Mr. Webb was conducting a meeting with the Duke and Duchess of Huntington on the upcoming renovations to their townhouse, and while he did, Thaddeus was supposed to be out in the barn.
And he’d surely be sacked if his employer—or if anyone—discovered him hiding in the household belonging to a duke. It was just that Thaddeus had never before seen a nobleman’s home, and he’d been intrigued enough to sneak off and slip inside when his employer had been conducting business within.
And the house was nothing short of a palace, with each room large enough to fit fifteen or more single-room homes, not unlike that which he shared with his family of five.
The windows gleamed, letting bright slashes of golden rays come streaming through. Living with his family in their own hovel, in the toughest part of London, it was often cloaked in such thick, heavy fog, he’d not known sun was even a reality in England.
They had shiny porcelain statues of little people and sheep tucked upon various mahogany tables.
So many sheep.
Yet, with all that he’d found himself most intrigued, he was riveted by that little girl hiding.
Because he’d also not known that fine little ladies who belonged to a duke and duchess did something such as hide, like he did.
“Thaddeus?” That furious whisper came from somewhere in the corridor. “Thaddeus?” It grew more frantic, and frustrated.
His elder brother, Martin. The one who’d gotten him this job, and the one who took the work he did for Mr. Webb as seriously as if he himself were the builder.
Silently cursing, Thaddeus forgot his curiosity with the little lady and leaned back inside the parlor he’d taken refuge in.
He caught the faint tread of approaching footfalls.
“You’re going to get yourself sacked,” Martin whispered as he neared the place Thaddeus had shut himself away.
And for a moment, Thaddeus suspected he’d been found out, and by his elder brother, no less.
He held his breath, keeping the air trapped in his chest, until Martin’s footfalls grew closer and closer, and it became harder and harder to not exhale the breath he kept lodged inside.
And then those footfalls grew more and more faded, and then diminished altogether.
Thaddeus waited a moment more and then released the painful breath he’d been holding.
He scrunched up his mouth.
He should go.
He really needed to.
After all, it would hardly be fair to his father and brother were Thaddeus to be discovered lurking about the home of Mr. Webb’s client.
With a sigh, and unable to resist another look, Thaddeus stole a further quick peek out the doorway.
“Are you hiding, too?”
Thaddeus frowned, as those crisp, polished tones, belonging to a proper lady, echoed around the hall.
And then he found her.
She was still hiding in the room across the hall.
She stared back with the widest, biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Curious eyes.
Except—Thaddeus frowned—she couldn’t be staring at him. He was hiding, and he was the best at it.
If there were any doubts, however, that he’d been found out, and by a little lady, no less, the answer was made clear a moment later, when the girl darted out from the room opposite his and raced headlong for Thaddeus and his hiding space.
The moment she reached him, she pushed the door closed; the hinges didn’t so much as squeak, and the quiet click as she shut the panel, was the only telltale sound.
And up close, she was more magnificent than anything or anyone he’d ever seen in his whole ten years. And Thaddeus wasn’t one to note girls. But this one…this one was unlike any one…any person he’d ever seen.
Her auburn curls kissed by streaks of gold were the same shade of that streaming sun that rarely made an appearance in London. Thaddeus widened his eyes. And her skin. Why, it was the finest, softest looking anything he’d ever seen, but she had freckles upon her rounded cheeks. Her skin had a faint bronzed color, like she played in the sun, and the gods had graced her with the same sheen as those golden statues the fancy toffs stuck in their households.
The girl cocked her head. “Can you talk?”
Of course, he could.
He opened his mouth to say as much.
But she’d tipped her head, and those curls bounced, and he found himself just as intrigued by those ringlets because he didn’t know hair could curl that way. Like a perfect corkscrew.
So, he managed nothing more than a nod in answer to her question.
“Who are you hiding from?” The slight emphasis she placed on that particular word indicated he’d been right in his thinking. She was hiding.
“You knew?” he blurted.
She puzzled her little brow.
“That I was here,” he said, reminding himself to speak in a complete sentence, and not to keep staring at her like a dunderhead. It’s just…he’d never seen a person like her this close, in his life.
“Since the moment you snuck in,” she said, with a proud puff of her chest.
Thaddeus frowned.
And here he’d thought he was better than that. He was. He’d just been sloppy this day, and given where he was, and the work he did, it was perhaps the most dangerous time to be sloppy.
“You’re hiding from my mother and father, too,” she predicted.
“Who…are your mother and father?” he asked, dread pitting in his stomach; even as he asked, he knew. Because the girl before him could only be the daughter of a duke or prince, but with the way she shined, certainly nothing less.
