Free One With the Shadows by Susan Squires

provided food and a bed in return for picked pockets and robbed houses. No locksmith has made a device I cannot open.” That would shock him. And she wanted to shock him with her hardness, her invulnerability.
    “So how did you end in an orphanage?” Enough light leaked in around the shades to make his face dimly visible in the shadows.
    “The Nefarious Character was clapped up in Newgate and that left us on our own.” Those days had been hungry ones. She had been frightened. “The nuns finally came round to collect what was left of us in an act of charity and duty.” She let her tone tell him how she despised their impulse. “I spent five years in the orphanage. Until I was fourteen.”
    “Better than the streets.”
    “Was it?” She leaned back against the black velvet squabs of the upholstery.
    “Ahhh. Another version of indentured servitude.”
    He understood. That was odd. She pulled her chin up. “I was quite a trial for the sisters. They tried their best to beat the sin out of me. When Matthew claimed me, I wouldn’t have cared whether he was my father or not. He was the one who trained me to act and talk flash.”
    “My congratulations. No one would think you were from any but the first of families.”
    Kate looked away. It had been nice in a way to think she had a father. It gave her a place. And she’d tried hard to please Matthew. The fact that he constantly threatened to abandon her again helped motivate her, though she had always told him she didn’t care. That had been a lie, like so much else in her life. Well, he’d lied too. Everyone did. All the time. Just like Gian Urbano was probably lying now about paying her, about his mother. She glanced at him and found him staring at her in a most disconcerting way.
    “Well,” he said slowly, as though considering his words. “I see no event in your background which would have developed your ‘powers.’ Did you train to develop them?”
    Now he was making game of her. He knew very well she didn’t have “powers.” “Don’t be rude. I learned the tarot because it can be bent to anything someone wants to hear. And I’m very good at reading people.” Except she couldn’t read him at all. The cards had seemed to take over and make their own story when it came to him, and she had blurted out some prediction over which she had no control. She blinked at him, trying to master the fear that that brought up inside her. She rushed into conversation so she didn’t have to think. “So you needn’t take pity on me. I’m fully capable of caring for myself. If you’re going to take the stone, do it.”
    “Why don’t you keep it for the nonce?” he remarked after a short silence. “It would spoil the cut of my coat if I kept it in my pocket.”
    She narrowed her eyes. What kind of game was he playing?
    “So,” he said, examining her as though he saw everything she wanted to hide from him. “What will you do with the money?”
    As if he would pay. She grimaced, seeing her dreams slip away. Still, he could have stolen the stone last night. He didn’t have to take her with him. She searched his face. She saw no answers. She looked away. “I am going to buy a house, of course.”
    “After such a life of adventure, can one city amuse you?” Was that a smirk?
    “I’m not going to buy a house in a city,” she retorted. “I … I want to live somewhere out of the way.” That was an unfortunate way to put it. “I mean, somewhere quiet. Twenty thousand will buy a cottage in England and keep me nicely.”
    “Quiet means no audience.”
    “Oh, and you think I love an audience!” He thought she liked to display herself for public pity? She turned away again, so he couldn’t see the scar.
    “I think you are very good at what you do,” he said, clearing his throat. “I expect it would be hard to give that up.”
    “And you so respect what I do.” She snorted. He, who had tried to unmask her …
    He sat back, one leg lounging out before