With Fate Conspire (37 page)

How in Mab’s name could he know that? Even if the voice had been here centuries ago, he couldn’t be sure what had been in Dead Rick’s head. Unless they’d been friends—no, not a chance. And Yorkshire … that was just unexpected enough to be true. There were Yorkshire fae among the refugees, and their accents sounded nothing like Dead Rick’s. But some fae changed their way of speaking, and others did not.
For all I know, eight years ago I didn’t sound like a cockney.

It was the payment he’d asked for, even if it came without proof. He didn’t dare fight for more. Hanging his head, Dead Rick asked, “’Ow do I swear?”

As far back as he could remember, he’d never given his binding word, nor heard anyone else do the same. The voice instructed him, and Dead Rick spoke the oath. “In Mab’s name, I swear not to tell nobody where Chrennois’s laboratory is, except you, or if you says I can.”

It was more than mere words. He felt the promise wrap around him like an unbreakable chain. Shivering, Dead Rick hoped his ally could be trusted. It had just become that much harder to look to anyone else for help.

Hyde Park, Kensington: July 25, 1884

Despite the fine summer’s day, Hyde Park was not well populated for one o’clock in the afternoon. The London Season was nearly done; soon the quality would be departing for their country estates, the men to hunt grouse, the women to visit with one another and either celebrate their escape from the city or bemoan the tedium of rural life, as their dispositions inclined them.

“When will your family be leaving?” Myers asked Miss Kittering, as they strolled down one of the park’s graveled paths.

He was vaguely aware that they seemed to have misplaced the maid who was supposed to be chaperoning the girl. Myers hardly regretted her absence—unpleasant woman—but it was not really appropriate for him and Miss Kittering to be walking alone, even in a public place such as this. Indeed, it might do damage to her reputation.

Miss Kittering did not seem to care. “Not until the fourteenth, I think. Mama is convinced she can arrange a match for me before then, and all my efforts to convince her that I
will not do it
fall on deaf ears.” She sounded both disgruntled and impressed.

Startled, Myers said, “Do you not care to be matched?”

The young woman hesitated, concealing her uncertainty behind her fan. “I … perhaps I am a foolish girl, too easily swayed by sentiment, but I
cannot
marry where I have not given my heart.”

Myers’s own heart contracted with an unaccustomed pang. It was foolish, and he knew it; he hardly knew this girl more than twenty years his junior. They’d met only a handful of times, and during the first two of those—meetings of the London Fairy Society—he had scarcely registered her, noting only that she seemed more rebellious against her respectable class than was likely to end well for her. But then they had encountered one another by chance, outside the meetings, and something about her was so oddly familiar …

She reminded him of Annie, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. The way she held her head, and her manner of speaking; had she not been born years before Annie drowned herself, Myers might have thought her his lost love reborn, like some Hindu tale.

It was foolish, and it was disloyal to Eveleen, his wife. He pushed the unquiet feelings of his heart aside, and answered her as innocuously as he could. “At least being married, or going into the countryside, will save you from your mother’s unwise taste in servants.”

His hand, damn it for a traitor, tried to rise and brush her cheek, from which the bruises had faded. Miss Kittering colored as if he’d done it anyway. “Yes, well—the servant had her reasons. Which is not to say I
forgive
her, but…”

He thought at first that she she paused so the bored young gentleman passing in an open carriage would not hear her words. But when the gentleman was gone, Miss Kittering was still silent. “But?” Myers prompted her.

The annoyed crease between her brows was mercifully not much like Annie at all. “Oh, I—I can’t get the blessed woman out of my
head
.”

Myers had the distinct impression that she had almost used a different word than
blessed
. “Is it guilt, do you think?”

Miss Kittering’s golden head whipped around to regard him indignantly. “Guilt? Certainly not! I had nothing to do with—” She stopped again and gritted her teeth. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, “I trust your good judgment, Mr. Myers. Perhaps you can guide me in a matter which has been troubling me for some time now.”

“I certainly will do my best.”