“The duke and duchess,” the girl muttered, with a regret to rival his own.
Thaddeus’s gaze slipped over the top of her head, and he swallowed hard…and loudly.
Oh, trouble on Sunday.
Hiding with the duke’s daughter, his employer’s client’s daughter? This was bad.
“You’re hiding from them, too? Aren’t you?” she asked a second time.
“In a way,” he said gruffly, glancing at the doorway, that pit in his stomach, growing to the size of a boulder. If this girl had discovered him, it was certain anyone else could, too.
This would be bad.
Very bad, indeed.
For him and for Martin and their father and entire family who was dependent upon the wages they earned from Mr. Webb.
“They always find me,” the girl was saying, drawing his thoughts away from the panicky fear of discovery. Then a mischievous little glimmer lit her blue eyes. “Eventually,” she whispered.
With an equally impish smile, the girl skipped past him, heading over to the high window that sat ajar.
She skipped.
It was an odd detail to note when his entire future and his family’s security hung on the proverbial line…but it was one that held him…intrigued.
“Is this how you came in?” She directed that whispered question at the window, ducking out the crack and leaning down.
He nodded before recalling she could not see him.
“Hmm…a ladder. I suppose if I run away, a ladder outside would be just the way. But my chambers are too high.”
“You talk a lot,” he blurted.
The girl sank back on her heels. “I know.” She ducked back inside the room and blew back a curl that had fallen over her eye. “My mother says I really must stop the improper habit.”
Improper habit?
Talking.
These nobles sure were a peculiar lot.
“I like it,” he said sincerely, and he may as well have fetched her a star and presented it on his palm, for the way her eyes lit.
“You do?” she whispered. She didn’t await his answer, just prattled on. “Because my governess insists I not be so talkative and agrees with Mother that ladies aren’t garrulous, but I am, and Mother insists I stop being so loquacious…”
Well, he didn’t know what the word garrulous or loquacious meant, but he knew he liked the way she spoke: all quick, like she’d seen and heard exciting things and had to share them fast out of fear she’d lose them but wanted to make sure that her secrets were passed on forever.
“Who are you hiding from?” she asked, when she’d finally let on about her mother’s determination to elucidate the improper out of her—whatever that meant.
“Mr. Webb.”
She cocked her head.
“My employer,” he explained, and puffed his chest out. “He’s the master builder.”
Or it’ll be “former employer,” if you keep tarrying any longer with the duke’s daughter.
Her eyes widened even further, in what he’d have thought was an impossible feat. “You are?”
And no one had ever looked at him the way she now did, as if he were someone of interest and intrigue, and not just any poor boy from the East of London.
He nodded.
The girl clasped her hands under her chin; her gaze grew dreamy and far off, the way his mom looked when she scrubbed their laundry early in the morn before he and Martin and Papa went off to work.
“Been working for him four years now,” he said, because he really wanted that look in her eyes to last forever. “But this is my first time on assignment.”
In the past, he’d merely been tasked with collecting bricks that were to be used for projects.
Only, whatever he’d said caused that spark to go out of her eyes, and her brow dipped. “Four years? How old are you?”
“Ten.” He paused. “Almost eleven.”
Her eyes grew round again. “You’ve been working since you were a small boy.”
Boys in his side of England weren’t ever small. The babes who managed to survive went on to become full-grown people in a matter of moments, or else they perished.
She opened her mouth to say something more, when frantic footfalls echoed from the corridor.
“I saw her at the foyer, Your Grace…and then she just disappeared…”
“Girls do not just disappear.” Those cold, regal tones could belong to none other than Her Majesty herself, or someone close to it.
A duchess.
The duchess.
Thaddeus felt the blood leave his cheeks.
Oh, hell.
This was bad.
This was very, very, very bad.
A small hand slipped into his, and the girl gave his fingers a tug, bringing Thaddeus’s gaze whipping down to hers.
“Come,” she whispered, and then was pulling him back towards the window he’d climbed through, and—
He strangled on his own spit. “You can’t climb out the window,” he blurted.
Except, he spoke in vain. For the girl was already out and over the window jamb and several rungs down.
“You did,” she pointed out, looking down, and not up, and he remained frozen, once more, his jaw slack, because he’d never known a lady could climb a ladder, but this one did. And—
She glanced up. “And you should, too,” she whispered. “They’re going to find you.”
They were going to find him.
And then it would be all over…and not even just his employment. Likely his life.
Because it was one thing to go sneaking about his employer’s client’s household. It was another to be caught doing it with the employer’s client’s daughter.
Springing into motion, Thaddeus heaved himself outside, taking extra care to not jar the ladder and send it rocking so that he inadvertently sent the girl tumbling to the stones below.
