The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance (8 page)

As she locked the door on the way out, Frannie couldn’t help seeing the world in a new light. Just as the new window changed her room completely, so did the lens of a new dress and a sturdy arm under her glove change her outlook on the only city she’d ever known. The beggars, the buskers, the Coppers on their frothing bludmares, the wrappy sellers with their steaming carts. There was a certain picturesque beauty there. Usually, she hurried from place to place, trying to avoid anyone’s notice. Even before Charles, she hadn’t been a showy thing, which was maybe why she had been so bewitched by his exotic, debonair ways. For a brief period of time, he had shown her the world. And then he’d torn it all down.

“So what are we seeing?” Thom asked, grinning down at her.

“My mother always told me that the fun part of shows was seeing people and being seen.”

She felt his laugh through his arm, a warm rumble in his chest. “It’s that bad, is it?”

Frannie sighed. “It’s my lodger. The fellow in the frilly shirt.”

“He’s a clown, is he?”

They hit High Street, which was filled with bodies and conveyances, all fighting toward a tall building dramatically lit by gaslights. The marquee shone like the sun in the darkness, the calligraphed words still wet from the artist’s foot-wide brush:

TONIGHT ONLY! MAESTRO CASPER STERLING

And underneath, in much smaller letters:

Vs. Edwin Kind, a Duel by Piano.

A paper drawing of Casper rippled lightly in the wind, the cocky grin and dimples ten times larger than life.

“He’s apparently rather famous,” Frannie said weakly.

Thom made a noise deep in his throat. “I never trust a man in a frilly shirt” was all he said.

10

The plush velvet was almost too soft, the lights far too warm—at least, until they dimmed. The box went dark until Frannie could see nothing but the stage just below, almost close enough for her to jump down. Or to take a rose, had the star musician attempted to hand her one of the many thrown by the adoring crowd. She shuddered at the thought and hoped Casper was self-involved enough never to consider it.

He had promised her the best seat in the house, and now that she was there, she would have preferred to be anywhere else, even down below in the pit, where whores and chimney sweeps shouldered one another cheerfully, with toothless smiles and spoiled cabbages in hand.

Thom shifted beside her as if he, too, couldn’t get comfortable in the squishy seats. Whenever she looked at him nervously, he smiled in reassurance, but it was clear that they didn’t belong there, in the posh box made for men like the Magistrate or maybe like the queenly dame in the hoop skirts directly opposite them, who couldn’t put down her opera glasses or make her mouth turn up at the corners. Still, Frannie was all too aware of the kilt-clad knee mere inches away from hers and the broad hand on the armrest, fidgeting in a new kidskin glove.

After a few moments of near darkness, Frannie’s lodger appeared in a spotlight, standing tall before the newfangled sort of harpsichord she’d heard of but never seen in person. A piano, they called it, and a very grand one indeed, all shiny black and dramatically curved. Clad in a royal-blue coat spangled with gold stars, Casper bowed, and the crowd went mad. Looking down, Frannie saw women of all castes fanning themselves and reaching for him. But Casper looked up at her, just her, and winked. She understood the words he mouthed at her, even if she couldn’t hear them over the screams.

“I told you so.”

His spotlight winked out suddenly, bathing the room in darkness pierced only by the most expensive sort of opera glasses. The screeching stopped, replaced by whispers and one long, slow hiss like an uneasy snake. The spotlight lit the other side of the stage, falling on an identical piano and a man who seemed a joke in comparison with Casper. Where Casper was tall, broad-shouldered, gorgeous, and perfectly put together, this fellow was short, spindly, and ungainly, despite his fine gold-trimmed suit. His attempted smile seemed a crooked sneer. The crowd booed, and a single cabbage exploded against the second piano, a bit of filth splattering the man’s mauve coat before the light winked out again.

Beside her, Thom tensed and sighed the long, slow sigh of a man attempting patience where none was deserved. She shouldn’t have brought him. And yet to be alone in this darkness, surrounded by strangers and velvet and gold—she couldn’t have borne it alone. Before she could reach over to touch his hand and make a small apology in the private sphere of the shadowed box, Casper’s spotlight flared into life again, casting him and his piano in a fierce light. He sat on the stool like a god, his long fingers bare and poised over the stark keyboard, and she realized she was holding her breath right along with the rest of the crowd, with the rabble and dukes and Coppers alike, waiting to be transported.

When he finally touched the keys after that masterful pause, the room filled with the perfect note, drawn out and commanding the very air. The song began, slow but rich and strong and saturated with purpose. It was several moments before Frannie remembered to breathe. She soon forgot again, hearing the miracle of his music. No wonder they called him Maestro.

