“Ye were letting them out?”
She nodded.
“Think they’ll come back?”
She shrugged.
“Ye got anyone to help ye round them up?”
She shook her head no.
His eyebrows drew down. “Not to tell ye your business, miss, but ye ought to have someone around, at least.”
As if on cue, Casper stumbled down the stairs in nothing but breeches, lipstick smeared all over his bare chest.
“Bit noisy and watery up there, isn’t it?” he slurred. He put one hand on a cage and leaned, making the parrot inside squawk indignantly when he nearly knocked it over.
Thom’s eyes rolled to Frannie. Her mouth finally came unstuck, and she muttered, “My good-for-nothing lodger. I assure you, the rouge ain’t mine, and neither is he.” She waved a hand at Casper. “Go back to bed, fool.”
Thom sized Casper up and made a Scottish sort of noise way back in his throat as the smaller man staggered up the stairs. The fireman rubbed the handkerchief over his forehead again, spreading more soot around. “I see. Well. If ye need help a-gathering the creatures you’ve let out, I’ll offer my services. Did a bit of hunting, back home and aboard ship. Have ye some nets?”
Frannie pointed to a bouquet of bird and insect nets she kept in a corner, most of them antiques. “That’s most kind of you, Mr. Maccallan,” she said, her voice rough with smoke.
His eyes caught hers, and she felt warmth bloom in her belly. His eyes were like a deep puddle in the sunshine, like a pond in a far-off forest. She was about to mumble something completely incoherent when the basket rocked against her, followed by a splat and an indignant mew. One of the kittens had climbed out and fallen onto Thom’s heavy boot. With a chuckle, he bent to scoop up the little fluffball and drop it gently back into the basket.
“That one’s going to be a bounder,” he said.
She couldn’t help smiling in agreement.
“C’mon, Mac. There’s a call ’cross town!” someone called from outside. The siren pealed, and the fire rig churned to life with a rumble she felt in her feet.
“Be careful, lass,” Thom said. With a last long look, he pulled his mask and goggles into place before turning to go.
She followed him to the door, not minding the dirty water splattering her bare feet. “Mr. Maccallan?”
He turned, and she saw her reflection in the glass of his goggles, lit up by the first streaks of dawn. Her coppery hair was tousled, limned in gold, her skin pale except where a blush rode her cheeks. She looked like the heroine of some romance novel, an orphan lost on the moors. She shook off the fancy.
“Thank you. Ever so much.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she sensed that he smiled, although his voice was metallic and impersonal again.
“It’s my job, miss.”
She watched him climb up onto the rig, holding on confidently with one hand as it lumbered off into the morning. He didn’t wave, didn’t turn, and she couldn’t help wondering if he was just being polite, offering to help her find her lost creatures, or if maybe he was hoping for coin she didn’t have. As the fire engine rumbled away on heavy treads, Frannie’s eye was caught by something white and stark. It was her handkerchief still clutched in his hand, fluttering in the wind as he rode off into the sunrise.
5
A knock woke Frannie the next morning. She rose and stretched, a little achy from sleeping on the downstairs parlor couch, as her bed was a wet, smoldering mess. The ache in her heart was heavier than usual. With Bertram and her father gone, there was no man about the house to help with repairs. The knock came again, and she realized she had slept late for the first time in years. Remembering the basket of kittens clutched to her chest the night before in the name of modesty, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders as a shawl before pushing past the curtain into the sad mess of her too-empty, too-quiet shop.
Looking through the glass window, she saw a beggar child standing at her door. Beside his patched, overly large boots stood a familiar, dignified crow. A filthy bit of twine was tied to the creature’s leg, and when she opened the door, it stared up at Frannie like an affronted duke come face-to-face with a servant.
The child sneered up at her, and the Copper standing slightly behind him said, “Go on.”
“Found yer bird,” the child muttered.
“Found it and tried to make a pretty penny, more like. Thought it might belong to you, miss. Have you had any thefts?” He stared down at the child almost hungrily, as if hoping for a reason to take the scamp into the station.
Frannie knelt and held out her arm. The crow gladly hopped to her, rubbing its beak gratefully along her sleeve. Even if it had been stolen, she wouldn’t have turned the poor ragamuffin over to the Coppers for what passed as interrogation these days.
“Not stolen. There was a fire last night, and I began freeing the animals in case the Brigade couldn’t stop it in time. Would you brave gentlemen care for some biscuits as a reward for returning him?”
