Page 22 of To Break the Rules

Dharani craned her neck, and Lucia knew what she saw: the tall English lord with eyes the colour of skies and oceans, and the wicked smile of a pirate set on plunder.

The old woman laughed, shaking her head. “Tread carefully, bhanvaraa, The flames are getting higher.”

***

7th July 1814. Friday Street, Cheapside, London.

Silas blinked, not quite believing what he was seeing. After a sleepless night plagued with dreams of her, he wondered for a moment if he was imagining things, but no, there she was. Implausible as it seemed, Lucia stood on the street before him in Cheapside, large as life and more beautiful than ever. He felt winded for a moment, the sensation overtaken by one of concern as he realised that she was alone.

A dark cloak covered her pretty summer gown, something a woman might wear to hide herself if she was somewhere she ought not be.

He moved towards her at once and alarm widened her eyes. She turned away, glancing behind her at the house she had emerged from, and Silas followed her gaze to see an old Indian woman standing in the doorway. She was incongruous against the dull greys of a London street, the startling pink of her sari like a burst of summer on a winter’s day. A red dot blazed against her dark skin between her eyebrows, everything about her marking her as foreign to England’s shores, and he felt a burst of curiosity. She was looking at him directly, and a shiver of something coasted over his skin. The old woman laughed, and looked at Lucia.

“Tread carefully, bhanvaraa, the flames are getting higher.”

She closed the door, the warning—for it had been a warning—lingering on the air between them.

Silas stood before Lucia, staring at her in consternation. “What are you doing here?” he asked, knowing she’d hate it, hate him having any little piece of her secrets, but he had to ask.

The look of irritation in her eyes made him smile as she huffed out a breath.

“Visiting,” she muttered, before making a face, as aware as he was that his questions would not stop there. “That was Dharani,” she said grudgingly. “My old ayah.”

Silas frowned a moment, trying to place the word, and then remembered a friend’s family who had employed an Indian nanny to look after their children. An ayah.

“Your nanny?” he said, confirming his assumption.

Lucia nodded. “When Anna-Marie left us, Dharani was all I had. She found work looking after the children of a family in Norfolk and somehow persuaded them to allow me to be educated alongside them. I owe her everything.”

There was an earnest, reverent tone to her words that Silas heard and understood.

“Anna-Marie de Feria,” he repeated, frowning as he remembered the name of Lucia’s Portuguese mother. The famed courtesan who’d shared the beds of some of the most powerful men in the country.

Lucia said nothing. Silas imagined she did not enjoy being mentioned in the same breath. Like mother, like daughter was what most men would assume. It’s what he had assumed, he realised with shame.

“Must you come here alone?” he asked, holding out his arm for her, for if she thought she was going a step further unaccompanied she was sorely mistaken.

She sighed, glaring at him but apparently accepting the inevitable, as she didn’t protest.

“People have enough of my dark past,” she said, her tone brittle. “I keep what I can private. I don’t like busybodies who stick their noses in where they’re not wanted.”

Silas felt a smile tug at his mouth. “Is that set down meant for me?” he asked gently. “For I did not know you were here.”

“No,” she agreed, shrugging. “But I’m not stupid enough to believe you won’t try to ferret out the rest. You’re the kind of man who’ll leave no stone unturned once he’s decided on a course of action.”

“How very perceptive you are, Miss de Feria,” he said, grinning at her. “And I’m glad you’ve accepted the fact, as I already told you of my intentions.”

A blush stained her cheeks as she remembered what he’d said last night.

“I will prove myself worthy of your trust,” he said, just to ensure she remembered clearly.

“Trust is given, not taken,” Lucia said, and there was something in her voice now, something vulnerable and frightened. It took him aback. In the short time he’d known her, he had almost come to believe this vivacious spark of a woman feared nothing.

He stopped walking and covered her hand with his own. “Yes,” he said. “I know that, but won’t you trust me, Lucia? I….” He paused, wondering if she’d think he was odd for saying such a thing. “I have the strangest feeling whenever I look at you,” he admitted. “I’m frightened for you. I feel you’re in danger, that… you need me.”

Lucia stared at him, her dark eyes widening. He got lost in those eyes, so wide and thickly lashed, and so wary. She wanted to trust him, he felt certain of it.

“You sound like Dharani,” she said, looking away from him with a frown.