She looked away from him, fingers playing with her fan. “The maid, as I said, had her reasons for attacking me. She … lost someone dear to her, I suspect; a brother, perhaps. I fear it drove her mad. She somehow got it into her head that I knew something of this—which I most certainly did not—and was attempting to beat that information out of me. For the sake of the one she lost.”

Myers, studying the tense line of her neck, the movement of the fan, considered her phrasing.
Most certainly
did
not.
“Have you learned something since then?”

Again that look, both disgruntled and impressed. “How do you know these things?”

I have spent a great deal of time watching women lie, usually about their ability to raise ghosts.
Though he was nothing on Sidgwick, for such observations. Myers knew his own desire for success sometimes blinded him. “What you’ve learned—is that what troubles you?”

“No. Well, yes—” Miss Kittering sighed. “The question that plagues me is, what do I owe to a crazed Irish maid who tried to strangle me?”

“You mean, do you owe her your assistance.”

She looked away again, then nodded.

Myers wanted to ask for more details, but her obvious reticence told him not to push. Considered in its most general terms, however, the crux of the matter was clear. “Would it do anyone any good for her to know? Either the maid, or this fellow she lost?”

A long silence answered that, until they had nearly reached the bank of the Serpentine. Finally—grudgingly—Miss Kittering said, “It might.”

“Would it cost you much to help?”

Even more grudgingly, she said, “No.”

“Then, from what you have told me, the only reason to refuse is spite toward this maid, for what she did to you. But your wounds healed, and hers, it seems, cannot. Unless someone helps her.”

Staring out over the placid waters of the artificial lake, Miss Kittering spoke again, sounding oddly lost and confused. “I’m not accustomed to feeling this way. There was a time I would have forgotten her without hesitation.”

Quietly, Myers said, “I must confess, I would think less of you if you did.”

She turned to face him, skirts brushing pebbles into rattling motion. “That, too, is unaccustomed. I never thought I would care so much what you think. But I do; I find I cannot bear the thought of you condemning me.” Miss Kittering sighed. “So be it, then. I know what I must do.”

St. Mary Abbots Workhouse, Kensington: July 27, 1884

Following her release from the black punishment cell, Eliza heeded Quinn’s advice and behaved herself, swallowing every bit of rebellion and reluctance. They churned uneasily in her gut—along with a case of the gripes she got from bad food—but she held her peace. To really get the sergeant’s help, she would need proof, and she couldn’t get it from inside here. Eliza doubted she could win free by model behavior, but it was at least worth a try; and in the meanwhile, she would look for other options. She’d made a mistake, trying to run so early, before she knew enough.

So when the matron came to find her a little over a week later, Eliza was not locked away, pressing on her own eyeballs out of desperation; she was up to her elbows in scalding hot water and soap, scrubbing the battered tiles of the workhouse floor. “Another visitor,” the woman said. “You’re a popular one, aren’t you?”

Her tone made it clear what she thought of that, but Eliza showed no offense. She dried her hands, curtsied, and followed the matron, wondering. Hoping.
Quinn back again? Has he found proof of the faeries?

Not Quinn. The matron led her to a different room, which proved to be a small parlor, of the sort where ladies from the Workhouse Visiting Society would take their tea, while being told grand lies about the public good such places did. One such silk-clad lady was waiting in the corner, studying a bad landscape painting on the wall, when Eliza entered, with the matron close behind.

Then the lady turned around, and Eliza stopped dead. It was Louisa Kittering.

Who swept past her as if she weren’t there and took the matron’s hands in her own, nonsense courtesies spilling from her mouth—“
So
grateful to you, just rest yourself in this chair, please, there’s nothing here you need worry yourself about in the slightest”—whereupon the woman nodded, smiling vacantly, and sat herself down as if she’d forgotten her own name.

“Don’t say anything,” the changeling told Eliza. She said it almost in the same breath, but her tone and entire posture changed, the bright silliness falling away like a costume. “And please, for the love of Mab, don’t hit me again. If I scream, we’ll have half the staff on us in an instant, and I can’t charm them all.”