“Money’d be better,” the child grumbled, but the Copper thumped him on the head and said, “That’s awfully kind of you, miss.”
Frannie set the bird on its perch by a fresh bowl of seed and hurriedly fetched some ladyfingers from the parlor, along with some of the lemon drops she kept around for her customers’ spoiled children. The Copper regarded the shop with narrowed eyes as he nibbled his biscuit, and Frannie was relieved when he yawned and moved toward the door. When he stepped outside, she slipped the candy and a coin into the child’s hand and whispered, “A copper for any more pets you bring. Pets, mind. Won’t pay for nuffin’ wild. Spread the word, eh?”
The child’s eyes went bright as he nodded craftily. The candy and the coin had already disappeared.
Once they were gone and the raven settled back in, she set to work upstairs, mopping up the water and dumping the ruined bedclothes and rug and singed curtain scraps out the broken window. She knew well enough that they would be snatched up within moments by the less fortunate. There were plenty of people in London who had nothing and wouldn’t mind the burn holes. Studying what was left of her room, she tallied up what she would need to make it livable again. Money was tight, and she’d have to visit the secondhand shops. It had been years since she’d had anything like new.
When she went downstairs for the parlor broom, she found a disheveled but dressed Casper steadily going about her chores. He was halfway through scooping out the puppy bin, his face a decided shade of green.
“You’re alive, then,” Frannie said sharply.
He glared at her, the whites of his eyes as pink as pickled eggs. “Did I dream it, or was the shop on fire at some point in the night?”
“Ah, yes. It was, actually. You did your part to save dozens of animal lives by turning over in bed and knocking over a parrot. Well done. You’re on your way to earning your keep.”
“I’ll pay for the room.” She raised her eyebrows. “When next they pay me.”
“Don’t drink it away this time.”
“I didn’t drink it away. I have an unusual . . . condition. It requires a special medicine that’s very expensive, and—”
“Don’t. Just don’t.” She held up a hand and went back to sweeping.
He looked properly chastened and set to scooping up bedding with renewed vigor as corgis tumbled all over the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. She noticed an inked mark on his forearm, a raven with a key, but she was too scandalized at seeing a man’s skin during daylight to ask about it.
“You don’t know any carpentry, do you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Outside of music and puppy wrangling, I’m utterly useless. Sorry.”
“No other skills whatsoever?”
He looked down, and she couldn’t help noticing again the smeared marks of rouge on his chest. “Let’s just say I use my hands for softer things.”
She snorted and raised an eyebrow at him. He was so much like Bertram that it was almost ridiculous. Pretty and spoiled. Casper finished with the puppies and stood, and she put a glass bottle in his hand.
“The kittens in the basket need to be fed. There should be enough here to fill all their tummies. They’ll make a mess right after, so make sure to put them in their bin of hay.”
He looked at the creamy milk and laughed. “Not the kind of bottle or cathouse I’m used to, but I think I can do that much. Are you leaving?”
“I’ve things to replace, after the fire. I’ll lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone.”
“You don’t trust me to sell animals?”
Looking him up and down, she said, “This establishment is called Needful Creatures, not Pathetic Mutts. Have a bit of pride, man.”
She left him there, barefoot and staring at the bottle as if it was a foreign artifact.
Frannie returned just before ten. The folding cart behind her was mostly empty. Things seemed to cost more than they once had. The curtains were drab, and the sheets were thin, but they would do. That would have to be good enough.
The door was unlocked, which set her immediately on the defensive. Two male voices were raised within, which was one more nonbird voice than she could allow.
“What the blazes—”
Casper and a familiar-looking man stopped their nose-to-nose arguing and stared at her. They were both covered in kittens and bristling all over like two male dogs that had sniffed each other’s bum and not liked what they found.
“I told him. I told him I wasn’t supposed to let him in. But that crazy old biddy next door sent him around back,” Casper said.
The big man leaned back and tried to cross his arms over a wide chest, but he was hampered by a tiny calico crawling up his jacket. He stifled a smile and cleared his throat, and that’s when Frannie realized it was Thom, the fireman from the night before. He looked different out of his uniform and not coated in sweat and soot. His skin still carried the kiss of a sun more fiery than Sangland had seen, but his hair fell to his shoulders in clean waves, and his cheeks were neatly shaved. And she hadn’t met a man in a skirt before—not that it wasn’t a very manly skirt.