“You need me . . . to . . . ?” she prodded.
He dropped his gaze.
“I need you to be my hands.” There he said it. Did she expect more? Was she disappointed?
He heard her shift back into the chair and sigh, their earlier connection broken. An overwhelming sense of loss rushed into the void, drowning him in a sea of loneliness.
“Pickering probably believes I’ve poisoned you anew,” she said with a humorless laugh. “I’ll send him up. The morning is upon us. I suppose it’s too late to pay a call to Lord Pembroke’s now. We’ll talk more when you’ve had a chance to freshen up.” She stood and headed toward the stairs.
Locke visually followed her departure. In one desperate attempt to make her understand, he whispered after her. “With and without the moon, Sinda, I still need you.”
She hesitated, then continued to the door.
Thirteen
LUSINDA WENT DOWNSTAIRS, HER MIND IN A BIT of a fog. How could anyone have survived that ordeal and escape without scars? The stripes on his back provided the final key to the mystery of his extraordinary past. Yet her admiration for his ability to survive was tempered by her shame that she had unintentionally caused him to relive the horror.
The moment she entered the parlor, Pickering sprang to his feet and headed for the stairs, lowering his head as he passed her. Aunt Eugenia poured tea into a cup and offered it to Lusinda.
“You look a bit dazed, dear. Is everything all right?”
“I . . . I think so,” she replied. “I . . . so much has happened . . . I’m not sure.”
Aunt Eugenia looked at her quizzically. “If you don’t mind my saying, dear, part of the problem is that you’re not dressed properly for thinking. That morning dress gives no protection for your heart.”
Lusinda looked down her front. While it was true she wasn’t wearing a corset, all the essentials were covered.
“Let’s get you dressed properly. Once Mr. Locke is on his way we’ll talk and sort things out,” Aunt Eugenia pronounced.
She was too tired to resist her aunt’s gentle bullying. So, while Pickering assisted Locke in Lusinda’s bedroom, Eugenia helped Lusinda prepare for the day in another room. Although she had never given it consideration before, once properly outfitted in a strong foundation, she did feel a bit more in control of her thoughts. Eugenia brushed Lusinda’s hair and fashioned it into a stylish coif.
“That’s better,” Eugenia said, stepping back to view her handiwork. “Now let’s send the men back to their establishments. ”
“You realize I’m responsible for his collapse last night,” Lusinda said. Even though Locke had reiterated that he needed nothing more from her than her hands, something about sending him away tugged at her heart. “I took him out to the lunarium and it triggered memories from his past.” Her aunt had seen the scars. Lusinda saw no reason to go into further detail.
“Hmm . . . the man came here last night on his own volition, ” she said.
“Yes, but he believed I was going to assist him in cracking a safe.”
“Were you?” her aunt asked.
“After Ramsden had made the comment about the Nevidimi, I thought it wasn’t wise.” Why was she asking this? Her aunt had advised her not to leave as well.
“Was it wise?”
“Locke can’t do it on his own. He needs me,” Lusinda said.
“Does he need you enough to justify risking capture? It’s not a full moon, Lusinda. He would have exposed you to unnecessary dangers.”
They heard the sound of the men walking down the stairs. Then the front door opened and closed. Eugenia and Lusinda exchanged a glance and then followed after them. Their discussion was not yet finished, but neither wanted to leave the men unattended.
The moment Lusinda entered the parlor, Locke turned and her breath caught in her throat. She noted a vulnerability about him that she’d not seen before. “Pickering will take a hansom back. That way you and I can talk in the carriage.” He held out a hand. “Are you ready?”
She shook her head. “I’m not returning with you.”
“Then I shall be back tonight to gather you for the mission we failed to execute last night.”
She started to protest, but he held his hand up.
“Your lunar dial shows that tonight is a new moon. There’s no possibility that you’ll be mistaken for anything other than what you are.”
His indifference stuck in her throat. She forced her words around it. “And what is that precisely?”
His brow quirked, and he stepped near. “A very good thief, for one.” He reached for her hands, then kissed them. “And the woman who holds my life in her hands, for the other.”