The creature was between her and the door. Eliza backed away, wishing she had a crucifix. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—”

Louisa Kittering’s face showed exasperation. “That won’t do any good against me, you know—it doesn’t even scare me anymore. Will you hush? I’m here to help you.”

Eliza stopped. No, she really had just said that. “You’re a liar.”

“What I
am
is the one who can help you get him back.” She held up the lost photo of Owen.

For all her apparent calm, the changeling squeaked in alarm when Eliza snatched the picture from her gloved hand.
I thought it gone forever.
Her heart thudded hard against her ribs. “Why—why would you do that?”

Composure regained, the changeling lifted her eyebrows as if she were wondering that herself. “Before we say anything more, a few basic rules. We aren’t going to talk about who, and what, I am—”

“The devil we aren’t,” Eliza said violently.

A raised hand stopped her. “I’ll have you know the girl you’re so concerned about
chose
this. She had to; I couldn’t have done … what I did unless she was willing. She’s off to enjoy the life she wants, without fear her parents will chase her down. Isn’t that a gift?”

“And I’m to be believing you did that out of the goodness of your heart?” Eliza snorted to show what she thought of that. “What do you get out of it?”

The changeling smiled. “The ability to stand here in front of you while you fling words of your God at me, without fear they’ll harm me. The safety of knowing my protection won’t wear off, the way other kinds do. The freedom to stay in London, so long as I keep to this life. She and I both got what we wanted.”

For all the tales she’d heard of changelings, Eliza had never thought of the faerie side. She’d assumed the point was to steal mortals away—and maybe for some of them, it was. When it came to the faerie left in the mortal’s place, though, she hadn’t given it much thought, other than to call it mischief on their parts.
This one
wants
to live as a mortal…?

Not fully mortal—not given what she’d just done to the matron, who was still smiling at the far wall, not heeding a word they said. But partially so, enough to protect.

Eliza wouldn’t believe it until she laid eyes on the real Louisa Kittering. But in the end, one spoiled, rebellious young woman mattered far less to her than Owen. For him, there was no aid she would not accept. And this seemed more promising than trying to arrange for the changeling to be delivered to Sergeant Quinn as proof.
That,
Eliza thought,
can come later.
“How do you mean to help me?”

The creature who was now Louisa Kittering looked around the workhouse parlor, her mouth forming a pretty expression of distaste. “First, by getting you out of here. Ash and Thorn, what a dreadful place. I confess I felt none too kindly toward you after you beat me black and blue—but I expect you’ve had three blows by now for every one I took. Wouldn’t you agree? Of course you would, if it means seeing this end. It will take a while longer, I fear; it’s a bit of a tricky thing, convincing these people to let you go, and I can’t be quite as direct as once I would have been. You can wait a few more days, can’t you?”

Eliza only stared, listening to the new Miss Kittering talk about workhouse overseers and justices of the peace—not to mention Mrs. Kittering—as if they were only tiny challenges, easily overcome. She collected herself with a snap and said, “What then?”

“Then,” Louisa said, “you go back to Islington. I trust you recall the house where the London Fairy Society gathers? There’s another meeting next Friday week; you should be free by then. Speak to the Goodemeade sisters privately, and tell them…” The young woman paused, and chose her next words with care. “Tell them you come in Cyma’s name, and are searching for the boy in that photo. They will help you get him back.”

“Why should they help me?” Eliza ran one hand over her ragged hair, and felt tears unexpectedly burning behind her eyes. “You still haven’t even said why
you’re
doing it.”

Louisa became very occupied with her gloves, tugging their delicate seams straight along her fingers. “Someone I … that is, someone convinced me it was the right thing to do. Someone whose good opinion I value, and do not want to lose.” Her mouth quirked, as if at an unfamiliar taste.

Eliza was not about to question it. She was not certain about the changeling’s advice, though. “A few months gone, I heard a lady from the Society tell Louisa Kittering that the others there were not ready for … certain truths.” A lady who, she strongly suspected, had subsequently taken the girl’s place.

“True enough, of some,” Louisa admitted. “But not of others. You needn’t fear saying anything to the sisters; they know more than you could imagine.”