Chapter Thirty-Two
The morning of the hearing came on pale and thin over St. James, and Maisie fastened the last glove button with hands that would not quite obey. Love last night. War today. She caught the faint trace of rose pomade on her skin and lifted her chin.
Downstairs, the Pearlers’ front parlor had turned into a campaign map. Westminster sketched wide across the pianoforte, routes penciled in dark strokes, names matched to times. The house breathed that particular hush before a storm.
Rachel stood at the window. “Five minutes. Keep the carriage moving. Do not let them pen you at the main gate to Eton.”
“Fave said the driver is trusted?” Maisie asked, voice steady enough.
“He is,” Rachel said, eyes still on the street. “He’ll take the court entrance, not the crowded street side.”
The bell chimed. A beat of stillness, then Fave appeared. “Mr. Alfie Collins. He’s ready.”
Ready? Alfie?
He stepped in, rain jeweled on his sleeve, briefcase tucked close—tired eyes, clear purpose. “I’ll stand with you,” he said quietly. “At the hearing.”
“Alfie—”
“For the boy,” he cut in, gentle but immovable. “List has petitioned to call him illegitimate and wrench his guardianship. If he manages it, he gets custody—and with custody, a schoolroom of orphaned heirs trained to his prejudice. That’s his game.”
Heat climbed Maisie’s throat. She knew it; hearing it still hurt.
Alfie’s mouth tightened. “I entered my name with the clerk. They will call me. A gentile voice saying love makes a family. Saying safety is owed to a child—not to a title.”
She stared at him. “You’ll paint a target on your back.”
“I’ve been a target for List for a long time. And I’d rather be marked for standing up than live ducking List.” A breath. “Felix would speak himself; they will not hear him or any other Jews. Let them hear me.”
Her ribs ached with a sense of gratitude.
For them he is Felix. For me—Faivish. She looked around the room—Fave at Rachel’s shoulder; Raphi in the doorway with two of his brothers behind him; Nick and Andre arriving with their cases; even Prince Stan in a plain coat, gloves tucked in his belt.
Faivish’s circle. Loyal to the man and to the future his work promised.
Jews and gentiles together, craftsmen and physicians—men who had built a corner of London on skill instead of pedigree.
She wished they didn’t have to fight for it.
But better to have something worth defending than to run again.
“This is dangerous. These men, Fave, Raphi, their wives, and children—” Maise started, but then she saw Rachel squeeze Fave’s arm.
“We’re proud to stand together and show our children that we have nothing to be ashamed of. Or else, List would win.” Rachel turned from the window. “They’ll try to intercept Alfie before he reaches Westminster. Or John is on his way in with you. So we make it difficult.”
Raphi nodded once. “We ride out dressed alike—black coats, black hats, matching mounts. We leave in a block and scatter on signal. Let List’s men chase shadows.”
“And if they choose a rider to stop,” Nick added, “they’ll stop the wrong one.”
Again, dangerous. Maisie hated that.
“As long as it’s long enough for me to reach the chamber,” Alfie said. “Long enough for John to walk to the table and be heard, it’s enough time.”
Maisie’s fingers tightened at her side. “He must speak,” she said. “They will try to drown him in the room. But if he stands there, they’ll have to look at him. A titled boy telling them whom he trusts.”
Rachel’s hand found hers for a brief squeeze. “We’ll put him in front of Lord Kettering before any of List’s men can blink.”
Outside, the driver cleared his throat by the open door. The sound carried like a summons.
Maisie drew a breath that settled her bones. She met each man’s gaze in turn—the Klonimus brothers with the Pearlers, Nick, Andre, Prince Stan—and saw the same promise looking back: we stand together; we don’t run.
“Very well,” she said, voice level. “You ride. Alfie speaks. John walks in on my arm.”
She glanced once, quick and tender, toward the hall where Faivish appeared next—black hat in hand, wet brim, eyes like storm light—then faced the day waiting for her.
*
Faivish had been waiting in the Pearlers’ stables for what felt like an hour, though the clock in his pocket showed it had been only a minute. The place smelled of the sour tang of horse and hay. Harness buckles rattled as men adjusted straps for the tenth time, anything to keep their hands busy.
