throat. He tapped the carriage steps with his walking stick. "Shall we leave your man to his work, Eastbrooke? It's too hot to stand around out here, and it doesn't seem as if we'll get an invitation to go inside."
His man? What an odd thing to call Fitzroy. He didn't seem like he could be anyone's anything. I would have called him his own man. Yet Fitzroy did call him "sir," while Eastbrooke called him "Lincoln" in turn. I still wasn't sure what that implied about their relationship.
"I look forward to your report, Lincoln," Eastbrooke said. "Let's hope I don't have to wait too long." The general turned to me. "If the queen or her family suffer because of your refusal to help us find the other necromancer, you will be blamed."
"And if I suffer because I helped? Who will be blamed then?"
"Nobody cares about you, boy," Gillingham said from inside the cabin. "Never forget that."
"How can I, with people like you to remind me?"
Eastbrooke sighed heavily. "You ought to instill some manners into him while he's here, Lincoln. You should know how to go about doing that. I seem to recall you lacked quite a few manners when you were young." He gave a wry smile as he turned away to climb the coach steps.
Because he turned away, he didn't see the muscle in Fitzroy's jaw bunch as he ground his back teeth. I wondered what methods the general had used to instill manners in him.
The coach rolled away and we returned inside before it was out of sight. "You've known those men a long time," I said as he closed the front door.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"I'm thirty. I've known Eastbrooke since birth and met Gillingham some years later."
"He was cruel to you as a child? General Eastbrooke?"
He blinked at me, and I could have sworn he was surprised. "He never touched me."
I frowned but didn't question him further. He strode away, and I suspected he wanted the conversation to end. He suddenly stopped at the foot of the stairs.
"I forgot to show you something yesterday, on our tour," he said.
"I would hardly call it a tour. You were the worst guide."
"I showed you every room worth seeing."
"With the blandness of an automaton. There was no vivid description, and no stories about the previous occupants or the rooms themselves."
"You didn't need a description since you could see the room for yourself, and I'm not a storyteller."
"So I see. So what room did you forget to show me?"
"The dungeon."
I gasped. "There's a dungeon under our feet?"
"The previous house on this site was medieval. When the house was removed, the dungeon was not filled in. It still has chains hanging from the walls. Would you like to see it?"
"No! What makes you think I'd want to see a dungeon?"
"Boys like gruesome things."
I strode past him up the stairs. "Not this boy. I've seen enough gruesome things in my life without needing to see more."
He followed me up in silence and together we headed back to his rooms. Once inside, he locked the door and pocketed the key in his trouser pocket.
"So what happens now?" I asked, throwing myself on the sofa. "Are you going to question me again? Has the visit from the committee members rattled you enough that you want to throw me in the dungeon and apply the thumb screws?"
"No."
"Then we have hit a wall. Your men will learn nothing of use by roaming around London, and you have learned nothing of use by roaming around the grounds with me."
"You're mistaken." He touched a teapot sitting on a tray on his desk to test its temperature then poured two cups. He handed one to me then sat on the chair opposite. "I've learned a great deal from our conversation."
He couldn't have. I'd not said a thing about my gender, my necromancing, or my home. I'd been very careful. I sipped, watching him through my hair.
He sat back and sipped too, never taking his gaze off me. He seemed to enjoy drawing out the moment, teasing my frayed nerves to breaking point. Finally, he placed the cup in the saucer. "You're witty and observant," he said, "and educated."
"That's not very useful."
"And your accent changes when you're not thinking about it."
I lowered my cup. Had my accent changed or was he bluffing? None of the boys ever commented on the way I spoke. I was always careful to sound like one of them.
"When you feel comfortable, it becomes more refined. It's a north London accent, middle class, perhaps originating not far from here. You only resort to gutter language when you think it will make an impact and drive home the disguise you've built for yourself. When you're having a conversation with me alone, it changes. My guess is that you haven't lived on the street all your life, but came from a good home before your circumstances changed."
A good home. That's what everyone called middle class households like mine. A good home inhabited by a good man who'd sadly lost his cherished daughter the same night his wife died. Yes, that summed it up nicely.
Fitzroy watched me, and I watched him in return; my heart had sunk to my stomach. So he'd been kind to me only to get me to relax in his presence and extract information from me. I should have known and been more alert. I should not have lowered my defenses for a moment. I should not have allowed myself to be coaxed into submission like a dog.
I tossed the cup and its contents on the beautiful thick rug and marched toward the bedroom. I slammed the door and looked around for something to throw. I picked up the bowl of water from the washstand but lowered it again.
I'd been around boys for so long I'd forgotten how not to behave like them.
