Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
With blood racing through her ears, Honora searched high and low, but no opal necklace was to be found.
She had lit one small oil lamp by which she guided herself through Pratt’s single sparse room.
A bed was in one corner, and a stove in another.
In a way, she pitied him as she searched for the stolen item, but not enough to keep her from retrieving what did not belong to him.
Honora was just about to give up the search when there was a scraping sound at the door. A key.
She spun about, looking for a place to hide. The only place that would hide her long enough to slip out before he could get to her was the far wall. She hurried as quickly and as quietly as she could, pressing her back against it as she blew out her lamp. The knob turned, and the door swung open.
She stood perfectly still behind it, not even daring to breathe. Pratt took a hesitant step inside, holding his own lamp he likely procured from the hall outside. He held it up, the candlelight flickering over his face. Lifting his nose in the air, he took a long sniff.
The smoke from her lamp.
He quickly shut the door behind him, keeping his boot against it. She scooted along the wall, being sure to not make a single sound. If she were nimble enough, she could kick his foot down and slip out without him reaching her.
But then he turned before she could take a single step. A sneer stretched across his weathered face, and his hand shot out, backhanding her across the cheek before she could so much as think to duck.
“Blast,” she hissed, putting a hand to her cheek. But the shock of being hit had made her hesitate one moment too long, and Pratt had a boot to the door before she could open it.
He leaned his entire body against it, then held his torch up. Shock and recognition registered on his face. “Honora?”
“Yes,” she spat out, her mouth tinged with the metallic taste of blood. Stupid man had cut the inside of her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he said, dipping his head. “Didn’t know it was you.”
“Apology accepted, I suppose.” She swallowed, running her tongue along the cut.
His eyes narrowed, and he leaned toward the door again. “What are you doin’ here?”
“I visited the Fageans’.” She leaned back against the wall, putting her half boot against it. “You can only imagine my surprise when I found out they haven’t been in London for six weeks.”
Pratt’s eyes flicked to the door as if he might try and escape himself, then back to her hands. He seemed to relax when he saw she had nothing in her possession other than the unlit oil lamp.
“I did not bring my gun, if that’s what you are wondering.”
“Good to know.” He walked further into the room, placing his lamp on the single table in the entire room. “What do you want?”
“The necklace, obviously.”
“Don’t have it.” He sat on the edge of the table. “It’s gone, Honora. Might as well let this one be.”
“I can’t,” she said, fisting her hand by her side. “Hind is becoming more insistent that I hurry this along.”
“Don’t know what to tell ya.” With a shrug, he flicked his thumb beneath his nose. “I don’t have it, and unless you are willing to resort to the worst, I ain’t tellin’ ya where it is. Bad business.”
“Why, Pratt? Why did you turn on me like this?”
His mouth turned down at the sides. “I saw what you had become. Knew it wouldn’t fit your new style to really push. I saw my chance, and I took it.”
“All for a lousy opal.” Honora scoffed, taking a step toward the door and grasping the handle.
“Your father would be ashamed of ya,” he called out, causing her to pause in her retreat.
She strode to the table, her boots clicking on the bare wood floor, and lit her own lamp. “Then I must be doing something right.” The flame caught, and she gave Pratt one last parting nod. A goodbye—perhaps forever.
She left the apartment and stepped out into the cold, dark streets of London.
Slipping around the building, she found where she had tied up her horse.
Using a box to slip onto the saddle, she made her way home.
A horse was quicker, but it was also incredibly cool in the late September nights, especially this year, which had been unseasonably cold.
When she arrived home, she eyed the front window.
The draperies were pulled, but she could see a glow of light all the same.
She took cautious steps up the stairs leading to the door.
Instead of knocking and alerting the house she was home, she slipped her key inside the lock and gave herself entry.
The foyer was quiet, but something was amiss. She had not had the drawing room lit upon her leaving, and while Wilson always left the lights burning in the entryway for her return, he did not keep the entertaining areas of the house at the ready.
She stretched onto her toes to reach the shelf situated above her, taking the small knife she kept hidden there.
The relentlessness of the night did not seem to wish to end, and her heart beat harder.
