“Made you? There must have been a ‘you’ before.”
She shook her head. “I was twelve when he found me. He saved me from a life you can’t imagine.” But she didn’t want to talk about that. If he thought her involvement with Captain was sordid, what would he make of her life before?
“You sound grateful.”
“I was. I am.” God, this was difficult. Her feelings about Captain could not be summed up in a few brief sentences. “I always knew he didn’t take me in from the goodness of his heart. I had to work hard and earn my keep. He was training me to be a medium. To be a charlatan,” she corrected herself, “and I decided to be the best charlatan in the business. I’ve let him command me. I’ve been his creature. If he’d been honest with me from the start about his plan…”
She stopped, appalled at where her thoughts had taken her. If he’d been honest from the start, she might not even be here. Would she still be helping him?
No, she had only to look at Harcastle to set her mind at rest. She would have ended up at exactly this place because this man drew her like a magnet. Their lives could not have been more different, yet she understood him on a fundamental level. Like her, he distrusted. Like her, he played in shadows. Even if Captain had been honest, she would have ended up in this room unable to hurt Harcastle, whatever it cost her.
“None of that matters,” she said. “I am here. That’s the important thing. You don’t trust me and really who could blame you? Don’t trust me then. Watch me like a hawk, I won’t mind. But I’m here because I want to help and because I’m tired of being Captain’s creature. I want to be myself.”
She fell silent, surprised by the truth of her own words. Yes, that was what she wanted. To be herself.
Even if she didn’t know precisely who that was.
…
I want to be myself, she said, and strangely, improbably, Alex believed her.
Oh, he fully intended to follow her suggestion and watch her closely. That was a precaution he had to take, but he didn’t expect her to betray him. And that was strange too, since he almost always expected the worst from people and rarely found himself disappointed in that expectation.
Nightingale’s hold over her bothered him for a multitude of reasons. When he’d first met the man, Alex had dismissed him as a mere accomplice. A gross error in judgment. If anything, Evie was the accomplice. And that notion infuriated him, though not for reasons that made any logical sense. She was too formidable a woman to allow one such as Nightingale to use her. She ought to value herself more highly. Alex needed a better understanding of what bound her to this man she called ‘Captain.’
“Is Evangeline Jones even your real name?” Though he’d investigated this question, he’d been unable to find a definitive answer.
“No, but it’s as good as any other.”
He burned to know what name she’d been born with. She seemed to take a “rose by any other name would smell as sweet” stance, but he’d never found that to be true. His entire life so far had been defined by his name. Once he’d been the Marquess of Somerton and that had been a very different affair from being Harcastle. Though Evie held no grand title, what she chose to call herself, be it her original name or something else, mattered. At least, it mattered to Alex. And he couldn’t help believing it ought to matter to her too.
“Did Nightingale choose it?”
She hesitated. “We chose it together, but he doesn’t like the short form. He wants people to hear ‘Evangeline’ and think of evangelism and other good, protestant sounding things. Evie’s a bit too…garden of Eden.”
Silently, Alex vowed never to call her Evangeline again. It would be Evie from now on. “How did you meet him? It might be important,” he added when she stiffened.
“I doubt it’s relevant.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Humor me, you elusive thing.”
“If you must know, he found me at Miss Rose’s House of Introduction.”
A brothel? He managed to suppress any outward sign of shock, but it was difficult. He’d never mistaken her for a saint or a debutante. He’d assumed she’d had lovers, but…
Something she’d said earlier derailed this line of thought completely.
“You said you were twelve when Captain found you.” It was too late to soften the horror in his voice. He doubted he was capable of it. Twelve? The age of consent had been raised to sixteen more than a decade ago.
“I wasn’t a prostitute, Harcastle. Though I would have been in a few short weeks or months if Captain hadn’t rescued me. I was a skivvy, that’s all.”
Even so, the things she must have seen when she was only a child. No wonder her feelings for Nightingale were confused. Whatever else he’d done, the man had saved her then.
“How long did you live there?”
“Miss Rose took me in off the street when I was… I’m not sure of my true age, but I suppose I was four or five. Very small. I was grateful to have a roof over my head.”
“Fuck.”
She smiled as if he’d said something kind. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I’m not sure… It’s the worst part of my story and you don’t seem to be throwing me out now that you’ve heard it. I suppose I’m relieved.”
Throw her out? My God, he was in awe of her. That she’d survived at all was remarkable but that she’d become the woman in front of him… “I think you’re extraordinary,” he said, and he allowed every ounce of his admiration to fill his voice.
Her cheeks turned pink and, to his astonishment, she quickly looked away as if his compliment embarrassed her. “Anyway, you can see why I stayed with Captain so long.”
Alex did see but he didn’t like it. “You must have researched my private life before that first séance. What did you uncover?” They needed to focus on the here and now. On Nightingale and whatever he was plotting.
“Not true. I personally never researched anyone. That was Captain’s domain. He fed me the information I needed.”
“So? What information did he feed you?”
“No one knew very much of you before you reached your majority. You studied at home with private tutors. The old duke kept you close. Your sister didn’t live with you.” She hesitated and Alex suspected that she knew more of Helen. “When you came of age, there were some youthful indiscretions. Nothing very serious, though after what you let slip that day we visited Captain’s studio, there were things he failed to discover or at least that he neglected to pass on to me.”