The song he played was familiar yet utterly transfigured. Casper hunched over the keys, his every muscle tense, a look of profound joy on his face as his fingers coaxed magic from the piano almost too fast for Frannie’s eyes to follow. Although it began simply, the song grew more and more complex as Casper built upon the melody, adding trills and crashes as the tempo sped up. Frannie found herself on the edge of her seat, her teeth set firmly in the cloth of her glove as if awaiting some transformative moment that never came. When the song finally hit its crescendo, she wiped tears from the corners of her eyes and felt pleased that she hadn’t worn paint. Beside her, Thom sighed and settled back.

“Bugger, he’s good.”

She chuckled. “Bugger, indeed.”

After a studied pause, Casper rose and bowed to the audience, his hair flipping forward. The response was thunderous, loving, frenetic to the point of madness. As the brightly dressed bodies in the pit below surged toward the stage, the women struggling to clamber onto the boards in their long skirts, Frannie glanced around the theater, relieved to see no one who reminded her of Charles, much less the wastrel himself. She was startled when the lights went out, until she remembered that Casper wasn’t the only player.

When the spotlight went up again, the man hunched over the other piano stared out at the audience with narrow, haughty eyes. His fingers hovered over the keys, not with Casper’s teasing showmanship but with an expectant, measuring glare, as if he found the audience wanting and wished to punish them. He played the same song Casper had, beginning with the basic tune and adding his own frills. And although even Frannie’s amateur ears could tell it was technically quite good, there was something lacking. Spirit, fire, passion, joy. The man played as if he was angry at the piano and wished to strike it, again and again.

A low hum began in the pit as the crowd whispered and shook their heads. The pianist played faster, his top hat falling off as he lurched over the keys and his mauve coat flashing in the light. He was balding, and the top of his head was pink and moist with sweat. The man had barely missed being smacked in the face by the first moldy tomato when a melody sprang up in the darkness on the other half of the stage. It wasn’t the same song, but it somehow struck the perfect counterpoint.

The pianist played harder, angrily, cocking his head toward Casper’s piano. As the music from the shadows grew louder and more insistent, the crowd in the pit whispered and chuckled the way Frannie’s birds did when she brought out a bit of fruit and began to hand it around. As if they had a taste of something good and wanted more.

“It is my turn, sir!” the man shouted over his shoulder at the darkness hiding Casper’s piano.

“Is it? I thought this was a duel.”

The spotlight burst onto Casper, who had removed his jacket. The intimacy of his open shirt made it seem as if he were all alone in the world instead of displayed onstage before thousands of London’s richest and poorest spectators. The grin on his face told Frannie that he enjoyed enraging the other musician as much as he enjoyed playing.

With a growl of frustration, the pianist in the mauve jacket abruptly changed the song to something Frannie had never heard before. Casper’s fingers froze above the keyboard, his head cocked and his eyes turned skyward as if seeking answers there.

“Is that new?” Casper called.

“Just wrote it.”

“I bet I can guess how it ends.”

With a fierce laugh, Casper began playing the exact notes as the other pianist but, somehow, better. They played the song in near-perfect accordance, except that every now and then, Casper struck a chord or added a trill that improved the song markedly. The man in the mauve coat played faster, and even Frannie could tell when he hit the wrong key.

“You’ve been in my rooms, Sterling. You’ve tossed my drawers, damn you!”

“From what I hear, no one’s been in your drawers, Edwin.”

The pit roared and began to chant, “Maestro! Maestro! Maestro!”

The man in the mauve coat faltered again, and Frannie sat forward in her seat. After the next wrong note, he stood so violently that his bench fell over backward. Slamming his fist down on the keys, the man spun and stepped to the edge of his spotlight, halting just before the dark swatch of stage separating his piano and the one that Casper still played, finishing the song with a masterly flourish.

Casper stood, smirking and tall, not even out of breath. They faced each other, a strip of darkness between them. The crowd’s chant grew as they surged forward, arms grasping for Casper.

“Maestro! Maestro! Maestro!”

Casper turned to the crowd and put one finger to his lips. The pit quieted to an unruly whisper. Frannie leaned forward in her seat, fascinated by the animal energy in the air.

The man’s voice rang out in the silence, his frustration and fury echoing off the boxes. “You promised me a fair trial, Sterling.”

“I promised you a duel.”

“Stealing my compositions is low, even for you!”

“I’ve stolen nothing, Edwin.”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “You tell ’im, Maestro!” and an egg exploded against the mauve jacket and slid down the man’s breeches to land on his buckled shoe.

Shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of a fly, the man crossed the darkness and stood, bare inches away from Casper, who, to his credit, didn’t flinch.

“Where’d you learn that song, then? No one’s ever heard it. It’s locked up in my home. Where’d you learn it, you lying chit?”

Casper cocked his head, giving the crowd a wink and a flash of dimples. “I heard it in a dream.”

The pit erupted in laughter and cheers, and Casper bowed, first to the crowd and then, with a saucy flourish, to the man in the mauve jacket.

