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She nodded. “Most likely. He set up a nice house for me and my mother. I had tutors, clothing, food. But I barely ever saw him. I think he had a family… A real family. A wife and legitimate children. I don’t know for certain, but why else would he leave us behind? I don’t know if he cared that my mother died and that I disappeared. To be honest, I hope he doesn’t. I’d like to think he is a cold and callous man because I don’t wish the pain of losing a loved one on him.”

“What happened next?” Ford asked, taking advantage of her open mood. He wanted to learn more about her. Craved it even.

“Next?”

“After you were stolen from your home.”

“I was placed in a terrible brothel for young children. I wasn’t even the youngest one there, but I was small for my age.” She swallowed. “I don’t remember much from that time, I try not to. Either way, I managed to run away a couple of years later. I slept on the streets, ate garbage if I wasn’t able to steal something better. I tried to work, but… Nobody would take me.”

“Because of how you look,” he guessed.

Her smile was bitter. “Yes. I managed to sneak into a sewing factory once. People there found me and instead of throwing me out on the street were kind enough to give me work. I think they needed more hands. We lived in that factory, two to three people sharing a cot. And the work was so grueling, my body couldn’t take it. I worked as hard as I could, but I got sick.” She shrugged. “They didn’t need sickly workers, so I ended up on the street again.”

She paused, playing with her fork, not meeting his gaze. “That’s when I met Madame Bordeaux. I don’t know her real name, but she ran a little brothel by the docks.” She shrugged her shoulders, looking weak and small, like that little girl who bounced from brothel to factory and back again in order to survive. “She offered me work, and I… I had no choice but to take it.”

Ford’s heart squeezed, and he wanted to ask her to stop. He didn’t want to hear more; it was too painful. But he was the one who’d asked for it. It was too late to take it back.

Her gaze was distant as she recounted her past. “She was kind enough to share her wisdom about this profession. In a way, I am grateful to her. I learned some tricks to keep the men from hurting me. How to stand up for myself, how to steal. And most importantly, she taught us to wear a special… um… wig for our private parts. A merkin she called it. It helped us fool less sophisticated men, which most of them were.”

“Fool them how?” Ford frowned, working out in his head how that could possibly help.

“Oh.” She waved an airy hand. “We would guide men under the merkin but over our hip to imitate penetration.”

“And men never noticed?”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “You’d be surprised at what men don’t notice.”

Fair enough. He hadn’t noticed that she and Madame Tricheuse were one and the same. If those girls operated at night, in dark alleys, it was possible to get away with things like this. And if they managed to do that, then good for them.

“She also taught me to flirt,” Grace continued, “and use my feminine wiles to get what I want. And then I met Hades.” The sigh that left her chest was heavy and raw. “He was younger than me, but he had spent more time in those terrible child brothels. He was the opposite of me in many ways. Quiet, reserved, but angry. Very angry. He didn’t like being touched, and he hated brothels. He helped me leave the brothel life. Helped me realize that I had something else to offer. I was more than just my body. I had my mind. My soul. My self. It took me a while to understand what to do with myself and how to reconcile what I am with what I’ve done. When Hades opened his hell, the women there taught me a lot. I learned about the erotic acts that I had been forced to perform. I learned that women could enjoy those acts too. I was curious about how people received their pleasure and I… um… I started coming up with accessories to help them explore their desires.”

“The chair,” he noted.

“Pardon me?”

“I saw a drawing of a chair in your room in London. The one with a conspicuous hole in the cushions. Is that one of the accessories you came up with?”

She chuckled, then added proudly, “It’s a prototype. It’s the largest accessory I’ve ever come up with. The other ones are much smaller. But once I started creating more and more things, I decided to open my own brothel. And I continue learning things and creating things for people’s enjoyment. I was dragged into the business of pain. And now I am in the business of pleasure.”

As if to punctuate her speech, one of the candles blew out. Grace chuckled. “I don’t think we have more candles. One more thing to buy for tomorrow.”

He pursed his lips. “Candles are quite expensive.”

Grace raised her brow. “What would you rather do?”

Ford sat back, studying Grace’s form illuminated by a single candle.

I am the darkness, she had said when talking about her relationship with Hades. She said he needed something different. Something to illuminate his life while she had indeed embraced the night. And she was thriving in it. He met her gaze, his lips quirking in an easy smile. “I quite like the darkness.”

A small smile graced her lips as though she understood his meaning. “More tea?”

Chapter 24

Astone flew in a graceful arc, then hit the ground and tumbled down the hill.

“Ha! With an aim like this, I wonder how you caught any criminals,” Grace taunted with a laugh.

Ford glowered at her in mock offense. “I never needed to resort to throwing stones in order to catch one. I’ll have you know that the aim of my fist is rather precise.”