Raphi and his brothers bent over a tack bench, murmuring in Yiddish too low for outsiders to follow, their fingers quick, sure. Nick and Andre kept to the wall, silent as sentries. Even Prince Stan was there, jaw set, gloves tucked into his belt like a man about to march rather than a man of rank.
The horses stamped again, one after another.
The sound caught in Faivish’s chest. He felt as though he were back in Vienna, a Jewish student watching the white Lipizzaners dance for emperors.
Jews weren’t allowed inside the ring. He had stood marked, excluded.
And now—here he was, about to ride himself, not into a performance, but into a fight. The audience, however, was the same.
The servant’s door gave a low groan and Maisie slipped out with Alfie. She kept her head down, her bonnet pulled tight, and moved quickly. She bent over the Pearlers’ carriage, tugging at a latch that refused to catch. Her gloved fingers looked too pale against the brass.
“Maisie.”
She froze. Shoulders rose, fell, before she turned to him. He nearly broke then, almost dragged her away—through the mews, out of London, far from List and his lackeys. But Westminster was already waiting. Nobles with sharp eyes and sharper knives. He couldn’t run. Not this time.
She vanished toward her carriage. Felix stayed, listening to the silence grind. Horses snorted, shifting weight. Leather squeaked. He could taste the danger in the air.
By the time he pushed into the front hall, rain clung to the brim of his hat.
“Is she gone to fetch John now?” Rachel didn’t look up from her map. “Twenty minutes. Three carriages together. They split at Aldwych.”
Felix’s shoulders sagged, just a fraction. “So List won’t know which to follow.”
“He’ll try. His men, too,” Rachel said. “But they won’t win.”
Alfie would take the shortest way there, coat buttoned, papers clutched. His mouth was tight, grim.
“I don’t like this,” Felix muttered.
“Nor I,” Alfie said. “But I’m going.”
“I won’t lose a brother.”
“Then help me make it count.”
They stepped into the yard—
And Felix stopped cold.
Nine riders, all in black coats and white cravats, horses snorting steam into the damp air. Not soldiers, not quite. Shadows made flesh.
Chawa Klonimus stood among them, her sons flanking her like sentinels—Raphi, Aaron, Gideon, Ben, Caleb, Nati. Their faces were proud, unyielding.
“This is our answer,” she said. “To List. To the committee. To every man who says we don’t belong here.”
Faivish’s eyes swept wider: Nick astride a dark gelding, Andre mounted beside him, even Wendy steady at Prince Stan’s stirrup, the prince already on a tall bay.
Nick spoke first. “We ride together. Same clothes. Same hats. When it’s time, we scatter.”
Andre added, his voice iron-steady, “Let them follow. They won’t find Alfie.”
Chawa pressed a black hat into Faivish’s hands. “One hour. That’s all we need. Enough for the young marquess to stand and speak for himself and for your love to stand by the boy.”
She looked to Alfie. “You go inside, but hear me, Faivish, make them think you never did.”
Felix looked around him—doctors, craftsmen, even a prince. Jews and gentiles, bound not by law or blood but by something harder to break. None of them is here for coin. All of them for a boy. For Maisie. For the right to stand upright in England without being cut down.
“We’re doing this for our future. Our children and grandchildren’s futures,” Chawa said. “You’re doing this for her, for love.”
He shook his head. “No. Because she would have done it for me.”
Raphi’s mouth curved, tight. “She already has.”
The silence that followed was heavy, sacred.
Felix swung into the saddle. The leather groaned beneath him, his pulse hammering like a drum. “And if they fire?” he asked.
“They won’t,” Chawa said. “Word’s already out—we made it look like the young Marquess of Stonefield rode at dawn, with Prince Stan beside him. Which one of you is he?”
Raphi’s grim smile answered. “Let them guess. Fire at one, fire at us all. And the committee is watching List. He can’t afford a misstep of attacking English nobility or foreign royals.”
Felix closed his eyes for one breath. Then opened them and mounted a horse that had been readied for him.
“Let’s ride.”
And they did.