“Maestro! Maestro! Maestro!”

It was a mercy when the smaller man finally stalked offstage, a hail of eggs in his wake.

“Would you like to hear more?” Casper called, one hand cupped to his ear, and the crowd’s answering “Hurrah!” made him throw back his head and laugh.

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Thom grumbled, shifting in his seat as if his kilt itched him horribly.

Casper sat down at his bench, turning back the cuffs on his shirt. The spotlight on the other piano winked out, leaving only the Maestro and his instrument and a dazzling smile. He cracked his fingers one by one and began to play a song that made Frannie’s heart thunder against her corset. It wasn’t fair, that one man should be so beautiful and charming and have such otherworldly skill. For just a moment, she longed to discover if he could master a woman’s body as perfectly as he played.

“Just let’s hear the end of this song,” Frannie murmured, her hand moving to cover Thom’s as her betraying eyes stubbornly clung to Casper.

“If we—”

Thom stopped in mid-sentence, and Frannie tried to turn to him and discover what was wrong. But she couldn’t move. The fashionably poofed sleeve of her jacket was pinned to her seat by an arrow. She was slightly confused and just stared at it for a moment before Thom shoved her to the ground with an angry rip of indigo taffeta. He landed on top of her, breathing hard as her heart leaped into her throat and her fingers and toes went numb in fear. Casper’s song played on, not slipping a single note, as Frannie put one glove to the bare shoulder exposed by the arrow’s tear.

11

“Are ye hurt, lass?” It came as a whisper.

“You . . . you say that a lot.”

“Are you?” More forcefully this time.

“Only by your weight, I think. Was that . . . ?”

“Aye, a bolt from a small crossbow. It didn’t catch your skin?”

She shook her head, or tried to. Her hat and tight jacket made it difficult, sprawled under Thom as she was.

“Only my jacket.”

“Thank the gods.”

They lay there for a moment, long enough for her to notice the rise and fall of his chest and the woodsy scent that rose from his skin, reminding her a little of the heady, smoky Scotch that Bertram had sometimes stolen from their father’s liquor cabinet. She’d poured it all down the loo, after their parents’ funeral, just to be sure her brother’s recklessness didn’t get out of hand. Frannie didn’t hear any more arrows, but then again, she hadn’t heard the first one, thanks to Casper’s playing and the shouts of the rabble.

“Is it safe?”

“I don’t know anymore, lass. You’re having a run of awfully bad luck. And you’re shivering like a wee pup in the night. Scared a bit?”

“A bit.”

“Can ye wait here, on the floor, while I fetch the Coppers?”

Frannie gasped. “No Coppers.”

He let out a contemplative breath, going still. “Escape it is, then.”

Casper’s song ended with a crescendo, and the lights went up, nearly blinding Frannie. The crowd went mad with shouting and stamping and clapping and whistling. Thom gently climbed off of her, leaving her exposed and cold with dread.

“Come, lass. We need the cover of the crowd.” He began to crawl toward the back of the box on his elbows and knees, and Frannie rolled over to follow, her long skirts twisting and catching beneath her knees. Thom met her in the shadows behind the rows of seats and helped drag her farther back before reaching up with a small knife to slice the cord holding the privacy curtain. Once it fell, he stood to help her up in the complete darkness behind the fall of burgundy velvet.

Her knees wobbled, but he steadied her, one hand on each arm. The knife had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and she realized that she knew very little about Thom, outside of his altruistic profession and his kindness. She took deep breaths, trying to force herself into calm or at least sharpen her senses.

“The pet shop’s made of stone, aye?”

It caught her by surprise, and she had to think for a moment. “On the outside, yes. There’s wood on the inside in places.”

“Then it’s safer than the fire station. Can ye walk, or must I carry you?”

“I’ll let you know.”

He stifled a chuckle and took her hand.

Thom opened the door just a crack, and the sound of voices and the smell of overly warm bodies assailed them. Cold dread sneaked down Frannie’s neck, and she held back from the bright light beyond the door. The person with the crossbow could be out there. Thom tugged her hand, but she didn’t move.

“Don’t worry, lass. I’ve got you.”

He took off his jacket and slung it over the ripped shoulder of her dress. Much to her surprise, he reached under her knees to sling her up tight against his chest.

“Tilt your hat down,” he whispered, and she obeyed, letting the deep brim cover her face.

With his arms wrapped firmly around her, he shouldered open the door and plunged into the crowd. She tucked her head against his chest and squeezed her eyes shut. If an arrow was going to come for her, she wouldn’t be able to stop it, and she didn’t want to see it. Thom elbowed his way roughly through the crush of bodies, a trail of gasps and whispers in his wake.

“Must have fainted.”

“Perhaps an invalid?”

