Chapter 87

Gabe slammed his fist on the rickety table, the one Splendor had paid Mrs. Hanney three shillings for damage done to last week, when she'd dripped hot candle wax on it.
"No. No. No. The theater? What the hell does that old bastard want to take you there for?"
Splendor snapped her mind back to the present. Obviously she hadn't reached the letter O in her game of The Earl Is she'd been playing in some shape or form since last night, but "old" and "bastard" were answers worth considering when she was in danger of disintegrating. Her, the woman who just needed to see the ten thousand.
"Well, Gabriel, it's unfortunate you feel this way if I'm to stay in the competition. If you don't mind though, I don't have all day."
Not when she couldn't find her gloves, and Topaz sprawled there at the table, the picture of gloom, with her dark hair sitting like a gothic pile on her head, her liquid brown eyes hopelessly smudged as she stared at nothing in particular, a sure sign that she knew exactly where the gloves were.
"Anyway, I'm going because Lady Kertouche benefits the poor." She thrust her hand into the table drawer. "This is our chance to-"
"Your chance, Splen. Ain't that what you mean?"
"Not really."
Last night was a stupid dream. If only she hadn't drifted home on a cloud, and that cloud was the memory of the dance. Every step, every beat, every movement that brought Stillmore closer still, till their lips almost touched. But they hadn't. God Almighty. Why would they? She was Gabe's. And Stillmore? Apart from being a foul tempered bully, he loved that vile Babs creature. At least he wanted to make her jealous. It was much the same thing. It was just vexing when she'd so much on her mind to be, in any way, drawn into that world. Him. That woman. The ball. Herself dressed up in clothes she couldn't very well wear otherwise, dancing with a man she'd somehow felt drawn to. A man she didn't even like who she'd stupidly found herself looking at with different eyes.
"Oh, don't be so silly." She snapped her fan onto her wrist, the new one that had somehow added itself to her account. "Our chance to have Lady Kertouche's patronage is what I mean. Think what she can do for us. All she can do for us."
"And what's that exactly? Christ-"
"-will thank her," she interrupted. "Christ may even thank me when she hands out bowls in our soup kitchen. Yes. That will be reward enough for all of this, for tiresome afternoons, at tiresome theaters, with tiresome men, after tiresome women have taken tiresome gloves ... Thank you."
Damn the earl. Damn Gabe. And damn Topaz. She couldn't keep her hands off anything. Gloves, watches, tablespoons. It was another worry when Splendor had taken down these reward notices of her so close to home, but Topaz couldn't walk, so she wasn't likely to be spotted, and she'd kept away from Mrs. Hanney's sharp eyes.
Smothering her fury, Splendor bent down and snatched up a glove. The other lay just under the table. She dropped onto her hands and knees. "Of course I don't expect you to think so, Gabriel."
Last night a glittering ball. This morning dusty, bare boards. Her life. Not glittering parties where she'd stupidly offered to help make that Langley woman jealous, for reasons she couldn't fully fathom. The move had been mildly entertaining at the time, seeing him squirm, paying him back for blackmailing her, for the petty jealousy he roused in her, showing herself she could manage the fact the situation was a double-edged sword, especially when he surprised her about Phoebe, moves that had led to this.
It would be nice to think that when she came out with a few swear words in the middle of the performance he'd never ask her anywhere again. That was giving herself leeway she didn't exactly have. The ten thousand pounds was what mattered here. The patronage was just something she was using to deflect Gabe, as unlikely as her prising up one of these floorboards to find a pot of gold.
"Too right, I don't," Gabe growled. "What I thought was that we was maybe gettin' married."
Her shoulders sagged. "Well, we are maybe getting married. Yes. Nothing's changed."
Last night she'd come home-Stillmore had insisted on bringing her-and she'd looked in the mirror. It wasn't her eyes she saw, warm and almost too bright, which was why she was so glad to say good-bye to them this morning when he started his nonsense. A sharp reminder how that wasn't her world, although the theater ... the theater would be nice. Papa had always said the London theater was the place to be, even in the depths of winter. A glowing palace to the most casual visitor's soul. It would be nice to be part of that. Have this final afternoon before she signed up for a life of soup kitchens and ain'ts and this level of complaints. Well, wouldn't it?
"Then, let's do it, I say. Let's do it now, Splen. Let's get married."
"Married?"
Her head struck the underside of the table so hard her nose also walloped the floor.
"Well, we are betrothed, ain't we? I mean, there ain't no big deal about it." Gabe continued. "We've been that way for a while now. Last year or so anyway. There ain't no need to act all surprised. What do you say?"
She picked her face off the boards. "Pass me the duster there."
Well really. Married? My God. With all that dust here needing to be wiped?
"It's what I just said, ain't it? Ain't you evenlistening?"
She was. And it was to one thing. The fact he said ain't. "T-to what, Gabriel?"
"Splen, I ain't exactly got time for this nonsense."
Gabe often said the word ain't. It had never bothered her quite so much before.But then she hadn't just hit her head, she'd hit it so she was seeing stars and all he could do was talk. How like a man that was. Today of all days too.Was that because he just wanted to stop her going to the theatre? If he was serious she'd be leaping at the chance.
"I hope you don't think I do. I have to get to the theater for two."
She staggered to her feet, brushed the dust from her gown. "I-I mean we've discussed it that's true, but you've never actually asked me before. Offered to set a date that is."
"Well." His eyes glinted as he gazed into hers. His fingers traced cobwebbed patterns on her cheek. "I'm doing it now. I want us to do this now. Right this minute. You and me, girl. Like we promised all them years ago when we first met and you was so lonely and I was your only friend. What do you say?"
"Can we please discuss this later? I'm going to be late."
My God, that was not what she meant to say.But how could he be so tiresome as to think she could discuss it now? Something this important, something that meant the rest of her life in all probability? And it wasn't just that. If it was just that, of course she would say yes.Wouldn't she? Had the universe really moved so far from where she stood? Or was she just so harried by all of this, she'd knocked herself from her own orbit? Being Gabe's wife was what she'd always dreamed of all these years in Lanthorne Street. A dream that took her far beyond this dismal room and that competition.
"Gabriel, y-you know why I have to do this. Besides, I'm hardly going to run off with the earl. It's the theater, for heaven's sake. As for Lady Kertouche, think of all she could do for us. You, me, Topaz. Think of the people we can save from having lives like we've had."
It was true. People always thought Sapphire was the most beautiful of Starkadder's girls because she was the most enigmatic. They had never truly looked at Topaz. Even sitting there at Mrs. Hanney's perilously rickety table, petticoats and drawers drying over her head, even ravaged by illness, she was like a painting by one of the greats, her ethereal skin, her eyes like dark moons walking a dying world, her hair a washed-out tangle on her black-clad shoulders. Topaz should never have been forced into Starkadder's thieving dens. And she wasn't the only one to be forced into that, or something similar.
The streets were full of women, of men, of children, like Topaz. And if she stepped away now and married Gabe in what she stood up in, one day she would regret it. One day she might also walk these streets. Gabe was being stupid.
She must win the competition first. Put herself second.
Besides, there was the pressing matter of Madame Renare's dress making bill.
Prison walls were a lingering shadow, weren't they? Imagine beginning her married life with the bailiffs at the door.
She couldn't imagine it or do it. She must wait.
"Splen ..."
"No. Gabriel, right now I don't have time for this. I really must go. We will talk of it later, when I come back and I have dusted the floor.I swear it. After all, whatever you say, we can't just do it now, unless we run off to Greta Green. And that's a terrible waste of money. Now, please I have to go."