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“Your enemies would use your trip to Babylon Street against you.”
“You speak… plainly. I do not have enemies.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “You do. I heard them in the hall. Your employer’s cousins. Who are they?”
“Oh, the Strydes. They’re members of the Anti-Vice Society.” She wondered how he’d learned of their enmity in the hour he’d been in Lady Melforth’s house.
“They’d like to see you lose your position.”
“They said as much? You heard them?” She had suspected them of scheming against her for some time.
He nodded. “They did.”
“Well, you needn’t be concerned for my position. I’ll not be driven away by them.”
“You could shoot them.”
“Don’t be daft. I only—”
“Shoot strangers?”
“I will simply stay until Lady Melforth no longer needs me.”
“And then?”
She tried to penetrate his gaze. The whole conversation was going wrong. She didn’t understand why he was challenging her, trying to throw her off-balance. She folded her hands together. “I’m not without resources. I will find another employer. Besides when our book is …”
“Is that what you want? To be employed, at the beck and call of some grand lady? I thought you wanted to be … an independent woman.”
“I beg your pardon. We…you and I are hardly acquainted. You know nothing about me.”
At the sound of voices on the stairs, among them Haxton’s, indignant and affronted, she froze. Mr. Larkin apparently caught the sound and shot her a questioning gaze.
“The Strydes. Oh no! They’re coming. They mustn’t find you here.” She glanced around. “Move. Crouch behind that sofa.”
With the same quickness with which he stepped between her and the pickpocket, Mr. Larkin dropped to one knee in front of her. She started, her skirts swaying with her movement, the blue silk lapping at his booted foot. The door opened behind her.
Mr. Larkin took her left hand in his and slowly slid the garnet ring into place on her ring finger, looking up at her.
Behind her Mrs. Stryde gasped as Viv looked down, meeting Mr. Larkin’s gaze. In spite of the pose of ardent worship, it was not love she saw in his eyes, but a challenge, a dare. Maybe he did understand her, after all.
She gave a nod, unable to speak.
“Miss Bradish,” he said in a loud, clear voice. “You have made me the happiest of men.”
Mr. Larkin rose, still in possession of her hand and turned her to face the others. The hand in Viv’s was steady. She had no idea what Mr. Larkin would make of the Strydes, but she sensed that he had their measure. Mrs. Stryde leaned toward them like a dog straining against its lead.
“And who are you, young man?”
“Good evening, Mrs. Stryde, Mr. Stryde. Though we’ve not met, Miss Bradish has mentioned you to me. I beg your pardon.” He turned and gave Viv such a besotted smile that she wondered if he was an actor in a London theater, maybe the Camberwell, a theater known for its showy performances.
“Our pardon?” Mrs. Stryde was tall, thin, and severe in the lines of her face, and rigid in her bearing in spite of dark curls over her ears and layers of flounce on the sleeves of her Nile-green gown. Mr. Stryde’s blue eyes were small behind his round spectacles. His jaw bristled with straw-colored whiskers, like the whiskers of a fox, and his person was as comfortably padded as a velvet cushion.
“Yes, your pardon. I admit to seizing the occasion of your visit to Lady Melforth to have a word with my… betrothed.”
“Your betrothed?”
“Only today. It was mere luck that I called at a time when Miss Bradish could step away from her duties, however briefly, for as you must know, she is devoted to her ladyship.”
