At last, she and Harris arrived.
Julia lingered there, her gaze drifting to the tall, commanding gentleman who stood at the center of the room and then back over to Harris. His features remained shuttered.
“I know it was wrong that I withheld that information from you,” she said quietly, her fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of her skirts before she caught that distracted action. “But everything else I told you… was truth. My name is Julia. My mother chose my name for the reasons I gave you. I never knew my da, and Adairia… she was my best friend. She was my sister, mayhap not by blood but in every way that did and does matter.” Her voice grew earnest as she spoke. “But then Adairia was”—killed—“lost.” She could still not bring herself to say it, to think about the fate her friend had met. “And I was scared, Harris. I knew… know what they are capable of.” She fixed her eyes briefly on the detective waiting for her. “And I panicked. All I thought of was hiding.”
His penetrating gaze bore through her, and there was a spark of emotion within his eyes, a softening?
But then he looked away. “Steele is waiting,” he said gruffly.
At that dismissal, absolutely all hope was lost.
Drawing in a breath, Julia nodded and entered.
Even with his renewed disdain, she proved weak, for as she moved deeper into the room to join Mr. Steele, she found comfort in Harris’ presence.
They reached the investigator.
“If I may ask you to wait outside while I speak alone with Miss Smith?”
Her stomach muscles knotted.
Harris frowned. “I will stay quiet through your questioning, but I will remain.”
“I believe it better if I speak with the lady alone.”
Harris opened his mouth to further challenge the investigator.
“It is fine,” she said quickly. “I have no concerns speaking alone with Mr. Steele.” It was a lie. She was terrified out of her damned mind at the prospect of being alone with him.
Harris held her gaze for a long moment.
“It is fine,” she repeated, lying for his benefit.
The moment he’d gone, Harris closed the door quietly behind him, and she was alone with Mr. Steele. His features were strong, but there was still an unconventional handsomeness to Mr. Connor Steele, whose name wasn’t unfamiliar in the streets of East London.
“Miss Smith. Please.” As though he were the owner of this very room, he motioned to the leather button sofas.
The moment she was seated, he availed himself of the chair next to her. He was broad and powerful, and the chair squeaked and groaned under his weight. “There is something I’d like to speak with you about,” he said without preamble, dispensing with niceties and getting to the heart of business.
Removing a sheet from within the folder he held in his fingers, he handed it across the table.
Julia stared at the parchment. “What is this?” she asked carefully.
“Are you unable to read—”
“I can read,” she said tightly. And yet, for some reason, she couldn’t make herself collect the page from his hand. She didn’t want to bring herself to read whatever secrets were contained upon that page.
He returned the sheet to the table. “There was a woman,” he spoke in gentling tones, the ones Adairia had always used with their skittish mouser and ones Julia would wager had led countless others before her to spill every last secret and shame to the man before her. “The young woman was a struggling peddler of flowers in the streets…”
“That is a bit of an oxymoron, Mr. Steele,” she said, her nervousness resulting in inadvertent levity.
“The woman was something of a loner. A former ballet dancer,” Nay. She’d been an accomplished actress and opera singer. “she fell on hard times. Well-mannered. Well-spoken. She was very refined for the Rookeries. She possessed the most striking crimson curls that people always spoke about. They defined her quite distinctly.”
“I know all of this. My mother insisted I learn proper English and manners. Toffs give more coin to the well-spoken.” Restless, Julia glanced down at the page on the table, and her gaze collided with a name on the middle of the sheet. She swiftly jerked her head up, her heart hammering.
“Do you recognize that name?”
She nodded once, suspecting that query about a simple identification was an attempt at gathering how truthful she intended to be with him.
Steele continued, “The young woman fell in love with a man with a notorious reputation, a man known well by everyone in the Dials and St. Giles.” He paused. “His name was Mac Diggory.”
A memory slipped in…of her mother telling the story of how she’d arrived at her name for the stage.
Mackenzie was your father’s name.
She inhaled deep and shook her head. “No. That’s not possible. You’re mistaken. I never met him. I only saw him from a distance. My mother”—Julia lifted her palms and brought them slashing down toward the floor—“had no dealings with him.”
“No,” Steele said in his increasingly infuriating, overly kind way. “She did have dealings with him… prior to her falling pregnant. After she was heavy with child, Diggory was no longer interested.” With more of that grating gentleness, he pushed another sheet of paper across the table.
Julia gave her head a shake and pushed the page back at him.
“That doesn’t change what’s written there,” he said gently.
She hesitated and then made herself grab the
