“I saw you coming across the park. The table in the kitchen’s all set,” Charlie said with a smile at the thief.
Gryf and Huff led the way into the house as if they were a pack of dogs rather than just two, swirling their people into the room. The kitchen was my favorite room in our house – in any house, really, unless there was a library, and then it was a tie. Our libraries were a work in progress, which meant we’d only been able to fill the shelves of one room, and the shelves I’d had built in the gaming room were only half-full. I’d tried to turn the ballroom into the library, but Charlie wisely pointed out it would be too expensive to heat in the winter. The formal dining room was next on the list. We only used it on the rare occasions when Valerie visited us. Valerie had died in the late sixteenth century and left us the house. She could also travel through time, though she only used it to visit us on special occasions, so as not to impose herself on her son-in-law, I supposed.
I grinned to myself as I imagined trying to explain that circumstance to the average Victorian without causing cranial detonation.
Charlie directed the girl to a seat next to her place at the big kitchen table. I washed my hands at the kitchen sink, dried them on the dogs’ heads just because there’s such a thing as too clean, then carried the heavy pot of soup off the stove. Charlie put a trivet on the table and laid a fresh loaf of crusty French bread onto a board. She handed me the bread knife while she got a pot of newly-churned butter. “Don’t crush the bread when you slice it – it’s hot,” she warned me.
The girl stared, her big eyes practically bugging out of her elfin face at our movements around the kitchen.
“Ye’re sittin’ ‘ere?” She finally asked, clearly dumbfounded. “Are ye the servants then?”
Charlie chuckled quietly. “It’s our house, and we sit where we like. You’re welcome to go sit in the formal dining room if you’d prefer, but you’d better take a candelabra if you do. The shadows in there move in the most awful ways when one is alone.”
I sat at my place across from them as Charlie ladled soup into all of our bowls, and I tried very hard not to massacre the bread.
I obviously failed, because the girl rolled her eyes and took the knife from me in a way that shouted that she thought I was an idiot. She then flipped the bread over and proceeded to cut delicately through the hot crust as though it were butter. Charlie smirked at me and then placed the girl’s soup in front of her. “You’re hired.” The thief almost cut her own finger when her head jerked up to see Charlie smiling at her. “If you want a job, you’re hired,” my wife repeated.
“To cut bread, ma’am?” For the first time in my short acquaintance with her, the girl sounded her age, which was ten if it was a day.
“First, I’m too young to be ma’am. Second, yes, I’d like you to cut whatever bread I make until your skill shames my husband into doing it properly. But if you’re willing, I’d like to hire you for other things too. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, is as strong as an ox, but she’s neither quick nor agile, and if I send her on an errand, I don’t see her for hours. I’m sure Ringo could use your help as well, cataloguing books in the libraries and keeping the various folders in his study from becoming a flesh-eating monster we one day find him buried beneath.”
“I don’t read, ma’am.”
Charlie shrugged. “Neither did I. Ringo taught me.”
I’d been quietly dipping bread into the soup and eating with my hands while I watched the thief absorb the words Charlie had spoken.
“What’s your name?” I finally asked.
The wonder that had been growing in her eyes was instantly replaced by wariness. I held my hand across the table to her and she flinched back. “Mine’s Ringo Devereux, and this is Charlie, my wife.”
Her tiny hand hesitated a long moment as she stared at mine. I guessed she was looking at the many scars and tiny cuts a person gets when they spend their childhood climbing buildings to break into upper story windows. Finally, she took my proffered hand and shook it. “I’m called Jess.”
“Jess,” my wife said, putting her own hand out to shake. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Charlie and I returned our attention to our soup for a few bites to give Jess the next move if she wanted it. It seemed she did.
“Ye’re both from the street, but ye don’t talk like it.”
That was interesting. I swallowed the bit of bread I’d been chewing and met Jess’s gaze. There was appreciation there rather than suspicion.
“Why do you think we’re from the street?” A successful pickpocket had to develop great observational skills in order to eat and stay free. I was intrigued to see whether this one had them.
Jess seemed to know I was testing her because she looked straight into my eyes as she answered. “Yer ‘ands, first of all. To get that many scars and not be thick, beefy sausages, ye’re not a laborer – not that ye ‘ave the size for it, for all ye ‘ave the bellow of one. And ye’re too fast to ‘ave learned to run at school. Ye learned it on the street, same as me. Also, I ‘eard a bit of Whitechapel in yer words when ye tried to threaten me. Nice bit o’ fluff that one. Most wouldn’t fancy meetin’ that voice in a dark alley, would they?”
Charlie smirked. She’d laughed earlier when I had told her about using the menace, which is what she called my toughest tone of voice, on Jess outside the Langham.
“Also, ye’re right uncomfortable in the fancy togs. Ye weren’t born to ‘em.”
My wife’s smirk became a giggle, and I couldn’t help the answering smile when I looked at her. We had known each other for months before I’d ever heard her laugh, and each giggle or chuckle was still more precious to me than all the coins in the world.
I returned my gaze to Jess. “What about Charlie? Why do you think she’s from the street?”
Jess shrugged and looked at her soup. “Who else would ‘ave ye?”
Charlie’s burst of laughter was crystalline, and I breathed it in. Jess looked shyly at my wife, and I could tell the sound of her laugh affected the girl as well.
“So, will you take the job, Jess?” Charlie asked her.
The girl stood suddenly. “I’d best get goin’ before my bed’s gone.”
“At St. Marylebone’s?” I asked.
Jess glared at me. “Did ye ‘ave me followed then?”
I shrugged and made my tone casual. This one was like a stray cat who’d been kicked one too many times. “You’re too clean under all that dirt to be a proper street rat. Your clothes have been washed, and you get one meal a day, but not two. You’re not covered in rat bites, so you don’t sleep under bridges, nor do you scratch, so you’ve been deloused. You knew where to find me, which means you’d followed me from here, and the edges of Regent’s Park are not obvious buzzer hunting grounds, so that tells me you came for the scenery and then found an easy mark.”
I scoffed at myself and looked at Charlie. “I need to make myself a canvas or leather backpack – something that won’t look too out of place. A satchel strap is too easy to cut, and arms full of books just invite thieves.” I kept my tone conversational on purpose. The books were gone, even as the girl who likely stole them stood at our table, watching us warily.
Charlie looked up at her, an equally casual expression on her face. She knew how not to spook a child with accusations when kindness might be more effective. “We can find a bed for you here if you like.”
The girl shook her head quickly. “I share my bed. If I’m not back to lay my ‘ead on the pillow, someone’ll take what’s mine.” She grabbed what was left of her piece of bread and then dipped her head. “Thank ye for the supper.”
She strode to the door and slipped out before the dogs could even get up to escort her. Gryf did manage to raise his head to watch her go, but Huff was out cold at my feet.
Charlie and I watched the closed door for a long moment, perhaps hoping it would be opened by a girl with second thoughts, or perhaps merely remembering a time when we had been that young, that frightened, and that lonely. My wife reached for my hand and squeezed it gently.
“She’ll be back,” we said at the same time.