Chapter 113

The corridor, quiet as a cathedral sanctuary and lit by a solitary flickering candle, lay before Splendor, as she peered around her bedroom door. She wanted to think it yawned before her, but that would make it seem half-asleep. In fact, a lion's den couldn't look more dangerous. She'd no idea what that thing lurking in the shadowed corner behind the chrysanthemum vase was. A bronze bust stood on top of the chest of drawers. Did its eyes just move? Then there was the faintly musty smell, the scent of dead things.
"Coast's clear," Topaz whispered.
"Are you sure?"
"Are yer?"
Splendor smoothed her hands over her nightgown. The question was one she was struggling so badly to answer, her heart bucked against her rib cage. At least it didn't buck against her stays. These were on the bed.
"Ow! Don't lean on me so heavy. Do yer want ter knock me flat?"
"Yes. I mean no. I mean I do see. I just ... "
"It's one in the mornin'. Who the tearin' 'ell is goin' ter be up but us?"
The silence of the grave blanketed the place. And if anyone would know about casing it, Topaz would.
"Look, whot I can tell yer is that door there leads downstairs and next one to 'ere is mine. I tried ter get a look in that one there but bleeding ole Ma Ferret came out. Best I could do was sneak one peek through the keyhole. There's a table. A big one. Wherever 'is soddin' nibs is, 'e ain't in there."
"Are you sure?"
"Splen, I'm tellin' yer. Anyway, whot does it matter if ole Ma Ferret comes up them stairs and catches yer? 'Is wife, ain't yer? Even if it's only in bloomin' name. Grass'll only grow beneath yer feet if yer lets it."
"Tall as houses, as cathedral spires," she murmured to herself. Topaz was right. And growing grass that high, strangled chance. Last night ... Actually, it was best not to muddy the waters with last night when she risked so much. She took a breath.
"All right."
"Then go. Go."
Right then, she would. She pinched her cheek, smoothed her hair, her nightdress
"Christ. Stop wastin' time, will yer? What other chance do yer 'ave when 'e don't want yer here?"
"Very well." She straightened her shoulders and stepped into the corridor.
"Over there, the alcove. Get on the carpet down the center of the floor there. It'll muffle yer footsteps. 'urry."
Her nightgown rustled as she hurried to obey. A single candle shone next to the bronze bust in the alcove. It was only a question of tiptoeing a few feet past it. She sucked a breath, stood on tiptoe. Something clanged deep in the bowels of the basement. Had Mrs. Ferret dropped a pot?
Splendor dived into the alcove, pressed her palms to the wall.
"Splen, that way," Topaz hissed, gesturing to the other end of the landing. "'urry."
Actually, if Mrs. Ferret was on the prowl with the pots and pans, technically Splendor was Stillmore's wife, even if technically Stillmore had his doubts about it.
Stillmore coming out of his room right now might have the advantage of highlighting which room was his. It was all it would have though. Get caught out here, and she'd look a desperate fool, or worse. Fine for when she'd slipped beneath his sheets. Not before. And really, slipping beneath his sheets was the only quick-fire way of ensuring this. Besides, it wasn't as if she hadn't already been with him. It would be for nothing if she didn't.
She peeled her palms off the wall, grasped the silver candlestick, stepped forward. A board creaked beneath her foot. At least it didn't creak behind her, in front, or any place that meant someone else was on this stretch of landing. She clutched the candlestick tighter. Quickly. Quickly. Quickly. Her feet padded along the carpet. She could do this.
"Not that door...Fer Christ sake ...That one."
Did Topaz think she was that stupid? That was the sitting room door. Also, she'd had the good sense to grab the candlestick. When she finally opened his door, she'd see her way and not do something stupid like trip over his bed.
"'urry. 'urry."
Just because she'd never done anything quite like before, just because the memory of last night thudded with her heartbeats, didn't mean she didn't have this. There were two doors down this end of the corridor that could be his bedroom door. If it wasn't the first, it was the second. That was all there was to it. All.
She reached out her hand, grasped the handle of the first. The brass was cool against her burning palm. All she had to do was click the door open. Slowly. Slowly. She could to this, couldn't she?
"Go on, Splen ...Yer can do it."
Click it, edge the door open, take a breath, and scurry across the floor of his room. Ignoring his surprise. His everything. She took a calming breath. Then she clicked the door open. Forget edge the door slowly as Topaz was mimicking. Chance beckoned. Her throat was dry. Maybe she was here in London, but Stillmore's fury was even plainer than usual. She needed to secure her place. She threw the door wide open and ran. She ran straight into the broom cupboard.
At least she ran straight into something hard and wooden that smacked her on the nose. Something that clattered around her feet. There was more than one broom. Oh, and buckets too. Metal ones that clanged and rolled out onto the landing. The last place she needed for them to be. Buckets that somehow got beneath her feet. Buckets that she toppled over, landing on her backside with the candlestick, which shefailed to hold, rolling about her toes so that there were squidgy lumps of flying wax everywhere.
How the hell could there be buckets? Brooms too? It wasn't exactly as if Stillmore had any cleaning done. Was this why? Because he locked up all his brooms? And not just his brooms. Every broom in London seemed to be clattering around her, banging off the walls, assaulting the floorboards, her head, her elbows, her teeth. How many brooms did one man need? But at least, count her stars including the bright one she was born under, no one had stirred. Not a single, solitary ...
"Jesus Christ."
Her mind froze on the word mouse.






