Pressing the blade to her side, she stayed close to the wall, making her way to the drawing room.
After working her way along the papered wall, she tipped her head to peer inside.
At first, her hand tightened on the hilt of her knife.
It was only Leonard.
With a quick breath of relief, she tucked her knife onto a table just inside the drawing room and strode to a chair across from him.
Leonard’s eyes immediately went to her cheek. “What happened?” he asked, his words almost said in awe or astonishment. First, his mouth fell open as if shocked, but then that quickly turned to frustration—his mouth snapping shut and his brow furrowing.
Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “What do you want?” She had given him his freedom, and she really didn’t want to sit here and be scolded—even if she deserved it.
He ran his tongue across his teeth beneath his lip, his hands clasped together between his knees. The bruising on his face had changed colors, but it was still very apparent.
“Why do you assume I want something?” he asked.
Her jaw ticked to the side. “You would not be here if you didn’t need something.”
“I think,” he continued, “you mean to ask, why am I here?”
“They are the same.”
“No, they are not.”
She removed her gloves and tossed them on the cushion. “Very well. Why are you here?”
“To talk.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “How droll.”
His eyes fixed on her cheek, and she realized why he looked so concerned.
“It is nothing,” she said, waving it off. “Just a case of mistaken identity.”
“Someone hit you, didn’t they?” His words were accusatory, a bite of anger to them.
“Not hit, exactly,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “More of a slap.”
Rubbing his mouth, Leonard gave his head a hard shake. “That is the same.”
“Just as you insist ‘what do you want’ and ‘why are you here’ are not the same, I insist a hit and a slap are not the same.”
He pursed his lips, as if holding back a litany of words. “Fine,” he acquiesced. “Then who slapped you?”
“Pratt. But it was nothing. A simple mistake.”
Leonard said nothing, only watching her.
“Now you. Why are you here?”
“I have to ask you some things.”
She moved her gloves from one side of the chair to the other, if only to give her hands something to do. She hated how they trembled. It had been a tiring evening, to say nothing of the last few days. “It is late. Do not keep me waiting.”
His eyes trailed over her before flicking back to her face. “Were you ever married?”
Her head jerked. Why would he even think to ask her that?
Leonard waited, his gaze expectant.
But why lie anymore? He already knew the truth about the ring.
What would one more admission hurt? “No,” she said, looking at the fire in the mantel.
Wilson must have lit it for Leonard. She really should stop hiring inadequate workers, ones who let men into her home while she was gone.
But she believed everyone deserved a second chance in life.
“I was never married. I received my inheritance from a widow named Mrs. Garvey.”
She saw his head shake in her periphery as she watched the flames dance and snap.
“Why would you lie about that?”
“Because being a widow gave me more freedom. I had no parents or family to be my guardians. I had clawed my way out of that hellhole—” She cut off, her throat growing thick.
“Mrs. Garvey was an angel from heaven itself.” The flames held Honora mesmerized as her memory played before her mind’s eye.
How scared she had been that the woman would turn her in.
“Once my father passed away, my mother already having done so when I was only three years old, I did what I could to survive.”
He was silent but nodded her on.
She lifted her gaze to him, appreciating even that small bit of support. “Then one day, I wandered into a neighborhood above my means. My intentions were dark, hoping to . . . pilfer from one of the wealthier families.”
His gaze was direct, but she couldn’t keep it.
She returned it instead to the flames. “I was caught. And instead of turning me in to the authorities, the lady took me in herself. She taught me all the manners I have.” She took a breath and turned her head back to him.
“Mrs. Garvey was a widow. One who had loved her husband so much that she refused to move on and marry again. She had funds of her own and spent her days as she pleased. She was my role model in every way. Respectable. Intelligent. Financially sound. I wanted to be just like her. And she taught me to be the woman I am today.”
“Thieving included?”
Honora paused. “No.” With a sad shake of her head, she pressed on. “She died five years after taking me in.” Now Honora was alone once more. Perhaps that was her fate in life.
She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face. “She and Mrs. Hind were my only real friends in this new world of mine. And now I will lose her friendship as well.”