He held her hands and her gaze for a moment or two longer. His eyes implored her in a way that his words could not. He squeezed her hands lightly. “I’ll be back.”
He tipped his hat to her aunt and let himself out the front door.
Aunt Eugenia turned back to her. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. And being properly dressed didn’t help at all.
TWO HOURS LATER, HER AUNT FOUND HER BENEATH A parasol in the lunarium. “Have you come to a decision?”
Lusinda squinted up at her. “If Locke were to stop his financial support, would we be able to get by?”
She shrugged and sat on one of the benches. “We did so before. Portia would not be happy that we’d have to cancel the order we placed for a new wardrobe. I’d have to let the housekeeper go. But we could manage.” She glanced over at Lusinda. “However, I don’t think he’d let you go that easily.”
“I don’t know why not. He said he needs me for my hands.” Lusinda glanced at her aunt. “He needs someone to break into safes. I would think there are many common thieves who would do it for the money. He could find someone else.”
“You are hardly a common thief. I don’t think he wants someone else.”
“He won’t marry me,” she said, dejected. “He said if he did that he would have to take me far away just to protect me.”
“And you wish to go far away just to avoid him.” Eugenia smiled. “It seems to me you two have many things in common.”
“He doesn’t love me. What happened before was an unfortunate accident.”
“Perhaps it was . . . or perhaps it wasn’t,” her aunt said. “Do you love him, Lusinda?”
“He’s unlike any other man I have ever met. He talks to me even if he can’t see me, and he has this uncanny ability to find me even when I’m in phase.”
“I’ve seen your face when he walks in the room, and I’ve seen the way he watches you.” She pulled a box from within the folds of her skirt. “I’ve brought you something.”
“What is this?” Lusinda opened the box and withdrew a small jar.
“It’s a salve that may help with the scars on his back.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“He’ll have difficulty applying it himself.”
Lusinda glanced up at her aunt’s allegations. To apply the salve, she’d need to view Locke’s naked back once again. Was she suggesting she return to Locke’s household in the most intimate sense?
Aunt Eugenia settled onto the bench by Lusinda’s side and patted her hand. “I can’t say that I approve of what happened in that carriage, but we can’t undo what has been done. I know that most in society would not approve of your unique arrangement with Locke, but your special abilities require that you must sometimes bend society’s rules.”
Lusinda was about to protest, but Eugenia stilled her with a sad expression. “You two share something innate that most normal people rarely find, and with Nevidimi, well, such relationships are rarer still. Your mother and father, they were such a couple. I think she died rather than face the world as Nevidimi without your father.”
Lusinda had been Portia’s age when her father was shot in a hunting accident. Afterward it had seemed that her mother’s vitality slipped away with each phasing until Rhea’s birth. Her aunt had said she just didn’t have the will to fight. “I remember thinking then that I never wanted to need one person so much that it would make me not want to go on,” Lusinda said.
“Loneliness can have the same effect.”
Lusinda quickly glanced at her aunt, wondering if she were speaking of herself. She hadn’t thought the older woman had regrets about forgoing marriage, until just now.
Her aunt patted her hand. “Your parents would have wished you to know the same happiness they had shared in their lifetime.” She stood to leave. “If you love this man, then you must help him understand what he truly needs.”
“But what is that?” Lusinda asked. “What does he truly need?”
“He needs you, my dear. Not just your hands. He needs your heart and your promise of a future. He needs you, and I’m afraid,” she sighed, “you need him as well.”
“But what about the risk?” Lusinda said, feeling more exposed now than when she came out of phase in the carriage. “You said it was too risky to be seen in the moonlight again.”
“Help him, Lusinda. That’s all you can do.”
THAT NIGHT, LUSINDA WAS READY. SHE TRIED ON THE boy’s trousers that Locke had left behind. They felt a little awkward, more restrictive than pantalets, but less clumsy than a swinging skirt. She wore them under a skirt so they could remain hidden until needed. Following Locke’s example from the previous evening, she wore a mourning bodice and gloves. In the past, she wore a widow’s veil so as to look as though she had a face. Tonight, she pinned one over her face to hide it. When Locke’s carriage pulled to the front of the house, she carried a hat box down to the street to meet it. The door opened and Locke’s arm, draped in black, extended to help her inside.
