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house.”
    “Well, once upon a time, two beautiful princesses—”
    “Named Lily and Alice.”
    “—named Lily and Alice,” Lily confirmed, “lived in a grand, grand house, a palace, made all of brick and marble, with rooms enough for everyone in St. Giles.”
    Alice frowned. “But we don’t want everyone to stay with us. Not Mrs. Smythe.”
    “Oh, of course not. We shall be very discriminating.”
    “Perhaps McBride,” Alice suggested magnanimously.
    “Certainly McBride,” Lily agreed. “And the house was surrounded by green lawns as far as the eye can see, and trees and fountains were everywhere, and swans and peacocks, too.”
    “Tell me again about the peacocks.”
    “They are great shiny birds, with long proud feathers like this.” Lily fanned her hand out behind her bottom and wiggled it, to make Alice giggle. “Like the birds in our book.”
    “Can we eat them?” Alice asked bloodthirstily.
    “No, our cupboards will be so full of beef and cheese that we would never dream of eating a peacock.”
    “Oh my,” Alice breathed.
    And there’s a prince, “ Lily added suddenly.
    “A prince?” Alice was fascinated. “There’s never been a prince before.”
    Because I’ve never seen a man quite like this before . “Yes, a very tall prince, with broad shoulders, and… thick straight dark brows like this.” Lily placed her fingers across her own fine brows. “And cheeks like… like this.” She sucked in her own cheeks to illustrate high slopes and elegant hollows. “And a bold nose. Rather saves him from being too pretty. And hair like fire.”
    “His hair is on fire?” Alice was alarmed.
    “No, goose. His hair is very dark, but it shines in the sun like… lit coal. His eyes are dark, and he has very fine clothes. And a firm grip,” she added, a touch resentfully.
    “A firm grip?” Alice was puzzled. “Is he handsome?”
    Lily hesitated, remembering those dark eyes fringed by lashes so thick she’d been tempted to reach up and brush her finger across them. Staring down at her in cold, confident fury, clearly a man unafraid of much of anything, particularly her. But then, in the space of a breath, his gaze had become… something else. Interest? Wonder? She’d felt the change as physically as his fingers closed around her wrist; she’d felt in the very center of her, a shock of heat, like lamplight blooming.
    Right before she’d kneed him in the cods.
    She smiled a little; it had been a terrible thing to do to a man. But it wasn’t as though he’d given her much of a choice.
    “Well, yes. Very handsome,” she admitted.
    “All right,” Alice conceded begrudgingly. “He can live with us, too. And do Mama and Papa live in a house like that in Heaven, Lily?” Alice’s blue eyes were beginning to mist over with sleepiness.
    Lily thought about this. No doubt there was a place for handsome wastrels who married the orphan daughters of curates, drank up their money, and then died, leaving their wives and daughters penniless in St. Giles. She just wasn’t sure heaven was it When Papa died, Mama had given up caring about much of anything, so it fell to Lily to put food on the table and keep the roof over their head. She had tried applying to shops, to great houses: none would have her. So she’d stolen her first watch fob. Desperation had blunted her fear, and success had given her courage, and courage had made her bolder. When she discovered she was good at relieving gentlemen of small shiny things, a certain amount of pride began to shine through the shame of it, and she began to revel in her own resourcefulness. There was great satisfaction in knowing she was keeping her family together.
    If Mama had guessed how Lily had gone about it, she’d never said a word.
    But Lily had other memories, too, memories her sister was too young to share: of safer and more comfortable homes, of soft laughter between her parents, of playing simple tunes on a pianoforte that had later vanished along