With a sigh, I lay on the truckle bed. After an hour or so, Fitzroy entered. He didn't speak; he just set my book down on the bedside table and left again.
I warred with myself. I wanted to read, but he was so smug—so arrogant—that I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that he'd understood my needs. It felt like letting him win.
When I could stand the boredom no longer, however, I retrieved the book and flipped to the page I had read up to. My temper was only harming me, not him, after all. With that in mind, I returned to the parlor and passed by his desk, where he sat conducting his scientific experiments. I would have preferred to watch him but I was determined not to show any interest.
"There's cake," he said without looking up.
A slice had been set down on the table near my cup, which had been retrieved from the floor. It was empty and the rug damp where I'd spilled the tea. I padded back to his desk and the tea
pot and refilled my cup. I had the sudden urge to spill it over his experiments and ruin them.
As if he knew what I was thinking, his hand darted out and caught my wrist. The brown liquid in the dish in his other hand didn't so much as splash a drop over the side.
"I wasn't going to do it," I said.
He paused then let me go. I returned to the sofa and continued reading from where I'd left off. It was another mystery book. Perhaps that was the only type of fiction he read.
Fitzroy was packing up his experiments when there was a knock at the door. "Sir!" called Seth. "We have news."
They couldn't have found out about me. Surely not. I tucked my legs up beneath me and gripped the book harder.
Fitzroy let Seth and Gus in. Their hair was damp with sweat, and dust smudged their clothing, hands and faces. Their gazes flew to me.
I swallowed heavily.
Fitzroy waited patiently for them to begin. I didn't know how he could remain so calm and not pester them to speak. I was coiled tight and felt sick to my stomach. I pretended to read.
"We did as you said, and asked some questions of the little gutter snipes," Gus said. "Cost us a bleeding fortune."
"But we found out much," Seth went on. "Something very curious is going on, sir."
I felt their gazes on me again and glanced up. I closed the book. There was no point trying to fool anyone.
"Curious how?" Fitzroy asked. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Although the men looked exhausted, he didn't offer them a seat or refreshments.
"We traced him from district to district, just as you told us to," Seth said. "He was remembered, and it wasn't hard. In fact, it was too easy. They recognized him from our description immediately."
"We found out where he were three years ago, then four and five," Gus said, staring at me. He had an odd expression on his face. It took me a moment to realize he was wary, perhaps even scared.
"It was then that we understood why it had been so easy to trace him," Seth said. "He was always the same as the way we described him—a young lad of thirteen with a pointed chin and with brown hair hanging over his face, only staying for six months or so then moving on. A lad who never told anyone where he was from. Exactly the same, sir. He never aged."
They weren't the smartest fellows. Fitzroy wouldn't have needed to go back all five years to realize something was amiss. He was looking at me now too, but it wasn't clear what he thought of my supposed agelessness.
"Is it magic?" Gus whispered, still staring at me.
I wasn't clear if he was addressing me so I refrained from answering.
"Perhaps he's actually an elderly man," Seth suggested.
I smiled. They couldn't be further from the truth.
"You said you traced him as far back as five years ago," Fitzroy said. "No further?"
"We hit a dead end, sir," Seth said. "Five years ago, he just seemed to suddenly appear from nowhere. The gang he joined doesn't know where he came from before that. The trail went cold in Tufnell Park. We're sorry, sir."
I was giddy with relief and gripped the book harder to anchor myself. My cheeks warmed again, and I hadn't realized I'd gone cold until that moment.
Fitzroy dismissed his men.
Seth and Gus left, their gazes upon me as they backed out of the room. The poor men looked terribly confused, although less worried since I hadn't shriveled them with my "magic."
Fitzroy came to my side and calmly squatted down. His face was only inches from mine, but I didn't dip my head. I watched him through the strands of my hair, daring him to see the woman behind the veil. Did he realize what Seth and Gus's findings meant? The man's pitch black eyes gave nothing away.
"Tell me your secret, Charlie." His deep voice rumbled from his chest and vibrated over my skin. The undercurrent raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
"Or what?"
"Or I will need to employ more…drastic measures."
I huffed out a humorless laugh, flipping out the hair at my nose. "I have nearly starved to death, almost frozen to death, been beaten to near death, left to rot in jail with men who wanted to do things to me that made me want to die. Unless you plan on killing me, your drastic measures will be a gift by comparison."
I stood, and he stood too, blocking me. He towered above me, and I was more aware of the difference in our sizes than ever. But he didn't touch me. He simply eyed the book clutched in my arms then walked to his desk.
Did he mean to deny me the books? Perhaps other entertainments too, or even his company? I would regret that most of all—and I wished I wouldn't.
"Boring me to death is something new, at least."