Page 106 of Immortal Rose

“Were you raised in the Brickbats?” Viola asked, surprised. Of course she’d caught the implication.

Willie and Tommy exchanged an incredibly unsubtle look.

“Yes,” Tommy said carefully. “We lived here for a time.”

The boys had done what he’d asked, so Hugh took pity and rescued them. “The hour’s late, you should make for home.”

“You’ll get no argument from us,” Willie said around a yawn. “Evening to you, Miss Lockwood.”

Viola murmured something to them Hugh didn’t quite catch as he ascended the stairs to the door. He took stock of the boardinghouse’s simple iron lock with growing despair. Judging by its tortured shape, a hammer had been taken to it more than a few times.

His breath caught. For years, this had been her only protection against the city’s festering hell pit.

An embarrassing singe of heat traveled up his neck at the feeling of Viola’s approach. He struggled not to squirm beneath the force of that attention. He felt . . . unknotted by it.

“We’ll have to wake Mrs. Piedmont,” she said. “Try not to look her in the eye if you don’t want your soul turned to a sheet of ice.”

She reached for the door knocker with a deep, steadying breath, but Hugh nudged her out of the way, kneeling. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Ah,” she said, amused. It was at his expense, but it was a relief to hear after the fear he’d felt in her only a few moments before. “I’d forgotten I was accompanied by an accomplished locksmith this evening. Go on then, Mr. Anders.”

He glared at the lock, that feeling of heat intensifying, rising to lick at the tips of his ears. He’d hardly need to do much more than blow on the worthless scrap of metal to get it to spring open. “Might I borrow a hairpin?”

She reached up, and he realized his mistake as tendrils of her outrageous hair spilled out of her mobcap. Her scent—the intoxicating musk of clean skin, soap, rum, and the lingering traces of her posy—invaded his senses.

He reached for the hairpin, barely able to tolerate looking at her any more than he could the sun, but she pulled it back.

“Why were Willie and Tommy out asking about the snatchers?” she asked.

Their wills were too evenly matched to play at this for long. And while he longed to test it, to see who might truly conquer the other, they hadn’t the time for it. He reached for the pin again. She drew it back.

“Why?” Viola asked.

He was desperate to crawl off the steps and roll into the shadows.

“Because I asked them to investigate any rumors of the so-called snatchers,” he managed to get out around a strange knot in his throat, “and intervene if they saw something.”

Her hairpin was slowly, carefully lowered into his palm. Hugh was as aware of her soft gaze as if she had wrapped her arms around his neck. He swore as he dropped the hairpin before he got around to inserting it in the lock.

She was silent long enough for him to regain his composure and defeat the pathetic lock with a few twists. He returned the pin to her for safekeeping, shouldering the door open as quietly as he could.

Her hand closed around his wrist, sending a bolt of pleasure through him. Hugh willed himself to look back slowly. Her lovely face, those warm hazel eyes, considered him.

A swift feeling rose, and he killed it before it could pierce his heart.

“Thank you,” Viola whispered.

“Did you really expect me to do nothing when you spoke of children being kidnapped?” he asked, imbuing the words with stone. He suffered her flinch and the loss of her touch like a man drawn and quartered. By the flash of guilt in her eyes, he realized she had. She truly thought that little of him.

But, really, what reason had he given her to think him better than any of the other “toffs” she derided? A sardonic smile tightened his face as he ushered her into the small vestibule with a mocking sweep of the hands.

What a supreme job he’d done at casting himself as the villain of this story. Exactly to plan. He could congratulate himself on that much, at least.

“If you won’t wait here, at least try not to thunder about,” she whispered. “It’s a fine of six silver pieces for any man caught inside.”

Hugh shut the door gently behind them, drawing the holy wheel on his chest to swear it.

As it turned out, six silver pieces would have been the least of their problems.