“I was afraid that I’d have to climb to your room once again,” he said once she was safe inside. She saw his relieved smile, and knew instantly she had made the right decision.
She lifted the veil away from her face. “Did you bring the tools?”
He kicked a bag on the floor by his feet. It clinked. He, in turn, pointed to the hat box. “Are you planning on being a fashionable burglar?”
“That isn’t for the mission,” she said, knowing that her reply didn’t satisfy his curiosity. Instead, she began to remove her skirt and the box was quickly forgotten.
“I haven’t cracked a safe for a couple of days. I wish I had a few days more to practice.”
“You would have been able to practice had you come home with me this afternoon.” She heard the hurt of rejection in his voice.
“I couldn’t just then. But I may be able tonight,” she said. She hadn’t committed to the idea completely, but she was prepared to return with him nonetheless.
“You may?”
She nodded, though with the dark of the carriage and her black garb she wasn’t sure he could see.
He leaned forward and kissed her unerringly on the lips. She supposed that settled the issue of what he could see. He kissed her once quickly, then within the space of a breath, returned for a much deeper kiss. Within minutes he had traded his seat across from her to the one next to her. If the carriage hadn’t stopped, she was quite sure she would have once again found herself straddling his hips. The thought was not without merit. He had mentioned that the next time would be pleasurable.
“Must we attempt Pembroke’s safe tonight?” she asked, hoping for a reprieve. She really would feel more confident if she could practice a bit more.
“Yes,” Locke replied. “But we’ll do it quickly. After all, we’ve both been here before.”
They walked a short distance from where the carriage waited. A few windows emitted the soft glow of a gas lamp. A hansom cab waited nearby. Someone was there.
“I’ll go around to the back to check that the study is empty. You wait behind those bushes,” Locke whispered. “Careful.” He gestured toward the hansom driver slumped in the high seat, most likely asleep. Lusinda was happy to comply. Never having broken into a stranger’s house while visible, she felt particularly vulnerable tonight.
Locke hadn’t been gone but a few moments when the front door began to open. Lusinda quickly ducked low behind the bushes so as to remain hidden from the men whose voices could be heard as the door swung wide.
“It certainly is black tonight. No moon. Warm but black as hell.”
“There’s no Nevidimi out tonight, of that we can be certain. ”
She recognized that voice. It was the same as she’d heard at the Farthingtons’ and the same as she had heard . . . at her house. Ramsden! Yes. It had to be.
“Nevidimi. What the hell is that?”
“I’ll explain at the ambassador’s ball,” Ramsden said. “You’d swear I was deep in my cups if I were to tell you tonight. ”
The first man laughed. “Marcus, if you were deep in your cups, I wouldn’t entrust you to deliver that envelope to the ambassador. Be sure you place it directly in his hands. We’ve waited too long to let that list of agents slip through our fingers now.”
“Have you looked at it?” Ramsden asked, a bit sheepishly.
Lusinda prayed that Pembroke would answer. If he merely nodded or shook his head she wouldn’t be able to see. Locke’s life might depend on the answer.
“It’s a sealed envelope, Marcus. Make sure it stays that way until it reaches its final destination.”
Lusinda allowed herself the slow exhale of the breath she was holding. Although tempted to move closer to hear over the snap of reins and the rhythmic click of hooves from the awakening hansom, she crouched lower so as not be discovered.
“What happened to Locke?” Pembroke asked. “The cards ran a bit cold tonight. I would have enjoyed his commentary, if not the competition.”
“I’m afraid our dear Locke has lost himself in pursuits of an amorous nature, but I’ll let him know that he, or at least his money, was missed.”
“Locke? Amorous? The man only leaves his study to venture to the club for cards. A woman would have to break into his house to make his acquaintance.”
Both men laughed. “Be that as it may, I believe him to be quite infatuated, though little good it will do,” Ramsden continued. “He probably believes he can calculate his way under her skirts with his books and maps. I expect the pretty miss will run from his presence in screaming boredom before long.”