Epilogue
L ate on a mellow September day Viv stopped in front of Number36, Babylon Street. Lark had asked her to meet him there. He now spent his days at the Old Clock Bank founded by his grandfather and most recently run by his great-aunt Bea. The irony of a reformed pickpocket working for a bank made him laugh, but he refused to let his aunt down. Viv discovered that he was as quick at numbers as he was at picking pockets. He showed her some rudimentary ploys for lifting items from the unsuspecting, but she would never match him in that.
At the peal of a nearby church bell, she looked up to the narrow strip of sky above the gables and chimney pots and smiled at the direction of her thoughts. Everything reminded her of Lark. He had explained how the duke, as a boy, had named their gang of lost boys for birds because they lived free as birds on the rooftops of London. Since the duke’s restoration to his title, he had attempted one by one to find the true parentage of his childhood companions. With the finding of Lark’s family, the two men had renewed the friendship of those days when Lark, Viv learned, had been the duke’s second in command.
She turned back to the books on the hanging shelf outside Number36. Lark might be late, but Viv had no fear of Babylon Street now. Behind its seedy shop fronts, book sellers kept their daring wares, the scurrilous pamphlets that the Strydes meant to stop. For the new book she was writing, Viv found the pamphlets useful, giving her a map of places in London where women lived other lives and told different stories. Viv was learning to prompt those women to speak their thoughts, and most of all she was learning to listen. She had begun by listening to Liza, a woman who complained that Rook’s lagging cost her desperately needed pennies to feed her children.
Through Liza, Viv had met more women willing to talk about their stratagems for keeping their families fed and avoiding the workhouse. And through Viv, Liza had gone to work for the modiste Adele St. Claire, while Liza’s children attended a school supported by the duke. Liza’s new employment gave her a glimpse into the world of fashion, and she amused her friends with tales of that world’s excesses. Liza and her friends joked that Viv must start a trend for colors that didn’t show dirt. In their view if the fine ladies of London made it fashionable to wear clothes the color of potatoes or bricks, tree bark or beer, rust or mud, ladies like themselves would reap the benefit when those gowns landed in the slops dealers’ shops in a year.
Viv was smiling at the thought when a hand snagged her arm and tugged her into the neighboring doorway to Number36. A pair of strong arms came around her, pulling her into a close embrace. She looked up into the eyes of her love and laughed. She leaned back in his hold, studying his face, reading his expression. If she had to give it a name, she would call the look in those deep blue eyes… delight . He was happy.
She reached up, intent on giving him a quick kiss, but his lips clung to hers, his arms tightened around her, and for several minutes, she was lost in that place that was theirs alone. When he had kissed her nearly witless and released her, she guessed that he was up to something. She looked up a little breathless. “What?”
“I’ve brought you something.”
“Something that couldn’t wait for tonight?” Viv was staying with her aunt Louisa and uncle Oswald, and later they were hosting a dinner for Lark’s great-aunt Bea, Lady Melforth, and the duke and duchess. The dinner was part of Viv and Lark’s plan to connect their friends before their October wedding. With a new nurse and regular outings with Louisa, Lady Melforth’s health and spirits had improved. The publication of the London guidebook, with both their names on it, had happily revived interest in Lady Melforth’s earlier books.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
Viv gave him a skeptical look but complied.
He took her hands in his and spread them palms up. Then he placed something light and square on her palms. “Open,” he said.
Viv opened her eyes and found a small blue pamphlet.
F URTHER W ALKS IN L ONDON
A W OMAN’S G UIDE TO THE H IDDEN M ETROPOLIS
WITH V IVIAN B RADISH
T HE F OOTLOOSE L ADY S CRIB E
She hugged the little pamphlet to her chest and reached up to lay her palm against Lark’s cheek. He turned his head and placed a kiss in her palm.
“It is the first copy. Your publisher let me have it straight from the printer.”
“Thank you.” She said it solemnly, thanking him not merely for this moment of bringing her the pamphlet, but for believing in her, for changing the way she found stories, and the way she told them.
“Remember,” he said, grinning down at her. “A thousand words a day.”
“But only if you bring me coffee in bed every morning,” she replied. A flash of awareness lit up the blue of his eyes at her meaning.
He offered his arm, and they stepped out of the doorway into the street. They had become adept at finding nooks and alcoves and even a secluded corner in the far reaches of Aunt Bea’s garden, but Viv was impatient to begin their life together with all that it would bring them .
The End
Cassie helps Raven prepare for the midsummer ball where he plans to propose. Dare she hope Raven will see the love standing in front of him? Find out in The Raven’s Lady (The Duke’s Men #2)
Turn the page for a sneak peek of The Raven’s Lady