“Told you the Maestro makes all the ladies swoon, mate.”

She curled more tightly against Thom, her face crushed against the linen of his white shirt. His chest was hard underneath it—it would have to be, the way he wore his heavy fireman’s rig and hefted hoses and ladders about. In his arms, she felt safe and nigh invulnerable, his broad strides tearing a swath through the hall, down the stairs, and across the lobby, where his boots rang loudly against the marble as the first men from the pit dashed outside for a smoke.

It was a relief when he shoved through the door and into the night. The clammy kiss of London’s air brushed her cheek, and Frannie dared a look around. Thom was nearly running but not out of breath, carrying her with grim determination and stolid strength on the shortest path from the Vauxhall to the pet shop.

“Ye can relax a bit, dove,” he murmured. “Whoever was aiming for ye will be behind us now.”

“But that means they would hit you.”

“Let them try.”

The temperature went downright cold as he ducked into a back alley, and she clutched at his chest when she saw the first bright red gleam of bludrat eyes.

“A native Londoner scared of the rats?”

“Not usually. But I’ve forgotten my parasol. And my jacket is ripped. They can smell me.”

He chuckled, his chest rumbling against her palm, and hurried faster. “They can always smell ye. We’ve much worse things, where I come from.”

“I was curious how you could wander about with your . . . wearing a . . .” There was no polite way to end the sentence.

Another chuckle, this one a shade darker. “Oh, so ye noticed my knees, did ye?”

She hid her blush against his chest.

Finally, he stopped, and she could tell from the scent of baking bread and the sound of glad barking that they were at her front doorstep.

“I can stand.”

He gently set her down, his hands clinging to her shoulders as if he would have preferred to carry her all night against his heart rather than let her feet touch the ground. Once she unlocked the door, he gave her a meaningful look and stepped in first before ushering her inside, one hand on the small of her back. Everything was as it should have been, the birds rustling softly in their cages, a few sleepy heads peeking out from under fluffed wings. The puppies stopped barking and started whining for food, and Thom closed the door behind them. Warmth and comfort and rightness washed over Frannie, and she put up her chin and said, “Right, then. Tea.”

She handed Thom his jacket and went to busy herself in the kitchen. He followed more slowly, checking every dark corner of the shop.

“Would the animals know if something was amiss?” he asked.

She laughed as she measured out the tea. “Oh, yes. Clockworks are all well and good, but birds are the noisiest and most easily agitated of busybodies. If anyone they didn’t recognize had come in downstairs at night, they’d still be talking about it and tossing feathers and seed onto the floor. I think we’re safe now.” And she did. Not only because the pet shop slept but also because Thom was there, blocking the door. He leaned against the side, crossing his feet and narrowing his eyes at her. She fumbled the spoon.

“I know I asked ye before, but I must ask again. Does someone wish ye ill? Someone from your past?”

“I don’t believe I have any enemies. The one person from my past . . .” She stared into the stream of boiling water as it swirled with the tea leaves, turning them from a dusty gray to a warm, wet green. If only she had possessed some sort of magic, she would have read the leaves in her cup and his, later, to try to puzzle out why everything was changing. “He was indifferent, like a storm that leaves destruction in its wake. If anyone wished revenge, it was me. Crossbows were never his style, in any case. He preferred swords.”

“Anyone complain about a pet sale? Any threatening letters? Lawsuits?” She shook her head, and his eyes went sharp. “Thrown over any lads lately?”

She snorted and plunked sugar cubes too forcefully into his tea, although he hadn’t requested them.

“Until last week, I spoke to no one but Maisie and the odd nod with the neighbors. One might ask if you and Casper had enemies.”

It was his turn to snort as he took the tea and sat on the couch, holding the thin porcelain with excessive care. “I live a solitary life, and any man with a grudge can call me out for a good thrashing, if he wants one. It’s clear the Maestro has enemies aplenty, and for good reason, but it’s also clear they could have shot him onstage and finished him off. No, they were aiming for you, lass.” He blew on the tea and sipped thoughtfully. “First the incendiary device and now an arrow.”

Frannie blushed and looked down, stirring her tea with a small spoon. “And someone may have mailed me a viper.”

Thom choked on his tea and set the cup and saucer down to glare at her. “Ye might have mentioned that!”

She shrugged and sipped.

“Have you somewhere else to go, lass? Where you could lie low for a bit?”

She looked up at him, defiance snapping in her eyes. “Absolutely not. This is my home, and I refuse to run away in the hopes that someone would be too stupid or silly to follow me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve no enemies.” She fingered the rip in her jacket. “And I’ve nowhere else to go, in any case, and no money to get there. So that’s that.”

“Then you’ll have to put up with having a great brute about for a bit.” He stood and pointed his chin at the stairs, the orange gaslights sparking off the stubble. “I’m sleeping in your hall.”