Chatetr 49

"Would you mind telling me what the bloody hell you think you're doing?"
She didn't want to particularly but Stillmore's voice cut like a razor across the landing. If she didn't think of something that not only explained what she was doing in his broom cupboard at dead of night, something that soothed his savage brow, something that got her out of this hole, off this floor rather and returned things to some semblance of normality, she was finished.
"Oh fer the love of Starkie, Splen, must yer be a cleaner all yer days." Topaz hobbled onto the landing. "I vow and swear Your Grace, she just can't 'elp 'erself where a bit of dust is concerned."
"A-a cleaner? What? You?" Stillmore's jaw hung open.
While Splendor had prayed for something, the words Starkie and cleaner, wasn't it.
If only the floral pattern on the rug would spread its petals and swallow her up.
For a second she thought it might. But she was counting stars. He stood there in a charcoal-gray dressing gown and not much else. Had he been expecting her? He was out here sharpish with a candlestick.
"I means, ter help benefit the poor, Splen would do anything. Sweep a floor. Dust a statue, Your Grace. Anything."
Topaz bent to help her up. Splendor swallowed. Why on earth would the poor have statues?
"You somehow think my house needs cleaning?"
"She might. You never know with Splen, the floors she's scrubbed in her time, down on her hands and knees. Ain't that so, Splen?"
Her gaze froze. "I-"
"Here, do let me 'elp yer back ter bed, Splen." Topaz slipped an arm across her back. "His Grace don't want yer disturbing 'is sleep with all that cleaning nonsense. Yer not with the poor now."
"You mean to tell me you skivvied?"
Splendor jerked up her chin, breath rushing down her nose.
"Splen ...Come on ... "
Assent wouldn't just nail her coffin closed, plumes of smoke would scorch the sky from the bonfire he'd make of it. If this was Topaz's best, it was appalling.
Sleepwalking, anything, would have been a better excuse. Someone should teach her. They should teach him too. There was nothing wrong with skivvying. How dare he look at her as if it was on a par with making a living by eating dog dirt?
If she didn't speak, she'd have to explain what she was doing in the cupboard with the broomsticks. That might be worse. Let him think she was looking for his room after he'd rejected her, when Gabe had too? She couldn't. What she could do was swallow what boiled back down into her gullet, the breath rushing through her nose.
Three months. There were far more important things. Skivvying was something she needed to put behind her, forget about if she was going to appeal to the upper echelons of English society.
"I ...Well, what Topazina has omitted to tell you is that I tried to improve the cottages and things, of the poor, their humble dwellings. I felt better after it, as did they, that their floors were swept, their shelves dusted."
"The poor have shelves?"
She bit down hard on her lip. "You can think of some reason why they should not? That they should just do without-"
"I think the real poor in this nation would have torn them down and burned them for firewood."
"Oh? And you know about that, do you? The stately hovels you have visited?"
She certainly knew about it. It was precisely the kind of place she and Gabe had sworn off running. Before Stillmore got in the damned way.
"Not exactly."
"You can say that again."
"Splen ... "
If he'd gone to pawn these jewels now, the ones she'd found when the bailiffs burst in, he'd have received full value. Her though?
"There is no need to get quite so upset," Stillmore said. "I was just making an educated guess."
"Well, don't. Unless you can sound something more than ignorant."
"Me?"
"I'm not looking at the grandfather clock, Your Grace."
"Splen ...Will yer just ...Shut it, fer once in yer life."
Topaz was right. She should. Stop letting stupid things pierce her heart. She took a calming breath. Just three months. "Now, if you will excuse me, as you can see some of us do have beds to go to."
"Of course we do," Topaz said. "'ere, do gimme yer arm. That's it. Let's get along here, shall we?" She wrapped her arm around Splendor's waist, hobbled a step.
"Don't you want to continue cleaning my house?"
"Your ... ?" She took care not to spit the word. "Not tonight, Your Grace, unless you hire a team of cleaners to assist me."
"Good. Then perhaps we can all of us get some sleep? Last night was rather tiring."
She was sure it was. He had tried pulling that cart out of the ditch, although she didn't believe for two seconds it was what he had found exhausting.
The second her burgundy bedroom walls shrouded her, she burst out, "Starkadder's chamber pot and tobacco jar, did you just hear him?"
"Jesus, Splen, whot I mostly 'eard was you," Topaz said. "I told yer not that room. What the bleedin' 'ell did yer think yer was doin' openin' that soddin' door fer, fer God's sake?"
"You never told me anything."
"Well, I bleedin' never told yer ter open that cupboard. Ter speak ter bleedin' Kenny like that either."
"Oh, and Kenny never said anything to me. Have you thought about that?"
"Shh!" Topaz pressed her ear and her lace-mittened fingers to the door. "Do yer want 'im ter 'ear yer?"
"Hear me? Well, at least it will be better than insulting me."
"Yer knocked 'is buckets about the landin', do yer bleedin' blame 'im?"
"Me?"
"Shh!"
Topaz pressed her whole body against the door as if she were draining every whisper through it.
"It's all right. I think 'e's gone now."
"Well. Isn't that-"
"Yer can try again."