Not that he needed to worry.
She, moving as quick as the fleetest London pickpocket, had already reached the bottom.
Planting her hands on her hips, she stared up at him. “Hurry,” she whispered.
He wanted to tell her to hush, but he’d only bring more noise and further raise the risk of discovery.
And then he was down, beside her and free. Almost free.
Catching the ladder under his arm, he took off racing…
And he felt air brush him, and then widened his eyes, as the duke’s daughter went racing with him.
Nay, not with him. Past him.
Goodness, she was quick.
For a girl.
And a princess, at that.
And even more, in skirts?
And Thaddeus had never been one to be impressed by little girls. But this one…did.
He quickened his strides, returning that ladder to where he’d found it, earning not so much as a look from the other men employed by Mr. Webb as they moved about the bustling courtyard, focused on their tasks for the latest assignment.
The little girl raced ahead to the barn, slipping inside, and he stared after her.
She’d not even said goodbye.
Of course, she hadn’t.
She wasn’t a friend.
She was almost royalty.
Almost royalty didn’t play with the help.
They—
The girl ducked her head from the stables, and then gave a frantic wave, flicking her four fingers towards her chest, motioning. For him?
Thaddeus touched a finger to his chest.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you,” she mouthed, her voice silent, the meaning of her words clear.
He sprang into motion a second time, hastening after her, and then he joined her in the stables.
The scene of horses and hay surrounded him. And quiet.
It was so very quiet. A manner of quiet he’d never known existed in London.
“I checked,” she whispered. “No one is here.”
Thaddeus glanced about; some two dozen mounts all housed in generous spaces. Why, even the duke’s horses had a grander home than his own.
He stopped beside one of the stalls, and catching the edges, he looked in.
The little girl drew herself up by her hands and dangled there beside Thaddeus.
“He is mine,” she said proudly.
Thaddeus stared at the grey pony, its head down as he munched on hay.
“He’s pretty splendid,” he said quietly.
“Do you have a pony?”
Thaddeus shook his head. He barely had a house.
“You want to ride mine?”
It took a moment for her question to register.
He glanced over.
“Her name is Pixie,” the girl said. “You can ride her.”
Thaddeus grunted. “I can’t.” He’d be sacked for sure. And he also didn’t know how to ride.
“Ride?” she asked, all wide-eyed, and unlike before when he’d felt proud at her awe, now he felt the sting of shame and embarrassment.
Color flooded his cheeks.
The girl slipped her palm in his once more, twining their fingers. “Come with me.” Hers was a quiet command, and he found himself being pulled forward as she led him inside the stall.
“He likes to be petted here,” she said, scratching the pony. “This is his shoulder.”
Thaddeus cocked his head. “Doesn’t look like a shoulder.”
She giggled. “It’s a horse’s shoulder.”
Which apparently were different than human shoulders.
“You can pet him,” she offered.
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t,” he said, his voice gruff. “I should get back to work.”
Her face fell. “But I don’t want you to go back to work. I want you to stay with me. I like you.”
Thaddeus opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t even know him, but something in her eyes called back the words that he knew would wound her; they were all wide and trusting and innocent.
“We can be friends,” she ventured hesitantly, and when he didn’t immediately respond, she glanced down at her slippered feet. “Most people aren’t my friends because my father is the duke,” she said. “And my brother Crispin, is busy with his own friends. He has a girl who is a friend, so I can have a boy who is one, too.”
He couldn’t be her friend. His da was a bricklayer and Thaddeus had soot under his nails and a belly that was usually empty.
“My name is Thaddeus.”
She considered that a moment. “I like that name.”
He was glad one of them did.
He’d always thought it was too fancy for a boy like him.
“My name is Edith Rose.”
Edith Rose.
She sighed. “I like Rose but hate Edith.”
“Edie,” he murmured. That suited her far more. It was a name of a girl who was approachable and real…just as she was.
Her face brightened, and she clasped her hands to her chest. “I quite like that.” She took a step towards him. “Can we be friends?”
No.
Leave.
Run.
Go.
And yet, he couldn’t make himself.
He didn’t want to.
Thaddeus nodded. “Friends.”
She smiled. “Forever!”
Friends, forever? That was…a bit much. As it was, they were already pressing it with this. “We can’t be friends, forever, Edie,” he said slowly. “You’re a duke’s daughter.”
She scoffed. “That won’t change anything. You’ll see!”
And in the days and months that came, with him working for her family, and she stealing time away with him as he did, and then when that work was done, and he sneaking off to visit her through the years, it almost felt that way.
As if nothing would change.
Until he fell in love with her…
And then everything did change.
Everything.
