Star Crossed Seduction by Jenny Brown

me.”
    “Randall wasn’t working for the Weaver. The Weaver serves the king. He was fighting for liberty against the king and his government. ”
    Snake looked at her as if she were an imbecile child. “You’ll spin a hempen necklace for yerself if you keep clacking on ’bout things no one should gab about. ’Twas your Randall betrayed the conspirators—and he was well paid to do it. But enough jawing. Be at the usual place tomorrow, and you’ll learn what the Weaver has in mind for you.”
    “I won’t do it,” she managed to choke out. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
    “If that’s your decision, I wouldn’t want to change it. There’s plenty of others who would be happy to have a chance to serve the Weaver. I was doing you a favor, I was, in asking you, though it looks like I wasted my breath But I’d watch my step now if I was you, moll. It don’t pay to displease the Weaver, not when he’s already at the end of his patience with you. Turn down this job, and you’d better say good-bye to the prancer right quick. Stick with him, and I don’t give it a month till they drag you out of the river.”
    I t was late when she got back to the Refuge. The household was sound asleep, but she pounded loudly on the door, throwing her whole weight behind each blow and finding release in the pain that shot up her arms. She didn’t care if she woke the whole neighborhood. When the groggy porter let her in, she rushed up the stairs to Becky’s room. The gibbous moon showed the girl’s thin form curled up on her bed. Temperance flung herself toward her, grabbed a hank of her hair, and tugged it to force her awake.
    “Cor blimey, Tem, what’s up?” Becky cried in a harsh whisper. “ ’Tis the middle of the night!”
    “I don’t care if it’s the middle of your funeral. Get up and tell me. Did you know?”
    “Know what?”
    “That he was alive.”
    “Who?” Becky said, but the look that flitted over her features as she said it told her she had known. Temperance felt sick.
    “You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
    “Well, what if I did?” Becky had sat up and was shaking her head as if to clear it. “No one could tell you anything, not where he was involved. He had you right where he wanted you from the day he first brought you into the gang, fresh from your papa’s mansion, your lips still wet with country cream. I tried to warn you, more than once, ’cause I knew what was coming, but you were too wrapped up in being his flash girl. Well, I’m glad you finally found out—and I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to tell you.” Becky’s voice dropped. “Who was it who did?”
    “Snake.”
    “Good. He won’t get into trouble for spilling the beans. He’s in good with the Weaver, he is.”
    “Did everyone know but me?”
    Becky shook her head. “No, just me. I found out when I caught Sukey Cowly trying to steal our last farthings when she was packing her stuff so she could sneak off and join that slubberdegullion the day after he disappeared. I shook the truth out of her and kicked her out.”
    “That bitch went with him?”
    Becky turned away, unwilling to say any more.
    Temperance had thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse, but she’d been wrong. “You could have said something, Beck, instead of letting me go round wearing the willow for the bastard, thinking he’d died a hero’s death. I thought you were my friend.”
    “I am your friend. How long do you think you would have lasted if it weren’t for me? You weren’t born on these streets, and though you learned how to patter flash, there’s a lot you’ll never know. Your cradle was too soft. I did what I could to keep you safe. I may be a small, crooked thing; but I know a bit of this and a bit of that, and there’s those who know it’s worth it to keep me sweet. I kept your precious Randall from forcing you onto the game by teaching you how to steal. Otherwise, it would have been Mother Bristwick’s for